In spirit of March Madness and all that: Here are several "best of" lists.
I expect nobody much cares about the 16 best songs about Georgia. I was really impressed by the TV list, though. I don’t have the comprehensive programmatic knowledge required to know whether the list is accurate, but I do know that I really enjoy these shows. Two exceptions: LAW AND ORDER (tedious) and FRIENDS (too stupid even for me). I nominate as replacements: the first BOB NEWHART SHOW (psychologist Bob) and KING OF THE HILL. And I would add the qualification only the first couple of seasons of ROSEANNE, which I would probably replace with THE WONDER YEARS or the early years of SCRUBS. Because I appreciate the aggressively middlebrow character of the list, I’ll resist the temptation to nominate CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM.
When I try to evaluate a list like this, I look at what still plays well even after all these years. I purchased the first season of the original "Bob Newhart Show" and found it, much to my disappointment, rather dull and dated. It didn’t age well. M*A*S*H tends to be the same in my eyes. I can’t watch Cosby.
Shows that seem to endure in my eyes: Cheers, Simpsons, Andy Griffith, Bonanza. Mary Tyler Moore is a very dated period piece, but it brings back such strong personal memories I can’t hardly fault it.
Shows that I’m not sure about, mostly because I can’t differentiate being dated from being overplayed: Friends and Seinfeld.
I’ve never seen an episode of ER, Law and Order or the Sopranos. Honestly ... never have.
I agree on MASH, although I enjoyed it at the time. The Newhart was the first show about nothing, and in its own sort of boring way as subtle as Seinfeld. Bob actually has a job at which he is highly paid and at which he does nothing! (And the these people are too boring to reproduce angle was invented here(except for divorced Howie’s kid). Cosby is pretty self-righteous but watchable with kids
Law & Order has been dreadful for years--a tired, calcified formula, weak characters, and every story ripped from the headlines is repurposed as an attack on the Christian right--but the first couple of seasons were much better and are worth a look.
So why does L and O have so many devoted fans? I guess I missed the first couple of seasons.