Almost 4000 people have taken the best show on TV poll so now is a good time to take a look at the results. Here are the top five:
The Wire: 16%
The Simpsons: 8%
Seinfeld: 7%
Arrested Development: 7%
The West Wing: 6%
No other show got more than 4% of the total vote. As expected, The Wire topped the list1. Some notes:
- Arrested Development ranked 4th overall, way higher than I would have thought. People love this show more than the ratings and its duration (it was cancelled after 3 seasons) would indicate.
- The Sopranos was not in the top five. My feeling is that if this poll were conducted five years from now, it would rate higher...the influence this show has had on TV is only starting to be felt.
- Beavis and Butt-head beat out The Honeymooners for second-to-last place. Ralph and Alice deserve better.
- Shows I would have liked to see higher in the list: Deadwood, Sesame Street, The Sopranos.
- I love Seinfeld, but it was ranked too high. At 2%, Buffy got 2% more of the vote than I would have given it.
- Shows that some thought should be on the list: Law & Order (love the show but it defines formulaic TV), The Twilight Zone (perhaps), Doctor Who (again, love it, but nothing this cheesy can be the best show on TV), Sex and the City, Rome, Carnivale, Heroes, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Thanks to everyone who voted.
[1] I got some emails saying that The Wire ranked first only because I talk about the show so much on the site. That was probably a factor, but it's not like this is a Wire fan site or something. The poll wasn't that scientific anyway. Run a similar poll on Perez Hilton and American Idol might have won. Or on a site that appeals to 50-somethings and some of the older shows on the list might have done better. All this poll really shows is what people who like the kinds of things I post about on kottke.org also like to watch on television. (This was also not, as someone suggested, an attempt to gather information about viewing habits for advertisers. Duh.) ↩
