Category: Gaming

Brüggen, a small town in Germany, sometime in the mid 1980s. Two teenagers are huddled around a tiny TV taking turns playing Pitfall II: Lost Caverns on the most popular home computer of the era, the Commodore 64. I never owned one myself, but instead had a competing model made by Atari, the Atari 600XL – but with a RAM expansion module that endowed it with – don’t laugh – a colossal 64k of RAM, the same as the C64.

Years before SEGA and Nintendo met at the frontlines of the console wars, and decades before Xbox and PlayStation fans measured their fun in install bases or who had the most system exclusives running at 60fps, my friend and I willingly accepted the roles of system advocates for our respective favorite machine. Whenever he pulled the SID card, extolling the virtues of the “best sound chip ever made”, I reminded him of that extra audio channel and the Atari’s ability to display 256 simultaneous colors to his 16. Deep-down, I knew that wasn’t the whole story because the C64 could push more colors at higher resolutions and my Atari, well, let’s say it was really good at making rainbows. In the end, we both celebrated the two competing computers’ differences and enjoyed their unique game libraries together.

Lost in the Lost Caverns

But back to Pitfall II. We were playing the C64 port of David Crane’s Atari 2600 game because I had recently unlocked the second world in the Atari computer version and couldn’t stop talking about it. While it looked and felt a lot like the first game, Pitfall II introduced some pretty exciting innovations. If you’ve never played Pitfall, it’s an Indiana-Jones-inspired platformer that pits the adventurer Pitfall Harry against deadly scorpions, snakes, crocodiles, and treacherous quicksand on a quest to collect treasures. It’s the OG platformer. Harry can jump, climb ladders, and swing from vines – no power-ups, no weapons, no tools. The sequel kept the platforming pure, but added swimming, vertical scrolling, the ability to hold on and fly with balloons, contextual music, and – in an industry first – checkpoints that let you resume your quest should you fail to avoid Pitfall II’s even deadlier critters; poisonous frogs, vampire bats, Andean condors, albino scorpions, and supremely annoying electric eels.

Those checkpoints were a godsend, too – Pitfall II is not an easy game. And that second world! Piranhas. Giant ants. Even nastier bats and frogs! “You’ll see, all we have to do is get Quickclaw, the cowardly lion that looks like a kangaroo trying to shush you, and… There he is. Yeah, don’t worry, he’s not an enemy. Just collect him. Get ready.”

The game ends.

There is no second world in the C64 version? The disappointment and confusion I felt when we got to that pivotal point in Pitfall II is etched in my mind – I still remember this moment some four decades later. At the same time, I had just found new ammo to celebrate the superiority of the Atari home computer platform over the worthless beige neck roll… sorry, old habits… over the Commodore 64. As a kid of the pre-internet ’80s, I filled in the knowledge gaps with all sorts of theories. Maybe my friend had bad code and Zak McKracken or whoever was responsible for my friend’s “free copy” had overwritten part of the game with their elaborate intro animations and techno chiptunes. But the real story is much more interesting.

The Atari computer edition is actually kinda sorta subtitled the “Adventurer’s Edition” and it’s not only unique among the dozen or so versions that exist, it’s also a wonderful forgotten gem in more ways than one. I figured the best way to tell that story is to hand over the mic to Harry’s dad first.

David Crane, I Presume?

“Back then games on each console were complete rewrites in assembly language with custom assets for each. Typically not even graphics and sound effects could be reused. So a ‘port’ took nearly as long as the original creation,” Pitfall creator and programmer David Crane told me when I asked him about the differences between the versions.

“When we were ready to ‘port’ one of our games to other systems, I was already off creating new, original content. It was not a good use of my time to do a port since the game was already designed, including graphics, layouts, puzzles, etc. Another game programmer was assigned to convert assets and rewrite the code. He could play the original and make the same game.”

Since both the Commodore 64 and Atari computers have similar system architecture to the Atari 2600 but with more sophisticated display capacity, Crane says the ports were pegged to be straightforward and were handed over to other programmers – Tim Shotter and Mike Lorenzen, sitting just 15 feet away in the same office. The one exception being the Intellivision version, which he says he did himself while reverse-engineering the system.

“For the C64, Tim Shotter, took the traditional approach, duplicating gameplay but writing the game from scratch. For the [Atari] 800, Mike Lorenzen wrote new display code to replace the 2600 display routines, and used my original source code,” said Crane.

That’s where the magic happened. According to Crane, both projects reached beta at the same time, but the C64 version needed a month of debugging since it was all-new code. The Atari computer version used already debugged code.

“Mike’s game went from Beta to Final. So for simultaneous release Mike spent the month that would have otherwise been taken up debugging to add an entirely original level that opens only if you complete the first one. That was the origin of the Atari 800 Pitfall! ‘Easter egg’.”

The Big Egg

That’s probably the first time you’ve heard someone call half a game an “Easter egg”, right? All other versions of Pitfall II end with Harry jumping in place excitedly upon completing the final objective. In the Atari computer/5200 version, a doorway opens and you uncover a vast second world as big as the first one – surely way too much content to earn the modest designation of an “Easter egg”, even with the quotes.

The story surrounding Pitall II’s second world has taken on mythical proportions – no doubt in part because recollections have faded over the years and much of the documentation is lost. Some claim you have to collect treasures in a certain order to unlock the second half, which is why it’s an Easter egg. You don’t. Some claim that the extra level is hidden in the other versions. It isn’t. The only way to play it is to finish the first half of Pitfall II on an Atari 8-bit computer or the 5200. If you’re curious, you can watch the second world unlock in this WorldofLongPlays video (played via an emulator).

But how did it come about in the first place? What made Mike Lorenzen, designer and programmer of early Atari 2600 classics like Golf, Circus Atari, and Oink!, go so far off the beaten path when tasked with an “easy port”? I just had to know, so I tracked down Mike, who, at age 66, has long left the games industry behind and is working in the telecom business here in California.

“As an original author, I wanted to make ‘a game’. I didn’t want to give Dave all the credit – I wanted to do something and make it better. The first half of the game plays identically. I didn’t do a damn thing, except, technically, pull this off. So, what I did… I added a second game. And it’s just as big as the original.”

Mike told me how he was battling a reputation of being a slacker for part of his game making career – mostly, he believes, because he became so involved with hardware and IT work that his coding output was lower than other dedicated programmers’. A self-starter and hardware tinkerer who took monitors and computers apart and reverse engineered them, Mike had landed a job at Atari in 1979 because he had reached out to the console maker and asked for hardware documentation so he could write his own games.

The team of Atari pioneers that hired him eventually left and founded a new company: Activision. Mike stayed behind, loyal to the company that had given him his first development gig. But, as he told me, he knew “enough about hardware to be dangerous” and after becoming disillusioned with the lack of rewards and credit at Atari, eventually followed his former employers to the greener pastures of the developer-founded outfit. At Activision, gaming history’s first independent third-party developer, he continued to apply his knack for hardware and even built an Atari computer development kit. That familiarity no doubt led to him being the prime choice to port the sequel to Activision’s biggest hit, Atari 2600’s Pitfall II, to the Atari 8-bit line.

“One of my gripes as an original author is that a translation would be lazy. Tim looked at the C64 and wrote it from scratch, I took Dave’s code and transcribed the code byte by byte.”

Don’t Call Me A Slacker

So Mike started to think bigger, convincing himself that if the original game had 256 screens with seven things – “the alligators and whatnot” – he needed to have 256 screens with seven brand-new things. “One was the rabid bat,” he said, and offered in one of many asides during our conversation: “The rabid bat actually has a repeating pattern, all you had to do is study it.”

Mike dedicated his entire working and private life to making his version of Pitfall II something special. He says, without any discernible sense of regret, that he worked in stretches of 11 hours day and night, catching just a single hour of sleep in between shifts. He didn’t go home, and instead slept on his lab bench for that hour, twice a day. When it was done, he burnt the ROMs himself and sent the games out, “bug-free”, on the last plane going to the Consumer Electronics Expo (the birthplace of E3) in Las Vegas.

“When I submitted the manual, I said, ‘well the manual has to be a little different because there’s this other thing…’ And they said ‘what’s this other thing?’ I said ‘well, I, uhhh, made Pitfall III and put it in there.’ And marketing went nutso.”

Nutso, in a bad way. Mike believes that the pushback was based on fear that the old hardware, 1979’s Atari 800, would show up newer computers like the Commodore 64 and that Activision didn’t want to embarrass them by having such different versions of the game hit at the same time.

Delete This

In a 2018 Facebook comment, Pitfall II’s producer, Brad Fregger, recalls that the call came from the VP of Marketing at Activision:

“’We can’t have [that], Brad. We are marketing the two products together and they need to have the exact same gameplay. You are going to have to strip that second game out of the product.’ I couldn’t change his mind, none of my arguments worked. I drove back to the office trying to figure out how I was going to give Mike this terrible news.”

Fregger recalls that he told Mike that “we are going to have the best, damn, Easter egg ever.”

“They didn’t want to market it as Pitfall III, because that would be a ‘Dave thing’, said Mike. “Well, I can’t take it out! And so we negotiated a truce where, if you completed the entire first game, then that was the only time you were allowed to know about the second part of the game.”

So the “sequel” stayed in the game, but all versions of Pitfall II were marketed exactly the same way. Though Lorenzen himself included a cheeky hint in the game code that the Atari version was unique – a scrolling text message at the bottom of the screen not only identifies Mike Lorenzen as the programmer (a move that Activision encouraged), but also labels the game the “Adventurer’s Edition” – something that’s absent from the game’s box art and any of the magazine advertisements. The marketing didn’t mention any differences at all – visual or content – between the versions. If anything, it used the C64 as its poster child, no doubt more due to that platform’s popularity than its admittedly much fancier tree designs.

I can’t prove it – since pre-internet gaming history can be more than just a bit fuzzy – but I think it’s likely that many Atari Pitfall II players knew of the extra level, but perhaps not that it didn’t make it into the other versions. You see, this is page 1 in the Atari version’s manual, which Mike thinks may have been wordsmithed by his wife or possibly touched up by a tech writer:

It’s right there: find Rhonda, Quickclaw, and Raj. “Then, venture through the forbidding second cavern and solve its surprising mystery of freedom”.

That last line refers to the game’s final puzzle, which has Harry meet a snake charmer who tells him that charming the Golden Rope is the only path to freedom. Touch the charmer’s flute, and a rope rises from the basket at the center of this screen lifting Harry and his entourage and treasures to safety. The game ends with everyone back on the surface – a final story cutscene in an age where action games rarely ended and even more rarely made the effort to reward the player with more than a white-on-black “Game Over” screen.

The ending seemed so elaborate compared to other games, I just had to ask Mike about it – who didn’t disappoint and offered another anecdote:

“I wanted the classic snake-charming music [hums the tune]. And so they brought in a musician and composer, named Ed Bogas, who wrote commercial jingles. Dave Crane is a fucking genius, right? His IQ is off the charts! Ed Bogas is another one. The day he came in to do the music for me, he composed four different sets of music while having a conversation with me. He said ‘give me the translation paper’ and then he memorized it and gave me the notes in hex. While creating four other pieces of music. That’s probably the person with the most bandwidth, the most simultaneous processing I ever saw.”

Pitfall is not forgotten today. While Activison tried to resurrect the series multiple times – with mixed results – David Crane’s and Pitfall’s influence on modern platformers is often-cited and rightfully celebrated. But Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns – Adventurer’s Edition is a true forgotten gem. Lorenzen took a quality Pitfall sequel and let his ambition run wild. The end result is an example of crafting a compelling story and providing the player with a sense of progression — and closure — through the simplest means possible. This version goes way beyond a port or a remaster – it eclipses the original in every way and it deserves its story to be known and remembered.

“Every once in a while I’d get a call from customer service telling me that a C64 customer was complaining about not having the extra game that [his] friend with the 800 version had”, said Fregger. “‘He’s just confused because of the different graphics.’ I’d reply. Trouble is, we did such a good job of hiding it that there are very few people in the world who know that the world’s biggest Easter egg is in the Atari 800 version of Pitfall II.”

And now you know, too.

Where Can You Play It Now?

Pitfall II: Lost Caverns – Adventurer’s Edition is not offered in any compilation or micro console today. While all but the digiBlast incarnation of Activision Anthology included the Atari 2600 original, Mike’s second adventure is not legally purchasable and playable anywhere but on an Atari 5200, or an Atari 8-Bit computer. The Pitfall series itself has been dormant since 2012, when Activision released an endless runner for mobile phones.

Pitfall: The Complete Playlist

Here are all games in Activision’s platform adventure series, starting with David Crane’s original Pitfall! on the Atari 2600.

Peer Schneider (@PeerIGN on Twitter) is one of IGN Entertainment’s founders and is chasing down all his childhood mysteries one by one. Next up: why all of MB’s Starbirds are missing their gun turret.

Limited Run Games is releasing physical copies of Persona 3 Portable for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One. The preorder period goes from Sept. 29 to Nov. 12.

Each platform will have standard, Grimoire, and SEES Editions available for Persona 3 Portable. The standard version just includes a physical copy of the game and costs $35. The Grimoire Edition costs twice as much at $70 and contains a few extra items in addition to the physical copy of the game, such as a steelbook, a Grimoire Book Box, and a slipcover.

The SEES Edition is the most expensive and costs a whopping $200. It includes everything from the Grimoire Edition and even more goodies. It comes with a 1:1 Evoker Replica shadow box that lights up and another 3D shadow box that portrays Persona 3’s All Out Attack cut-in.

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Time never waits. It delivers all equally to the same end…

That’s right- Persona 3 Portable is coming to Limited Run on September 29th! Check it out on Switch, Xbox and PS5 physical! pic.twitter.com/h95Il85dBM

— Limited Run Games (@LimitedRunGames) September 25, 2023

It also contains an official Persona 3 Portable soundtrack, a set of character trading cards depicting all members of SEES, and a SEES armband as well as a Gekkoukan High School patch. To top it all off, it comes with an individually numbered certificate of authenticity.

