How can a show be in the GOAT running when it had at least one shit season, or a shit finale, or multiple shit seasons? It would be like a cake-baking show where there was secretly a giant dog turd within the cake, and one of the judges gets a mouthful of dogshit while the others get angel food cake.
The Simpsons get a pass because they have had so many brilliant seasons, brilliant episodes within bad seasons, brilliant moments within bad episodes, and they've been around for 30+ years, they have seen off all challengers. There's almost no joke the Simpsons haven't tried first. There's a line in "Dodgeball" where Ben Stiller gets hit in the face and says, "You made me bleed my own blood." And everyone laughed and pointed to that being an example of how great that shitty, shitty movie was. Except it was a joke in The Simpsons about 15 years before (I have a book that summarizes each episode with standout jokes, the couch gags, the blackboard writing, guest appearances, and so on).
Group 5:
1. The Simpsons - discussed above
2. Twin Peaks - season 1 was must-watch TV, inspired watching parties, was mesmerizing. Season 2 was shit.
3. Peep Show -
4. Lost - First 2 or 3 seasons were insanely addictive. Then they shit the bed. Then rolled in the shit. Then tried to give you a hug.
5. Battlestar Galactica - great show whose ending was ruined by writers' strike, making it nonsensical. Like being in the Indy 500 and leading the entire race, and as you go into the final lap you decide to smoke a joint, you catch your car on fire, it explodes, and you die half a mile before the finish line.
Group 6:
1. Futurama
2. The Expanse - the cast drives me batty. What fecking accents are they doing?
3. Stranger Things - feck off. Season 1 was a Stephen King's Greatest Hits. Every season after was the dog who caught the car it was chasing and had no fecking clue what to do with it. Masking the actors' ages and heights with silly-ass hairstyles and clothes, and a bunch of anachronisms killed it, then Billy and fecking Max desecrated its grave. I liked David Harbour, the wacky conspiracy dude, and Eleven. Everyone else, no.
4. Breaking Bad - some amazing episodes, an overall great story, but individual episodes were so slow it was coma inducing.
5. Prison Break - ha ha eat shit Schweiny.
