Transcript of The Best TV Shows of the 21st Century

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Here in 2026, TV is now firmly a prestige art form with big stars, auteur creators, and huge production budgets. And it's become absolutely central to the cultural conversation. So, to commemorate that evolution of TV over the last quarter century, my colleagues here at The Times undertook a little project. They contacted over 1,000 TV luminaries. showrunners, writers, actors, and asked them to pick their favorite TV shows of the last 26 years. And they heard back from a lot of them. People like Lena Waithe.

BoJack Horseman is like this crazy experiment that shouldn't have gone awry.

Adam Scott.

The Good Wife is that legal procedural, but it cuts way deeper.

And Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner. I loved Orange Is the New Black the minute I saw it. Then they took all that data and compiled a list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century, a list we've been slowly rolling out over the course of this week. But now the whole thing is officially out, which means that the fun part can start— picking that list apart. And that's what we're here today to do. I've invited 2 of my colleagues to the show, Gilbert Cruz, who's our canon editor, and James Poniewozik, our chief TV critic. Both of them are TV fanatics, but neither of them picked the shows for this list, which means that they are free to debate it as much as they want. It's Sunday, September 27th. Jim, Gilbert, welcome to The Sunday Daily. It is wonderful to have you both here.

Thank you for having me.

It's great to be here.

Okay. I've set everything up in the intro, what the list is, the fact that neither of you can be blamed for it.

Yeah.

High five, Jim. Thank you.

I think the thing that we should do is just dive right into the list itself. Give the people what they want. I want to focus on the top 10 shows and what they tell us about what's happened in television over the last 25 years or so. I think we should start with numbers 6 to 10. and we'll save the top 5 for later in the show. Gilbert, would you please give us the 10th to 6th best TV shows of the 21st century, as voted on by our respondents?

At number 10, we have Atlanta. At number 9, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Number 8 is 30 Rock. Number 7 is Veep. And number 6 is Game of Thrones.

The first thing that grabbed me about that rundown is just how many comedies are in there.

Yep.

There aren't actually a lot of comedies in the top 5. And I don't mean to sound like Larry David here, but I do love complaining. It's one of my hobbies. And so I do want to start with a complaint. Why are the comedies in the lower half of the top 10? Why aren't they in the top 5?

Oh, my God. I have an opinion on this, and I know Jim has a very strong opinion on this. And what I'm gonna say is, yes, some of the titles that are 10 through 6 are comedies. But I think something that this top 10 shows overall is that there's a way in which great shows always mix comedy and drama. I think if—

I knew you were gonna say that.

I'm gonna say it 'cause it's right. If you look at Atlanta, for example, the number 10 show, it is a comedy. But some of the creepiest, most dramatic episodes I remember watching through that period came on Atlanta.

Congratulations. For what?

I choose you.

You're my sacrifice.

Conversely, if you look at some of the episodes from the top 5 shows, they are of laughs, even though they are dramas. So, I think sort of dividing it in that way, I think it's a little bit more complicated than that, with all due respect.

Jim?

Um, it actually surprised me that there was this much comedy in the top 10.

Why?

You think of a lot of the most talked-about television shows as being dramas from this period. On top of which, you have that sort of ingrained bias. You know, you look at the Oscars, you know, dramas win Best Picture, comedies, it's an honor just to be nominated. It honestly was a bit of a surprising showing to me that this many comedies, or dramedies, or quasi-comedies, or part of it's comedy, made as good a showing there. And to me, part of that is, I think, because people develop an affection for these kinds of shows.

Mm-hmm.

And maybe that gives them a little more staying power. I think one very big and interesting question within television of the past quarter century has been, you know, how funny does a comedy have to be?

Right.

You know, do you really define comedy as just, you know, the highest number of jokes per minute?

Yeah, no, but I mean, you can't deny that there is a particular joy to a show that is only trying to make you laugh. Gilbert, around this project, you talked to a bunch of people who cast ballots for the best show. I've been watching these interviews, and so many of the responses talk about being bowled over by just how many jokes are in a single episode of 30 Rock. Like, particularly the comedy people that you spoke with. I remember Brett Goldstein from Ted Lasso, and Joel Kim Booster, and Jesse Armstrong, who created Succession. They are all so clearly enamored with 30 Rock.

The amount of genius jokes per second is infuriating. I think the jokes per minute on that show are probably the highest of most comedies, certainly higher than a lot of comedies that are airing right now.

I almost find it painful to watch. It's so brilliant in its density of jokes.

Okay, I was going down some very enjoyable YouTube rabbit holes in prepping for this conversation, and I found, I think, what is the perfect example, which I'm gonna play for you. Tracy Jordan, played by Tracy Morgan, is talking to his doctor, Dr. Spaceman, AKA Dr. Spaceman. Here we go.

