The 20 most overrated TV shows of all time, ranked

Sometimes, a TV show comes along that is simply too good to be denied.

The past 30 years have brought about the period many described as the “golden age” of television, followed by the streaming boom – and the canon of “best” TV has been rewritten almost entirely.

But while many TV shows deserve every bit of the acclaim and popularity they amass… what about the ones that don’t?

The Independent has compiled a list of the 20 most overrated TV shows of all time, from critical darlings such as The Bear, to pop culture phenomena like The Office.

In order to narrow down the scope of this piece, we have mainly taken into account fiction series, not reality TV, with one exception.

It should also be acknowledged that this list skews more towards modern TV: regardless of whether or not, say, The Dick Van Dyke Show was overrated in its day, a series like that is watched or talked about by so few people today that such an inclusion on this list would be moot.

Anyway, with that said, here are The Independent’s picks for the 20 most overrated TV series.

20. Dexter

None of the antihero-led shows that graced our screens throughout the 2010s came more murderous than Dexter, but they didn’t come as corny, either. Like Michael C Hall’s wry serial-killing lead character – murderer by night, forensic blood spatter analyst by day – the drama feels like a wolf in sheep’s clothing: for something that rarely held back on the gore, it often lacked bite, and its quality plummeted after a staggeringly good fourth season starring John Lithgow as the terrifying Trinity Killer. A pair of watchable yet spineless reboots have tried to resurrect the show’s legacy after an all-timer of a rubbish finale, but they’ve instead cemented Dexter’s status as a show that was unworthy of the prestige label it was once adorned with. Jacob Stolworthy

19. Black Mirror

Charlie Brooker’s sprawling dystopian drama is one of the most hit-and-miss anthologies on TV. For every beautiful, mind-bending showstopper like “The Entire History of You” or “Be Right Back”, there’s a strange dud like “Arkangel” or “Striking Vipers”. Black Mirror’s short-lived Channel 4 era was certainly its strongest, but since it moved to Netflix for season three and beyond in 2016, it’s utterly lost its bite. Yet the hype that precedes every new run is enormous, and the mystery they are enshrouded in exasperating. The premises continue to be inspired, but the execution often doesn’t match up. Ellie Harrison

18. Modern Family

On paper, it’s no wonder that Modern Family was such a hit with critics and audiences – this was a fresh, quintessentially Obama-era sitcom, with real comic pedigree behind the scenes (in the form of its co-creator, Frasier’s Christopher Lloyd), and a winning cast that included Ty Burrell, Julie Bowen, and Ed O’Neill. But the praise, and awards, lavished upon it over the course of its marathon 11-season run – including five Emmy wins for Outstanding Comedy Series – were excessive. What zip and charm it had in its early seasons had dissipated completely after a few years, and what was left was a fusty, family-sized slog. Louis Chilton

17. Only Fools and Horses

There are many reasons that Only Fools belongs in our collective British cultural memory: châteauneuf-du-pape sales; the ability to refer to oneself as a Del Boy; putting Peckham on the map. But the aggressively beloved show – why, why is there an Only Fools and Horses West End musical? – relied on catchphrases and overplayed misunderstandings for series upon series, for Christmas special upon Christmas special. It leans toward the clumsy and predictable, which, along with the fact that it overlooked Peckham’s large Black and ethnically diverse population, means it doesn’t hold up with audiences under the age of 45 and is slowly fading from memory. Ultimately, I think, we remember the larger-than-life characters, not the show. Let’s face it – Only Fools was lovely jubbly but not quite creme de la menthe. Hannah Ewens

16. After Life

Ricky Gervais as a misanthropic, middle-aged widow is a promising premise. After all, this is the man who gave us one of TV’s best comedy characters ever. But unfortunately, Tony is no David Brent. He doesn’t even come close to that greatness – and nor does After Life, which yanks at your heartstrings incessantly like a child crying for attention. The show isn’t terrible (there is a superb ensemble cast and Gervais still knows his way around a dry, withering quip) but it’s not the pitch-black comedy that it aims to be – that many people believed it to be. Monologues about grief reach for the profound, but are trite and predictable; you get more pathos in five minutes of The Office. Annabel Nugent

15. Clarkson’s Farm

Seldom have low expectations ever buoyed a series quite like Clarkson’s Farm, the Prime Video documentary that follows human foghorn Jeremy Clarkson, and his attempts to establish and operate his own farm in Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. If you read the reviews, you’d think that Clarkson’s Farm was some kind of Frederick Wiseman-esque triumph of documentarian humanism; the reality is that this is pat, unedifying television, seeking to sanitise and rehabilitate its subject under the guise of light infotainment. From the bafflingly effusive reviews, it seems to have succeeded. LC

