1 The Sopranos

HBO 1999-2007

The winner — and still undisputed champion — from North Caldwell, New Jersey, coming in heavy at 86 medium-transforming episodes filled with whacking, psychiatric analysis, and cunnilingus and fart jokes, it’s The Sopranos! Of course David Chase’s creation topped the list again, because we are still living in the new world of television ushered in by Mob boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini). As

Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco) helped Tony better understand himself and his relationships with wife Carmela (Edie Falco), mother Livia (Nancy Marchand), nephew Christopher (Michael Imperioli), and the dangerous idiots in his crew, Chase’s unapologetically dark examination of turn-of-the-century America took a torch to every written and unwritten rule that TV storytelling had been governed by since the days of Gunsmoke. Simplicity and holding the audience’s hand were out, and narrative and moral complexity were in, all the way through a final edit that we still can’t stop—