The BEST shows of 1977
Every show that aired an episode in 1977, ranked
We've compiled the average episode rating for every TV show episode aired in 1977 to compile this list of best shows!
#1 - Mind Your Language
Set in a London College Of Further Education the series focused on the activities of the Evening Classes, in particular – English as a Foreign Language, as taught by Mr Jeremy Brown whose class was a motley crew of foreigners, most of who could barely speak English. The comedy comes from the students inability to grasp the basic command of English. This leads to misunderstanding of words and terms causing all manner of disagreements and cultural differences.
View Episode Rankings#2 - Kojak
Kojak is an American television series starring Telly Savalas as the title character, bald New York City Police Department Detective Lieutenant Theo Kojak. Taking the time slot of the popular Cannon series, which was moved one hour earlier it aired on CBS from October 24, 1973, to March 18, 1978. In 1999 TV Guide ranked Theo Kojak number 18 on its 50 Greatest TV Characters of All Time list.
View Episode Rankings#3 - The Streets of San Francisco
A veteran cop with more than twenty years of experience is teamed with a young Inspector to solve crimes in San Francisco, California.
View Episode Rankings#4 - Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine is an affectionate comedy about people in the autumn of their years. The series is the world's longest-running sitcom, having clocked up 31 series and numerous Christmas specials during its run.
View Episode Rankings#5 - Emergency!
Emergency! is a reality-based show that takes a good look at what goes on in the daily lives of the fire department and hospital work, and everyday life-and-happenings. The series focuses on two locations: LA Fire Station 51 with paramedics John Gage and Roy DeSoto, and Rampart General Hospital with Doctors Kelly Brackett and Joe Early and Nurse Dixie McCall. Another work of Jack Webb's Mark VII Limited, the show was based on the paramedic program that started in Los Angeles, California in 1969. Produced in cooperation with the Los Angeles County Fire Department and Department of Hospitals, it is well-regarded for its realism. Senator Alan Cranston actually praised the show for informing the public about the value of funding such programs!
View Episode Rankings#6 - The Muppet Show
The Muppet Show is a British-American television program produced by puppeteer Jim Henson and featuring Muppets. After two pilot episodes were produced in 1974 and 1975, the show premiered on September 5, 1976, and five series were produced until March 15, 1981, lasting 120 episodes. The program shows a vaudeville- or music hall-style song-and-dance variety show, as well as glimpses behind the scenes of such a show. Kermit the Frog stars as a showrunner who tries to keep control of the antics of the other Muppet characters (and his temper), as well as keep the guest stars happy. The show was known for outrageous physical slapstick, sometimes absurdist comedy, and humorous parodies. Each episode also featured a human guest star. As the show's popularity rose, many celebrities were eager to perform with the Muppets on television and in film.
View Episode Rankings#7 - Dad's Army
Introducing the Walmington-On-Sea home guard, a bunch of hapless old and young men who have kept people all over the world very amused for the past thirty seven years. Creator/Writers David Croft and Jimmy Perry made each episode of Dad's Army as funny as the previous one, with an element of humour which has survived decades. It has the most memorable catch phrases of any sitcom and due to our fondness of it, it's probably the most re-run show ever. The BBC keep an episode of it queued up in case of a fault at TV centre and it even successfully invaded the big screen with a memorable, well loved Dad's Army feature film made by Columbia pictures.
View Episode Rankings#8 - The Mary Tyler Moore Show
The Mary Tyler Moore Show was one of the most literate, realistic, and enduring situation comedies of the 1970s. Mary Richards was the idealized single career woman. She had come to Minneapolis after breaking up with a man she had been dating for four years. Ambitious, and looking for new friends, she moved into an older apartment building and went to work as an assistant producer of the local news show on television station WJM-TV. In her early 30s, Mary symbolized the independent woman of the 1970s.
View Episode Rankings#9 - Are You Being Served?
This comedy series, which follows the exploits of employees at London's fictional "Grace Brothers" department store, is full of sexual innuendo, slapstick, visual gags, and double entendres. Much of the show's humor parodies Britain's class system, and many of the show's characters are based on stereotypes of the period, including the effeminate Mr. Humphries and the rich, but stingy, store owner.
View Episode Rankings#10 - Sanford and Son
The misadventures of a cantankerous old man and his son, partners in the family junk business in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood.
View Episode Rankings#11 - Three's Company
A man pretends to be gay in order to share an apartment with two women in this legendary bedroom farce.
