1994 Was the Best Year for TV, and These 10 Shows Prove It

Published Oct 17, 2026, 6:08 PM EDT

Christine is a freelance writer for Collider with two decades of experience covering all types of TV shows and movies spanning every genre. With a particular affinity for dramas, true crime, sitcoms, and thrillers, if it's a top TV show, Christine has likely watched it and is eager to share her thoughts. When she's not furiously writing away, you can find her enjoying the next binge obsession with a glass of wine in front of the TV.

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The 1990s were arguably one of the best decades for television. The time period that shockingly started 35 years ago brought some of the most influential TV shows to the small screen across every genre imaginable. From sitcoms to medical dramas, and iconic sci-fi shows, the primetime hours were filled with talent that kept viewers glued to their screens.

Many of the best shows have inspired ones that came after, were resurrected in some way, spawned sequels or spin-offs, and celebrated milestones of late. For anyone who grew up during this time, chances are they had one, a few, or even all these shows lighting up the TV sets during the primetime or daytime hours.

'Friends' (1994–2004)

Image via NBC

Without Friends, there wouldn't be shows like How I Met Your Mother and even The Big Bang Theory. The sitcom popularized the idea of five friends hanging out and getting through life while navigating a big city. Even though almost all the series takes place in the same two apartments and the local coffee shop, it's one of the funniest ever on television.

To this day, Friends, one of the best sitcoms of all time, still airs repeats and is available to stream, so fans can re-watch and a new legion of fans are enjoying every minute of the hilarity and cast chemistry. From the iconic cast to their memorable characters, funny running jokes and one-liners, Friends set the stage for so many shows that came after.

'ER' (1994–2009)

Image via NBC

One of the most influential and impactful medical dramas, not until The Pitt was a show of this genre so lauded for its realism and rawness than ER. Dealing with the patients, the staff, interpersonal relationships, sacrifices, and hardships within an emergency room of a fictional hospital, the show is still cited as one of the best medical dramas ever on television.

Considering how many of the cast members went on to massive success, most notably George Clooney but also Julianna Margulies, Maura Tierney, John Stamos, and Angela Bassett, as well as Noah Wyle, who now stars in The Pitt, ER was a launchpad for careers and an inspiration for the genre.

'My So-Called Life' (1994–1995)

Image via ABC

Topping every list of shows that were canceled too soon, not to mention an underrated '90s show that became a cult classic, My So-Called Life was far ahead of its time, but provided a real look into the typical coming-of-age challenges of 15-year-old Angela Chase (Claire Danes) as she navigated life in her Pittsburgh suburb. The show is one of the earlier teen dramas that touched on serious topics like child abuse, homophobia, teenage alcoholism, and more.

Unlike other shows of the genre, like Beverly Hills, 90210, which was the hottest series of the genre at the time, these topics permeated throughout. They didn't just serve as a storyline for one episode until moving onto the next. With a strong cast that includes Danes as well as Jared Leto and Wilson Cruz, the show celebrated being different, finding yourself, and dealing with adversity with both maturity and childlike innocence.

'Chicago Hope' (1994–2000)

Image via CBS

The '90s was a top decade for medical dramas, and while ER gets most of the fanfare, Chicago Hope was another popular one that dominated TV screens during the primetime hours. The cast is incredible and the storyline unique: Mandy Patinkin is Dr. Jeffrey Geiger, a surgeon who struggles with personal issues relating to his wife's psychiatric condition, which led her to drown their infant son. He's joined in the ensemble cast by the late Alan Arkin as Dr. Aaron Shutt, a neurosurgeon and Jeffrey's best friend.

Airing for six seasons, 1994 really kicked off the show as it took hold of viewers with its fall premiere, after which it continued its run through the rest of the decade. Despite going head-to-head with ER, another medical drama set in Chicago that premiered just a day after, a shifting schedule meant there was room for both shows. And fans loved every minute of it. Interestingly, from the cast of Chicago Hope, Mark Harmon, Rocky Carroll, and Lauren Holly all went on to star together again in NCIS, a testament to their fantastic chemistry on that show.

Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey's Anatomy · House · Scrubs

Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.

