We’re living in a second Golden Age of television. It’s been said ad nauseum because, well, it’s true. Television right now is the best it’s ever been, and with so much content to sift through there’s almost too much great TV. But just because television is going through a stellar stage doesn’t mean what came before is bad. In fact, some of the television of the 90s served as direct precedents to the groundbreaking era we’re living in now. Sitcoms enjoyed a peak run, dramatic storytelling was working within very specific parameters but churning out engaging, unforgettable arcs, and most importantly, it was the era of the episode.

Throughout the 90s, the episode was king. This current wave of binge-able television and the serialized short-story approach weren’t yet popular. Instead, without the benefit of DVRs or TiVO, television shows lived and died by week to week viewing. As a result, we got some truly outstanding standalone hours and half hours of television. There’s a reason titles for episodes of Friends began with “The One with…”

And so, given the importance and quality of 90s TV, and the fact that it gets a bit swept under the rug in this current second Golden Age, we here at Collider felt it prudent to take a look back at the best of the best. We’ve previously singled out the best animated television that the 90s had to offer, so now we present the best live-action TV shows of the 90s.

Note: In terms of eligibility, a show had to have aired at least one entire season between 1990 and 1999, thus series like The West Wing and The Sopranos—which began in Fall 1999—were deemed ineligible for this list despite their supremely high quality.

ER (1994–2008)

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You can’t talk about 90s dramatic television without mentioning ER. With 15 seasons, it has the distinction of being one of the longest running shows in the history of television, and it’s a miracle the show was able to keep up its breakneck pace for over a decade. The show was hotly anticipated upon its launch, as it came from the author of Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton, and boasted Steven Spielberg as one of the executive producers, who famously suggested one change to the pilot: don’t kill off Julianna Marguiles’ character Carol Hathaway in the first episode.

The series tackled issues as wide-ranging as drug abuse, abortion, euthanasia, child abuse, and even workplace murders. Through it all, the focus was always on the characters. Seriously, go back and watch at least the first five seasons—that right there is some tremendous character-driven storytelling. And in a day and age where drama series normally consist of 13 or less episodes, the fact that showrunner John Wells and his team were churning out 22 episodes a season without forsaking quality seems like a minor miracle in hindsight. While the show certainly declined a bit in the later years, especially after Anthony Edwards’ Dr. Green departed the series, it remained a consistently solid place for engaging storytelling. And oh yeah, it launched the career of George Clooney. – Adam Chitwood

Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000)

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Image via NBC

It’s fitting that co-creators Paul Feig and Judd Apatow and stars James Franco, Seth Rogen and Jason Segel went on to define college-aged comedy at the cinemas for the decade after Freaks and Geeks was sent to permanent detention—because Geeks received the most fervent save-this-show! petitions of the early Internet age. Young fans and critics alike tried to use message boards, emails, and snail mail to save this touching little gem that chronicled a year in a recognizable Michigan high school from the vantage points of the burnouts and the school project nerds. Dissatisfied fans were waiting for what the creative team would do next. And they delivered. But Geeks is so much more than a yearbook for the creators of modern bromance cinema, siblings Linda Cardellini and John Francis Daley don’t get enough credit for creating two of the most identifiable and timeless adolescents ever on television. They’re both studious, but pulled in different directions due to hormones and a desire to not be defined by their grades from both their classmates and their parents (the tender and stern duo of Becky Ann Baker and Joe Flaherty). Set in the 1980s, Freaks and Geeks remains one of the truest time capsules but the characters and their what-happens-after-high-school concerns are timeless. — Brian Formo

Seinfeld (1989–1998)

Seinfeld is one of the greatest TV shows of all time. Full-stop. Along with Friends, it stands as the iconic sitcom of the 90s, but it wasn’t just a success in the realm of comedy—it was a success in the television medium as a whole. The central conceit of Seinfeld is to follow the lives of four individuals, but there are two main twists. 1. Their lives will be as normal and uneventful (in the television sense) as possible. And 2. These will not be great people. It turns out it’s a match made in heaven. 

Contrary to what many may say, Seinfeld isn’t a show about nothing. It’s a show about what happens when you do and say the things you’re not supposed to do and say. Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer are constantly going against the grain of social norms, which serves as both the basis and the premise of the comedy that ensues. It’s a brilliantly simple twist on the sitcom format, and it allowed four incredible performers to shine week after week. And while the stories got a little too outlandish following Larry David’s exit, the series remained watchable due to the chemistry and charisma of Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Michael Richards.

