The Top Ten Single-Season Drama Series of All Time
Television Heaven is founded on the belief that television can be a legitimate art form, worthy of the same cultural respect as cinema, theatre, and opera. While film theory and history are preserved and promoted by universities, museums, libraries, professional organisations, and scholarly journals—often with public funding—serious reflection on television largely depends on passionate individuals online. This is despite television’s far greater presence in everyday life and its profound impact on public consciousness and culture.
We recognise that the vast majority of television output is low-attention, mass-market distraction with little artistic value. Appreciating television as art is therefore like panning for gold: it requires patience and discernment to sift through vast quantities of mediocrity to find something that truly sparkles. This website gathers those small, glittering fragments together, building from many tiny flakes a substantial store of something precious.
From that collection comes a strictly personal selection from your writer of this article: a “Case for the Defence” if television were ever put on trial as a serious art form and potential force for cultural good. Just as there are books, films, and music that the culturally curious are expected to know, there exists a canon of outstanding television drama. This list focuses solely on drama—traditionally regarded as culturally superior to comedy—though comparable selections could easily be made for comedy, animation, documentary, and children’s programming.
The selection is limited to short series: deliberate one-season dramas, miniseries, or in one case a show cut short after a single truncated season. The intention is to offer a sample rather than demand the major commitment required by long-running series. At the same time, standalone television plays and films are excluded, as they are essentially no different from theatrical plays or cinema films that happen to be broadcast, and would merit a list of their own.
This is about projects that could only really have been made for television. In order of priority, starting at the very top,
1. I, Claudius
If I, Claudius seems stagy to young people these days, that is partly the point. What you are watching is the elite of a pivotal generation in the British theatre, including several future actor-Knights, and future Dame of the British Empire at her most imperious, given an extraordinarily literate script that is theatrical in tone but too long for the stage. It simply does not get better than this and probably never will. Yet it should be noted that The Caesars, ITV's earlier treatment of the same topic, the Julio-Claudian Dynasty in Ancient Rome, would probably be on this list if the BBC had not trumped it with I, Claudius a few years after. Both were products of a definite Golden Age for historical drama, especially in the UK.
Where I, Claudius is essentially a play too long for the theatre, Lonesome Dove is a feature film too long for the cinema. The Hollywood A-List Cast, cinematic photography, and Poledouris score would not be out of place on a big screen, but only the small screen was big enough to accommodate the whole story, an unusually close adaptation of Larry MacMurty's powerful eulogy of the Old West. As it happens, I was just giving this a final edit when the news came through of the passing of its star, Robert Duvall, so it also serves as a fitting tribute to one of the greatest screen actors of all time.
Troy Kennedy Martin's jarring, fever dream thriller could only have worked on television. At the time it felt like something corrosive was seeping out that small box in the corner and filling the whole room. There is still something otherworldly about Bob Peck's edgy performance. If some aspects of the politics now seem dated, the underlying themes, inviting us to question what we think, or are told, is real, seems more relevant than ever.
4. Chernobyl
While there is a lot of truth to the cliche that they do not make them like they once did, Chernobyl is the exception that proves the rule, or at least it shows that television can still produce intelligent, thought provoking human and political drama when it can be bothered. While the plaudits heaped on Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgard, and Emily Watson are all deserved, perhaps the most memorable character is Paul Ritter's Dyatleov, the definitive portrait of a stupid, bullying bureaucrat out of his depth. Just skip the fourth episode if you are an animal lover, trust me.
The fact that the John le Carre novel was also adapted into a first class feature film enables a direct comparison between cinema and television, and on this occasion television wins. This is no disrespect to the film and certainly not to its superb cast: it is simply a triumph of the medium. Television gives the story and the characters more room to breathe. Even by the standards of the day, the television version was slow paced and meticulous, like its leading character. That would not be allowed today, and even then it was a big risk: only the prestige given by the participation of Sir Alec Guinness permitted it to be done properly, but it pays off brilliantly in the sequel, Smiley's People, itself a strong contender for this list in its own right.
6. Firefly
All right, this one is a bit of a cheat because it was not intended as a short series, but Destiny, in the unlikely form of some singularly stupid Fox executives, limited it to a mere 14 episodes. The unintended consequence of this is that the show never had time to get flabby. While some of them are obviously better than others, every one of those 14 episodes contributes something to the whole. It is an accidental masterclass in how to pack maximum story, characterisation, backstory, and "world building" into a very short period of time.
While there is a very strong case to argue that its effective sequel Elizabeth R was the better drama, The Six Wives of Henry VIII deserves a place on this list as the production that really launched that "Golden Age" of British historical drama. Note that it was founded on the principle, now sadly neglected, that it was permissible to go with the most sensationalist interpretation of history so long as one did not go against history. Knowing something is, or might be, true acts to the drama far more than adding falsehoods that seem more exciting as is the fashion today.
This classy production with Ian Holm, Billie Whitelaw, and Catherine Schell is here partly because it is unfairly neglected today but also as a reminder that ITV were once serious rivals to the BBC in producing "Golden Age" historical drama. Serious consideration was also given to Reilly Ace of Spies on the same principle.
9. The Prisoner
Even more surreal than Edge of Darkness, and even more dated in some respects, The Prisoner shares with that dark thriller a number of themes that are if anything even more relevant today, above all the importance of the integrity of the individual human being confronted with a system designed to disorient and devalue him. It seems more important than ever to remember "I am not a number. I am a free man!"
There was considerable heart searching to fill this last place on the list. In addition to the aforementioned Reilly Ace of Spies, Smiley's People, and The Caesars, I feel guilty at leaving out, among others, Muck and Brass, Generation Kill, the original 1990 House of Cards, Shogun, The Barchester Chronicles, Anzacs, Winston Churchill the Wilderness Years, Roots, To Serve Them All My Days, The Queen's Gambit, Moses the Lawgiver, Stalin, the 1994 version of The Stand, Wolf Hall, Danger UXB, To the Ends of the Earth, Mare of Easttown, Captain James Cook, Apparitions,, The Way We Live Now, Masada, The Brontes of Howarth, Peter the Great, Porterhouse Blue, Band of Brothers, Pride and Prejudice, Guyana Tragedy, Drake's Venture, the original 1980 Oppenheimer, The Godfather Saga, Last of the Mohicans, Private Schulz, The Terror, and - an eccentric choice, I know, but I have always felt it deserves a lot more respect - the much maligned BBC version of The Borgias.
To this list might be added The Great, Barbaren (known in English as The Barbarians), and Forbrydelsen (known in English as The Killing) had they stopped after one season as seems to have been the original plan in each case.
In the end I choose The Life and Times of David Lloyd George because it is as worthy a candidate as any, but Welsh patriotism and personal respect for Philip Madoc are the purely subjective additional factors that broke the tie between several equally worthy contenders.
Still, I cannot shake off the feeling that there is some other obvious deserving contender I have forgotten. If you have any ideas what that might be, or have your own Top Ten, I would love to read them in the Comments on the Television Heaven page on Facebook. They will honesty be welcome.
Published on February 18th, 2026. Written by John Winterson Richards for Television Heaven.
