The best TV series of all time and what each one teaches

Making a list of the best TV series of all time guarantees an argument. This one does not claim to be definitive: it gathers titles that changed how stories are told on television and explains what each contributed.

The Sopranos

It installed the morally ambiguous lead and proved audiences can follow someone without approving of them. Before it, television needed heroes.

The Wire

It changed the scale: each season portrays a different institution in the same city. It is the best lesson in how an ensemble story can explain a system without delivering a lecture.

Breaking Bad

A character transformation carried through to the end, without shortcuts. It also raised the visual standard: framing, colour and shots from inside objects that everyone later copied.

Chernobyl

It proved a five-episode miniseries can hit harder than ten seasons. Its art and sound work turn the invisible — radiation — into something you feel.

Planet Earth

It redefined the nature documentary. Its lesson for any producer is patience: months of waiting for seconds of irreplaceable footage.

Fleabag

It revived talking to camera and made it a narrative tool rather than a gimmick. It shows that breaking a rule works when there is a dramatic reason for it.

Money Heist

Whatever your taste, it changed the idea of how far a non-English-language production can reach. For the Spanish-language industry it marked a before and after.

What producers take from this

• Character weighs more than plot: we remember who, not what.
• The right length is the one the story asks for, not the one the format asks for.
• Sound design does half the emotional work and usually gets a tenth of the budget.
• Visual coherence sustained over hours builds a brand exactly as advertising does.

That last idea transfers most directly to corporate video: what makes a series recognisable — a palette, a type of framing, a rhythm — is exactly what can make a company recognisable.