Most consistent
1. The Wire - I've talked about and read about this show so many times that I fully understand the criticisms of seasons 2 and 5 and I disagree with them. This show never aired a bad episode.

2.) Rectify - If you loved it, you probably loved it quickly and throughout its whole run. Not for everyone.

3.) Mad Men - Could easily be in my top spot. Had an occasional weakness or two but it was consistently great.

4.) The Sopranos and Breaking Bad - I have to do a tie here. They have some similarities in regards to strengths and weaknesses and I can't really choose. Fly and Christopher were notoriously bad episodes for a reason - they completely sucked. Also, the Skyler/Ted/Walt Jr scenes were all awful, as well as the Vinny in NH stuff and some other stuff from Sopranos. Outside of some minor complaints like that these are two of the best shows ever easily and Tony and Walt are among the best leading characters ever.

5.) The Shield - Kicked ass from the opening of the pilot and never let up. Just a relentlessly great show.



Most Inconsistent
1.) The Walking Dead - This has a Gretzky-esque hold on this category. 80% of the episodes are trash, 10% are good, and 10% are fucking awesome.

2.) Game of Thrones - the five best moments of this show probably outdo the best shows of all time. Very low floor with this series though. A solid 20% of the series was complete garbage. Between it's very high and low moments though it's easily more consistently good than a show like TWD

3.) Curb Your Enthusiasm - the best of this series deservedly gets mentioned with the best of Seinfeld. But there's a lot of bad here and it's fallen off heavily in its latter run

4.) Sons of Anarchy - A few really great seasons mixed with some bad to underwhelming ones and a disappointing end.

5.) Justified - Take out the 5th season and it might be the most consistently good/great show ever. Unfortunately, that 5th season exists.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I'd take Justified off the most inconsistent and replace it with Lost.

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Never saw Lost but from what I've read it would be a strong contender for number 1

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Breaking bad is king, the sopranos isn't even top 100.. The writing was shit, spent a ridiculous amount of time in psychiatrist offices.

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Well, yeah that was kind of the premise of the show from the start.

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Should have had him leave therapy after season one, it did nothing for the plot after season one..then you have his daughter in therapy, wife, his shrink.. Zzzz

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Without the therapy angle The Sopranos is a middling quality, forgettable show.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Agree. Justified is my favorite show of all time and thought it was consistent throughout.

Consistent:

Justified
Breaking Bad
Sopranos
Better Call Saul, so far

Inconsistent:

Lost
Game of Thrones
24
The Office - Best comedy ever through 6 seasons, but should have ended when Carrell left.
Deadwood - Started off so great but had a weak final season with no closure.
The Walking Dead
Boardwalk Empire - Had it's moments, but it dragged at a lot of parts.

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Forgot about BCS. May need to expand my most consistent list to 10. That's gotta be in there.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

5 seasons is the sweet spot obviously.

30 Rock was incredibly consistent and is still quite underrated.

TWD isn't really consistent. It was consistently great and then had a slow decline to average at best.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Sopranos strayed into some dumb stuff

TWD has been wildly inconsistent since the pilot. A good half of the first three seasons totally suck.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Maybe. We binge watched the first few seasons pretty quick so I think it was harder to notice.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Like the season where Carm was a realtor?

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Good people drink good beer - Hunter S. Thompson

<º)))><

Waiting for the time when I can finally say
That this has all been wonderful, but now I'm on my way

Strongly disagree. Maybe season 3 isnt great. 1 and 2 were rock solid. 2 is the best season.


But yes, very inconsistent.

We just disagree. I think season 2(the farm season, right?) is easily the worst season of the series.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

TWD changed when Darabont was fired. With him at the helm it was set to be a strong drama set in the zombie apocalypse.

When he left it became popcorn TV.

Nothing wrong with that as ratings were sky high for a while, but not what it could have been.

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Most Consistent:
Breaking Bad
The Wire
The Shield
Justified
The Sopranos
Sherlock
Luther
Hill Street Blues
The Leftovers

Most inconsistent:
Lost
Sons of Anarchy
Walking Dead
Game of Thrones
Deadwood
American Horror Story
Homeland
It's Always Sunny
ER
The Simpsons

EDIT: Forgot Walking Dead

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I'm with on the WD. I gave up entirely after the Negan "who got it" cliffhanger.

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-- source

Dexter and Rescue Me were great and in the last few seasons, each ran and jumped off the cliff.

Great call on both.

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Most Consistent: The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson


Most Inconsistent: Saturday Night Live

Doesn't count unless you provide meaningless descriptions of each

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

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Especially during dream sequences.

I think we need another category or thread about shows that were great but fell off and never got better.
LOST.
The Simpsons.
The League(though not on the same level as many other of the shows mentioned in this thread).

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Seasons 1 and 2 of Lost were terrific. Everything after that fell off a HUGE cliff.

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Curb is the number one show I think of in that category

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Even the last season of Curb they did about 8 years ago had some hidden gems in there. It was a lot of bad, but still some funny moments. The Palestinian Chicken episode might be one of the best of the series.

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