View Episode Rankings#12 - The Six Million Dollar Man
"Steve Austin, astronaut, a man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, we have the technology. We have the capability to make the worlds first Bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better. Stronger. Faster." Follow the adventures of Steve Austin, cybernetically enhanced astronaut turned secret agent, employed by the OSI, under the command of Oscar Goldman and supervised by the scientist who created his cybernetics, Rudy Wells. Steve uses the superior strength and speed provided by his bionic arm and legs, and the enhanced vision provided by his artificial eye, to fight enemy agents, aliens, mad scientists, and a wide variety of other villains
View Episode Rankings#13 - Saturday Night Live
Each week, live from New York, a famous guest host appears in sketches and parodies alongside a company of up-and-coming comedians. A popular musical guest, short films, and Weekend Update - a recurring satirical newscast - form the backbone of one of the most influential and culturally significant comedy shows in history.
View Episode Rankings#14 - All in the Family
Legendary and controversial series focused on conservative working stiff Archie Bunker fighting the tide of social change and dealing with flighty wife Edith, daughter Gloria and left-leaning son-in-law Michael Stivic.
View Episode Rankings#15 - Barney Miller
Hal Linden stars in the title role as a NYPD captain in charge of a squad of oddball detectives and even stranger criminals.
View Episode Rankings#16 - Good Times
The Evans family scratches and survives in their tough South Side Chicago ghetto. Esther Rolle and John Amos star as parents Florida and James, with "dyn-o-mite" breakout comedy star Jimmie Walker as J.J., the oldest of the three Evans children.
View Episode Rankings#17 - Little House on the Prairie
Based upon the best selling "Little House" series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. The show follows the lives of a simple farming family, the Ingalls, who settle into a quaint little house near the small town of Walnut Grove during the late 1800s. The majority of the shows were narrated by Laura and the series follows her from when she and her family arrive in Walnut Grove until her adulthood with Almanzo Wilder, with whom she starts a family of her own.
View Episode Rankings#18 - Black Sheep Squadron
In World War II Marine Corps Major Greg 'Pappy' Boyington commanded a squadron of fighter pilots. They were a collection of misfits and screwballs who became the terrors of the South Pacific. They were known as the Black Sheep.
View Episode Rankings#19 - Columbo
A Los Angeles homicide detective, Lieutenant Columbo, uses his humble ways and shrewd demeanor to ferret out even the most careful criminals.
View Episode Rankings#20 - Soap
Sisters Mary Campbell and Jessica Tate lead soap-opera lives with their crazy families.
View Episode Rankings#21 - Starsky & Hutch
Tough Starsky and educated Hutch are plainclothes cops taking on dope dealers, muggers and other thugs, aided by their red 1974 Torino and informant Huggy Bear. Both bachelors' private lives play as interweaving threads in the drama. This was TV's coolest buddy cop show, fueled by full-throttle car chases, offbeat humour, colourful characters and a hip vibe.
View Episode Rankings#22 - The Rockford Files
Emmy® winner James Garner stars as the offbeat Jim Rockford, an ex-con-turned-private-investigator who would rather fish than fight but whose instinct on closed cases is more golden than his classic Pontiac Firebird. From his mobile home in Malibu, this wisecracking private eye takes you on the cases of the lost and the dispossessed, chasing down seemingly long-dead clues in the sun-baked streets and seamy alleys of Los Angeles.
View Episode Rankings#23 - M*A*S*H
The 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital is stuck in the middle of the Korean war. With little help from the circumstances they find themselves in, they are forced to make their own fun. Fond of practical jokes and revenge, the doctors, nurses, administrators, and soldiers often find ways of making wartime life bearable.
View Episode Rankings#24 - CHiPs
Lighthearted look at the adventures of two Highway Patrol officers in Los Angeles. The main characters are Jon Baker and Frank Poncherello, two motorcycle officers always on the street to save lives.
View Episode Rankings#25 - The Bob Newhart Show
Bob Newhart is Dr. Robert Hartley, a Chicago psychologist living with his schoolteacher wife Emily. Complicating life for the serene, stammering doc was his neighbor, Howard, a flighty navigator; and Bob's coworkers, dentist Jerry and flippant receptionist Carol. The humor was gentle, sophisticated and, at times, wonderfully surreal.
View Episode Rankings#26 - Doctor Who
The Doctor, a mysterious traveller in space and time, travels in his ship, the TARDIS. The TARDIS can take him and his companions anywhere in time and space. Inevitably he finds evil at work wherever he goes...
