The New York Times recently released its list of the 100 best television shows of the 21st century, and while Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro has some respect for the undertaking, he has significant disagreements with the results.
“Shall we say, not good,” Shapiro said on his show. “Not good at all.”
The NYT put out its list of top 100 TV shows of the century. It’s actively bad. Here’s the true list. pic.twitter.com/3SqEsUeHnv
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) September 25, 2026
To be fair, Shapiro said the Times got the top two basically right, placing “Breaking Bad” at No. 1 and “The Wire” at No. 2. After that, however, he suggested the list went downhill fast.
“Mad Men” at No. 3? “One of the most overrated shows in the history of television,” according to Shapiro. “Succession” at No. 4? A show he said he enjoyed, but which essentially consists of “obnoxious” people repeating the same behavior over and over again.
“Fleabag” at No. 5? Wildly overrated. “Veep” at No. 7? Funny, but hardly one of the 10 greatest shows ever. “30 Rock” at No. 8? Good, but “there is no way it’s the eighth best show” of the century.
And then there was “Atlanta” at No. 10. “I’m not sure that seven people have ever watched ‘Atlanta,’” Shapiro joked.
Unsatisfied, Shapiro made his own list.
It begins with a major correction to the Times’ No. 28: “Band of Brothers,” the HBO miniseries following Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division through World War II. “’Band of Brothers’ is the best thing that has ever been aired on TV,” Shapiro said. “It is not a particularly close call, actually.”
From there, Shapiro kept “Breaking Bad” and “The Wire” in the top three, followed by another miniseries, “Chernobyl,” at No. 4, which the Times placed at No. 19. He praised the series for its depiction of the Chernobyl disaster and the failures of the Soviet bureaucracy.
“Game of Thrones” came in at No. 5, albeit with an asterisk, acknowledging the failure of the final season of the HBO fantasy epic.
“Severance” landed at No. 6, followed by “Lost” at No. 7. Shapiro praised both for doing what he wants television to do: taking viewers somewhere they did not expect to go and making them trust the writers enough to follow.
“The Office” came in at No. 8, close to the Times’ No. 11. Then came “Downton Abbey” at No. 9. The Times placed the period drama at No. 52, a disparity Shapiro found difficult to comprehend. “I don’t see 51 better shows than ‘Downton Abbey’,” he said.
Rounding out his top 10 was “The Shield,” the FX crime drama the Times buried at No. 70.
But Shapiro wasn’t finished. He gave honorable mentions to shows he thought the Times particularly shortchanged: “The Bear,” which the Times ranked No. 74, and “Shogun,” which came in at No. 86.
His explanation for the appeal of “The Bear” was characteristically Shapiro: It is “competence-porn,” a show about the possibility that becoming good at something can actually make a person better.
And “Shogun”? “Beautifully produced and wonderfully acted and just incredible to watch.”
So there you have it. The New York Times has its 100. Ben Shapiro has his 10. At least now America can finally return to the most pressing issue of the 21st century: Is “Mad Men” really better than “Downton Abbey”?
.png)
.png)