🚨The Pitt

🏥ER

💉Grey's

🔬House

🩺Scrubs

FIND YOUR HOSPITAL →

01

A critical patient comes through the door. What's your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.

AStay completely present — block everything else out and work through it step by step, right now. BTriage fast and delegate — get the right people on the right problems immediately. CTrust my gut and move — I work best when I stop overthinking and just act. DAsk the question everyone else is ignoring — what's the thing that doesn't fit? ETake a breath, make a joke to cut the tension, and then get to work — panic helps no one.

NEXT QUESTION →

02

Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you'd give in an interview.

ABecause I wanted to be where it matters most — right at the edge, when someone's life is actually on the line. BBecause I wanted to help people — genuinely, one patient at a time, in a system that makes it hard. CBecause I was drawn to the intensity of it — the stakes, the drama, the feeling of being fully alive. DBecause medicine is the most interesting puzzle there is — and I needed a problem worth solving. EBecause I wanted to make a difference — and also, honestly, I didn't know what else to do with my life.

NEXT QUESTION →

03

What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.

ACompetence and calm — I need people who don't fall apart when things get bad. BTrust and reliability — I want to know that when I pass something off, it's handled. CConnection — I want colleagues who become family, even if that gets complicated. DIntelligence and the willingness to be challenged — I have no interest in people who just agree with me. EFriendship — people I actually like spending twelve hours a day with, because those hours are going to happen either way.

NEXT QUESTION →

04

You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who's worked a long shift has had to answer this question.

AI carry it. All of it. I don't look for ways to put it down — that weight is part of doing this work honestly. BI process it and move — you have to, or the next patient suffers for the one you just lost. CI feel it deeply and lean on the people around me — I don't think you're supposed to handle that alone. DI go back over every decision — not to punish myself, but because I need to understand what I missed. EI grieve it genuinely, find some way to laugh about something unrelated, and try to be kind to myself — imperfectly.

NEXT QUESTION →

05

How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.

AIntense and completely present — no small talk during a shift, but exactly who you want there. BSteady and dependable — not the flashiest in the room but never the one who drops something. CPassionate and occasionally chaotic — brilliant on the hard cases, prone to drama everywhere else. DBrilliant and difficult — right more often than anyone else, and everyone knows it, including me. EWarm and self-deprecating — not the most intimidating presence, but genuinely good at this and easy to like.

NEXT QUESTION →

06

How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.

AProtocol is the floor, not the ceiling — I follow it until the patient needs something it can't provide. BI respect it — the system is broken in places, but the structure is there for a reason and I work within it. CI follow it until my instincts tell me not to — and my instincts are usually right, even when they cause problems. DRules are for people who haven't thought hard enough about when to break them. EI try to follow it and mostly do — with a few memorable exceptions that still come up in meetings.

NEXT QUESTION →

07

What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What's yours?

AEverything outside these walls — I've given this job my full attention and the rest of my life has gone around it. BMy idealism, mostly — I came in believing the system could be fixed and I've made a complicated peace with that. CStability — my personal life has been as chaotic as the OR, and that's not entirely a coincidence. DMy relationships — I am not easy to know, and the people who've tried to would probably agree. EMy sense of gravity — I use humour as a coping mechanism, which not everyone appreciates in a hospital.

NEXT QUESTION →

08

At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.

AThe fact that it's real — that nothing else I could be doing would matter this much, right now, today. BThe patients — individual human beings who needed something and got it because I was there. CThe people I work with — I have walked through impossible things with these people and I'd do it again. DThe next unsolved case — there's always another puzzle, and I'm not done yet. EBecause despite everything — the exhaustion, the loss, the absurdity — I actually love this job.

REVEAL MY HOSPITAL →

Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…

Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.

The Pitt

You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn't let you look away.

• You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
• You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
• You've made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
• Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.

ER

You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.

• You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
• You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
• You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
• ER is television about endurance. You have it.

Grey's Anatomy

You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.

• You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
• Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
• You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
• It's messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.

House

You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn't fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.

• You're not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you'd deny it.
• You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
• Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they're smart enough to keep up.
• The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.

Scrubs

You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.

