[There Can Be Only One] What's your single favourite TV show?

The greatest TV show of all time, Star Trek: The Next Generation.

I grew up on it so I feel like I'm pretty nostalgic about it but watching it helps me reinforce my value system. It taught me young that our differences are what make us strong and that we can triumph against great odds if we can learn to accept each other and work together. In a world where violence and hate seem so prevalent every day, that message hits a lot harder than it did when I was a kid. Throwing on an episode of TNG lights up that little spark of hope I have left for our species. Well, as long as it's not episode 4, Code of Honor. Lmao.

The Wire. It's the best TV show ever made and will almost certainly always be that. Nothing else comes close.

Band of Brothers

Burn the land, boil the sea, you can’t take the sky from me….

Star Trek TNG

It's almost impossible to say just one because the other 2-3 that I thought about just hit different depending on my mood. Comedy vs drama vs Sci fi etc.

Yeah it's hard to choose. I'll probably go with Chernobyl, because there's no bad episode, and everything from the writing, acting, to the score and cinematography is amazing.

there's a lot of clever, tightly written, whimsical comedies out there but the venture bros reigns supreme

Better call Saul. Such a great character study. Fun high jinx. Every major character has an arch. Deals with corruption, justice and revenge. The choices they make, where it leads them, and how they reckon with it. It was the show breaking bad tried to be.

The one show I can always hit shuffle on and as long as it's before Browder it's gonna be good, Stargate SG1.

Stargate SG-1.

I'm not saying it's always better than every other show, but it's my personal warm feelings favourite ♥️

Ted Lasso. The tempo and overlapping subplots interspersed with rocketship sized fireworks - it's like a song.

I'll go with "The Good Place".

To me the show has everything. Comedy, Surprise, deep emotions, and it even is educational. If also is full of positivity, which in today's times seems harder to do right.

Where lesser shows might have drawn out the ideas over multiple seasons, they constantly moved on from one setting to the next.

And they nailed the finale.

I'd have chosen Firefly, I never get tired of it, and I just love it.

So many other amazing shows though, a few already mentioned in other comments, like BSG would be a close second to Firefly.

But there are some shows that haven't been mentioned and I think they deserve it just as much. And because having to choose only one would make me regret losing these other ones, here they are:

Breaking Bad, it absolutely fascinates me and I just can't get over the character development and the writing and acting from the whole cast.

And probably the newest show that for me is on the very top, and actually I must admit it might have gone past the other ones (except firefly), Arcane. Everything about it, I love. The writing, the animation, the music, the characters, the world building, the character growth, ...

If I choose Firefly, I'd regret not choosing Arcane, but I just can't not choose firefly.

‘Bojack Horseman’. Outstanding in every way, and the only series that I've watched twice without a twenty-year break inbetween. Also the only show where I needed to slow playback down a bit to get all the jokes, instead of my usual 110% speed.

Expanse

I fell in absolute love with Scavenger's Reign.

It will always be Babylon 5.* Great writing, great characters, great storytelling, and the ability to go from light and humorous to deep and meaningful or tragic and somber without any of it ever feeling out of place.

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* OK, obviously I would like for something even better to come along and replace it, but I'm not holding my breath.

Battlestar Galactica (the new one).

Then probably MASH.

Archer. Even if you include the 3 "coma seasons" it's still some of the most consistently funny TV there's ever been.

I would say the original Battlestar Galactica has a special place in my heart. As a kid watching it, I couldn’t believe it — it was like having Star Wars in my home. The production spent money on the first half of the season, and it showed.

True Detective Season 1. I have never watched a better show than this although there are many good ones out there as well

There's so many good ones it would have to be Red Dwarf for me though.

With Spaced in second place.

If they didn't try to subvert expectations by royally fucking up season 8 so badly that it ruined the entire show for me, it would have been Game of Thrones.

So instead I'll say Avatar the Last Airbender. Honestly an amazing show, and to this day its the only show I've managed to rewatch without getting bored and dropping it.

Father Ted. Man, I miss that show. The humor was just so dry and on the nose.

As always to this, Babylon Berlin

If I could only pick one and it were to be "locked in" for life - I'd have to go with Deep Space Nine.