Limited Run Games also announced that Persona 4 Golden will receive physical releases for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One too. Preorders for those will open on Oct. 27 and more information about them will be revealed at a later date.

Persona 3 Portable was first released in 2010 for PlayStation Portable while Persona 4 Golden was first released in 2012 for PlayStation Vita. Both games received physical editions on their respective platforms back then. Both games also got a re-release on PC, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One.

Persona 3 Reload, a remake of Persona 3, is scheduled to launch on February 2, 2024 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.

George Yang is a freelance writer for IGN. He’s been writing about the industry since 2019 and has worked with other publications such as Insider, Kotaku, NPR, and Variety.

When not writing about video games, George is playing video games. What a surprise! You can follow him on Twitter @Yinyangfooey

Cyberpunk 2077’s biggest mystery has unravelled even further in Update 2.0 and the Phantom Liberty expansion, with some fans who got too close to the truth being (politely) silenced by developer CD Projekt Red.

A series of strange letters and symbols has been at the centre of the bizarre mystery, which even seeped beyond Cyberpunk 2077 and into CD Projekt Red’s other franchise with The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The release of the game-changing Update 2.0 includes even more clues, however, and the incoming Phantom Liberty expansion likely has even more.

The mystery, known as FF:06:B5, began when players discovered the code on a statue worshipped by monks in Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City (below). A series of other numbers hidden throughout the city attracted even more attention, and a Reddit page dedicated to FF:06:B5 now has more than 24,000 members.

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So there’s some insane new mystery in Cyberpunk 2077 added with 2.0 that seems to be tied to The Witcher, Strange languages, a server room, and a QR code that’s being revealed through secrets in a new arcade game, r/FF06B5 is losing their minds over it trying to decipher it 🤔… pic.twitter.com/f7MmlcqBfb

— Synth Potato (Ameer) 🥔 (@SynthPotato) September 24, 2023

Cyberpunk 2077 quest director Paweł Sasko confirmed there is a solution to the mystery, but the clues dropped in The Witcher 3 (which included portals, deserted towers, ouroboros symbols, and more strange numbers) weren’t enough to solve it.

Now, with what will be the final major addition to Cyberpunk 2077 in Update 2.0 and the subsequent Phantom Liberty expansion, fans have seemingly got much closer to the answer. A post from Til_W on the FF:06:B5 subreddit outlines several new parts to the mystery alongside some controversy surrounding datamining and an agreement reached between the community and CD Projekt Red.

The next steps to the mystery begin in Update 2.0 with a laptop dumped in a landfill outside Night City. Players can read a conversation between in-game characters TyRo/\/\aNtA and Polyhistor which talks about a reference to FF:06:B5 inside a retro video game “over 60 years old”.

Given The Witcher 3 does exist as a video game within Cyberpunk 2077, having appeared in-game on the cover of Retro Gaming, and would have launched just over 60 years before 2077 in 2015, fans first assumed this was a reference to its FF:06:B5 secret.

Other connections suggest this too, with the laptop featuring the same letters as featured in The Witcher 3’s clue alongside the ouroboros symbol. While fans are currently dissecting, translating, and analysing these symbols, no clear answers have been found yet.

Adding to the mystery, the retro game mentioned could be something else entirely: Arasaka Tower 3D. This arcade game added in Update 2.0 lets players play as Johnny Silverhand through the Arasaka Tower terror attack of 2023 in a Wolfenstein-esque shooter. This isn’t to be confused with the actual Arasaka Tower attack that players experience while playing as Johnny, but is a twisted retelling of that event in video-game form playable by the characters of Cyberpunk 2077. Our brains are melting too.

The Arasaka Tower 3D arcade game is fully playable but lies inside a secret room inside a church belonging to, wait for it, Polyhistor, one of the two characters talking about the retro game previously. Confirming all of this is absolutely connected, one level of Arasaka Tower 3D features a hidden room with none other than a low-poly model of the statue that started this entire mystery.

The hidden doors themselves are also a vibrant magenta colour that match the symbol found in The Witcher 3, and uncoincidentally, the hex code for FF:06:B5 is the same pink colour. Coming to the end of Arasaka Tower 3D also shows a list of high scores, the lowest being set by Polyhistor (as PLHSTR) at FF06B5.

It’s another part of the arcade game that really moves things along, however, thanks to a secret maze level that once completed gives players (in the Cyberpunk 2077 world) access to keypads in a server room back in Polyhistor’s church.

As for what to input on these keypads, nobody knows yet — at least not through official means. Coming up with no concrete leads, dataminers delved into the game’s files and actually discovered some codes, but despite this being very Cyberpunk, CD Projekt Red has asked them not to reveal the secret.

“As you already know the datamining team managed to achieve something interesting,” wrote lead member leprotravel on the FF:06:B5 subreddit. “Of course, this could not escape the eyes of [CD Projekt Red]. Today we had long negotiations about the possibility of posting a detailed guide dedicated to the methods used by dataminers and how they exactly achieved the specified result. This was supposed to be a comprehensive, structured post covering many hours of work.

“However, we received a refusal from the [CD Projekt Red] team. But in a very friendly way, since they appreciate the diligence of players in discovering secrets in their games, regardless of the methods they use.”

CD Projekt Red explained, perhaps fairly, that datamining to progress the mystery is cheating, and they’d like players to be patient and discover the next steps and final secrets properly. Even with the datamined secrets, however, the FF:06:B5 sleuths assured the mystery is not complete and there is still more to find.

These next secrets will perhaps arrive when Phantom Liberty launches on September 26 or, just as clues appeared in The Witcher 3, this could be a mystery spanning CD Projekt Red games for years to come.

In our 9/10 review of Phantom Liberty, which admittedly doesn’t take into consideration the amount of cryptic clues and theories, IGN said: “Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty completes an immense turnaround for CD Projekt Red’s future RPG kickstarted with the anime spin-off, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and its latest 2.0 Update.”

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.

How do you break down what makes the ideal television show? It’s not easy, given the fact that each person has their own individual taste, but IGN did our best when it came to outlining our criteria for our 2023 revamp of our top TV shows of all time.

The show must have finished its run or been on the air for at least 10 years and had a significant impact on television as a whole — because how many shows make it to 10 seasons these days? While this does exclude some of our currently running faves like The Last of Us, The Boys, Squid Game and more, those shows haven’t completed their stories yet. Don’t worry — we’ll likely see them eligible by the next time we refresh this list!

Voters were asked to consider the following: How influential was the show? How well has it aged? Did the show have ongoing cultural significance? And, obviously, we considered best vs. favorite. (Just because you love Love Is Blind, that doesn’t mean it’s one of the greatest TV shows ever made. Sorry, those are just the rules!)

And, obviously, the voters all must have spent a considerable hunk of their lives watching what some would describe as “too much TV.” Our voting pool was made up of entertainment-centric staffers as well as critics from across the industry. You can check out our full list of voters and learn more about our criteria, too!

You can flip through our slideshow below to see our choices or scroll down the page to read why each entry is worthy of its spot on our list. If you want to jump to a certain section, feel free to do so by clicking the index below. Once you’ve finished, all that’s left to do is let us know how we did and how it compares to your list…

Oh, and be sure to look out for our Top 100 TV Shows of All Time Face-Off tomorrow, September 26, so you can help decide what the best shows are!

100. Happy Days

After making box office magic with George Lucas in the similarly themed classic American Graffiti, Ron Howard was cast as Richie in Happy Days. Taking a jump into a highly idealized version of 1950s Milwaukee, Happy Days sold audiences by being pretty much just what the title says it is. Along with Potsie, Ralph, and cool guy Fonzie, Richie and his friends have mostly low-stakes teenage hijinks. The nostalgic vibe of the show hit a chord with TV fans, and the series ultimately ran for eleven seasons, spawning multiple spin-offs including the great Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy. Yet, the most important thing about Happy Days was always the incredible cast that brought it to life. Gifting the world with now-major Hollywood players like Ron Howard and Henry Winkler, Happy Days is still an undefeated champion of the wholesome sitcom gag.

99. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart was a comedian and MTV show host for years before striking gold with The Daily Show after prior host Craig Kilborn moved on. It’s safe to say that this is the work for which Stewart is best known today, considering that his political involvement has only continued with his 2015 departure. Though proceeding host Trevor Noah has now had his own iconic run, Stewart was in the chair through many of the current century’s most infamous historical events. Finding a way to make the audience laugh at the U.S.’s convoluted political system while wresting with regularly shocking news items, The Daily Show became a major source for topical discussions. Creating political humor that holds up years down the line is no small feat, but Stewart’s run on The Daily Show makes it look effortless.

98. The Dick Van Dyke Show

Carl Reiner’s much-loved family sitcom may not have had the most realistic marriage on TV (its central couple was one inspiration behind Wandavision’s black-and-white meta-series, twin beds and all), but it certainly had one of the funniest. Comedy legends Mary Tyler Moore and Dick Van Dyke starred as snazzy metropolitan couple Rob and Laura Petrie, who raised their young son Ritchie (Larry Matthews) while juggling the duties of their home and work lives – hers and his, respectively. While the show’s polished veneer and mostly traditional gender roles make it feel like the antithesis of shaggier sitcoms that would debut just a few years later, The Dick Van Dyke Show is often surprisingly modern – and downright uproarious – in its comedy. Van Dyke is a master of physical comedy, but Moore is the show’s secret weapon, performing her role as an often-overwrought wife and mom with charisma and perfectly honed silliness.

97. NYPD Blue

Gritty police procedurals are old hat by now, but NYPD Blue helped establish a formula that many have followed but few have surpassed. Delving into the frustrating bureaucracy of the American judicial system and moral failings of the police entrusted with finding justice for victims of violent crime, NYPD Blue went several steps over the preestablished line when it came to depictions of an unethical system. Zooming in on the severely bigoted detective Sipowicz and his conflicted partner John Kelly, this was a masterclass in taking unlikeable protagonists and dissecting their characters, much the same as dramas like The Sopranos would perfect years down the line. Striving for realism, NYPD Blue never balked at the sheer unpleasantness of its subject matter, instilling a morally ambiguous tone that its still effective today.

96. I May Destroy You

I May Destroy You is a staggering example of turning pain into something beautiful. It may not have started as the focus for creator and star Michaela Coel’s next project, but it became a clear choice while processing her own personal experience of being drugged and sexually assaulted while writing her prior series, Chewing Gum. As a rising millennial writer actively denying her assault, Coel’s Arabella is also juggling deadlines, promoting her profile, cultivating her own friendships, and maintaining a long-distance relationship. It’s a tough subject to write comedy around, but Coel captures the complex process of processing and rebuilding one’s life with harsh truths and denial but with total grace. The show emphasizes that the conversation around rape is complicated and should be ever-constant.

95. Living Single

Khadijah is a magazine editor living with her comparatively naive cousin Synclaire and friends Regine and Max, while on the other side of the brownstone apartments, we have bachelors Kyle and Obie. These twenty-something singles navigate their career and social lives, but of course, it’s the glorious hilarity of their dating misadventures that makes the show work. Living Single provided a take on life in the city that merged real world problems with over-the-top sit-com antics. With an unforgettable theme song by series mainstay Queen Latifah, it’s defined today not just by its now-iconic humor and characters, but also by a killer soundtrack. Airing throughout the middle ’90s, Living Single can easily be viewed as a precursor to similarly formatted sitcoms like Friends. Yet, it’s best viewed on its own merits as an vastly underrated comedy gem featuring some of the most beloved characters to ever grace the small screen.

94. The Prisoner

The term “prestige television” didn’t exist back in 1968, but if it did, it certainly would have been used to describe The Prisoner. The series served as star Patrick McGoohan’s follow-up to Danger Man. But far from being another straightforward espionage drama, The Prisoner is a surrealist and heavily allegorical look at one ex-spy’s ill-fated attempt at retiring. Trapped in a bizarre coastal village and slapped with the moniker Number Six, McGoohan’s character struggles to make sense of his surroundings and his strange plight. The series may have only lasted 17 episodes, but it was and still is hugely influential in the TV realm. It paved the way for everything from Twin Peaks to Lost.

93. Pushing Daisies

Forensic detective shows and fairy tale homages are both well-tread ground, but only one show springs to mind that was able to combine the best of these two seemingly unrelated genres. Pushing Daisies follows the story of Ned, a baker that can reanimate the dead through physical contact. Naturally, this isn’t without its drawbacks, and nothing he brings back can live without causing deaths nearby. Also unsurprisingly, this dubious gift is quickly enlisted by a detective seeking to solve murder cases by interrogating the recently deceased. When Ned sees that his lost love Chuck has been murdered, he’s unable to let her rest, which provides the set-up for one of TV’s most delightfully strange offerings. Drenched in purposefully over-saturated colors, hopeful but haunted, funny but bleak, it’s no wonder that we continue to see this at the top of lists mourning shows that were “gone too soon.”

92. Mystery Science Theater 3000

This quirky, low-budget riff-fest rustled up an entire story about a janitor being sent into space with two robots so that mad scientists could force them to watch old B-movies as, more or less, a complicated excuse to sit around and make fun of silly sci-fi. MST3K fans know, however, that this series changed how we interact with movies. Not just “bad” movies. Not just “so bad they’re good” movies. But ALL movies. What began as a humble Minneapolis broadcast grew, thanks to fans sharing via VHS tapes, into a cult cable classic featuring a group of inventive comedians who figured out a way to create a shared viewing experience at home long before social media. Whether it was host/creator Joel Hodgson or head writer/successor Mike Nelson as the Mads’ unfortunate lab rat, it was always quality laughs, and even today the format still thrives.