Tracy, you are going to die.

What? No!

When I tell you who I'm dating, Squeaky Fromm, she is difficult. Anywho, I have the results of your physical. Tracy, you are going to die.

What?

No!

You have no reflexes, your blood tastes like root beer, and some of your bones appear to have vanished.

I— the reason I think this is the perfect example is that I think there's 6 jokes in 10 seconds. Like, every single thing that was said minus one word is a joke.

I didn't understand the phrase joke density, which a lot of people used in reference to this show, until I watched 30 Rock. The idea that Every joke maybe has 3 punchlines within it. Lemon, you look terrible. And I once watched you eat oysters while you had a cold.

We had him, Jack, and we lost him. So Kenneth and I had to spend the rest of the afternoon trying to think like Tracy. I ended up eating a swordfish dinner at a strip club, and Kenneth grabbed a cop's gun and shot a blimp.

Oh, tomorrow's not a good day.

There's something a little bit overwhelming about it. That's what I will say. For the people that might not have this in their very top, it's like, You know, it's a lot. I mean, it's hilarious. It's also a lot.

You know, I will say 30 Rock is one of these shows that I just mentally quote lines from and jokes from to myself over and over again. You know, Siri, kill Jenna. I also think that that is a difficult thing to pull off successfully. And, you know, for me, that's a thing— I'm going to offend some of our listeners, but it turns me off about a show like Family Guy, for instance. You know, I think that there is a line where, you know, if you are the unending joke machine, you end up with Family Guy. But, you know, 30 Rock, I think, also had a take. It had things it wanted to say about the media and the culture at the moment. And it was funny, and it always had something to say, which, you know, I think is the difference between a show that you will laugh at and then immediately forget, and a show that sticks with you.

I'm just interested with this one where you guys would've put 30 Rock on your list.

I'd have put it in the top 100. Top 50.

Wow.

Well, I mean, look, we're talking 26 years here, right? That's an average of less than 4 shows per year. To say that, you know, something would be in the top 50 is to say that, you know, it would be one of the best 1 or 2 shows of like 1 year out of those 26.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Jim. Because I say now to all of our wonderful commenters, you're like, why was this show so low? on our list. Brothers and sisters, like, being number 80 in a period when thousands and thousands of shows have come out across English-language TV, that's quite impressive. And so, I probably would've put 30 Rock in my top 10, but I am a simple man, not as sophisticated as Mr. Poniewozik here.

Okay, I want to talk about a show that I personally would've put in my top 5, which I think is very different comedy-wise, I think, than 30 Rock, which is Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Why do I have to thank you?

For dinner that my husband and I treated you to.

Oh, I thought he treated me to it.

It's like one joke that lasts half an hour. Like, the bit is basically the same bit every time. Larry is having a bad time doing something, you know? He's using our money to pay for it. So you could thank us.

We're taking you out to dinner. Well, you can call it our money, but just for the sake of discussion, he's the one who goes to work and earns the money.

You don't work.

It builds. You experience his particular point of view about the world. Whose money is it in your household?

Honey, it's our money.

No, it's not.

No, brother.

I've earned the money.

I know. So what do you do? You pay her a salary? And when does she buy things? Talk to me about why that show ranked so high on everybody else's list.

Okay. So, I think Curb Your Enthusiasm gets at one of these questions of, what is 21st century TV? What was great in 21st century TV? Because Curb Your Enthusiasm comes, of course, from Larry David. He created Seinfeld with Jerry Seinfeld. A lot of the same themes, a lot of the same sort of attention to faux pas, and gripes, and personal minutiae. But Curb Your Enthusiasm, the sort of freedom and range of expression that he got from doing this show for HBO, allowed him to create this pure, raw, uncut version of it that I think in many ways, maybe not by itself, you can also throw in shows like the British Office here and so on, it kind of defined this genre of...

Comedy.

cringe comedy, for lack of a better word, that you see coming up in show after show after show on the larger list here.

Um, I'm Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and guess what? I'm in the New York Times Best TV Shows of the 21st Century. Imagine that. The idea of nothing, to a certain extent, is taken to the 10th power Or 100th power on Curb. These, these small conflicts that are usually nothing are exaggerated and put under a microscope and made large. That idea existed on Seinfeld, of course. They're completely related. It's like same genus, same species. I don't know how else to say it, you know. When I think about Curb, I feel like it's this— there's a degree of cringe comedy mixed with, I think, wish fulfillment in it, because you're watching someone have reactions that you might have to something. Like, for example, the stop-and-chat.

