I picked The Honeymooners because, despite the fact it's sixty years old, today's audience can still feel for the characters.  The show is ageless.


Phil

So is "I Love Lucy"

This is tough.

in no particular order:

Fawlty Towers
Game of Thrones
Sons of Anarchy
Big Bang Theory
Red Dwarf
Heroes
Torchwood Season 3
Boon (British show - loved the theme song)
Brush Strokes
Entourage

These are not in order.

The Twilight Zone ('59-'65). What else needs to be said?
Lost. See above.
24. Entirely trashy, but shows that one really good season could make it seem legitimate, if only for a moment.
PlayMakers. Features my favorite series finale of any show on this list.
Breaking Bad. Yeah.
Justified. What other show on TV can consistently start their seasons badly but end with them being so good?
Sons of Anarchy. Right up there with BB as the best show currently on cable.
The X-Files. Had a JFK-like effect of getting people to believe in aliens and government conspiracies. That's some strong writing right there.
Tales from the Crypt. I like to focus on how awesome seasons 1-5 were instead of thinking about how bad 6 and 7 were.
Tiny Toon Adventures. Writing was too good to be limited to a kids cartoon.

Honorable mention:

American Horror Story. Someone just reminded me that I missed it. I'd like to put it in my top 10, but if I forgot it here, how could I possibly?

(Dis)honorable mention:

The Simpsons (through season 9). Could have easily been in the top 5, but not anymore. Too many years of mediocrity and being just plain bad.

Quoted from Grandma Bear So is "I Love Lucy"

Completely agree, Pia. Perfectly timeless and funny to this day.

Nip/Tuck - the first 2 seasons.
Heroes
Office (US version)
Twilight Zone
Tales from the Crypt
Are you Afraid of the Dark
Dexter
An American Horror Story
Breaking Bad
24

This is a really tough question because to me there's good seasons of shows and nothing is really that consistently good throughout its complete run.  I find generally that lots shows have either  an excellent 1st or 3rd season, never both.  If the third season is excellent then usually that will spill over to an excellent 4th season.  The rest of the seasons of the show aren't necessarily bad but they aren't of the same quality as the excellent seasons.  

Examples of excellent 1st season then downhill.

24
Homeland
Ab Fab
Fringe
Carnivale
Dexter
The Walking Dead
Heroes
Torchwood

Unusual example of excellent 2nd season

Mighty Boosh

Examples of excellent 3rd and 4th season.

X-files
Red Dwarf
Buffy

As mentioned there is plenty of excellent classic television that probably follows the same rules in terms of consistency but I'm not as familiar with the seasons.    

There are lots of shows, too numerous to mention, that have good writing so I won't even go into that here.   Plus there are mini-series that blow the roof off the house, but I won't cover them here either.        

I haven't watched any T.V. for the last five or six years or so, but I was an avid watcher very early on.

My favorites as a kid:

Hogan's Heroes
The Odd Couple    (Incorporated both of them into my short 'Fix'.)

Dukes of Hazzard
Mr. Ed
You Can't Do That On Television
Twilight Zone
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Quantum Leap
Joey Bishop


My favorites as a teenager:

Brisco County Jr.
The X-Files
Sledgehammer
NewsRadio

Shows I'll check out very rarely now if I'm bored:

Law & Order: Criminal Intent  (Only the ones with Vincent D'Onofrio)
High Stakes Poker (when I used to have cable)
Burn Notice
Criminal Minds
Any documentary I come across

Forgot about Carnivale - that was brilliant, pity the dough ran out before the third season.

And we used to watch American Gothic in the nineties, that was a top show too.

uk and Irish shows

Fawlty towers
Red dwarf
Only fools and horses
blackadder
father ted
the fast show
doctor who
top gear
the young ones
Harry Enfield
Spitting image


American

early simpsons
south park
family guy
cheers
American horror 1st season
early house
the cosby show
early CSI (with grissom)
The daily show
The colbert show
planet earth
VH1 storytellers
MTV when it was music

Mark

I don't get around to watching TV that often, so I doubt my selection is particularly good.

Among the comedies are the classics:

1)Only Fools and Horses
2)Blackadder
3)MASH

And Dramas:

1) Downton Abbey (I'm so old-fashioned)
2) Criminal Minds
3) Sons of Anarchy
4) The Walking Dead

Dan

So only Shelton and Mark mentioned THE ODD COUPLE? Ah, I can only be friends with them from now on....

Sorry if this sounds arrogant but a discussion of great TV begins with that show. Klugman and Randall took perhaps Neil Simon's best known work and improved upon the characters created by two giants of the industry, Lemmon and Matthau. (Granted, the play had multiple iterations with various pairings before the movie.)

AJR

Gonna throw one in the ring I haven't seen out there yet...

Babylon 5.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105946/

Not only was this show everything ST: DS9 wanted to be...
It introduced me to the concept of the CONTINUING STORY ARC.

The basic universe/character arcs were in place before s single frame was shot.
Twas the first show to feel like watching a sprawling novel unfold for years.

May not be the best show on TV.
But it was one of the first to successfully pull off this kind of storytelling.
And now that style is prevalent on the idiot box.

E.D.

Current and modern stuff I watch:
Boardwalk Empire
Game of Thrones
Dexter
The Mentalist
Homeland

Older stuff from yester year:
American Gothic
X-Files
Carnivale
Band of Brothers

Some British stuff:
Top Gear
Jonathan Creek
Only Fools and Horses
Father Ted
The IT Crowd
Spaced
The Office
Black Books
Auf Wiedersehen Pet
Green Wing
Blackadder
The Young Ones
Bottom
The Comic Strip

damn I could go on all day....

For me:

Golden Age Classics-
I Love Lucy
The Twilight Zone
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle
Star Trek

70s Classics that hold up well-
Laverne and Shirley
MASH
Mary Tyler Moore
The Carol Burnett Show
Taxi

Modern Classics-
The West Wing
Seinfeld
Cheers
Family Ties
LOST
Friends
The X-Files
The Wonder Years
Coach
(special recognition for) Sunday Night SportsCenter with Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick, 1992-1997

Currently running, likely classics
Big Bang Theory
The Simpsons

Likely Classics but I haven’t watched the DVDs yet:
Friday Night Lights
24
Homeland
The Newsroom
Battlestar Galactica (modern version)

Cancelled too soon:
SportsNight
Don’t Trust the B----
The Gary Shandling Show (on Fox)
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
Freaks and Geeks

I don't watch much TV but in the age of downloading I'm starting to watch complete series (old and new) in a short time period, just the way I like it.

In no particular order:

The Office (UK version)
Curb Your Enthusiasm
Father Ted
Extras
Fawlty Towers
Twin Peaks
Seinfeld
The Sopranos
Screenwipe
I'm Alan Partridge


The Wire, Breaking Bad and Deadwood are on the "to watch" list