Episodes like “The Contest” and “The Chinese Restaurant” are classics not because of some crazy plot development or thrilling twist—they stand out because the dialogue-driven narrative unfurls in an unforgettable manner, and because these performers land beat after beat with impeccable comedic timing. Television has changed dramatically since Seinfeld left the airwaves, but this show will never not be funny, relatable, and just a smidge despicable. — Adam Chitwood

Homicide: Life on the Streets (1993-1999)

Homicide: Life on the Streets is so often given footnote status that many viewers have allowed it to rest on its laurels rather than re-visit the show. Yes, it brought David Simon's investigative work to the screen, which eventually brought us one of the absolute best television programs ever, The Wire. And yes, it introduced us to Richard Belzer's Detective Munch, who would reprise this role on everything from The Wire to Law & Order, Arrested Development, The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The X-Files to Luther (mentioned across the pond to Idris Elba’s UK detective, his name carries so much detective lore), Belzer will probably even appear in character for private parties. But it's important to never forget that Homicide is the greatest network television procedural of all time. This distinction isn’t due just to the grit of the Baltimore streets, nor the grit and human incompleteness of the detectives (in addition to Belzer, Andre Braugher, Yaphet Kotto and Clark Johnson do phenomenal work), but because Homicide—while still mostly keeping to the one case per episode framework that network TV has standardized for procedurals—never lets anything get tidy.

Homicide doesn't pull third act twists, it rarely ever has a last minute confession, and the motives for both killer and cop are always presented not as the type of stuff that's "ripped from the headlines" but instead exists on the back page: the routine homicidal trauma within a city's DNA due to budget restraints and bad city planning. And these are the cops who catch the criminals after all safety nets have been gutted by the city. Nothing is neat and tidy because that would be a disservice to the citywide mess that Homicide acknowledges and that Simon would give greater exploration in The Wire, when he was set free of the procedural framework. Before Simon was able to that, though, he was involved with the best representation of a popular template.  ~ Brian Formo

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)

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Image via 20th Century Fox

Before he became the mastermind behind one of the biggest mega-blockbusters of all time, Joss Whedon had a knack for turning out beloved cult TV series, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer was his first, most successful, and one of his best. The first few seasons were also quintessentially 90s, with all the spaghetti straps, overalls, and babydoll dresses you could want.

Based off his 1992 movie of the same name – though definitively superior and different in tone -- Buffy the Vampire Slayer follows the title hero as she slays her way through vampires, monsters, demons, lovesick AI, and all the varied creature creations that crawl out of the Hellmouth. In the meantime, she's also dealing with the drama of day-to-day life, and given that the show ran for seven seasons, we get to follow her as she matures through a lot of life stages -- from the turmoils of high school and first love, through the awkward college transition to maturity, and ultimately to adulthood. Buffy skillfully ties those two worlds together – the supernatural and the mundane – and like all the best genre storytelling, all the monsters and madmen are metaphors to make life's harsh realities go down a little easier. Always entertaining, endlessly quotable, often laugh-out-loud funny, and occasionally downright devastating, Buffy the Vampire is an icon of genre television. — Haleigh Foutch

In Living Color (1990-1994)

One could simply look at the amount of talent that got their start on In Living Color and you’d have a good sense of just how important this show remains to this day. Say what you will about where the Wayans brothers ended up, slumming it hard in those popular but soulless parody films, they were a force of nature on this wildly inventive sketch series. Kim, Damon, Shawn, and creator Keenen Ivory Wayans all did their best work here, from Damon’s Anton Jackson, the blueprint for Dave Chapelle’s uproarious crack-head sketches, and Homey D. Clown to Keenen’s Arsenio Hall impressions and Shawn’s Ice Poe bits. Then there was Jim Carrey’s Fire Marshal Bill (“Let me show you something!”), Jamie Foxx’s Carl “The Tooth” Williams, David Alan Grier’s Calhoun Tubbs, Chris Rock’s Cheap Pete, Kim Wayans’ takes on Whitney Houston and Grace Jones, and Tommy Davidson’s Sweet Tooth Jones, and the list goes on and on.

This would be the first African-American-fronted sketch series to take grip of the nation and it's arguably remained the best, with the possible exception of Key & Peele. That its reputation remains so sterling is a testament to the show’s creative team but it does make one wonder how more series that openly showcased so many young, brilliant performers haven’t flooded television by now. The answer is obvious, but that doesn’t mean that it’s any easier to swallow when one sees the radical humor that these young men and women unleashed in torrents. — Chris Cabin

The Practice (1997–2004)

One of the most popular genres in the television medium is the legal drama. It’s popular because it lends itself so easily to TV storytelling—you can introduce and wrap up a case within the context of a single episode. But in the echelon of the many, many, many legal dramas that have graced the small screen, David E. Kelley’s The Practice is surely one of the best. Kelley was coming off of creating the quirky hit Picket Fences and the medical series Chicago Hope, but with The Practice he offered up something a bit more gritty, more urban, and as a result widely popular.

