What I look for in a tv show is a strong story. That's why "I Love Lucy," for example, didn't make the list. It was groundbreaking and hilarious and perfectly cast, but there isn't a strong continuing story from episode to episode. Ditto for Seinfeld, the anti-story show. Characters I can root for are important, as is a sense of place (Stars Hollow; Cicily, Alaska; the Island), but the story is the thing.
My top five, in no order
LOST - Do I really need to elaborate? It's about redemption, it's about time travel, it's mythology, it's mind-bending, but most of all, it's about characters, developed through flashbacks and flashfowards so that you come to care about them.
Friday Night Lights - This is not a show about football. I expected something that was to Texas football culture what the OC was the rich Californian youth culture, but this show is gritty and real. In small town Texas, most of the teenagers seem to be raising themselves, with parents absent, uninvolved, or puerile. But at the heart of the show, Coach Taylor and his wife display an authentic, strong marriage relationship, and as Coach and Principal end up parenting most of the kids in the highschool. Perfectly written, casted, and filmed.
Gilmore Girls - The witty, fast-talking banter between mother and daughter (and grandmother) is reminiscent of the best dialogue written for Bogie and Bacall. Rory, especially in the earlier seasons, provides a very different version of teenage femininity than what you usually find on tv: she's bookish, hardworking, best friends with her mom, modest, and not boy-crazy.
Northern Exposure - You fall in love with a town, more than with a series of characters, though you do love the characters. "Chris in the morning" provides ties to music, philosophy, literature, and Native American mythology.
The West Wing - Regardless of your personal political views, you cannot deny that this show is beautifully written and directed. The episode "Shibboleth" may make you shed a tear.
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It's interesting what you say about requiring a (continuing) story to really love a series. I feel like this is the version of TV that has definitely won out - especially critically - with HBO as the apotheosis. But it also seems a real contrast to the original genius of early TV: providing stories in bite size packages. Instead now we seem to relish the massive time commitment. No one is going to tee up episode 3 of Season 5 of the Sapranos without watching the scores upon scores of the programming hours preceding it. This is true of more episodic programming like Gilmore Girls or 30Rock too because the cast of reappearing characters is so large. In contrast if you know Fred and Ethel on I Love Lucy you are pretty much done with catch up. It matters not at all to whether you hit I love Lucy on the first episode or the 59th to consume the story and have a laugh. Isn't this smaller time commitment perfect for our modern age? So why the trend the other way? Have we lost the touch for a 30 min. story that stands pretty much on its own? Or as you say is that structure just weaker and the best stories are the long ones that develop? Anyway it looks like early TV got it wrong: we don't want less from our "movies," we want more. We want to spend hours upon hours in these other worlds, not 30 minutes take it or leave it.
I cried in pretty much every episode of FNL Season 3. That is a good indicator for me.
So after I finish The Wire (which is currently dominating the queue on my new Netflix account), what should I start? I've heard really good things about Battlestar, but Slings and Arrows would be good inspirational prep for my Shakespeare class at TU this spring.
John: I can't imagine S&A being a show you would watch with college roommates, so try it this summer. BSG might be a show you and college friends could enjoy together, though. FWIW :-)
West Wings is my top show ever... and that episode is one reason why.
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