The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME

N - S

Playhouse 90

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While Playhouse 90 was unquestionably a great show, it wasn't really a great *TV* show; it was a theater repertory producing stage plays that happened to have cameras pointed at them. But TV is a distribution tool as well as an art form, and Playhouse 90 produced some of the finest writing and acting that TV's electrons have managed to carry. Its original productions—often performed live—included Requiem for a Heavyweight and The Miracle Worker, while its adaptations brought writers like George Bernard Shaw and William Faulkner some of the biggest audiences they would ever have. Later TV dramas took advantage of the wider possibilities that videotaping offered, but this anthology gave them a high target to aim for.

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How I Chose The List

Adding to this list would be easy; taking shows off is the tricky part. How did I settle on this list? I set a few guidelines...

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What is your all-time favorite TV show?

Which films should have been included and weren't? Did we leave off any of your favorites? Were any shows on the list more influential than others? Tell us what you think

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TIME's TV critic James Poniewozik blogs daily on all visual media. Join the discussion here

A - F

From Abbott and Costello to Friends

G - M

From General Hospital to Mystery Science Theater 3000

N - S

From The Odd Couple to Survivor

T - Z

From Taxi to Your Show of Shows

100 Best Movies

Presenting the 100 best films as chosen by TIME's movie critics Richard Corliss and Richard Schickel

All-TIME 100 Albums

A list of the greatest and most influential records ever by Josh Tyrangiel and Alan Light

100 Best Novels

TIME critics Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo pick the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present

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