by Jim Jividen

Created on: December 20, 2008   Last Updated: March 25, 2009

About six months ago, Entertainment Weekly put out an issue with lists of the best films and television series in the past quarter century:

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,20207076_20207387_202 07339,00.html

This struck me as obvious blog fodder; I like the lists; I've watched all the relevant films and tv shows since 1983.

And then eleven and a half years passed.

But here we are, at the end of 2008, and I have the 50 Best Television Shows of the Past 25 Years.

Here are the caveats:

1. It's actually 26 years. EW's list was '83-'08, given that their list appeared over the summer, they were essentially stopping at the end of '07, but I won't pretend that time hasn't passed.

2. It's actually 51 shows. Actually, with ties and two other, special cases, it's...57 shows. I have no good excuse for this.

2. As did EW, the only eligible shows are ones which did not debut before '83; so programs that started earlier and continued into the relevant period (Cheers, Hill St. Blues, St. Elsewhere, for example) are ineligible.

3. EW, although they didn't specify this, clearly was not just making qualitative judgments; Saved by the Bell was on its list of the 100 Best TV Shows and the Wonder Years wasn't. Be it considering social or cultural significance; EW was doing something other than saying "what was best, X or Y."

I'm not. This is my list of the 50 best shows of the past quarter century, regardless of other factors. Oprah, while as globally significant a show as the US has produced in the relevant period (oh yeah, except for one, all the shows are from American television; it's part of my cultural imperialism) does not make this list.

4. I tried to use the philosophy guiding the baseball (and coming soon, football!) list to inform this one; my bias, as reflected in the sports list, is for career value over peak - meaning that there's worth in playing 20 years even if the back ten are only average.

The philosophy here is a little different - there is value in longevity; a show great for five years has more value than a show great for one. I had a terrible time (actually, am still having a terrible time; I'm pretending I'm ready to put up the list, but actually, I could put any one of 8 shows at number one; I think I've finally settled on everything, but I could be making that up) in determing what to do with a couple of shows that I'm ranking very high given how few episodes were produced.

I think what I settled on was this:

Like sports - better to do something well for a long period

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