Vote for up to five.
I’m interpreting “Bob Newhart (the first one)” as referring to the 1961 “The Bob Newhart Show,” and “The Bob Newhart Show” as referring to the 1972 sitcom; “Doctor Who” as referring to the 2005-present run, and “The Simpsons” as referring to that program’s best seasons.
AMC’s Breaking Bad is one of the best shows on TV, now or ever. It features Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm In the Middle) as an underpaid high-school chemistry teacher stricken with lung cancer, who starts cooking methamphetamine to provide for his family for after he dies. Vince Gilligan (of The X-Files writing and production team) is the creator and producer.
Likewise, how on earth could you not have included David Lynch’s Twin Peaks on this list???
Psst, Cyningablod, this is the final round of a multi-part, multi-week project. Don’t rock the boat! 
It would appear that this thread is your first exposure to an exercise that has been in the works for several months.
If you’re curious about which shows were mentioned along the way and which ones were left behind, you can find the answers in these threads (in chronological order):
03-22-2010, 08:28 AM
Your Favorite All-Time TV Shows
05-08-2010, 07:40 AM
The Best All-Time TV Show [vote for up to 10]
05-09-2010, 10:22 AM
Refinements to Top TV Show Polling
05-10-2010, 04:49 PM
Your Favorite All-Time TV Shows – Second Pass
06-01-2010, 07:23 AM
Your Preferred TV Shows (Section B) – Vote for up to 10
06-01-2010, 07:38 AM
Your Preferred TV Shows (Section C) – Vote for up to 10
Yesterday, 08:20 AM
Polls closing on “Preferred TV Shows” threads
I hope this answers your questions.
Didn’t see this before doing the look-ups for the thread above. Thanks!
- MST3K 2) Futurama 3) Firefly 4) The Simpsons 5) Dexter
Arrested Development, Lost, Frasier, and 30 Rock narrowly miss the cut.
I’m surprised The Shield didn’t make the final poll.
Yeah, The Shield and BB would have made my top 5 - sorry to see they didn’t make the cut.
I share your disappointment.
Maybe somebody else will see the flaws in the approach I have taken with this ordeal and will produce another slate of shows to vote on. There was at least one other thread in the past six months where a short list was provided to vote on and it didn’t have a single show I liked.
I’m afraid no poll of this type is going to meet the approval of more than half the Dopers willing to vote for such a thing.
And we wonder why such crappy movies and shows win Oscars and Emmys…
The leaders after 60 votes:
The Simpsons 20 33.33%
Arrested Development 15 25.00%
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 15 25.00%
Buffy 14 23.33%
Firefly 14 23.33%
Dexter 13 21.67%
Futurama 13 21.67%
Seinfeld 11 18.33%
The Sopranos 11 18.33%
M*A*S*H 10 16.67%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 60.
I went with:
Lost
Buffy
X-files
Battlestar
Firefly
My own choices:
Battlestar
Buffy
Lost
Simpsons
West Wing.
Doing a couple searches on “TV show” and “TV shows” over the past six months, the only one I found involving a poll was
Best TV show ever poll started 04-01-2010, 11:24 AM by fusoya
with these shows to vote on:
And although I didn’t have a favorite on that list, and therefore didn’t vote, at least those shows are doing well in this poll, so perhaps fusoya had a better idea!
If anyone is moved to do another poll with any (or all!) of the shows in the threads I started lately, it would be fine with me. Best of luck if you want to take on that project!
Back in the original thread in the OP I said:
The Sopranos
Cosmos
House
Nova
Deadwood
were my Top 5.
Over the course of these threads and polls I have had some changes of heart so that in this poll I voted:
The Sopranos
NOVA
Deadwood
Jeopardy!
The Wire
It’s worth noting that I hadn’t seen The Wire before these threads but the heavy voting for it (and some conversation in other TV show-related threads) got me curious enough that I’m into Season 2 from Netflix and have decided it’s also one of my favorite all-time shows.
Maybe similar service for others has come from this exercise.
If you have a story about getting impressed with a show’s performance in these threads and polls, enough to check it out somehow, please share.
To quote somebody in the past day or two:
The Top 20 after 97 votes:
The Simpsons 27 27.84%
Arrested Development 20 20.62%
Buffy 20 20.62%
Firefly 20 20.62%
Battlestar Galactica 18 18.56%
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart 17 17.53%
Dexter 17 17.53%
Seinfeld 16 16.49%
The Sopranos 16 16.49%
Futurama 15 15.46%
Jeopardy! 15 15.46%
M*A*S*H 13 13.40%
The Wire 13 13.40%
Deadwood 11 11.34%
House 11 11.34%
The Twilight Zone 11 11.34%
Doctor Who 10 10.31%
Lost 10 10.31%
Mythbusters 10 10.31%
The X-Files 10 10.31%
Multiple Choice Poll. Voters: 97
I’m waiting to see how the numbers shake out, but I’ll be keeping an eye on the top 20.
Right now the ones I haven’t seen are Dexter, The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Battlestar Galactica, and Lost. I refused to get into **Lost ** initially because I was convinced it was going to fizzle out in two seasons like Twin Peaks. Dexter and Sopranos seem like a lot of time to spend with psychopaths. Most of the buzz about Deadwood seemed to be about cowboys saying “cocksucker.” In my head, The Wire is hopelessly tangled up with The Shield, another show I haven’t seen. But I’ve yet to see a police drama I liked. (Well, I used to watch “Hill Street Blues.”) I think with Battlestar Galactica, the idea of taking lightweight entertainment and remaking it as something deadly serious turned me off. Didn’t they try that with Lost in Space?
Anyway, I don’t mean to bag on anyone else’s choices. It wouldn’t be right to criticize shows I haven’t seen. I’m just rambling a bit about why I haven’t seen them (and giving Zeldar a bump). Maybe this poll will convince me to check them out before it’s done.
If you want to get a good idea of those series you haven’t seen yet, the most painless way I know of is Netflix. Rent the first disk of each one and give several episodes a shot. If you get burned out – or pissed off – before that disk is finished, what are you out? A minor hassle. Plus, if you get hooked (and I would expect at least one of them would hook you) you’re on the way for more catch-up action.
There’s way more to Deadwood than cocksucker, for example.
(Thanks for the bump!)
Don’t think of The Wire as a police drama. It has cops and crooks but that’s its only similarity to any other crime show. This youtube video (the chess scene) is a good example of the flavor of the show.
Really surprised to see Babylon 5 get knocked out before the grand finals.
I share your grief.