The top 50 streaming programs of all time--and the worst!

They say it's the golden age of TV, and I have to agree--though that includes great series from other countries.   I also agree that TV has evolved--and we expect more--from our streaming experience.   So shows that we might remember as the "greats" from the past (Dallas?   Mission Impossible? Little House on the Prairie?) haven't stood the test of time in comparison.

So this is my ranking of all-time favorites, given our contemporary Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/Apple- mediated perspective:

1. Mad Men (7 seasons)--you just can't touch the time capsule within which Don Draper and crew try to survive as the world hurries onwards towards entropy.   Pete's still sitting in the office with his WWI rifle, protecting this all-time number 1 ranking.  It looks like Iwo Jima in here...
2. The Wire (4 seasons)--for combining noir sensibility with real political topics (freedom of the press, the street drug trade, labor activism, local politics), nothing comes close.  Omar, we miss you!
3. Borgen (3 seasons 2010-2013)--Other than Justin Trudeau in Canada, Denmark has the hottest political leaders, including Sidse Babett Knudsen as...sigh...Birgitte Nyborg. 
4. Spiral (Engrenages) (2006-2021)--French crime thriller that competes with the best.  By which I mean the flaws are real--for both the bad guys and the cops.  2021 brought us seasons 7 and 8--Josephine is still in prison, Gilou has straightened up and is mentoring new investigators, and Laure is trying to get back to work while still unable to hold her baby. Police Commissioner Herville is gunned down in a Chinese restaurant--and Tintin is spying. And that's just the first 10 minutes!!!
5. Luther (4 seasons)--Idris Elba (twice in the top 10, tying him with Elizabeth Moss).   Need I say more?   The guy fills the entire screen with brooding wisdom.  Sickest love interest of all time in the first two seasons.
6. Le Bureau--(2015-2020, French)--The French Homeland with less lithium and fewer manic breakdowns, thank goodness. Far far better because the characters are all more than one-dimensional.   Malatru ("The Lout") remains an enigma from episode 1 until the current end of season 5. Marina captures strength and weakness in her every step. And while the show regularly tweaks the CIA for its clumsy irrelevance, DSGE is humble enough to let you know that all these lives are being lost for almost no reason at all. Damascus, Moscow, and hackers' conferences in the Ukraine have never felt more real. Given the plot, isn't it amazing that Guillaume is still alive and sidelined at the end?  Hard to believe.
7. Call My Agent--(four seasons, 2016-2021). Four central characters try to keep their clients out of trouble. Meanwhile, they weave an intense and beautiful network of love (fractured as it might be) with their friends, lovers, family, and partners.  Most famous French stars appear at least once throughout the show, and if they don't, they're referred to.  The script loves the characters, and it lets them shine, and fail, and sometimes even partially redeem themselves. A pure joy. 
8. Last Tango in Halifax (26 episodes between 2012-2021)--British invasion that has everything Downton Abbey missed---rapidfire plot twists, A+ acting from every member of the cast (which reads like a Who's Who led by Derek Jacobi and Ann Reid as the most romantic couple on the planet), intense and developing relations between the characters, a real understanding of British class attitudes, and way more car accidents (even if most of them are comic).  I'd like to thank the scriptwriter--this is dialog at its best from episode 1 til the end. Sarah Lancashire (she's also on this list for Happy Valley) and Nicola Walker are sublime in all seasons but perhaps especially the final season which deals with discrimination against gays, a possible Banksy, and Crime and Punishment-level guilt.  I'd like to make a special call out to Tony Gardner, who plays John, Sarah/Caroline's ex.  No one has ever played "gormless" better.  Ever.  You can't take your eyes off this train wreck when he's in the frame. 
9. Seaside Hotel (2011-2021)--this show ran nine seasons before anyone in North America noticed. By that time, the collaboration and self-justification of Denmark had gone from 'nuisance" to live landmines and military airports on the Jutland shore. The best ensemble show ever perhaps--there's no lead but there's the underworld seafarer, the lead tenor who's egotism will accept no equal, more strong-willed and capable women than you can count, a conflicted contractor and a love-lost manufacturer as a start.
