Love the three! Recommended how to get to heaven from Belfast to frirnds, and they all agree those three are easily comparable.
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@data10 I wonder if the modern family/Always Sunny comparison also has to do with who watched. Modern family was on regular TV and pulled in more than 8 million viewers while Always Sunny had max of around 1.5 million. The ratings may also reflect the fact that the Always Sunny viewers may be more invested in the show.
I also was surprised This is Us did not make the list. I watched Scandal and thought the first season was great, but not the rest of the seasons. I wonder if This is US was just too mainstream and a bit sappy for this list.
You are using past tense. Always Sunny is still actively generating new seasons and still has plenty of persons viewing both new and old episodes. There was a new Always Sunny episode on regular TV earlier this week. After 18 seasons, it’s the longest running live-action sitcom of all time. In addition to the new seasons, many persons including myself find that the old seasons are very rewatchable. For example, the report below found that Always Sunny was the most in demand sitcom, shortly after conclusion of 15th season. A similar pattern occurs for most other seasons. Always Sunny has ~300k ratings on IMDB compared to ~550k for Modern Family. Individual episodes show a similar type of ratio. While a larger number of persons rated Modern Family, it’s not what I’d consider dramatically more.
However, I do think that Always Sunny has more of a self-selected viewership than Modern Family, almost to the point of cult status, which does influence ratings distribution. If you instead randomly selected 100 people who had never seen either show and asked them to rate the first episode of each, Modern Family would probably have a higher average rating; although I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Always Sunny had more 9s and 10s than Modern Family, with the overall average being pulled down by persons offended by the actions of the gang in an episode titled, “The Gang Gets Racist.” The latter doesn’t continue to watch the rest of the series, so usually doesn’t participate in ratings.
While this applies to aggregate audience ratings of the 2 shows, it wouldn’t apply as much to critics, which often show a similar pattern. For example, my earlier post mentioned that Rotten Tomato critics gave Always Sunny 94% fresh compared to 85% for Modern Family. Always Sunny ranked among top 100 best TV shows of all time on Empire’s list, Rolling Stone’s and the previously posted BBC / international list. In contrast Modern Family doesn’t appear among top 100 on any of these lists. Always Sunny is well regarded by both critics and fans alike and deserves to be on a top 100 list, in my opinion.
And now, the top 100 shows of the 21st Century as selected by NY Times readers (100,000+ participated.)
Big moves up for Gilmore Girls, Ted Lasso, Community.
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I have not scrolled all the way down, but the first 10-20 would indicate that the previous list and this list to be fairly similar. Maybe this list leans more to network tv as opposed to streaming shows???
Looks like all the shows mentioned above as missing made this list. I wonder if the list would look different if they polled readers before the other list came out. For example I never would have remembered The Queens Gambit if I hadn’t seen the first list, but it was a great show.
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Yes, asking readers about their top 10 immediately after they had seen the list of the TV expert’s top shows tremendously biases results. It also makes it all the more impressive when readers vote differently from experts, including voting on shows that do not appear on the TV expert’s list. Some of the shows with the largest differences between the two lists include:
Readers Ranked Higher
- Ted Lasso: #75 → #10
- Gilmore Girls: #99 → #26
- Community: #97 → #30
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: #>100 → #37
- Modern Family: #77 → #34
- Always Sunny in Philadelphia: #78 → #38
- Derry Girls: #>100 → #45
- Dark: #>100 → #61
Readers Ranked Lower
- Enlightened: #33 → #212
- The Comeback: #23 → #170
- Louie: #41 → #199
- Key & Peele: #29 → #167
- I May Destroy You: #18 → #114
- The Office (UK): #16 → #95
We had some discussion of Friday Night Lights above - it earning fairly high spots on both the original and public list.
A good read for those of you watched it - and those that haven’t yet. Loving football or disliking Texas is not the reason to watch or not watch this show. It’s so much more than football or Texas - you will find your emotions in many places with this multi-season watch.
Should be a gift link!
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/arts/television/friday-night-lights-20th-anniversary.html
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I was thinking - shows like Criminal Minds, Cold Case, etc. - stores that lasted 7/8 + years - Criminal Minds is now 18 or 19 years - aren’t on the list - but others are just a couple years and are.
I was just thinking about best - doesn’t always mean - most watched.
NCIS being a prime example. For years, it was the most watched scripted show
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Thanks, I really like him.
