TV (The Book)

TV (The Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time is a collection of essays written by television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz. It was published in 2016. The main purpose of the book was to provide a canonical list of the top 100 greatest television programs in American history.^[1]

TV (The Book):
Two Experts Pick the Greatest
American Shows of All Time

Paperback edition
Author	Alan Sepinwall Matt Zoller Seitz
Subject	Art, media, pop culture, television, television criticism
Genre	Essay
Publisher	Grand Central Publishing
Publication date	September 6, 2016
Publication place	United States
Media type	Paperback
Pages	432 pp
ISBN	978-1-4555-8819-0 (Paperback)

Background

Seitz and Sepinwall began as colleagues at The Star-Ledger, where they spent ten years together working on a column in the newspaper titled "All TV."^[2] Since then, both had gone their separate ways. At the time of the book's publishing, Sepinwall was a television critic for HitFix, while Seitz was a television critic for New York and the editor-in-chief for RogerEbert.com. Sepinwall has since gone on to become the chief television critic for Rolling Stone.

Criteria

According to the book, Seitz and Sepinwall considered a television series for their ranking if it matched the following criteria:

• US TV shows only: A TV show was only considered if it was either made in the United States, or if it was originally produced for an American television network. The two authors admitted that this was a "blurry" category to decide, and that some of the calls they made "are sure to be considered debatable."^[3]
• Completion: Seitz and Sepinwall wanted to only include shows which had been completed prior to the creation of their list. However, a few exceptions were made to include current shows that had aired for decades (such as The Simpsons and South Park), current shows that were never officially cancelled yet may never return from hiatus (such as Curb Your Enthusiasm and Louie), and shows that were once cancelled but eventually revived for additional seasons (these include Twin Peaks and The X-Files).
• Narrative fiction only: Reality programs, documentaries, sketch comedy, talk shows, news programs, and sports programs were not given consideration. Instead, the book's rankings mostly consisted of dramas, comedies, children's programming and certain anthology series.^[4]

Once a television series passed these criteria, they were ranked on a ten-point scale by either one of or both of the critics in six categories:^[5] "Innovation" (whether or not it did stuff that had been seen in the medium before), "Influence" (how a show served as inspiration for those that came after it), "Consistency" (whether or not the show's quality fluctuated season-by-season), "Performance" (how good the actors/performers were on the show), "Storytelling" (the quality of the writing on the show), and "Peak" (how great the show was at its best compared to the rest of American television's history).^[6] Shows which aired for only one season were slightly penalized, receiving a maximum of nine points for most categories except for "Consistency", where they were only given a seven as a maximum. The series which were among the 100 highest placed in the points tally were counted in the rankings.^[7]

