The 18 Most Influential TV Dramas of All Time

Influence is not the same as quality, and a couple of these are on the list for what came after them rather than what they were. Networks copied all of them.

1

The Sopranos

The HBO mob drama that made cable the home of serious television.

2

Breaking Bad

The AMC drama that proved a basic-cable show could out-write the premium networks.

3

Hill Street Blues

The 1981 cop show that introduced serialised, overlapping storytelling to network drama.

4

The Wire

Baltimore as a system, told one institution per season, and studied ever since.

5

Twin Peaks

The show that let a network drama be strange, and made the mystery box a format.

6

Mad Men

The period drama that turned production design and silence into plot.

7

Lost

The serialised puzzle that taught networks what a weekly online audience looks like.

8

ER

The hospital drama that set the pace, literally, for two decades of procedurals.

9

Game of Thrones

The fantasy series that made a global appointment out of a Sunday night.

10

The X-Files

The mix of standalone cases and a running mythology that shaped genre TV.

11

Star Trek: The Next Generation

The syndicated revival that proved a franchise could outlive its original cast.

12

Oz

HBO's first hour-long drama, which cleared the ground The Sopranos built on.

13

24

Real-time episodes and the split screen, copied everywhere for a decade.

14

The West Wing

The walk-and-talk political drama that became its own genre and its own accusation.

15

House of Cards

Netflix's first original drama, released all at once, which changed how shows are watched.

16

Dallas

The 1980 cliffhanger that invented the summer-long television question.

17

The Shield

The basic-cable drama that showed FX and AMC there was room outside HBO.

18

Squid Game

The Korean drama that made a non-English series the biggest show on the planet.