In my 50+ years on this mortal coil I have watched a fair share of TV. And thus there have been a lot of shows that I have enjoyed over those years. Now it’s time to countdown the 101 shows I have enjoyed the most.
How do I determine such a thing? Through a series of rigorously logical tests and evaluative rubrics, of course.
No, just kidding. Obviously, it’s all instinct and preference, of course, but also heavily influenced by how recently I have watched a show, how much of it I have actually seen, and how well I remember it. Any genre or style or length is eligible, as long as it’s a scripted television show, and I have seen some of it and enjoyed doing so.
We’re entering, but not completing the Top 10 with this part of the list. What will make it on there? Read on to find out.
Meanwhile, click on links to read previous posts – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6.

15. Ted Lasso
(2020-2023, Apple TV+)
Ted Lasso is all about an American college football coach who ends up becoming the head coach of a fictional English Premier League football club (ie soccer). Though that premise is pretty straightforward to describe, the series itself spreads itself wide into a lot of different directions, pulling almost all of them really well. It’s a fish-out-of-water story, it deals with the cultural clash between English and Americans, it’s a sports series, it’s an underdog story, it’s character-driven relationship drama and it’s an intensely funny comedy. It’s maybe one of the best pieces of evidence I know in the “for” category for the less rigidly-defined dramatic genres that are evident today, as opposed to when I was watching TV as a kid.
A lot of the success of Ted Lasso is down to actor Jason Sudeikis, who stars in the series, but is also one of the key creative personnel behind the camera. Lasso himself is perpetually upbeat and optimistic, often winning people over through his sheer positivity and hopeful outlook. But the show doesn’t shy away from the darker edges that lie behind Lasso’s smile. We learn that he is in England at all, in a job he is basically unfit for, because he’s running away from something in his personal life. A lot of the overall story over the show’s three seasons is about him coming to terms with the life circumstances that drove him away from the United States in the first place.
Maybe one of the most surprising places that the show takes us is into the arena of mental health, as we learn that Ted is struggling from panic attacks and anxiety stemming from long-standing personal trauma. All of this adds up into an impressively nuanced and well-rounded character that Sudeikis does an excellent job bringing to life.
There a lot of other actors doing great work around Sudeikis as well. I’m a particular fan of Brendan Hunt as Coach Beard, Ted’s right-hand man. He’s the opposite of Ted in many ways–as laconic as his friend is chatty, and far darker in his outlook. But he’s also loyal and committed, and in my opinion absolutely hilarious.
The acting comes together so strongly with the show’s writing (and a number of the actors are also writers on the show) to give us a compelling and emotionally meaningful look into the world of English soccer and the various figures (players, coaches, owners, publicists, journalists and more) who are part of it. The second season features, for instance, one of the best “corruption arcs” that my family and I have seen as one of the people who is swept up in Ted’s contagious optimism becomes disillusioned, and ends up stabbing his former hero in the back. It’s not life-and-death stakes, but it’s really gripping stuff.
Curiously, Ted Lasso features maybe the most prolific profanity out of any show on this countdown. This is usually a bit of a turn-off for me, but I think it’s all offset by the good feelings that Ted invokes almost any time he is on screen. And maybe it’s also helped by the fact that somehow, when the English are swearing, it doesn’t seem as rude somehow as it does when it’s anyone else.

