Herald readers name their all-time favourite TV shows

Herald reader have voted for their all-time favourite shows - and there are plenty of surprises in the results.

Last month nzherald.co.nz invited readers to vote on their five favourite television shows of all-time - and now the results are in and displayed below.

A total of 578 votes came in, meaning votes for nearly 3000 programmes.

Creations of popular culture are difficult to rank. For any one snapshot of time, it is often the recently viewed works that are generally in the forefront of our memory.

Is this true for television shows as well?

Twelve of the top 25 programmes as voted by our readers are either still in production at the moment (for example, a show like Top Gear), or have only recently come to the finish of the series (Breaking Bad). However two of our top 25 shows first aired in the early 1960s (Coronation Street, Doctor Who).

The variety of shows nominated was huge. Votes came in for literally hundreds of different programmes - some going back to the late 1950s (The Untouchables, I Love Lucy), and others thay have only just screened in the US (Almost Human, True Detective).

As far as comedies go, it seems we largely prefer shows from last century, but it is the current crop of dramas that we like the best.

At the bottom of the inforgraphic below we have also broken down the votes to show a few other categories; top five New Zealand shows, top five Australian shows, top sci-fi, animated, supernatural as well as showing the top 10 US and UK comedies.