65 thoughts on “All-Time Greatest Television Shows..Statistically Speaking”

1. Hello, well I went through all the names of the shows and I believe that I watched on a steady basis 129 of the shows. Some I REALLY liked and others pretty good. My, that was a very long list but quite interesting. Thanks so much for the information.

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   1. Hey BERN1960…..thanks for counting the shows you watched regularly….129 is pretty impressive. I made sure to include one of your current favorites…Blue Bloods. I have fond memories you watching many of those 1970s shows like Mannix. Thanks for stopping by.

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      1. You are more than welcome. You must have spent A LOT OF TIME doing the research so I appreciate all your hard work. THANK YOU AND YOUR FAMILY FOR SUPPLYING ME WITH FOOD DURING THIS HORRIBLE CRISIS, IT IS GOOD JUST SEEING YOU ALL EVEN THOUGH WE ARE FAR APART. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.
         Facts: I figured out just today that I have been house bound since March 16th, except for a few short drives to drop off some mail at outdoor post boxes, drive up, put mail in box, turn around and come back home. Me and my car get out for a brief time……………….

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2. Let’s see… two of my favorites of recent years are at the top of the chart – Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, Twilight Zone is an all time classic and it’s nice to see Monty Python in the top 20 too. So far so good… but… Star Trek… the 1960’s classic all the way down to no.84 is hard to accept, especially when I see so many ordinary little known titles listed above it.

   I know they’re not American but 60s classics like The Prisoner and The Avengers deserved a place in a list titled ‘all time greatest tv shows’.

   I’d put them in the top 50, Star Trek in the top 10.

   My two cents. 🙂

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   1. Hey Steve. Just like the way we do our movie rankings, we use stats to try and get my personal preferences out of the equation. In the case of Star Trek (which is one of my all-time favorite shows)…it only ran for three seasons, got no Emmy wins, it’s review % is all the way down in 83rd or so place. Compared to lots of shows….that is not too impressive. Star Trek Next Generation performed a lot better….and got a spot in the Top 10. Glad some of your favorites top the charts and made the Top 20. I will add The Prisoner and The Avengers to the table latter today. Thanks for the suggestions, the visit and the comment. You are the man.

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      1. Hey Steve….The Prisoner and The Avengers are now on the table…thanks for the suggestions.

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3. The early good news is that 4 of my picks are in your top 20 and my quick impression is that most of my very top faves attract respectable to high review ratings from you. Fly in the ointment: James Drury IS The Virginian*** and yet you list supporting actor Doug McClure as the star of the series therefore betraying one of your own sons; how COULD you do that? for as the Duke would say “A prophet is without honour in his own hometown!” However overall once again very well done.

   ***Lee J Cobb as ranch owner and The Virginian’s boss Judge Garth gets first billing on screen [because of Cobb’s carry-over prestigious status from the big screen] followed by McClure and the rest of the supporting cast and finally specially billed is “and James Drury as The Virginian” and it is Drury who rides up to the audience to open each episode. Not since Angela Lansbury as Delilah have I seen such a potentially misleading reference on Cogerson!!!

   The series page on Wikipedia lists the cast in order of the importance of the characters to the series and Drury tops Wiki’s cast lists. Doug McClure was Trampas but in the TV series he was one of the good guys whereas in the big screen productions he was a baddie. Only The Virginian and Trampas were in all 249 episodes of the series.

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   1. Hey Bob. IMDb lists Doug McClure first…so I went with it…plus I am aware of Doug….not too aware of James Drury. So Lee J. Cobb was in that show…..he has an UMR page…that might trump Drury when I am playing with the table later today. Good information on The Virginian. I am sure I saw some of those episodes on re–runs…..just they did not stick like The Big Valley, The Rifleman and Bonanza did, Thanks for your thoughts on this experiment.

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      1. HI BRUCE

         IMDB is almost the worst guide as to who gets billing and/or has the main role in a production. For some reason it doesn’t reflect the true situation a lot of the time. Wikipedia usually does – religiously so and you should read its page on the Virginian TV series.

         Lee J Cobb was in the series for only 120 of the 249 episodes and was replaced by John McIntyre as the ‘father figurre’ of the series – ie Lee J was in just 48% of the series in a secondary role.

         Drury was the main man throughout and not to mention him is misleading. It wouldn’t make sense to anyone who is familiar with the show and would be a bit like not crediting Cooper or McCrea with the 1929 and 1946 big screen versions in which they respectively played The Virginian in the title role.