Top 100

Rank	Name of television series	Year of premiere	Year of latest episode	Network	Total Score
1.	The Simpsons	1989	present	FOX	112
2.	The Sopranos	1999	2007	HBO	112
3.	The Wire	2002	2008	HBO	112
4.	Cheers	1982	1993	NBC	112
5.	Breaking Bad	2008	2013	AMC	112
6.	Mad Men	2007	2015	AMC	110
7.	Seinfeld	1989	1998	NBC	110
8.	I Love Lucy	1951	1957	CBS	109
9.	Deadwood	2004	2006	HBO	107
10.	All in the Family	1971	1979	CBS	106
11.	M*A*S*H	1972	1983	CBS	105
12.	Hill Street Blues	1981	1987	NBC	104
13.	The Shield	2002	2008	FX	102
14.	The Twilight Zone	1959	2020	CBS (1959–64, 1985–89), UPN (2002–03), CBS All Access (2019-20)	101
15.	Arrested Development	2003	2019	FOX (2003–06), Netflix (2013–19)	100
16.	The Larry Sanders Show	1992	1998	HBO	100
17.	The Honeymooners	1955	1956	CBS	99
18.	Louie	2010	2015	FX	99
19.	The Mary Tyler Moore Show	1970	1977	CBS	98
20.	The X-Files	1993	2018	FOX	97
21.	Curb Your Enthusiasm	2000	2024	HBO	96
22.	SpongeBob SquarePants	1999	present	Nickelodeon	96
23.	Twin Peaks	1990	2017	ABC (1990–91), Showtime (2017)	96
24.	Lost	2004	2010	ABC	95
25.	Buffy the Vampire Slayer	1997	2003	The WB (1997–2001), UPN (2001–03)	94
26.	Freaks and Geeks	1999	2000	NBC	94
27.	My So-Called Life	1994	1995	ABC	94
28.	Oz	1997	2003	HBO	93
29.	The Dick Van Dyke Show	1961	1966	CBS	92
30.	Friday Night Lights	2006	2011	NBC (2006–08), The 101 Network/NBC (2008–11)	92
31.	NYPD Blue	1993	2005	ABC	91
32.	Frasier	1993	2023	NBC (1993-2004), Paramount+ (2023-present)	90
33.	Homicide: Life on the Street	1993	1999	NBC	90
34.	Battlestar Galactica	2004	2009	Sci-Fi	89
35.	In Treatment	2008	2021	HBO	89
36.	South Park	1997	present	Comedy Central	89
37.	The West Wing	1999	2006	NBC	89
38.	Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman	1976	1977	Syndication	88
39.	The Andy Griffith Show	1960	1968	CBS	87
40.	The Cosby Show	1984	1992	NBC	87
41.	Moonlighting	1985	1989	ABC	87
42.	Taxi	1978	1983	ABC (1978–82), NBC (1982–83)	87
43.	East Side/West Side	1963	1964	CBS	86
44.	Hannibal	2013	2015	NBC	86
45.	ER	1994	2009	NBC	85
46.	Parks and Recreation	2009	2015	NBC	85
47.	Roseanne	1988	2018	ABC	85
48.	30 Rock	2006	2013	NBC	84
49.	The Bob Newhart Show	1972	1978	CBS	84
50.	Malcolm in the Middle	2000	2006	FOX	84
51.	Miami Vice	1984	1990	NBC	84
52.	The Office	2005	2013	NBC	84
53.	St. Elsewhere	1982	1988	NBC	84
54.	Community	2009	2015	NBC (2009–14), Yahoo! Screen (2015)	83
55.	The Golden Girls	1985	1992	NBC	83
56.	Police Squad!	1982	1982	ABC	83
57.	24	2001	2014	FOX	82
58.	The Defenders	1961	1965	CBS	82
59.	Gunsmoke	1955	1975	CBS	82
60.	Sex and the City	1998	2004	HBO	82
61.	Star Trek	1966	1969	NBC	81
62.	Firefly	2002	2003	FOX	80
63.	Law & Order	1990	2022	NBC	80
64.	Maude	1972	1978	CBS	80
65.	The Rockford Files	1974	1980	NBC	80
66.	China Beach	1988	1991	ABC	79
67.	Enlightened	2011	2013	HBO	79
68.	Everybody Loves Raymond	1996	2005	CBS	79
69.	The Wonder Years	1988	1993	ABC	79
70.	Barney Miller	1974	1982	ABC	79
71.	Frank's Place	1987	1988	CBS	78
72.	It's Garry Shandling's Show	1986	1990	Showtime	78
73.	The Jack Benny Program	1950	1965	CBS (1950–64), NBC (1964–65)	78
74.	Justified	2010	2015	FX	78
75.	The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show	1959	1964	ABC (1959–61), NBC (1961–64)	78
76.	thirtysomething	1987	1991	ABC	78
77.	Columbo	1968	2003	NBC (1968–1978), ABC (1989–2003)	77
78.	Friends	1994	2004	NBC	77
79.	Futurama	1999	2023	FOX (1999–2003), Comedy Central (2008–2013), Hulu (2023-present)	77
80.	The Outer Limits	1963	1965	ABC	76
81.	Northern Exposure	1990	1995	CBS	76
82.	Batman	1966	1968	ABC	75
83.	King of the Hill	1997	2010	FOX	75
84.	Veronica Mars	2004	2019	UPN (2004–06), The CW (2006–07), Hulu (2019)	75
85.	Cagney & Lacey	1982	1988	CBS	74
86.	EZ Streets	1996	1997	CBS	74
87.	Gilmore Girls	2000	2007	The WB (2000–06), The CW (2006–07)	74
88.	Six Feet Under	2001	2005	HBO	74
89.	Sports Night	1998	2000	ABC	74
90.	Wiseguy	1987	1990	CBS	74
91.	Star Trek: Deep Space Nine	1993	1999	Syndication	73
92.	Batman: The Animated Series	1992	1995	FOX	72
93.	Boardwalk Empire	2010	2014	HBO	72
94.	NewsRadio	1995	1999	NBC	72
95.	Picket Fences	1992	1996	CBS	72
96.	Scrubs	2001	2010	NBC (2001–08), ABC (2009–10)	72
97.	WKRP in Cincinnati	1978	1982	CBS	72
98.	How I Met Your Mother	2005	2014	CBS	70
99.	Soap	1977	1981	ABC	70
100.	Terriers	2010	2010	FX	70