91. Alfred Hitchcock Presents

Predating The Twilight Zone by four years, the Master of Suspense brought this nightmarish anthology show to terrified viewers in 1955. While Hitchcock only directed 18 episodes of the series which would run for a decade, he was heavily involved in its production, including his famously dry introductions for the spooky stories. HItchcock wasn’t the only famous filmmaker to work on the atmospheric anthology as names as eclectic and impressive as Robert Altman, Ida Lupino, and William Friedkin also directed episodes. This is a true joy for fans of crime cinema and genre television as each of the noir-hued episodes play with our expectations and deliver shocking twists that are still entertaining and engaging to this day.

90. Dexter

Putting aside the later, weaker seasons — and how it originally all ended before Dexter: New Blood (which wasn’t fully the writers’ fault) — Showtime’s Dexter was crazed pulpy awesomeness when it was firing on all cylinders. Told through the blood-craving eyes of a serial killer who’d been trained to eliminate other serial killers, Dexter is on the Mount Rushmore of white male anti-hero TV. Not a mobster or a drug kingpin, Michael C. Hall’s Dexter Morgan was an honest-to-badness murderer hiding within the Miami police department, using his forensics expertise to evade his colleagues so that he could fulfill the desires of his “Dark Passenger.” With amazing guest stars as “Big Bads” and an unrivaled gallows humor, Dexter was a cosplay-ready phenomenon that allowed us to safely root for a (TV safe) demon walking among us. A vividly macabre must-watch.

89. Ted Lasso

Ted Lasso was a series that came into our lives exactly when we needed it. Premiering in August of 2020 — before the world had vaccines for the global pandemic we had found ourselves trapped in — the show served as a balm for viewers seeking one single ounce of serotonin. It was a beacon of hope for the hopeless, centered around Jason Sudeikis’ endlessly positive Ted and his delightful fish-out-of-water story as an American football coach who made his way to the UK to coach, well, the other football. Every cast member shines in this layered, complicated, beautiful story of joy, loss, biscuits, and an understanding of just how awful tea is.

88. Justified

Elmore Leonard’s special brand of character-driven crime stories have been Hollywood fuel for six decades now – from Mr. Majestyk to Jackie Brown to Out of Sight – but Justified delivered Leonard’s dialogue-focused “smart dumb people” tone to TV for an impeccable, incredible modern Western that crackled with wit and wickedness. Timothy Olyphant’s Raylan Givens, a Deputy Marshall filled with both rage and wisdom, was the perfect amount of righteous and reckless and his cat-and-mouse arc with charming crook Boyd Crowder (a divine Walton Goggins) made for an exceptional dramatic dance. EP/Showrunner Graham Yost was dead set on getting the “Leonard”-ness of the series right, having initially adapted a short story, “Fire in the Hole,” as the series set up. What followed — even in Dave Andron and Michael Dinner’s new season, Justified: City Primeval — was a shaggy, cool, authentic Neo-Noir that rebelled against cliches and archetypes.

87. Roseanne

The sitcom was a well-worn format by the time Roseanne rolled around, but there was something different about the Conner family when the show debuted. Most network TV families were so polite and polished and, basically, well-off, but not on Roseanne. This was a family of working-class stiffs who were barely scraping by (even Archie Bunker didn’t seem to have money problems), they were often dealing with heavy topics, and Roseanne was abrasive and rude. But also, funny as hell? The family and their friends, despite all their problems, very quickly became beloved fixtures of the TV landscape. The show would go wackadoodle when Roseanne won the lottery in its final season, and it would be revived 21 years later, only for its star to get herself fired (and her character killed off) due to racist Twitter comments. But the Conner family lived on, just as they would’ve in real life, in a sequel/spinoff series that is still going as of this writing.

86. Frasier

One of the best examples of a spin-off that is so different from the original show you’d never guess that it was actually connected at all, Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) began life as a recurring character on Cheers (another of our Top 100) before getting his own show in 1993. This delightfully droll and funny series centers around the titular radio host and psychotherapist as he navigates his life in Seattle. Though the central character is far from likable, the writing is hilarious and the supporting cast — including his brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce), father Martin (John Mahoney), housekeeper Daphne (Jane Leeves), and legendary dog Eddie (Moose) — make this an unendingly charming watch. When it comes to ’90s sitcoms you need to rewatch or try for the first time, the searing heroes of Frasier should absolutely be on your list.

85. The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

The talk show as a format is as necessary to the fabric of TV as anything else, and nobody elevated it quite like Johnny Carson. It was as likely for him to be aloof and cool playing along with a bit, as it was losing his mind to something funny. He was serious when he needed to be and just as happy to wear an enormous, shiny turban to get laughs and the move from New York to LA brought an insanely casual dynamic with Hollywood’s biggest stars. He also represents one of the last times everybody in America watched the same thing. The Late Night Wars that raged in the wake of Carson’s retirement sent everybody to one side or the other, leaving Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show a truly special place in television history.

84. The Larry Sanders Show

Long before Garry Shandling was a Hydra sleeper agent, he was a sitcom writer turned stand-up turned sitcom creator and one of the funniest people ever to walk the earth. With The Larry Sanders Show he created a ruthless satire, taking down the world of TV from behind the scenes. Shandling led the hilarious cast as the host of a late night talk show featuring a non-stop stream of celebrity guests who couldn’t wait to be in on the joke. (Right up to the final episode when Tom Petty and Clint Back got into a fight that Greg Kinnear had to break up.) It also aired on HBO in the early ’90s and undoubtedly influenced the comedy wing of the prestige TV era. Other shows on this list owe Larry Sanders a debt of gratitude for blazing a truly original trail during the beginnings of the Prestige TV era.

83. My So-Called Life

If it’s the 90s and you’re a teenager, guess what, you’re watching My So-Called Life. Though it ran only for a nineteen-episode season, this is a show that lived on in the re-runs. Taking the teenage Angela as its main character, this is widely considered to be the first dramatic TV series aimed at teens that worked to meet them on their level. Angela’s “teen crush” on the aloof Jordan is never minimized, nor are her concerns about her parents’ marriage. Major arcs introduced the world to primetime’s first queer character through Angela’s friend Ricky, as well as exploring the complexities of friendship between teen girls with problematic bestie Rayanne. Coming-out stories, teen love, troubles at home, drug use, and homelessness are all tackled in this short series. While many bemoan its short run, this is a show with a lengthy so-called shelf life, still impactful when watched nearly three decades later.

82. The Wonder Years

According to Kevin Arnold, “When you’re a little kid, you’re a bit of everything. Scientist, Philosopher, Artist.” Bittersweet, then, that so much of The Wonder Years is about leaving those days behind in exchange for the responsibilities of adulthood. With each episode ostensibly taking place exactly twenty years before the date on which it aired, The Wonder Years is both an upbeat coming-of-age comedy and a heartrending exploration of getting older. With best friend Paul and love interest Winnie along for the ride, Kevin guides us through the historical events and day-to-day life of an adolescent boy, ages 12-17, growing up in the 1960s. Told to us by the 1980s adult version of Kevin, The Wonder Years struck a perfect note between reminiscence and modernity. By the end of the show, Kevin has left childhood behind, but the narrator’s nostalgic musings assure us that he hasn’t forgotten any of it.

81. Survivor

The U.S. version of this international reality competition series franchise sees two “tribes” of competitors taken to an exotic, remote location where each player must fend for themselves, live off the land, and navigate the internal politics and schemes of their competitors. Since debuting on CBS in 2000, viewers have remained engaged in watching its “heroes” and “villains” connive against each other, forging and breaking alliances in beautiful far-flung locations like Brazil, Australia, Kenya, or Fiji all to be the sole survivor to win the grand prize.

80. Batman (1966)

While it has for decades been the campy butt of many-a DC joke, it’s hard to overstate just how influential the ’60s Batman series has been on the superhero landscape. Not only was the show a hit that spawned the first feature length western superhero movie, but it also spawned the creation of Barbara Gordon’s Batgirl. The brightly hued comic book show introduced the Caped Crusaders to generations of viewers and shaped the perception of the artform for decades, for better or for worse. It also shaped the future of superhero blockbusters too as one young viewer, Michael Uslan, hated the representation of his Dark Knight so much he dedicated his life to making a dark and gritty Batman movie, and in 1989 he achieved that with Tim Burton’s legendary film. So, if you’ve never revisited this joyful love letter to Silver Age DC, it’s time to rectify that.

79. Oz

In the fictional maximum security prison Oswald State Correctional Facility, “Oz” for short, rehabilitation is the goal of unit manager Tim McManus. Heading up a heavily monitored sector of the prison, McManus and Warden Leo Glynn work to strike a balance between the many warring factions under their watch. PoV character Tobias Beecher should be an ideal candidate for rehabilitation, considering that his crime was accidental. Yet, in the land of Oz, survival means having to make moral concessessions. Oz is considered to be the forebearer of shows like The Sopranos and The Wire, engaging head-on with social issues with no shortage of gallows humor. Taking a moral but corruptable character like Beecher as its center and fleshing out his own Emerald City, grounded in brutal realism rather than magic and wishful thinking, Oz remains the punch to the gut we didn’t know we needed.

78. Bob’s Burgers

Creator Loren Bouchard was already animation royalty well before Bob’s Burgers, having brought cult classic series like Home Movies and Lucy: The Daughter of the Devil to the small screen. Taking the working-class Belcher family as its focus, Bob’s Burgers is ostensibly about their shared attempts to keep their struggling diner afloat. Yet, it’s the heartfelt comedy of a slightly odd family that loves each other dearly that makes the series click. Embracing the wholesome, Bob’s Burgers introduces us not just to the Belchers, but to the community around them, providing a loving look at the realities of life as blue collar business owners. Brilliant comedic performances from some of the best voice actors in the biz and offbeat conflicts made this one of the most endearing comedies in recent memory, while the animation has such a unmistakable visual style that it has helped cement the series in animation history.

77. 24

The relentless story of the longest day of Counter Terrorism Unit badass Jack Bauer’s life took everybody by surprise. Kiefer Sutherland, starring in an action drama series about a covert government agency foiling assassination attempts, didn’t reinvent any wheels on paper. Doing it all in real time with split-screen, multi-camera coverage and an iconic digital clock ticking in and out of every commercial break, however, made this show something else entirely. 24 is a prime example of why good shows become great. Layering a unique production device on a proven format can be all the innovation a show needs. That and opening season 2 with Jack murdering and decapitating a witness in an effort to prevent a nuclear attack on Los Angeles doesn’t hurt either. The show was salty as hell at its peak, even if it did make it seem like you could drive from Downtown LA to Reseda in the span of one commercial break.

76. Six Feet Under

While it may have spent its five-season life living in the shadow of juggernauts like The Sopranos, Alan Ball’s Six Feet Under remains one of the finest shows to emerge from HBO’s golden age. The series revolves around the Fisher family, undertakers struggling to balance their myriad personal problems with the struggles of running a very unorthodox business. Fittingly, Six Feet Under is a series preoccupied with death, to the point where most episodes feature characters conversing with the imagined ghosts of the departed. The resulting combination of deep psychological drama and macabre humor makes Six Feet Under a show unlike any other.

75. Boardwalk Empire

Created by Sopranos veteran Terence Winter and exec produced by Martin Scorsese and Mark Wahlberg, this aesthetically opulent yet gritty crime drama was set (largely) in Atlantic City during Prohibition. Like Deadwood before it, this HBO show mixed history with fiction in the saga of a boomtown marked by rampant greed, corruption, and violence. Steve Buscemi gave what is arguably his finest dramatic performance in the lead role of racketeer and political boss Enoch “Nucky” Thompson, whose quest to hold power and influence events propels the (mostly tragic) fates of those people in his orbit.

74. In Living Color

With Keenan Ivory Wayans’s satirical film hits Hollywood Shuffle and I’m Gonna Git You Sucka in the bag, he turned his eye for parody to primetime TV. Envisioning a boundary-pushing sketch comedy series with a mostly PoC cast, In Living Color was born. Hoping to capture an array of comedic perspectives, Wayans casually introduced the world to what are today some of its biggest stars, including Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, and Jennifer Lopez. Featuring musical performances from all-timers like Queen Latifah, Public Enemy, Mary J. Blige, and Tupac Shakur just to name a few, In Living Color took a cue from variety shows of old to create the perfect combination of humor, music, star power, and aesthetic. Though behind-the-scenes creative differences eventually led to Wayans’s departure from the series, its five seasons remain a hilarious deep dive into 1990s pop culture.

73. Roots

Based on Alex Haley’s best-selling, Pulitzer-winning novel, ABC’s landmark 1977 miniseries tells the saga of Kunta Kinte, a Mandinka youth who is captured and sold into slavery to a Virginia plantation, chronicling his life and later his descendants who finally become free in the years following the US Civil War. Roots featured an epic cast, including James Earl Jones as Alex Haley and, in his breakthrough role, LeVar Burton as young Kunta; beloved TV dads such as The Brady Bunch’s Robert Reed and Bonanza’s Lorne Greene were cast against type as slave owners. Roots was a cultural phenomenon and a massive ratings success, particularly its final episode, spawning two sequels and a 2016 remake miniseries.

72. Law & Order

DUN-DUN! An institution of American television, this procedural from creator Dick Wolf has retained its simple formula for over three decades, from its original 1990-2010 run on NBC to its revival in 2021. The first half of each episode focused on the NYPD detectives investigating the crime and the second half followed the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office prosecuting the (usually ripped from the headlines) case. Although they were often faced with moral dilemmas, the personal lives of the protagonists were more hinted at than deeply explored (that would change with the spin-off Law & Order: SVU, which has now been on the air longer than the original), making the case the primary focus of each episode. There have been many characters and lead actors shuffled in and out over 20-plus seasons, but several of the cast – most notably Jerry Orbach, Sam Waterston, S. Epatha Merkerson, Jesse L. Martin, and Steven Hill – spent upwards of a decade or more on the show. The Law & Order franchise has so far generated six spin-off series and a UK remake.