14. Magnum, P.I.
(1980-1988, CBS)
In the 70s and 80s, private eye shows were a mainstay of American network TV, and one of the smartest and most popular of these was Magnum, P.I. Series star Tom Selleck created a character who was at once ruggedly handsome, tough and competent, but also friendly and funny and approachable. The series’ concept gave the ability for casual, laid-back character like Magnum to mix it up with a fancy lifestyle that should have been beyond his means, as he was permanently contracted as the security expert for a famous but reclusive writer that gave him access to a beautiful home on a luxurious estate and a very fancy car (a flashy red Ferrari). However, this also brought him into conflict with the estate’s stern and stuffy caretaker, Higgins (played by Jonathan Hillerman), who was in every obvious way Magnum’s near-perfect foil. Their interactions provided a lot of the backdrop for the mystery-of-the-week storylines that Magnum got himself wrapped up with.
Magnum had a military background, having served as a Naval intelligence officer in the Vietnam War (where he was also a POW for several months), and occasionally the show’s bigger storylines would involve situations that were born out of that history. He had lost his father to war when he was very young, an event which evidently impacted his life greatly. These sorts of dynamics were a big part of the show’s general tone, which was similar to other projects developed by Magnum, P.I.’s creator, Donald P. Bellisario.
I recently wrote about one of the show’s most memorable episodes–the third season opener Did you See the Sunrise? which featured the shocking death of one of Magnum’s friends, and revealed how far Magnum was willing to go to ensure that he would receive justice. But the episode that had the biggest impact on me was the one that closed off the seventh season, which at the time was intended to be the series finale, in which Magnum was mortally wounded and spent the entire episode basically as a ghost. The intention was that the character would be killed off to wrap up the show, but fan outcry prevented this and it ran for another year, giving Magnum a more conventional conclusion. But seeing that original ending, entitled “Limbo”, was one of my favorite TV viewing experiences.
A reboot of Magnum, P.I. aired from 2018-2022. I saw a few episodes and they were fine, but the show didn’t really connect with me.

13. The Expanse
(2015-2022, Syfy / Amazon Primę Video)
The Expanse is a science fiction series that I have heard about for a long time, but only recently decided to watch past the first episode, and boy am I glad that I did.
The concept is that somewhere in the future, humans have colonised Mars (turning it into a separate nation) and also moved out as far as the asteroid belt, which is discovered to have an abundance of resources ripe for exploitation. This gives rise to a disenfranchised working class known as “Belters” (people who were born and raised int he asteroid belt) who have a lot of friction with the “United Nations” (Earth and Mars). In the midst of this, a mysterious and powerful substance (the “Proto-Molecule”) from outside of the solar system is discovered, with all the relevant parties doing everything they can to control it, or at least to ensure they are not left behind in a new technology race.
The story initially follows three distinct groups of characters as they confront the possibility of war breaking out and seek to understand the forces that are taking the solar system in this direction–the UN Deputy Undersecretary (ie the government of Earth), the crew of a mining ship who find themselves in the midst of the struggle to control the Proto-Molecule, and a police officer from a mining colony who is tasked to track down the missing daughter of an influential businessman from earth. From all these ingredients, The Expanse proceeds to tell a story in which fascinating concepts and ideas marry closely with a compelling human story.
The show is exciting with lots of military action, but it never loses sight of its characters. The conflicts are compelling and meaningful to the people involved, and it was impossible not to be immersed and gripped by the drama, whether it was happening on a season level, an episode level or a scene level.
Basically, it’s really, really good writing.
I like all the cast but my favorite is probably Wes Chatham as Amos Burton, who managed to create a character who is both deeply sensitive and extremely violent in a way that was fully believable and psychologically authentic.

12. Doc Martin
(2004-2022, ITV)
Martin Clunes stars in this comedy-drama as Dr. Martin Ellingham, a highly skilled but socially inept vascular surgeon who suddenly develops an intense blood phobia. Not able to continue his career, he decides instead to become a general practitioner at Portwenn, a fictional seaside town in Cornwall. Kind of along the lines of Northern Exposure, which aired on American TV fifteen years earlier, a lot of what is so fun to watch is the fish-out-of-water run-ins that Dr. Ellingham has with quirky residents of Portwenn. Ellingham is irritable, reserved and as a rule uninterested in developing relationship with the locals. He doesn’t seem to care about being liked, and has no scruples about calling people out for their unhealthy behaviour, going so far as to use his own relative’s funeral as an opportunity to point out how many of the people in the community are clinically obese.
With all of this, there is also something incredibly admirable about “Doc Martin” (as the locals call him). He’s a brilliant diagnostician and pretty much every episode features him saving somebody’s life with his knowledge and quick-thinking. He’s committed to the village’s well-being though there are many who don’t appreciate it. And though his blood phobia remains a problem for the run of the series, he always finds a way to overcome it when it’s necessary for providing medical care. And you see a lot of tenderness and vulnerability in his romance with school teacher Louisa Glassen (Caroline Catz) which is a big part of the series.
There are a lot of really funny supporting characters that populate Portwenn. Some of the original cast end up leaving after a while and are replaced by suspiciously similar substitutes, but generally they are as good or even improvements on the originals. Most notable of these for me is John Marquez as PC Joe Penhale, who joins the show in the third season and is one of the funniest characters I’ve ever seen–an inept but well-meaning policeman who imagines (inappropriately) that he and Martin are best friends, and usually complicates situations more than he helps.
The show ran for ten seasons over 18 years, so we got to see a lot of development in the life of Martin, Louisa and the whole town of Portwenn. The show features clever plots, strong performances and very witty dialogue, and is a real joy to watch.

