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
M*A*S*H
Before M*A*S*H, the line between TV comedy and TV drama was as well demarcated as the DMZ between the two Koreas. This military-doctor comedy daringly combined zany humor—equal parts Marx-Brothers slapstick and high-class wordplay—with dark drama, as when the war claimed the life of the base's first chief, Col. Henry Blake. (The show banned canned laughter in its operating-room scenes, presaging the single-camera, laugh-track-free comedies of today.) Like many great shows, M*A*S*H stayed on the air a few years too long, got preachy, and grew as shaggy and soft as B.J. Hunnicut's anachronistic hairdo. But it proved that comedy could be serious, drama could be funny and both could cut like a scalpel.
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