1970s

Mary Richards, single career woman in a Minneapolis newsroom, tossed her hat and rewired the sitcom. The Brooks and Burns writers ...

Archie Bunker, Queens bigot, argued with his family and America watched itself fight. Lear took a British format and aimed it at t...

The Bellamys upstairs, the servants below, 165 Eaton Place across five seasons of Edwardian decline and world war. The original up...

Korea stood in for Vietnam in the antiwar comedy institution. Alan Alda as Hawkeye grew the show from battlefield farce to moral d...

Twenty six hours of WWII history with Laurence Olivier narration and interviews from the people who were there, on all sides, film...

Alec Guinness became George Smiley across seven hours of chess pace tradecraft: no gunfights, betrayal as office politics. The Cir...

Milwaukee, the 1950s remembered through 1970s eyes: Fonzie thumbs up, Cunningham family warmth, and the Arnolds drive in. Henry Wi...

Jim Rockford, ex con turned private eye, lived in a trailer by the ocean, got paid when he could, and left answering machine messa...

Twelve episodes only: Basil Fawlty, Torquay hotelier at war with his guests, his wife Sybil, and Manuel from Barcelona. Cleese and...

Robert Graves Rome as BBC soap: Augustus to Claudius, poisonings, marriages, Brian Blessed Caesar booms, Derek Jacobi stuttering i...

Kermit ran a variety theater on the brink of collapse, Miss Piggy demanded stardom, and the weekly guest star endured beautiful ch...

Alex Haley traced his family to Kunta Kinte of the Gambia, and ABC aired eight nights that became a national reckoning. Around 130...

Ewing oil, Southfork ranch, and JR Ewing: Larry Hagman grinning villainy. The 1980 Who Shot JR cliffhanger held the world for eigh...

The Sunshine Cab Company: Latka and his alter egos, Reverend Jim, Louie the dispatcher from hell, with Andy Kaufman and Christophe...

Steve Austin, astronaut, rebuilt better, stronger, faster, with a bionic eye and an opening titles sequence that did the expositio...

Who loves ya, baby? Telly Savalass lollipop sucking, bald Lieutenant Theo Kojak worked Manhattan with wit and a moral code underne...

Ronnie Barker as Fletcher, a professional criminal serving a stretch in Slade Prison and treating it like a career opportunity. Wr...

Two plainclothes cops in Bay City: one intense, one blond, one Ford Torino with a white stripe. The buddy cop template for televis...

Jack Regan and George Carter, Flying Squad officers who kick doors first and read rights never. John Thaw and Dennis Waterman, loc...

Three women, one unseen boss on a speakerphone, and cases that rarely required detection. Aaron Spelling sold it on the poster log...

Roj Blake leads escaped convicts against a fascist Terran Federation aboard a stolen alien ship, with a computer called Zen and th...