Well, why didn't you say hello to him?

You know him.

I know.

He wanted to do a stop-and-chat. I didn't want to do a stop-and-chat.

When you're walking on the street and you pass an acquaintance, you should not have to respect the social mores of stopping and talking to that person.

Is that why you never talk to me at our local train station?

I'm being exposed.

When we see each other in the morning?

I don't think— I agree. Okay, stop and chat, it's bad. We shouldn't have to do that, right?

No, I agree with you. You're absolutely right.

And Larry's right. It's Larry.

Yeah, I'm pulling up for a stop and chat. Oh, hi, how are you? Nice seeing you too.

Take care.

Bye. No, it's more than that. Yeah, I don't—

I don't—

for him, All I need to do is just say hello. That was kind of rude.

That was not rude. You know, humor comes from pain, right? Humor comes from discomfort, and this is humor about discomfort. And it is a thing that he is just a poet of.

Oh, okay.

Let's see what's going on over here.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I didn't recognize you.

She's doing a chat and cut. Chat and cut?

Really?

She's feigning familiarity with someone she vaguely knows for the sole purpose of cutting in line.

She'll be picking up a plate any second. Watch.

You look beaming with light.

There she goes.

Okay. There's one more comedy here. Veep. Veep. Who wants to say a word about Veep?

Veep is just master of the insult and master of the curse word.

Totally.

And there's just— just that alone, not even talking about the cast, which is incredible, just makes this so rewatchable. The cynicism, that it has about politics, possibly appropriate for the era. It was just perfect.

It's a bad look. That's how he looks! That's his face! Why didn't you just take the good one of me, Photoshop it in?

I can't airbrush history, ma'am.

I'm not Joseph Stalin.

No, no, that's true.

You're not.

You don't have a tenth of his charm.

It's a show set in politics, but it comes from this beautifully cynical notion of human nature, that people are just grasping and inept and will say what they need to say and do what they need to do to get ahead. And especially in a setting where there's such a history of just hypocrisy and platitudes, and just the way that it's able to kind of puncture that is beautiful.

It doesn't feel accidental to me how many times in the last several years people have pointed out that some scene in Washington seems like like it's straight out of Veep. And I think that just keeps coming up because the show hits it so hard.

And on such a human level.

I'm Padma Lakshmi, and I voted on The New York Times' Best Shows of the 21st Century. I do think Veep tapped into a kind of cluelessness that many people in various fields, including being a chef or any other high-profile leadership position, they slip into an ignorant bliss because there's so many people clearing their path. And they got there because they're smart, but then they're sort of infantilized by the people who are supposed to smooth their path or make their lives easier. But it's set in this cesspool of Washington politics and backbiting, and everybody really just trying to protect their own job. And that is not just particular to Washington. I can tell you that's very particular to Hollywood. All right, we're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, we will talk about the top 5 TV shows of the 21st century. I'm so excited. We'll be right back. 33 presidents.

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Okay, let's get into it. We are here. Top 5 very best TV of the 21st century, according, again, not to you two, but to industry insiders. Gilbert, what is number 5?

At number 5, we have the show Fleabag.

Fleabag. I love Fleabag. I am so happy to get to talk about Fleabag. I did a fart the other day that was exactly like Mum's. A door opening or suspicious dark?

Door opening.

Means you're getting Mum's bum.

God, I'd be lucky.

My bottom dropped ages ago. My farts are used to be like, pah! Now they're just sort of fighting their way out. I haven't farted in about 3 years. A thing that came up a lot in the interviews about this show is that people really connected to this particular portrayal of a very particular woman. I'm Alexis Bladel, and I voted for The New York Times' Best TV Shows of the 21st Century. In Fleabag, it was just remarkable how deeply funny and unashamed the whole piece was, you know? It's so unapologetically self-expressive. She's incredibly vulnerable while being completely irreverent, and I don't know how she does that because that's— I don't, I don't think I've ever that done so precisely or pitch-perfect before. And all the while, she's just graciously self-possessed and presenting something modern and fresh to everybody to kind of shake us up.

Fleabag is a dark comedy, comic drama, another one of these hybrids, about a woman who is sort of on a journey of forgiveness, has done done some terrible things in her life, and is trying to move on and find some sense of completeness.

Yep.

People make mistakes.

It's why they put rubbers on the ends of pencils.

Is that a joke? I don't know.

I mean, I think that Fleabag, which I was delighted to see, and delightedly surprised to see Lynn this high on the list, kind of wraps up a lot of things that are great about television of this era. Number one, playing around with the idea of, like, what is a protagonist that people will identify with, right? Like, Fleabag is somebody— if you pitched this, to CBS in 1992 or whatever, you know, you were not surviving that pitch meeting well. She is not, you know, what, in classic TV terms, you would identify as likable, or having the attributes that you would usually associate with a TV protagonist.

