BEST American TV show of all time?

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I like your choices.

A friend had recommended The Wire to me but I just couldn’t get into it and stopped watching during the first season. Mind you, I had only tried to watch a few years ago. Not sure if the time lapse between the original airing had something to do with it.
 
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I haven’t seen the whole British version, but from what I’ve seen, it hasn’t really screamed “considerably higher quality” to me. The American version just had, as I hinted at earlier, a very questionable second half and near intolerable final season.

Besides, Parks and Recreation is still better than both, and that’s fully American!
 
Only two stand out from the rest…

The Sopranos (1999-2007)
Breaking Bad (2008-2013)

those are the gold standard of high quality TV shows as I have seen over 2,250+ total movies and only those two TV shows can rival the best movies in my mind. but in general I find there are far more quality movies than there are TV shows and I am not someone who’s easily pleased either as out of the 2,250+ total movies I have seen only 173 of them stand out from the pack which is only about 7.7% of everything I have seen.

for the record… shows on the major networks (ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX etc) tend to be a dime-a-dozen as once you get used to watching quality movies, I simply cannot go back to that junk as it’s average at best. because I ultimately judge movies/shows based on whether they have re-watch value or not as that’s what ultimately makes or breaks movies in my book is whether I want to re-watch them from time-to-time or not.
 
I’m not going to disagree with you that Sopranos and Breaking Bad were high-quality television.

I have problems, though, with the subject matter. I have a hard time with “humanizing” a mobster (we live near Chicago), and I also have a hard time with the rather dark plot/concept of Breaking Bad.

I prefer entertainment that is wholesome and high-minded. I don’t like to immerse myself in darkness.

I realize that Dark Shadows, on the surface , seemed to have rather grim subject matter and characters, but I believe that good and evil were clearly depicted, and it was made obvious that GOOD should always win out over evil. I even remember one episode where Dr. Julia Hoffman and Willie Loomis knelt to pray for Barnabas, the vampire.
 
ZMystiCat said:
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Cruciferi:
Aha! We Americans are already taking credit for television in other countries! 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
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Well, we did make a more popular version of The Office.
ricmat said:
Battlestar Galactica. (Second version).
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Beets. Bears. Battlestar Galactica.
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The US version of The Office is possibly only more popular in the US. Here in the merry old land of Oz my gut feeling is either that both are equally popular or that the UK version is slightly more so.
 
Limoncello4021 said:
I thought Green Acres was great, too. I guess I have low taste.
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An Aussie here… but Green Acres is my favorite American show, and then Seinfeld. Other favourites are The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, MASH, Batman (1960’s).

They’re all pre-1980 (except for Seinfeld). I haven’t watched much American TV since then, so can’t really comment on Sopranos, Breaking Bad, The Wire, etc., but I’ll trust they deserve the endorsements they’ve received here. The Office is also very popular in Australia, so perhaps I should check it out. I thought it was British actually.

I also get a perverse pleasure from those endlessly-repeated late night advertorials for self-improvement systems and exercise machines 😛
 
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I think you’re right about Death In Paradise. Luckily all three actors as the Inspector have been brilliant and they’ve all added to the show.

The good thing about an American series is the number of episodes, over 20 per year. Once I get hooked on a UK series, it’s over way too soon and I’m left dangling for what seems like forever.
 
LilyM said:
The US version of The Office is possibly only more popular in the US. Here in the merry old land of Oz my gut feeling is either that both are equally popular or that the UK version is slightly more so.
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I was sort of referencing the U.S. show’s total dominance of Netflix.

I also had in mind how Ricky Gervais once commented on Twitter that the U.S. show’s greater popularity just makes him feel “Really [censored] rich.” (Not linking because, well, there’s a reason I censored the tweet.)
 
Murder, She Wrote
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Remington Steele
Scarecrow and Mrs. King
The Golden Girls
The Waltons
The Rockford Files
The Muppet Show
The Wonder Years
Father Dowling Mysteries
Columbo
Murphy Brown (when it was more character driven, and less political)
 
I think Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the best tv show of all time so I’ll choose that.
 
I only got through the first half of the list and I just have to put in my choices.
_Abyssinia said:
I think Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is the best tv show of all time so I’ll choose that.
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A best show for certain. Great characters that grew and developed over the show’s run, great arc, GREAT acting! This scene is widely consdered the best scene in the series. It was almost entirely improvised. The director needed some extra minutes to fill out the show, and the two actors discussed what the scene would be about. As it turned out, the episode was over, but they cut something else so they could include this scene:

(I like that while the original Star Trek was to be “a Wagon Train to the stars”, DS9 was the star’s “Gunsmoke” – life on the frontier.)

I’m glad that at least one other person listed “Babylon 5”, as well as “The West Wing” – both J. Michael Straczynski (B5) and Adam Sorkin (TWW) rank as America’s best screenwriters. And if you listen carefully to “Babylon 5”, you’ll hear hints and whispers of J. Michael’s Catholic upbringing, as well as sensitive portrayals of things like alcohol and drug addiction, bigotry, bravery, and the absolute arrogance of historians, especially today’s current crop. As for TWW, just check YouTube for President Bartlett and the Butterball Hotline.

But for my money, you simply cannot overlook the game show “Hollywood Squares”! Paul Lynde was a guest square for the first season; after that he was a permanent fixture as the center square. Check YouTube and you’ll find one clip that’s an hour and a half long of only Paul Lynde’s zingers and a part 2 that’s only an hour long. Two examples that spring to mind:
Q: Can you get a pound of feathers off a goose?
A: (pause) Well I got them in there, didn’t I?

Q: According to experts, what’s the one thing a bride should not do on her wedding night?
A: Point and laugh.

Honestly, though, I think the best line came from Dolly Parton when she was a celebrity square back in the 70’s just after Jimmy Carter was elected. When she was asked a question, she replied with her deepest Southern accent, “I just wanna say, isn’t it nice to have a president without an accent?”
 
Comedy:
  1. I Love Lucy
  2. Seinfeld
  3. Cheers
Comedy/Drama
  1. MAS*H
  2. All in the family
  3. Parenthood
Drama
  1. West Wing
  2. The Sopranos
  3. The Fugitive
Sy-Fy
  1. Twilght Zone
  2. Star Trek
  3. X Files
 
Rod Serling may have been one of the all-time greatest story tellers through his Twilight Zone venue. He had so many classic episodes. Some funny, some series, and some very weird.
 
MASH made me laugh, cry, and think.
Sopranos was so very entertaining. You never knew what to expect. It gave me a better understanding of the Mob mind set.
Twilight Zone - what great stories!
West Wing = Much like the movie the American President, this is what the White House should be, not what it currently is.
 
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