A maximum-security prison in Emerald City; HBO's first drama and the model for everything after.
Sorkin's Bartlet administration and the walk-and-talk; the fantasy of competent government.
Four Native teenagers in Oklahoma trying to get to California; the first all-Indigenous writers' room.
Two KGB sleeper agents as a Virginia couple in the Reagan years; the best spy series.
An English pilot shipwrecked in 1600 Japan and Lord Toranaga; the Emmy record-breaker.
Two legionaries through the fall of the Republic; HBO and the BBC's expensive Caesar.
Earth, Mars and the Belt on the edge of war; the most realistic space series made.
Five episodes of the 1986 disaster and the lies around it; the highest-rated series on IMDb.
Elisabeth Moss as Offred in Gilead; Atwood's novel and beyond.
Rich guests at a luxury resort and a body by the finale; Hawaii, Sicily, Thailand.
Joel and Ellie across a fungus-ravaged America; the video game adaptation that worked.
Kate Winslet as a Pennsylvania detective in a town she cannot leave; the hoagie and the accent.
Five friends in London through the AIDS years of the 1980s; Russell T Davies.
A motorcycle club in California as Hamlet; Charlie Hunnam and Katey Sagal.
Two percent of the world vanishes and the rest cannot cope; the series about grief without answers.
County General in Chicago for fifteen seasons; George Clooney and the steadicam trauma bay.
Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell by candlelight; Hilary Mantel on the BBC.
Issa Rae in South Los Angeles through her late twenties; five seasons of friendship.
Jeremy Irons, Anthony Andrews and a teddy bear at Oxford and Castle Howard; eleven hours of Waugh.
One year at a Michigan high school in 1980; eighteen episodes and every future star.
How the Rebellion was built, without a Jedi in sight; the Star Wars series for adults.
A financial adviser launders cartel money at a Missouri lake; Jason Bateman and Laura Linney.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge talks to the camera through grief and a hot priest; two perfect seasons.
A comedian and his stalker, from the true story of Richard Gadd; the Netflix surprise of 2024.
Connell and Marianne from Sligo to Trinity College; Sally Rooney's novel in twelve half-hours.
Aziz Ansari in New York and Modena; the "Thanksgiving" episode.
The Targaryen civil war two centuries before Game of Thrones.
Upstairs and downstairs at a Yorkshire estate from the Titanic to the 1920s; Maggie Smith's put-downs.
The Roy children fight over a media empire; four seasons of Shakespeare in fleece.
Monterey mothers, a school fundraiser and a death; Kidman, Witherspoon and Streep.
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