iCM Forum's Favourite TV-series 2nd edition; Results

[Lonewolf2003]

#15 (▲88 #103) Black Mirror (Charlie Brooker, 2011 - ) 810.62 points
Seasons: 5, Episodes: 22
3568 checks,

15 voters

72aicm (#9)
beasterne (#10)
blocho (unranked)
brokenface (#29)
Caracortada (#38)
Carmel1379 (#41)
Gordon_Gekko (#10)
Gorro (#34)
GruesomeTwosome (#39)
Jimi Antiloop (#3)
klaus78 (#6)
Kublai Khan (#5)
Lonewolf2003 (unranked>47)
mightysparks (#10)
sebby (#62)

[Lonewolf2003]

#14 (▼-2 #12) Firefly (Joss Whedon, 2002 - 2003) 840.84 points
Seasons: 1, Episodes: 14
6685 checks,

17 voters

Armoreska (#36)
beasterne (#48)
Gorro (#10)
Kublai Khan (#9)
Lonewolf2003 (#23)
mightysparks (#71)
mjf314 (#25)
Mysterious Dude (#13)
OldAle1 (#15)
outdoorcats (#17)
Rufus-T (#37)
sebby (#23)
Smoover (#11)
Teproc (#7)
VincentPrice (unranked)
weirdboy (unranked)
zzzorf (#58)

[Lonewolf2003]

#13 (▲531 #544) Rick and Morty (Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland, 2013 - ) 849.76 points
Seasons: 4, Episodes: 42
1794 checks,

16 voters

Armoreska (#4)
beasterne (#17)
brokenface (#43)
Carmel1379 (#3)
Gorro (#40)
Jimi Antiloop (#1)
klaus78 (#7)
Kublai Khan (#17)
Lonewolf2003 (unranked>47)
monclivie (#28)
Perception de Ambiguity (#8)
prodigalgodson (#14)
sebby (#37)
Smoover (#37)
TraverseTown (#34)
VincentPrice (unranked)

[Lonewolf2003]

#12 (▲3 #15) Futurama (Matt Groening, 1999 - 2013) 866.6 points
Seasons: 7 or 10, Episodes: 140
6998 checks,

18 voters

Armoreska (#1)
AssonFire (#32)
beasterne (#3)
brokenface (#31)
Cocoa (#19)
Gordon_Gekko (#42)
Gorro (#44)
Jimi Antiloop (#12)
Leopardi (#29)
Lonewolf2003 (unranked>47)
mjf314 (#13)
Mysterious Dude (#5)
Perception de Ambiguity (#38)
prodigalgodson (#19)
rnilsson19 (#8)
sebby (#56)
Smoover (#31)
TraverseTown (#39)

[beasterne]

Thank you for the results Lonewolf!

After looking at the results I see a few shows that I probably could have included on my list. Overall though this list is matching my tastes a lot more than the previous version.

Regarding the drop of so many British shows, I wonder if that is due to availability on streaming platforms? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blackadder streaming anywhere, and Monty Python and Fawlty Towers I know used to stream on Netflix but I think both are gone now. It’s hard to vote for something if you’ve never seen it.

Edit: well, I did some quick searching and not much of the above is true. Monty Python is still on Netflix, and Blackadder is on Prime and Hulu. Only Fawlty Towers is somewhat unavailable, streaming on Britbox. So yeah, I’m not sure why British shows are falling so much.

[Lonewolf2003]

#11 (▲10 #21) Mad Men (Matthew Weiner, 2007 - 2015) 892.22 points
Seasons: 7, Episodes: 92
4295 checks,

14 voters

brokenface (#21)
Carmel1379 (#43)
GruesomeTwosome (#43)
hurluberlu (#4)
Leopardi (#32)
Lonewolf2003 (#1)
mightysparks (#68)
Mysterious Dude (#2)
outdoorcats (#12)
prodigalgodson (#4)
rnilsson19 (#9)
sebby (#2)
Smoover (#21)
Teproc (#6)

[mightysparks]

Thank you for the results Lonewolf!

After looking at the results I see a few shows that I probably could have included on my list. Overall though this list is matching my tastes a lot more than the previous version.

Regarding the drop of so many British shows, I wonder if that is due to availability on streaming platforms? I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blackadder streaming anywhere, and Monty Python and Fawlty Towers I know used to stream on Netflix but I think both are gone now. It’s hard to vote for something if you’ve never seen it.

