with so many ranking systems out there it's tricky to make out what reall is good and what is kinda meh. high rankings aside
well I found one that might be as good as the really interesting netflix highest rated shows. often reflecting on guilty pleasure shows, or cult hits. but often streaming media rankings seem different. alot of it is in modern light, as many modern shows have already picked the good unique ideas out of old shows and use modern techniques on top of them.
1.Game of Thrones (would make it up there in my top 50, not #1 for sure)
2.True Detective (watching, i love crime tales, could be legit at that rank)
3.Breaking Bad (great show, great small touches)
4. Almost Human (ok new show, some mixed acting and writing, inconsistencies because of adjusted episode order. great potential)
5. Sherlock (tried season one, did not like acting styles, especially moriarty. haven't tried again since)
6. Person of Interest (brought me to tumblr, great meta/procedural hybrid, might be over the shark, between major arcs right now)
7. Suits (very good legal story, have been meaning to get back into it, made it to episode 7, stopped for no reason)
8. Orange is the new black (great story arcing, main character is intolerable but does a good job of sympathizing the ensemble while making you understand they deserve to be in jail)
9. Hell on Wheels( a lot of fun, survives on Saturday night off of network, one of my guilty pleasures)
10. The Escape Artist( BBC, never watched, will have to research/get feedback on it. first time in my pondering list)
11. Orphan Black (been on pondering list long time, some day I'll watch it)
12. Rick and Morty (never heard of it, needs another input before i take it seriously)
13. Arrow (never really moved by the few arrow eps i saw, CW production styles are getting so damn lazy. though i know a lot of fans)
14. Go On (heard good things, never too huge on nbc comedy styles)
15. Peaky Blinders (basically bbc boardwalk as far as I've heard, though fairly good, maybe someday)
16. Utopia (perverse and twisted, I loved this bizarre story. Haunting theme song)
17. Black Sails (hear some good things, like vikings its middle of list till I get a big positive input)
18. Firefly (great series, some inconsistencies, episode order plagued by FOX, had a lot of potential to keep moving forward, watched it with fastlane when first aired)
19. Ray Donovan (a bit exploitative in the hollywood and church scandal culture. By far the best writing of family, brothers and the male experience by a woman writer I have ever seen. Great secondary characters i want to get legs)
20. Rectify (cool concept, really got pushed up my ponder by this, haven't watched)
21. Hannibal (great cinematography, a bit over the top and a bit exploitative. side characters underutilized, over use of hypnotic suggestion but it's par for the whole series so it's fine)
22. Luther (one of my favorite crime series, later episodes are less awesome then early ones but always good for a terrifying criminal. awesome acting, production etc.)
23. Bates Motel (my mom says it's awesome, but she has very broad taste in good. heard some good things outside of that though)
24. House of Cards (not big on political stuff, but highly renowned, very high on my to watch list)
25. Last Tango in Halifax (all of my what, no idea what this is, need to research)
26. Vikings (another show my mom watches, heard mixed things. hard to trust history channel for quality again)
27. Under the Gun (no idea, research needed)
28. Ripper Street (another historical fiction piece. not sure how it ranks with all the others being made these days. haven't heard many real great reviews of it)
29. The Walking Dead (inconsistencies abound, but still watching after all these years. the "CSI" for the people digging through the great tv of our age. everyone watches it, but its comparatively average. great use of practical affects.)
30. Life below 0 (first of the modern docu/realty on the list, of people living in the North. see some of it, not too interesting but palatable)
31. Castle (mom's favorite show, merely ok but i am the harshest critic of crime/mystery procedural imaginable. a better paced character meta-arc then bones)
32. Masters of Sex (hear great things)
33. Friends (a classic, watched all of it with my sister back in the day. early seasons always the best. all main characters have periods when they are insufferable)
34. Justified (started with "big bad of the season", is breaking free into a larger ensemble tale, Walter Goggins and timothy olyphant are awesome. Great procedural/meta hybrid)
35. The Returned (I have had previous posts about how good this is. Most characters are kinda gray, great mood, very creepy at times)
36. Hart of Dixie (heard things, CW stink makes me scared to touch it)
37. Low Winter Sun (too drab and boring, never got into the characters, gave up after 3-4 eps.)
38. The Village (no idea, research required)
39. Karl Pilkington:the Moaning of Life (british comedian, i assume it is non-fiction. have heard nothing about it.)
40. The Paradise (never heard of it, research required)
41. Doctor Who (plan to start with next doctor, complaints abound on writer, but I hear good things as well)
42. The White Queen (on starz, might check out, worry about cinemax/stars shows since they are bad for violence/sex baited shows)
43. Chicago Fire (heard some good things, probably low on my list)
44. Originals (CW stuff again, though i hear it's less melodramatic then twd. never got into either series)
45. LilyHammer (british crime drama, heard good things about it and some other brit crime stuff, yet to have had many successes)
46. Attack on Titan (only anime on list, very good, some of source changes from manga but still pretty well done. brilliant action animation)
47. Longmire (heard things, not high on list, so much to watch)
48. ATLA (first avatar series, very well written and better balanced then later series. also much better comedy)
49. Graceland (usa show, heard very little about it)
50. Line of Duty (british crime drama?? need to research)
Interestingly my other considering shows not on this list being Boardwalk Empire, Real Humans, Black Mirror and Southland didn't show up at all.
Lastly since you are reading while thinking about shows to watch i will give a small bit of advice. On high density wordplay humor/parodies.
Basically the original Police Squad. Leslie Nielsen. you can watch it all on youtube. (only 6 episodes, too ahead of it's time) makes fun of 60/70s police tv shows.
and Archer, Which is animated but in a similar vain of comedy with oddly consistent plot points, running jokes and clever wordplay. But instead making fun of spy noir.
If you made it through my post, thanks for reading. feedback on my shows to research would be much obliged.