There’s a lot more competition in the one-hour television format. I think you have to segregate cable from network programs, because the cable programs have a huge advantage in realism resulting from their lack of censorship. So, here’s my network and cable top fives.
Network
1. Star Trek
2. Mission: Impossible
3. Rockford Files
4. Hill Street Blues
5. 60 Minutes
Cable
1. The Wire
2. Deadwood
3. The Sopranos
4. Weeds duh. Weeds is only a half-hour long.
5. Mad Men
What’s your list?
Late Night with David Letterman (when he was on at 12:30 on NBC)
The Larry Sanders Show
The Wire
Cable: The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, 6 Feet Under, Soprano’s, Curb Your Enthusiam,
TV: Star Trek Next Generation, Nova, Globe Trekker,
Gotta give some love to Star Trek: DS9. Combined with Next Gen and the original series, they are the most complete vision of a progressive future that we’ve ever had. Growing up they fundamentally shaped my worldview. I was also a big nerd as a kid, which helped.
I don’t have time to stop and sort through it all right now, but I know that Tremé belongs at or very near the top of the cable list. I’ve never seen anything as beautiful or elegiac as that show. No other show ever makes me want to cry like that.
Network: Star Trek and 60 Minutes, also for their cultural impact. I’d also throw in X-Files (at least in its less cheesy episodes). Colombo wasn’t exactly a series, but it was seminal, too.
Cable is in full flower these days. The Wire for sure, also The Sopranos. I’m glad Six Feet Under was mentioned, and I’m tempted to throw Dexter in as well. Then, what do you do with British shows (via BBC America)? The revived Dr. Who franchise is outstanding (and thoroughly subversive). On that front, the revived Battlestar was quite good, too.
And I’m not sure exactly what category it falls under (fittingly enough), but Monty Python’s Flying Circus has to be somewhere in these lists. Nearly 40 years on I can still recite some riffs line for line.
I meant Columbo. The Peter Falk series, not the capital of Sri Lanka…
Network:
Buffy
The Shield
Twin Peaks
Friday Night Lights
Justified
Cable:
The Wire
The Sopranos
Battlestar Galactica
Mad Men
Babylon 5
I won’t claim that these are the best, but hey, I like them. Caveat: I don’t have cable. I watched some cable shows on DVD, but I have missed some drama shows that I’m sure are good.
Broadcast:
The Avengers
The Prisoner
Rumpole of the Bailey
Hill Street Blues
The Mole (best damn 24/7 game show ever)
honorable mention:
Doctor Who (v.2)
Reilly: Ace of Spies
I, Claudius
The Sandbaggers
Yeah, I like Brit TV.
Cable:
Mythbusters
Junkyard Wars
Battlebots
Network:
Buffy
Frontline
Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show (1 1/2 hrs?)
West Wing
Cable:
Breaking Bad
The Wire
The Sopranos
Six Feet Under
Mad Men
I’ll add “Perry Mason”
Perry, Della and Paul in b&w
Personal favorites:
Star Trek
The X files
Thirtysomething
Er, last time I checked, Weeds was a half-hour show.
I don’t work so well with the “top ten list” school of criticism, but here are a few dramas* in 1-hour slots that I feel should at least be in the running, in addition to others already multiply mentioned:
* if we include non-fiction, the list would more than double just with stuff on Public Television. And then there’s mini-series, fictional and non, like Roots and Nixon/Frost… and yeah, long list.
Network
Tried getting into Person of Interest and Fringe but the shows on cable are so much more interesting they have to wait.
Cable
I watch all of these at my own leisure and thank goodness some are not in season because I would have a hard time deciding what to watch first. I know I’m missing a few.
Network
——–
Buffy
Nova
Family *
Gilmore Girls
Antiques Roadshow
Cable
——
Doctor Who
Mythbusters
Deadwood
Torchwood (excluding Miracle Day)
Good Eats **
* 1976-1980 show that I don’t think was ever syndicated so I’m guessing a lot of you never had a chance to see it.
** Not 30 minutes but neither is Weeds and the cooking is way better of Good Eats.
Best show that was canceled far too quickly and never given a chance by Fox:
Firelfy
Yes! The movie (“Serenity”) is great, too.