10. Slings and Arrows (three seasons from CBC)--too bad there aren't more, since we still have many Shakespeare classics to dissect!   There are so many beautiful things about this Canadian take on Stratford (Ontario, that is) but my favorite is the acting class it offers.   Again and again, just when you think the show will become too silly, some one shows how to really do the tragedies...
11. The Handmaid's Tale (2017-20 three seasons but only the first is any good, on Hulu)--Elizabeth Moss, in person and in voiceover, brings Margaret Atwood to new, current life in season 1.  For example, how does if feel when your checking account is stolen by your bank because you're a woman?   And what's it like to lay between an infertile woman's thighs while you get inseminated (hopefully) by her husband?  Or to hide under a table in a coffee shop while protesters are gunned down in the street in front of you.  Trump was in office, and it felt then like we were moments away from knowing all these things.  Elizabeth Moss has two in the top 10!  Sadly, Season 2 lacks both the Atwood and the Canadian perspective, and falls back on the only motivation Americans seems willing to consume:   motherhood.   All the characters become dumb and silly in Season 2, and not just because they're Red Sox and Boston Globe fans.. Discussing Season 3 is below the dignity of this analysis.
12. Fleabag (2018-9)--a Netflix original, based on the Edinburgh Fringe Festival breakout, that adds  absolutely-no-fourth-wall-at-all life to the "she can't get out of her own way" single woman situation.   Great sister relationship that isn't glossed over, difficult parent situations, bizarre men (aren't they all). And a central character you can't stop watching, even though she's now just about every one's darling. Of course the sexy priest notices that Phoebe is confessing to us for sleeping with her best friend's husband. 
13. Bojack Horseman (2014-2020)--a horse is a horse, and cats and dogs are pretty recognizable too. Fantastic one-liners and delivery, with endless all-stars voicing over their animated selves, This animated story answers the question we've all been asking for years: does a washed up 1990's one-trick-pony have anything to tell us? Yes--has beens understand moral philosophy better than the rest of us. The show trends towards nihilism, and Bojack drags every one else down with his narcissistic celebrity. When he lands a perfect job at Wesleyan as a great prof of scene studies, you know it's too good to be true--yet you respect and love the characters for surviving at all.
14. Happy Valley (2 seasons, Netflix/BBC)--local cop in the British town where Sylvia Plath committed suicide proves that you can be stronger and smarter than Frances Mcdormand in Fargo.  And there's a world class creepy bad guy here--I mean on par with Javiar Bardem in No Country for Old Men.
15. Babylon Berlin (Three seasons 2017-2020 on Netflix)--It's 1929 just before the crash, and Hitler is three years away.   Stalin hasn't cemented power, Trotsky is still alive, gangsters have as much power as any one, and no one is certain what their gender is.  So who's transporting all that gold and phosgene?  And what's the Reichswehr up to 300km south of Moscow? 
16. Occupied (2016-19)--in the slight future, Norway stops oil production to force better environmental practices on the EU.   What happens?   Russia invades to restart production, and no one else, including the US, lifts a finger because they all need their heroin.  Of course.   Did you expect any one else would care except the small "Free Norway" movement?  And of course th eU.S. will poison your food to get rid of you. When all your principles have been betrayed, you have nothing left to lose.  What would you do?  Season Three leaves Jasper on the radical environmentalist island.
17. Traffik (1 season 1989, UK Channel 4)--the TV series follows four key cogs (ranging from the Home Minister to the best farmer in Pakistan) in the heroin trade so you understand the cultural, emotional, financial, and legal decisions they all make--or they're forced into.   A field of poppies never looked so pretty.  
18. The Sopranos--solid, honest, and wonderful from the first "Got Myself a Gun" credits.   Best not to date any of these individuals--things will go poorly for you.  And therapy?  Perhaps that's not going so well, either.
