Andrew Klavan Show - Andrew Klavan RANKS A List of the Greatest Crime Shows Ever
Aired: 2026-03-05
Duration: 09:08


=== Breaking Bad's Decline (02:54) ===

[00:00:00]  All right, today we are going to rank crime TV shows.
[00:00:03]  Crime is probably my favorite genre.
[00:00:05]  I didn't make this list.
[00:00:06]  I'm just going to look at this list and say whether these are top-notch.
[00:00:09]  What is the ranking S and then ABCD?
[00:00:12]  And I don't know the letters after that, so we'll have to guess if they get that bad.
[00:00:16]  I will bet that my favorite crime shows are not on this list.
[00:00:22]  All right, so the first one, Breaking Bad, 2008 to 2013, created by Vince Gilligan, starring Brian Cresnon.
[00:00:29]  A very fine show.
[00:00:30]  I thought it fell apart at the end.
[00:00:33]  I thought the last, not the whole end, but the last episode was bad.
[00:00:37]  And I thought that they got carried away by the story.
[00:00:38]  But that's not fair because it's just a criticism.
[00:00:41]  I still thought it was a terrific show.
[00:00:43]  And it was really a show about manhood, as almost every TV series from that time was.
[00:00:48]  And I thought it was top-notch.
[00:00:50]  So we'll give it, I'm going to give it an A instead of an S just to keep things really tight, right, so that we won't have great inflation here.
[00:00:59]  Let's go to Blue Bloods, starring Tom Selleck.
[00:01:01]  Blue Bloods is one of those good bad shows.
[00:01:05]  It's a bad show.
[00:01:06]  It's sentimental.
[00:01:07]  It's very direct, very propagandistic, but it does have a family praying at dinner.
[00:01:12]  Forgive us our daily bread, and blessed is the fruit of those who trespass against us.
[00:01:18]  It does have conservative ideas that sometimes flash in there, as with all TV shows.
[00:01:23]  It's slowly, slowly losing its conservative mojo.
[00:01:26]  But I think the fact that Tom Selleck is in it has kept it honest over a longer period of time than most.
[00:01:31]  So we're going to give Blue Bloods, I don't know, a B, I guess, for conservatism, but not for actual quality.
[00:01:39]  Columbo, starring Peter Falk, a really, really good entertainment.
[00:01:43]  That's an A show.
[00:01:44]  It's a really entertaining show.
[00:01:46]  I just watched it about, I don't know, three months ago.
[00:01:49]  I was just watching it again.
[00:01:50]  Just humorous, funny, well set up.
[00:01:53]  Cot, cot!
[00:01:55]  What is this?
[00:01:56]  Who is that?
[00:01:57]  Really entertaining.
[00:01:58]  The Rockford Files, starring James Garner.
[00:02:01]  This is by Stephen Connell.
[00:02:03]  I became friends with Stephen shortly before he died.
[00:02:06]  He was a wonderful, wonderful guy and really talented.
[00:02:08]  And the Rockford Files, I think, was his crowning achievement.
[00:02:11]  He kind of dominated the A team.
[00:02:12]  He dominated television in that time.
[00:02:15]  An A show because of James Garner.
[00:02:19]  He was just the perfect detective and played Philip Marlowe, in fact, in The Little Sister.
[00:02:23]  Miami Vice, starring Don Johnson and produced by Michael Mann, of course, who did the great movie Heat.
[00:02:30]  I thought that was a good show.
[00:02:32]  I'll give it a B plus.
[00:02:33]  I think that was a really interesting show.
[00:02:37]  Poirot with David Ducher.
[00:02:39]  I'm not a, you know, I'm not a big Pro Row fan, so I'm not the one to judge this.
[00:02:45]  I thought that was a good Poirot as Poirots go, so to speak.
[00:02:50]  So we'll give it a B. Mindhunter, excellent show produced by David Fincher.

=== The Rockford Files Dominance (02:54) ===

[00:02:54]  I did not know that until this very moment.
[00:02:56]  It's an executive produced by David Fincher.
[00:02:58]  Mindhunter is an excellent show.
[00:02:59]  My cousin wrote the book on which it is based, Mark Allshaker.
[00:03:03]  And I'm related to all good writers, but that was a very entertaining show.
[00:03:09]  I think I'm going to give that an S.
[00:03:10]  It was a really disturbing show, but very good.
[00:03:12]  Hawaii 5-0, starring Jack Lorde.
[00:03:16]  Ah, it was all right.
[00:03:18]  It was just an ordinary show.
[00:03:19]  I'm giving it a C, not because it was bad, but it was just ordinary.
[00:03:22]  Dragnet, created by and starring Jack Webb.
[00:03:25]  Boy, if you've never seen Dragnet, that's a really entertaining show.
[00:03:28]  You don't think very much of me, do you?
[00:03:30]  Let me put it this way.
[00:03:31]  You'll never make Mother of the Year, lady.
[00:03:34]  I'm giving that an A, too.
[00:03:36]  It's classic.
[00:03:37]  It's corny, but it is iconic.
[00:03:39]  There was never a show like it before or since.
[00:03:43]  CSI Crime Scene Investigation, also a sort of B show.
[00:03:46]  It's fine.
[00:03:48]  I don't think it's great or anything like that.
[00:03:50]  Law and Order by Dick Wolf and Rick Ide, it is the first, let's say, three to four seasons are spectacular.
[00:03:59]  That is the S show.
[00:04:00]  After that, it's the next five seasons till about season nine.
[00:04:05]  It is an A show.
[00:04:08]  And then after that, it's a B and a C show because the leftists took it over.
[00:04:12]  You know, when you've lived as long as I have, you've seen kingdoms fall.
[00:04:15]  I saw Rome fall.
[00:04:16]  That was just a terrible, terrible time.
[00:04:19]  You know, and I saw England rise and then fall.
[00:04:22]  It's just been an amazing life.
[00:04:24]  But through it all, my family is the most important thing I have.
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=== Clarity On Coverage (03:19) ===