71. Schitt’s Creek

As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The rich are different from you and me,” but what if they lost all of their money? So begins Schitt’s Creek, as wealthy businessman Johnny, wife and former soap opera queen Moira, and adult children David and Alexis lose their home to a shady manager’s illegal financial practices. Forced to take refuge in a town named Schitt’s Creek that Johnny once bought as a joke, the family struggles to make the most of things, and hilarity ensues. Reuniting SCTV and Christopher Guest collaborators Catherine O’Hara and Eugene Levy, Eugene and son Dan developed a series that never exactly absolves the rich of their bad behavior, but which works to uncover the humanity within through humor and understanding. By the end of the series, each character has undergone hard-earned change and learned to appreciate the little things in life while maybe helping us do the same.

70. Sex and the City

Inspired by the work of columnist Candace Bushnell, this hugely popular series ran on HBO from 1998 to 2004. It followed four very different female friends – Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) – living in New York City and their different approaches to relationships, sex, and social life. While ostensibly a romantic comedy, the show could veer into drama at times as its characters faced loss, heartbreak, and even cancer. After the release of two big-screen movies, the sequel series And Just Like That… debuted on HBO in 2021, but infamously without the participation of Cattrall, who would eventually cameo in Season 2.

69. ER

The term “all-star cast” was never quite the same after ER ran its monumental fifteen season course. Sporting names like George Clooney, Angela Bassett, Juliana Margulies, Laura Innes, and Anthony Edwards in the credits, any given scene plays out like a masterclass on the art of creating a TV drama. Created by real-life M.D. Michael Crichton, the series was directly based on his time attending Harvard Medical School. To its benefit, the sense of realism this grants the show is grounded not in cynicism, but in a profound respect for the tireless work of medical professionals that save lives every day. Over hundreds of episodes, ER remained a clear mirror of its times, regularly tackling taboo social issues from the standpoint of medical practioneers and the people they treat. Other medical dramas have followed suit to great results, but there is no overstating the importance of ER to the evolving TV climate of the ’90s and 2000s.

68. Adventure Time

In the annals of animation history you can define much of modern animation as Before Adventure Time and After Adventure Time. Shows like Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants and Cartoon Network’s Flapjack bridged the gap between the ’90s animation boom and the first episode of Pendelton Ward’s game-changing Adventure Time. The technicolor adventure series began as a seemingly simple kids cartoon about two unlikely brothers before revealing itself to be an existential journey of friendship and identity with influences as eclectic as Alejandro Jodorowsky and Ingmar Bergman. This is one of the singularly most satisfying animated shows to watch to completion — with one of the best finales ever — but still works as a classic kids cartoon AKA watching what you can when you can. It also introduced the world to Rebecca Sugar, who wrote many of the show’s incredible songs and went on to create Steven Universe.

67. Firefly

Firefly always faced a perpetually tumultuous flight path as both in the show’s plot and the series’ tenure. But that rocky path only made its fans love Firefly and its crew all the more. Following Captain Malcolm Reynolds and his crew of misfits, the series showcased the weekly misadventures of our (mostly) begrudging heroes as they did their best to help folks on the outer rim and stay as far away from Alliance — the governing body that wanted to basically rule all of space — control as possible. Part of the series’ sticking power is its universal tale that showcases the power of found family and sticking it to the man whenever you can.

66. Mindhunter

Inspired by the career of pioneering profiler John Douglas (who the character of Jack Crawford was based on in the Hannibal Lecter books/movies), Mindhunter probed the depths of the broken minds that commit atrocities. As the second marquee series David Fincher delivered to Netflix, while also directing a few episodes, Mindhunter was dark, gruesome, and disturbing in all the ways Hollywood usually avoids when creating pulpy serial killer fare. While the protagonists — played by Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, and Anna Torv — were amalgams of real people, the killers presented were real. Infamous murderers like Jerry Brudos, Richard Speck, and Wayne Williams were at the heart of this series. Specifically, the creation, through harrowing interviews, of a database for traits and behaviors that could be put into practice as a tool to help catch future maniacs. Sadly, a third season seems impossible but what we got was riveting and raw.

65. King of the Hill

King of the Hill might not have stayed on the air as long as fellow Fox animated mainstays like The Simpsons or Family Guy, but one could argue the series maintained a far more consistent level of quality over the course of its still impressive 13 seasons. The series is set in the fictional small town of Arlen, Texas and focuses on everyman propane salesman Hank Hill, his family, and a truly memorable lineup of eccentric supporting characters. King of the Hill distinguishes itself from other animated sitcoms with its more low-key sense of humor. While infinitely quotable (“Pocket sand! Sh-sh-shah!”) and often hilarious, the series takes pains to treat its kooky cast of Southern-fried characters as three-dimensional people, not caricatures.

64. All in the Family

This American remake of the British TV series Till Death Us Do Part was developed by the legendary Norman Lear and followed the Bunkers, a white, working-class family in Queens, New York. Played to perfection by Carroll O’Connor, patriarch Archie Bunker’s mouth is big and his worldview narrow. He’s an aging bigot at odds with the changing times and counterculture embraced by the younger generation. Through humor and sharp writing, All in the Family pushed the boundaries of what was deemed acceptable on TV for that time, exploring a host of controversial topics and social issues. All in the Family remains one of the most influential TV comedies of all time, and begat a handful of notable spin-offs, including The Jeffersons.

63. The Haunting of Hill House

Home to what may have been the best jump scare in history, The Haunting of Hill house showcases creator Mike Flanagan’s impeccable understanding that to create the deepest of horrors, you have to make the audience care about your characters. The series is a perfect marriage of heart-wrenching and beautiful as we follow the Crain family along two timelines while they navigate the horrors of a house that was simply meant to be a pit stop on the way to their dream home. Don’t forget to count the ghosts when you dive into the series.

62. Atlanta

Atlanta is the perfect harmony between creator/star Donald Glover’s comedic sensibilities and his Childish Gambino rap persona. With a standout cast featuring Brian Tyree Henry, LaKeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz, and a constant collaboration with director Hiro Murai, Atlanta is a thoroughly focused chaos machine with a clear vision of the commentary it wants to make on race, class, relationships, and the music industry. A satire through and through, the one-off, standalone episodes that don’t feature the main cast more than hold their own and that reflect the absurdities of the world we actually live in. Every episode is a wildly unpredictable experience that will make you laugh, cringe, and ponder deeply about America’s state of affairs.

61. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Today, Will Smith is easily one of the most famous performers in the world, making it hard to believe that there was ever a time when he wasn’t a household name. Still, looking back at Smith’s first acting gig on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, the star power is clear. Featuring easily one of the greatest theme songs of all time at the top of each episode, the series took Smith’s talent as a comedic rapper and made sit-com gold with it. Playing an exagerated version of himself, West Philly teen Smith is sent to live with his wealthy aunt and uncle, and their son, Carlton. The culture shock between these two worlds is the main theme of the show, allowing plenty of space for both comedy and commentary. The heartwarming love and loyalty Will feels for his family despite their differences is the backbone of the series.

60. Chernobyl

“What is the cost of lies?” That’s a question Jared Harris’ Valery Legasov poses to viewers as Chernobyl opens, and it speaks to the true power of this utterly gripping miniseries. Chernobyl dramatizes the events surrounding the infamous 1986 nuclear power plant disaster. And if that’s all the series did, it would still be a taut, utterly suspenseful and lavishly produced thriller. It’s nothing if not a testament to the many selfless heroes who staved off a far worse crisis. But the real genius of the series is how directly it speaks to our modern climate of misinformation and alternative facts. Chernobyl offers a sobering look at what happens when truth is treated like an inconvenience, not a necessity.

59. South Park

South Park is second only to The Simpsons when it comes to the sheer length of time this animated sitcom has remained on the air. Yet even after hundreds of episodes and several spinoffs and specials, the series remains as fresh and witty as it did in 1997. Much of that lasting appeal rests with the show’s willingness and ability to parody current events as they happen. The series’ breakneck production process allows the writers and animators to lampoon the news days, or even hours, after it unfolds in the real world. Fortunately, the series is also just as funny when it focuses on the day-to-day lives of Stan, Kyle, Cartman and the rest of the kooky inhabitants of this small Colorado town.

58. The Jeffersons

One of the longest running sitcoms in history, The Jeffersons is also one of the best. Though many people forget, the show began life as an All in the Family spin-off created by the legendary Norman Lear. As the unforgettable theme song “Movin’ On Up” explains, the show follows the wealthy Jeffersons who have moved from Queens into a fancy high-rise condo in Manhattan. Isabel Sanford and Sherman Hemsley lead the wonderfully funny series as Weezy and George Jefferson, and the show still feels vibrantly relevant today. Though it’s a gold-standard sitcom, it also delivers on exploring the realities of being Black in America, as well as tackling topics like gun control, mental health, and suicide. Through all of that it still manages to be one of the funniest shows on TV.

57. Futurama

Futurama was born in the shadow of The Simpsons, with its Matt Groening imprimatur and Brave New Springfield design style. But while the humor and outlandish hijinks of Fry, Bender, Leela, and the rest of the Planet Express crew certainly match those of the Simpson family, it’s the clever sci-fi concepts at the heart of Futurama, and how they are interpreted through that Groening (and co-developer David X. Cohen) comedy lens, that truly elevate it. Whether it’s the man(child) out of time, Fry, travelling to the past just long enough to become his own grandfather, Bender the drunken robot becoming a god, or Leela the mutant cyclops getting to live her teen years all over again, Futurama has a way of simultaneously being smart and dumb. And despite its zaniness, the animated series can also sometimes be just plain lovely. Just don’t ask about Fry’s dog Seymour! We don’t need to cry.

56. Friends

Friends is one of the most successful and popular sitcoms of all time. Putting out more than 200 episodes over the course of 10 years, the sitcom has some of the most iconic moments on television. With a catchy theme song, a will-they-won’t-they relationship, some truly special guest stars, a mysteriously large apartment, and memorable catchphrases, the show set the standard for shows about roommates and pals dealing with dating, work woes, and shenanigans for years to come.

55. Rick and Morty

Metatextual humor has long been the ally of genre fiction, but it’s safe to say that Rick & Morty has taken the joke to heretofore unimagined heights. The series odd couples Rick, a stereotypical self-absorbed, seriously dangerous scientific genius, with his comparatively naive grandson, Morty. Hopping through extradimensional portals and defeating world-devourers is all in a day’s work for Rick, while Morty has to learn to keep up or die. A wild romp through sci-fi tropes while dealing with closer-to-home feelings of PTSD, difficult familial relationships, absent parents, and the fear of becoming obsolete, the series has now birthed its very own plethora of in-universe references. Though the terrain may seem familiar at times, Rick and Morty combines rapid-fire deep cut one-liners with an unexpected level of emotional depth to create something all its own.

54. Band of Brothers

Following the incredible success of the WWII period drama Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks opted to continue their collaborations via a ten-episode mini-series. Inspired by the historical account of the same name written by Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers follows the harrowing tale of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division during the war. The series takes Major Richard Winters as its PoV character, kicking off with jump training at Camp Toccoa and winding through some of the most infamous battles and historical moments to occur during America’s involvement in WWII. Each episode zooms in on a different “brother,” showing us more about these everday people that fought against the Axis powers. In the end, the star of the show is the deep sense of comraderie between these men as they quite literally leap into battle.

53. Barry

Bill Hader upended any expectations that people had when his darkly humorous half-hour series hit HBO. While the setup, a hit-man who attends acting classes, seemed like it had potential for broad comedy, Hader and co-creator Alec Berg instead delivered one of the most heartbreaking series in HBO history. This brutally violent and often scathingly bleak show took on toxic masculinity, Hollywood, domestic abuse, and PTSD while presenting a genre-bending satire that could make you weep and fall over laughing within the same 30 minutes. Not only is Barry brilliant as an entire season but it also includes one of the best episodes of TV ever made in the Season 2 episode “ronny/lily” which blew many minds when it debuted in 2019.

52. 30 Rock

30 Rockerfeller Plaza in New York has an indisputable role in TV history due to the many shows filmed there, from Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show to Saturday Night Live and Marvel’s Hawkeye. Oh, right, and a little show called 30 Rock, a self-referential riff on the struggles of working in weekly TV production. This is told through the eyes of Liz Lemon, a bedraggled showrunner trying to keep her show on track. The over-the-top Tracy Jordan and the equally zany Jenna Maroney regularly derail any hope of harmony while Liz trades quips with network exec Jack Donaghy. Created by Tina Fey following her departure from SNL, 30 Rock tapped a cast of SNL faves alongside fresh faces and endless cameos. Known for making its single-camera set-up a part of the gag, this loving send-up of behind-the-scenes TV will ring a bell with anyone who knows what it’s like to love a job that runs you through the wringer.

51. The Shield

Years before every primetime series attempted to address police brutality, Shawn Ryan’s The Shield was making a prestige drama meal out of the everyday violence and corruption of the LAPD. With the real-life Rampart scandal in mind, The Shield imagined a gritty, volatile world run by guys like Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis), the spitting mad, hypermasculine leader of a particularly murderous police strike team. Mackey’s villain arc is the show’s most recognizable piece, but The Shield rewards steadfast viewers with plenty of treasures, like impeccably crafted interrogation scenes featuring Detectives Wyms (CCH Pounder) and Wagenbach (Jay Karnes), and fantastic performances from supporting players like Walton Goggins, Glenn Close, and Benito Martinez. The Shield isn’t everyone’s cup of tea – it has an ugly view of humankind, and shaky-cam, cinema verite-style filmmaking matches its frenetic energy – but in the end, it’s a damning, potent antidote to decades of TV copaganda.

50. Columbo

Many viewers rediscovered the joys of Columbo during the pandemic thanks to its appearance first on IMDBtv (soon to be renamed Freevee) and later on Peacock and it’s easy to see why. Peter Falk shines as the bumbling and ruffled detective who is underestimated by both colleagues and criminals as he solves murders throughout Los Angeles. Filled with incredible guest stars including Leonard Nemoy, William Shatner, Faye Dunaway, and Dick Van Dyke, the series also features one of Steven Spielberg’s earliest directorial efforts in the series’ inaugural episode “Murder by the Book” that established much of the tone of the show. Despite the fact that Columbo debuted in the late ’60s, it still stands as one of the best examples of the police procedural. Plus, how many of your favorite shows have over 100 feature-length episodes?