19. Ted Lasso (2020-1) Don't judge a jock by its cover--probably the show on this top streaming shows of all time list with the least promising premise: an American football coach who took Wichita State from the bottom to the top is recruited to run a Premiership team, AFC Richmond. No one likes him, and of course he doesn't know that the bitter ex of the original owner, who won the team in the divorce, is just trying to ruin it so she can get even (the ex is a slime ball--I'd do the same thing). But Ted, played by Jason Sudeikis, is just too sweet.  He bakes.  He asks questions.  He trusts the groundskeeper (Nathan).  He fixes the water pressure in the locker room...and eventually, one by one, his players come around.  Of course, in the meantime, Crystal Palace demolishes them at home, and all of the UK is busy screaming "wanker" at their telly.  Just renewed for third season so the feel-good message will continue!
20. The Good Place--this show is uneven and hard to rank, but I'll post it here for fear that if I rank it lower I'll end up in the Bad Place.  Or a facsimile thereof.  Season 1 drags a bit but it does actually get pretty metaphysical after that--even Ted Danson becomes a philosopher. And, of course, hanging over the whole show is the risk that everyone will be tortured for, like, a really long time.
21. Black Monday (2019-20)--is Don Cheadle the best comedian of all time?  You may think so after he and Regina Hall team up to scam Wall Street--and by mistake cause the Lehman Brothers (in this film, they're incestuous twins) financial disaster of 1986. Black men are pimps, everyone does Jane Fonda, and the coke falls over the landscape like baby powder. And--you can't stop laughing.  The comic writing and performing are both as good as it gets.
22. The Hour (2 seasons 2011-12, BBC)--Ben Whishaw is a new journalist of the old school. Dominic West also scores in the second of his top-ranked series, after The Wire. 
23. Wallender (the Swedish version, not the UK one with Kenneth Branagh).   Slice of life excellence--these detectives really do walk their dogs, drink too much wine with friends, and miss their lost family members.  Peter Falk doggedness with a strong social conscience, typical of the Scandinavians.
24. Never Did I Ever (2020-1)--The main reason to celebrate this "smart South Asian girl coming of age" genre piece is the fact that John McEnroe narrates it, and in the process he redefines "third person omniscient."  Comparing her dating situation to his matches with Conners and Borg, we understand both the silliness--and the profundity--of teen angst.
25. Nobel (2016 so far)--the Norwegians are stuck in Afghanistan playing their own destitute version of the big game...but they're doing it with way more class and at least some attention to human rights compared to the U.S.   These are really heroes--and if you question that, watch this show as it gives the correct answer to the moral challenges toyed with in every "killing Arabs is tough" U.S. movie we've had to endure.  
26. The Killing (2007-2012)  Police detective Sarah Lund wears the same nordic sweater through six seasons, which is good--she's got a lot of murdered bodies around, and her homicide colleagues aren't the sharpest tacks in the box. 
27. Giri Haji (2020)--Replace The Godfather's Sicily/US connection with Japan/Britain and you'll understand the context for the family mob violence.  Only one season (BBC Two have cancelled it), which is good because there aren't many people left to die. The show revolves around two brothers and their own new London "family"--one a cop, and one an increasingly accomplished criminal.  There's Sarah, the Glaswegian cop, Rodney the gay sex worker, Taki the smart daughter, Abbott, the local thug who dreams of being Japanese--and Kenzo and Juto, the brothers. By episode 6 and 7, every single one of the prime characters is at imminent risk of death.
28. Afterlife (2018-2022)--The rare examination of depression and suicide. Ricky Gervais wants to kill himself, for three whole seasons now. Who wouldn't; he's lonely and stuck with hundreds of hours of celebratory video of his deceased wife (OK, that's a little weird. Did they film everything?).  So, he can't be nice to any one, least of all himself.  But, his few remaining friends (postal carriers, the proverbial whore with a good heart, his brother-in-law, and his journalistic co workers) keep an eye on him--and there are always the crazy townspeople who all have love in their hearts, even if it's hidden deeply out of sight (the journalistic assignments with these random folks are all treated with wide-eyed wonder). Like Bojack Horseman, Afterlife is something of a philosophy course disguised as a sitcom.  Funnier than hell, which may be not having other people.