Edit: well, I did some quick searching and not much of the above is true. Monty Python is still on Netflix, and Blackadder is on Prime and Hulu. Only Fawlty Towers is somewhat unavailable, streaming on Britbox. So yeah, I’m not sure why British shows are falling so much.

Probably just a change in voters. I voted for nearly all (if not all?) the British comedy so far (and The Young Ones is my #1) so definitely not my fault

And it doesn't look like Extras will make it

[Lonewolf2003]

#10 (--) Game of Thrones (David Benioff, D.B. Weiss, 2011 - 2019) 978.5 points
Seasons: 8, Episodes: 73
18094 checks,

16 voters

AB537 (#1)
beasterne (#6)
brokenface (#15)
Carmel1379 (#44)
cayado-coro (#7)
Gordon_Gekko (#15)
Gorro (#5)
GruesomeTwosome (#5)
insomnius (#40)
Kublai Khan (#23)
Lonewolf2003 (#22)
mightysparks (#17)
monclivie (#8)
outdoorcats (#22)
sebby (#77)
Smoover (#7)

[Lonewolf2003]

#9 (▲5 #14) The X Files (Chris Carter, 1993 - 2018) 986.38 points
Seasons: 11, Episodes: 217
5091 checks,

18 voters

AssonFire (#2)
brokenface (#7)
Caracortada (#114)
cayado-coro (#31)
Gordon_Gekko (#20)
Gorro (#46)
hurluberlu (#2)
insomnius (#14)
Kublai Khan (#33)
Leopardi (#31)
Lonewolf2003 (#45)
mightysparks (#37)
Mysterious Dude (#7)
ororama (#5)
Rufus-T (#8)
sebby (#36)
sol (#1)
VincentPrice (unranked)

[Lonewolf2003]

#8 (▲3 #11) The Sopranos (David Chase, 1999 - 2007) 1170.45 points
Seasons: 6, Episodes: 84
5480 checks,

18 voters

72aicm (#4)
AssonFire (#14)
brokenface (#3)
cayado-coro (#47)
Gordon_Gekko (#11)
hurluberlu (#7)
klaus78 (#2)
Kublai Khan (#55)
Leopardi (#2)
lineuphere (#72)
Lonewolf2003 (#4)
mightysparks (#58)
Mysterious Dude (#18)
Rufus-T (#9)
sebby (#42)
Smoover (#1)
Teproc (#1)
weirdboy (unranked)

[beasterne]

Looks like Game of Thrones didn’t see a fall from grace in our rankings, even after the shaky last couple of seasons. I still wound up putting it high on my own list off the strength of the first 4 seasons. Regardless of how poor the ending was I think this still stands as one of the all-time great tv shows.

[Lonewolf2003]

#7 (▼-1 #6) Arrested Development (Mitchell Hurwitz, 2003 - 2019) 1181.85 points
Seasons: 5, Episodes: 84
8057 checks,

21 voters

AB537 (#34)
beasterne (#11)
blocho (unranked)
brokenface (#2)
Carmel1379 (#50)
Cocoa (#18)
Gordon_Gekko (#33)
Gorro (#39)
GruesomeTwosome (#16)
Kublai Khan (#12)
Leopardi (#35)
lineuphere (#86)
Lonewolf2003 (#10)
maxwelldeux (#9)
mightysparks (#3)
monclivie (#2)
Mysterious Dude (#11)
prodigalgodson (#20)
sebby (#19)
sol (#33)
TraverseTown (#18)

[Lonewolf2003]

#6 (▼-1 #5) South Park (Trey Parker, Matt Stone, 1997 - ) 1304.21 points
Seasons: 23, Episodes: 308
7921 checks,

23 voters

72aicm (#12)
Armoreska (#2)
AssonFire (#9)
brokenface (#27)
Carmel1379 (#11)
Gordon_Gekko (#12)
Gorro (#81)
GruesomeTwosome (#1)
hurluberlu (#21)
Jimi Antiloop (#20)
klaus78 (#4)
Leopardi (#24)
Lonewolf2003 (#13)
mightysparks (#8)
monclivie (#39)
Perception de Ambiguity (#4)
sebby (#91)
Smoover (#16)
sol (#25)
TraverseTown (#40)
VincentPrice (unranked)
weirdboy (unranked)
zzzorf (#37)

[Torgo]

South Park on #6 while Family Guy ranks 80-ish ..
I like this forum. Might even stay.

