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It’s simple: for every match-up, pick your favorite. We’re looking for the best show, not necessarily the most faithful adaptation—though that may factor into your thinking. Or not! In short, go with your gut. We’ll tabulate up the results using our best liberal arts major math, and bring you the results tomorrow.
Round of 64: Voting open Monday, November 9th from 10:00 AM until at 7:00 PM EST (Results are here)
Round of 32: Voting open Tuesday, November 10th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST (Results are here)
Round of 16: Voting open Wednesday, November 11th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST (Results here)
➤ Quarterfinals: Voting open now until 7:00 PM EST
Semifinals: Voting open Friday, November 13th from 10:00 AM, until Sunday November 15th at 7:00 PM EST
The Finals: Voting open Monday, November 16th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST
And the winner will be announced on Tuesday, November 17th!
There are little voting forms at the bottom of each match-up. Simply click and move along, like changing the channel on your TV.
A very American family saga
Based on: Alex Haley’sRoots (1976)
Subgenres: Classroom Classics • It Did Happen Here • Generational Stories
One of the most watched miniseries in American TV history and a seminal dramatic portrayal of America through slavery and the Civil War. The show almost got pulled when ABC executives saw how unflinching Roots was about the brutality of slavers, especially when they were being portrayed by some of TV’s most recognizable white faces. The network insisted on adding a concerned white captain who isn’t in the book. Haley’s novel was known for being the first popular work of fiction to present the horrors of the Middle Passage, which the show maintains. Some of the novel’s nuance is lost in the translation to TV, but Roots is excellent and anchored in great performances, including an early performance by LeVar Burton. –JF
Put it on when you want to remember when network TV executives made serious shows.
See also:
How the TV Adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots Sparked a Cultural Awakening • Nikki Giovanni on Race, Hope, Fatherhood, and Roots
Gary Oldman zinger vehicle
Based on: Mick Herron’s Slough House novels (2010–2025)
Subgenres: Losers • Our Peerless Leader •Highbrow Fart Jokes •Elevated Espionage
It’s a brilliant premise: a group of MI5 agents, all of whom have made career-ruining mistakes of one kind or another, are relegated to a department entitled Slough House, where they are made to do menial labor to avoid being completely left out in the cold. Their fearless leader is the relentlessly disgusting, but equally brilliant Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) who insults, cajoles, and gaslights his foot-dragging staff into feats of daring heroism. It is exciting in all the normal ways that a good spy drama can be, but unlike many of its kind, it is very, very funny, balancing mordant wit, slapstick, and, let’s face it, highly amusing Britishisms. Plus, Kristin Scott Thomas always hits. –ET
Put it on when you are really good at failing.
See also:
Slow Horses, Starring Gary Oldman, is Worth the Slow Burn
What’s a little assassination between two consenting adults?
Based on: Luke Jennings’s Codename Villanelle (2017)
Subgenres: The Thrill of the Chase • Recreational Murder• Tension
The heart of Killing Eve is of course the mutual obsession between assassin Villanelle and her hunter, Eve Polastri. Comer’s Villanelle is volatile and ruthless, which is to say she’s a lot of fun, and while Eve might appear more grounded on the surface, the two women are (in the most complimentary way possible) perfectly matched freaks. Phoebe Waller-Bridge served as the show’s head writer during the first season of this sharp, sexy cat and mouse game, then Emerald Fennel in season two; fans remained divided over later seasons, particularly the show’s ending, but that’s okay. We’ll always have the kitchen scene. –OS
Put it on when you need to live vicariously through fiction instead of staying at home with your cat.
See also:
Serial Killer As Instagram Influencer? On Killing Eve‘s Cool Girl Assassin • The Visible and Invisible Women of Killing Eve • Subverting the Male Gaze in Killing Eve
A show where they mostly wore khaki
Based on: Piper Kerman’s Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison (2010)
Subgenres: Worst Places to See Your Ex • The Prison Industrial Complex is Evil • Cosplay Ideas for Large Groups
Being incarcerated alongside the ex who sent you to prison isn’t just a cruel joke of the universe: It actually happened to Piper Kerman, who transported dirty money on exactly one occasion for her former girlfriend, drug smuggler Alex Vause. Thank goodness she wrote a memoir about it, so it could become this show. Orange Is The New Black’s humor, heart, and earnest examination of the American prison system made it one of the earliest hits of the streaming era, and as its scope expanded from Piper to focus on its sprawling ensemble cast, its saturation only increased. Everyone watched this show. Your mom. Your co-worker. The worst guy you know probably had a (very bad) opinion about one of the most controversial character deaths of the time. –OS
Put it on when you definitely want to laugh (but maybe also cry).
