The 100 Greatest Shows of all time according to Rolling Stone

[Mr Trick]

The 100 Greatest TV Shows of All Time

A ranking of the most game-changing, side-splitting, tear-jerking, mind-blowing, world-building, genre-busting programs in television history, from the medium’s inception in the early 20th century …

www.rollingstone.com

These lists are always fun to muse over, and to mock and laugh at 😉

Thoughts on the list?

 

[November]

I was coming here to post this 🙂 Buffy came in at number 73.

A whole bunch on there that I havent seen, not on free to air yet!

Some should be on an "exists" list rather than greatest list...

 

[HowiMetdaSlayer]

Props for putting Halt & Catch Fire as high as they did. Definitely be in my top 20, though.
West Wing is WAY too low on this list. Like most of Rolling Stone's lists, I'll like half & loath the other half. 😉

 

[Plasma]

Did they seriously put Better Call Saul in the 30s? Almost everyone agrees it’s better than Breaking Bad!

Also no Star Trek, let alone TNG, is shameful. No Stranger Things either? That pretty much jump started the whole 80s resurgence and kids on bikes genre. No Parks and Rec is disappointing but not a surprise. It’s better than The Office by a mile but most people only think about The Office. :/

I’m glad they chose some that are cultural milestones, but let’s be honest: shows like Squid Game could 100% be left off this list. It’s just Korean Saw with a brighter coat of paint that everyone watched because there was a global “nothing to do” order in effect.

 

[Mr Trick]

Did they seriously put Better Call Saul in the 30s? Almost everyone agrees it’s better than Breaking Bad!

Also no Star Trek, let alone TNG, is shameful. No Stranger Things either? That pretty much jump started the whole 80s resurgence and kids on bikes genre. No Parks and Rec is disappointing but not a surprise. It’s better than The Office by a mile but most people only think about The Office. :/

I’m glad they chose some that are cultural milestones, but let’s be honest: shows like Squid Game could 100% be left off this list. It’s just Korean Saw with a brighter coat of paint that everyone watched because there was a global “nothing to do” order in effect.

Good shouts. On a list of 100 ST should have been somewhere in there. They've included a lot of other modern shows which I'm sure they feel have cultural importance, so ST is surely worth a spot in the bottom half at least.

They had the original series of Star Trek but I didn't see any of the spin-offs which is a shame.

Suprised they didn't have Parks and Rec considering how comedy heavy the list is. I actually prefer the Office to it. Over time I've found Parks and Rec a bit overrated. Its good but not as good for me as others. I prefer the more cynical comedy and character drama of the Office.

Succession's a great show but putting it in the top ten this soon is a bit much. Same with Fleabag at 5.

Generally a good list, but I wanted the likes of The X-Files, West Wing and Six Feet Under to be higher. Also I may have missed them but I didn't spot either Orphan Black or Veronica Mars? Orphan Black may crack my top ten, love that show.

 

[Dogs of Winter]

I found it a slightly predictable mix of all the big hitters and cult favs with way too many recent hip shows.
Fleabag, Atlanta and Succession all in the top 10? and much as I enjoyed shows like Watchmen, The Good Place and Barry they all seem too high to me
It seems like shows were chosen as much for their 'cultural impact' as their quality, and if the list was picked by actors etc I do wonder how much TV some of them actually watch !

Or maybe I am just bitter that Angel and Veronica Mars are not on it 🙂
And it is good to see I'm Alan Partridge in an American list

 

[Mr Trick]

I found it a slightly predictable mix of all the big hitters and cult favs with way too many recent hip shows.
Fleabag, Atlanta and Succession all in the top 10? and much as I enjoyed shows like Watchmen, The Good Place and Barry they all seem too high to me
It seems like shows were chosen as much for their 'cultural impact' as their quality, and if the list was picked by actors etc I do wonder how much TV some of them actually watch !

Or maybe I am just bitter that Angel and Veronica Mars are not on it 🙂
And it is good to see I'm Alan Partridge in an American list

Yeah Veronica Mars and Angel surely deserved a spot on a list of 100. Sometimes these lists snear at genre shows. No Firefly is a joke too.

 

[Plasma]

Yeah Veronica Mars and Angel surely deserved a spot on a list of 100. Sometimes these lists snear at genre shows. No Firefly is a joke too.

Genre in general is sneered at by institutional entities. Stephen King has written at least one beautiful short story about being too late to save someone (Last Rung on the Ladder) and is still clumped into the horror section in stores and by general book reviewers/institutions.

It takes a lot of work to write genre, and it’s so sad that it doesn’t get the respect it deserves.

No Firefly is absolutely a joke. This list is just 90% dramas, which I’m okay with, but they don’t even have ones that go beyond the “real world” setting. No Expanse? A very limited streaming presence? I mean the TV landscape has changed dramatically and it seems like Rolling Stone doesn’t really care. I get the sense they ironed out their top 10 and then just threw the rest into a hat and drew at random.

 

[Dogs of Winter]

Yeah Veronica Mars and Angel surely deserved a spot on a list of 100. Sometimes these lists snear at genre shows. No Firefly is a joke too.