49. Key & Peele

Following their individual runs on Mad TV, Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele were not yet ready to leave the wild world of sketch comedy behind. Instead, they launched one of the most influential comedy series of the century so far. The format of the series, introducing scenarios and spinning off of them, allowed for ever-escalating absurdist returns. By the end, this comedy duo created something that bridged sincere social commentary, self-aware satire, and the over-the-top slapstick gags of old. With a veritable who’s who list of cameos over its brief but hilarious run, the star power of the leads is often met in equal measure by its guest stars. While Peele is today best known for turning out some of the best horror films in recent years from behind the camera, the celebrated nuance of those works is easily traced back to Key & Peele.

48. The Good Place

If you took the time to explain everything that happens on The Good Place, from Parks and Rec’s Michael Schur, to someone else it would truly sound insane. Like a fantastical, hilarious modern version of Dante’s Inferno, The Good Place follows four recently-deceased people as they navigate the afterlife after they’re told they’ve landed in heaven and been assigned a forever soulmate. Kristen Bell and Ted Danson headline this addictively offbeat, often touching look at the hereafter, filled to the brim with actual existential crises and major questions of ethical philosophy. Now, you may wonder how a story about people in heaven could last four seasons? Well, it’s because of the Season 1 twist. One that Schur even ran past Lost’s Damon Lindelof to make sure it landed the right way. And boy howdy, it sure did, creating a madcap metaphysical puzzle for our flawed heroes to solve.

47. Monty Python’s Flying Circus

The main influence and crucial blueprint for most modern sketch comedy, to this day, didn’t come from an obscure, niche offering. Monty Python was huge. They were rock stars in their own right, The Beatles of comedy as they were often labeled. Brits John Cleese, Michael Palin, Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and lone American Terry Gilliam made a huge splash in ’60s TV with Monty Python’s Flying Circus, creating instantly memorable bits of intelligent idiocy that’s directly inspired everything from Saturday Night Live to The Kids in the Hall to Key & Peele. The Ministry of Silly Walks. Wink Wink Nudge Nudge. The Dead Parrot. The list goes on and on for this tremendous troupe of insanely-educated silly men who skewered repressed English society. Then, in the ’80s and ’90s, reruns of Flying Circus on PBS and MTV birthed an entire new Gen X fandom that’s kept Python thriving.

46. Doctor Who (2005)

The original run of Doctor Who premiered in 1963 and lasted 26 seasons before going on a very long hiatus. Jump to 2005 and the series, just like its main character, The Doctor, regenerated back onto TV screens with a fresh coat of paint on the TARDIS. And much like how The Doctor is a big ol’ softie at their (two) hearts, Doctor Who is still about a humanoid alien who travels with friends in a blue, ’60s-era British police phone box throughout time and space, learning important lessons about humanity while meeting historical figures or fighting off hokey robots. As a show that originated as children’s programming, keeping that youthful spirit at the forefront has been a strength of the series. NuWho approaches more mature ideas, tells emotionally complex stories, and weaves some truly timey-wimey plot twists that are accessible to audiences of any age.

45. The West Wing

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. might be one of the most famous addresses in the world, but chances are you don’t know much about what happens there when the doors are closed. Inviting the audience to be a fly on the wall in the White House, creator Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing showed us the day-to-day life of fictional president Jed Bartlet. The inner workings of the Oval Office coincide with thoughtful character development from the president, his family, and his advisors. Featuring career-defining performances from the likes of Martin Sheen, Stockard Channing, and Rob Lowe, the series practically invented its own unique style of TV storytelling with its famed “walk and talk” scenes. Notably subtle in its commentary on then-current issues, The West Wing rarely came out swinging on politics, rather existing as a thoughtful study of the complexities of power.

44. Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood

For many American kids, Fred Rogers was a staple of children’s television growing up. Mr. Rogers was genuine and loving and wholeheartedly cared about people, but he also respected how difficult it can be to be a child. The educational portion of his show was less about how crayons are made, although field trips often covered that sort of thing. Instead, he taught us how to love and appreciate each other. He was never performing, never admonishing, just earnestly interested in the well-being of children.

43. BoJack Horseman

Bojack Horseman can be a tough sell. “No, really,” your friends may have told you, “I promise this animated show about a washed-up talking horse actor is actually one of the best stories about depression, addiction, Hollywood, and our obsession with redeeming bad men ever made.” In case you need a second opinion: your friends are right this time. Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s unforgettable series is about as thoughtful as TV gets, using its show business satire and talking animals schtick as a jumping-off point for sincere conversations about growth and stagnation, accountability and denial, and a thousand other messy and complicated topics that typically resist artists’ attempts to boil them down into a tidy narrative. Bojack Horseman works in part because it’s beautifully untidy; the show allows its characters to regress, get confused, disappoint one another, and make mistakes we can forgive – as well as some we ultimately can’t.

42. The Americans

Eighties Cold War espionage epic The Americans kicks off with a rather hook-y premise. What if an FBI agent moves right across the street from Soviet agents who’ve spent years in the States assimilating to American life? Or…let’s flip that. What if Soviet Agents — the characters the show wants us to invest in – have spent all this time building a family life in the U.S., even having kids who are unaware their parents are spies, find out their new neighbor is with the FBI? This is how The Americans became one of the best, most intense TV dramas of all time. We touch down in the lives of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings — Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell — the embedded Russians. And we watch them struggle to complete their missions, protect their cover, raise a family, and even question their own government. A perfect series that nails the ending.

41. Deadwood

David Milch mixed historical fact with fiction in his gritty saga about opportunists and cutthroats in search of fortune in Deadwood, South Dakota as it evolved from a mining camp into a Wild West boomtown during the 1870s. The show’s near-Shakespearean dialogue and rich character work were as much hallmarks as its debauchery and violence. Deadwood boasted a stellar ensemble cast, particularly Ian McShane as the hilariously profane and vicious saloonkeeper Al Swearengen and Timothy Olyphant as tough-as-nails sheriff Seth Bullock. In 2006, HBO infamously canceled the show after three seasons without a proper conclusion but later produced a feature-length film in 2019 that picked up the story of the surviving characters in 1889.

40. Friday Night Lights

Few shows have ever felt as real as Friday Night Lights. The heartfelt drama spent five seasons taking a topic some fans knew little about – Texas high school football and the thick cloud of toxic masculinity that surrounds it – and turning it into an exhilaratingly intimate viewing experience. With minimal blocking, rehearsals, and sets, and handheld cameras capturing all-star actors like Kyle Chandler, Connie Britton, and Taylor Kitsch up close, Friday Night Lights broke down the barriers between its naturalistic world and our own. Couple its sense of verisimilitude with the profound emotion coursing through every second of the ultra-earnest show and the result is one of the small screen’s biggest tearjerkers. You don’t have to be a sports fan to cheer for Saracen’s first game-winning pass or smile through the Panthers famous mud bowl. You just have to know the trusty team words: clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.

39. The Leftovers

The enigmatic catastrophe facing the world in Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta’s The Leftovers isn’t a world-ender. Heck, it isn’t even enough to make society collapse. But 2% of the world’s population mysteriously vanishing one day, with no explanation, also in every way that contradicts religious doctrine, is enough to send most people into an existential spiral. The Leftovers starts dark and heavy as our characters sort through unimaginable loss and overwhelming anxiety but the miracle of this glorious, beautiful show is the joy and silliness it begins to embrace in its second season. An inspired lunacy that feels like a much better way for the world to spiral. Justin Theroux’s Kevin and Carrie Coon’s Nora (in a star-making role) play lovers in a world gone sideways as The Leftovers morphs, over the course of three seasons, into one of the most sublimely human stories ever put to screen.

38. Hannibal

We’re still wondering HOW Hannibal aired on network TV. Bryan Fuller’s artistic, romantic, and genuinely disturbing mix tape of Thomas Harris’ Hannibal Lecter-verse combined elements of novels Red Dragon, Hannibal, and Hannibal Rising (and some gentle Silence of the Lambs surrogacy) to deliver the most whacked-out horror ever put on the boob tube. People got turned into trees, beehives, mushrooms, totem poles…look, a lot of people got turned into things! Mostly dinner, of course, since Hannibal knew how to prepare humans in such a gourmet way that we found ourselves salivating. Stepping into the Lecter role was a big deal, but Mads Mikkelsen brought his own sexy, impish flare, depicting a genius madman who loved to roll the dice and toy with people…sometimes to his own demise. And with Hugh Dancy’s suuuuper broken Will Graham as Hannibal’s favorite plaything, the series became a “murder husband” love story for the ages.

37. Curb Your Enthusiasm

Larry David has done pretty, pretty, pretty good for himself in TV comedy, from writing for SNL to co-creating Seinfeld to this hilarious, semi-fictionalized take on his own life and career, which has run for 11 seasons over 23 years on HBO. Larry has a penchant for pissing off nearly everyone he has any interaction with; no matter how petty the grievance, misunderstanding, or social faux pas, Larry always manages to only make things worse for himself (and funnier to the audience).

36. Battlestar Galactica

Imagine if you will that humanity exists not on Earth, but on a cluster of planets referred to as the Twelve Colonies. There, we are entrenched in a war against the cybernetic race known as the Cylons. Yet, not all is as it seems, not for the Cylons, and not for us. A reimagining of the 1978 TV series, the 2004 version of Battlestar Galactica allowed the many compelling ideas of the original the space to develop, albeit a couple decades plus down the road. Taking cues from the first series and absolutely stacking the ensemble cast, Battlestar Galactica hit the air via a mini-series on SYFY, which was quickly followed by a show. Directly reflecting the politics of Iraq War-era America with plots that mirrored a number of then-current news items, Battlestar Galactica excelled by doing what science fiction does best – making it political.

35. Sesame Street

For kids, the residents of Sesame Street are furry little friends to share their time with. The actors and puppets have spent decades imparting a kind sort of wisdom through funny earworms and vignettes at Mr. Hooper’s store. Most importantly, they’ve always operated on the same level with the kids. It’s easy to relate to lessons when they’re coming from a monster that’s trying to have a conversation as opposed to giving a lecture. As those kids have grown into parents to find Sesame Street still airing, it’s fascinating to see how the show has constantly evolved (Cookie Monster eats his vegetables now?!?!). Knowing that a new generation also knows how to get, how to get to Sesame Street, that it’s still filled with the same thoughtful approach to speaking to children is a real treat. Fifty-plus seasons later Sesame Street is still all Sunny Days.

34. Saturday Night Live

Saturday Night Live has been on since the 70s. It’s currently airing in its sixth different decade. But it’s longevity doesn’t top the list of reasons it belongs in our Top 100. The most engaging thing about Saturday Night Live is that everybody has their own favorites; favorite cast member, favorite era, favorite Weekend Update anchor (my answer is Norm Macdonald for all three, by the way). The sheer volume of stars that got their break on the show is staggering as well. There may be no bigger contributor to American comedy than the spotlights in Studio 8H as fifty years worth of comedy fans have been introduced to Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Will Ferrell, and Amy Poehler thanks to creator-producer Lorne Michaels and generations-spanning sketch comedy institution. At this point it seems likely to run forever and that’s just fine.

33. Better Call Saul

After the finale of Breaking Bad, it seemed guaranteed that there would be some kind of a follow-up on the horizon. With many of the original show’s central characters now deceased or otherwise indisposed, showrunners opted to delve into the past. And so this deep dive into the past life of fan favorite lawyer and Walter White accomplice, Saul Goodman, was born. Fleshing out his early days as Jimmy McGill alongside other series faves like Gus Fring and Mike, this is the rare prequel that may have actually improved on the initial format by making Breaking Bad’s tragedies seem even more unavoidable. As Breaking Bad made TV history showing the corruption of Walter White, Better Call Saul followed a man who seemed destined to live a life on the wrong side of the law, and showed us exactly what it cost him to do so.

32. Community

Before taking the animated world by storm with Rick and Morty, Dan Harmon gave us the beloved cult-favorite Community. The series revolves around a study group of seven students at Greendale Community College, simultaneously the world’s most pathetic university and a place where comedic gold lurks around every corner. Community cleverly draws from all manner of pop culture influences as it explores the group’s increasingly wacky misadventures. But beneath all the epic paintball showdowns and explorations of chaos theory, Community thrives on the strength of its lovable cast of misfits. That’s why the show defied the odds to survive six seasons and multiple showrunner change-ups. This series is truly streets ahead.

31. The Mary Tyler Moore Show

After half the country (or was it the whole country?) fell for Mary Tyler Moore for five seasons on The Dick Van Dyke Show, where she played Laura Petrie, the wife of Van Dyke’s character, the actress jumped into her own self-titled show which also took Moore’s persona to a realm beyond being the mere “wife.” Tracking with the changing times of the late ’60s/early ’70s, The Mary Tyler Moore Show depicted an independent woman who was career-focused rather than family-focused, one who didn’t have a husband or kids, but instead had a job. And with that job came her coworkers, who were also her friends, and eventually her family (and popular enough that three of them eventually got their own spin-off shows as well). Along the way, Mary and the gang dealt often dealt with adult problems, but always with a smile. She made it after all!

30. M*A*S*H

Korean War sitcom M*A*S*H is best remembered today for its massively popular series finale, as it should be: it’s remarkable to think that at one point in America’s history, nearly 106 million people chose to watch any show together, nonetheless one as radical as this one. Based on Robert Altman’s 1970 film of the same name and Richard Hooker’s novel, M*A*S*H started in 1972 with Vietnam on its mind, and largely kept its anti-authority bleeding heart alive across its eleven seasons. Witty, pacifist surgeon Hawkeye (series writer-director Alan Alda) was our guide through an endless landscape of bloodshed and tragedy, which was punctuated regularly by the 4077th mobile army surgical hospital’s almost manic commitment to pranks and tomfoolery. M*A*S*H invented the TV dramedy early on, then continued to perfect it throughout its impressive lifespan, tying different eras of the series together via a dazzling cast, New Hollywood-inspired filmmaking, and searingly great scripts.

