Evangelion is in my opinion the single greatest TV show ever made. This opinion is based on several elements:
1) Evangelion was a TV show that reinvented TV animation and influenced a huge amount of Japanese (and East Asian in general) cultural products in the decades since. It is the single most influential animation ever made (even more than any Miyazaki or Disney movies) given its direct influence on thousands of TV shows made after it as well as novels and other forms of fiction.
2) It is a very rare case of an auteur TV show: Hideaki Anno's directional style is a huge part of the show's success and the whole show is his own creature: the main character is his avatar and the show is an expression of Anno's deep feeling of self-hatred. This show is a work of art in the strict sense as it was not purely a commercial product.
3) But, it was commercially hugely successful. It is kinda like a TV show version of Star Wars meets Tarkovsky: it is deeply personal art that takes itself almost too seriously but at the same time it is pulp science fiction with giant monster and teenagers. It set the template for this "dark anime" genre that is still popular.
It is true it is more flawed than most great TV shows. Later anime shows made in the same style were superior to EVA in terms of the quality of execution (shows like Lain, Texhnolyze, RahXephon, and Madoka to name a few) but EVA has a certain raw and visceral emotional power that is lacking in any other show I have ever watched (from Brazilian soup operas, to American sci fi shows to tons of similar dark anime shows). That is because it was a personal expression of uncompromising self-hatred by the director.
It is not my favorite TV show, but it would be the TV show that I would choose to "preserve" as an example of the power of 20th century TV to someone in the future.
The first TV series I've ever watched for the sake of being critic were The Sopranos.
By the end, I though: Not that good, I don't understand all the attention, even glorification.
Now, ever single series I watch is only a reminder of how good The Sopranos really were.
I think that The Sopranos are a gold standard in terms of the typical American episodic drama series. However, the kinds of series I enjoy the most tend to be more on the edge like Breaking Bad or Babylon 5 (in their own different ways) and I personally do not find this mafia/gangster activity particularly entertaining.