11. Foyle’s War
(2002-2015, ITV)
Another British show that ran over a long time (in this case there were 8 seasons in 13 years) is Foyle’s War, which based on what I know is coming in this list is my favorite ever British detective series (a genre the British are especially good at, it seems, and which have several examples earlier on this list).
Michael Kitchen plays Christopher Foyle, a brilliant and principles senior police officer assigned to run a station in Hastings during World War II. Foyle actually wishes to step down from his role, but he is too valuable to his superiors to let go. At the same time, he is too independent to be fully trusted, and as a result he often comes into conflict with senior members of the police or with British or foreign intelligence services when his investigations expose the crimes of intelligence assets or seem to compromise some aspect of the war effort. Foyle is fiercely patriotic, but reluctant to allow the guilty just get away with it because their arrest is inconvenient for the army or the government, which leads to many memorable face-offs. But in spite of the opposition, Foyle’s ability to concisely articulate his deductions and the evidence behind them usually serves him well.
Along with Michael Kitchen’s outstanding performance as Foyle, the show also features Anthony Howell as his right-hand-man Paul Milner, and Honeysuckle Weeks as his spry and spirited driver, Samantha Stewart. I like both characters but Sam is especially fun, and remains with the show for its entire run (while Milner bows out during the 6th season). The last couple of years of the show took the story beyond World War II and had Foyle working now with British intelligence. The show was still good, though not quite the same as in its prime, when it built off the contrast of the police investigating “normal” crimes in the extraordinary situation of a Britain at war.
The last episode of Foyle’s War only sort-of feels like a finale. The show’s creators were still hoping to do more, it seems, but were not given the opportunity, which is a real shame. It’s a great series.

10. The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel
(2017-2023, Amazon Prime Video)
Mrs. Maisel is a comedy-drama about Mildred “Midge” Maisel, a New York housewife in the 1950s who ends up pursuing a career as a stand-up comic after she discovers her husband Joel is having an affair. Put that way, it sounds totally contrived, but the writing is actually excellent: the characters are strong and their motivations are meaningful, the plot develops in interesting and surprising ways, and the dialogue is sharp and sparkling.
Rachel Brosnahan’s Midge Maisel is at the heart of the show, and she is just delightful. But she doesn’t bring the only good performance, and she’s not the funniest by a long shot. Alex Borstein (as Midge’s manager Susie), Tony Shalhoub (as Midge’s father), and Kevin Pollack (as Joel’s father), are all excellent and hilarious, though each in his or her own way.
I also became a big fan of Michael Zegen as Joel. He’s a guy who at first seems like he’s going to be just a one-dimensional jerk, but he ends up far more interesting–a man who made some terrible mistakes but is at heart committed and fiercely loyal. It’s a surprising choice, making him such a likeable guy when it’s his own insecurity and selfishness that kicks the show off. But that’s part of what I like about the show.
There is also something really special about the show’s production and costume design, which is not the sort of thing I normally notice in a series. There is a sumptuous look to the show’s period setting, and Midge herself is just a fashion icon.
The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel ran for five seasons, and rumor has it that it was only cancelled because Amazon Prime Video needed more money to make Rings of Power, which was definitely not a good trade off. There were ebbs and flows with with how well the show worked–some storylines were better than others–but generally it was a doorway into a world that I loved to visit from episode to episode.

9. Severance
(2022-present, Apple TV+)
One of the most recent series to show up on this timeline, Severance posits a world where a corporation has developed the technology to allow its workers to fully bifurcate their identities–when the workers are at their jobs, they have no idea of their regular personalities or lives, and when they are at home, they have no knowledge of what they have been doing at work. Our focal character is Mark Scout, or Mark S. as he’s known (and as he knows himself) while at work, a guy whose personal grief led him to undergo the “severance process”, as a way to basically get away from his own misery and self-pity.
Building off of this imaginative science fiction premise, the show is able to go to all sorts of interesting places as it explores the dramatic and social implications that the procedure has for those who undergo it, and for the world around them. The men and women at the “Lumon Industries” not only do not know who they really are, they know nothing of life outside of work. And they are helpless to do anything about it–as long as their “outies” (as they refer to them) keep clocking in each day, they are forced to spend their existence at their workplace, and their workplace is a bizarrely absurd dystopian nightmare.
The employees at Lumon have no idea what their work actually involves, or why they are doing it at all. They are at the whim of their bosses, especially the creepily chipper middle manager, Mr. Milchick, and the stern and darkly reserved senior manager, Ms. Cobel, who is also secretly spying on Mark in his regular identity for reasons that are thus far not clear to the audience. But still, Mark and his colleagues (Helly R, Dylan G. and Burt G.) all begin to realize that what is happening to them is wrong, and begin to find ways to fight back.
All in all, it’s a collection of fascinating ideas that are held together by a series of compelling and engaging dramatic events which are in equal parts exciting, tense and darkly comical. After a long delay, the second season of Severance has now on begun. One episode in (at the time of writing this)and I’m still loving it.

8. Detectorists
(2015-2022, BBC Four / BBC Two)
One of my favorite comedies, and probably the series in this upper echelon of my list that you are most likely to have never heard of. It’s a British show that ran for three seasons, which I originally mistook it for a detective show when I was poking around Britbox one day. It turns out to be about people who do metal detecting, aka “detectorists” (not metal detectors, they are quick to point out, as that is the name of the machine they use to detect the metal). The main characters are Lance and Andy, two ordinary guys in the small town of Danebury who enjoy idling away their hours wandering through local paddocks, looking for potential treasures. Usually they just find some old coins or a ring pulls from discarded soda cans, but every once in a while they’ll find something worth celebrating.
The show is a situation comedy, but it’s less just made up of jokes as it is simply some quirky characters wandering through life being themselves. There are plots, of course, but the humor comes largely from just seeing the pair interacting (and relating to the other people in their life) more than it is anything particularly funny that they do. Indeed, a lot of the jokes they make are kind of flat and cringeworthy, just like in real conversations that you might have people. It’s all just part of the naturalism and authenticity of these characters which make them really fun to spend time with.
Lance and Andy are played by Tobey Jones and Mackenzie Crook, who are both great in a low-key sort of way. The supporting cast includes Rachael Stirling as Andy’s girlfriend and eventual wife, Sophie Thompson, Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Diana Ring (Stirling’s mother in real life, and her mother in the series). Simon Farnaby and Philip Peters play rival detectorists who hilariously get nicknamed as Simon & Garfunekn because of their superficial resemblance to the singers. The show is the creative brainchild of Crook, who created, wrote and directed the series. And it’s got one of my all-time favorite theme songs, Detectorists by Johnny Flynn. It’s a sweet piece which really captures the vibe of the series.
Hey, in looking up some details about the show for this write-up, I just discovered that there was a Christmas special in 2022 that I have never seen or heard of before! The previous final episode is from 2022. I loved the final moments of the last episode, but I’m definitely eager to search this one out!

And that’s the end of this, the penultimate entry on this countdown. Read on for the 7 shows that I love the most!