You're almost late. Let's do a flash poo and prep. Oh, Christ. Did you wash your hands?

Of course not.

Oh, my God! But she's real. She's well-drawn. And Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who created the show, it is just chock-full of voice, which, you know, I think is really one thing that marks a lot of the best shows of the last quarter century, the best shows on this list.

I met someone. What? Really? Yeah.

Oh, my God, that's amazing! What does he do? He's a priest.

Shall be fed.

This was a story that she wanted to tell, that she had in her mind, and, you know, it turns out that you could tell a story like this on television that was that specific and personal to your vision, and people would find the universal in it.

You're a big reader with no friends. Are you a cool person? I'm a pretty normal person. A normal person? Yeah, normal person. What makes you a normal person? Well, I don't believe in God. I love it when he does that. I think it's also interesting to think of the economics of TV that led us to the point where someone like Phoebe Waller-Bridge could have this show, right? In 2015, the phrase peak TV was coined by the head of FX, this guy, John Landgraf. And then this debuts a year later. And what he was describing was this era in which network TV, cable TV, and then the rapidly growing streaming TV services like Netflix and Amazon, where Fleabag debuted in the United States, were all in a race to just get good stuff out there. So, at a certain point, there was more TV on air at any given time than had ever been on TV before.

Mm-hmm.

And those were part of the circumstances that allowed someone like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, with her incredibly idiosyncratic voice, to have sort of this platform to have her show on.

You mean, she's both a product of and a reflection of the era that so defined the last 10 or 25 years.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Are you a lesbian?

Not strictly.

You? Hmm.

Do you like old films?

Some.

And what's your favorite period film?

Carrie.

Okay, moving to number 4, we have Succession.

Did you ever think I could do it?

Do what?

The top job.

Oh, I don't know.

Maybe. You can say.

I— well, I just— you know, you're smart, you're good, but I just don't know. What? Come on. You're not a killer. You have to be a killer.

Okay, this is one that I think you might have been thinking of as a drama that is also a comedy. And I would agree that I have laughed harder watching this show than I have watching many, many comedies. It is funny. It is really funny. But the thing that came out most from those interviews, and that stuck with me as well, is that basically, this is a show about horrible people. Just really, really bad people. The worst people. They kill, they cover up vast conspiracies, they run the entire world for their own benefit. And yet, somehow, and this is the thing that a lot of people try to wrestle with, you kind of end up rooting for them.

I'm Andy Cohen, and I voted for The New York Times' Best TV Shows of the 21st Century. I've known people like the Roys, and I thought that the depiction in Succession was pitch perfect. the lifestyle and the world. It was exactly as some rarefied people live. I thought it was interesting because there's absolutely no one to root for on that show. You kind of root for Shiv for, you know, in and out for a few seasons, and then you kind of realize she's as bad as the rest of them. I mean, they're all truly horrible people. So, um, which is fascinating that a show with no one to root for could resonate and be so thrilling to watch, but it was. And I thought it was a great statement on media and culture and politics today. Boy, did they nail it. It is to have this show, which is about this media titan, Logan Roy, and his kids, who are all trying to take over his company. And they're, as you say, they're all terrible, right? And yet, you don't necessarily need to have likable people to be invested in their stories, to be invested in their lives.

Yeah, I love Succession. I'm not sure that I would say that I liked any of the Roys, but I was fascinated by them. There are these people who live in almost a different universe than the rest of us do, and the rest of us are just ants to them. Yet, they also have these desires and aches and motivations that you can recognize. You know, not being loved by your father.

Yep.

Wanting, you know, feeling like a failure.

Yep.

Want— you know, the feelings of competitiveness and needing validation. The beauty of it, I think, is that it was able to make all this very real without excusing any of the horribleness. You know, you just had to— you had to live with both of them and let them sit side by side.

You took away the last 6 months I could have had with my dad.

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes. You sucked up to him and you cut me out.

It's not my fault that you didn't get his approval.

And like Veep, amazing one-liners that you will never forget. I mean, Logan Roy saying to his children, I love you, but you are not serious people. That will stick with me forever. I mean—

Do you use that in your life?

You know, I don't, but I think about it a lot.

You are not serious figures. I love you, but you are not serious people.

It's like a mythological kind of cruelty. I think a lot of this show sort of operates on kind of a mythological level where these people are so powerful that they're almost... transhuman for all their human frailties.

Well, here's news. We are going after it.

And what's more, I will win.

Okay, number 3.

