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

The Monkees

BACK
NEXT

View All

Digg
Facebook
Twitter
MORE
- Add to my:
- Blog this on:
  - TypePad
  - LiveJournal
  - Blogger
  - WordPress
  - MySpace

Remember, this is not a musical top-100 list—see the entry on American Idol. But whatever contributions the Prefab Four didn't make to music, their show was a form-breaking tribute to video chaos. This sitcom-cum-marketing-platform was surrealistic, experimental, self-referential and as trippy as a network show of the time could reasonably be. (It's funny to think that it was on the same network that was airing the drug-paranoid Dragnet '67.) Davy, Micky, Mike and Peter made up what they lacked in musical cred with real acting chops, using improv in a way that foreshadowed shows like Reno 911! while the show's psychedelic wackiness presaged the hallucinatory Saturday-morning shows of Sid and Marty Krofft. And as for its show of TV's power to fabricate pop sensations? Again... see American Idol.

View the full list for "The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME"