# TV shows with the highest signal-to-noise ratio.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [January 4, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167 "2016-01-04T18:04:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [January 29, 2016, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/21 "2016-01-29T23:53:06Z")
Other than the finale, I’m having difficulty thinking of a bad episode of _Seinfeld_.
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### Author:  [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/22 "2016-01-30T00:00:32Z")
I think that Modern Family is very consistently high-quality. Of course, I haven’t seen many of the later episodes, mostly the first three or four seasons.
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### Author:  [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/23 "2016-01-30T00:18:45Z")
Seasons 3-8 of the Simpsons were freaking incredible. It’s still a very good show, but during those years the writers were freakily hot. On fire. And in a good way.
Also, the Emma Peel eps of The Avengers were consistently sharp, funny takeoffs on the spy genre. They set a high mark.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/24 "2016-01-30T00:23:37Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#):
>
> _Yes Prime Minister_. Every episode is funny and endlessly quotable. In contrast, _Yes Minister_ had the occasional unfunny episode (_The Death List_ comes to mind). I think my preference for the former may be a function of familiarity, though; there are lots of things discussed in _Yes Minister_ that didn’t really exist by the time I was old enough to appreciate it - like fallout shelters.
Never in a million years would that have come to mind for me, but I think it’s a perfect answer.
Also: The Wire.
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### Author:  [@galen\_ubal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galen_ubal)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/25 "2016-01-30T00:45:16Z")
My wife and I just finished binge-watching _WKRP In Cincinnati_, and it’s even better than I remembered it. Four seasons, and I can’t think of a single bad episode.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/26 "2016-01-30T02:30:15Z")
I love _Archer_ but, man, it had some dogs of an episode (hell, I’d say the entire Vice season). Same with _It’s Always Sunny_. I find that really hit and miss lately. I probably agree with _Arrested Development_–there’s not really a single episode I didn’t enjoy, but there were about two or three episodes in the second season that were a bit shaky, especially the Uncle Jack episode. I definitely agree with _Peep Show_.
Offhand, I also don’t remember many bad episodes of _Mary Tyler Moore_ or _The Bob Newhart Show_.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/27 "2016-01-30T04:35:17Z")
_Friends, Seinfeld_ and _Frasier_ almost always made me laugh.
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### Author:  [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/28 "2016-01-30T05:52:31Z")
Law and Order:Criminal Intent for me
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### Author:  [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/29 "2016-01-30T07:18:31Z")
IT Crowd is amazingly consistently great. Peep Show also.
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/30 "2016-01-30T15:26:19Z")
Cheers was consistently good.
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### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/31 "2016-01-30T15:54:12Z")
_Cagney and Lacey_ has not aged well, but when it was new, it was quite original. There was an episode where Lacey had to talk her Lt. into taking a date rape case seriously there was another where a woman was under suspicion of murdering her father, and C&L were stymied for a motive until they began to suspect he had molested her, and it turned out that he was about to be remarried, to a woman with two young daughters. They also made frequent visits to the police lab, and there was plenty of CSI-type stuff involved in thre detective work-- again, all very dated now. It’s fortunate the acting is so good, because it keeps the show watchable.
I have not seen\* Lou Grant _in years, but I seem to remember it was both original, and tightly plotted, not to mention well-acted. Again, it may not have aged well_, but as far as satisfying the S:N ratio, I think it does. It was quite original in presenting “slice of life” stories, which confused some viewers, who just saw the plots as unresolved, but eventually people got it. Sometimes you were plopped down in a story without much background information, and had to infer it from context, and then the episode was over, but there were still lingering questions.
\*I remember one episode where the office computerized, and everyone had a “DVT” or something on their desk (digital video terminal, I guess), hooked directly to the mainframe, and they were all supposed to use it, and no one had access to anything that would allow them to backup on floppy disks. And, of course, no one is saving as they go; they write a whole story and then save once, because there’s no training on how to use the computer. Naturally, it fails during a power outage, and everyone loses the story they are working on, except the one Luddite who was insisting on still using a typewriter. But every show from about 1968-1982 had an episode where a computer screws up and causes some huge problem.