Looks like Game of Thrones didn’t see a fall from grace in our rankings, even after the shaky last couple of seasons. I still wound up putting it high on my own list off the strength of the first 4 seasons. Regardless of how poor the ending was I think this still stands as one of the all-time great tv shows.

Yeah I was wondering about that too. On IMDb, GoT lost its unshakeable #2 to #5 ranking and fell more and more, down to #11 now. This is more significant than one may think, because at 1.7 million (!) voters, such an effect takes time. Or many, many disappointed fans .. and what we've seen on the internet was nothing less than a wide-scaled, global shitstorm for Season 8, I mean, wow. If Reddit's your thing, I absolutely recommend the sub r/freefolk, made me cry tears of laughter.


Anyway, it has achieved SO MUCH in its first 4 (or 5, maybe even 6 if we're forgiving ..) seasons that I totally agree with you. Too important to forget now - and just too great.

[mightysparks]

I think Family Guy and Rick and Morty are the only shows that I hate on this list, based on one episode each and various glimpses.

[mightysparks]

Re Game of Thrones. Season 8 was not great, but only because it was super rushed and it wasn’t bad enough to make me dislike the whole show. It was just kind of disappointing, I think the general public overreacted about how bad it was. But so many people complained things didn’t make sense even though it was obvious they were going to go that way (like Dany’s character). I felt like it was just too rushed and too tidy, but everything ended how it should have (except who ends up on the throne ). Not nearly as bad as things like the rebooted Arrested Development or Red Dwarf, which I don’t even consider part of the series. So I love the show all the same.

[Lonewolf2003]

#5 (▲2 #7) Seinfeld (Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, 1989 - 1998) 1402.92 points
Seasons: 9, Episodes: 173
5815 checks,

20 voters

AB537 (#12)
Armoreska (#19)
AssonFire (#13)
blocho (unranked)
GruesomeTwosome (#27)
hurluberlu (#6)
insomnius (#6)
joachimt (#13)
Leopardi (#1)
lineuphere (#12)
Lonewolf2003 (#5)
Mysterious Dude (#8)
OldAle1 (#11)
Opio (#5)
Perception de Ambiguity (#24)
prodigalgodson (#15)
Rufus-T (#1)
sebby (#11)
sol (#23)
VincentPrice (unranked)

[Lonewolf2003]

#4 (▼-1 #3) Breaking Bad (Vince Gilligan, 2008 - 2016) 1481.25 points
Seasons: 5, Episodes: 62
16243 checks,

21 voters

72aicm (#8)
AB537 (#2)
Armoreska (#45)
AssonFire (#12)
beasterne (#31)
blocho (unranked)
brokenface (#16)
cayado-coro (#45)
Gordon_Gekko (#7)
Gorro (#21)
GruesomeTwosome (#4)
klaus78 (#8)
Leopardi (#3)
Lonewolf2003 (#9)
mightysparks (#9)
monclivie (#5)
Rufus-T (#4)
sebby (#9)
Smoover (#4)
Teproc (#5)
VincentPrice (unranked)

[Lonewolf2003]

#3 (▼-1 #2) The Simpsons (Matt Groening, 1989 - ) 1580.28 points
Seasons: 32, Episodes: 694
10840 checks,

28 voters

Armoreska (#3)
AssonFire (#6)
beasterne (#36)
blocho (unranked)
brokenface (#5)
Caracortada (#33)
Carmel1379 (#16)
Cocoa (#45)
Gordon_Gekko (#5)
Gorro (#28)
GruesomeTwosome (#24)
hurluberlu (#9)
insomnius (#71)
Jimi Antiloop (#8)
Leopardi (#26)
lineuphere (#5)
Lonewolf2003 (unranked>47)
Mysterious Dude (#27)
OldAle1 (#16)
Perception de Ambiguity (#11)
prodigalgodson (#11)
rnilsson19 (#7)
sebby (#4)
Smoover (#19)
TraverseTown (#38)
VincentPrice (unranked)
weirdboy (unranked)
zzzorf (#76)

[Lonewolf2003]

#2 (▲16 #18) The Wire (David Simon, 2002 -2008) 1657.96 points
Seasons: 5, Episodes: 60
4991 checks,

