Best Written TV Programs of All Time (article)

[TheZoof]

http://www.wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=4925





Discuss.

[SquidPuppet]

Deadwood at #32. x 1,372,007,369,014

[stvn1974]

Any great writing for The Sopranos or Lost is invalidated by their terrible final episodes so they should be disqualified from being on the list at all.

[Starpower67]

I don't know that I can take any list serious, where Sex and The City beats Game of Thrones.

[principehomura]

'The Wire' should be #1, and we all agree on that.

'Buffy TVS' deserves on of the highest positions, maybe even #2.
'Cheers' is waaaaay too high (imho 'Frasier' is better).
Also 'Breaking Bad' is too high: certainly it's not better than 'The Shield'.

[FREYMAX 3D]

What? No Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender series on the list???! lol. Actually, it was an awesome series for being an animated show...

Anyway, Fringe should be in there somewhere, I think.

[Walts Ghost]

While I may not agree on some of the placements, I agree with many of the shows on the list. A lot of them deserve to be there.

[djgeneral]

Originally Posted by principehomura

Also 'Breaking Bad' is too high: certainly it's not better than 'The Shield'.

BB is not high enough. It is easily top 10, and will probably be top 5 once the series ends, especially if it ends better than Sopranos, etc.

[Tony208]

just garbage, disregard

[Hucksta G]

Sopranos would be my number one, too, glad that Mad Men and The Wire made the top ten, too, all deserving IMO.

[CIBartowski]

Originally Posted by Starpower67

I don't know that I can take any list serious, where Sex and The City beats Game of Thrones.

They even have the nerve to place The Simpsons over Game of Thrones

[Hawkguy]

Originally Posted by CIBartowski

They even have the nerve to place The Simpsons over Game of Thrones

... and I do think it's a bit ridiculous to place all these old sitcoms on the list. Sure, we love them...but can you really say they're well written? I doubt most of them are (outside of a few). I certainly don't see why so many are placed above modern dramas.

[jayembee]

Originally Posted by Walts Ghost

While I may not agree on some of the placements, I agree with many of the shows on the list. A lot of them deserve to be there.

That's pretty much my take on it. As much as I liked The Sopranos, I really can't see it as the best-written show of all time. As time goes on, I feel less and less inclined to pay attention to ranking things (though, being a hypocrit, I do indulge in the practice now and then). If they just said, "Here's the 101 best-written [American] TV shows of all time," and put them in chronological or alphabetical order, I don't think I'd object so much.

The other problem with the list is in pitting shows from earlier decades against recent shows. Though some older shows like the original The Twilight Zone and Star Trek have virtually never been off the air, I have to wonder how many of the WGA members voting on these have actually seen any episodes of Playhouse 90 (#65!?!) or The Defenders (#84!?! WTF?!?). They'd've better off grouping them (again, without rankings) by decade or pair-of-decades.

[hagios]

Move I Love Lucy up!!! show, very funny on almost every episode(& that's a lot!).

[dissention]

Bookmarking this so I can pull it up whenever I'm feeling blue and need a hearty laugh.

[Todd_Gaines]

The Shield changed basic cable tv forever. It should have been in the top 10.

[BJKH]

Mad Men at number 7
Boardwalk Empire at number 93

[bootsy]

Originally Posted by Todd_Gaines

The Shield changed basic cable tv forever. It should have been in the top 10.

I agree.

[r_webb18]

Id rather see a list where everything in its own group

dramas
comedy
kids stuff

It's to hard to combine everything and most people haven't seen half the stuff on it.

[Nice Guy Eddie]

The Shield is not number one on their list, therefore their list is complete horseshit.