POLL UPDATE! "TEN GREATEST TV SHOWS OF ALL-TIME!", "SEINFELD" & "M*A*S*H" GO TO TIEBREAKERS AS WE'RE A DOZEN BALLOTS AWAY FROM OUR GOAL!

Well, I wish I could say that the enthusiasm grew from my last "TEN GREATEST TV SHOWS OF ALL-TIME" poll update, but alas, I only had a handful of new ballots come in, but it's still better than nothing, and we're inching closer and closer to our goal. In fact, we only need about a dozen new entries now, and now that I've counted the results, it's gotten a lot closer at the top of the poll than ever before. Very close in fact, and a new show, bounced into the Top Ten as well. So, with only a dozen ballots needed, the Top is closer, and the middle is more of a cluster**** than ever, and a few votes one way or another, can still completely change the outlook of the poll.

Let's take a look at the latest ballots, all of whom came in from Annette's Debates on Facebook.

CARY STOTLAND
Star Trek ('66)
Firefly
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
The Colbert Report
Nova
Frontline ('83)
Sesame Street
Bill Moyers' Journal
M*A*S*H
Austin City Limits

RALPH POLITIC
Dallas ('78)
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Roots
L.A. Law
Law & Order ('90)
Columbo
M*A*S*H
All in the Family
The Twilight Zone ('59)
Cheers ('82)

CHRIS JAMIESON
The Ed Sullivan Show (oka Toast of the Town)
ABC's Wide World of Sports
The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson
Sesame Street ('69)
60 Minutes
All in the Family
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
Saturday Night Live
The West Wing
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

PATRICIA CONWAY
Buffy, the Vampire Slayer
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Firefly
Moonlight
NCIS
Criminal Minds
Lie to Me
The Cosby Show
Reading Rainbow
Doctor Who ('05)
Supernatural ('05 Drama Series)

88 Ballots, 328 different TV shows have gotten at least one vote as varied from every genre imaginable, and alphabetically from "3rd Rock from the Sun" to "The Young and the Restless," and at the top, is a tie! That's right, with "M*A*S*H"'s two votes, they now have come back, and both "M*A*S*H" and "Seinfeld" have 25 votes, with "Seinfeld" just edging out "M*A*S*H" still, 'cause of the tiebreaker rules, based on rankings. As you can see, none of the recent entries chose to rank their ballot, and that's fine, since it's a show's votes I count first, but hypothetically and extra 1st or 2nd place vote or two, and "M*A*S*H" would be one right now. (Unranked ballots in tiebreaker, count as 10th place votes, and the rankings are averaged together to determine tiebreakers) They're both running away from everybody else, with "All in the Family" being the only other show with 20 votes so far, a distant 3rd in the rankings. Well, so much for "Seinfeld" runaway that it was looking like, at least for now.  Also, among the top sheet results, "Firefly" the very short-lived sci-fi show, jumped into the Top Ten two votes that show got. I'm not gonna pretend I understand that choice, but it's up there, now.

For those of you wondering what I'm talking about, last year, after "Sight & Sound" published their once-a-decade poll of the Greatest Films of All-Time, I decided to start an equivalent, or as close to an equivalent poll as I can, for television. Basically, I'm following their guidelines, except instead of polling just filmmakers and critics, I'm allowing everybody to participate, in my "TEN GREATEST TV SHOWS OF ALL-TIME!" POLL! Admittedly, it's been slow, of course, I'm also not "Sight & Sound" magazine, but I set a modest goal of collection a minimum of 100 ballots, and like I said before, I'm a dozen ballots away from that goal.

Basically, it's real simple, if you want to participate, just submit a ballot to me, either through my Facebook, by commenting on one of my FB posts of this blog, or through messaging or any other means available that I have, through my Twitter, at @DavidBaruffi_EV, or by commenting on the bottom of this blogpost, with your ballot, and make sure you leave a name, and some way to easily contact you, in case I need a clarification about your choices. On the same token, be as specific as possible, especially if there's been multiple shows with the same title over the years. Other than that, there's only two real rules you have to follow, and they're real simple.

RULE #1: As long as it originated on television, it's eligible for the poll, regardless of genre.
That basically means, you can vote for any show you want. Sitcom, drama, talk show, reality show, soap opera, news magazine, children's shows, animated shows, instruction shows, miniseries, TV movies, network shows, cable shows,... etc. as long as it originally aired on television, it's eligible. (ie. you can't vote for "M*A*S*H", the original movie, because that was first shown in movie theaters, but you can vote for "M*A*S*H" the TV series, 'cause that aired on TV)

RULE #2: You must select 10 and ONLY 10 SHOWS! No picking more, no picking less. Just 10!

There's been a few arguments regarding that rule, but this is the "TEN GREATEST TV SHOWS OF ALL-TIME", so of all of television, you're giving us, the Top Ten. Even if you only think, less than ten shows are worthy of a title, which seems a little ridiculous considering there's 60+ years of television to consider that one can't think of ten that are special, but if that's the case, you still need to consider the best of the rest, to fill out the ten on your ballot.

(BTW, this hasn't come up yet, but in case it does in the future, yes, internet series are eligible, and for all intensive purposes, are regarded as television, and any other clarification regarding that, I'll try to defer to the Emmys rules and guidelines.)

There's been a few minor situations where I've had to disqualify a vote, mainly because something aired in movie theaters before television, like say, "Looney Tunes", isn't technically eligible, although "The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show", would be, even though it just aired old cartoons that were mostly originally shown in theatre, but since it's a separate show in of itself, it counts, and there's a few other weird ones that have come up like that, so be careful of things like that, but most of the time, that doesn't happen. Just be as specific as possible. Take some time with this; I know there's many great TV shows, and it can be hard narrowing it down to ten, but that's part of the challenge. So I hope a lot of you will embrace this, as we're literally starting to countdown to the end of the poll, hopefully very soon.

Thank you to the many who have already participated, and to the ones who will soon, thanks ahead of time, and we can't wait for you all to SUBMIT YOUR BALLOTS. Thank you.