14. The Bear

When this pressure-cooker kitchen drama set in a Chicago sandwich shop first sizzled onto screens in 2022, critics’ mouths watered so much you could practically feel the drool dripping from the page. The Bear was hailed as a masterpiece. Its attention to detail in depicting the world of chefs was second to none. And yes, it’s had its moments – “Forks”, “Fishes” and “Ice Chips” are magnificent episodes. But a lot of the rest of the time – and especially in its latest season – it’s just plain pretentious (who needs an entire episode dedicated to close-up shots of haute cuisine?) and shouty (“Cousinnnnnn!!!” and “Yes chef!” are still ringing in my ears). This special show serves up some inventive and delicious ingredients for sure, but it doesn’t deserve a Michelin star. EH

13. The Twilight Zone

If you wade through all 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone, a disconcerting fact, likely to get you strung up by TV die-hards, becomes clear: the anthology series is deemed one of the greatest TV shows of all time squarely due to what it represents historically. The Twilight Zone altered the trajectory of science-fiction storytelling, with its anthology format and gut-punch reversals. But the fact remains that, aside from 20 stone-cold classic episodes, the lion’s share of The Twilight Zone is – whisper it – merely passable. JS

12. Stranger Things

Stranger Things was on nobody’s radar when it crept onto Netflix in July 2016 (beyond the most fervent Winona Ryder fan). That its wonderfully low-key debut season became a sleeper hit is no surprise – but Netflix quickly reduced it to an emblem of everything wrong with the age of streaming. The seasons that followed were a repetitive pastiche of 1980s fantasy, with an increase in budget to blame for every episode ending with a monster roaring at the screen. Its crowded storytelling approach also makes it impossible to differentiate between any episode, as viewers can with most HBO shows – no doubt a consequence of having to dance to a streaming model’s tune. Stranger Things will be forgotten soon after its final season. JS

11. Firefly

Firefly didn’t enjoy the smoothest launch – I’m not even sure it made it out of the atmosphere. The sci-fi-western brainchild of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Joss Whedon failed to find an audience when it first debuted, and was cancelled with three first-season episodes entirely unaired. Following the adventures of a rag-tag group of spacefarers in the aftermath of an intergalactic war, the series went on to cultivate a perfervid fanbase, and is now widely described as a cult classic, often cited among the most unjustly cancelled series of all time. It’s all a bit much: Whedon’s series had its charms, but also plenty of issues, and some strange secessionist subtext makes the whole premise a little questionable to boot. LC

10. Blackadder

That the show’s co-writer Ben Elton is reportedly considering a Blackadder remake should have us crying out for an end to revival culture. Sure, it’s amusing, satirical and – despite some off-colour gags that would never see the light of day now – has mostly stood the test of time. But really, it should never have been commissioned beyond its weak first season. Rowan Atkinson’s sarcastic buffoon of a character remains unchanged across different historical contexts. His antics are predictable as the show progresses, and the lack of character development can feel tiresome. There’s a solid argument to be made that Blackadder emboldened the alienating and slapstick tedium of British comedy, that Blackadder is the middle point in a throughline that begins with the weird and deeply inconsistent Monty Python and ends with the national disgrace that is Mrs Brown’s Boys. HE

9. Downton Abbey

Across six seasons, Downton Abbey was showered with adulation far, far beyond its station. With the help of the late, great Maggie Smith, whose star power translated seamlessly across the Atlantic, creator Julian Fellowes had us all fooled – but now, with hindsight, the frothy, frivolous truth is impossible to ignore: Downton Abbey was a soap opera hiding in prestige TV clothing. The storylines (not least among them Anna and Bates’s multiple murder investigations) are not only repetitive but derivative – the sort of thing you’d find in Corrie or EastEnders. This isn’t to disparage either of those shows, not at all, but to do away with any pretence still protecting Downton Abbey. It’s just a soapy soap with posh accents and pretty architecture. AN

8. Monty Python’s Flying Circus

The ongoing reverence for Monty Python is baffling. Certainly there is respect due to the landmark sketch series for its influence over generations of comedians to come. And of course, there were rib-tickling moments of comedic genius (“Dead Parrot”, for one) but these were fewer and further between than you might recall, often flanked by puerile, self-satisfied nonsense. It’s easy to venerate a relic of a bygone era, but you only have to look at Morecambe and Wise’s reaction to the show for the harsh truth: “University comedy…” AN