21 voters

72aicm (#6)
Armoreska (#7)
beasterne (#8)
blocho (unranked)
brokenface (#19)
cayado-coro (#4)
Gordon_Gekko (#8)
Gorro (#7)
hurluberlu (#3)
klaus78 (#1)
Kublai Khan (#2)
Lonewolf2003 (#2)
maxwelldeux (#1)
outdoorcats (#1)
rnilsson19 (#11)
Rufus-T (#66)
sebby (#7)
Smoover (#5)
sol (#45)
Teproc (#2)
weirdboy (unranked)

[mightysparks]

I will never understand the love for The Wire. Probably the most overrated thing in history. I don’t hate it but it’s not good.

[Lonewolf2003]

#1 (--) Twin Peaks (David Lynch, Mark Frost, 1990 - 1991) 1823.46 points
Seasons: 2 (3), Episodes: 30 (48)
6858 checks,

28 voters

72aicm (#10)
AB537 (unranked>40)
Armoreska (#47)
AssonFire (#1)
blocho (unranked)
brokenface (#1)
Carmel1379 (#17)
cayado-coro (#15)
Gordon_Gekko (#14)
Gorro (#1)
GruesomeTwosome (#21)
hurluberlu (#1)
insomnius (#16)
joachimt (#19)
klaus78 (#3)
Lonewolf2003 (#18)
mightysparks (#53)
Mysterious Dude (#25)
OldAle1 (#2)
Opio (#3)
outdoorcats (#16)
Perception de Ambiguity (#33)
prodigalgodson (#10)
rnilsson19 (#5)
Rufus-T (#62)
sebby (#14)
Smoover (#2)
TraverseTown (#14)

[joachimt]

Oh hey, final confirmation that Twin Peak is a TV series after all.

Indeed, let's ban it completely from all movie-polls from now on.

[Teproc]

Seems weird to treat Twin Peaks as two separate series. I know they took a long break, but it's a continuous narrative.

I've long given up trying to reason with Twin Peaks fan about season 3 being... you know, season 3. They have shown their willingness to vote for it in any context regardless of merit anyway.

[Lonewolf2003]

Looks like Game of Thrones didn’t see a fall from grace in our rankings, even after the shaky last couple of seasons. I still wound up putting it high on my own list off the strength of the first 4 seasons. Regardless of how poor the ending was I think this still stands as one of the all-time great tv shows.

Me too. Still also was surprised it didn't drop (a bit) in the rankings.

[Lonewolf2003]

Oh hey, final confirmation that Twin Peak is a TV series after all.

Indeed, let's ban it completely from all movie-polls from now on.

Totally agree!

[AB537]

Twin Peaks through about halfway into season 2 would have been very high on my list. The remainder of season 2, the Fire Walk with Me film, and season 3/The Return make it very difficult to view that brilliant first ~25 episodes in isolation, both because of narrative decisions and a (for me) very steep drop in quality.

[Onderhond]

I watched season 1 & 2 of Twin Peaks last year, I don't really understand why people prefer parts of it over the other (but it's a critique you find almost everywhere). I found it quite repetitive, just the same thing over and over again for hours on end.

[maxwelldeux]

I will never understand the love for The Wire. Probably the most overrated thing in history. I don’t hate it but it’s not good.

Swap "The Wire" with "Twin Peaks" and I'd agree whole-heartedly with that sentiment.

[OldAle1]

Still haven't watched TP season 3, though I've had it since shortly after it came out. Hard for me to invest in TV even when I like it as I've said before, for whatever reason. When I saw it originally as it aired, I LOVED S 1 and LOVED S 2 up until about the halfway point - which seems to have been the commonest reaction. Gave up on it before the end. Eventually on re-watching both seasons I grew to like the second season more but it does have some issues for sure. Perhaps it will come into better focus when I finally get around to S 3, I dunno.

In any case thanks for running this Lonewolf, even if it was fairly predictable in the upper reaches (like nearly all polls). I did find a couple of shows I'd never heard of that look interesting and might have some chance of viewing someday, and a few others might be a little higher on the list, and that's really the most I can expect. Glad Buffy made it to the top 25 - am I missing something or did Angel not show up at all?

[TraverseTown]

I will never view The Return as Season 3. I feel like it exists as an antithetical response to the fans who demanded a season 3.