[00:05:49]  It's K-L-A-V-A-N.
[00:05:51]  The Sopranos.
[00:05:52]  I was just waiting for the Sopranos to give an S.
[00:05:55]  The Sopranos is one of the greatest television shows or anything ever made in America.
[00:06:00]  It is a great, starring James Gandalfini.
[00:06:03]  It is a great show.
[00:06:04]  It is a Shakespearean show.
[00:06:08]  Every episode is terrific, and I just think it is really excellent.
[00:06:13]  Look at that.
[00:06:14]  Looks like an ad for a f ⁇ ing Weight Loss Center.
[00:06:17]  Before and way before.
[00:06:20]  Rizzoli and Isles, I've only seen that once.
[00:06:23]  It's got Angie Harmon, who is absolutely gorgeous.
[00:06:26]  And as an entertainment, you know, top-notch, let's give it a B. Mayor of East Town, starring Kate Winslet.
[00:06:33]  I did watch that, and I thought that that was a B plus.
[00:06:38]  It was great for its acting.
[00:06:41]  The plot was kind of ridiculous.
[00:06:43]  And the wokeness really got in the way.
[00:06:46]  The Wire, first three episodes, S, one of the great shows ever.
[00:06:51]  It tails off in the end, and then they had some kind of this David Simon.
[00:06:55]  It also had some dumb stuff.
[00:06:56]  David Simon is a leftist.
[00:06:58]  It takes place in Baltimore.
[00:06:59]  There hasn't been a Republican in Baltimore since 1812.
[00:07:04]  And they kept blaming Republicans in it.
[00:07:06]  And they had all these ideas of things that would really fix things, that would never fix things.
[00:07:09]  And that got really preachy and dumb after the first two or three episodes, two or three seasons.
[00:07:15]  But the first season, certainly, and I think maybe the second and third S show is just fantastic for its realistic view of the streets and the policing.
[00:07:23]  The S.H.I.E.L.D., also an S show.
[00:07:26]  And just a classic piece of crime writing about dishonest cops who are great cops.
[00:07:32]  It started Michael Chiklis, and Walton Goggins had his great role in the last season.
[00:07:37]  It's distinguished by the fact that the last season is spectacular.
[00:07:41]  And Walton Goggins in the last season delivers one of the greatest performances I've ever seen in a television show.
[00:07:48]  True Detective Season 1 with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
[00:07:51]  I was not as enamored of this as everybody else was.
[00:07:54]  I loved the dialogue, but I thought the plot sucked.
[00:07:56]  So I'll give it an A.
[00:07:58]  And the acting, I love the acting, and it had one of the greatest nude scenes I've ever seen.
[00:08:02]  It changed my life entirely.
[00:08:03]  All right, all right, all right.
[00:08:06]  But it had moments that were S, but it was certainly an A show.
[00:08:12]  The Sinner starring Bill Pullman, really creative, really interesting show where they show you what happened, and then you have to find out why it's not what you think happened.
[00:08:20]  And I think it's a really entertaining show.
[00:08:24]  I give that an A as well.
[00:08:25]  I've enjoyed the first one was great.
[00:08:27]  The second one was good.
[00:08:28]  The third one was not that good.
[00:08:30]  But it is entertaining, and the performance is terrific.
[00:08:33]  That's an interesting list, but you didn't hit the ones that I thought you weren't going to hit.
[00:08:37]  Two shows, which you should find, Harry O. and The Outsider, starring Darren McGavin.
[00:08:43]  They are tough guy detective stories.
[00:08:46]  Both of them bombed.
[00:08:47]  Both of them went off the air really quickly.
[00:08:49]  And both of them were really good because of the performance of the main guy.
[00:08:52]  The Outsider probably dates a little bit.
[00:08:54]  I haven't seen that in a while.
[00:08:55]  Harry O., both of them, just top private eyes shows that I really loved and didn't last.
[00:09:01]  All right, that's my listing.
[00:09:02]  But I thought those were, that was a good list, a really entertaining list.
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