29. London Spy (one season 2015)--Ben Whishaw takes on MI6, the CIA, the Mossad, and every one else, with only a little help for a very short time from Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling.
30. Berlin Dance School (2020-1)--Caterina runs a dance school she acquired because the Jewish owners went to the death camps.  How do you justify this? Create a false narrative and hang on to it despite every effort to expose the truth.  The struggle is intense--it locks up her three daughters, one of whom marries a gay man to escape.  Another turns to prostitution.  And, the third invents German rock n roll.  If it's a metaphor for Germany in 1956, that's fine--the men are rapists or impotent, and every character knows how to present their lie in the best possible light.  What were you doing on CrystalNacht??? The answers will surprise you for the two seasons so far--and the music is great.
31. Station 11 (2022)--the apocalypse is after us again, this time turning Chicago into a frozen wasteland (that didn't take much creativity) after an epidemic which, unlike COVID, kills everyone in a matter of hours. Two brothers take care of a young girl rescued from the cast of a production of Hamlet (which importantly stars Gabriel Garcia Bernal!). Why is this important? Because she preserves the play as the new bible for the very few survivors of the pandemic.  They lived because the ADHD brother bought $9400 of junk food from a 7-11 so they stayed locked up and mostly safe for several months. Another group of survivors landed in a deserted airport.  You never know who's going to survive COVID!
32. True Detective (Season 1 only 2014--season 2 and season 3 are mediocre, HBO)--Who can forget the philosophical discussions between Woody Harrelson and Mathew McConaughey?  The only successful TV series "road movie"--compare with Thelma and Louise and you'll see my point.  Season 2 and 3 have none of this...were the scriptwriters on strike or something?
33. M*A*S*H (1972-83, CBS)--still the reigning TV definition of what it means to be a male anti-war feminist in our sexist militarist U.S. culture.  Pierce, Houlihan, O'Reilly, Klinger, Hunnicut, Burns, Potter...thank you.
34. Turks and Caicos--David Hare script enlivened by Bill Nighy who's literally losing his senses.
35. Comrade Detective (2017, US and faux Romanian).  You can't get any more high-concept than this 6 episode laughfest based on the fact that, as Channing Tatum deadpans, "well, actually, no one reads anymore."   Real Romanian actors playing 1980's cops in a propaganda film pillory American values and arrogance--via "dubbing" voice by Tatum, Chloe Sevigny, Bobby Carnevale, and many others.   Features the sexiest American Ambassador ever...hanging on to her job after voting for Jimmy Carter.   Take that, you Jordache-wearing, Monopoly-playing capitalist pigs!  
36. Undone (2019)--special animation techniques brought to the topic of "do-overs" at the highest moral level. In the end, the father learns that he's much less of a man than even he thought. Does the fact that the daughter can see all this make her a visionary--or a schizophrenic? From the same group that brought us Bojack Horseman, also ranked higher up on this list.
37. Killing Eve- (2018-2020).  More MI6, with more disdainful prigs (dickswabs, to quote Sandra Oh) and smart women, led by Fiona Shaw and Oh.   Benefits from unbelievable outfits, lesbian sex with knives and guns laying around (is that a benefit?), and a crazy serial killer who may be the most fun of all time, second only to Ruth Wilson in the first season of Luther! 
38. Yellowjackets (2022). Daddy's plane carrying your high school soccer team to the nationals crashes in Montana or Washington or Canada or somewhere out there (there are lots of trails but none of them lead back to civilization.  Strange.). Lives are lost.  Most interestingly, we also get to meet the survivors who harbor secrets 25 years later.  Before and after. Worth watching just for Melanie Lynskey (and Juliette Lewis!).  There must be less scarring ways to lose your virginity. Or to score goals.
39. Collateral--(2018 four episodes) David Hare script enlivened by Carey Mulligan who is a really good cop when a pizza delivery guy is shot.   Hint--they're all terrorists ha ha.
