The Guardian's top 50 television dramas of all time

[editor]

So - what do you reckon to this list?

1. Sopranos
2. Brideshead Revisited
3. Our Friends in the North
4. Mad Men
5. A Very Peculiar Practice
6. Talking Heads
7. The Singing Detective
8. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
9. State of Play
10. Boys From the Blackstuff
11. The West Wing
12. Twin Peaks
13. Queer as Folk
14. The Wire
15. Six Feet Under
16. How Do You Want Me?
17. Smiley's People
18. House of Cards
19. Prime Suspect
20. Bodies
21. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
22. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
23. Cracker
24. Pennies From Heaven
25. Battlestar Galactica
26. Coronation Street
27. The Jewel in the Crown
28. The Monocled Mutineer
29. Clocking Off
30. Inspector Morse
31. This Life
32. Band of Brothers
33. Hill Street Blues
34. The Prisoner
35. St Elsewhere
36. The L Word
37. The Shield
38. Brookside
39. 24
40. The Twilight Zone
41. Pride and Prejudice
42. Red Riding
43. Oz
44. The Street
45. The X-Files
46. Bleak House
47. The Sweeney
48. EastEnders
49. Shameless
50. Grange Hill

I *loved* Our Friends In The North.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2010/jan/12/guardian-50-television-dramas

 

[HobgoblinMan]

This Life was the nuts!!!

 

[Belushi]

All good stuff though I would disagree with the ranking (as you're meant to with these lists)

 

[HobgoblinMan]

This thread will just turn into a "The Wire was much better than.... insert any of the of the top 13."

 

[Belushi]

I *loved* Our Friends In The North.

I thought the earlier parts were much better than the later ones.

 

[Dillinger4]

The Wire is number 14, so that list is factually inaccurate.

 

[stethoscope]

This Life and Queer As Folk my favourites from that list.

Loved Cracker and Oranges.... too.

 

[Santino]

I didn't rate Our Friends in the North that much. It was a bit of a box ticking exercise, like the author had seen one of those popular histories of each decade and just jotted down each notable development.

 

[skyscraper101]

Sorry but Brookside better than 24??!

 

[Santino]

Sorry but Brookside better than 24??!

24 lost whatever lifted it up out of sub-Mission Impossible parody after a couple of series.

 

[skyscraper101]

Whist storylines surrounding Jimmy Corkhill and his dog Cracker were the cutting edge of provocative drama?

 

[Superdupastupor]

The Shield -37 . ? List invalidated . Although to be fair I haven't seen most these shows.

 

[Lo Siento.]

no Life on Mars?

 

[editor]

no Life on Mars?

Exactly. That should have been near the top.

 

[HobgoblinMan]

No Magnum PI???

 

[butchersapron]

That list is pretty crap. No Edge of Darkness for starters (and there's plenty of other series in there with 6 or so episodes in there). Good to see thew Monocled Mutinerr in there though - now repeat the bloody thing BBC

 

[skyscraper101]

And how exactly is Buffy The Vampire Slayer better than Cracker, This Life, The Shield etc?

list fail

 

[Santino]

Whist storylines surrounding Jimmy Corkhill and his dog Cracker were the cutting edge of provocative drama?

As cutting edge as when Jack Bauer's wife caught amnesia and then regained her memory in a couple of hours, yeah.

 

[London_Calling]

You don't have to agree with the rankings, but absenting Deadwood entirely makes it a nonsense.

 

[kyser_soze]

That list is rperrty crap. No Edge of Darkness for starters (and there's plenty of other series i9n there with 6 or so episodes in there). Good to see thew MonocledMutinerr in there though - now repeat the bloody thing BBC.

They marked the titles out of 20 and we averaged the scores, discounting any series that failed to attract at least four voters on the *basis that these were the hobby horses of fanatics – not the greatest TV of all time. At this stage, A Very British Coup, Edge of Darkness and Tenko went by the wayside.

Well there you go.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I think I only rate 5 of those.

 

[butchersapron]

And how exactly is Buffy The Vampire Slayer better than Cracker, This Life, The Shield etc?

list fail

In every way possible.

 

[kyser_soze]

And how exactly is Buffy The Vampire Slayer better than Cracker, This Life, The Shield etc?

list fail

Because it was better? Certainly more innovative than The Shield and Cracker.

 

[DotCommunist]

Sopranos and Mad Men above the Wire?

Bullshit

 

[Voley]

Good to see The Singing Detective so high up the list. I still rate that really highly. Agree with The Sporanos being top, too. The most enjoyable thing I've ever watched on TV. Yes, BETTER THAN THE WIRE.

 

[kyser_soze]

Has anyone read the accompanying article? You'd see how, for example, The Wire only ended up at 14 (insofar as it's not universally popular with all the Guardian's critics, for example).

I also agree with Mad Men trumping The Wire.

 

[Voley]

I'd love to see The Monocled Mutineer repeated, too.

 

[The Octagon]

You don't have to agree with the rankings, but absenting Deadwood entirely makes it a nonsense.

Indeed. Would be in my top 5 of all time.

Shield should be higher, too many crap UK shows on that list too.

Surprised to see Buffy as high as it is (even though I love it), but it deserves it's place more than fucking Eastenders or Brookside.

 

[belboid]

pretty much all good drama's, unless your a total snob/imbecile. Even the ines that went crap at some point (most of them) had times when they surpassed nearly everything else on the telly concurrently.

There are a few absurldy 'overplaced' shows tho - How do You want Me? at 16, and how the fuck does A Very Peculiar Practise make 5? From a lot of Guardian correspondents being at uni with the writers I'm guessing

 

[DotCommunist]

A bunch of chainsmoking phalli working to sell people shit scored higher than the wWire. Not reading the article. So much for the grauns vaunted liberalism when they are clearly getting off on the gender inequality and naked greed of Mad Men


/stir, stir