29. The Golden Girls

Aging is scary, but anyone with a TV set who was born after 1985 doesn’t have to do it alone. That’s because we’ve got The Golden Girls, a sitcom that’s blunt and hilarious in its portrayal of women of a certain age. Menopause, death of a partner, body image, sex and dating as an older woman, illness, mortality, and more are all topics of conversation broached around the table of Dorothy (Bea Arthur), Rose (Betty White), Blanche (Rue McClanahan), and Sophia’s (Estelle Getty) Florida home. Few topics in the groundbreaking sitcom were off limits, while all of them were addressed with candor and – as importantly – some of the best comedic chemistry ever put to screen. The show’s character archetypes (dumb country girl, serial seductress, humorless rule-follower, and crotchety old lady) were familiar, but its all-star ensemble turned every dirty punchline into high art. Thank you for being a friend, ladies.

28. Veep

If Seinfeld begat Curb Your Enthusiasm then all paths led to swirling torrent of hilarious misery, Veep, which was just a den of bitter, jaded, self-loathing vipers hurling some of the nastiest (and cleverest) insults at each other while barely keeping it together. Oh, did we mention they’re also all government officials in service of Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Vice President Selina Meyer? Created by The Thick of It’s Armando Iannucci, who served as showrunner for four seasons until Seinfeld/Curb’s David Mandel took over and, somehow, made everything even more crass and ludicrous, Veep was always out for the jugular. Fortunately the series ended, after seven seasons, right as our own political landscape became almost indistinguishable from the sinister satire it was doling out but it will always be remembered as a crown jewel of cringe comedy as well as yet another lasting testament to Louis-Dreyfus’ comedic brilliance.

27. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Sometimes it’s wild to think about how a show about overconfident, insufferable, ignorant sociopaths who are constantly foiled by their own ineptitude, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, is officially the longest-running live-action sitcom in U.S. TV history. (Beating a show that couldn’t be more different, by the way, in The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.) Still, despite the riotous antics and runaway narcissism of the gang at Patty’s Pub, there’s televisual dependability here that works. They’re always going to lose. All ploys and schemes will end in disaster. That’s the bizarre comfort that’s kept Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, Kaitlin Olsen, and Danny DeVito (who came on board in Season 2 to help boost the fledgling series) going for nearly two-decades now. Known for grinding out gut-busting laughs from seriously taboo topics, little-cult-show-that could Always Sunny broke new ground while also delivering a few genuinely emotional moments (“Mac Finds His Pride”)

26. The Muppet Show

Jim Henson’s signature creation is so singular that decades later there still isn’t any show that comes close to imitating or at this point even trying to recreate what The Muppet Show achieved. Building on the success of the characters that he created, Henson piloted his magnum opus in 1974 before the show truly launched in 1976. The Muppet Show was a hybrid sketch show, talk show, and variety show hosted by Henson’s cast of now legendary puppet / marionette mashups. It was in ’76 that Kermit the Frog became the face of the show changing Hollywood history forever, as the amphibian became a household name and launched the Muppets into the stratosphere. Now that the whole series is finally streaming on Disney+, it’s the perfect time to delve into one of the most ambitious and unusual TV shows of all time.

25. Succession

When it was announced that Jesse Armstrong ,the creator of cult British comedy Peep Show, was taking on the Murdochs, many audiences expected a searing satire in the shape of another show he’d worked on, Veep. Instead, we got a dramedy so engaging and dynamic that by its final season it was nothing short of a cultural phenomenon. Telling the story of the Murdoch-inspired media dynasty known as the Roys, Armstrong brought his knife-sharp wit and a gut-wrenching tension to the series that followed who would succeed the elderly patriarch of the family. Perfect casting and writing make this a four-season tour de force that never lets up on the anxiety-inducing cruelty and cringe-inspiring terrible choices. Though it ended this year, it’s not recency bias making us say that this is one of HBO’s — and TV’s — best shows ever.

24. Freaks and Geeks

Created by Paul Feig and executive produced by Judd Apatow, two of some of the many geniuses to shape comedy in the 21st century, the single season of Freaks and Geeks still is considered one of the best and most authentic portrayals of teenagedom in television. Following two teen siblings entering new phases of their respective young lives, their high school experiences as outcasts highlight the confusing, messy reality of growing up and determining who you want to be versus who you should be. Featuring a young cast of actors who would also go on to star and write some of the finest, funniest comedies themselves, it became the launch pad for these talented people to embrace the awkwardness of life in their own works.

23. The Office (US)

It’s often difficult for the US version of a British TV show to justify its existence let alone stand on its own, but The Office US had something special in its watercooler. The Office set the bar for workplace comedies to follow in terms of ensemble chemistry and comedic timing, led fearlessly by Steve Carell and his eager, if sometimes misguided manager Michael Scott. The banality and politics of American office life grounded the show, but just like any upper-management mantra, these characters really became family, and as Michael Scott puts it at Jim and Pam’s wedding, “I feel like all my kids grew up, and then they married each other. It’s every parent’s dream!”

22. Arrested Development

Sorry to Succession and Schitt’s Creek, but Arrested Development is the original “story of a wealthy family who lost everything, and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together.” A cult classic that was canceled on Fox, but lived on in timeless memes and reaction GIFs, the show made a return on Netflix for two more seasons. Jason Bateman masterfully plays the straight man against his out-of-touch, spoiled family members, self-martyring himself for people who aren’t interested in adapting to their new reality. Constant miscommunications give way to some hilarious Benny Hill runarounds and the show’s candid camera approach and interactive narration captured all that chaos.

21. Avatar: The Last Airbender

What does it mean to be a kids’ show? Can a show for children talk about war and trauma? Can it preach nonviolent resistance in the face of evil, or love of nature as a path to harmony? If that show is Avatar: The Last Airbender, it can do all that and a whole lot more. The beloved three-season Nickelodeon series takes on each of the surprisingly mature issues above without talking down to young viewers, but it also delights and entertains every step of the way. Avatar Aang’s world-saving story balances its Buddhism-influenced takes on war and peace with moments of silly, youthful adventure. From blind earthbender Toph to scorned prince Zuko to wise Uncle Iroh, the show is chock full of characters worth loving, each with their own stunning story arc. A pitch-perfect voice cast and endlessly creative worldbuilding are just more icing on an already fantastic cake.

20. Batman: The Animated Series

For many kids who grew up in the ’80s & ’90s there’s only one Batman: Kevin Conroy. That is the impact of this beautifully animated show that enchanted viewers and still holds up as one of the best comic book adaptations of all time. Taking inspiration from Tim Burton’s noir-steeped vision for Gotham, this stunning series adapts some of Batman’s most famous comic book adventures while also introducing iconic new characters in its own right. Most famously, DC Comics’ beloved Harley Quinn debuted on an episode as one of the Joker’s henchies before becoming a staple in the DC roster. With stunning animation, brilliant writing, and an atmosphere you could cut with a knife, this is truly one of the greatest shows ever made.

19. I Love Lucy

You think of Lucille Ball and most likely you picture her stuffing her face with chocolate on an out of control assembly line. Or maybe she’s pitching the 1950s version of an energy drink, “Vitameatavegamin,” only to get drunk from the concoction mid-speech. Or perhaps it’s her husband/co-star Desi Arnaz singing “We’re Having a Baby (My Baby and Me)” on the occasion of not just their TV pregnancy, but also their real-life one. From off-the-wall to heartwarming, I Love Lucy remains eminently rewatchable over 70 years after it debuted. But it was also groundbreaking in that it essentially created the sitcom format that would be used for decades to come when Arnaz and the show’s director of photography (and Hollywood legend) Karl Freund perfected a multi-camera system that enabled the show to be shot in sequence “theater” style while a live studio audience reacted in real time to Lucy’s antics. And react they did.

18. Star Trek: The Original Series

This is where it all began. Almost 60 years after Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise embarked on their five-year-mission, Star Trek has grown into one of the biggest media franchises of all time. And while the must-watch factor of The Original Series has faded some with time (witness The Next Generation overtaking it on this list as those who grew up on ’90s Trek tend to relate to that show more), the mission statement that has sustained Gene Roddenberry’s creation all these decades was conceived here. The use of sci-fi to examine thinly veiled real-world issues wasn’t a new idea, but Star Trek consistently elevated the genre by probing topics that mattered to the humans of 20th century Earth as much as they did to those of 23rd century outer space. That the show did so in an exciting, emotional, and frequently humorous manner only made it that much better.

17. Cheers

Although not initially a ratings success, this beloved NBC sitcom about a Boston bar “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” ran for 11 seasons and spun off another classic sitcom, Frasier. What made Cheers work was its bevy of lovable characters who either work at or frequent the titular bar, from womanizing proprietor Sam Malone to fixtures like know-it-all Cliff Clavin and sardonic Norm Peterson. Like other long-running shows, Cheers saw its share of characters leave and cast changes, most notably when Shelley Long’s Diane Chambers was replaced by Kirstie Alley’s Rebecca Howe or when Nicholas Colasanto, who played bartender Coach died, and the character of dopey Woody Boyd (played in his breakthrough role by Woody Harrelson) was introduced. Its final episode remains one of the highest-rated series finales of all time.

16. Buffy the Vampire Slayer

What if the gorgeous girl victim in a horror movie was actually the one doing the slaying? That simple question served as the foundation for one of the greatest hero’s journeys of all time – that of teen vamp hunter Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar). A found family comedy, teen drama, and feminist fantasy story all rolled into one, Buffy the Vampire Slayer built a singular TV world that’s endlessly fun to revisit. Of course, the cracks in the show’s oversimplified girl-power ideology show more with age – and in light of everything we now know about series creator Joss Whedon – but Buffy still packs a punch thanks to its ever-excellent cast, nimble scripts, and its clever, thoughtful exploration of what it means to grow up in a world full of monsters.

15. Seinfeld

One of the most celebrated, quotable, and re-watchable sitcoms of all time, Seinfeld mined comedy gold from the mundane and minuscule. Whether it’s the proper etiquette for dipping chips, parallel parking, or sharing toilet paper in public restrooms, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David’s “Show About Nothing” was a series about everything. Well, except hugging and learning. Which were abject no-nos on a series that felt, at times, like an Upper West Side fable about a quartet of characters who became more unlikable and unhinged with each passing season. Soup Nazis, Bubble Boys, Anti-Dentites, Library Cops, Schmoopies, Bizarro Jerrys – the juggernaut that was Seinfeld paved the path for shows like It’s Always Sunny, The League, and You’re the Worst. It created it’s own style of comedy and played by its own (ever-changing) rules.

14. Watchmen

HBO’s Watchmen is an odd duck when it comes to comic book shows. It’s not an adaptation of the iconic series from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, but rather a sequel that lovingly remixes many of the comic’s tropes and character archetypes. The result is a series that not only lives up to the lofty source material, but actually manages to enhance it. Despite taking place in an alternate universe set decades after a staged alien invasion, Watchmen is a series with an awful lot to say about racism and violence in our world. Impeccably acted and wonderfully written, Watchmen is as good as anything Damon Lindelof has produced on television.

13. Star Trek: The Next Generation

It may be tough to fathom given how beloved TNG is now and how much Star Trek there currently is out there but the notion of following the original Star Trek’s run with an entirely new cast was a massive long shot back in 1987. While TNG struggled creatively in its first two seasons, it found its footing in Season 3. Its rich new crew of characters was led by Patrick Stewart’s thoughtful Jean-Luc Picard, a very different Starfleet captain than the impetuous James T. Kirk. TNG was one of the first true successes in establishing a shared universe and ushered in even more complex and compelling storytelling in the Trek mythos that has kept the franchise boldly going to this day.

12. Fleabag

Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s two-season wonder Fleabag was a paean to the messy women among us. During its short run, the show’s unnamed central character became a patron saint to the heartbroken, the grieving, the selfish, and the horny. The show and its protagonist were often funny as hell, but Fleabag’s greatest accomplishment was its slyly profound character study, executed with the help of an aside-to-camera gimmick that grew increasingly meta as the show unfolded. Fleabag began with a woman joking her way toward oblivion and ended with her waving goodbye to the fourth wall that stood between herself and the people she loved. It was two seasons of laugh-out-loud therapy (or, in season two’s case, confession), delivered in such an entertaining way that the scope of its impact was impossible to feel until it ended and left us, like our hero, with no one’s company but our own.

11. Lost

In 2004, a bunch of beautiful strangers crash-landed on an island and TV was never the same again. Millions of viewers not only tuned into Lost, but obsessed over fan theories, lived on message boards, and analyzed every episode for signs of things to come. Lost ushered in the modern TV puzzle box, a trend that still persists (often with pale imitators) today, but that’s only the second-best thing the show did. The first was to craft a story that balanced big-idea sci-fi and metaphysics with matters of the heart. Fans didn’t just care about what was going on with the island; we cared about what was going on with our favorite characters. Part survival series, part existential drama, part out-there genre fiction, Lost made captives of us all for six years – and no communal viewing experience has felt the same since. We have to go back!

10. Parks and Recreation

Parks and Recreation, from The Office’s Greg Daniels and Michael Schur, may have stumbled out of the gate for its first, shortened season but in its sophomore run it truly found its form, reshaping many of its characters to suit the performers, which included de-Michael Scott-ing Amy Poehler’s Leslie Knope, shifting her from incompetent to immensely capable. Overly capable, in fact, which only added to the comedy given that someone as talented as Knope would have to struggle to get anything done in the weird web of local Midwest politics. What followed was a phenomenal seven-year run featuring characters we all came to adore and a love story that didn’t need to fall apart over and over in order to remain endearing and hilarious. Chris Pratt, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, and more became stars while Adam Scott’s Ben became one of the best non-Darcy Mr. Darcys of all time.

