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

Star Trek

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For a show that was set hundreds of years in the future, Star Trek was very 1960s: not just the miniskirts, but the war and race allegories that creator Gene Roddenberry wrote into the series. Capt. James T. Kirk led a crew of all colors (and ear shapes) across the universe to follow the Prime Directive and defuse conflicts. Though the sci-fi show was colored by its troubled times, it also had a genuine postwar optimism, believing that technology, science and cooperation could actually lead humanity to unity and progress. Dated as the original Trek can look—with Kirk chasing galactic babes and space hippies—its first-rate sci-fi plots still hold up, as does the hope that hundreds of years from now we might be still boldly going.