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

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"