" Do you watch Battlestar Galactica? No?  Then you are an idiot."

A good show about a great show.

Best ever- I'll have to go with The Simpsons.

Seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, with the additional five seasons of Angel (which were such an organic outgrowth of the original series that I think of it as part of the same series) are in my own (idiosyncratic) opinion, certainly the best TV series ever.  Firefly, also created by Joss Whedon, was also of superb quality, however, since it ran for only one season, it couldn't compare to the total of 12 seasons of Buffy/Angel, which at their greater length were able to present a much richer artistic feast.

In Buffy/Angel we have a sense of irony seldom achieved on television, we have a fantasy that takes it own premises seriously enough to give intelligent and believable speculations about the consequences of those premises, and we have brilliant performances by actors who gave very honest and convincing reactions to the bizarre situations in which they were placed.  It is truly an amazing fantasy.    

The Prisoner.  Thought provoking, stretches the capabilities of what TV can do, strong unity of vision, lots of cool "what the hell moments", and an ending that makes the Sopranos finale look like it has the clarity of a See Spot Run book.

must....not...make...list....must....not...make....list....

Futurama.  A great premise, and it never jumped the shark.  The Simpsons has it beat in volume, but man there are some dog episodes out there.  Unlike Whedon's stuff, you can start watching at any episode and quickly pick up the plot.  They had real scientists on the writing staff, and you can see that from the in-jokes scattered through the episodes.  They even managed to bring a tear to my eye more than once.

There were other good shows on TV as well, but aside from Arrested Development, they've all been mentioned already.

(is 3fingerspointback)

Ever? I don't really know..the first couple seasons of Family Guy were really good. I do agree with the internet folks that firefly was awesome, but it didn't really last very long. I think you need multi-season staying power to exhibit a strong sense of quality.

I recall (cringe) liking Remington Steele a lot when I was a kid..ditto for McGyver but suspect that if I watched them now I'd think they would suck.

If I had to vote for one series, I'd give the nod to Seinfeld. Any random episode is still funny.

That said..I nominate Cowboy Bepop as a dark horse contender ;)

Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.

Homicide: Life on the Street.
Law & Order (But not that stupid Criminal Intent one).
Simpsons, The.

In no particular order...

Family Guy
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
Star Trek TNG
Stargate SG-1
MST-3000
Brother Cadfael
The Red Green Show
Bug Bunny/Road Runner Hour

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

I watched the series from beginning to end (and I'm someone who kinda, sorta liked the ending).  However, there is no way I'd consider the Sopranos the best series ever.  It had a brilliant first season (maybe the best single season for a series ever) but it began showing frays in the fabric from about the end of the second series on.  There were moments of brilliance interlaced throughout in the later years: Steve Buscemi's character was great (but then I'm a stone Buscemi fan); Joe Pantoliano's appearances managed to overcome my normal abhorrence of Joe Pants as an actor; the Russian hitman in the Pine Barrens; and the Johnny Sac storyline was great.  But a lot of what passed for action and storylines over the eight year storyline was weird (all those dream episodes) or like they were mailing it in (the overly simplistic way they managed to get rid of their Phil problem in the last episode).  Even David Chase admitted at the end that he was running on empty.

But the Sopranos are not unlike a other series TV -- they start out with a great premise, great acting, crisp writing, terrific storylines and, sooner or later, they hit a wall (jump the shark I guess).  This happened with another series I used to love to watch the first and second year it was on -- Hill Street Blues.  The problem is they ran out of ideas and the storylines and writing began to suffer for the urge to find something to shock the audience with.  Of course, on HBO you can always kick it up a notch because language and nudity and violence aren't quite the issue that they still are for broadcast TV.  But, even then, if you reach a level of shocking language and action, where do you go from there?

This is a long-winded way of getting at what I believe is the best series ever made for TV -- the mother ship of cop and lawyer shows -- Law and Order.  About the only low moments that show ever encountered was when they had the colorless Elizabeth Rohm playing an assistant DA.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

   My favorite series wasn't dramatic, in either sense of the word: Booknotes on C-SPAN. Brian Lamb interviewing nonfiction authors against a black background may not do it for everyone, but for a long time, it was something I looked forward to every week. The secret was the range of subjects, along with the quirkiness that the writing life brings out in folks. Sometimes it got tiresome hearing the same questions each week ("where do you write?", "How many hours a week?", etc), but sometimes the answers would be interesting. One guy wrote in his attic, but never put in anything more than the pull down ladder to get up there-- talk about isolation. Make all the jokes you want about how boring C-SPAN is; it was an easy way to learn a lot about a subject you might never have heard about, in just one hour. The current replacements are lackluster, in no small part because of an effort to make the shows topical.
    As to the actual question at hand, I'd have to vote for the first three season of Law And Order, before the drama got ratcheted up to high. The very pedestrian nature of the cases was what made it interesting, seeing something close to what the daily life of cops and prosecutors may be like. (Don't have direct experience to say for sure.) Some of the moments were pure gold, and flowed easily from the narrative: the look on Chris Noth's face after a fur dealer who'd they just strong-armed answered a question with, "who am I, Karnak?" was a perfect mix of bullying shrewdness and youthful overconfidence all rolled up in one. And Jerry Orbach! He'd done the same schtick for years, but finally found a vehicle that made it click perfectly. The scene(s) where he gets information from a restaurant owner by taking a free meal ("he thinks I'm crooked") makes you ponder- well me, anyway- just how clean a big city cop could ever really be.
    Later, the drama, shouting, and (over)acting just got too much.

Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras

From my perspective, that show consumed our culture with an intensity like no other in my life time until perhaps the ultra trashy American Idol. But in going back and watching old episodes, I only catch brief glimpses of the brilliance I used to see in it. Does anyone have an opinion on why? Did everything David Lynch did after episode 12 just kill it? Still, it has to get significant arguments for a place in the top 10. Some of the situational humor was just amazing. Victorian Jackson has always been an underrated comedian and Sherilyn Fenn never came off so sexy before or after.

make it rain you nappy headed ho's

I know we like to be intellectualist and all but for sheer entertainment value, I have to mention Soul Train. If you measure "great" by how many times I show has managed to get me to turn on the television, then it's gotta be in my top 5. And I watch TV so little, it's only fair to measure it that way. Don Cornelius has introduced so many artists to the public for the first time that the shows impact transcends its medium like few other programs can.

make it rain you nappy headed ho's