Variety breaks down the best TV shows of all time. From The Sopranos to Community, these are the best series ever aired.
'...53. Six Feet Under
HBO 2001-05
The difficulty in looking at the legacy of “Six Feet Under”? Five seasons of exceptional television are inevitably overshadowed by 10 minutes of perfect television. Creator Alan Ball’s series follows the lives of the funeral home-operating Fisher family and those in their orbit, while exploring both the profound and the mundane in death. The final moments of “Six Feet Under,” a succession of emotional jolts underscored by a soulful Sia ballad, felt in the moment surprisingly daring. But, looking at a series that for its entire run had been keenly observed but startlingly openhearted, one might say that the show died the way it lived.
50. My So-Called Life
ABC 1994-95
It’s rare for art made by adults to perfectly nail the angst, anguish and hope of being a teen. While series like “Beverly Hills, 90210” were giving high schoolers a glossy, sexy view of adolescent life, Winnie Holzman’s “My So-Called Life,” which starred Claire Danes as 15-year-old Angela Chase in lovelorn pursuit of her crush, Jordan Catalano (Jared Leto), offered something more grounded and tangible. The show’s sole season is distinctly of its time, but “My So-Called Life” has something for teens (and former teens) today too. It’s a series about thrilling and heart-wrenching experiences — first love, coming to understand your parents and trying to understand your own frenzied emotions.
32. Lost
ABC 2004-10
What’s in the hatch? Who are the Others? Where did that polar bear come from? Yes, “Lost” hooked tens of millions with tantalizing mystery box questions like these. And yes, many of the answers showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse ultimately provide don’t quite live up to that fervor. But what made the show was its vibrantly rendered characters, dozens upon dozens of them — Hurley (Jorge Garcia) and Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin (Daniel Dae Kim), Locke (Terry O’Quinn) and Ben (Michael Emerson) — all striving to make sense of their upside-down circumstances within an expansive, rip-roaring, fabulously weird adventure. It was a flawed show, sometimes deeply so, but between its characters and, yes, those damned questions, “Lost” engaged its audience like no other, precipitating the online ecosystem of fevered fan theorizing that dominates how so many of us experience our favorite shows today.
21. Game of Thrones
HBO 2011-19
There was no bigger television show in the 2010s than HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy novels. Created by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the fantasy epic pulled viewers into the cutthroat world of Westeros, a land rife with myths, legends, warring families and magical dragons. It was an enormous undertaking and a feat: Despite its relatively humdrum ending, “Game of Thrones” redefined television with its depictions of violence, sex and gore, and with its frank assessment of what it takes to rule. The series examined the universal lust for power, and within its spectacle drew complex portraits of the people who would tear the world apart for their chance to sit atop the coveted Iron Throne...'
