Rolling Stone acknowledges it's a near-impossible task - ranking the 100 best TV shows of all time, with no regard to genre or era - but nonetheless they gave it a go: 1. The Sopranos; 2. The Simpsons; 3. Breaking Bad; 4.The Wire; 5. Fleabag; 6. Seinfeld; 7. Mad Men; 8. Cheers; 9. Atlanta; 10. The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It is pretty American leaning but Fawlty Towers comes in at 68 and the British version of The Office at 53 (the US version comes in at 34) and I am Alan Partridge at 83. The hugely popular Games of Thrones comes in at 30, Mash is at 25 and Star Trek at 22. Cult show Twin Peaks is in at number 16 and Succession, at 11, just missed out on being in the top 10. Full list here.
In the first half of the 20th century, medical doctors and neurologists wrote up case histories of people who experienced mysterious hallucinations in which they felt their bodies were very small or very large, or as if a part of them was out of proportion. One patient felt she was low to the ground and her body became very wide. Another felt as if one ear had protruded out away from her head. One man felt his limbs were becoming unattached to his body. Several saw everything in their view becoming much bigger, implying they were shrinking. It might be a stretch to call these hallucinations; patients who looked in the mirror could see their bodies were normal, but they still had those feelings. These reports most often came from people who suffered hemicrania, or "one-sided headache", which we now call migraines. They were also reported in patients who suffered from epilepsy or brain tumours. American neurologist Caro Lippman couldn't help but think of how similar these symptoms were. In 1955, the English psychiatrist John Todd dubbed the experience Alice in Wonderland syndrome.
