Taking a look at the Writer's Guild of America List of 101 Best Written TV Shows

https://www.wga.org/writers-room/101-best-lists/101-best-written-tv-series/list

1. “The Sopranos”
2. “Seinfeld”
3. “The Twilight Zone” (1959)
4. “All in the Family”
5. “M*A*S*H”
6. “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”
7. “Mad Men”
8. “Cheers”
9. “The Wire”
10. “The West Wing”
11. “The Simpsons”
12. “I Love Lucy”
13. “Breaking Bad”
14. “The Dick Van Dyke Show”
15. “Hill Street Blues”
16. “Arrested Development”
17. “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”
18. “Six Feet Under”
19. “Taxi”
20. “The Larry Sanders Show”
21. “30 Rock”
22. “Friday Night Lights”
23. “Frasier”
24. “Friends”
25. “Saturday Night Live”
26. “The X-Files”
27. “Lost”
28. “ER”
29. “The Cosby Show”
30. “Curb Your Enthusiasm”
31. “The Honeymooners”
32. “Deadwood”
33. “Star Trek”
34. “Modern Family”
35. “Twin Peaks”
36. “NYPD Blue”
37. “The Carol Burnett Show”
38. “Battlestar Galactica” (2005)
39. “Sex & The City”
40. “Game of Thrones”
41. (tie) “The Bob Newhart Show;” “Your Show of Shows”
43. (tie) “Downton Abbey;” “Law & Order;” “Thirtysomething”
46. (tie) “Homicide: Life on the Street;” “St. Elsewhere”
48. “Homeland”
49. “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”
50. (tie) “The Colbert Report;” “The Good Wife;” “The Office” (UK)


My thoughts on the list:
1. Unlike film history, TV history is unpleasantly rigid over what's classic and what isn't. I've seen quite a few best of TV lists and Simpsons is always considered a classic but Futurama isn't. Ditto for Bewitched over I Dream of Jeannie or Bob Newhart over Newhart. Likewise the one medical show everyone always includes is ER, the one old-timey Western show is Gunsmoke and the family-themed sitcom from the 80s everyone includes is Family Ties (I preferred Growing Pains, Who's the Boss or Mr Belvedere)
2. Socially significant shows like All in the Family, Cosby Show or MASH always rank high regardless of actual laugh value though I suspect some people find MASH or Cosby Show funny.
3. What's odd is that All in the Family, in particular, is highly dated and it's reputation has remained the same over the years despite the fact that it's pretty much unwatchable today. Coincidentally, I suspect Cosby Show is losing classic status fast. I also feel like Seinfeld is getting dated. It's a show mostly about dating and dating today is nothing like dating in the 90s. Larry Sanders Show seems heavily dated to me. Will and Grace (#94) is extremely dated and by today's standards, those characters are so stereotypical that people would find them offensive. Even Will is more stereotypical than many of the gay characters on TV today.
4. I don't know anything about what shows were highly rated before the 90's, but Fraser, Friends, and ER were the highest rates shows of that era IIRC and coincidentally they're the entries on the list which lends credence to the fact (the Emmys support this notion) that any show that's highly rated is gonna have a place in history. If you ask me the best shows of the 1990s were Newsradio, Spin City, and 3rd Rock from the Sun, but I suppose they didn't get to be the "dominant" show
5. Freaks and Geeks is on the list. OK, great, but on the brilliant-but-cancelled list, where's Commander In Chief, Clone High, Pushing Daisies, etc.
6. There are a number of shows like Beverly Hillbillies and Three's Company that I personally thought were extremely clever and hilarious, but I guess they weren't classy enough?
7. Kind of glad that Happy Days didn't make the list. It does seem kind of bland in retrospect although I thought it was cool growing up. Then again, I thought Saved by the Bell was cool. Aren't I gullible.
8. I would have thought Alias or Prison Break would have made the list. Among newer entries, I'm happy to see Downton Abbey, Boardwalk Empire, and Modern Family there