Mad Men. Every woman wants choices, but in the end, none wants to be one of 100 in a box.

She's unique.

She makes the choices, and she's chosen him. She wants to tell the world, he's mine. He belongs to me, not you. She marks her man with her lips.

This was a show I liked, but I did not love as much as other people loved it. So, tell me what people love so much about this show, because I understand that it is one of the best shows of all time.

I loved it like other people loved it. I loved it maybe more than other people loved it. I may have loved it more than other shows that ended up higher than this show on the list. But, you know, this show, which was an impeccably cast, beautifully crafted, brilliantly imagined picture of the advertising industry in the 1960s and very early '70s in New York. It worked on a lot of levels that great TV works on. You know, Jon Hamm gives an amazing performance as Don Draper, the dashing protagonist with a secret past.

Get out of here. And move forward. This never happened. It will shock you how much it never happened.

It's also a story about stories because, you know, as it reminds you over and over, people in the advertising industry are basically people whose job is to tell America, its stories, and its myths to itself.

Advertising is based on one thing: happiness.

Maybe I'm a sucker for that because I was an English major. And so, you know, I just— I sort of eat up that kind of rich text.

It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams with reassurance that whatever you're doing, It's okay. You are okay.

I've watched this show probably more times than anything on the top of this list.

How many times?

At least 4 or 5 times in full.

Wow.

I've had family members who have rewatched it, and so I've rewatched it with them. Besides going back and rewatching individual— there are great TV shows that, you know, and I don't necessarily need to see them more than once. You know, I feel like I'm seeing new layers of craft and construction and artistry every time I watch this show.

Gilbert?

I've watched Mad Men all the way through several times as well.

Okay.

And it is just— it's wonderful to look at. Everyone looks so cool and stylish, and there's something about the '60s and people smoking and drinking, and there's a little fantasy fulfillment there. But there is also a way in which this show is just as psychologically perceptive as any other show I've seen on TV. And I think it does have to do with the underlying conceit that Jim talked about. It is about advertising. It is about, in a way, lying to people in order to sell a product.

Mm-hmm.

It's also about people lying to themselves and each other about who they are, who we are. It's very deep, amazingly performed, very funny. Very funny show, and I just love it so much. Hi, I'm Colman Domingo, and I voted for The New York Times' Best TV Shows of the 21st Century. Well, Mad Men ushered in the golden age of television. It really did. It was groundbreaking for AMC, and it really gave us characters, like central characters that you can— you sort of— believed in, but then you were conflicted by. You're looking at our culture, you're looking at how women are treated in our culture and how the things that they had to do. The character Peggy is one of my favorite characters, to watch her start from where she was starting and then watch her evolve and find her voice. And also Don Draper, to see, like, you know, all his pitfalls and look at— it's deconstructing the myth and the American dream of the 1950s.

Okay, getting closer to the top of the list here. Gilbert, what's number 2?

The Wire.

This feels like the ultimate, we don't really have time to dig into this show, kind of show. But let's do what we can.

You best not miss.

I should start off saying that I was actually really stunned to see that The Wire did not end up as number 1.

Same.

It's not just because I think it's one of the most amazing achievements that's been accomplished on TV, or maybe any popular art form, in terms of just telling this all-encompassing, of the dysfunction of cities and of systems. And it was so broad and sprawling, and yet never felt like it was wasting your time or losing focus.

I'm D.B.

Weiss, and I voted for The New York Times— I'm David Benioff, and I voted for The New York Times Best TV Shows of the 21st Century. I think the 4th season of The Wire is the greatest season of television. Um, that I've seen. I just think it's, uh, kind of like a novel from beginning to end.

The Wire asks for a lot of you. It demands a lot of you, and it deserves that. That season for me is just—

kind of shows what, what television is capable of, what a season of television is capable of, um, at its highest powers.

Reading War and Peace isn't easy. It takes a lot of your time and a lot of attention, and ultimately when you reading War and Peace, you're damn glad you finished reading War and Peace. And I kind of felt the same way about The Wire, which, on the upside, I think takes less time than reading War and Peace. First of all, it's just got tremendously rich, flawed characters.

Yes.

You know, on— very rarely for TV, on one side of the law as much as on the other. You know, the criminals in this show are not just perps. They are people with ideas and motivations and backstories.

I win.

If you catch the other dude's king and trap it, then you win.

All right, but if I make it to the end, I'm top dog.

Nah, yo, it ain't like that.

Look, pawns, man, in the game, They get capped quick. They be out the game early.

Unless they some smart-ass pawns.