40. Trapped--(2017-9, two seasons, Iceland) All hell breaks lose (after the storm and the avalanche and the burning of the mayor) when the evil big city cops from...wait...from Reykjavik (!) blow into town.
41. The Decalogue (One ten-episode season 1989, Poland) Each episode loosely refers to one of the Ten Commandments.  Very loosely...which forces you to draw your own conclusions about the morality of the characters' large and small decisions.   Any one want to go ice skating?
42. 3% (2017-20, Netflix).  Michele and Fernando et al may or may not want to stop the Process which allows 3% of each annual group of 20 year olds to be whisked out of the Brazilian ghetto into a place that looks a lot like a Sandals resort called the Offshore.  Each episode is a psych test that the aspiring top tier compete to pass.   The final exam is sterilization--we don't want babies at Sandals. The fourth season available now is as good as the first three. 
43. Schitt's Creek (2014-2020). Great comic acting, particularly from Daniel Levy and Annie Murphy ("David and Alexis") as the disappointed but stoic kids caste into motel life due to financial fraud which destroys their father's video store empire.  The show's energy derives from the Canadian generosity and kindness that keeps popping up in the strangest locations...chorale groups, the town diner, and even at New York private equity funds. 
44. Succession (2018-2021)--four siblings grovel, have bad sex, do cocaine, insult their partners and bicker for two great seasons--and a third boring season which drops this show in the all-time ratings. Why? Because they want Rupert Murdock's love. And guess what? He doesn't have any! It's unlikely they'll get his waning money or power either, would be my guess. Best depiction of the banality of income inequality I've ever seen.
45. Dark (2018-2021)--Two complex seasons of four-part time travel, and then things get really wired in Season 3 which overlays quantum alternative universes in a way that shows all of season 1 and 2 were "flash." This show kills "Scary Things" because of its philosophical and physical intricacy. You need a chart (there are many available) to know what's happening. And then amazingly, after all those discussions about which, who, or when Jonas, Marta, Catherine, Eva, Adam, the three cleft-palate murderers, and nearly everyone else--then, get this: it turns out a time machine error in 1986 set the whole mess in motion, and only two characters can put the pieces back together again--if they disappear into the time-space continuum.  This isn't a great show. It's a great trip. 
46. Brideshead Revisited--recalls a time when men were truly handsome...and only had drama once a week.
47. Jewel in the Crown--don't know if I'd go back and watch it again, but I quote from it all the time...a genre-defining success from PBS.
48. Ethos (Bir Baskadir)--Lovely character analysis of "covered" and westernized women on both sides of the Bosporus.  Two of them are therapists who sorely need to heal themselves first.
49. 50m2--I just want to move back to Istanbul and run a tailor shop.  Why is it so difficult, and who are those big guys with lots of guns?
50. Queens Gambit (one season 2020). Beth Harmon has some issues.  She's an orphan.  She's killing the building maintenance guy at chess.  And she LOVES to do drugs.  Pretty much any kind.  It's enough of a premise for a light but interesting mini-series.
51. Homeland (8 seasons so far 2011-2018, Showtime)--Fantastic political drama, only offset by the fact that we've seen Carrie lose her marbles 11 million times now--the same facial expressions, verbal tics, self-defeating behavior. 
52. The Affair--(2014-2016)  Dominick West and Ruth Wilson start slow, but then provide a "kids don't do this at home" version of the insanity which starts the moment we fall in love.   Great acting by every one who gets crushed in their diverging paths.  

Other good binge-watching shows that I enjoyed but which don't make the rankings or don't quite "fit" because the definition of TV has changed so much

• The Way of the Househusband (2021)--a master course in repurposing fundamental job skills.  In this case, as the name implies, being an assassin can really come in handy when a fishmonger tries to sell you day-old sashimi. And imagine what you can do with the local PTA?
• Chestnut Man--maye I've seen too many Scandinavian detective series but this one engages, and tests your patience, all at the same time.  First, any show based on murdering 10% of the women of a country (in this case with ultra-fast medical saws!) tests credulity.  Still you'll be surprised when the mystery is solved.
