NBC

1971 · 10 Seasons · NBC · Crime / Mystery

Columbo shows you the murder in the first ten minutes, killer's face and all, and then delivers the purest pleasure in television, watching a rumpled man in a raincoat dismantle a genius who thinks he's already won. Peter Falk's lieutenant is one of the great characters in the medium's history, a performance of such perfect calibration that fifty years later the show has become a full-blown comfort-watch renaissance. The formula never changes because it never needed to. Just one more thing, as the man says, the ABC revival years run softer than the immortal 1970s run, and nobody holds it against him.

1985 · 7 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

The Golden Girls put four women over fifty in a Miami kitchen and produced one of the sharpest joke machines in sitcom history, a show that remains funnier line for line than most comedies made since. Bea Arthur's withering Dorothy, Betty White's serenely dim Rose, Rue McClanahan's man-eating Blanche, and Estelle Getty's purse-clutching assassin Sophia form television's perfect comic quartet, and the cheesecake-fueled friendship underneath gave the laughs their staying power. Some period jokes have aged badly and the plots recycle, and none of it matters at the kitchen table. Thank you for being a friend was a mission statement.

1999 · 7 Seasons · NBC · Drama, Political

The West Wing is Aaron Sorkin's love letter to democratic governance, a show that proved political process could be as gripping as any thriller when anchored by brilliant writing and a cast that elevated every walk-and-talk into something electric. The first four seasons under Sorkin's pen represent some of the finest writing in television history, with dialogue that crackles and characters you'd follow anywhere. The quality drops noticeably after Sorkin's departure in season four, with the fifth season in particular struggling to maintain the standard, though the show recovers somewhat for its final stretch. Even with its uneven back half, The West Wing remains essential television for anyone who believes that smart, literate drama belongs on network television.

2013 · 3 Seasons · NBC · Psychological Thriller

Hannibal is one of the most visually and psychologically daring shows ever made for broadcast television, pairing two career-defining performances with filmmaking that belongs in a museum. Its cancellation still stings, and the cult that formed around it has never really dispersed. If you can stomach the imagery, there's nothing else quite like it.

1989 · 9 Seasons · NBC · Sitcom / Comedy

Seinfeld ran for nine seasons on NBC and produced 180 episodes that redefined what a sitcom could be. Four selfish, petty, hilarious New Yorkers turned the smallest moments of daily life into comedy gold, backed by writing sharp enough to create an entirely new comedic vocabulary. A few episodes have aged poorly, the last two seasons lost a step without one of the show's co-creators, and the finale remains one of television's most polarizing hours. All of that amounts to minor turbulence across one of the most consistently funny runs in TV history. The show about nothing gave television everything.

2005 · 9 Seasons · NBC · Comedy / Mockumentary

Nine seasons, 201 episodes, and an absurd amount of quotable moments later, The Office remains one of the most rewatched comedies ever made, and that reputation is mostly deserved. Its middle stretch is among the best sitcom television ever produced, carried by Steve Carell's layered performance and an ensemble cast that made a fictional paper company feel like a place you'd actually want to visit on your lunch break. The final two seasons drag it down, and the early episodes take a few tries to find the right tone. Taken as a whole, though, this is a show that redefined what a television comedy could look like and still works as the ultimate comfort rewatch more than a decade after it wrapped.

1982 · 11 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

Cheers is one of the foundational texts of the American sitcom, building an entire show around the regulars of a Boston bar with writing so sharp and performances so lived-in that the location feels like a place you've actually been. The Sam-Diane dynamic defined the will-they/won't-they template for a generation, Ted Danson's Sam Malone is one of the great sitcom protagonists, and the ensemble grew richer with every season. The show spans two distinct eras (the Diane years and the Rebecca years) of varying quality, and some episodes haven't aged as gracefully as the show's reputation suggests.

1993 · 11 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

Frasier is the rare spinoff that surpassed its parent show, turning a supporting character from Cheers into the lead of a sophisticated comedy of manners built on farce, wit, and the relationship between two brothers whose pretensions mask genuine vulnerability. Kelsey Grammer and David Hyde Pierce are one of television's great double acts, the farce episodes are among the finest in sitcom history, and the show maintained its quality across eleven seasons with a consistency that few comedies achieve. The sophistication occasionally tips into repetitive snobbery, and the romantic subplots are the show's weakest recurring element.

2009 · 7 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

Parks and Recreation survived a rough first season to become one of the warmest, funniest workplace comedies in television history. Its secret weapon was sincerity. In an era when most comedies chased cynicism, this show built its laughs around characters who cared deeply about their jobs, their friends, and their fictional small town. The ensemble cast is stacked with memorable performances, and the middle seasons represent a peak that few sitcoms reach. A slow start and an uneven final stretch keep it from perfection, but what works here works so well that it barely matters. This is comfort television that also happens to be consistently, reliably hilarious.

