Attracting nearly 10 million viewers, House of the Dragon immediately became HBO’s most-watched premiere of all time last month, and it’s no surprise the show has been everywhere lately. While it vastly surpassed the premiere of Game of Thrones, it’s fair to say that the show is riding on the success of that series, so it remains to be seen if it can become a cultural phenomenon in the same way.
Game of Thrones, however, is not the only series to have dominated the world in its heyday. From reality shows like Survivor and game shows like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire to sitcoms like Friends and dramas like Breaking Bad, all sorts of shows have ended up becoming staples at the height of their popularity. These are Redditors’ picks of the shows that have dominated the world.
10 Survivor (since 2000)
While it continues to attract a large following with its inherently entertaining concept of throwing a group of strangers into a remote location and asking them to complete challenges to survive, nothing will compare to the early seasons of Survivor. Audiences new to the formula and the incredible amount of drama and emotion the show could produce couldn’t help but discuss the show.
Redditor OrangeTree81 was one user who experienced the popularity of those early seasons firsthand, and they added that “the contestants from the early seasons were household names.” Survivor has created icons of its contestants in a way that few other reality shows have ever managed to achieve.
9 Dallas (1978-1991)
The 2012 reboot of Dallas had an impossible task trying to live up to the legacy of a soap opera that once captured the imagination of an entire nation with the tagline “Who Shot JR” in 1980. Being partly because of the less successful reboot, Redditor MickSturbs thinks people are underestimating Dallas’ cultural impact.
They say they “don’t think people realize how popular Dallas was” and point out that people everywhere would skip everything they had just to catch the next episode of the Southern drama. Dallas retains a spot on Business Insider’s list of the most-watched TV episodes of all time, demonstrating its nearly unparalleled power to draw in viewers at the time.
8 Friends (1994-2004)
Even compared to dramas and reality shows, sitcoms seem to have incredible power to bring audiences together and Friends is a great example of that. A high-profile reunion last year only confirmed that the series whose character names have become synonymous with different personality types still has a powerful appeal.
However, Redditor Zealousideal_Web8496 describes how the show was on a whole new level of popularity during its heyday, recalling that on Thursday nights “you could always have shifts because nobody wanted to work” because they didn’t. miss the show. Thanks to a simple premise and compact episodes that allowed everyone to fit in, few could resist the draw of Friends.
7 I Love Lucy (1951-1957)
At a time when there were far fewer choices when it came to what to watch on TV, I Love Lucy took the opportunity to become the sitcom that defined a generation. Starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz as loving couple Lucy and Ricky, Vulture reports that the show once occupied nearly 72% of US households with a television with the episode “Lucy Goes to the Hospital.”
Redditor Darwins_Dog’s basis for considering I Love Lucy a true world-beater isn’t the numbers, however, as they say, “The series wasn’t just popular, Lucille Ball actually had a lot of power in it.” industry. Most famously, Ball helped make the shows Mission Impossible and Star Trek through the influence I Love Lucy earned him.
6 Breaking Bad (2008-2013)
With even the finale of its spin-off show Better Call Saul becoming one of the TV events of the year, it’s a testament to how Breaking Bad dominated TV series in the 2010s. memorable, it’s no surprise that this was a show people wanted to discuss at all times.
What is interesting is the role the Internet must have played in this. Redditor Mriamsosmrt notes that “I’ve never seen a show before that created so many memes” and remained so “pop culture relevant.” With iconic lines from the show embedding itself into internet culture, Breaking Bad became a show everyone knew even if they had never watched an episode.
5 Lost (2004-2010)
Although ending on one of the most hated series finales of all time has somewhat tarnished its legacy, those who were part of the phenomenon that was the original Lost series know how much the series has become a national obsession. . Redditor Lincoln_Park_Pirate thinks the show ruled the world because “the amount of fan theories, conspiracies, spoilers” surrounding the show was outstanding.
They explain that “people were separating each episode” in a way that was simply unprecedented in the history of television. A show about a band stranded by a plane crash became the source of mysteries everyone wanted answered. To illustrate how important that was, others pointed to the moment Obama moved a national address so as not to clash with the show, which was reported in the NY Daily News.
4 Seinfeld (1989-1998)
Before Friends became a global sensation, another show about the everyday lives of quirky characters had already proven that sitcoms could take over the world. A critical favorite and dominating the ratings for several years, Seinfeld is easily one of the most influential television shows of the 90s.
A Redditor touted the show as one of the greatest of all time and pointed out how lucrative the show became in its heyday when NBC offered huge sums of money for Jerry Seinfeld to do another season “and he has refused “. Very few shows can afford to end at the height of their appeal, but Seinfeld was powerful enough to quit when it was one of TV’s greatest shows.
3 Who Wants To Be A Millionaire (2002-)
Game shows have the power to engage audiences in ways few scripted dramas can manage and Who Wants To Be A Millionaire harnessed that to become a global sensation in the early 2000s. With the simple premise that a random person can get rich just by answering trivial questions, the show first took off in the UK before shipping worldwide.
Redditor StoolToad9 introduced the show saying “when this came out, everyone was talking about it”. With iconic lines like “Would you like to call a friend?” becoming part of everyday conversation, there aren’t many game shows that can claim to have become a cultural touchstone so quickly.
2 The Simpsons (since 1989)
One of the most recognizable TV families in the world, The Simpsons are icons, and no matter what critics think of their final seasons, it’s a show with an incredible legacy. There was no shortage of Redditors suggesting the animated sitcom as a show that once ruled the world, but Galwegian makes it one of the simplest and best pitches.
They comment “Jesus. It was everywhere. The Yellow Nuclear Family’s broad appeal has allowed them to sell toys to children while being smart enough to allow adults to openly quote the show and laugh together. Even with the song Do The Bartman becoming a hit in the 90s, there’s not much the show failed to do.
1 Game of Thrones (2011-2019)
Even a final season that massively disappointed a lot of the show’s fans didn’t stop its spin-off from being one of the highest-profile releases of the year. Three years after Game of Thrones ended, fans have been missing a large-scale fantasy series full of shocking twists and turns to discuss.
As Redditor Aussenminister puts it, the show “ruled the internet for nearly a decade.” Every time a new season aired, talk, memes, and inevitably spoilers dominated the online space in a way that almost no other show has managed. While it’s impossible to compare to pre-internet shows, Game of Thrones was one of the kings of the internet age.
10 TV shows that ruled the world in their heyday, according to Reddit | Pretty Reel