• Teenage Bounty Hunters (2021)--two twin virgin teenagers at a very Christian private school in Georgia scheme to have sex but end up arresting ball bond skippers.  Of course!  Why not!
• Master of None--Assiz Ansari is wonderful when he hits the right kind notes--and in two season he hits a lot of them, most brilliantly in the "doorman" episode in season 2, and the "religion" episode in season 1--pork and all.   Some of the episodes are lukewarm, I suppose, but even those are OK to watch.  Now Ansari is on the #MeToo list, so this show's lustre has been significantly dimmed by more male shenanigans.   
• The Fall--Gillian Anderson was interesting, but brooding is not quite enough
• Beforeigners (2020)--A very clever twist on the immigration issue--Olso Harbor is filling up with Vikings ("we don't use the V-word here," one character says) and Victorians, and the government can't set policies to avoid harassment and crime.  Sound familiar?  It's like the EU now, except the immigrants are time-migrants. Enter a sex worker crime scheme (of course) and you get two Norwegian detectives who know they are dealing with forces bigger--and obviously much older--than themselves.  Lots of great treatment of the social problems that occur when a quarter of your population grew up in either 1031 or 1850.  Not everyone loves mead. 
• Top of the Lake--feminism so disguised you won't recognize it.   What else would explain those high-waisted jeans Holly Hunter wears?  Elizabeth Moss is great and the family drama is strong.  A second season may be coming.
• Peaky Blinders (2014-2019)--this show has style coming out the wazoo, as they say. You can't walk by a door without flames leaping out at you. Wicked rock soundtrack. And Cillian Murphy (who started his career as a rocker) has his own special type of red-hot cinder thing going on. But, he choses the wrong girl again and again, and no one else around him is capable of learning anything so five seasons of the same mistake over and over, in the end. Interesting to compare this to The Godfather and just about every other gangster genre movie or TV show.
• Alias Grace--2017 was Margaret Atwood's wonder year...after Handmaid's Tale.   This is a distant second, and they may have saved money by using the same costumes dyed grey...but still an intriguing schizophrenic center to a nice murder mystery.
• Yes Minister--fun, but there's a reason "bureaucracy" has negative connotations
• Lupin (2021)--Idris Elba isn't in this...he was in Luther, ranked number 5 all time. I spent most of the five episodes of the first season examining why Luther was better--mostly because there's a central disconnect between this "gentleman" criminal who's also crippled by an early loss.  Still, a good mystery show about 25 years of stealing the same royal necklace (it turns out Rupert Murdoch was behind the whole scam!).  Plus, the single best cliffhanger ending since JR got shot back in the 80's. There has to be a second season because to leave those questions unanswered would be...criminal. 
• Downton Abbey--in the final analysis, Maggie Smith one-liners are not sufficient to sustain seven seasons of great outfits
• Monty Python's Flying Circus--wink wink nudge nudge.
• Fawlty Towers
• Get Smart
• Hill Street Blues--thank you for introducing multi-linear narrative!   You saved the genre.
• Gilligan's Island
• The Twilight Zone--Rod Serling was intense, but this show has aged VERY poorly
• Mork and Mindy
• The Dick van Dyke Show
• The Honorable Woman--Maggie Gyllenhaal is just too good.
• Happy Days
• Cheers
• All in the Family
• Star Trek (the original of course)
• I Love Lucy
• Saturday Night Live, back in the day
• The X-files--OK, you've got to give it to David and Gillian.  But very minimal character development (150 episodes before Scully starts to believe anything--that's SLOW!).   TV moved on from this, though it was fun at the time.
• Manifest--2019-2021) three seasons of "trust me," "doesn't Mom resemble Madonna (the religious one)," and "I've got to fix this myself!"  Too bad because the concept (plane disappears and then reappears with all passengers 5 1/2 years later) had some real legs. Clunky script,  some selectively atrocious acting,  and a lack of imagination, all in all.

