Vibe Vibe
  • News
    • Entertainment
    • National
    • Sports
    • Events
    • Movies & TV
  • Music
    • Videos
    • New Releases
    • Live Reviews
    • Album Reviews
    • Music Premieres
  • Features
    • Digital Covers
    • Opinion
    • Lists
  • Style
    • Fashion
    • Lifestyle
  • Vixen
  • Viva

Follow Vibe

The Vibe Mix Newsletter

All things VIBE. Daily - Straight to your inbox.
By subscribing, I agree to the
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
All things VIBE. You have signed up and will start receiving the Vibe Mix Newsletter immediately.
News Entertainment National Sports Events Movies & TV

The 20 Smartest TV Shows Since '93

May 8, 2013 - 3:05 pm by Miles Marshall Lewis

For VIBE's Big List Issue, we round up the 20 programs that served the most quality brain cuisine since 1993.

Reality foolery may give TV a bad rep. But it’s not all a dumbed-down dump yard. For every serving of junk food, there’s a bowl of Caesar salad in the form of programming like The Wire, Chappelle’s Show and Breaking Bad—shows that have turned average fans into drooling addicts. What exactly makes for smart TV?

Literary references, stellar penmanship and movielike character development are staples, for sure. But the formula for brainy television can be distilled into one simple element: presuming viewers’ intelligence. Mad Men rarely spells out the timeframe of events raging in the background (it’s the ’60s, Einstein), but that subtext is always as vital to the show as Don Draper’s afterhours highball. And if The Colbert Report’s writers didn’t presume a certain amount of sophistication beaming from sofas, loads of irony would glide like drones over people’s heads.

Ultimately, it’s what viewers bring to the table—a craving for meatier content—that makes clever shows work. Remember that next time a TV-less hipster tries to judge your couch potato tendencies. Click through for VIBE's ranking of the top 20 smartest TV shows since 1993.

(ED NOTE: The TV shows chosen are those whose popularity peaked during the VIBE era, between 1993-2013, not the year the show premiered.)

1
21

2
21

3
21

4
21

5
21

6
21

7
21

8
21

9
21

10
21

11
21

12
21

13
21

14
21

15
21

16
21

17
21

18
21

19
21

20
21

21
21

In This Story:
  • Big List Issue,
  • Movies & TV,
  • v20
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • EMAIL ME
6
View the next gallery
V Playlist: Game, B5, Theophilus London, Chrisette Michele, Chance The Rapper

The Vibe Mix Newsletter

All things VIBE. Daily - Straight to your inbox.
By subscribing, I agree to the
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
All things VIBE. You have signed up and will start receiving the Vibe Mix Newsletter immediately.

Top Stories

Movies & TV

15h ago

Brandy Announces 'Moesha' Reboot At Cast Reunion

Entertainment

21h ago

Ashanti Joins Omarion's Millennium Tour

Music

23h ago

A Ranking Of The Game's Albums

  • News
  • Music
  • Features
  • Style
  • Vixen
  • Viva
  • Contact Us

Vibe.com is an affiliate site of Billboard, a subsidiary of Prometheus Global Media, LLC.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Ad Choices
  • Copyright
  • Billboard
  • The Hollywood Reporter
  • SPIN
  • VIBE
  • Stereogum