The Best TV shows of the Internet Age!

I’ve been trying to go through a backlog of TV series to make sure I haven’t missed any important ones – and by important I mean “widely critically acclaimed”. So I want to have a list I am working my way down hitting the big ones first.

I’m starting with the Metacritic all time highest scoring TV shows. I am sure this skews heavily towards recent years, but for what it’s worth, the top 100 metacritic rated TV shows for all time, ordered by highest rated individual season:

Rectify (2016)
The Larry Sanders Show (1995)
Murder One (1995)
Breaking Bad (2012)
The Office (UK) (2001)
The Leftovers (2017)
The Wire (2004)
The Sopranos (2003)
Homeland (2012)
Twin Peaks (1990)
O.J.: Made in America (2016)
Fargo (2015)
Planet Earth II (2016)
Enlightened (2013)
The Americans (2015)
Homicide: Life on the Street (1993)
Game of Thrones (2015)
Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Transparent (2015)
Louie (2014)
Deadwood (2005)
Curb Your Enthusiasm (2002)
Bleak House (2005)
Mad Men (2010)
The Shield (2002)
The Simpsons (1990)
The Returned (2012)
My So-Called Life (1994)
The Hollow Crown (2013)
The Handmaid's Tale (2017)
Master of None (2015)
Justified (2011)
Broadchurch (2013)
Frozen Planet (2011)
Sherlock (2012)
Downton Abbey (2010)
The Night Of (2016)
Atlanta (2016)
The Corner (2000)
BoJack Horseman (2015)
Rescue Me (2006)
The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016)
Silicon Valley (2016)
Veep (2015)
American Crime (2017)
Orange is the New Black (2013)
The Good Wife (2010)
Boomtown (2002)
Masters of Sex (2014)
Olive Kitteridge (2014)
24: Season 5 (2006)
Arrested Development (2003)
Broad City (2015)
Everybody Hates Chris (2005)
Friday Night Lights (2007)
Hannibal (2014)
Boardwalk Empire (2010)
The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (2014)
Fleabag (2016)
Brooklyn Bridge (1991)
Longford (2006)

Important caveat: if there were multiple seasons listed, I collapsed to the highest rated season in the list. It’s usually the early seasons that do best but there are some anomalies (look at 24 for example). I am kind of assuming here that if any season is highly rated, the rest of the show, at least the early seasons should be, too. So be sure to check the raw list if you see anything here that strikes you as weird.

Remember this is collapsed, so in the top 100 there are…

  • 25 season 1
  • 24 season 2
  • 20 season 3
  • 10 season 4
  • 8 season 5
  • 6 season 6

So those shows that are only listed for late seasons are really quite anomalous.

Obviously some of these are no-brainers. Breaking Bad, The Wire, Sopranos, The Shield, Simpsons, Homicide, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office (UK), and so on. But others surprise me.

I watched Fargo recently based on this strategy, and I liked it a lot! I guess I’ll go with Rectify next, since that season 4 was off the charts for some reason, and seasons 3 and 2 were on the list as well. This show has never been on my radar, but I guess it should be!

Oz is not on there.

That does seem really odd. It’s not on page 2 or 3, either, so it’s not in the top 300 for whatever reason.

Rectify is a very slow show. Great but tough for me to binge watch late at night. I’m about to start season 4 by the way so I’m ready for one excellent season!

I’m not gonna argue against that list but if a person watched just those shows, they’d think the world was a crime-ridden melancholic place. There’s a serious lack of comedies there (yeah, I see there are some there but they are few and far between). Plus, as you noted, this list is really skewed to more recent shows.

The show 24 is a strange bird, as you noted. From what I recall, they received a 12 episode order for the first season, and were extended to 24 episodes when it blew up. This order lead to some outrageously stupid plot “twists” in the second half of the first season, like people being threatened by a cougar or trapped in car trunks or things like that. Plus, the later seasons focus way too much on Jack Bauer torturing people to get the info he wants. But in the middle seasons, yeah, it’s good.

In looking around at some of these shows I ran across a reference toTV Guide’s 50 Greatest TV Shows Of All Time which, while obviously dated, has a few of the shows I thought might show up on the list above (stuff like Seinfeld, All In The Family, The Sopranos, etc). Obviously the two lists use different criteria, but I’d say that some of the shows from this list (or an updated one) would be worth watching if you were trying to be a TV ‘completionist.’

At any rate, it looks like you have a full slate of viewing, so you’d better get to it!

It’s not watercooler material, that’s for sure, but I would rank it at No. 1 and I’m glad to see critics agree.

Yeah the list is very partial to crime dramas. And speaking of crimes, I am not sure when the list was compiled but it is criminal that Mr. Robot and Legion get no props. And The Expanse for that matter.

ps: change the rankings from meta to viewer and you get a completely different list.

On the plus side, Rectify has always been on the fringe of my viewing list. Ill have to bump that one up.

For real? Networks are so dumb.

I counted 4 comedies in the Top 20 - I don’t consider that a bad representation at all.

Good to see Friday Night Lights get some love on that list.

No one ever believes me when I tell them it’s a great show. When someone hears it’s about high school football, their attention goes away and they stop listening. It’s impossible to get them back after that. Maybe next time I recommend someone watch the show I should describe it as something else.

Edit: A coming of age drama?

For one thing, it’s the story of one of the great marriages in television.

I hear you! Great show. Though I can’t watch any of those actors in anything else now.

You will need to look elsewhere for lists of top TV shows that include much older series if you are looking for all time.

Off the top of my head, if you are looking to fill out critically acclaimed comedy shows that are rather older, I’d include The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Barney Miller, Taxi, and my all time favourite, WKRP in Cincinnati.

The WKRP Thanksgiving episode is one of the all time great episodes.

“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.”

As far as I’m concerned, you can’t have a list of the greatest TV shows of all time without mention of MAS*H.

The Prisoner, which I would rank #2, right below Rectify.

Wait. It’s not?

and by important I mean “widely critically acclaimed”

There’s a bizarre definition. Also, the thread title says “best”. Best != important != critically acclaimed. What is it you are actually looking for?

Seriously? You don’t consider “widely critically acclaimed” equal to the best? Because I do.

I really want to see your example of a TV show that has zero critical acclaim that someone considers “the best”.

Tough to say, since I make my own opinions and generally don’t know or care what critics think.

You know who else doesn’t care what “the critics” think? This guy.