Terse, by-the-book Joe Friday was TV's first minimalist cop. Wedded to his job ("Just the facts, ma'am") & devoted to his partners, he presaged the clipped, "Book 'im, Dano" MO of Hawaii Five-O's Det. Steve McGarrett. The show helped the crime genre jump from the big screen's film noir to the small screen's cop show starting in 1952.

A forerunner to shows like Roseanne and The Flintstones, it showed working-class people living in a cramped tenement in New York City. Plus some of the gags used were way ahead of its time.

Through the late '50s, sit-com regulars could be anything but unlikable. Beaver introduced a truly loathsome character: Eddie Haskell, the hypocrite who would bully little kids and then suck up to their parents. Showed the reality that kids don't have many options in finding people to hang out with. After Beaver, jerks like Eddie Haskell crept into the casts of adult sit-coms.

Influenced shows such as "Seventh Heaven", "Picket Fences", and other shows about small town life. This is the kind of place everyone would like to live in. Also whenever you call someone a "Barney Fife", everyone knows instantly what you are talking about.

The Beverly Hillbillies started a trend of shows in the 60's in which the protagonists seem to never integrate into their surroundings or figure out how to interact with their foreign environment. Two examples of such shows that followed are "Gilligan's Island" and "Green Acres". The show seemed to exist purely as satire.

The definitive mother of all space exploration shows that combined adventure with social issues. It would be another 10 years before it became truly influential, with films starting in 1979 and franchise descendants starting in 1987.

Their influence on British comedy of all kinds has been apparent for many years, while in America it has colored the work of early editions of Saturday Night Live through to more recent absurdist trends in television comedy. The show "Night Court" borrowed heavily from the absurdity of Monty Python.

Early in 1971 this show dragged the sitcom kicking and screaming into the problems of the 60's. Plus it showed an American family that was working class with less than perfect values and relationships. Influenced Roseanne, The Simpsons, Barney Miller, and probably even Married With Children to some degree.

Redefined the late-night variety show in the post-Watergate era. Most shows that feature skits loaded with political satire and cynicism have this show as a parent.

Pioneered the primetime soap in modern times. Perfected the concept of the season-ending cliffhanger with the "Who Shot J.R.?" controversy of 1980, and produced a ton of also-rans such as Dynasty and Dallas' own spin-off "Knot's Landing".

By 1984 minorities were often the stars of TV dramas and sitcoms, but not as middle-class people in a slice-of-life show. The Cosby Show had an African American family raising kids and facing the same problems that other families commonly face.

Has had a general influence on all comedies that came after it. Co-creator Larry David, whose famous "no hugging, no learning" edict has been the series' Golden Rule since its inception, made no secret of Seinfeld's lack of values or life lessons.

The godfather of the 1 episode open-and-close procedural crime drama. In this show the characters are basically interchangeable, and dozens have rotated through the six major roles since 1990. The real star of the show is the story itself. Influenced the rest of the L&O franchise, the CSI franchise, and Without A Trace.

Viewers love being frightened and amazed in the way “The X-Files” pioneered. The plot twists of shows like “24” or “Lost” owe much to the ongoing drama of “The X-Files,” and its long-running story arcs helped made "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" possible. Also, there was no more interesting a couple than Mulder and Scully, showing that, sometimes in TV romance, less is more.