7. Sherlock

Stand back, everyone. Don’t make a sound. Don’t even breathe. Because Benedict Cumberbatch’s genius detective Sherlock Holmes is about to enter his mind palace, and we don’t want to interrupt a master at work. Oof. This whole schtick got very boring and groan-worthy very quickly. Critics and fans fell over themselves piling the praise on Cumberbatch, but the show was at its best when Andrew Scott’s Moriarty was on screen. Before there was a hot priest, there was a hot baddie, after all. EH

6. Line of Duty

The jewel in the BBC’s crime drama crown, which ran from 2012 to 2021, was all about bent coppers, bad waistcoats and baffling acronyms. It was proper appointment TV, with millions of us waiting on the edge of our seats for the next week’s episode, just to find out the latest developments in anti-corruption unit AC-12. And some fantastic actors passed through the police station’s hallways, from Anna Maxwell Martin to Lennie James and Stephen Graham. But unfortunately, and crucially, the plot didn’t make any sense, storylines were extremely repetitive, the twists were contrived, and the ending was one of the biggest damp squibs in the history of TV. EH

5. Breaking Bad

Its flawless pilot is studied to death in screenwriting classrooms. The characters have psychological depth, and Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul’s onscreen chemistry as unlikely comrades is undeniable. Breaking Bad, in other words, is a great show. But people discuss it as if it sincerely belongs among the greatest fictional franchises of all time, across any format. The veneration of it is enormously excessive. I’d argue its spin-off Better Call Saul is much stronger, with better plot, characterisation, and visual verve – a rare case in which a TV offshoot excels beyond its source material. This might be one of the more provocative entries on this list given how exceptionally broad the appeal of Breaking Bad continues to be, but to quote Mr White: “I am the one who knocks.” HE

4. The Office (US)

In taking Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s nasty, misanthropic cringe-com and transforming it into something more generic and benign, showrunner Greg Daniels created a behemoth. The Office (US) would run for 201 episodes, winning heaps of critical acclaim along the way – but was it really that good? In the cold light of day, the series is simply too inconsistent to stand up against its best sitcom contemporaries, while its genial brand of exaggerated workplace comedy was refined – to much better effect – in seasons two through four of its superior successor Parks and Recreation. LC

3. Friends

It’s less striking to proclaim Friends overrated with every passing year; its enduring success makes it an easy target for detractors to zone in on. However, it’s not an unfair claim and the passage of time hasn’t been too pally to the biggest sitcom of all time. There’s the well-documented and hard-to-ignore lack of representation (which even co-creator Marta Kauffman admitted to finding “embarrassing”) but repeat viewings of Friends highlight its status as a sitcom strangely lost in time for a whole bunch of other reasons. Yes, Matthew Perry’s performance as Chandler was often a deadpan masterclass, but the show’s most remembered moments feel hilarious because it’s been drilled into us to find them so. Take away, for instance, the familiarity of David Schwimmer screaming “pivot” or Lisa Kudrow belting out “Smelly Cat” and ask yourself: is it really that funny? JS

2. Game of Thrones

The question of Game of Thrones is a complicated one – its memory forever tarnished by a final season so heinous it threatens to undo the show’s shiny legacy as a whole. But with some distance, and at least two failed attempts at a rewatch, I’ve arrived at a different question: was season eight so bad that actually it made the others seem better just by comparison? No one is denying that Game of Thrones was entertaining (it featured some of the most memorable TV deaths in recent memory) but for the most part, I’d argue we were dumbfounded into applause by the sheer novelty of the show. Dubious dialogue and hammy acting get a free pass when you’re distracted by “dragons and t**s” (to quote Ian McShane). Was it good TV? Definitely. Was it as good as everyone remembers? Definitely not. AN

1. Gavin and Stacey

What Gavin and Stacy does excellently is indulge audiences with laughs that span the realms of family, friends and romantic relationships, a warm generosity which is woefully rare in sitcoms. It’s sweet without being saccharine. I feel fondly for the characters in this show. (And thank God for James Corden’s single redeeming cultural contribution.) But Gavin and Stacy is overrated. It’s considered one of the greatest British comedies of all time without being anywhere near as smart or funny a sitcom as Ab Fab or Peep Show. It’s a safe show to smile along with, rather than laugh at. Every time I’ve watched an episode I’ve been reminded of the fact that we don’t see enough Welsh characters onscreen – and I think the unfortunate novelty of that is a major factor in why it’s so adored. HE