Top 10 US TV Shows

Roseanne

Game of Thrones

Friends

Friends, I think, deserves to be in this list not necessarily because it's the best show in terms of writing quality or acting (certainly not compared to some of the other shows on here) but in terms of what it achieved - few other sitcoms have been quite as successful and become quite such a part of popular culture as Friends has. Love it or hate it, it's a show that's impossible to ignore, even now several years after its cancellation (since it's repeated ad inifnitum).

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air

The Sopranos

Possibly one of the best gangster dramas ever made, The Sopranos works because it shows a more 'human' side to the mob. Yes it's about gangsters and it's violent and brutal at times but unlike many similar shows and films it actually succeeds in creating characters that you care about. Who'd have thought that was possible?

Frasier

Cheers might have been the more popular choice here, but I always preferred Frasier, largely because it gave the best character from that series the chance to step into the limelight (let's face it Frasier Crane always got all the best one-liners in Cheers anyway). A great example of how to do a sitcom spin-off and make it even better than its predecessor.

Keenan and Kel

The Simpsons

This isn't just the best show ever to come out of the US - it's probably the best show ever made anywhere. You just can't under-estimate the influence of The Simpsons and the way it has made its mark on popular culture (there can be very few people out there who can honestly say they've never seen it), to say nothing of the fact it's also brilliantly written. And it's still going - will it ever end? Hopefully not.

Saved by the Bell