9. Game of Thrones

Billed as Lord of the Rings for those who like epic fantasy with heaping doses of sex and violence, George R.R. Martin’s beloved (and still unfinished) book series was adapted into an HBO series that became a pop culture phenomenon during its eight-season run. Game of Thrones stumbled badly in its final two seasons – without GRRM’s source material to draw from, the show moved at an accelerated rate to wrap up the saga of who would win the Iron Throne as well as the apocalyptic threat posed by the White Walkers. But when GoT worked, it really worked, delivering masterful storytelling, fully realized performances from its great ensemble cast, stunning spectacle, gripping suspense, and countless, passionate fan conversations. Dracarys!

8. The Twilight Zone

When we talk about Rod Serling’s seminal series The Twilight Zone, we often talk about the show’s perfectly crafted twist endings: bent realities, nightmares come to life, and twists of fate that are as existentially harrowing as sci-fi has ever been. Across its 156 episodes, the show played with big ideas, delivered big feelings and, yes, sucker-punched audiences with big surprise twists that still astound today. Yet Serling’s grandest achievement was a moral one. His tales of alien invasions, it turned out, were actually about xenophobia and hatred. His stories of well-respected men questioning their sanity portrayed PTSD before the term existed. Serling’s self-contained sagas – some of them adapted from short stories by literary giants – were not just excellent episodes of television but also clear-eyed lessons about how essential unity and kindness are. The best episodes of The Twilight Zone have a mighty heartbeat – one viewers can still hear today.

7. Mad Men

Nostalgia for a past that never truly was can be a dangerous thing and nowhere was that more apparent than in Mad Men. Taking the fictional Don Draper, creative director of ad agency Sterling Cooper, as its case study, any rose-tinted longing for the 1960s was immediately shattered as the office politics and biases of the time were explored. Draper’s ad-making brilliance and greeting card family don’t make him happy, and so much of the series was dedicated to watching his slow motion fall from grace. Meanwhile, former protegee Peggy Olson rises the ranks with new opportunities for women in the office. With the stunning, historically accurate set design and period-accurate clothing and characters, the series is a tour through the workspace during a decade of change. Where it ends is a far distance from where it began, but the journey is worth it.

6. The Sopranos

For six wild seasons, we all watched excitedly as mob boss Tony Soprano did the unthinkable and sought help for his mental health struggles. This came in the form of therapist Jennifer Melfi, who spent much of the series engaging with the moral complexity of knowing of Soprano’s crimes while attempting to effectively treat him. As we soon learned, these were not to be run of the mill sessions: Soprano’s life story was a nod to gangster tales of old, but the series shone its brightest when showing the complex social balance between family and criminal behavior Tony was compelled to uphold. Unpacking toxic masculinity through a classic unreliable narrator, The Sopranos regularly delved into serious existentialism while delivering laughter, tears, and chills (and helped launch a second golden age of television, but who’s counting?)

5. Twin Peaks

Nightmare maestro David Lynch and TV vet Marc Frost came together in 1990 and injected some much-needed weirdness and wonderfulness into network primetime. The result was the incomparable Twin Peaks and, despite the show’s basic story elements being a small town murder mystery, there was absolutely nothing like it on television. “Who Killed Laura Palmer?” became a puzzle that gripped the world as Twin Peaks helped reinvigorate ‘water cooler TV.’ This time though, the show people couldn’t wait to discuss at work the next day had a fantastical assortment of goofy oddities and scary dreamscapes: damn fine coffee and cherry pie that’ll kill ya; red rooms in black lodges; One-Eyed Jacks; magic, mysticism, and David Lynch’s penchant for peeling back the veil of suburban life and revealing the creepy crawlies residing underneath. Suffice to say, when Twin Peaks returned to TV decades later, there was still nothing quite like it.

4. The X-Files

The X-Files hit Fox in 1993 and became a massive cultural touchstone after landing as a cult hit. Blurring the lines between grounded reality, conspiracy theories, and the paranormal, the case of the week procedural is like no other. Led by one of the greatest unlikely duos in TV history, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s chemistry made fans fall in love with the show as the bickering FBI agents explored murders, vampires, folkloric myths, and more. Chris Carter’s creation went on to become the longest running sci-fi show in TV history as well as one of the most influential genre series of all time. Blending monsters of the week with a decades-long overarching story, The X-Files has been engaging, infuriating, and inspiring audiences for 20 years and carving a path for all the weird shows that have come in its wake.

3. Breaking Bad

Vince Gilligan’s pitch for Breaking Bad was “Mr. Chips becomes Scarface,” and that’s exactly what he and his fellow creatives delivered. The sordid saga of Walter White, a cancer-stricken high school chemistry teacher who turns into the meth kingpin Heisenberg, gripped audiences as his moral erosion violently and cruelly escalated over the course of five seasons. Walter corrupted or betrayed everyone close to him from his wife Skyler to former student Jesse Pinkman, who became his accomplice and eventual adversary. The writing and characterizations were rich and complex, and the stunning cast – particularly Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul as Walter and Jesse – gave career-defining performances. Heartbreaking, suspenseful, and shocking, Breaking Bad later spawned the sequel film El Camino and the prequel series Better Call Saul.

2. The Simpsons

It’s impossible to understate The Simpsons’ impact on the pop culture landscape. Running continuously since 1989, the series is now one of the longest-lived shows in TV history, and certainly among the most influential. Its classic episodes are quoted endlessly: one need only shout “Dental plan!” in a crowded room to be bombarded with calls of “Lisa needs braces!” The series has added entirely new words to the English language, like “D’oh” and “cromulent.” And much like how no musician has truly made it until they have a song parodied by “Weird Al” Yankovic, no celebrity is truly famous until they’ve guest-starred in an episode of The Simpsons. Sure, most fans bemoan the fact the show is a far cry from the glory days of the first eight seasons, but those eight seasons are about as good as animated sitcoms get.

1. The Wire

Starting HBO’s acclaimed crime drama The Wire may feel like the equivalent of cracking into a tome like Tolstoy’s War and Peace but it’s some of the most rewarding TV “homework” you’ll ever do. Created by former police reporter David Simon and former police detective/public school teacher Ed Burns, The Wire explores the complex lives of both cops and crooks, delving into the bureaucratic ins and outs surrounding the war on drugs, inner city life, poorly funded education systems, and bent politics in modern day Baltimore. Furthermore, the Wire’s sprawling world pulsates with thrilling life, its massive, charismatic ensemble there to aid in the story’s daring, zig-zagging format of switching focus season to season (we’re especially looking at you Season 2!). Simply put, The Wire is one of the grandest zero-sum saga’s you’ll ever experience.

What are your favorite shows? Let’s discuss in the comments!

CD Projekt has confirmed the global release times for Cyberpunk 2077 expansion Phantom Liberty on PC and console.

The hotly anticipated expansion, which follows last week’s release of the game-changing Update 2.0, launches at 1am CEST on September 26 on PC, and midnight local time on Xbox Series X and S and PlayStation 5. Pre-load on console is available now.

Here’s the list of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty release times worldwide:

• Los Angeles (United States) – PC: September 25 at 4pm PDT
• Los Angeles (United States) – Console: September 26 at 12am PDT
• Mexico City (Mexico) – PC: September 25 at 5pm CST
• Mexico City (Mexico) – Console: September 26 at 12am CST
• New York (United States) – PC: September 25 at 7pm EDT
• New York (United States) – Console: September 26 at 12am EDT
• Brasília (Brazil) – PC: September 25 at 8pm BRT
• Brasília (Brazil) – Console: September 26 at 12am BRT
• London (United Kingdom) – PC: September 26 at 12am BST
• London (United Kingdom) – Console: September 26 at 12am BST
• Paris (France) – PC: September 26 at 1am CEST
• Paris (France) – Console: September 26 at 12am CEST
• Warsaw (Poland) – PC: September 26 at 1am CEST
• Warsaw (Poland) – Console: September 26 at 12am CEST
• Kyiv (Ukraine) – PC: September 26 at 2am EEST
• Kyiv (Ukraine) – Console: September 26 at 12am EEST
• Johannesburg (South Africa) – PC: September 26 at 1am SAST
• Johannesburg (South Africa) – Console: September 26 at 12am SAST
• Dubai (UAE) – PC: September 26 at 3am GST
• Dubai (UAE) – Console: September 26 at 12am GST
• Beijing (China) – PC: September 26 at 7am CST
• Beijing (China) – Console: September 26 at 12am CST
• Tokyo (Japan) – PC: September 26 at 8am JST
• Tokyo (Japan) – Console: September 26 at 12am JST
• Seoul (Korea) – PC: September 26 at 8am KST
• Seoul (Korea) – Console: September 26 at 12am KST
• Sydney (Australia) – PC: September 26 at 9am AEST
• Sydney (Australia) – Console: September 26 at 12am AEST
• Wellington (New Zealand) – PC: September 26 at 12pm NZDT
• Wellington (New Zealand) – Console: September 26 at 12am NZDT

Phantom Liberty is the one and only major DLC for Cyberpunk 2077, and stars Idris Elba as Solomon Reed, a veteran New United States of America agent who helps the player with a special mission.

IGN’s Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty review returned a 9/10, and “completes an immense turnaround for CD Projekt Red’s future RPG kickstarted with the anime spinoff, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and its latest 2.0 Update”.

CD Projekt is now moving on to Witcher 4, a Cyberpunk 2077 sequel, and many other projects.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Hideki Kamiya, who directed Resident Evil 2 and was the chief creator of Devil May Cry, has announced his surprise departure from PlatinumGames effective October 12.

Confirmation comes from a statement issued by Platinum as well as a brief statement published to Kamiya’s Twitter account. In his statement, the 52-year-old said: “This came after a lot of consideration based on my own beliefs, and was by no means an easy decision to make.

“However, I feel this outcome is for the best. I will continue to create in my Hideki Kamiya way. I hope you’ll keep your eyes peeled.” The statement suggests Kamiya plans to continue working in video game development.

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However, I feel this outcome is for the best.
I will continue to create in my Hideki Kamiya way.
I hope you’ll keep your eyes peeled.
(2/2)

— 神谷英樹 Hideki Kamiya (@PG_kamiya) September 25, 2023

Kamiya, who founded Platinum in 2006, is perhaps best known for his work at Capcom, where he directed a raft of influential games, including Resident Evil 2, Devil May Cry, and, while at Clover, Okami and Viewtiful Joe. At Platinum, Kamiya directed Bayonetta, The Wonderful 101, the canceled Scalebound, Sol Cresta, and was working on a brand new, self-published game codenamed Project G.G.

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pic.twitter.com/GHiSugPF42

— PlatinumGames Inc. (@platinumgames) September 25, 2023

In a December 2022 interview with IGN, Kamiya said Project G.G. was “going to be so big that you won’t even be able to compare The Wonderful 101: Remastered and Sol Cresta to it. Because of that, we need to become a company with publishing capabilities on that level, not just development power”.

Image credit: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Dustborn appears to be many things. It’s a road tripping adventure across an alternate United States that involves maintaining relationships between the members of a rebel gang posing as a rock group, and staying off the radar of an oppressive police force called Justice. It’s a rhythm action game, requiring you to tap buttons in time with on screen prompts to sing along with the car radio or complete performances with your band. In some instances, it’s a Streets of Rage-inspired beat ‘em up that lets you take a baseball bat to hordes of robot soldiers. Yet all the while, Dustborn is also a comic book that your decisions are helping to shape on the fly.

In a novel twist, or perhaps a graphic novel twist, the completion of each chapter over the course of Dustborn’s roughly 15-hour adventure generates pages of a comic book that can be browsed on the tour bus that serves as Dustborn’s mobile HQ transporting you from one story section to the next. Each comic book panel reflects the decisions you made during dialogue sections and other gameplay sequences, as well as showing you how your decisions compared to that of other players – not unlike the summary screen at the end of an episode in a Telltale Games adventure. However, when you eventually roll the final credits on this cross-continental adventure, Dustborn will actually compile your individual story into a custom 35-page comic book which you’ll be able to share with your friends online or even print out to keep.

“That’s always been the vision for this game, to be a living comic book,” says Ragnar Tornquist, Founder & CEO of developer Red Thread Games. “And I think it’s a great way to share your experience. Of course, if you haven’t played the game and you read [another player’s] comic book, you’re going to spoil a lot of it, but your own journey will likely be different in many ways to somebody else’s.”

While I’m told that there are multiple endings to arrive at for each of Dustborn’s main characters, every player’s journey will at least begin the same way. The 30-minute hands-off demo of Dustborn I was shown at Tokyo Game Show opened at the very start of the game, with a team of four heroes speeding down a highway in order to escape from a heist gone wrong in Dustborn’s version of California, known as Pacifica. Main protagonist Pax appears to be nursing a bloody bullet wound in the front passenger seat, while the other three in the car won’t stop bickering about what to do next.

It’s a frantic and instantly gripping setup, and it also presents an opportunity to showcase Dustborn’s dynamic dialogue system. While the scene is confined to the cabin of a speeding car, the player is given full control to shift the camera perspective around to get different angles on the characters and identify new things to talk about. That is, if you can get a word in, and indeed when several attempts to interject by Pax are ignored by the rest of the group, Pax is able to use her superpower – an arsenal of special keywords, in this case the word “Block” – to basically stun her cohorts into silence like some kind of Jedi mind trick.

“Pax is what we call an Anomal,” explains Tornquist. “That means she has the ability to use language to manipulate people. It’s not magic, but it’s words that are basically strong enough to affect people physically, mentally and emotionally.”

Apparently Anomals are superpowered humans that evolved during an incident that occurred 30 years prior to the events of Dustborn. “There was basically an event we call the ‘disinformation apocalypse’, where all of the North American continent was affected,” says Tornquist. “If you imagine if social media went completely wild and affected everybody in America – which I mean, let’s be honest, it already has – that gave some people these powers to use language, to use disinformation to fuel these abilities.”

