RONGEST TV Show on TV Guide's 50 Greatest Shows Of All Time

I've never seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer but I am very tempted to vote for Buffy the Vampire Slayer .

Frazier seems completely out of it's league there.

DONAHUE.

(followed by frasier.)

frasier vs friends vs today vs hate to say it but maybe buffy

not a terrible list

eff all of you buffy haters

i voted frasier

wtf frasier is better than alot of those shows. friends is the only confirmed terrible show i can see.

i do not hate buffy

who would watch the today show and be like this is one of the greatest shows of all time. and then they shaft leno on the 'tonight show' nod. i admit that's a nice touch.

Buffy

frasier is so much worse than many of these shows and im no frasier fan -- btw wasnt 'thirtysomethings' a cancelled nbc sitcom??? i honestly have no idea what that show is

frazier > friends

don't really know buffy (and a few others), but i have nothing against it

went with friends.

frasier >>>>>>>>>>> friends

and anyone who disagrees is bonkerz

Yeah, Today is a rough pick when you think about it. Putting ol' Willard's bday announcements up against Twin Peaks?

and i know i said no quibbling over order, but Donahue over Oprah is pretty stupid.

Always thought X-Files was overrated.

X-Files was great but it doesn't hold up too well at all. although this could just be because I'm watching the first season on DVD right now and it's all corny monster-of-the-week stuff with laughable special effects.

I prefer the monster of the week stuff to the ongoing hopelessly muddled and vague conspiracy with no real hope of a resolution stuff that seemed to dominate later series.

twins peaks is better than all these other shows combined.

why is this thread on ilm?

Yeah, my gut instinct is to vote against anything that's ever been on the must-see lineup. Friends in a walk.

voted for "friends" -- never understood the appeal of watching a show full of smug youngish NYC douchebags. isn't that what THIS board is for?!?

Law & Order. Have NEVER seen the appeal of wooden actors, with all their clothes on, expositioning all over each other.

Friends could be a very irritating show, yes, but at its peak the writing was incredibly tight.

Whiney, I'm moving this to ILE -- let me know if you wanted it on ILM for some specific reason.

Sopranos

Didn't make it past Seinfeld. Always hated it.

Last two seasons of Friends deserves to be in the top 10, most of the rest of it was dire though. Frasier is lame. Is this a recent list? No Wire?

"Friends"

pluses:
actors developed some good comic timing (except for aniston)

minuses:
combining sitcom and soap opera was a terrible idea
rude, unlikeable characters
NYC without minorities
no good jokes
wish fulfillment for teenagers

other lows:
I Love Lucy (CBS) - OK but too high
Saturday Night Live (NBC) - it's been a joke for decades; has produced more shit than anything else on this list
Donahue (syndicated)
Frasier (NBC)
The X-Files (Fox)

SNL is on the list, as with many others, at least in part because it largely created a concept. that's not something you can say about Frasier or Friends.

I like Friends ok, btw

wish fulfillment for teenagers

yeah, you never get that in entertainment

thirtysomething

Yeah, you guys have convinced me. "Friends" is really the worst show. And fuckn thirtysomething is on this list

thirtysomething or maybe St. Elsewhere.

Or The Rockford Files.

"Friends"

minuses:
combining sitcom and soap opera was a terrible idea
rude, unlikeable characters
NYC without minorities
no good jokes
wish fulfillment for teenagers

Add to that list the whole "insert canned laughter after EVERY line of dialogue, not just obvious punchlines," a strategy later used to insanely irritating effect on That '70s Show.

i voted for thirtysomething because seriously... wtf is it even doing on this list? i've never seen it, never known anyone who has seen it, don't know anything about it other than that it was the first time i ever heard the obnoxious fucking term "thirty something". Just how old is this issue of TV guide?

came close to voting for Friends and Today Show. nice to see all the Friends hatred on here, since most of my own (younger) friends have this sort of nostalgic sacred cow thing about the show, forcing me to silently hate it.

How young are some of you guys who've never even HEARD of thirtysomething? It was like the Gray's Anatomy of its day. (And "China Beach" was the "Private Practice".)

dude i'm 35, but will admit to never having been a huge fan of prime-time tv - and as far as i know this show never made an impact in syndication.

i figure if i hear enough about a show that i want to see it, it's a big deal.

also i misread your post - as indicated in my post i've heard of thirtysomething, just never seen it.

You didn't miss much, it's a horrible show.

MASH sux

Last two seasons of Friends deserves to be in the top 10, most of the rest of it was dire though.

