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!