Pax’s word-based superpower isn’t just used to persuade characters during dialogue scenes, either. During a combat scene I was shown later in the demo, Pax was seen to be delivering simple combo attacks with a barbed baseball bat, as well as flinging it at enemies from a distance and recalling it with a tap of a button like Kratos’ Leviathan axe. In addition, she was also able to reach into her bag of keywords to shout at her assailants, using words like ‘Move’ and ‘Push’ to inflict physical damage on multiple targets at a time. It appears that Pax’s vocabulary of word powers is shared across dialogue sequences and in combat, with the aforementioned ‘Block’ shout also able to be deployed in combat presumably as some sort of shield.

While it wasn’t shown to me as part of the demo, Tornquist hinted at a unique mechanic in the game by which you use disinformation in order to craft new shouting abilities over the course of Dustborn’s roughly 15-hour journey. “We really wanted to make a game that’s all about the power of language, information, and specifically disinformation, and how that can be weaponised,” says Tornquist. “Both by the enemy, and by us. And of course the whole ethical thing of using language, especially with Pax being able to use these words on her friends as well. If you have this power, how ethical is it to use it?”

Indeed Dustborn could well serve as a thought provoking allegory for the power and poisonous nature of contemporary social media, but based on the short amount of gameplay that I’ve seen it seems like it could also just be a hugely entertaining ride. At one point I was able to witness Pax and her fellow fake band members flub their way through an impromptu musical performance in order to convince border control of their punk rock bonafides, and I’m told throughout the cross-country journey there are countless other diversions to experience, with mini-games for batting practice, songwriting, and even melting marshmallows over a campfire.

“[Dustborn] is a lot about just enjoying downtime, being on a road trip, and being with your found family,” explains Tornquist. “It’s a very different experience. There are so many games out there that are the same. They’re good, but it’s all the same thing. [Dustborn] is different, and that’s the important thing.”

Dustborn is set to launch on Xbox, PlayStation, and PC, sometime in early 2024.

Tristan Ogilvie is a Senior Video Editor at IGN AU. If his life story was turned into a comic book it would probably be a dog-eared copy of MAD Magazine.

When it was released eleven years ago, Dragon’s Dogma stood out as a bold open-world action-RPG that didn’t conform to any pre-existing mold for the genre. From its one-of-a-kind Pawn mechanic that encouraged you to frequently swap out AI controlled companions from a network populated by creations from other players to its action centric combat that had you climbing all over giant monsters in order to specifically target weak points and bring them down to size, there’s nothing quite like it. Even to this day.

My big takeaway after playing an hour of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is that Capcom is doubling down on everything that made Dragon’s Dogma so unique, with a big focus on refining and polishing those elements to a shine. And in that regard, they’re succeeding. Pawns do everything that they did in the first game, but their contributions to both combat and navigation are more immediately noticeable. Melee combat feels more impactful and weighty, and exploration through its now seamless open world feels equal parts rewarding and dangerous. That said, after an hour of killing the usual Dragon’s Dogma rogue’s gallery of goblins, cyclops, saurians, harpies, bandits, and attempting occasional Griffin, I couldn’t help but wish that I experienced something that truly felt new in this sequel.

My demo began right outside the human kingdom of Vermund and gave me free reign to go wherever I wanted. I had a handful of quests that I could follow, with my Pawns already set with knowledge of those quests, meaning I could simply let them lead the way and not have to deal with constantly bringing up the map and making sure I was still on course. Pawns having experience and knowledge of quests is not new to Dragon’s Dogma, and occasionally they would lead you through some tricky-to-follow paths, but here in Dragon’s Dogma 2 it was far more reliable. A simple press of left on the D-Pad to issue a help command while out of combat was enough for my Pawn to understand that I was looking for a trail to follow, and thus they would grab my attention and start leading the way once I started running towards them.

The coolest interaction that I experienced with a Pawn was after having cleared a cave of bandits, I noticed a treasure chest on a platform that was well out of reach. By issuing the help command, though, I noticed that my fighter Pawn moved herself closer to the platform, and then kneeled down like she was waiting to give me a boost. Sure enough, when I ran over, she launched me up with the Springboard skill, and I was able to collect a rare Ferrystone.

Combat is largely identical to how it was in the original Dragon’s Dogma: you’ve got a button for weak attacks, a button for heavy attacks, and then by holding down the left bumper, you’ve got a series of four skills that you can equip for a variety of attacks and spells. One of the big differences this time around is that the right bumper is now tied to your Vocation Action, which as the name implies, is an action unique to your vocation. For fighters, their vocation action is to raise their shield and guard against enemy attacks; for thieves, they’ve got a quick dodge called Swift Step; and for archers they’re able to directly aim with a Steady Shot.

New to combat is a hit-stop effect that occurs when an enemy you’re attacking is low on life, indicating that they’re open to an execution by hitting them with a strong attack. It’s a light touch, but it goes a long way in making combat feel much more brutal and impactful. It’s worth noting that, like the original game, there’s no melee lock-on mechanic and no dodge roll, unless it’s tied to your Vocation. It’s a bold choice, and I have a feeling that not everyone will like it, but it does lend a very particular feel to Dragon’s Dogma 2’s combat. It’s much less about split-second reflexes and fierce aggression, and much more about careful positioning, awareness of where enemies are, relying on your pawns for support, and knowledge of how to exploit enemy weaknesses.

I got to restart the demo several times in the hour or so I got to play, and the thing that really impressed me was how different each successive run felt. One time I walked down the same beaten path I traversed in a previous session and suddenly got attacked by a Griffin. In another I followed a quest down to a riverbank and got to fight against a handful of Saurians that I never saw anywhere else. And in another, I was guided by my pawn to a cave full of surprisingly tough bandits guarding a bunch of treasure and valuable materials, and me and my party got absolutely wrecked. I ended up having to load up an earlier save, but this encounter excited me because even though I was being guided by a Pawn, the exploration still felt organic, and it made me well aware that the world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 was one full of danger and riches in equal measure, which is the heart of great exploration in video games.

All that said though, there definitely was a sense of deja vu while playing through this demo. The skills I used as both a fighter and a thief were almost identical to the early game skills from the first Dragon’s Dogma, I didn’t fight a single new enemy type, nor did I fight any of those enemies in a way that was much different from how I’d fight them in the original game. If there’s one comfort that I can have as a fan of Dragon’s Dogma, it’s that Dragon’s Dogma 2 will offer up more of what I loved about that first game, and that many of those minor elements have been improved upon. I couldn’t help but wish that I walked away from my demo a little more excited about something new about the sequel, though.

Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit

You may have thought Magic: The Gathering was done with The Lord of the Rings after its Tales of Middle-earth set earlier this year, but it’s back for more! We’ve got the exclusive reveal of 24 new cards spread across four new art scenes, all of which are available in a brand new product called a Scene Box – as well as five new rock poster art treatments of past LOTR cards that will be available in upcoming Special Edition Collector Boosters this holiday season.

You can watch me unbox the scene themed around Gandalf in the video above, and flip through the gallery below to see photos of all four boxes, images of all 24 new cards, and five of the twenty rock poster cards. Then read on below for more details and an interview with Wizards of the Coast about this latest LOTR collab.

Each of the four Scene Boxes is themed around a legendary character from The Lord of the Rings: Gandalf, Galadriel, Aragon, or The Witch-King. They come with a brand new card featuring that character, plus five more new cards within their color identity that fit them both visually and mechanically. When placed in a two-by-three grid, the six cards make up a full art scene – the box even comes with cards that are just the art on their own and a stand to display them, as well as three LTR Set Boosters.

While Wizards of the Coast made similar scenes as part of the main set, Game Architect Mike Turian tells us that they had more freedom when designing these scenes and the cards that fit into them since they were all brand new. “We captured many of the key moments throughout the June release,” says Turian, “so with this holiday release, we wanted to focus in on a few favorite characters and show them at the full height of their powers.”

Because each box has a legendary character and some new cards that go with it, they almost feel like little commander precons without any of the reprints, waiting to be fleshed out however you see fit. (I may have gotten an unfair headstart, but Galadriel in particular was so cool to me that I’ve already built a Commander deck around her.) But while Turian says they did initially consider pairing these scenes directly with the previous LOTR commander products from earlier this year, they decided to make them stand on their own to allow for more design space.

“For Gandalf specifically, it helps that he was a powerful wizard, which opens up itself to lots of fun card designs, and that his character evolves significantly throughout The Lord of the Rings,” Turian explains. “Another factor playing into our selection was making sure that there was diversity, even with just four Scene Boxes to highlight characters, we wanted to make sure that all of our fans felt included as much as possible.”

In addition to the four scene boxes, Wizards of the Coast will also be rolling out new Special Edition Collector Boosters for Tales of Middle-Earth around the same time, which will potentially include any of twenty cards from the original set in a brand new 60s rock poster art style – as well as rare serialized versions of these cards numbered up through 100. “It’s incredible, the far-reaching effect of LTR on fantasy and art and music,” says Art Director Sarah Wasell, “and we loved taking the space to honor one of the more surprising areas of Tolkien fandom through these ‘band posters.’”

Magic’s Lord of the Rings set has already been making headlines with special serialiazed cards: its one-of-a-kind One Ring card was sold to Post Malone for a whopping $2 million. You can read on to see our full interview with Mike Turian and Sarah Wassell, or if you want to even more fancy foiled unboxings, we opened up the shiny Compleat Edition from Magic’s Phyrexia: All Will Be One set earlier this year

IGN: This is a brand new kind of product for Magic, why return to making scenes and why like this?

Mike Turian, Game Architect: When we created Scenes for the initial release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth this past June, we knew we had struck upon something special. The way that the Borderless Scene cards came together and formed these iconic moments from the novel in a stunning way was incredible. By bringing the Scene cards together into a single product, it really lets us highlight these cards individually and offer ways to display the art of The Lord of the Rings in a way that only Magic can. We captured many of the key moments throughout the June release, so with this holiday release, we wanted to focus in on a few favorite characters and show them at the full height of their powers. We knew that each scene would be two cards high and three cards across, so we wanted to pack in a lot of goodness into just these six cards per box.

The previous scenes were more restricted since they had to use cards from the main set, while all of these cards are brand new. Did that give you more freedom to design them or depict characters and events exactly how you wanted?

Turian: One of the great things about this release is that we were creating brand new cards for these scenes, so yes, that let us customize the cards and their abilities to best fit the scene. The challenge became with so much freedom, how do we best capture the spirit of the characters and their setting? Early on, we discussed closely tying the characters to cards that were made in the June release. It became clear that we would have more success by choosing new color options for each Scene Box and building the cards that we made around the central character of the box. So for instance, in the Gandalf in the Pelennor Fields Scene box, the Gandalf that you receive is white, blue and red so we wanted to make sure each card in his box a one or more of those colors.

How did you land on these four characters?

Turian: For each product we took a number of factors into account as we went about choosing what characters to feature. For one, we took [a look] at the characters of The Lord of the Rings that were fan favorites and that was a great starting point. We needed to make sure that there was more design space available for the character. The combination of being prominently featured in the novel really helps when we choose Gandalf, for instance, because even though we had done a number of other Gandalf cards, being able to find a place in his development that we wanted to capture was key. For Gandalf specifically, it helps that he was a powerful wizard, which opens up itself to lots of fun card designs, and that his character evolves significantly throughout The Lord of the Rings. Another factor playing into our selection was making sure that there was diversity, even with just four Scene Boxes to highlight characters, we wanted to make sure that all of our fans felt included as much as possible.

These boxes almost feel like little “build-your-own Commander precon” kits: each one has that multicolored legendary, some brand new cards that support their mechanics, and some packs to get your collection going. Was that the intent with them?

Turian: For these four characters, there initially was some thought that the cards in the product would pair directly with our The Lord of the Rings Commander product but due to other constraints like design space, we moved away from that. We knew we had a new opportunity here to create cards that would really appeal to our Commander players. One of the pieces I really enjoy about the cards is how they have lots of throwback mechanics that we don’t often see in Magic anymore. With the cards being legal for Commander play, it also meant that the designs could both capture the characters and moments depicted but also be sweet standalone cards to add to your Commander decks. For those players who are going all out with The Lord of the Rings, hopefully this gives their themed The Lord of the Rings Commander decks enough added cards to win the day!

You’re also revisiting the rock poster style for some of LTR’s previous cards, what’s so appealing about the treatment that you want to give it another spin here?

Sarah Wassell, Art Director: We’re splitting hairs a bit on this treatment: the LTR poster art style is specific to a style of band poster that emerged during the counter culture movement in the US in the 1960s (Seymour Chwast, Pushpin Studios, etc). There was a three book LTR set published with amazing cover art by Barbara Remington that was a cult hit on US college campuses in the 1960s. This surge of interest fed directly into cultural moments with stadium rock bands referencing Tolkien in their lyrics in the 1970s. It’s incredible, the far-reaching effect of LTR on fantasy and art and music, and we loved taking the space to honor one of the more surprising areas of Tolkien fandom through these “band posters.” And we love the chance to turn Magic cards with all their rule and mechanics into full poster art—it’s such a mind-bending way to approach a format that is so rigid that the elements can disappear through familiarity.

These poster-style cards will be available in special booster packs rather than a Secret Lair like some might expect, why was that decision made?

Turian: While the Borderless Poster cards are something that would fit into a Secret Lair, we wanted to bring these cards into booster packs because we knew that they would be another element that would make our Special Edition Collector Booster shine. As the twenty cards that are found in the Borderless Poster style all came from the main set of Tales of Middle-earth, this was an opportunity to do a new take on those cards and bring it into a place where we could even offer them in an incredibly collectible serialized version with each of the twenty being offered numbered out of 100. Lastly, typically when we are deciding on what cards to include in Collector Boosters, we need to consider that our Collector Boosters are available in a number of different languages. With Special Edition Collector boosters, they are only being offered in English so that allowed us to make hand-lettered styles a possibility and we took advantage of that!

Tom Marks is IGN’s Senior Reviews Editor. He loves puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and Magic: the Gathering. You can follow him on Twitter @TomRMarks.