TV (The Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time

by Alan Sepinwall, Matt Zoller Seitz

Overview

Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad? Is Cheers better than Seinfeld? What's the best high school show ever made? Why did Moonlighting really fall apart? Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible?

For twenty years-since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano's hometown newspaper-critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many more, but it all ultimately boils down to this:

What's the greatest TV show ever?

That debate reaches an epic conclusion in TV (THE BOOK). Sepinwall and Seitz have identified and ranked the 100 greatest scripted shows in American TV history. Using a complex, obsessively all-encompassing scoring system, they've created a Pantheon of top TV shows, each accompanied by essays delving into what made these shows great. From vintage classics like The Twilight Zone and I Love Lucy to modern masterpieces like Mad Men and Friday Night Lights, from huge hits like All in the Family and ER to short-lived favorites like Firefly and Freaks and Geeks, TV (THE BOOK) will bring the triumphs of the small screen together in one amazing compendium.

Sepinwall and Seitz's argument has ended. Now it's time for yours to begin!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455588190
Publisher:	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date:	09/06/2016
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	1,059,897
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.12(d)

About the Author

Critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been writing together since 1997, when they were paired up on the TV beat at the Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey, the newspaper at the end of Tony Soprano's driveway.
Matt Zoller Seitz is a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism, the TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, the editor in chief of RogerEbert.com, and the author of books on television and cinema, including Mad Men Carousel, The Wes Anderson Collection, and The Oliver Stone Experience. Alan Sepinwall is the TV critic for HitFix.com and the author of The Revolution Was Televised. Sepinwall's episode-by-episode approach to reviewing his favorite TV shows "changed the nature of television criticism," according to Slate, which called him "the acknowledged king of the form."