Columbo
Bonanza
The Smothers Brothers
Star Trek
Mitch Miller (“Be kind to your fine feathered friends…”
The Red Skelton Show
Leonard Bernstein’s Young Peoples Concerts
CBS Theater
Playhouse 90
The Twilight Zone: Because in its last year it went to the hour long format and bec two of the greatest episodes were an hour and bec TZ was simply the best tv show ever.
I Spy: two of the coolest dudes ever to team up on tv — Rbt Culp and Bill Cosby (he was the first black to have a regular co-star position on US tv) — usually shot on location in exotic foreign countries and at a time when foreign travel for the masses was too expensive. Dialogue seemed unscripted and natural like real life.
The Jack Paar Show (1963-6): Mostly for the warm and entertaining sit down interviews with major figures like Ustinov and Burton and Garland and RFK. Memorable episode with a young Cassius Clay reciting poetry accompanied by Liberace on piano.
The Ed Sullivan Show: bec it was so important in American culture and bec you never knew what crazy kind of plate-spinning act Ed would book or what kind of weirdness Ed himself would produce as the emcee. Strange guy.
Bonanza
The Smothers Bros
The Fugitive
The Invaders: architect David Vincent tries to warn the world about a menacing group of space aliens who have landed on Earth. Rumor has it that Mr Vincent was beginning to get close to the real truth and that he upset some mighty powerful people in our national
security establishment and so they forced ABC to cancel the show after only two seasons.
I didn’t include the Jack Paar Show because I thought it ran an hour and a half. You reminded me that he had a hour show after he walked off of the Tonight Show.
And of one of the great comedy items of all time: the documentary of the spaghetti growing culture of Italy. The harvest from the spaghetti trees.
Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In came about the same time and featured the Beyond the Fringe group, which included one very young Sir David Frost.
Another one I forgot was the Steve Allen Show, which featured the Man on the Street interviews with Don Knotts, Tom Poston, and Louis Nye.
Northern Exposure.
Sherlock – a BBC production set in present day, faithful to spirit of the literature
In Living Color – I loved that show, especially the music video parodies
Nova
Deep Space Nine
Forgot to mention:
Ripping Yarns from Michael Palin and Terry Jones
Northern Exposure
X-Files
the 1970s Dr. Who.
Mad Men.
I don’t watch a lot of tv anymore, so a lot of my picks are wicked old. Hill Street Blues was REALLY good for its time, glad to see that makes your list as well.
Anyone remember “Cop Rock”. That show was awesome, but only in the category of “Awesomely Awful TV”.
People forget because it became an extension of the Love Boat-cameo format, but the first season of Fantasy Island was outstanding.
I guess I have a little different taste than most of the rest of y’all.
SportsCenter
Modern Marvels
Deepest Catch
Survivorman
I have heard great things about The Wire, but haven’t seen it yet – thinking I might have to start checking the DVDs out of the library and giving it a look.
Best thing on tv in the seventies:
The Dick Cavett Show. Started as ninety minute late night talk show opposite Johnny Carson, on ABC. Most intelligent and entertaining unscripted show ever — probably why it was cancelled after only four yeas. Later incarnation on PBS as one hour show later in the decade.
Glad you mentioned Deadwood, Booman, as far too few got a chance to see it. In addition to incredible acting and writing, in my opinion the most radical show in television history, for its unforgivingly honest portrayal of capitalism in its purest most violent form.
My list (cable & network combined):
(1) The Wire
(2) Deadwood
(3) The Shield
(4) Sopranos
(5) Mad Men
Treme might eventually make it — though I thought the first season was better — and if we were including miniseries, Generation Kill and Band of Brothers are both up there.
Not even one shoutout for Gunsmoke? Shame! Or Law and Order?? Outrage!!
Hill Street Blues
It lasted one short season-PROFITT (it was about 2 years ahead of its time)
Cable
The Sopranos
Buffy – better watched on DVD in slam marathons in order to see the absolute writing genius of J.Whedon.
I got into Buffy late, and was able to see how brilliantly it was written and how he strung together the series.
Gilmore Girls