The 20 most overrated TV shows of all time, ranked
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The Independent’s culture team selects the most unduly hyped series ever. Sometimes, a TV show comes along that is simply too good to be denied. The past 30 years have brought about the period many described as the “golden age” of television, followed by the streaming boom – and the canon of “best” TV has been rewritten almost entirely.
![[Out for blood: Michael C Hall in ‘Dexter’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2020/11/19/15/newFile-4.jpg)
But while many TV shows deserve every bit of the acclaim and popularity they amass… what about the ones that don’t?. The Independent has compiled a list of the 20 most overrated TV shows of all time, from critical darlings such as The Bear, to pop culture phenomena like The Office.
![[Mirror, mirror: Domhnall Gleeson in ‘Black Mirror’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2022/06/23/15/FV75ypWXkAE_aOn.jpeg)
In order to narrow down the scope of this piece, we have mainly taken into account fiction series, not reality TV, with one exception. It should also be acknowledged that this list skews more towards modern TV: regardless of whether or not, say, The Dick Van Dyke Show was overrated in its day, a series like that is watched or talked about by so few people today that such an inclusion on this list would be moot.
![[Phil-good comedy: Ty Burrell in ‘Modern Family’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/08/11/17_01_ModernFamily_S04.jpg)
Anyway, with that said, here are The Independent’s picks for the 20 most overrated TV series. 20. Dexter. None of the antihero-led shows that graced our screens throughout the 2010s came more murderous than Dexter, but they didn’t come as corny, either. Like Michael C Hall’s wry serial-killing lead character – murderer by night, forensic blood spatter analyst by day – the drama feels like a wolf in sheep’s clothing: for something that rarely held back on the gore, it often lacked bite, and its quality plummeted after a staggeringly good fourth season starring John Lithgow as the terrifying Trinity Killer. A pair of watchable yet spineless reboots have tried to resurrect the show’s legacy after an all-timer of a rubbish finale, but they’ve instead cemented Dexter’s status as a show that was unworthy of the prestige label it was once adorned with. Jacob Stolworthy.
![[David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst starred in ‘Only Fools and Horses’]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/08/11/newFile-12.jpg)
