The Best TV Shows of the 21st Century
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What is the premise of the NYT’s 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century list?
Hey, it's Anna Martin from The New York Times. What if I told you you'll
never have to hear this line again?
Wherever you get your podcasts.
Yeah, no, I actually can't tell you that. But you know what I can tell you? A place I think you might want to go. It's the Shows tab in The New York Times app. The place to listen to and now watch full episodes of New York Times shows. The Shows tab. Find it in The New York Times app.
Explore the Shows tab and follow a show today.
Hi, everyone. It's Natalie. If you're not yet a Times subscriber, we have some news for you. You can enjoy full access to The Times without a paywall for 30 days. All you have to do is download the app to get your first month completely free. And if you're already a Times subscriber, thank you. Okay, here's today's show. From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kitrow. This is The Daily on Sunday.
Your Weather Today, the best way to plan your day.
On January 3rd, 2000, the Weather Channel debuted a new show called Your Weather Today.
Dallas, you're looking at another record-breaking day without rain. It was a show about weather. We have the forecast for you, plus an update on conditions in your town. It
was, we think, the very first new television show of the 21st century. In the 26 years that followed, we got a lot more new shows.
Oh, hello, you. I'm
filming television's Moira Rose. Some of them better than your weather today.
Gentlemen, start your engines and may the best woman win. Put my stapler inside the jelly again. Clear eyes, full hearts. Let's go. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Here in 2026, TV is now firmly a prestige art form with big stars, auteur creators and huge production budgets. And it's become absolutely central to the cultural conversation. So to commemorate that evolution of TV over the last quarter century, my colleagues here at The Times undertook a little project. They contacted over a thousand TV luminaries, showrunners, writers, actors, and asked them to pick their favorite TV shows of the last 26 years. And they heard back from a lot of them. People like Lena Waithe. BoJack Horseman is like this crazy experiment that should have gone awry. Adam Scott.
The good wife is that legal procedural, but it cuts way deeper.
And Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner. I loved Orange is the New Black the minute I saw it. Then they took all that data and compiled a list of the 100 best TV shows of the 21st century, a list we've been slowly rolling out over the course of this week. But now the whole thing is officially out, which means that the fun part can start, picking that list apart. And that's what we're here today to do. I've invited two of my colleagues to the show, Gilbert Cruz, who's our canon editor, and James Ponowozik, our chief TV critic. Both of them are TV fanatics, but neither of them picked the shows for this list, which means that they are free to debate it as much as they want. It's Sunday, September 27th.
Jim, Gilbert, welcome to the Sunday Daily. It is wonderful to have you both here. Thank you for having me. Great to be here. Okay, I've set everything up in the intro, what the list is, the fact
that
neither of you can be blamed for it. Yeah, high five, Jim. I think the thing that we should do is just dive right into the list itself. Give the people what they want. I want to focus on the top 10 shows and what they tell us about what's happened in television over the last 25 years or so. I think we should start with numbers 6 to 10, and we'll save the top 5 for later in the show. Gilbert, would you please give us the 10th to 6th best TV shows of the 21st century as voted on by our respondents? At number 10, we have Atlanta. At number 9, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Number 8 is 30 Rock. Number 7 is Veep. And number 6 is Game of Thrones. The first thing that grabbed me about that rundown is just how many comedies are in there.
There aren't actually a lot of comedies in the top five. And I don't mean to sound like Larry David here, but I do love complaining. It's one of my hobbies. And so I do want to start with a complaint.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the premise of the NYT’s 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century list?
0:00–8:46
2
How did the NYT gather industry insiders’ votes for the top‑10 shows?
8:46–16:35
3
Why do comedies dominate the lower half of the top‑10 list?
16:35–40:26
4
What makes ‘30 Rock’ a benchmark for joke density and cultural relevance?
40:26–59:22
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from The Daily
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