Empire Magazine's "The 50 Best TV Shows Ever" (2016)

“It doesn’t get really good until Season 2,” people said. “Stick with it.” The first season was not without its moments, and it laid key groundwork for Bryan Cranston’s Walter White to later descend from family man to soul-shucked demon, but season two was when Vince Gilligan’s astonishing, gripping, often plain harrowing show really took off. There followed murders, plane crashes, betrayals, ferocious set pieces, indelible dialogue (“I am the one who knocks!”) and meth – enormous quantities of meth. At the beginning of the bingeing era, here was some Class A, serious addictive television.

Best Episode: One Minute (Season 3, episode 7)

Any show that runs for 27 seasons (and counting – 28 will be with us later this year) is bound to come in for some stick about not living up to former glory. But be honest: what could compete with The Simpsons at its height (around season 4-6, according to most people)? Still, the continuing misadventures of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and the multitudes surrounding them still find plenty of scope for laughs, commentary and pop culture nonsense. It’s already in the telly hall of fame, and continues to bring out great episodes at a higher ratio than some of its long-running brethren (looking at you, Family Guy).

Best Episode: Marge Vs. The Monorail (Season 4, episode 12)

How is it that a certain digital TV channel can show this quintessential '90s sitcom on a virtual loop and it doesn't get old? It's because Friends, at its best, is as perfect a sitcom as you will find. In its earliest days, the adventures of six beautiful pals who apparently earned money by drinking coffee featured writing much sharper than the cuddly exterior suggested. Even when the quality dipped a little mid-run, the ensemble remained perfectly matched and the best comedy collective on TV.

Best Episode: The One With The Prom Video (Season 2, episode 14)

As Hollywood continues to indulge in self-consumption through a never-ending supply of reimaginings and reboots, there is one example that demonstrates what happens when it’s done right: Ronald D. Moore’s Battlestar Galactica. Created in the shadow of 9/11, this new take on the 1978-79 series (great concept, poor follow-through) brought relevancy, riveting character arcs and a newfound grit to television science fiction as what’s left of humanity fights for survival against the cybernetic Cylons as they seek the supposed lost colony, Earth.

Best Episode: 33 (Season 1, episode 1)

Such is the impact of Rod Serling’s series, which gathered some of the best speculative writers and stories of the time, that it keeps coming back in different forms, and its impact is felt through popular culture to this day. Aiming to explore universal concepts while creeping us out or making us think (or both), The Zone merged big ideas with popular ideals and proved that smart storytelling could work on television. Once seen, rarely forgotten; especially with that unnerving theme and Serling’s iconic introductions.

Best Episode: To Serve Man. (Season 3, episode 24).

Those who tuned into the first episode of The Sopranos in 1999 found not a documentary about opera singers but a dark, offbeat drama about a New Jersey gangster with a fixation on the ducks who visit his swimming pool. As the first season wore on, viewers became hooked on creator David Chase's uncompromising vision of an old-school criminal organisation beset by all the stresses and tensions of the modern day. A fusion of sharp, unpredictable writing and powerhouse acting ensured this show classic status, spawning spoofs by The Simpsons and the Clintons (!) as well as an Artie Bucco recipe book, so you can make like Tony and feast on 'gabagool' yourself.

Best Episode: Long Term Parking (Season 5, episode 12)

For the unconverted, Matthew Weiner’s show was just a lot of people in suits aggressively smoking at each other. But for fans of the multi-Emmy and Golden Globe-winning AMC drama, there’s magic in even the slower moments as Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his advertising kin negotiate first the perils and pitfalls of Madison Avenue, then a fast-changing America, often while sloshed on whisky. A show of great moments (the lawnmower, the death of Lane, Betty’s shotgun, the LSD), it made an early bid for greatness and maintained it across seven seasons. There aren’t many shows you can say that about.

Best Episode Far Away Places (Season 5, episode 6)

Yes, we know the series came back this year with that truncated tenth season. We're... just choosing to ignore that (except for possibly episode three). In its '90s heyday, Chris Carter's series was the perfect stew of conspiracy theories, romantic drama, monster-of-the-week shocker and just the right leavening of humour when called for. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson's Mulder and Scully deserve a place in the pantheon of TV partnerships, evidenced by the fact that the show suffered when Duchovny stepped away. Still, when it worked, it really worked.

Best Episode: Squeeze (Season 1, episode 3)

Okay, so the recent miniseries wasn’t great, but 24 has bounced back before and we're hoping the forthcoming 24: Legacy will see the Jack Bauer Power Hour back on form (albeit without Jack Bauer). At its best, there was just nothing like it – insane levels of adrenaline, finely calibrated political intrigue and twists that hit you in the face like a two-fisted punch from Tony Almeida. 24 was some of the most cinematic TV we’ve ever seen, with no expense spared to depict CTU's intense battles against cunning terrorists and the odd occasional rogue President. Even when 24 was rubbish, it was still loveable – admit it, you still have a soft spot for the cougar that menaced Kim Bauer in the show's worst ever plot device, back in Season 2.

Best Episode: 6:00 AM - 7:00 AM (Season 3, Episode 18) – the death of Ryan Chapelle

One of British TV’s greatest ever sitcoms, the central question of Fawlty Towers – why the world’s least hospitable man would go into hospitality in the first place – remains tantalisingly unanswered across 12 kipper-serving, Siberian hamster-hunting, German-baiting episodes. A straight zero on TripAdvisor, the very layout of Fawlty Towers itself offers comedy gold as Basil (John Cleese), his wife Sybil (Prunella Scales), waitress Polly (Connie Booth) and poor, benighted Manuel (Andrew Sachs) manoeuvre themselves (and the odd corpse) around its dowdy interior without ruining anyone’s stay. Basil, needless to say, fails. Often and hilariously.

Best Episode: The Germans (Series 1, episode 6)