The Mofo Top 100 Television Shows

30. The Shield
29. Black-Adder II
28. Futurama My favorite American animation (in all senses), specially the episode where the dog awaits for his owner.
27. Deadwood
26. Community
25. Star Trek: The Next Generation Great sci fi series, not as good as Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 though, suffers from episodic writing and TV cliches.
24. All In The Family
23. Monty Python's Flying Circus
22. The Office
21. Sherlock
20. Dexter ++ Really great serial killer series that suffers from excessive number of seasons. I strongly identified with the main character.
19. Friends Overrated
18. The Twilight Zone
17. Band of Brothers Should have been higher.
16. Mad Men Boring.
15. True Detective
14. Lost ++ In my top 30 TV series list and for a reason. Excellent series for people between the ages of 13 to 20.
13. Fawlty Towers
12. South Park - My second favorite American animation. Suffers a bit from lacking in elegance though.
11. Buffy the Vampire Slayer (for the first 3 episodes, dropped it because it felt too cliche)
10. The X-Files
9. Arrested Development Slightly overrated but still great comedy.
8. Firefly (for the first couple of episodes, I would need to watch the whole thing though, specially considering how well regarded it is)
7. The Sopranos - (almost a full blown masterpiece, it's suffers a bit from the slow pacing/episodic nature)
6. The Wire Only watched the first season but I didn't find it very interesting though I would be interested in finishing the series.
5. Twin Peaks (for the first season, did not capture my full interest)
4. Game of Thrones - (like The Sopranos, great series but suffers from a problem: kill'en all syndrome)
3. Seinfeld (best comedy series ever made)
2. The Simpsons (slightly overrated, still very good for the first 8-9 seasons or so, after that it's around 6/10 show for me)
1. Breaking Bad + (totally deserves first spot, if I were to list my top 10 series right now it would be 9 anime and Breaking Bad).

Sad that Babylon 5 didn't make it, it's the best writing ever in a multi season show in english speaking TV IMO, among my top 2 english TV series together with Breaking Bad. Suffers from bad acting and dated special effects but it's greatness shines through these flaws. Among my top 12 English TV shows, 11 made it, among my top anime shows, only 1 made it but they are obviously obscure to everybody besides anime buffs. Among my top 2 Brazilian soup operas, none made it but they are probably less accessible to English speaking audiences than anime or maybe not: A guy from Albania said that his friends were addicted to O Clone:



Although overall soup operas suffer from overacting, bad direction and bad quality writing given they make 200 episodes in 300 days! Still, some manage to transcend these limitations and become great shows despite the low quality on a per frame basis (if compared to Breaking Bad, for example).

Yeah, it kind of sucks how Babylon 5 gets lost in the shuffle when it comes to talking about great shows. A lot of comments in this thread were pointing out how shows like The Wire or Game of Thrones wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for The Sopranos, but personally it's hard not to think about how Babylon 5 provided a blueprint for The Sopranos itself through its tendency to build complex multi-season arcs over consecutive episodes (The X-Files was arguably doing the same thing, but its main storyline was always stretched out by the various "monster of the week" episodes, which notably became fewer and fewer on Babylon 5). I guess the space opera setting is enough to make a mass audience write it off as a cheesy Star Trek knockoff.

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Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

Babylon 5 still has the best writing on any English speaking TV show I remember watching. But that's because best means "geekiest". It talks about a huge number of sci fi themes like how wwe see ants in the same way more advanced civilizations might see us. I love that kinda of stuff.

I plan to watch all of Firefly because it's one of the few major English speaking sci fi shows which I haven't watched more than 10 episodes of.

I'm glad to hear your guys mention Babylon 5. I had that show high on my list, I think it was in the top 10. I like it so much I bought it on DVD.

I gave 21 points to it. You gave at least 16 points. One more vote and it would have made it.

Unfortunately, there aren't many more than 10 episodes of Firefly. I sure wish it could have made it for the planned five seasons. Too bad it didn't get its start on another network, it may have made it.

Guap, I would have voted B5 even higher but I'm a dyed in the wool Star Trek fan so I placed the various ST series higher.

Did you have the Outer Limits 1995-2002 anywhere on your list?

Never heard of that one. 1960's black and white science fiction? Looks interesting.

I really want to watch some more Outer Limits. What I saw was really good.

I, too, have never understood all the love for Craig Ferguson...he was funny on The Drew Carey Show, but his talk show really didn't do anything for me.

OMG, Jeffrey Tambor looks SO young in that photo...I didn't know he was ever that young, LOL!

James Corden is playing the Baker in the new movie Into the Woods with Meryl Streep and Emily Blunt, which is opening wide on Xmas day.

Helen Hunt is a brilliant actress...I think she won five Emmys for her work on that show

I went to a met game @ Shea Stadium once...there was a 5 hour rain delay...we got very drunk...I don't remember who won.

I watched a bunch of Outer Limits after you reminded me of it a couple of weeks ago. Great stuff. Thanks!

Thank you for mentioning the finale of Will & Grace...loved the show but hated the finale with a white hot passion...could not get behind the fact that Will and Grace spent 18 years apart and then their children ended up going to the same college...huh?

Totally agree with you regarding Karen Walker, one of the funniest sitcom characters ever!

I never got all the love for Friends either.

Hey Guap - The first season of Buffy is pretty rough. If you have given up on watching the whole run, which is totally understandable, I would request that you watch the season 4 finale, Restless. That one episode shows the creativity and depth of the show's creators, and also pokes fun at the show itself, which Buffy was known to do from time to time. I think that would give you a much better idea of how good that show could be. I am not a big fan of the initial episodes of that show, really. I think you will appreciate Restless a whole lot more. It's just 40 minutes and then you are done!

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Christine glad you liked it! Did you watch the older B&W Outer Limits from early 60s or the latter one?

I have all of the 60s Outer Limit on DVD. I like to get the 1995-2002 series.