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 Simpsons

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The Simpsons is the TV equivalent of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (once parodied in the opening "couch gag"). After it came along, nothing was the same, and it established a generation's cultural references and sensibility. (Is there any situation without a suitable Simpsons quote?) Starting out as a family cartoon, it grew a cast of hundreds that spanned celebrity (Ranier Wolfcastle), religion (the de-diddly-vout Flanders family), business (C. Montgomery Burns) and immigration (Apu). But maybe its best and favorite subject has been television itself—"Teacher, mother, secret lover!"—which it has lampooned through Krusty the Clown, Kent Brockman and the Laramie Cigarette sponsorship of Radioactive Man. It even embodies its own critique in the person of crabby superfan Comic Book Guy, but for all the long-lived series' ups and downs, it remains the Best. TV Show. Ever.

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