{"id":909349,"date":"2026-09-25T17:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/909349\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T17:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T17:14:10","slug":"inside-the-ny-times-100-best-tv-shows-of-the-21st-century-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/909349\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the NY Times 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century List"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe New York Times<\/a>\u2018 exhaustive list<\/a> of the best TV shows of the 21st century traces its origin to a similar list of the best books a couple years ago. The idea, Times canon editor Gilbert Cruz tells The Hollywood Reporter, was to reach out to the world\u2019s best authors (many of them he notes, already write for the Times or the Times Book Review in one capacity or another), and have them select their favorites.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was such a success that we said, let\u2019s try it again with movies,\u201d says Cruz. Celebrities, however, are a different beast than authors, though the Times figured it out.<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the TV list, Cruz said that they reached out to more than 1,000 people, and about 500 or so ended up participating. Many of them also agreed to discuss their picks on camera, with videos interwoven throughout the list. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPart of the thing that we\u2019re promising readers is we\u2019re doing this because these are people in these industries \u2014 the book industry, the movie industry, TV industry \u2014 who know about this stuff, create this stuff, but also care about this stuff,\u201d says Cruz. \u201cWhen you hear creators, showrunners, stars talking about the things that they love to see, yes, they are famous people, but also they\u2019re just TV fans like the rest of us, right? <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMaybe you could do it in audio as well, and it would deliver some of that, but you wouldn\u2019t go as far as you can with video, where you can hear Connie Britton telling a funny story like, \u2018oh, I passed on Arrested Development because I thought it was dumb as hell,\u2019 and then to see the final product, it\u2019s not only the sound of her voice telling that story, but it\u2019s the look on her face telling that story. In the end, what we wanted to do was just show people that TV creators love this medium just like we do, and that\u2019s why we asked them to participate in this project.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier this summer Cruz was named \u201ccanon editor\u201d at the Times, a role that immediately raised some eyebrows in media circles? What even is a canon in the context of an institution like the Times?<\/p>\n

\n\tThe TV list is in many ways the textbook example of what Cruz hopes to bring to the table, building on the learnings from the books and films list that were previously published.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe idea is, can you have someone and a small team that can make a franchise out of this, make it into something that is living on a more regular basis, but also is interconnected,\u201d says Cruz. \u201cYou don\u2019t necessarily want all these things sort of popping up all over the newsroom on their own in their various silos.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s brand new, it\u2019s an experiment,\u201d he adds. \u201cI\u2019m still figuring out what the heck it is, and a big part of it is can we leverage our access to amplify our authority in all of these spaces \u2014 books, movies, TV \u2014 The New York Times has access, and we\u2019ve always had access. In all of these places, we\u2019ve had authority, and we\u2019ve always had authority.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe TV list, of course, is just the start. Others will follow, with video and dynamic features intertwined with the critical takes and the written word. Though just how many of these projects Cruz and his team (when he has hired his team) do remains to be determined.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe need to figure out what the right cadence is. You know, it [the same list] can\u2019t be every year. Obviously, that wouldn\u2019t work,\u201d he says. \u201cThat would be too big of a heave, and you wouldn\u2019t get enough variance in the list every year in order to make it meaningful.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cPart of my challenge, and it is a challenge, is to figure out how to make sure, as you say, that these are not just one-offs,\u201d he adds. \u201cThat it\u2019s not just \u2018here\u2019s this thing we put out in September 2026, maybe you\u2019ll never hear about it again.\u201d Is there a way to sort of make them live on a more regular basis, even the ones we\u2019ve already published?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Times\u2018 exhaustive list of the best TV shows of the 21st century traces its origin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,18142,348],"class_list":["post-909349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}