[cayado-coro]

Good job! Thanks for running this Lonewolf2003.

I really miss Michael Crichton's ER: Love's Labor Lost is still one of the most (if not the most) breathtaking TV episodes ever.

[Smoover]

Well done, no Medicore/Bad Sitcoms like HIMYM, TBBT, Two and a Half Men or KoQ. Surprised 24 did so well, I liked it when it released but it feels very cheesy these days.

[GruesomeTwosome]

No Father Ted? One of the most absolutely hilarious sitcoms ever.

Look at that huge influx of It's Always Sunny fans since the last poll!

Would like to see King of the Hill even higher than that, but nice to see its placement. That's a show I returned to and grew to really love over the past 2 years or so, after initially think it was "just OK" whenever I watched it during its original run.

Like mighty, I'm disappointed at the absence of Extras. I think I like that show even more than Gervais/Merchant's prior collaboration on The Office.

There were so many great options, but nice choice on the screenshot you selected for Nathan for You.

Very cool to see The Prisoner do quite well, what a unique classic.

I voted for The Simpsons, around the middle rankings of my list, but with its super high placement it looks like it's still coasting on the greatness of its first 8 seasons or so, haha.

[GruesomeTwosome]

It's amazing to see how many comedy / sitcom / late night formats made this list and how tough it is to find funny movies in our other polls ..

True, but personally I find that pure "comedy" - and more specifically the type of comedy that caters to my sense of humor - is much more conducive to the TV format than to feature films. I probably like comedy movies more than the average forum member here, I would guess, but I DO find comedy feature films harder to get right (and rarer to find) than TV comedies (which have their own subset of sitcoms, late-night/satirical talk shows, animated comedies, harder-to-define docu-comedies like Nathan for You, etc.).

[OldAle1]

I voted for The Simpsons, around the middle rankings of my list, but with its super high placement it looks like it's still coasting on the greatness of its first 8 seasons or so, haha.

Same here - I had it at #16 out of 40. But I've seen very little past season, I don't know, 10? 12? Not sure when I stopped watching regularly. So it's nearly all positive memories for me - no idea how much I would change my ranking if I'd kept up with it. But this brings up an interesting notion - I think most people would not rate a movie very highly if they liked the first 1/3 a lot but really didn't like the rest of the film. I don't think everybody ranking The Simpsons or other long-running shows that have generally been perceived as being quite inconsistent, or lower quality in later seasons, is in love with every episode. Game of Thrones was also mentioned in this context and it did well. I guess people are fairly forgiving of TV shows that aren't great, or maybe even good, throughout, as long as there as just xx number of good episodes or seasons.

[Torgo]

If I had participated, I'd put The Simpsons on #1 and I stopped watching the series after Season 15 or something because I just couldn't bother anymore, so, yeah.
You might have a point.

Also there indeed seems something that makes "comedy" work better in a 20-45 minute, recurring format rather than in a fixed frame of 100 minutes as a feature film.

[OldAle1]

I'm definitely in the prefer-comedy-on-tv position myself, or at the very least prefer-shorter-comedy. There was a popular mainstream American film, is it..shit I'm not sure - The 40 Year Old Virgin might be the one that's close to 2 1/2 hours? WTF. And I'm sure that's not the only one, comedies like FX-heavy movies seem to be getting longer and longer in the last couple of decades. I mean there are long comedies that are great but they are vanishingly rare and many of them aren't even considered comedies by most people (Sátántangó is my go-to example). But to me a mainstream comedy that is trying to wring as many laughs as possible works better in a shorter format most of the time and sitcoms or sketch comedies are perfect for that.

[Torgo]

Yeah, Judd Apatow is known for that. His films of course are more than straight laugh-out-loud slapstick fests but rather dramedies, but they still are long - and can be criticized for being too long.
It's an annoying trend really. Tons of comedy films from 2005 on that would've work nice for 85-95 minutes but are somehow needlessly bloated to 105-125 minutes. Meh. So often forced me to vote for 5 or 6 stars on IMDb when they were close to 7.

.. anyway ..

[OldAle1]

Yeah looks like I saw the extended cut of 40 YO.. for some reason, and that's 133 minutes. But his other films are longish too and the other two I've seen I didn't like much. I was thinking he did Superbad which I do like, but he was just a producer on that. And it's definitely verging on too long though not so much as to seriously damage it for me.