I understand why people say Babylon 5, but for me it's a bit too "rough around the edges" to be an all time #1.

I could argue DS9 is a bit of a cheat answer due to it being Star Trek, however even if it were in a vacuum I think it'd still be my number one. There are just too many singular episodes that stand out with a great overarching storyline to boot.

Night Court

Columbo.

The Goodies. Irreverent comedy with large lashings of brilliant slapstick. It was my childhood.

For comfort and warmth, I might have to go with a sleeper: Joe Pera Talks With You.

But Deadwood is way up there, too.

It has to be Mad Men, which I've watched all the way through three or four times, definitely three at least.

The Wire is the best, IMO.

I'd most likely go for something I have a deep connection with though: Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, or Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Actually, I'll pick Aqua Teen Hunger Force. It's endlessly fun every time I watch it.

Ted Lasso. It’s such a feel good show.

Firefly, even after the deluge of post-marvel Whedonesque slop that has worn away some of the charm of the banter. Only a little bit though, it's fortunately not quite the same.

It managed to slip in just before they killed off episodic story telling for genre shows, but just after there was a very noticeable increase in production quality. So it's got that rewatch factor nothing made after like 2005 has but without my girlfriend rolling her eyes at sets and costumes that were designed to be viewed on a tiny 4:3 CRT.

Obviously there were other episodic genre shows made in this weird interstitial period but none have nearly as many banger episodes, even those that got additional seasons.

Star Trek: TNG

Still stands, the Picard monologues are famous.

If I am allowed to pretend it went off the air after season 8, I’ll go with the Simpsons.

For me personally it's gotta be Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Such a fantastic story, and one of the few shows I've gone back and re-watched several times. Even got my gf, who is not into anime, to love the show too, though her favourite remains Avatar The Last Airbender.

Honorable mention to Pantheon too, that one kinda broke me for a couple days. Just wish we got a bit more of the show so season 2 didn't have to be as rushed.

I was at first leaning toward Bojack Horseman, but after thinking it over, I have to say Babylon 5, too. That has a lot to do with how I experienced it.

I first heard of it before it even aired, because they used Lightwave on the Amiga for the CGI sequences. I think I still have the VHS tape from the first airing of The Gathering. It turned out to be an interesting show. I quickly forgot about watching for the CGI, and found myself watching for the story.

Not only that, but the shows creator engaged fans directly during production on CompuServe, and later, Usenet. (That was totally new at the time.) Since it was back in the ancient times, episodes aired once a week. We fans had plenty of time to discuss each episode, and speculate about where it was going.

Then, And the Sky Full of Stars hit like a ton of bricks. ("Wham! Wham! Wham!" as JMS liked to say online.) The story, the imagery, and the music just created the perfect storm of grief and dispair, and we got the full treatment of what it meant to have a 5-year story arc. (Oddly enough, I just realized that it was also the 8th episode of Bojack in which that show demonstrated real depth, and started to get really good.)

As the show continued, my personal life fell apart, as major depression took hold. I don't quite recall when I stopped being able to catch it when it aired, or why. (I think it moved to cable after PTEN folded?) But it wasn't until years later that I watched the 5th season, when I was scrabbling out of the deep hole of depression.

Holy hell. Getting to the series finale was emotional enough, but That Scene hit like 20 tons of bricks. It was played well, yes, but I had known these characters for literal years by then, learned what they'd gone through, felt the weight of all that they had done and felt, and I cried for a long time. And it was amazing to feel anything so deeply, which is why the show will always be special to me.

In many ways, I think that the streaming format robs us viewers of something vital. Binge-watching doesn't allow time for the characters and stories to really settle in your soul. And then there's no social group to share the experience with. I didn't watch Game of Thrones when it was new, and I know that the experience wouldn't be at all the same now. I did binge The Good Place last year, and the effect was like a summer thunderstorm—intense, but brief. It's a great show, but didn't affect me so deeply. As such, I'm glad I watched Bojack when it was new, to be able to share the experience online with other people. It was made for streaming, and the season-at-a-time release, so it couldn't be any other way, but nothing will quite match the experience of a dedicated fan base and weekly episodes.

Party Down.