The series revolved around a small law firm, with a cast headed up by Dylan McDermott, Lisa Gay Hamilton, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Camryn Manheim, and it went on to score dual Best Drama Series Emmy awards. While it ran out of steam later in its run, those first few seasons were must-see TV—and it’s no wonder, as Kelley’s writer’s room included future House creator David Shore and eventual Oscar-winning Syriana scribe Stephen Gaghan. — Adam Chitwood

Felicity (1998-2002)

Oh where for art thou curls, Felicity?? Though the premise of Felicity was a little stalkerish — girl follows guy to college because she never had the chance to talk to him in high school — what came afterwards was a really great, heartfelt series about navigating one’s college years, making unexpected friends, and discovering who you are. Though Felicity (Keri Russell) cut her hair off and caused a national crisis, and the love triangle that formed with Felicity and Ben (Scott Speedman) and Noel (Scott Foley) had a very, very terrible way of concluding (remember the alt-universe episodes?), Felicity was an engrossing series full of humor and heart in a way that was entertaining, emotional, and often very relatable. — Allison Keene

Twin Peaks (1990–1991)

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Image via ABC

It’s still kind of strange to think that Twin Peaks aired in the early 90s. It feels so much like a show of the 2000s—a heavily serialized plot, auteur-like flourishes, unrestrained weirdness, and a complete lack of interest in what audiences expect and/or want. And yet, David Lynch and Mark Frost pulled off auteur TV before it was even a thing. Twin Peaks still stands today as one of the most wholly unique pieces of storytelling to ever grace the small screen.

The setup was simple enough—the body of a young girl is found in a small town, secrets are exposed, it turns out nobody really knows anybody at all—but Lynch and Frost relish the minutiae of daily life in Twin Peaks, fleshing out their characters with hefty amounts of heart. And, let’s be honest, Twin Peaks is downright weird, but in the most delightful way. The show would act as a cornerstone piece of television for years to come, serving as one of the biggest influences on 2000s classic Lost and innumerable other shows that tried—and failed—to match the right mix of crazy and sweet that made Twin Peaks so great. – Adam Chitwood

Law & Order (1990-2010)

Let’s forget for a moment how many spinoffs and imitators this towering bastion of TV has produced over the years — proving its popularity and also its legacy — and remember just how fantastic the basis of this show really is. Has any procedural nailed the format so perfectly? There’s a reason Law & Order is still in syndication on a number of networks — you can tune in at any time, to any episode, and get sucked in to a story. The “ripped from the headlines” plots also gave the show a platform to deal with some very difficult real-world issues, mostly on the law side, but occasionally regarding the police as well.

Though we never got to know the investigators or attorneys very well, they were all essential to the story being told (if you love Law & Order, you absolutely have your favorite cast lineups). That unforgettable interstitial “chung-chung” will be lodged in our collective minds forever, and though NBC dropped the ball with the series in its final seasons and let it wither on the vine, the original will always be the best. — Allison Keene

Frasier (1993-2004)

Is Frasier the most successful spin-off in this history of television? It’s easy to forget that Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammar) began as a character on Cheers before dominating his own TV franchise. The Seattle setting was novel at the time, and having Frasier be a radio psychiatrist opened the door for an unending parade of jokes. Though it was built on a fairly firm foundation of comedy tropes, the series quickly elevated itself as something special. And while the writing was incredibly sharp, it was really the performances of the main cast (David Hyde Pierce, Peri Gilpin, Jane Leeves, John Mahoney and that amazing terror Moose as Eddie) that sold Frasier as a comedy classic, and one that was a rare successful combination of high and low brow humor. — Allison Keene

Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001)

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Image via Universal

Xena: Warrior Princess is a rollicking, ridiculous B-Movie transformed into an engaging quest for redemption for the titular warlord turned hero, and there's a good reason it's become an enduring cult series. Packed with all the over-the-top action, slapstick comedy, and scenery chewing you'd expect from a midnight movie, Xena holds up surprisingly well, thanks in no small part to creator Rob Tapert of Evil Dead fame, whose Renaissance Pictures (founded alongside none other than Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell) backed the series along with its sibling show, Hercules. With the strength of that behind-the-scenes creative support and a star-making lead performance from the ever-fabulous Lucy LawlessXena was able to back up a rich mythology and sometimes rather dark narrative with impressive production value and consistency.

