Best NBC shows of all time
From must-see must-watch sitcoms to gripping dramas that had everyone talking around the water cooler, NBC has spent decades shaping American television. But with so many iconic series in the network's history, which one truly deserves the crown as the greatest of all time? Cast your vote and help settle the debate once and for all.
What counts: Seeded with approximate real-world figures — the crowd's votes decide the order from here.
▲ Rising
Jim finally proposing to Pam at the gas station convenience store turned a mockumentary about a paper company into appointment television for a generation that grew up on the show's slow-burn romance and Michael Scott's cringe-genius. It proved American remakes could surpass their British originals, and its influence on workplace comedy is still inescapable a decade after Steve Carell walked out of Dunder Mifflin.
Premiered: 2005Seasons: 9IMDb: 9/10
added by IJRin 9 rankings
46▲ Rising
A show about nothing somehow gave us the Soup Nazi, Festivus, and the finale where the gang gets arrested for being bad people — a fitting, unsentimental send-off for the most influential sitcom structure of the 90s. It rewired comedy writing rooms forever by proving you didn't need hugs or lessons, just perfectly engineered pettiness.
Premiered: 1989Seasons: 9IMDb: 8.9/10
added by IJRin 10 rankings
30▲ Rising
Aaron Sorkin's walk-and-talk masterpiece turned C.J. Cregg's press briefings and Bartlet's righteous monologues into aspirational politics for viewers exhausted by the real thing. 'What's next?' became a rallying cry for a certain kind of idealist, and no show has made bureaucracy feel more like Shakespeare.
Premiered: 1999Seasons: 7IMDb: 8.9/10
added by IJRin 4 rankings
30▲ Rising
Ross screaming PIVOT while wedging a couch up a stairwell is peak sitcom slapstick, but it was Rachel getting off the plane in the finale that cemented this as the show that defined a decade of hangout comedy. Central Perk became a cultural landmark, and the show's syndication dominance still funds streaming wars two decades later.
Premiered: 1994Seasons: 10IMDb: 8.9/10
added by IJRin 12 rankings
23▲ Rising
J.D.'s fantasy sequences and the gut-punch of Dr. Cox losing a patient in the same episode as a dance number showed a rare tonal tightrope walk that most medical dramas never attempted. 'My Screwup' remains one of the most devastating twists in sitcom history, proving Scrubs could break your heart between jokes about the Janitor's grudges.
Premiered: 2001Seasons: 9IMDb: 8.4/10
added by IJRin 10 rankings
14▲ Rising
Captain Holt's deadpan delivery and Jake Peralta's 'cool cool cool cool cool' turned a police procinct sitcom into one of the most purely joyful ensembles of the 2010s. The Halloween Heist episodes became a genre unto themselves, and the show's willingness to evolve post-2020 while staying funny is its own kind of achievement.
Premiered: 2013Seasons: 8IMDb: 8.4/10
added by IJRin 9 rankings
10▲ Rising
Kelsey Grammer's pompous psychiatrist returned from Cheers and built an even funnier show around opera tickets, sibling rivalry, and Niles's decades-long pining for Daphne. The door-slamming farce of episodes like 'The Ski Lodge' proved spinoffs could not just match but exceed their source, making Frasier the rare sequel that's genuinely the better show.
Premiered: 1993Seasons: 11IMDb: 8.2/10
added by IJRin 8 rankings
4▲ Rising
Leslie Knope's binder-fueled love letter to local government turned Pawnee into one of TV's warmest ensembles, culminating in a series of flash-forwards that gave every character a genuinely earned happy ending. It took The Office's mockumentary DNA and infused it with relentless optimism, proving comedy could be kind without being toothless.
Premiered: 2009Seasons: 7IMDb: 8.6/10
added by IJRin 11 rankings
3Olivia Benson's evolution from rookie detective to captain across two-plus decades made SVU the longest-running live-action primetime scripted series in US history, tackling ripped-from-the-headlines cases with a consistency no other procedural has matched. Ice-T's Fin and the 'dun dun' sound have become cultural shorthand, cementing this as the ultimate network TV workhorse.
Premiered: 1999Seasons: 26IMDb: 8.1/10
added by IJRin 5 rankings
3Tina Fey's rapid-fire absurdist send-up of network television gave us Jack Donaghy's corporate koans and Tracy Jordan's chaos at a joke-per-second pace that rewarded rewatching more than almost any comedy ever made. 'Night Cheese' alone justifies its cult status, and its meta-commentary on NBC itself makes it the most self-aware entry on this very list.
Premiered: 2006Seasons: 7IMDb: 8.3/10
added by IJRin 9 rankings
0▼ Falling
The chaos of County General's trauma bay, shot in single continuous takes that made every gurney rush feel like it was happening in real time, redefined what a medical drama could look and sound like. George Clooney's Doug Ross carrying a kid through a flooding storm drain remains iconic, and the show's ensemble-driven, adrenaline-soaked style influenced every hospital drama that followed.
Premiered: 1994Seasons: 15IMDb: 8/10
added by IJRin 7 rankings
-8▼ Falling
Sam and Diane's will-they-won't-they simmered for seasons in a Boston bar where everybody really did know your name, setting the template for the hangout sitcom decades before Friends borrowed it. Norm walking through the door to a chorus of greeting remains one of TV's most perfect running gags, and the show's finale drew nearly 93 million viewers.
Premiered: 1982Seasons: 11IMDb: 8/10
added by IJRin 10 rankings
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Comments (8)
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I came here to argue and left agreeing with the order. Rare.
Awards never tell the story; the crowd has this one right.
The rewatch value of the top pick settles this for me.
Recency bias is real — the classics belong higher.