See also:
Kate Mulgrew on the Work of Waiting, in Acting and in Life • Blurring the Lines Between Criminal Justice and Popular Culture
The game is on
Based on: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sherlock Holmes stories (1887-1927)
Subgenres: Former Tumblr Teen Bait • They Should Have Kissed • Seeing the Mind Palace
For those who frequented certain corners of the early 2010s internet, it was entirely possible to know everything about Sherlockwithout ever having seen it. This take on the character situates Holmes in a contemporary setting and employs superimposition alongside slick editing and undersaturated cinematography to visualize his deductions. But even though memes about Benedict Cumberbatch’s name are long out of style, appreciation of Sherlock endures, demonstrating more than anything why, over 100 years after Conan Doyle published the first Sherlock Holmes stories, we still care about Holmes and Watson. –OS
Put it on when you want to feel smarter than you actually are.
See also:
Not My Sherlock • A Literary Feud is Afoot! • The Real Sherlock Holmes: How an Edinburgh Doctor Inspired Doyle’s Detective
A stranger fumbling in a strange land, with swords
Based on: James Clavell’s Shogun (1975)
Subgenres: Memed • Subtitles • Epic Battles * Chaotic White Boys • Studying the Blade
Just when you thought there was no juice left in “epic prestige historical dramas,” Shogun arrived. The show is huge, with something for everyone: political turmoil, grand battles, and even lighter, fish out of water humor. The story is big too, following the chaotic fallout after the Dutch arrive in a Japan on the verge of the Shogunate Restoration. It’s hard to find a weak link: Shogun is gorgeous, well written, and superbly acted, particularly Anna Sawai, and Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays Lord Toranaga with a quiet, self-assured power. Full of rich texture and detail, the adaptation remains true to the 1975 Clavell novel, especially its gritty and grounded humanity. In every way it exceeds the 1980s adaptation.
Why then isn’t Shogun even higher in our seeding? There’s a way in which the show hews too close to the prestige formula, perhaps, instead of chancing any riskier innovation. But with two more seasons starting production soon, there’s plenty of time for the already excellent Shogun to transcend the expected TV rhythms. –JF
Put it on when you miss studying abroad.
We have always remembered when we lived in the castle
Based on: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945)
Subgenres: Teddy Bears • Stiff Upper Lip • Everything Changed During the War • Drugs, Booze & Generational Privilege • Debating Catholicism
Evelyn Waugh’s observant humanism was always in interesting tension with his sublimated (then blatant) conservatism. His best book, Brideshead Revisited, is nostalgic for aristocracy but clear eyed about its sins, mining the tensions between class values and personal connection. So much to say, this eleven episode miniseries succeeds by faithfully and reverently adapting the novel to the screen—this is about as much of a one-to-one translation from the page as you can imagine, with most of the dialogue coming directly from Waugh. The friendship that unfolds over a few decades before WWII between Charles Ryder and the rich Lord Sebastian Flyte of Brideshead Castle is subtly acted by Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. The rest of the cast is great too, and they’re allowed to mope and emote around beautiful location shoots. Laurence Olivier makes an appearance, as one might expect, and of course actor Peter Bull’s teddy bear named Delicatessen stuns as Aloysius. It’s a wonderful TV classic. –JF
Put it on when you are wondering if you should reach out to an old friend.
See also:
How Campus Novels Reveal the Power—and Danger—of Pure Ideas • Not Far From Brideshead: On the Sad Glitter of Oxford Between the Wars
Antics among atrocities
Based on: Richard Hooker’s MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors (1968)
Subgenres: War is Bad • Wisecracking is Fun
Iconic anti-war sitcom *M*A*S*H* challenged what a television comedy was supposed to look like, layering drama and genuine commentary with its humor. A spinoff of the 1970 Robert Altman film, which was adapted from the Hooker novel, it ran for 11 seasons and its finale was, at the time of airing, the most watched television episode in American broadcast history. Set during the Korean War, it more obviously paralleled and criticized American involvement in Vietnam. Now considered classic TV, there’s a reason appreciation for *M*A*S*H* endures over 50 years after its premiere. –OS
Put it on when youneed a history lesson with personality.