Plus This is Us, Grey’s Anatomy, Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Pluribus, Derry Girls and a few others are added to this list. I like that they included an expanded list beyond 100.
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While there is a loose correlation, they are completely different concepts. Many shows that are often considered “best” didn’t really catch on, with relatively little viewership. Examples include Firefly and Freaks & Geeks. Both were cancelled in first season due to low viewership. Firefly didn’t even air all 14 produced episodes before cancellation.
These types of cancelled due to low viewership shows rarely make this type of list, in spite of being outstanding shows. Note that Firefly does not appear on either of the NYT lists. However, there are some relatively low viewership shows that do appear on the NYT. An example is The Rehearsal, which appears on both lists, in spite of having episodes with as low as 50k live viewers.
The reverse is also true, some of the most viewed shows are generally considered mediocre or worse. Reality shows often fall in this category. For example, The Bachelor only has a 3.3 out of 10 rating on IMDB, yet it’s lasted ~30 seasons with tens of millions of viewers.
Among shows on the NYT lists, there are a few shows I’d consider not much above mediocre, but seem to get a boost due to being popular. An example is Grey’s Anatomy (on reader list).
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Is My Name is Earl on the list? It’s one of my top ten.
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My Name is Earl is not on either list, including going to top 500 on audience list. Among the 500+ “experts”, I believe only one voted for My Name is Earl – the comedian Nate Bargatze.
I enjoyed the first couple seasons… before prison, when Earl was going through a different item on his list with each episode. While I thought the show was entertaining, it’s not a show I would consider best of the 21st century.
And I laugh just thinking about it. It’s one of only two comedies I’ve watched from beginning to end more than once. OTOH, Schitt’s Creek gets rave reviews, and DH and I just could not get into that show, even skipping seasons to see if it would redeem itself. Didn’t make me laugh even once.
Probably says something about my sense of humor.
My Name is Earl did receive some critical recognition, though:
65th Golden Globes Awards (2008)
Nom: Best Supporting Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for TV (Jaime Pressly)
64th Golden Globes Awards (2007)
Nom: Best Leading Actor in a TV Series - Musical Or Comedy (Jason Lee)
65th Golden Globes Awards (2006)
Nom: Best Television Series - Comedy or Musical
Nom: Best Leading Actor in a TV Series - Musical Or Comedy (Jason Lee)
59th Emmy Awards (Main Categories) - - Year 2006
Winner: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Jaime Pressly)
58th Emmy Awards (Main Categories) - Year 2005
Nom: Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series (Jaime Pressly)
Winner: Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series (Marc Buckland, for the pilot episode)
Winner: Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series (Gregory Thomas Garcia, for the pilot episode)
Yeah, I tried three times to get into Schitt’s Creek and watched quite a few episodes, but never “got” it.
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I was curious about shows that the highest episode ratings rather than overall ratings, so I asked ChatGPT to write a program that scrapes IMDB episode ratings for all of the thousands of shows on IMDB and reports the shows with the highest median episode rating. Among non-anime shows with at least 100k votes and at least 20 episodes, the highest median episode rating shows were as follows.
These lists better resemble the shows I especially like than either of the NYT lists. However, the shows I most like is not the same as the shows I consider best.
- Dark – Median = 8.95, Average = 8.9
- Breaking Bad – Median = 8.9, Average = 8.9
- Mr. Robot – Median = 8.8, Average = 8.9
- Daredevil – Median = 8.8, Average = 8.8
- Game of Thrones – Median = 8.8, Average = 8.7
- Succession – Median = 8.8, Average = 8.7
- The Leftovers – Median = 8.75, Average = 8.7
- Better Caul Saul – Median = 8.7, Average = 8.8
Using the same criteria for overall rating, the results are:
- Breaking Bad
- The Wire
- Game of Thrones
- The Sopranos
- Better Call Saul
- Panchayat (India)
- Leyla and Mecnun (Turkey)
- Rick and Morty
If I dropped episode limit to a min of 10, then other shows that would make the lists above include Dexter: Resurrection, Band of Brothers, The Last Dance, Cosmos (2014), Planet Earth, Sherlock, and Firefly.
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Band of Brothers is a required watch Plebe year at West Point. Lt. Winters’ attack on a fortified German artillery position in episode 2 is still studied there.
We’ve watched it several times. The opening music guts me every time. Definitely a best.
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Amazing show. We learned more about Winters when we went on a guided tour of Normandy for two days. Impressive guy.
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