The world of Oz was so vicious that even the relatively benign prisoners - audience surrogate Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen), Black nationalist Kareem Saïd (Eamonn Walker), or third generation inmate Miguel Alvarez (Kirk Acevedo) - would be tempted into heinous deeds over time. Simmons), menacing gang leader Simon Adebisi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), the predatory Chris Keller (Chris Meloni), and many more. There was sadistic white supremacist Vern Schillinger (J.K. Elsewhere and Homicide: Life on the Street vet Tom Fontana, Oz took place in a maximum security prison that housed some of the nastiest humans depicted on television, before or since. It’s a hell of a list.īefore The Wire, before The Sopranos, there was Oz, the canary in the coal mine for the idea of scripted dramas existing outside the broadcast network ecosystem. But voters couldn’t resist many standouts of the past few years, including a tragicomedy with a guinea-pig-themed café, an unpredictable comedy set in the world of hip-hop, and a racially charged adaptation of an unadaptable comic book. Many favorites returned, and the top show retained its crown. (See the full list of voters here.) Giving no restrictions on era or genre, we ended up with an eclectic list where the wholesome children’s television institution Sesame Street finished one spot ahead of foulmouthed Western Deadwood, while Eisenhower-era juggernaut I Love Lucy wound up sandwiched in between two shows, Lost and Arrested Development, that debuted during George W. Once again, we reached out to TV stars, creators, and critics - from multihyphenates like Natasha Lyonne, Ben Stiller, and Pamela Adlon to actors like Jon Hamm and Lizzy Caplan as well as the minds behind shows like The X-Files, Party Down, and Jane the Virgin - to sort through television’s vast and complicated history.

So, we decided to update our list of television’s all-time best offerings, originally compiled in 2016. How do you identify the very best series in a medium that’s been commercially available since the end of World War II? Especially when that medium has experienced more radical change in the nine years between the finales of Breaking Bad and its prequel, Better Call Saul, than it did in the 60-odd years separating Walter White from Milton Berle? The current Peak TV era is delivering us 500-plus scripted shows per year, many of them breaking boundaries in terms of how stories are told and who’s doing the telling.

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