Table of Contents

TV (THE BOOK): The Introduction ix

TV (THE BOOK): The Explanation xiii

The Pantheon: The 100 Greatest Shows Ever

The Great Debate: How Do You Pick the Best Show of All Time? 3

1-10: The Inner Circle

The Simpsons 21

The Sopranos 31

The Wire 37

Cheers 42

Breaking Bad 47

Mad Men 52

Seinfeld 59

I Love Lucy 63

Deadwood 69

All in the Family 75

11-50: No-Doubt-About-It Classics

M*A*S*H 79

Hill Street Blues 85

The Shield 87

The Twilight Zone 90

Arrested Development 96

The Larry Sanders Show 99

The Honeymooners 102

Louie 105

The Mary Tyler Moore Show 108

The X-Files 110

Curb Your Enthusiasm 116

SpongeBob SquarePants 120

The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show 120

Twin Peaks 126

Lost 129

Buffy the Vampire Slayer 131

Freaks and Geeks 134

My So-Called Life 137

Oz 140

The Dick Van Dyke Show 142

Friday Nights Lights 145

NYPD Blue 148

Frasier 151

Homicide: Life on the Street 153

Battlestar Galactica 155

In Treatment 158

South Park 160

The West Wing 163

Mary Hartman, Mary Hart man 167

It's Garry Shandling's Show 167

The Jack Benny Program 167

Soap 167

The Andy Griffith Show 172

The Cosby Show 175

Moonlighting 180

Taxi 182

East Side/West Side 184

Hannibal 186

ER 190

Parks and Recreation 191

Roseanne 194

30 Rock 196

The Bob Newhart Show 198

Malcolm in the Middle 199

51-75: Groundbreakers and Workhorses

Miami Vice 205

The Office 208

St. Elsewhere 210

Community 213

The Golden Girls 215

Friends 215

Police Squad! 218

24 219

The Defenders 221

Gunsmoke 222

Sex and the City 224

Star Trek 227

Firefly 230

Law & Order 231

Maude 236

The Rockford Files 237

China Beach 238

Enlightened 239

Everybody Loves Raymond 241

The Wonder Years 242

Barney Miller 244

Frank's Place 245

Justified 246

76-100: Outlier Classics

Thirtysomething 251

Columbo 252

Futurama 254

The Outer Limits 256

Northern Exposure 257

Batman 259

King of the Hill 261

Veronica Mars 262

Cagney & Lacey 263

EZ Streets 264

Wiseguy 264

Gilmore Girls 266

Six Feet Under 267

Sports Night 270

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine 271

Batman: The Animated Series 271

Boardwalk Empire 272

NewsRadio 273

Picket Fences 274

Scrubs 275

WKRP in Cincinnati 275

How I Met Your Mother 277

Terriers 278

Works in Progress 280

A Certain Regard 306

Miniseries 351

TV-Movies 372

Live Plays Made for Television 380

Appendix 385

Acknowledgments 391

Index 395

Editorial Reviews

07/18/2016
Two of today’s best writers on television, Sepinwall (The Revolution Was Televised) and Seitz (Mad Men Carousel), join forces to rank the 100 greatest series in TV history. Within defined parameters (American shows, narrative fiction, complete runs—with minimal exceptions), both authors use a 10-point scale to score across six criteria (innovation, influence, consistency, performance, storytelling, peak) in order to determine ranking. They also include essays for each selected show (some essays cover multiple shows) and synopses highlighting themes, strengths, and weaknesses instead of linear plot points (though plot spoilers are sometimes included). The authors write as both incisive cultural critics and enthusiastic fans. Their essays will no doubt inspire debate and the reading equivalent of binge watching, with readers promising themselves to put the book down after just one more essay, but finding the lure of the next too attractive. Sepinwall and Seitz also include lists of great shows still running (therefore ineligible); of random TV bests (theme songs, cliffhangers, mustaches, etc.); of shows that they esteem, but that didn’t make the cut; and of miniseries, made-for-TV movies, and filmed plays from TV’s early days. The result is a treasure trove for TV fans. Agent: Amy Williams, the Williams Company. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"I hate Top Ten lists and am existentially opposed to numerically rating television shows, so this book is my worst nightmare! You should buy it anyway, because Alan and Matt are shrewd, witty, and insightful critics, even if they are wrong about Cheers being better than 30 Rock."—Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker

"What fun to dive into a book that not only inspires but invites debate over your favorite TV shows. Which ones truly deserve to be in the Pantheon? Which ones did or didn't make the cut? Any book that celebrates everything from The Sopranos to Rocky and Bullwinkle gets my attention...and deserves yours."
—Leonard Maltin, film critic/ historian

"It's the Golden Age of TV, yes, but TV: THE BOOK shows we are also in the Golden Age of TV criticism. In the same way so many of us made Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide or Pauline Kael's or David Thomson's review collections our film bibles, readers will be poring over this magnificent volume for years to come. An essential, provocative, and irresistible tome from two of our greatest critics."
—Megan Abbott, bestselling author of The Fever and You WillKnow Me

From the Publisher

10/01/2016
How does one choose the greatest American TV dramas and comedies of all time? Critics and authors Sepinwall (HitFix.com; The Revolution Was Televised) and Seitz (RogerEbert.com; Mad Men Carousel) attempt to do so in this compendium of their top 100 shows in history. They base their selection on a program's innovation, influence, consistency, acting, and storytelling, as well as the peak period of its run. Drawing from 60 years of programming, the authors conclude that The Simpsons, The Sopranos, The Wire, Cheers, and Breaking Bad are the best five shows. The subsequent list reflects their longtime knowledge of the TV industry and draws on the work they did together covering television for the Newark, NJ-based newspaper The Star-Ledger. They explain why each of the choices deserves to be included in this list, which they call "the Pantheon." All genres of dramas are considered, from police procedurals to sf to family-centered shows. Likewise, different types of comedies ranging from live-action sitcoms to sketch comedies to animated series are taken into account. Interspersed throughout the book are quirky "best of" lists, such as TV's greatest hairstyles, cars, spies, character names, teachers, and mustaches. VERDICT A fun read for TV fans and aspiring media critics alike.—Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

Library Journal

2016-07-04
What should we watch?Prominent TV critics Sepinwall (The Revolution Was Televised: The Cops, Crooks, Slingers, and Slayers Who Changed TV Drama Forever, 2012, etc.) and Seitz (The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel, 2015, etc.) assemble a canon of the 100 greatest (American, narrative fiction) TV shows of all time. After an introductory chapter exhaustingly detailing their selection process—their attempt to definitively rank such classics as The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, and The Simpsons devolves into a Talmud-like complex tangle of historical, social, aesthetic, and personal considerations—the authors present their choices in a series of essays that concisely and insightfully identify each show’s distinctive virtues and place in the history of the medium. There is little here to inspire much argument; the authors’ choices are largely buttressed by conventional wisdom and critical consensus, though an emphasis on contemporary programming may raise a few eyebrows. Superlative lists—e.g., “Best Mustaches,” “Best Houses,” “Most Important Hairstyles,” “Most Awesome and/or Ridiculous Names”—add little to the reading experience, as they chiefly consist of titles presented without further comment, but appendices covering limited series and TV movies provide useful supplementary material. Only shows with completed runs were eligible: a chapter on currently produced shows that bear watching for future inclusion evidences the authors’ good taste (Broad City, Transparent), but again, their selections will ruffle no feathers. Perhaps the book’s most engaging chapter, “A Certain Regard,” which gathers programs not pantheon-worthy but liked by the authors “for some strange reason or another,” suggests a more interesting direction: critics at the top of their craft going out on a limb rather than affirming the commonly accepted classics. A well-reasoned and engaging—if ultimately unchallenging—summary of the best television has to offer.

Kirkus Reviews