...

frasier is so much worse than many of these shows and im no frasier fan -- btw wasnt 'thirtysomethings' a cancelled nbc sitcom??? i honestly have no idea what that show is

― choom gangsta (deej), Sunday, December 28, 2008 6:33 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

um i meant 'better' -- frasier obv >>> friends

i would never watch xfiles and was never big into it at all but i cant imagine its close to the worst thing on this list

i went with MASH but my second choice would've been letterman imo

i know sopranos is far from the worst thing here but i still voted for it cause i enjoyed how riled up people got on the vs. wire poll thread

lol

How young are some of you guys who've never even HEARD of thirtysomething? It was like the Gray's Anatomy of its day.

Yeah, my mom used to watch it religiously and I remember even then thinking they were all self-absorbed yuppie tools. What a bunch of smug jerks.

I could make an argument for even the shows I hate being on the list, but thirtysomething? You gotta be kidding me.

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/a3/e8/e287124128a0b2dc5318b010.L.jpg

No "Dallas", no "Dynasty", no "Melrose Place", but there in the top twenty is "thirtysomething." Controversial.

i had to look up thirtysomething on wikipedia... i didnt even read the article, i just looked at this shit and said 'fuk u':

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ad/Thirtysomethingcast.jpg

next gen over the original series is insane! i mean i know it was a more popular show but can anyone seriously argue that picard, data et al had a bigger impact on the culture than kirk n' spock?

seinfeld was great for a few seasons but the last two are borderline unwatchable

The last two seasons of Roseanne were among the worst seasons of any show in history.

this is how you know it's a '90s list:

19. thirtysomething (ABC)
20. St. Elsewhere (NBC)
21. Friends (NBC)
22. ER (NBC)

no one has cared about ANY of these shows since that decade, and i'd forgotten that the first two even existed.

next gen over the original series is insane! i mean i know it was a more popular show but can anyone seriously argue that picard, data et al had a bigger impact on the culture than kirk n' spock?

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, December 28, 2008 3:43 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

well, the criteria isn't "bigger impact on the culture," of course arguing NG over original in that respect would be wrong. but i do think NG was the better show.

letterman is by far the most overrated thing in the top 10. i know his style of humor was influential and all -- there'd probably be no conan, daily show, etc., without it -- but i've always found him unwatchably smug and self-satisfied. no way should he rank ahead of the unflappable carson.

I've never seen thirtysomething but didn't those guys produce My So-Called Life? Because I liked that show a lot.

this is how you know it's a '90s list:

19. thirtysomething (ABC)
20. St. Elsewhere (NBC)
21. Friends (NBC)
22. ER (NBC)

no one has cared about ANY of these shows since that decade, and i'd forgotten that the first two even existed.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Sunday, December 28, 2008 2:53 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i dont think anyone's forgotten friends or ER

This is just ugly.

i didn't say they'd been forgotten, just that no one cares about them.

I think lots of people probably still care about both, at least as much as you can care about any show peaking in the 90s

Could go Seinfeld, Friends or Cheers from the fiction shows. I'd rather watch Frasier than any of those.

i'd rather watch a dishwasher run for 30 minutes than frasier (or any of those shows bar seinfeld, actually)

thirtysomething was dreadful.

fucking MASH god I hate it hate it god.

How does this list break down by decade? Def. under-representing the 50s and 60s, I admit there was a lot of clunkiness but still. I haven't seen all the shows but I agree with the consensus that Frasier is the most inexplicable entry. I think I hate Friends more (first two seasons were good, then thbbbbbbbbbt), but Frasier is just really dull and never struck me as anything more than one of many semi-popular shows that were on, certainly not a classic or a generational touchstone or anything.

I love Letterman. I think they must mean the early years of the "Today" show, judging from what I've read about that one.

I've never been able to fully express just how much I hate Seinfeld. My latest rant on its awfulness just prompted my boyfriend to admit that he actually thinks it's funny, and now I'm thinking that maybe I should break up with him.

Has there a single redeeming facet of 'Friends' ever?

they always exercised immaculate grammar

60 Minutes

"been"

xpost

I think this poll should go off into a Friends vs. Thirtysomething playoff for most overrated piece of shit show ever

I don't think anyone rates Friends very highly. I feel like my position is the contrary one. I don't understand people who hate it. They seem like they are from another generation to me (and they usually are).

y'know, i think Friends at its best is a cool show - well-performed, well written... it's like a good chainstore hamburger, does what it does efficiently. i loved 30something when it was first on, but i was 9 i think, and mostly bugged to be allowed to stay up that late and watch teevee with my parents.

imo frasier's last few seasons degenerated into predictable farce, while the english accents (even those by english actors) were always appalling, though the early series are cool. cheers is a billion times funnier/warmer/sharper/deeper though.