Aside from the fact that it's consistently well written and funny, it's also very accurate in my experience. I used to work in hospitality/event catering when I was younger and we all had some kind of reason why we were temporarily working in the industry. No one gave a fuck except the manager/supervisor, who would always be extremely stressed and wishing everyone else would put in the same amount of effort as them.

James Burke's Connections

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincenzo_(TV_series)

Took me a little while to get used to the wild humor related tone swings, but the characters, plot, action, drama, and revenge are amazing.

Go team venture!

Chris Carter's Millennium, from the late 1990s. The first season was not great, the third season was lousy, but the second season was spectacular!

Gotta be a three way tie between star trek the next generation, person of interest, and the X files. Heck your rules

I'm french so the answer is extremely easy. It's kaamelott

That's difficult, and the answer would change over time because picking a "favorite" is as much a product of what the mind is like at the time of asking as it is from an objective internal perception of favorite.

That being said, narrowing it down some helps.

First, ima wipe out anything generated by a streaming service. That narrows the field a lot, and it's no more arbitrary than any other criteria to do so.

Then, ima wipe out any serial shows that didn't get a finish of a reasonable kind as part of the original run. That's because I can't genuinely highly rate a show that isn't over. The story is "pending" for me, and that always makes a show a disappointment. It does, unfortunately, eliminate firefly since its "ending" wasn't aired. By aired, I mean shown on a network of some kind, be it cable or actual broadcast over the air. I also exclude anything not yet finished because how a show ends matters.

This eliminates thousands of shows, so I can maybe process things.

As contenders, there's wide range. Winnowing those, I have to factor in repeatability. If the show suffers over repeated viewings for me, that's a major loss. Something like Bones as an example, that I liked well enough when it was being aired, but has killed almost all enjoyment of it when watched one episode after another over a few weeks.

So, I have to decide if I want to include or exclude shows that aren't serial. Now, I can automatically eliminate sitcoms because even the ones that are properly serial can't hold up for me. But there's sketch comedy ala snl and madtv. There's stuff like the Twilight zone as well. Because of the quality of sketch shows and anthologies, I gotta leave them in. But they're usually prone to more full on bad episodes than other types, so it leaves gaps.

All of which, nobody but me really cares about, but I'm bored and wanting to think this through in writing.

It does lead me to a few finalists though. Buffy has to be in there, though its ending was barely an ending, but counts enough. Monty Python has to be as well; even the weakest episodes still make me laugh. Trek has to be a possibility, but which iteration? Then there's quantum leap that manages to be nostalgic without feeling super dated (unlike a show like knight rider that's still fun, but really feels less enjoyable than it did in its era).

Since narrowing Trek down is nigh impossible for me, I think that disqualifies any individual series from making the grade. Tos and tng are just too closely tied to pick one.

Quantum leap though, damn. I've seen it front to back a dozen plus times and still enjoy it, even with the era's proclivity towards cheese.

However, Buffy manages to be cheesy and it not (for me) trigger the rueful chuckle, so I guess that bumps leap down a notch.

That essentially leaves me picking between Buffy and Python.

Which one I'd cue up first isn't certain on any given day. That being said, I think the fact that I could always just shrug and default to Python if I didn't know what I was in the mood for bumps it into favorite status for me.

Yeah, that's as good an answer as any other.

I will say that some shows, like the walking dead as a perfect example, could push those down if the overall series hadn't been mismanaged.

Then there's shows like Dr Who that I've spent more years and hours watching, but suffer from a ton of bad sections that make it hard to weed out; I'd have to pick a favorite doctor to be honest with myself about the show's overall enjoyment factor. Like, Tom Baker era, or the Tennant/Smith era, they top Buffy for sure, but those are small segments of the show as a whole. Plus, the show technically hasn't ended only individual eras have.

Loooota caveats in there though lol

Probably DS9 with Babylon 5 as close 2nd, or the Simpsons

The Andy Griffith Show. Genuinely funny show, with a great heart. Barney Fife, played by Don Knotts, is literally the funniest character ever on TV.

From. I just love that show and cannot wait for new seasons!

Probably Farscape even though I am not too sure it aged well. Following would be Buffy and Stargate SG1.