2016 · 4 Seasons · NBC · Comedy / Fantasy

The Good Place pulled off something that shouldn't be possible. It made moral philosophy laugh-out-loud funny, built a sitcom around questions about what it means to be a good person, and stuck the landing with a finale that left most of its audience in tears. Kristen Bell and Ted Danson lead a cast that turns absurd premises into real emotion, and Michael Schur's writing never talks down to its audience. A slightly weaker third season and occasional dips in comedic consistency keep it from the very top tier, but this is still one of the most creative and emotionally satisfying comedies of its era.

1994 · 15 Seasons · NBC · Medical Drama

The show that defined the modern medical drama and launched a generation of imitators, none of which matched its combination of technical authenticity, emotional depth, and pure adrenaline. Michael Crichton's creation ran for fifteen seasons and 331 episodes, and while the later years couldn't sustain the intensity of the first six, the early run of ER is some of the most gripping network television ever produced. George Clooney became a movie star here. The Steadicam became a dramatic tool here. And the template for every medical show that followed was written in County General's trauma rooms.

2006 · 7 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

30 Rock crammed more jokes per minute into its 22-minute episodes than almost any comedy in television history, and the hit rate across 138 episodes is staggering. Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin have one of the great platonic screen partnerships, the supporting cast commits to absurdity with total conviction, and the writing rewards rewatching in ways that few comedies can match. Low mainstream viewership and some later-season fatigue keep it from the conversation about universally beloved shows, but among the people who found it, 30 Rock is the comedy they quote more than any other. This is a show that trusted its audience to keep up, and the audience that did was rewarded handsomely.

1980 · 1 Season · NBC · Historical Drama / Adventure

The 1980 Shogun mini-series was a landmark television event that introduced Western audiences to feudal Japan, anchored by Toshiro Mifune's commanding presence and a cultural immersion that remains impressive decades later.

1989 · 5 Seasons · NBC · Sci-Fi, Drama

Quantum Leap turned time travel into a vehicle for empathy, using its leaping premise to explore the lives of ordinary people across American history. Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell are one of television's great duos, and the show's best episodes are as moving as anything the genre has produced.

2001 · 9 Seasons · NBC / ABC · Comedy / Medical Drama

The rare comedy that could make you laugh and cry in the same episode, sometimes in the same scene. Bill Lawrence's medical comedy used J.D.'s overactive imagination as a storytelling device that kept the format fresh for years, and the friendships at its core, particularly the bond between J.D. and Turk, became some of the most beloved in television comedy. The first eight seasons tell a complete, satisfying story. The ninth season, a soft reboot that even its creator acknowledges was a misstep, is best treated as a separate entity. At its peak, nothing on television balanced humor and heartbreak with this much precision.

2009 · 6 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

Community is the rare sitcom that treated its format as a playground rather than a constraint, turning a community college setting into a launchpad for genre parodies, emotional character work, and some of the most inventive comedy episodes ever aired on network television. Dan Harmon's vision produced a first three seasons that rank among the best in comedy history, anchored by an ensemble cast with chemistry that no amount of behind-the-scenes chaos could fully diminish. Cast departures and one notably rough season keep it from sustained greatness across all six seasons, but the highs are so high that the lows feel like a reasonable price of admission. Six seasons happened. The movie is reportedly on its way.

2007 · 5 Seasons · NBC · Action / Comedy / Spy Drama

Chuck took the premise of a computer nerd accidentally becoming a spy and spun it into five seasons of infectious, heartfelt entertainment. Zachary Levi's charm carried the show through budget constraints and annual cancellation scares, and the supporting cast, from Adam Baldwin's gruff John Casey to the entire Buy More crew, made every episode feel like spending time with friends. The show never had the budget of its action genre peers, but it had more heart than most of them combined, and its passionate fanbase kept it alive through sheer force of devotion.

1999 · 27 Seasons · NBC · Crime, Drama, Procedural

Law & Order: SVU has earned its place as the longest-running live-action primetime series in American television through Mariska Hargitay's powerhouse performance and a willingness to tackle subject matter most shows avoid entirely. The quality has fluctuated across 27 seasons, with the middle years representing a creative peak that later seasons have struggled to match. But even at its most formulaic, SVU connects with audiences because it treats its victims with a seriousness and empathy that remains rare on network television.

1990 · 25 Seasons · NBC · Crime / Legal Drama

The show that perfected the procedural format and proved that television doesn't need serialized storytelling to be compelling. Dick Wolf's split-screen approach, half police investigation, half courtroom prosecution, became one of the most durable formulas in television history, generating 25 seasons, over 500 episodes, and a franchise that reshaped network television. The rotating cast keeps things fresh, the 'ripped from the headlines' approach gives the show an evergreen quality, and the famous two-note 'dun dun' sound became the most recognizable audio cue in television. Not every era is equal, but the formula has proven nearly indestructible.