Additional book material

In addition to providing their Top 100 ranking, Seitz and Sepinwall provided a section titled "Works in Progress," highlighting some of their favorite current shows, as well as a section honoring shows that were not good enough to make it into the rankings titled "A Certain Regard." There were also several essays noting of TV's best miniseries, movies, and televised plays.^[8]

Reviews

The book has received positive reviews from other television critics. Jacqueline Cutler of The Star-Ledger described the book as "a great reference tool," with the main top-100 list possessing "enough reflection, knowledge and tidbits that even if you don't care about a show, you will wind up reading." For Cutler, the one negative aspect of the book was the inclusion of the "Outlier Classics" and "Works-in-Progress" sections, which felt like "kiddie sports teams where everyone gets a trophy."^[9] Bill Carter, writing for CNN, was also fond of the book, appreciating its effort to stimulate argument and pointing out that even if you were to disagree "it only means you care more about television now more than ever before, which is really the reason to write and read a book like this."^[10]

References

1. Rosenberg, Alyssa (September 6, 2016). "Alan Sepinwall on the 100 best shows in american television- so far". The Washington Post. Retrieved September 30, 2017.
2. Wellen, Brianna (September 8, 2016). "Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz wrote the book on TV". Chicago Reader. Retrieved September 20, 2017.
3. Sepinwall, Alan; Zoller Seitz, Matt (September 23, 2016), TV (THE BOOK): What Shows Are In The Book, Grand Central Publishing, retrieved January 23, 2024 – via YouTube
4. Sepinwall, Alan; Seitz (2016). TV (The Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing. pp. xv–xvii. ISBN 9781455588190.
5. Sepinwall, Alan; Zoller Seitz, Matt (August 31, 2016), TV (THE BOOK): How They Decided To Rank the Shows, Grand Central Publishing, retrieved January 23, 2024 – via YouTube
6. Champagne, Christine (August 31, 2016). "Two Critics Pick the All Time Best TV Shows. And They Already Know You Hate Their List". Fast Company. Retrieved September 30, 2017.
7. Sepinwall, Alan; Seitz (2016). TV (The Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time (First ed.). New York: Grand Central Publishing. pp. xvii–xviii. ISBN 9781455588190.
8. Sepinwall, Alan (2016). TV (The Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing. pp. xviii. ISBN 9781455588190.
9. Cutler, Jacqueline (September 4, 2016). "Ledger's former critics reunite, pick 100 top TV shows". The Star-Ledger. Retrieved September 30, 2017.
10. Carter, Bill (August 30, 2016). "TV finally gets the book it deserves". CNN. Retrieved September 30, 2017.

External links

• Official website
• Book description from Hachette
• "How the Book Works" on Grand Central Publishing's official YouTube channel