The way that the show digs into the systems of America at all levels is what makes it so unique and so special. People have used the word novelistic to refer to this show. And I think some people use it because books are fancier than TV. And so, to call something novelistic means that you're giving it a level of appreciation that TV doesn't usually get. But I think it is appropriate in the way in which, unlike almost any other TV show, it sort of moves between all these different levels. I'm Brett Goldstein, and I voted for the best TV shows of the 21st century for The New York Times. I'm not joking when I say this. The Wire is how I understand the world. I truly think it taught me how the world works. And what I mean by that is how people work, not just— the show shows you how the police work, how the government works, how the press works, how the drug dealers work, how the divadors work. It shows you all of that. It shows you all the elements that make up a society. I think it's a show that's city. But the way that it expresses how hard it is to achieve anything good is so clear.

It really did change how I saw the world and how people work and how 90% of people are just trying to protect themselves. And, and that's why it makes it impossible to achieve anything. And any small incremental change for good is a miracle. I feel like this show, more than any other show I've seen, shines a very entertaining, but very serious and very perceptive light on, like, a dark corner of the American experiment. The job will not save you, Jimmy. It won't make you whole. It won't fill your ass up. I don't know. A good case— Ends.

They all end.

The handcuffs go click, and it's over. And the next morning, it's just you in your room with yourself. Until the next case. Boy, you need something outside of this here.

Okay, I feel a little bit like we're saying, that's enough about Hamlet. Let's move on. But we do have to talk about number 1 on this list, which is Gilbert.

Breaking Bad! Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see?

What makes this the best show? And I'm asking you to embody the best case. I understand you may not agree, but make the case.

Do you know what would happen if suddenly—

Wow.

Do we have 2 non-agreeers on the panel? Just to check.

I mean, it's an incredible show. I'm just— you know, it's not the one.

Yeah, it's a show that I probably would've put in my top 5 or top 10. I am not in danger, Skyler.

I am the danger.

A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think that of me?

No. I am the one who knocks. So, Breaking Bad, a show created by Vince Gilligan, is essentially the story of Walter White, who, when we start the series, is a chemistry teacher. He finds out that he has cancer, doesn't have that much longer to live, and he decides to get into the meth business because he knows chemistry so well. He's gonna produce the finest meth that has ever been produced, get a bunch of money, leave it for his family. And along the way, he turns into, essentially, a kingpin in Albuquerque. That's right.

Now...

Say my name.

Heisenberg.

You're goddamn right. It is a crime show. People love crime shows. It has an amazing cast, you know, starring with Bryan Cranston. It has amazing villains, including Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring. It is tense. It is violent. It arrived at a perfect moment for the binge age. This show is made to be binged. It has incredible cliffhangers. It has incredible energy and forward motion. Okay.

Can I just say, I had watched what I thought was almost all of Breaking Bad and then stopped watching it because it was too intense. And so, in preparation for this, I— fired it back up 'cause I was like, I have to see the end. Turns out, I was not as close to the end as I thought. So then I had to binge basically all of the last season of Breaking Bad. And can I just say, it's not an enjoyable experience. I hear you, that there's cliffhangers, so you just want to keep eating it up, but it does something to you. It messes with your head.

I think a lot of people like that, just to be clear.

Yeah. I also think that that kind of points up something that was really interesting in the experience of TV and how we watched TV. in the 21st century, which is, okay, a lot of people watched Breaking Bad slowly, the old-fashioned TV way.

Right.

They watched one episode a week, and then another one the next week, and then they waited a year or whatever, and they watched the next season, right?

Yep.

And some people did what you did, and, you know, enjoyed it better than you did, maybe, but, you know, really plowed through this. Now, what's the difference between those? Well, as Gilbert was saying, What Breaking Bad is really rooted in is a moral question. And I think the interesting question that Gilligan raises in the show is, did Walter White's experience turn him from a good person to a bad person? Or was there this potentially bad person all the time in him that had the opportunity to get out because of his circumstances? And I honestly think that the way you see that might well depend on how you watched the show. If you watch it slowly over time, it can seem more like it's a good person turning into a bad person. If you binge it, you may be more likely to see that, no, this is actually the story of somebody who, you know, Heisenberg was in him all along, and was just waiting to bust out.

Heisenberg being his nom de guerre.

His nom de meth.

Exactly. Yeah.

As part of this project, our TV editor, Jeremy Egner, got to interview Vince Gilligan and a couple of castmates of Breaking Bad. And the subject of the antihero came up. And Vince Gilligan, who wrote one of this era's great antiheroes, was raising the question of, have we done it enough? Has, in a way, reality and fiction started to come together, and maybe we don't actually need to sort of laud people who are doing bad things. The whole antihero thing in general, it was still a pretty new thing. I'm kind of thinking now, seeing the world the way it is, if I had my druthers, they'd be considered cautionary tales, not aspirational. I don't know, maybe we've had enough antiheroes for a while, seeing the country the way, the shape that it's in.