2013 · 8 Seasons · Fox / NBC · Comedy / Crime

Brooklyn Nine-Nine built one of the most likable ensemble casts in modern sitcom history and used a police precinct setting to deliver fast, warm, and reliably funny comedy for most of its run. Its first five seasons on Fox represent the show at its best, balancing absurd humor with surprisingly effective character work and progressive representation that never felt forced. The move to NBC brought uneven later seasons, and a final year that tried to wrestle with real-world policing issues produced deeply divided reactions from its audience. That rocky ending doesn't erase what came before. At its peak, Brooklyn Nine-Nine was comfort food television executed with skill, heart, and an ensemble that made you want to hang out at the Nine-Nine.

1994 · 10 Seasons · NBC · Sitcom / Comedy

Friends became a global phenomenon for a reason. Six actors with remarkable chemistry carried 236 episodes of sharp comedic writing, quotable dialogue, and warm found-family storytelling that still functions as peak comfort television decades later. Some of the humor has aged poorly, the later seasons lose steam, and the central romance looks rougher under a modern lens. None of that erases the fact that this show shaped an entire generation of sitcoms and remains one of the most rewatched series in television history.

1996 · 6 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

3rd Rock from the Sun is a high-concept sitcom that works because of John Lithgow's extraordinary willingness to commit fully to the absurd. Four aliens disguised as a human family on a research mission to Earth provide a framework for comedy that ranges from sharp social observation to pure physical slapstick, and Lithgow's performance as Dick Solomon is one of the most energetic and technically demanding in sitcom history. The premise runs thin in later seasons, and the show's reliance on the same fish-out-of-water formula produces diminishing returns. But at its best, the show uses its alien perspective to illuminate human behavior in ways that more grounded comedies can't access.

1990 · 6 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air made Will Smith a star through a fish-out-of-water comedy that was funnier, more culturally significant, and more emotionally complex than its premise suggested. The class and cultural dynamics between Will and the Banks family provide comedy with genuine social observation, and the dramatic episodes, particularly the famous father scene, achieve an emotional power that transcends the sitcom form. The later seasons lose creative energy as the show became more of a vehicle for Smith's stardom than a comedy about culture clash.

2016 · 6 Seasons · NBC · Family Drama

This Is Us crafted one of network television's most emotionally resonant family sagas, powered by a gifted ensemble and a time-jumping structure that, at its best, revealed profound truths about how families shape us.

2013 · 10 Seasons · NBC · Crime / Thriller

The Blacklist is a decade of television carried on one man's silk-smooth menace. James Spader's Raymond Reddington, a dapper master criminal who surrenders to the FBI and starts trading fellow villains for his own opaque purposes, is one of the great network TV performances, monologues and all, and the early seasons' criminal-of-the-week gallery crackles. The show's central mystery, who Red really is to profiler Elizabeth Keen, gets stretched, teased, and reverse-engineered across ten seasons until even devoted fans describe the back half as loyalty rather than pleasure. Watch for Spader. Stay as long as he keeps it afloat, and know when to disembark.

1998 · 11 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

Will & Grace broke ground as network television's first prime-time sitcom with gay lead characters and earned its audience through sharp writing and a comedic ensemble anchored by the dynamic between Eric McCormack and Debra Messing. Sean Hayes' Jack and Megan Mullally's Karen stole every scene they were in, becoming two of the most quoted characters of the era. The revival seasons (2017-2020) diluted the show's legacy, and the humor occasionally relies on stereotypes it's simultaneously attempting to normalize.

1989 · 4 Seasons · NBC · Comedy

Saved by the Bell is a show that shouldn't work on paper. The acting is broad, the plots are formulaic, the lessons are heavy-handed, and the school has approximately six students. Yet it became a defining piece of 1990s teen culture, and its hold on the people who grew up watching it is almost impossible to break. Mark-Paul Gosselaar's Zack Morris carries the show with charm that papers over every structural weakness, and the ensemble's chemistry creates something warmer and more enduring than the scripts alone deserve. It's pure nostalgia television, and whether that's enough depends on when you were born.

2018 · 4 Seasons · Netflix · Supernatural Drama

Manifest is a show that hooks you with one of the best premises in recent sci-fi television and then tests your patience by taking four seasons to explain it. The missing plane mystery and the 'callings' concept generate genuine intrigue, and the family drama provides an emotional anchor that keeps you watching through the rougher stretches. The network-TV pacing, repetitive plotting, and uneven writing hold it back from the heights its concept deserves, but the Netflix-revived final season provides enough answers to make the journey worthwhile for committed viewers.