Others I couldn't get into--mostly because I found the characters too two-dimensional, or because the dramatic movement of the series was clunky, slow, or artificially deferred by dumb scripting

• Squid Games (2021)--Worst of the "consider the political or entertainment aspects of games where murder is the prize" genre.  Hunger Games wasn't bad.  3% was pretty amazing.  Squid Games suggests that South Korea is hung up on the fact that Parasite won the Academy Award, so they're out of fresh ideas. 
• Bridgerton (2021)--Oh, get over yourselves. It turns out the British royalty in 1790 were unconsciously multi-racial! Even still, men fuck around and women pay the price.  That concept, at least, is full of equal opportunity. Makes Downton Abbey look compelling. 
• The Queen (2018-2021 so far)--I didn't care when she came to power, and I'm still mildly disinterested. This series is intended to disinterest you further by showing you the negative impact of breeding within a small genetic pool.  That's not compelling TV.
• Mrs. America--I hated Phyllis Schlafly back in the day, and even a bio-series that treats her as kind of a power-driven nutcase brings back too many memories of how truly destructive she was. I made it through four reasonably decent episodes before the topic drove me away, still in shock that we don't have an ERA to this day. Or much else, either, now that you consider it.  Roe v Wade continues to hang on by a thread. What an asshole Phyllis Schlafly was!
• Baskets--(2016 Amazon, three seasons) I really want to like this show...it's about theatrical clowning, a beautiful art form.   But I struggled to engage for the same reason I couldn't get into Breaking Bad (to keep the story going longer, no new information is revealed) and why I like the current generation of female comedians (humor based on respect rather than disdain).   Jake Gallifanakis' character is mean, his humor is mean, and there's no reason for it.
• Kim's Convenience (2016-2020)--lots has been written about the purpose of stereotyping the Korean characters who run their store and insult friend and family alike.  In the end, I don't think the stereotyping worked...you can't sustain multiple seasons on two dimensional characters.  The effort was fun, but tiresome in the end.
• Big Little Lies (2017-2019  HBO)--Reese Witherspoon doing exactly the same thing.   Nicole Kidman showing how gross plastic surgery is.   The non-Blonde characters may be dangerous.  Is there an original thought here?   Also, if moms choose to make life miserable for themselves and their awful offspring, why should the rest of us care?
• Long Strange Trip--Martin Scorcesee got lucky from 1973 (Mean Streets) to 1980 (Raging Bull).   Here, he destroys the legacy of The Grateful Dead.  
• Breaking Bad (2008-2013 AMC)--all the drama was based on non-disclosure.   Stop lying and the series would have ended after the first episode.
• Frazier
• 24--you needed the clicking sound of a clock to create tension here.
• Orange is the New Black--no, 2D is the new 3D.   The Australian women's prison show Wentworth is purportedly much richer.  
• Dexter
• House of Cards--2D.   Wait.  One dimensional characters.
• Sex in the City (1998-2004 HBO)--I already have a nice closet for my clothes and my partner has had a vibrator for dozens of years.   I don't want to hear about these women.  
• Friends--maybe I was just jealous that my friends aren't quite as cute, but I never tried with this one.
• Game of Thrones--why watch the original when it's become a trope in every other TV show.
• Seinfeld--I actually DID want something to happen.
• Treme
• The Deuce--42nd St looked like this in 1971, and so did black people and--if my memory of high school is correct, so did women's breasts.   None of this is enough to dig Maggie Gyllenhaal out of a script that doesn't seem to want to go anywhere.   And James Franco is one of the "it' actors and he knows it--and he plays twin brothers.   Two "it" boys in one TV show?   No thank you!
• Black Mirror--often compared to The Twilight Zone, it's uneven and perhaps falls short for the same reasons. 50 minute mind puzzles...with no apparent desire to really dive deep.

And one that became outrageously offensive after I loved it as a kid

• F-Troop--I loved this as a kid.   I apologize.   The underlying premise is so wildly racist I can't believe I tolerated it, even at age 5...even YouTube feels obligated to put warnings on the files, before Larry Storch or guest-star Don Rickles say anything.