I think that Vince Gilligan gets to do that because he did this thing better than a lot of people did it. And Part of the trick, I think, that he used at several moments during that show was putting Walt up against someone who was more evil.

Worse than him.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Which, you know, is probably a trick that a lot of these antihero dramas that we see represented on this list do from time to time. And it's a way of keeping you invested, of wanting you to see the thing that Walt is trying trying to accomplish, you know, get accomplished, and pulling you along to the point where, at some point, you have to stand back and you think, oh my God, like, what am I doing?

Right.

Why am I behind this guy? You know, is it— you know, at what point does he go too far? It's really a difficult trick to pull off without either rationalizing evil or turning off your audience.

I'm Matthew Weiner, and I voted for The New York Times. I'm Devery Jacobs, and I voted for The New York Times.

I'm Richard Gadd, and I voted in The New York Times' top 100 best TV shows of the century.

Nobody— I don't care what anybody says— nobody but Bryan knew that he had that in him.

I don't know if my loyalty shifted watching Breaking Bad. Um, as much as it was interesting to gauge where culture was at.

It was a real parody on, on sort of the health system in America and, and the, um, the kind of ludicrous lengths some people have to go to to get, to get help and look after people when they're gone.

And, and he's a model for casting against type or for the philosophical reality that everybody has that kind of violence in them, and if they're pushed to it.

But I think it's some of the best examples of television writing, Golden Age, really getting to dive into antiheroes and questionable morals.

And so right at the heart of it was intense, brilliant social-political commentary alongside, you know, the best acting and best storytelling you'll ever see. It's an unbelievable show.

All right, we're going to take another quick break, and when we come back, We're going to talk about what's not on this list. We'll be right back. My name is Diana Dunn. I would like to be able to share my New York Times account with my granddaughters.

We live in a very rural area.

I would like to share my account just to increase their knowledge of Our whole world. Thank you so much.

Diana, we heard you. It's why we created the New York Times Family subscription. One subscription, up to 4 separate logins for anyone in your life. Find out more at nytimes.com/family.

So we're getting near the end here, and I feel like we need to take a second to talk about what this list, in all its great wisdom, may have gotten wrong. So I want each of us to talk about a show that should be on the list, or should be higher on the list, but isn't. I'm going to start with my favorite show in TV history, The Sopranos.

They said it was a panic attack. Of course, all the blood work and the neurological work came back negative. And they sent me here.

You don't agree that you had a panic attack? How are you feeling now?

Good.

Fine.

Back at work. What line of work are you in?

Waste management consultant.

Gilbert, I get the sense you've been hearing from readers about the fact that The Sopranos is not on this list. Would you care to quickly just set the record straight about that?

I would like to set the record straight. The Sopranos, which is a great show, One of the best TV shows of all time came out in 1999. 1999 was before our cutoff. And one could say, why did you have that cutoff? And I would say, because we need rules in this world. And this is the rule that we came up with.

Jim, how do you feel about that cutoff issue?

Oh, I actually argued for it. I think a list of 21st century shows means shows that you could not have watched in the 20th century. But I think we also pulled off a little magic trick here. The Sopranos is not on the list, but also, it is everywhere on the list.

Okay, say why. Explain that.

What this list really ends up being, because of the peculiar nature of when the 21st century happened to begin, is a portrait of TV after The Sopranos changed much of what TV could be.

Hmm.

Right. The Sopranos debuts in 1999. It's one of the first big sort of cultural phenomenon shows on HBO. It ends up bringing in an era when cable starts to surpass network TV as a creative force, which we see all over this list. It introduces the idea of the antihero, And challenges the idea of what kind of show people will watch. Do people only want to root for the good guy? It's pretty easy to draw a line from Tony Soprano to Walter White. You know, you can see some of that in Succession. You can see it in lesser ways in a show like House, a show about, you know, a doctor diagnosing illnesses. That's a classic TV genre. but it's a doctor who's kind of a jerk.

Mm-hmm.

It introduces an idea that seriality, you know, telling an ongoing story that doesn't just wrap up at the end of the episode, but continues out over episodes and seasons, that that is something that people have the patience for and will get engaged in. The Sopranos in 1999 demonstrates that you can do these new things in television. And this class of shows that begins in 2000 shows the aftereffects of this.

Okay, well, thank you for indulging my Sopranos love, even though it had no business being on a list that was just in the 21st century. Give me your shows. What should have been on here? Gilbert?