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### Author:  [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/32 "2016-01-30T16:12:15Z")
Kim Possible
Daria
What can I say? I have a thing for quippy, animated high school girls.
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### Author:  [@epbrown01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown01)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/33 "2016-01-30T17:15:43Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#):
>
> Kim Possible
> Daria
>
> What can I say? I have a thing for quippy, animated high school girls.
I’d agree with **Daria** but Kim Possible was dragging things out at the end.
**Person of Interest** is strong all the way through. I have some favorites (“God Mode,” “/,” “If/Then/Else,” “Relevance”) but I can’t think of any I’d avoid re-watching. Impressive since Finch annoys me no end.
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### Author:  [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/34 "2016-01-30T17:27:13Z")
_Fawlty Towers_, though, again, it’s a series of few episodes.
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/35 "2016-01-30T18:00:07Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#):
>
> _Fawlty Towers_, though, again, it’s a series of few episodes.
This is an excellent example. Every episode is gut-busting funny.
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### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/36 "2016-01-30T18:43:37Z")
Practically every British mini-series that was on _Masterpiece Theater_, except I don’t know if the ones based on novels count. But definitely the original ones, like _Upstairs, Downstairs_, and _The Duchess of Duke Street_.
Oh, and _Absolutely Fabulous_. It’s tricky, because repeating phrases a lot is one of Jennifer Saunders shticks, but it works, and it doesn’t constitute “noise” in that particular case.
In theater, there’s something called “throwaway dialogue,” which means that the semantic content is unimportant: the point is how either the delivery, the accompanying business, or how the upstage/downstage (or stage left/right) contrast plays out, and _Ab Fab_ has a lot of throwaway dialogue, but that isn’t the same thing as noise.
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### Author:  [@JustinC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustinC)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/37 "2016-01-30T19:33:22Z")
Just finished bingeing on _The Wire_ and every episode was excellent, I binged on _The Sopranos_ back in 2010 and couldn’t watch any other series for six full months, _Yes, Prime Minister_ is brilliantly written and, according to those in the know, the most realistic portrayal of life in the government of the UK, _Spaced_ is excellent all of the way through but much too short, _Ab Fab_ is another favourite, also _The Office_ (British) was so innovative, _Blackadder_ was achingly good, _Men Behaving Badly_ lots of fun, as was _Breaking Bad_, _Frasier_, and _Fargo_ was excellent (although I haven’t seen the second series yet).
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### Author:  [@davidm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidm)
#### Post date: [January 30, 2016, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/38 "2016-01-30T21:08:23Z")
The second season of Fargo was also good all the way through. I personally didn’t think it was quite as good as the first, but that still leaves a lot of room for greatness.
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### Author:  [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2016, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/39 "2016-01-31T16:50:10Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#):
>
> Big Bang Theory.
That’s a joke, right?
The Big Bang Theory can still be funny these days, but some episodes aren’t and too many use annoying plotlines. It’s not consistent at all.
Survivor is the opposite of consistent, but in a strange way the fact that when it’s bad it’s _so_ bad is a good thing, because that way you appreciate it more when it’s good and it ratchets up the tension when people are about to make a (stupid) decision.
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### Author:  [@typoink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/typoink)
#### Post date: [January 31, 2016, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tv-shows-with-the-highest-signal-to-noise-ratio/742167/40 "2016-01-31T23:28:24Z")
I think Silicon Valley might be the only show I’ve ever seen where there isn’t a single episode I don’t love. Admittedly, it’s only two short seasons in, but still. Very, very good.
Peep Show also has an incredibly high signal to noise ratio, and also has the extremely rare distinction for a sitcom of having some absolutely fantastic episodes in its last season.
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