I've never been able to fully express just how much I hate Seinfeld.

THANKS YOU!! i wanted to post this and didn't have the guts cause it seems like everybody loves this show and i loathed it. even worse than thirtysomething (THE self-regarding yuppie 80s anti-classic). especially jerry himself he's always seemed like the opposite of funny, so smug. like a stupid woody allen. fuck him and his whiny neurotic dipshit sidekicks.

Exactly. Every character on that show is an insufferable, self-important asshole, and the humor is based on Seinfeld's stand-up material, which is the epitome of lame observational bullshit. He's the kind of guy who riffs on airplane food. Fuck him.

the humor is based on Seinfeld's stand-up material

nah it's not

Sorry, I didn't mean that it's taken directly from his routine, but it's all the sort of completely unfunny "hey, did you ever notice this quirky thing about this everyday occurrence?" crap that he does in stand-up.

except the majority of the humor is based not on observations of airplane food or supermarkets or other superficial shit but on observations of human behavior and psychology, and if you're gonna dismiss humor based on that pretty much all you're left with is Carrot Top.

you guys who wanna bitch all day about Seinfeld should go off and get your own thread island

I guess Seinfeld is one of my litmus tests where if someone can't find the humor in it, I don't think that person has much of a sense of humor.

i understand not liking jerry seinfeld himself, he is a world class douchebag and hack, but the actual tv show seinfeld was classic and only ninnies dislike it imo

Has there a single redeeming facet of 'Friends' ever?

Does "better than Thirtysomething" count?

ER...

a show so rong no one even noticed it was on the list

I've never been able to fully express just how much I hate Seinfeld. My latest rant on its awfulness just prompted my boyfriend to admit that he actually thinks it's funny, and now I'm thinking that maybe I should break up with him.

Evidently you areSeinfeld!

i understand not liking jerry seinfeld himself, he is a world class douchebag and hack, but the actual tv show seinfeld was classic and only ninnies dislike it imo

― cankles, Monday, December 29, 2008 9:21 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

how i break it down to an extent, he basically made it possible for a loser like larry david somehow break thru the wall of other losers and express the raw comedic+existential angst of being a loser on national tv -- pretty amazing imo

Didn't realize the Rockford Files was that big a deal. Friends is probably the show on this list that I like the least. Not sure if that makes it worse than shows I would never watch (Today, Donahue, Oprah) though.

I hate Jerry Seinfeld the person/comedian, the last two years of the show were poor, and the show in general has aged quite poorly, but it was still a work of art compared to just about any other show on TV at the time, and Larry David was the reason. Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus were fantastic on it, and the various peripheral characters were mostly excellent. Everything I liked about Seinfeld was amplified and sometimes improved on CYE, in my opinion, but Seinfeld was pretty groundbreaking and inventive, and now taken for granted to some degree.

Donahue was great, anyone who says otherwise isn't a Real American.

I hate Jerry Seinfeld the person/comedian, the last two years of the show were poor, and the show in general has aged quite poorly, but it was still a work of art compared to just about any other show on TV at the time, and Larry David was the reason. Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus were fantastic on it, and the various peripheral characters were mostly excellent. Everything I liked about Seinfeld was amplified and sometimes improved on CYE, in my opinion, but Seinfeld was pretty groundbreaking and inventive, and now taken for granted to some degree.

― Your heartbeat soun like sasquatch feet (polyphonic), Monday, December 29, 2008 1:57 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

michael richards was great too, hes just a total weirdo irl (just based on his comments on the dvds) never mind wacko racist

weirdo not in a harmless kramer way, weirdo in a genuine o_O way

and the show in general has aged quite poorly,

i disagree w/ this if yr talking about seasons 3-5 or so -- the last couple seasons, gimmick episodes like 'soup nazi' etc ... fuck that i guess (altho there are some great moments on those as well) but the peak seinfeld years are A+ to this day

Paul Mooney says that he stopped saying the n-word after the Michael Richards incident, and now instead he says "Michael Richards", e.g. "What up, my Michael Richards?"

I find it hard to watch him now, even though I don't really think he's racist, I just think he's a lunatic and a horrible stand-up.

