The Greatest TV Shows Of All Time

Empire have complied their list of the 100 greatest shows of all time. If you want to see full list of 100 shows click here: See below for the Top 10

Here for you argumentative pleasure is the top ten TV shows according to empireonline.com

10) DOCTOR WHO

1963-1989 / 2005-present Sydney Newman, Verity Lambert and the others who brought the world's most famous time-traveller into existence knew what they were doing when they turned the need to replace the lead into one of the canniest ways to reboot and refresh the show. And so Doctor Who has kept going – albeit with a 16-year blip – for more than 50 years. Evolving from the days of cardboard sets and plastic monsters (which, let's be honest, were a big part of the show's charm) to the much more polished, but still incredibly fun version of today, generations have grown up watching the series, delighting at the idiosyncratic main character and running scared from the various creatures the Doctor outwits. It's a series that prioritises brains over brawn, shoots you off to the far corners of the universe, and is still not finished reinventing itself. What's not to love?

9) LOST

2004-2010 Few TV shows gripped viewers' imaginations quite like this hybrid of Swiss Family Robinson and Twin Peaks. A byzantine central mystery intertwined with character-centric subplots (expertly embellished through the use of flashbacks, flashforwards and eventually flash sideways) kept audiences captivated and spread the focus across the entire ensemble cast. But aside from the host of colourful characters – from earnest Jack to cocky Sawyer, cunning Juliet to bug-eyed Ben – it was the ever-deepening mysteries that kept us coming back: what did the numbers mean? What was the black smoke? Who were The Others? And just what the heck were the "rules" anyway?

8) BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER

1997-2003 Imagine, for a moment, a world where the only version of Buffy was the movie. Terrifying, isn't it? Fortunately, Joss Whedon reclaimed his knowing, meta stab at horror movies with the TV incarnation, casting Sarah Michelle Gellar as the cheerleader-turned-chosen-one supernatural slayer and launching a thousand memorable lines of dialogue. Buffy excelled because it ran real-world struggles through the medium of fantasy and horror, giving us great villains, romantic entanglements that felt painfully honest, and a Scooby gang we'd all hang out with. Plus: monsters.

7) THE OA

2016-2019 Commissioned by Netflix from talented indie filmmakers Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij in an attempt to prove streaming services could branch out in unexpected directions, this complex, twisty tale of parallel dimensions, kidnapped test subjects and a calculating Jason Isaacs burned brightly, acquiring a devoted following along the way – a fan base that was devastated to learn of its untimely cancellation with a giant cliffhanger left unresolved. Not all shows deserve to be brought back to life, but The OA certainly does – with Marling anchoring the series as the haunted, powerful Prairie, it melded the weird with the wonderful and it would have been fascinating to see where it was going to go.

6) THE WEST WING

1996-2006 For a long time a walk-on part in The West Wing was the pinnacle to which all jobbing TV actors aspired. Smart and funny, Aaron Sorkin's political drama showcased the writer's gift for rapid-fire dialogue and layered, politically resonant storylines, proving that television could be funny and insightful all at the same time. The series took a temporary downturn after Sorkin's departure at the end of Season 4, but rallied soon after with a number of surprising changes to both character roles and format. It all came to a natural close at the end of President Bartlet's second term in office, but The West Wing remained one of the most intelligent shows on television throughout its run and a comforting image of what a more benevolent White House could look like.

5) FRIENDS

1994-2004 How is it that a certain digital TV channel can show this quintessential '90s sitcom on a virtual loop and it doesn't get old? Or that Netflix can have a juggernaut hit with it, decades after its original airing? It's because Friends, at its best, is as perfect a sitcom as you will find. In its earliest days, the adventures of six beautiful New York-dwelling pals who apparently earned money by drinking coffee featured writing much sharper than the cuddly exterior suggested. Even when the quality dipped a little mid-run, the ensemble remained perfectly matched and the best comedy collective on TV.

4) THE WIRE

2002-2008 David Simon famously once said that he intended The Wire as "lean-in" television, a show that you couldn't watch while folding clothes or dusting the mantlepiece. His Baltimore-set series demanded your attention, its slow-burn storytelling never less than totally compelling. Simon crafted a series that skips the usual procedural tropes, looking instead at the linked worlds of cops and criminals in a way that highlights the humanity clouded by labels. High stakes, big emotions and even a scene conducted almost entirely with the use of the F-word are all part of the reasons why this show became one of the greatest. Later seasons expanded the focus to other areas – politics, the school system, and newspapers, to name a few – but the laser accuracy remained the same. The ensemble cast (the likes of Idris Elba and Michael B. Jordan among them) never put a foot wrong. If you've somehow never got round to watching it, lean in – you won't regret it.

3) THE SOPRANOS

1999-2007 Those who tuned into the first episode of The Sopranos in 1999 found not a documentary about opera singers but a dark, offbeat drama about a New Jersey gangster with a fixation on the ducks who visit his swimming pool. As the first season wore on, viewers became hooked on creator David Chase's uncompromising vision of an old-school criminal organisation beset by all the stresses and tensions of the modern day. It's not hard to figure out why: Chase and his writers locked in on what made Tony and co. work. James Gandolfini delivered a career-best performance as our way into the show, while the family and "family" around him anchored stories that poked below the gangster surface to what made these people truly tick. A fusion of sharp, unpredictable writing and powerhouse acting means The Sopranos' classic status endures.

2) GAME OF THRONES

2011-2019 TV – and the lesser restrictions/bigger budget allowed by HBO – really was the only place Thrones would have worked outside of George R.R. Martin's books. And even then it was a juggling act given the sedate pace of the author's output. And yet despite the challenges of striking out on its own narrative, featuring significant changes from the printed page, much of what people enjoyed about Martin's mixture of fantasy and grimy medieval politics remains firmly intact. Thrones at its best was almost untouchable: huge effects sequences, battles with real stakes and, powering it all, characters that you cared about, whether they were talking about morality or shoving it aside to light up an entire sept full of enemies. With a cast led by the likes of Peter Dinklage, Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Thrones is full to the brim of all the death, betrayal, laughter and dragons that you might wish for. The climax may have divided opinion, but it's hard to imagine what will fill the void now that the show's over.

1) BREAKING BAD

2008-2013 "It doesn't get really good until Season 2," people said. "Stick with it." The first season was not without its moments, and it laid key groundwork for Bryan Cranston's Walter White to later descend from family man to soul-shucked demon, but the second season was when Vince Gilligan's astonishing, gripping, often plain harrowing show really took off. There followed murders, plane crashes, betrayals, ferocious set pieces, indelible dialogue ("I am the one who knocks!") and meth – enormous quantities of meth. A fall like this in a character takes time to chronicle, and the Breaking Bad team stepped up to that, meticulously crafting each turn and shooting the show as though it were a cinematic offering. From claustrophobic crawlspaces to wide desert vistas, the show never looked less than amazing. And it wasn't just Cranston's show, either: Aaron Paul blossomed as Jesse Pinkman (originally intended to die early, he became an integral element), while the rest of the cast brought real life to the characters. At the beginning of the bingeing era, here was some Class A, seriously addictive television.

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