Yeah genre shows have always been seen as secondary to so called serious drama shows now matter how dull and worthy some of them can be

Genre in general is sneered at by institutional entities. Stephen King has written at least one beautiful short story about being too late to save someone (Last Rung on the Ladder) and is still clumped into the horror section in stores and by general book reviewers/institutions.

In the UK Stephen King is taken more seriously now than he once was. He gets some really good reviews in the so called quality press which he wouldn't have done once upon a time with critics even discussing the themes of his books rather than just the plots.
But there will always be a certain snobbery amongst some critics. When he won the National Book Award in America some people were up in arms

 

[spikenbuffy]

I don't trust much Rolling Stone lists since Funeral by Arcade Fire was missing in a 100 best debut/first albums of all time list not long ago, such a shame. 👎

 

[Mr Trick]

Two random weirdos give their take on the list. I don't know who they are either, but might be worth a listen 😀

 

[Taake]

I don’t have the energy to go through the whole thing, but I had at least seen 3 of the top 20 shows. Hard to please everyone with a list like that, though, random weirdos fighting over rankings, and what didn’t make it, is kind of the whole point, no?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Can't be bothered to read the list judging on the first few seen. It's funny how "of all time" usually means the last 20 years or so. Question to those that read it: Was All In the Family on the list? If not then it's invalidated.

@Taake Surprising it's at 21. Or on there at all based upon the current clim.

 

[Mr Trick]

Can't be bothered to read the list judging on the first few seen. It's funny how "of all time" usually means the last 20 years or so. Question to those that read it: Was All In the Family on the list? If not then it's invalidated.

@Taake Surprising it's at 21. Or on there at all based upon the current clim.

Trust me its always on these lists. The old style sitcoms always do well among high brow critics. Considering the show's about 50 years old to be 21 on a list of 100 is good going.

 

[machinewolfhear]

no angel? and some shows had one season, im rejecting this list...

 

[DeepBlueJoy]

The problem with lists like this is that they are basically popularity contests - and in this case Rolling Stone determined who the popular kids were that got to vote.

Glad Buffy finally has made it into the poppular kids list. Funny that. A story about outsider kids that definitely did not fit in well! Maybe there is hope for us! Gigglesnort!

I have not heard of some of the more recent (and i suspect niche, wont make the list in 10 years) shows.

I was relieved to see that both M*A*S*H and rhe original Star Trek made the list (and in the top half). Maybe there were more of the smart kids at the popular kids table this time! Viva Cordelia!

 

[Mr Trick]

@DeepBlueJoy True but a lot of people would argue that Next Gen and Deep Space Nine are the two best Trek shows, that's not as unpopular to say as it once was. But I can see why they would just have Original Series for historical purposes and what it started. Its personal taste, I'd have no problem having more than one Trek show in a top 100.

Post automatically merged: Saturday at 3:55 PM

no angel? and some shows had one season, im rejecting this list...

That's my big problem with lists like this. You get a lot of recently bias. It would be like a new list of best ever horror movies putting Obession in the top 10. I love Succession and think its a modern classic, but its too early to be put it that high. A show like Angel as one of the best spinoff shows ever deserves to be somewhere in a top 100 I agree.

 

[DeepBlueJoy]

@DeepBlueJoy True but a lot of people would argue that Next Gen and Deep Space Nine are the two best Trek shows, that's not as unpopular to say as it once was. But I can see why they would just have Original Series for historical purposes and what it started. Its personal taste, I'd have no problem having more than one Trek show in a top 100.
___

That's my big problem with lists like this. You get a lot of recently bias. It would be like a new list of best ever horror movies putting Obession in the top 10. I love Succession and think its a modern classic, but its too early to be put it that high. A show like Angel as one of the best spinoff shows ever deserves to be somewhere in a top 100 I agree.

I totally agree that Deep Space Nine is the most awesomest Trek (and also love most of the pre-paywall Trek,) but the lists will never have everyone's faves - that is for _our_ personal lists!

Had Cordy not been forced to jump the Connor shark, Angel might have made the cut - and maybe had 7 seasons too. Payback on vendettajoss:cough:vendettajoss is a beast. He stole our show. Derailed it.

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

Lists like these I always take with a grain of salt, because there is such disagreement between what people think are the "greatest" or "best" shows, and just because a shoe was/is popular, doesnt mean it's "good." A show like Firefly, for instance, was absolutely genius, and not very popular, but definitely deserves to be on this list.

I'm glad Six feet Under was included, as I'd definitely argue that's one of the best shows ever. Also, I have not seen The Sopranos. It looks like a good show, but does anyone agree it's the best show ever?

And in case anyone is interested, and doesn't want to bother reading the whole list, here's that they had to say about Buffy:

"It’s become less fun to look back on this one in light of the many recent allegations of abusive behavior made against its creator, Joss Whedon. But if we can separate the art from the artist (a challenge with several shows on this list), Whedon’s do-over of an early-Nineties movie about a perky high schooler (played here by Sarah Michelle Gellar) who is secretly a warrior against supernatural evil is both a great show and a very influential one. It helped define several generations of both teen and fantasy drama, and its self-aware, cliché-puncturing sensibility wound up as the default mode of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not only that, the show’s use of creatures of the night as metaphors for real-life adolescent turmoil — Buffy loses her virginity to Angel (David Boreanaz), and he literally becomes a soulless monster as a result —  remains incredibly potent."