Looking at a list of the best anything ever is a fool’s game, unless it’s the best season of Freaks and Geeks ever or best Germs album with a blue circle on the album cover ever. Then it’s fine. Otherwise, you know you’re going to be mad, and that you would have done a better job, and, seriously, Friends is the best TV show ever? This makes me mad. In conjunction with having the cast of Modern Family dress up as characters from Breaking Bad and Married… with Children, the Hollywood Reporter asked thousands of Hollywood “insiders,” including “779 actors, 365 producers, and 268 directors,” to name their favorite TV shows.
It’s about what you’d expect. Fun trash like Full House is higher than Sesame Street and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, there’s a heavy nod towards contemporary shows that haven’t been on very long (True Detective, Orphan Black, Orange Is the New Black), and The Wire and Buffy the Vampire Slayer ranking below The Big Bang Theory is a war crime. Dexter coming in at No. 37 is fine, if you imagine the entire show is just one big treadmill fall.
The top 10 is as follows:
10. The Simpsons
9. Mad Men
8. I Love Lucy
7. SNL
6. The Sopranos
5. Seinfeld
4. Game of Thrones
3. The X-Files
2. Breaking Bad
1. Friends
No offense to Friends, which was a good show for a couple of seasons blessed with a fantastic cast (and David Schwimmer), but it’s not “better” than The Sopranos, let alone the funniest show ever, The PJs, I mean, The Simpsons. (Happy Endings is a superior hangout sitcom.) Oh well, at least it wasn’t Modern Family? They’ll have to make do with their 900 Emmys.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
