"TV (The Book)" gives an excellent breakdown of the Greatest TV Shows of All Time.

I love to read well written pieces on cinema, and recently with the rise in quality of television shows, some really good work has been written about the TV shows that aspire to push that format's artistic boundaries.

This book breaks down the 100 greatest television shows of all time, but what is fascinating is how they assigned numerical ratings to various factors, like consistency of quality, how innovating it was, how influential it was, and more. (The link breaks down examples of all these things.)  But reading this book, it really makes you appreciate how great some television shows were that I watched decades ago, enjoyed, but didn't realize how special it was.  These reviewers point out exactly why some shows I knew were great but wouldn't have thought so because I only knew of them as repeats sandwiched between less impressive shows on a weekday afternoon.

Not many people realize that "The X-Files" was the first show that split between serialized and anthologized storytelling. And how big of a deal this was, since most networks were overly concerned with how valuable the show would be for syndication, and studios were certain a show that required you to watch it each week or fall behind, would never be a big ratings hit.  ("Deep Space Nine" was the only Star Trek series that said we're going that route too.)  (Also of note, only the X-Files and the old Batman tv show dared to make a feature film at the same time as the series was airing.)

I appreciate well written insightful reviews, and the author's writing is great, such as the line about how there were a lot of police shows before "Hill Street Blues", but every police show after it was never the same because of it. "Veronica Mars" season 1 is a master class of how to do a season long mystery arc right. And the idea of "Terriers" wasn't special, but the execution absolutely was. The show is impossible to describe without it sounding like something you've seen a hundred times, but it wasn't.  

Or how unlikely a concept the wonderful "Hannibal" was, with the creator of "Pushing Daisies" offering a take on the very famous characters, after 4 novels, 5 films, and dozens of copy cats. And any sane predictor would assume the show would be both too silly and too violent to last more than a few weeks, with a 'catch a new psycho each week' type of structure. Not to mention he had been portrayed by two actors whose work was so strong that people argue over who was greater. But we don't care, so here is a brand new actor we're going to drop in... and then this guy somehow managed to successfully incarnate every preposterous assertion made about Lecter in the books. Many moments in this show are so peculiar, revolting, perverse, and altogether bizarre that the very notion of Hannibal's airing on a traditional broadcast network seems laughable. And yet it did so for three years!

"The Shield" had an ending so powerful, so unflinching, and so very much a culmination of the entire series, that it retroactively made everything that came before it better. Without that finale, The Shield is still a great show. With it, it's one for the ages.

"Star Trek" dared to exist in a time of an 'intergalactic peace', when our country was in such turmoil that most Americans thought we'd never not be at war with someone, if even just ourselves. "Miami Vice" was the most aggressively cinematic drama made up until that time, and was a visually musical show where style, mood, and imagery were more important than plot. "E.R.'s" secret was that it was less a hospital drama than an action show.

For Fargo, It's the difference between a cover band and a tribute act whose original material not only evokes the original but frequently lives up to it.  Not once, but in two full completely different tv seasons. It had no business working. None. Its very existence should have been considered a joke. Who is his right mind would think to take the Coen brother's most acclaimed movie, a pair everyone would love to imitate but no one can, even after the series had already been tried in the late 90's? Yet somehow Noah Hawley found a way to create a series that exists in the movie's universe, with the same tone, and frequent nods to other Coen films, and still manages to tell its own story with its own characters.

"Freaks and Geeks" - NBC had under contract at one time Seth Rogen, James Franco, Jason Segel, Paul Feig, and Judd Apatow, who's films have made more than 5 Billion, and won several Oscars, and threw them away in a perfect show lasting one season, and didn't even air three of the eighteen episodes. It's like the time Decca passed on the Beatles to sign Brian Poole and the Tremeloes.

"Homicide" always had at least three African American cast members at any one time, plus several other recurring actors of color playing cops up and down the ranks, meant the series could casually do something unheard of at the time: put multiple black characters together in scenes, featuring no white characters, that had nothing to do with race. It definitely dealt with racial issues, but characters didn't have to be defined by them. Again, unheard of in 1993.

They point out shows like "Arrested Development" and "Police Squad" that failed because tv viewers needed to be attentive. And how "Scrubs" was the rare successful 'dramedy', that could go back and forth in a single episode between drama and comedy, in ways even "Mash" never accomplished. Actually, from tragedy to absurdity and back again, which sounds impossible, but it managed it almost every week for eight years.

"Moonlighting" The audience didn't flee because they got bored after David and Maddie hooked up; they fled because the final seasons went out of their way to keep them apart and everyone got frustrated waiting. Good luck telling this to many modern TV comedy writers who've taken it as gospel that Moonlighting went from phenomenon to fiasco overnight because audiences prefer their romantic gratification to be perpetually delayed.

Only a few shows appear here that I had never heard of, like HBO's "Enlightened" or 1963's "East Side/West Side" starring George C Scott. Reading their one page breakdown of it, I'm rather shocked it isn't talked about more.

A few times they mention how a show was overall only so-so, but one particular season was so spectacular that the season alone deserves special mention. (Homeland season 1, Dexter season 4, and seasons 2 of Chuck and Sons of Anarchy, come to mind)

"The Wire"'s structure owed a bit to both journalism and police work. It kept adding new characters, stories, and communities that were at once separate from and connected to the rest, like precinct maps or sections of a newspaper. The still constant use of Simpson's quotes in daily like has supplied a sentiment for every occasion, so many that it now gives the King James Bible a run for its money. The two phases, or ages, of "Cheers" (Diane and Rebecca) feel like childhood and adulthood.

There are even special chapters listing the greatest miniseries of all time, the greatest made for tv movies ("Duel"), and plays made into TV events.

This is a really good book, full of smart writing, interesting takes, and about subjects you think you know all about, but don't.

https://www.theringer.com/2016/9/1/16044200/deadwood-hbo-tv-the-book-dadb4007790e

By Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz