If the NYT isn’t exactly the land of listicles, it’s recently angling to become The Land of Listicles of Some Largess, which, I admit, is just a terrible name. But, yeah, I’m sticking with it. And after publishing, in June, 2025, The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century and, this September, The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century, they seem to have genuinely earned the title. I mean, these are big daddy listicles–the kind of listicles that make other listicles look anemic by comparison.

I say this because, principally, they’ve mastered the art of the slow rollout–presenting tiers of their ‘100 best’ lists, beginning with the final ten and working their way, with a kind of drawn-out fanfare that would make a nationally distributed Liquid Death (or whatever) billboard campaign jealous, to numbah one. Sure, they’ve mastered other stuff–driving interest via in-line celeb commentaries, for instance. Pro move. But the slow rollout? That’s gold, Jerry. Gold.

If other list makers¹ just dump their whole list out in some cruddy blog post or wherever, the NYT whets your appetite and then whets and whets and so forth, until all that’s left is you in a puddle of your own prefigured (and now confirmed) outrage over, you know, decisions.

And perusing their 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century is, like perusing their 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century list from wayyy back at the quarter century mark, an exercise in predictable outrage. Just as with their ‘movies’ list, there are how-could-you-type decisions to question, like Game of Thrones at 6, Friday Night Lights and The Americans at 14 and 17, respectively, and Lost at 22. Meaning, shows like that ain’t got no business bein’ within cherry pit-spittin’ range of the crick.²

Do the complaints stop there? Of course not. Putting The White Lotus (21), Girls (13), The Leftovers (25), and, yes, Breaking Bad (1) over shows like Black Mirror (26), Enlightened (33), and The Rehearsal (66) is unexplainable. Battlestar Galactica (37), Ted Lasso (75), The Pitt (36), and Andor (32)? I’d rather see Is It Cake?³ on a best-of list than these uninspired choices.

But it’s the Golden Age of Television, I can hear you say (or, at least, it was until recently, you might add, slightly ashamed at not having adjusted your data, re: The Correction, circa 2022).

But you and I both know—well, actually, I can’t speak for anyone but myself—that that’s a load of crap. One needn’t look further than the NYT’s crown jewel—Breaking Bad—for an indictment of said accolade. The show was not particularly strong. Bryan Cranston? Frickin’ amazing as Walter White. Almost every other aspect of the show? Mediocre to bad (pun sort of intended). At número uno on The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century list, well, let’s just say there’s a why-personal-checking-account-checks-start-at-number-101 joke buried in there somewhere, but I’m just too exhausted to excavate it.

Granted, Mad Man was considerably more even than Breaking Bad, but the so-called Golden Era is looking pretty brassy with it at number 3. Oof. This isn’t to say that Mad Men, Breaking Bad, or Succession (4, if you can believe it) aren’t perfectly entertaining in a low brow, low expectations sort of way. They are. They’re also exactly what’s kept TV from breaking its own opiate-of-the-masses chains all these years. This is not entirely the fault of the list, of course. If one compares the artistic gravitas of this top 100 list—or any top 100 TV series of the 21st century list—to a bonafide top 100 films list—of which the NYT’s proletariat 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century is not—one ought to be struck with the realization that there is basically no there there. Still. Ninety years on now.

This is just slightly overstated. There are some outliers, yes. Twin Peaks (the original series—not the reprisal), for instance. Did I say some, though? Just that one, actually⁴. But I love TV, man! I know—it’s borderline sacrilegious. I apologize. But it’s also true. As David Foster Wallace wrote in his 1993 essay E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction, “I think TV promulgates the idea that good art is just art which makes people like and depend on the vehicle that brings them the art.” Pouring one out for you, bro.

But damned if I’m gonna just tear this list a new one without providing my own alternative Best TV Shows of the 21st Century list. Criticism is simply more palatable (or, at least, easier to dismiss) when one has a stake in the game. My list, with mirror universe fanfare, is comprised of The Simpsons, The Chair Company, The Office (UK), Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Wire, The Sopranos, The Rehearsal, Black Mirror, I Think You Should Leave, and 30 Rock⁵. In that order. And, yes, the NYT’s eligibility rule (that series must begin in the 21st century) is just plain stupid—thus, The Simpsons and The Sopranos are in. And, yes, this one doesn’t go to 100⁶. What’s the point?

Okay, okay, here’s the damn list already. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.