• You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
• You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that's not a flaw, it's a survival strategy.
• You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
• Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

'Party of Five' (1994–2000)

Image via FOX

Shows like Party of Five may have indirectly inspired new hits like Shameless. The teen and family drama is centered around tragedy as the parents of five siblings die in a car accident, leaving the eldest son to care for his younger siblings. With traditional teenage angst combined with more serious issues like substance abuse, not to mention everyone grieving the loss of their parents, the story in Party of Five was anything but rosy. But in the end, it was all about how they banded together and persevered.

The show only made a quiet impact in 1994, with TV Guide calling it the "best show you're not watching" in 1995. It might have taken Party of Five a few years and seasons before it hit its stride. But looking back, it was one of the most underrated shows of 1994.

'Ellen' (1994–1998)

Image via ABC

A groundbreaking show for so many reasons, Ellen is a sitcom centered around the title character, played by Ellen DeGeneres. It wasn't until a 1997 episode that the character officially came out as gay, but many fans suspected as such through the show's first seasons. The show centered around Ellen's neuroses and life dealing with friends and family members while working as a bookstore owner in Los Angeles.

The coming out of both the character and DeGeneres sparked massive controversy and pushback at the time. But before all the attention shifted to Ellen's sexuality, the show was a solid sitcom with a long guest list star and a compelling, fun story. Running through almost the entirety of 1994, with the show debuting in March and the second season arriving barely a month after Season 1 ended, Ellen was a big part of the primetime line-up for the duration of that year.

'Gargoyles' (1994–1997)

Image via Buena Vista Television

It's one of those animated series that anyone who was a kid during the '90s watched. The gargoyles in Gargoyles are nocturnal creatures that turn to stone during the day then come out at night. When they somehow become transported from medieval Scotland to present-day New York City, they become protectors of the Big Apple.

Unlike the more traditional upbeat animated shows for kids, Gargoyles was darker with a focus on mythology, fairytales, even Shakespearean themes throughout its best episodes. This wasn't common for the time and arguably has never been replicated in the same way. It's no surprise that in 2023, Disney+ announced a live-action reboot, though it has yet to come to fruition.

'All That' (1994–2005)

Image via Nickelodeon

Sketch comedy had been around since the '70s, but there was never a sketch comedy show for kids until All That. Leading to a long line of Nickelodeon kids' shows and catapulting the careers of Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell, who went on to star in Kenan & Kel, the show went on to feature many notable actors among its ever-changing cast through the years. But it was the original season in 1994 that kicked everything off.

The idea for a kid-friendly version of Saturday Night Live (SNL) was genius, and it worked well because the show continued on for more than a decade with new cast members over the years that includes notable names like Amanda Bynes, Nick Cannon, and Gabriel Iglesias.

'The Magic School Bus' (1994–1997)

Image via PBS

As far as educational kid’s series goes, The Magic School Bus is the one that any kid who grew up in the '90s and was in grade school in 1994 has fond memories of watching. Based on the book series of the same name, the story follows Ms. Frizzle (Lily Tomlin) and her eight students as they go on various school trips and explore scientific principles.

The show, one of the best produced by Nelvana, was among the first to use loads of celebrity voices, so while kids loved watching, parents didn't mind, too. Among these were the late Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Dolly Parton, the late Ed Asner, Ed Begley Jr., the late Alex Trebek, the late James Earl Jones, and more. The catchy theme song kids and parents couldn't get out of their heads, meanwhile, was performed by Little Richard.

'Star Trek: The Next Generation' (1987–1994)

Star Trek: The Next Generation started in 1987, but 1994 was a monumental year for the sci-fi series because that's when it ended. As the third series in the Star Trek franchise, it was set in the 24th century when Earth is one of many planets in the United Federation of Planets. At the center of the story was the Starfleet starship and the people aboard it as they explored the Alpha and Beta quadrants in the Milky Way galaxy.

The final and seventh season set the stage for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the double-sized final episode led to huge celebrations, including a stadium event at Toronto's SkyDome. No one can think of the year 1994 in television without recalling the end of this era, which really marked the middle of a franchise that endures to this day.

Star Trek: The Next Generation

• 

  Jean-Luc Picard

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  Commander William T. Riker