The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME

"First, I apologize. I know I left some of your favorite shows off this list. How do I know that? Because I left some of my favorite shows off this list. The happy and unfortunate fact is that there are far more than 100 great shows, and more created every year. Lists are incredibly important: they are how we define what matters to us, what we want entertainment and art to do, what we expect of our culture."
—TIME TV critic James Poniewozik

Leave It to Beaver

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I'll be honest: I did not expect to put this show on this list. I mean, Leave It to Beaver? That sugar-coated jawbreaker of '50s naivete? But on a fresh viewing, this show—unlike, say, The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet—holds up. Jerry Mathers came across as a real kid, tentative, not too bright and fueled by a boy's natural cocktail of curiosity and fear. (Beaver's imagination always served up far more gruesome consequences for his antics than he ever actually suffered.) And in an underrated performance as Beaver's dad Ward—June always got all the love—Hugh Beaumont added just a note of fallibility and wistful nostalgia to the typical role of the all-knowing dad.

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