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         1. Ok….I ditched McClure….included Drury and Cobb….the only show that features two stars…..gotta include Cobb and his UMR link….we did our taxes yesterday….and the amount of money we lost from UMR was surprising and cause for concern for long term survival of this hobby.

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            1. The financial losses are worrying. Any proposals for improving situation?

            2. Hey Bob….working on it. On the positive side, our revenue in 2019 was our best ever. On the negative side, the creation of our LLC and the increased rates of our website provider have tripled and almost quadrupled the expense of running the website. Just seeing the net loss on paper was somewhat disturbing. So far 2020 is starting off with a bang…maybe next tax season will see a better result. Thanks for the concern.

4. BOB’s TOP 17 TV PRODUCTIONS IN BRUCE’s TABLE OF ALL-TIME GREATEST TELEVISION SHOWS
   1/Frasier
   2/Columbo
   3/Cheers
   4/Perry Mason [1957-1966]
   5/Quincy
   6/Diagnosis Murder
   7/Dexter
   8/McMillan and Wife
   9/Ironside
   10/Matlock
   11/The Virginian
   12/Maverick
   13/Downton Abbey
   14/The Crown
   15/True Detective
   16/Monk
   17/Kojack
   18/Streets of San Francisco
   19/The Rockford Files
   20/The X Files
   21/Lou Grant
   22/Black Mirror
   23/The Odd Couple
   24/Murder She Wrote – starring Hedy Lamarr
   25/Star Trek
   26/Criminal Minds
   27/The X Files
   28/Lou Grant
   29/Cold Case
   30/The 6 Million Dollar Man
   31/Knight Rider

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   1. Hey Bob…thanks for sharing this list of your favorite shows. I am right there with you on The Six Million Dollar Man (used to rock with a Steve Austin lunchbox), Star Trek (my mom and her Kirk devotion..got this on tv on the time), Dexter, Cheers (fun show….Woody Harrelson looks like a baby in that one), and The Rockford Files. Thanks for sharing your favorites.

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5. You’re going to have a lot of people who argue with your “The Office” rating!

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   1. HI BRUCE: “Vote Up!” The above is a highly comprehensive survey and ranking table which should keenly interest all serious TV viewers who follow your site whether or not they agree with certain of the ranking positions. In that respect at least you have as always paid them the courtesy of setting out with clarity the criteria for your conclusions.

      The mega table contains [commendably] much detail so that I will need time to consider it in depth but my initial impression is that it does not seem to contain quite as many western programmes as I personally would have expected given that in the 1950s thru the 1970s televisions seemed awash with cowboy series. However I haven’t yet got round to a genre statistical analysis.

      Anyway over the years I have enjoyed many of the productions that you have listed and whilst some of the ones that appealed to me in the past would no longer do so most of my personal Top 31 that I list in Part 3 still get my attention when reruns of them are aired. I have attempted to list the 31 in the order in which they have appealed to me though in most cases they are pretty close to each other in my affections.

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      1. Hey Bob. I would agree about the lack of westerns. I tried to pick shows that were on for more than 5 years. Granted some high impact shows like Star Trek made me bend that rule. One of my sources was a television book that listed the Top 30 shows by year…..I tried to use all the westerns that made those lists.

         As this is still a work in progress….let me know what western shows should be included. Steve has a couple of suggestions from England…so bring them on. I realize I forgot one of my favorites growing up….Starsky and Hutch…not to mention Lost in Space.

         Good 31 list. Thanks for checking out this massive “in progress” work.

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   2. Maybe so but it’s academic: he NEVER listens! even when you confront him about facts such as the real star of a show.

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      1. Hey From The One….the power of being the main editor….we listen to suggestions, we use the suggestions some of the time…but in the end ….the final factor is….does another UMR link exist that can be put into the column. It is all about ratings and views…..so much pressure on me!…trying to get this website to only lose a little bit of money versus losing a bunch of movie….I do not want WoC to pull the plug on this ever increasing expensive hobby…..lol.

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   3. Hey DoC1. Thanks for the heads up on my misspelling on Downton Abbey. I was so focused on how to spell Downton…and did not even think about Abby or Abbey. As for The Office….15th is pretty darn good…that puts it in the 96th percentile. Thanks for spot checking out this page.

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