Xena also holds a special place in this writer's heart as a pioneering piece of queer and feminist television, with lesbian subtext so thinly veiled it was basically just text. Casually groundbreaking and always entertaining, Xena is a funny, sexy, campy romp that regularly surprises with moments of resonant drama and moral teachings. — Haleigh Foutch

Sports Night (1998–2000)

While Aaron Sorkin would go on to create his magnum opus in the drama realm, he got his big break in the world of television with the short-lived sitcom Sports Night. The show was a struggle for Sorkin from the start, as his distinct voice was not a natural fit for the beats of sitcom TV, but he quickly found his footing and turned this backstage look at a SportsCenter-esque sports news show into must-see television. Classic Sorkin tropes abound like the unspoken office romance, the nerd who’s good with words, and soaring speeches that no one could ever possibly spout off the top of their head. And that’s what makes Sports Night great. There’s a love for these characters that shines through, and while Sorkin fought with ABC to get rid of the obnoxious laugh track (something on which he was way ahead of the curve), his memorable characters and romantic dialogue shined through.

The show unfortunately struggled in the ratings from the get-go, and as Sorkin’s second series The West Wing got off the ground during Sports Night’s second season, he found himself stretched a tad too thin. While the show ended sooner than it deserved to, the work of Felicity Huffman, Josh Charles, and Peter Krause still holds up today. – Adam Chitwood

Quantum Leap (1989-1993)

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I’m a sucker for sci-fi series, especially ones with a good hook that frees up the writers to get more and more creative over the years. For those of you who haven’t seen this one, it follows the adventures of physicist Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) as he travels through time thanks a science experiment gone wrong, leaping into other people’s bodies with the aim of righting history’s wrongs. While continuing to leap until he can find his way back to his own time, he’s guided on his journey by Al (Dean Stockwell), a cigar-smoking hologram who uses an often-malfunctioning device to communicate with an artificial intelligence named Ziggy.

The focus of Quantum Leap wasn’t science so much as history. Sam doesn’t solve complex spacetime equations in order to get out of a jam, he alters a contemporary event in order to make a meaningful change in the life of the body he temporarily inhabits. If it sounds silly, it was, a little bit. But once you get over the gee-whiz aspect of the series and let yourself get drawn in by the story and carried along with the characters, you’ll find it to be an engrossing show that has you watching just one more and saying, “Oh boy!” – Dave Trumbore

Married…with Children (1987-1997)

There’s something quietly radical about this, arguably the most influential sitcom of the 1990s. It’s not just that the show is funnier, beat for beat, than 90% of sitcoms that came out in that decade, losing out only to the halcyon-days NBC lineup. In the trials and travails of Al and Peg Bundy, played by TV royalty Ed O’Neil and Katey Sagal, we see a darkly humorous portrait of families bound to low-income life, and we see the endless disappointment and simple joys that come with that. Their relationship with their well-off neighbors, Amanda Bearse’s Marcy and David Garrison’s Steve – until a divorce brought in Ted McGinley’s Jefferson – pits high-class wants against low-class needs, but there’s something else afoot. The Bundys are a horrific but unbound reflection of their wealthy neighbors, people freed from societal opinions and the idea of estimable behavior.

In other words, they are a vision of Marcy, Steve, and Jefferson liberated from false acts of civility, manners, and politeness. The show is inarguably tainted by a noxious strain of misogyny, which would spawn such unholy monsters as Two and a Half Men, but the chauvinistic baby should not be thrown out of the bath water. This consistently hilarious series brought O’Neil, Sagal, and the great Christina Applegate, as the eldest spawn of the Bundys, into the fold and they haven’t left, going on to anchor other great shows – most notably, Modern Family and Up All Night. Dated as it may be, Married…with Children’s jokes still play well, for the most part, and that’s something that a limited amount of TV series can say. — Chris Cabin

The Real World (1992–Present)

The Real World was way, way ahead of its time. While the Reality TV boom really took off in the early 2000s with the rise of Survivor and American Idol, MTV had already been doing this for nearly a decade. The premise is simple: put a group of young, twentysomething strangers in a house, turn a camera on, see what happens (when life stops being polite, and starts getting real). While the series has since become incredibly over-produced, chasing the current scripted era of Reality TV, early seasons resulted in some truly fantastic television. In grouping these strangers together, the series forced the castmembers—and the audience—to confront issues ranging from racism to sexism to homophobia. And wouldn’t you know it, when folks with prejudices finally got to really know people of another race, gender, or sexuality, they discovered that deep down we’re all just people struggling to make our way through this thing we call life.