View Episode Rankings#28 - The Jeffersons
A black couple, headed up by opinionated loud-mouth George Jefferson, moves from a modest Queens neighborhood to deluxe apartment in Manhattan's ritzy East Side.
View Episode Rankings#30 - Maude
Maude was one of the most popular shows during the 70s. Not only was it one of the most popular, it was one of the most controversial. The show was real and told it like it is - much like the show that first introduced us to Maude, All in the Family. Maude was outspoken and stong-willed... which lead her to many interesting and controversial situations. Maude wasted no time becoming one of the most controversial shows ever when she, at age 47, became pregnant and decided to get an abortion (the first show to ever have the lead character get an abortion). By the end of the show Maude was heading to Congress, ready to take on a new world. And it seemed we would get to see Congresswoman Maude, but Bea Arthur decided to leave the show. Maude remains as part of TV history and has since become a true classic. Others in the cast include, Maude's fourth husband, Walter, and her divorced daughter, Carol from her first marriage. Arthur was the next door neighbor who later married Maud
View Episode Rankings#31 - Wonder Woman
Save the world? That’s a man’s job. Then along comes star-spangled WONDER WOMAN with her bullet-deflecting bracelets and golden lariat to set everyone straight.
View Episode Rankings#32 - Lupin III
Probably the most light-hearted and crazy series of all those dedicated to the gentleman thief.
View Episode Rankings#33 - Quincy, M.E.
Quincy, M.E, a man who must have been a nightmare to work with! Quincy was a crusading Medical Examiner in Los Angeles, an expert at his job he was always capable of finding something that everyone else missed. A small clue that would go against all the rest of the evidence in a case and would lead to him arguing with his boss, Asten, and/or the investigating detective, nearly always Monahan. Quincy started of as a straight forward crime series with a difference, it was a M.E. investigating not a police officer or private eye.As the series went from strength to strength the writers, probably with a little push from Klugman, started bringing in stories about social injustice rather than criminal. Most of the time this worked, in fact it is sometimes interesting to see that some of the things highlighted still have not changed even now! Sometimes it came over a little preachy but the show can never be faulted for trying to enlighten the eyes of its viewers.
View Episode Rankings#34 - Space: 1999
It's 1999 and Moonbase Alpha has been built on the Moon to safeguard the nuclear waste shipped from Earth. On September 13, 1999, disaster strikes and the nuclear waste explodes causing a chain reaction that hurls the Moon out of Earth's orbit and into deep space. The adventures of Space: 1999 begin.
View Episode Rankings#35 - Charlie's Angels
What do you get when you have three beautiful crime fighting ladies and a boss that is a total recluse? The most successful series of the 1970's, Charlie's Angels.
View Episode Rankings#36 - Formula 1
Formula 1 is the highest class of international single-seater auto racing sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and owned by the Formula One Group. Formula One consists of a series of races, known as Grands Prix which take place worldwide on purpose-built circuits and on public roads.
View Episode Rankings#37 - 60 Minutes
60 Minutes has been on the air since 1968, beginning on a Tuesday, but spending most of its time on Sundays, where it remains today. This popular news magazine provides both hard hitting investigations, interviews and features, along with people in the news and current events. 60 Minutes has set unprecedented records in the Nielsen's ratings with a number 1 rating, five times, making it among the most successful TV programs in all of television history. This series has won more Emmy awards than any other news program and in 2003, Don Hewitt, the creator (back in 1968), was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Emmy, along with the 60 Minute correspondents. Added to the 11 Peabody awards, this phenomenally long-lived series has collected 78 awards up to the 2005 season and remains among the viewers top choice for news magazine features.
View Episode Rankings#38 - Emmerdale
The lives of several families in the Yorkshire Dales revolve around a farm and the nearby village. With murders, affairs, lies, deceit, laughter and tears, it's all there in the village.
View Episode Rankings#39 - Match of the Day
Match of the Day (often abbreviated as MOTD) is the BBC's main football television programme. Typically, it is shown on BBC One on Saturday evenings during the English football season, showing highlights of the day's matches in the Barclays Premier League. It is one of the BBC's longest-running shows, having been on air since 1964, though it has not always been aired regularly. The 'Match of the Day' brand is also often used for live football coverage on the BBC. They run a competition called Goal of the Month, choosing the best goal each month, where the winner from there will then be entered into a goal of the season award.
View Episode Rankings#40 - Coronation Street
Follows the lives of the residents of the fictional Coronation Street, located in Greater Manchester, which is made up mainly of working-class people.
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