X-Files was great but it doesn't hold up too well at all. although this could just be because I'm watching the first season on DVD right now and it's all corny monster-of-the-week stuff with laughable special effects

This is true of the first season (when they were on a shoestring budget and in constant threat of cancellation) but not of SSN 2 or esp. SSNs 3-5 which I watched recently & kick the ass of most of the rest of the shows on this list.

People let me get this off my chest! Thirtysomething is the RONGEST of the RONG EVER EVER EVER. I just managed to purge it from my collective memory before reading about it again here.

I never watched that show thankfully. I'm sure it was awful.

Yes, if Thirtysomething were played as often in syndication as Friends is, I would likely hate it more.

This is true of the first season

I don't know, I rewatched s1 pretty recently and liked it more than I'd remembered, even if the budget was obviously low.

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"Worthy television programs such as Six Feet Under would not have been possible without the groudbreaking 4 seasons of THIRTYSOMETHING in the early 90s."

"Polly Draper's Ellyn, the career woman forever feeling overshadowed by Mel Harris's Hope with her perfect house, perfect husband and perfect life (HA!) is a character with whom I continue to identify, even in grainy copies of copies of tapes from broadcast TV. Poor thing never did see herself through her own eyes - only as a reflection in the eyes of her friends and lovers. That I can talk about her as if she was a real person is testament to the depth of both the writing and acting involved.

I could go on and on, but I only have 1000 words - I could write 10,000."

"And for the "relationship" side of the show, I also like that we see the 3 male characters learn to navigate the world inhabited by the other gender. You had to love Elliott's moves, and his ultimate growth once he discovers how much he still loved Nancy.

If the music is the main reason for the licensing concerns (and subsequent inability to release the DVD), just cut the tunes out, and start burning the DVD's already!! "

I can't believe how angry this thread has made me over thirtysomething.

I think of it as a traumatic incident from childhood.

It's the televisual equivalent of John Wayne Gacy.

"I was part of the blessed generation of television viewers whom were weekly treated by this extraordinary show with it's unforgettable cast."

"The hairstyles, 1980's fixer-upper houses (Bob Villa era), and clothing may be dated, but the themes are timeless."

I also believe that it's a crying shame that you can purchase DVD copies of Wonder Woman and Three's Company but not this program.

RONG.

thirtysomething had the virtue of presenting the CEO of an ad agency as Evil Incarnate.

Et tu, Morbs?

I hated things about the scripts when it was on, but the cast was generally quite good (incl the guest shots), it was maybe the best-photographed series on the air at the time, and Ken Olin and Peter Horton were pretty hot.

ie the adults were no more infuriating than the kids on My So-Called Life.

probably thirtysomething, but there are several on here i don't think i've ever seen. as for m*a*s*h taking some hit upthread - i'll grant you that the last few seasons were mawkish and sanctimonious, but the first couple of years = quality TV.

*some hits

List is all american which makes it a but restrictive but Today wins for all the shithouse clones the rest of us have had to endure ever since.

anyone who thinks "seinfeld" was based on jerry seinfeld's standup routine hasn't watched past the opening credits

^ also for anyone who thinks it's a show about 'nothing'

anyone who thinks "seinfeld" wasn't at initially loosely based on jerry seinfeld's standup routine doesn't understand what the phrase "based on" means

I would like to see someone defend The Defenders. Or swear to having seen it.

Well I've seen the abortion trial clip from Mad Men! For that alone I think it's better than Friends!

was all of my so-called life like this?

aw, i love that buffalo tom song...

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Friends stands up, and way better than Seinfeld.

And SNL has been great again for at least the last three years, much more consistent than the vaunted '70s, where everyone only remembers the classic sketches.

crazy talk, on both counts.

Not so. I speak as someone who resisted Friends for years, and hated SNL for many sustained periods of still-loyal watching since I was old enough to stay up for it in 1978. Have you actually watched those full DVDs of the '70s seasons? Did you watch last night's show?

I voted the Late Show. Nobody can ever take away Dave's greatness on NBC, but something changed with the switch to CBS, and it was both immediately apparent and slowly evident over time, yet tough to pin down.

There were still a few great moments (Drew Barrymore, Madonna, though maybe I'm remembering Late Night), but at some point I just stopped laughing. Even Conan, whose five-year brilliant streak started to lose fizz last year, seems more likely to be funny than not in any given interview situation, where Dave just has too much ego in play, and the audience is too adoring, or something.

I should add, by "consistent" I mean just that, not better or higher peaks--that would be crazy talk.

fair enough, i agree that the '70s seasons are pretty inconsistent (especially the first season, the first few episodes of which are at least half unwatchable) but consistency's never been an SNL strong point. i just think it's been especially dire this season — it's telling that tina fey's guest spots were the only time anyone got thrilled about it.

i could never stand "friends" at all. the characters just struck me as so garishly bright and cheerful and irritating. it was like "the brady bunch" beside "seinfeld"'s "all in the family."