This is a sick and perverse show, and I just love it. Love it, love it so much. It is a show called Hannibal. You must be terribly proud that you could bring this off. What will be the first cuts of meat you'll serve? The first course, of course, will be your hands and feet, sizzling on a Promethean barbecue. It was on NBC.

Yeah.

Okay. It was a TV version of the story that we saw on the big screen in the movies Manhunter and The Silence of the Lambs. about the character Hannibal Lecter. And it is one of the grossest things I've ever seen in my entire life. I don't know how it made it onto network TV, but it also is one of the most— I would argue, one of the most beautiful shows that has ever been put on TV.

Well, there have been a recent run of cannibalistic shows that have done well on TV. So, you know...

I'm not endorsing cannibalism. That's not what I'm here to do. I just think it's beautiful. The acting was awesome and bananas. And it's just— it did not belong on TV. And yet there it was. And I just felt like it was a show that was done just for me.

Did you just smell me?

Difficult to avoid. I really must introduce you to a finer aftershave that smells like something with a ship on the bottle.

I keep getting it for Christmas.

How do you feel about Hannibal?

Uh, it almost left me a little cold, honestly. But I think it was really well executed. And, uh, you know, I, I was a little surprised it wasn't on the list.

I live in the cold. It, it, it warmed me up, Jim.

Gilbert wanted darker on this list. Jim, what about you?

Ah, Natalie, where do I start? There are so many shows that, that I would have put on this list if, if I were God. Uh, Adventure Time. 100% I would've loved to have seen Transparent on this list.

My name is Maury.

I was very surprised that Orange Is the New Black is not on.

But it's just been one day, and I can't. I can't. My God, these are good ones. Wait, just—

Sorry that there's not more reality TV. I think you could make a strong case for putting Jackass on this as, like, a great work of American art, but—

Wow!

Incredible. Jackass. That's not the reality TV show I expected you to say should've been on this list, but I love it.

I love it even more.

But say why Jackass. So just make the case real quick, 'cause I gotta hear it.

I mean, Jackass is just like— it is what it is. You know, which is this amazing anarchic prank show that, like a lot of the best television, is just reveling in the idea of, can we have fun filming this and putting it on the air?

I'm Johnny Knoxville.

And this is the bear trap.

That's, you know, the heart of a lot of the great David Letterman pranks. And it is this beautiful, hilarious, distilled chaos.

Uh-huh. Who knows?

But a show that I not only would have put on this list that is not on it, but I probably would have put in my top 10, is a show that you may have forgotten or never heard of called Rectify.

When you are alone with yourself all the time, with no one but yourself, you begin to go deeper and deeper into yourself until you lose yourself.

It's a perverse contradiction. That was about a man who had been released from prison and returned home. and was trying to get his life together and possibly clear his name.

Okay.

And I'm not sure anyone, unless they have gone through it, can truly understand how profound that loss is.

It was beautifully acted, sensitive, nuanced, almost like religious exploration. of redemption and grace and forgiveness that, maybe for those reasons, never generated that much of an audience. But I just think was a gorgeous character portrait that didn't get enough attention then and now. But if you can seek it out on streaming, I highly recommend you add to your list. But I honestly can't say That I did, in fact, kill her.

Because I just don't remember for the life of me. And that's your truth.

Okay, well, that really makes me want to watch Rectify. Hannibal, I'm gonna have to think about. Maybe I'll queue it up. One of the best things about this list, I understand, is that it is very interactive, right? Readers can kind of participate in it?

Absolutely. So, you know, we got hundreds of people in the industry to ask them what they think, but we also want New York Times readers and listeners to have their say. And so, they can go and pick their own top 10 shows, and they could share that. They can also vote, and we will count all of them up and let people know what the readers of The New York Times think are the top 100 shows of the 21st century. And I expect there are going to be several different titles on that list.

All right. We'll see if The Sopranos can make it in somehow on that list.

That's not how the calendar works, but sure.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to hold out hope. Jim, Gilbert, thank you both so much for being here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Natalie.

To view the full list of the 100 best TV shows of the century, you can visit nytimes.com/besttv. This episode was produced by Alex Barron. It was edited by Wendy Doerr. Fact-checking by Lena Richards, Tina Antolini, and Alyssa Dudley. It was engineered by Rowan Nemestow and contains music from Dan Powell. Production assistance from Dalia Haddad.

Thank you.

That's it for the Sunday Daily. I'm Natalie Kitroweff. See you tomorrow. This week on The Wirecutter Show, how do you decide when to let your kids start using screens?

When to give them that first phone or even get a social media account.

A lot of this gets treated as an individual family decision when families are actually up against what's really a societal problem.

We're talking about kids and technology.

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