Of course the show was also notorious for tantrums, trysts, and bed-hopping, but there were also genuine moments of groundbreaking television, such as Season 3’s Pedro Zamora, who put a face to the growing AIDS epidemic. So yeah, it’s a silly reality show on MTV, but more often than not throughout the 90s, The Real World was great television. – Adam Chitwood

Friends (1994–2004)

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Image via Warner Bros.

In the 90s, the sitcom was a huge genre, and nothing was bigger than Friends. Along with Seinfeld, another very different kind of sitcom, these two series hit upon cultural touchstones in a way few other sitcoms of the decade did, melding relevance with memorable characters and, of course, swell jokes. There’s a reason Friends and Seinfeld are the two 90s sitcoms with the most longevity.

As the title suggests, Friends focused on, well, a group of friends. This went against the normal sitcom formula that demanded you have a strong nuclear family unit, with a crazy aunt or uncle to spice things up. Friends, meanwhile, catered specifically to twentysomethings trying to make it on their own, and whose closest family was in fact their friends. It’s this twist on the nuclear unit that gave Friends an edge, but the show wouldn’t have been near as successful without stellar casting and consistently strong writing. There’s not a weak link in the ensemble, and while it took a few episodes to really find each character, the dynamics resulted in a pitch-perfect mix for unforgettable comedy.

But Friends was never only about the jokes. Creators Marta Kauffman and David Crane always maintained a strong emotional center to the series. These were people that, despite kooky antics every once in a while, genuinely loved one another. That emotional pull made the show worth watching week after week, rewarding viewers with stellar arcs like Ross and Rachel’s initial relationship, marriage, and divorce, Monica and Chandler’s surprisingly perfect pairing, and even a baby storyline, which is usually the death knell for sitcoms. Of course there were a few not-so-great arcs as well (Joey and Rachel? Really?), but on the whole, Friends continues to be an immensely satisfying watch with great characters, great humor, and great heart. – Adam Chitwood

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993 - 1999)

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Image via CBS

You have to give Star Trek: Deep Space Nine a little time to find its footing.  For its first couple of seasons, it looks like it’s working from leftover Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation scripts, and it hasn’t really figured out a way to tell a space story from the perspective of people who work on a stationary space station.  But once season three begins and they introduce the Dominion, all bets are off.  Over the course of the next four seasons, DS9 becomes not just great Star Trek, but great television period.  It’s also the first Trek show to deal with long story arcs.  While The Original Series and The Next Generation would have recurring characters and obstacles, DS9 goes full bore into a war, and it’s fascinating to see how these characters cope in the face of battle.  It’s absolutely riveting drama, and it builds to a highly satisfying conclusion.  Deep Space Nine is a must-see show whether you’re a Star Trek fan or not. — Matt Goldberg

Sex and the City (1998-2004)

After two shallow, somewhat disastrous movies, HBO’s outstanding comedy Sex and the City has largely been remembered for its mistakes more than its triumphs. What started off as a series about 4 professional women (Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon) in their 30s navigating the uncertain waters of dating (at a time when most others are married), the whip-smart show eventually devolved into shoe porn and an obsession with the trappings of wealth. When it first aired, though, its frank discussions of love, dating, relationships, and sex were revolutionary. But it’s also a series that hasn’t held up in some ways, because it was so closely tied with the fashion, cultural references, technology, and prosperity of the late 90s into the early 2000s. At its heart, the show was an honest, emotional, but also funny and irreverent look at the perils of dating. I couldn’t help but wonder …  — Allison Keene

The Wonder Years (1988-1993)

Surely series creators Neal Marlens and Carol Black had no idea that The Wonder Years would be as well received as it was as quickly as it was. It won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series, a nomination for Fred Savage as Outstanding Lead Actor for a Comedy Series, and a Peabody Award for its innovative storytelling. Those innovations included a narrator-driven storytelling style, done by an older Kevin Arnold (Daniel Stern) that introduced episodes centering on his childhood years in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This reminiscent style and accompanying 60s/70s production design gave The Wonder Years a strong sense of nostalgia and setting, even for those of us who hadn’t lived through the era.

It’s a testament to the lasting nature of the stories in The Wonder Years that any and all generations could relate to them. As a kid growing up in the 80s and 90s, you could watch Kevin and his nerdy pal Paul Pfeiffer (Josh Saviano) struggle through adolescence, witness Kevin and Winnie’s (Danica McKellar) burgeoning romantic relationship, and see the family deal with the horrors of war; and for better or worse, it all felt familiar. The Wonder Years was that safe place where TV characters could give voice to your naïve questions or air your darkest secrets, and no one else would be the wiser. The show also set the bar for series that would come after it, but none that attempted to cast themselves in the mold of The Wonder Years have come close to matching its brilliance. – Dave Trumbore