I saw it more as Three's Company, which I still love, ha ha.

No one on Friends was as talented as John Ritter let alone Don Knotts or Norman Fell.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

5. The Sopranos (HBO) 11

the fuck is wrong with some ILXors?!?

the fuck is wrong with some ILXors?!? one ILXor and his sockpuppet accounts.

― Mad Vigorish (Eisbaer), Tuesday, 13 January 2009 00:08 (35 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Fixed.

I blame TOMBOT, tbh.

Worst received-(challenging)-opinion poll result ever, honestly.

..Conan, whose five-year brilliant streak started to lose fizz last year..

Brilliance? Where's the brilliance in making tired jokes about the same dozen celebrities.. I swear, every writers' room in Leno/Conan/Letterman has a sign that looks like this:

Paris Hilton = whore.
McCain = old.
Kirstie Alley (??? yeah great reference Conan) = overweight.
Michael Jackson = child molester.
George Bush = unintelligent.
Schwarzenegger = talks silly, often loud also.
Larry Craig, Clay Aiken, and more = gay (its 2009, btw.. many if not most of these hits on homosexuality are probably deeply offensive to gay ppl)
..and etc. There must be a thread where we just list these boring references, come to think of it. I'll search.

Late night talk shows are just platforms for rich people to build their careers or maintain public awareness/importance, with terrible, terrible jokes in the first half. And maybe a Pitchfork-sanctioned band at the end. Just worthless television.

I do feel terrible for these men though.. that they love the millions enough to keep renewing contracts, thinking its obviously worth it, yeah, but then have to pretend that the 17-yr old female lead in some shitty vampire movie is compelling. I'd snap.

Still voted 'Friends' here.

challbot

damn son

I only have one sockpuppet account, and he's me.

Kyleopps

bassace wrote this on thread What CD constitutes genius? on board I Love Music on 25-Jul-2007

The Beatles bore me.

So does Bob Dylan.

^^^^challop previous

30something deserved to win this

Technically the Letterman on this list is just the CBS Letterman, and not Letterman on NBC, which was an entirely different property, right? I think that'd get my vote, insofar as I can't see what was particularly great or transformative about it other than the fact that CBS managed to buy an actual late-night contender.

Although wait -- to be fair, I might be giving NBC credit for Letterman stuff that actually started on CBS. I dunno.

28. The Cosby Show (NBC) 1

^^this bastard needs to show his face as well.

I totes agree about the stock jokes re Conan's monologues, usually the weakest part of the night, but I'm taking into account the sketches (basically enough material for another SNL every week), Triumph the Insult Comic Dog segments, etc. etc, etc, and, like I said, it all seemed to start getting old last year--he seemed especially tired after the San Francisco trip, which was pretty deeply hilarious. I realize this is all highly subjective.

Sopranos being up there is pretty silly, come on...

I would hope Run Fatboy Run would earn Schwimmer retrospective props for Friends but it's a classic that's easy to hate...

The Beatles bore me.

So does Bob Dylan.

Blast from the past.. surprised I was so blunt, but I like how the tone is so Geir while the sentiment, Autechre >>> Beatles/Dylan, is so anti-Geir.

self-kudos on an aged challop

served with creme-fraiche

new book on the 100 best American series

https://theringer.com/deadwood-hbo-tv-the-book-dadb4007790e#.9o27jvi19

btw here are the top 10

http://buffalo.com/2016/09/11/news/sepinwall-and-seitz-list-of-the-10-best-tv-shows-in-prime-time-history/

Wtf, Breaking Bad ahead of Mad Men? They're dead to me!

Cool surprise to see Deadwood in the top ten. The Simpsons might belong there if 2/3 of its run hadn't been devoted to taking a decades-long shit on the truly classic material.

They address that in a Vulture excerpt (see Simpsons thread), but of course people who don't read the book will just argue about the rankings, which is deeply uninteresting to me.

Cheers my favourite of the 10

I will most likely read the book and vehemently disagree with large portions of it.

Curious to see if Enlightened made the cut (the only post-Breaking Bad series I've seen that's worthy of inclusion in an all-time top 100).

MTM and Van Dyke better be in the top 20

(yes i contradict myself)

bold opinions

"TV the Book"

well TV the Guide is too retro

"Pandering for Fun & Profit: The Book"