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

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Channeled through Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David's most dyspeptic ideas about people preferring the misery of others to their own mild inconvenience came off as amusing rather than misanthropic; through David, Seinfeld's what's-the-deal riffs became piercing insights, not trivia. And few roles have been so perfectly cast and complemented as Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the sharp-tongued Elaine, Michael Richards as gawky oddball Kramer, Jason Alexander as self-interested George, and Seinfeld as, well, Jerry Seinfeld. Seinfeld was a hearty soup of humor, a layered marble rye of humanity, master of its comic domain—it was real, and it was spectacular.

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