The Best TV Shows on BBC Television

Every BBC Television Show Ranked From Best To Worst

From 1938 through to N/A, BBC Television has accumulated a diverse collection of over 20 television shows. Telecrime and BBC Proms represent the pinnacle of BBC Television’s programming, launching in 1938 and 1947. Our curated list, current as of April 2026, showcases over 20 of BBC Television’s highest-rated series.

  • Flower Pot Men
    Flower Pot Men (1952)8.0

    The Flower Pot Men is a British children's programme, produced by BBC television, first transmitted in 1952, and repeated regularly for more than twenty years, which was produced in a new version in 2001. The show was the basis for a comic strip of the same name in the children's magazine Robin.

  • Festival
    Festival (1963)8.0

    An anthology of single plays offering up adaptations of either of prominent stage plays or novels.

  • Doctor Who
    Doctor Who (1963)7.9

    The adventures of The Doctor, a time-traveling humanoid alien known as a Time Lord. He explores the universe in his TARDIS, a sentient time-traveling spaceship. Its exterior appears as a blue British police box, which was a common sight in Britain in 1963 when the series first aired. Along with a succession of companions, The Doctor faces a variety of foes while working to save civilizations, help ordinary people, and right many wrongs.

  • BBC Proms
    BBC Proms (1947)7.7

    The World's Greatest Classical Music Festival. The BBC Proms is a classical music festival held every summer at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and in recent years has explored an innovative series of Proms around the UK with concerts in all four nations. Its aim: to bring the best in classical music to the widest possible audience, which remains true to founder-conductor Henry Wood’s original vision in 1895. Whether you are a classical connoisseur or think classical music isn’t for you, there is something for everyone in the eight-week stretch of concerts.

  • Blue Peter
    Blue Peter (1958)7.6

    A fun-packed and informative magazine show for younger viewers with information and reports from around the world.

  • Eurovision Song Contest
    Eurovision Song Contest (1956)7.2

    The Eurovision Song Contest is an international song competition, organised annually by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and featuring participants representing primarily European countries. Each participating country submits an original song to be performed on live television and radio, transmitted to national broadcasters via the EBU's Eurovision and Euroradio networks, with competing countries then casting votes for the other countries' songs to determine the winner.

  • BBC Radio 2 Piano Room
    BBC Radio 2 Piano Room (N/A)7.0

    Live performances from much-loved music stars, alongside the BBC Concert Orchestra, at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios.

  • The Quatermass Experiment
    The Quatermass Experiment (1953)6.6

    Set in the near future against the background of a British space programme, the story of the first crewed flight into space, supervised by Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group.

  • The Sooty Show
    The Sooty Show (1955)6.0

    The Sooty Show is a British children's Puppet series which aired on the BBC from 1955 to 1967 and ITV from 1968 to 1992. It follows the adventures and comedic day to day life of puppets Sooty, Sweep and Soo with their owner Harry Corbett, and in later years, his son Matthew.

  • Suspense
    Suspense (1962)5.5

    Anthology series telling suspenseful tales.

  • Telecrime
    Telecrime (1938)5.0

    Telecrime was a British drama series that aired on the BBC Television Service from 1938 to 1939 and in 1946. One of the first multi-episode drama series ever made, it is also one of the first television dramas written especially for television not adapted from theatre or radio. Having first aired for 5 episodes from 1938 to 1939, Telecrime returned in 1946, following the resumption of television after World War II, and aired as Telecrimes. A whodunit crime drama, Telecrime showed the viewer enough evidence to solve the crime themselves. Most episodes were written by Mileson Horton. All 17 episodes are lost. Aired live, their preservation was not technically possible at the time.

  • Crackerjack
    Crackerjack (1955)5.0

    Crackerjack was a British children's comedy/variety BBC television series. It started on 14 September 1955 and ran for over 400 shows, first in black and white and later in colour, until 21 December 1984. It was revived in 2020 on CBBC.

  • A for Andromeda
    A for Andromeda (1961)5.0

    In the not-too-distant future of 1970, a mysterious signal from space arrives with instructions to build a powerful super-computer. Once completed, the evice's motives provokes discourse between scientists John Fleming and Madeleine Dawnay as further instructions are to create a living organism, which Dawnay develops. The entity compels lab assistant Christine to commit suicide, and, upon manifestation, adopts her form, now known as Andromeda.

  • Robin Hood
    Robin Hood (1953)N/A

    Robin Hood was produced in 1953 by the BBC, during which time these episodes were transmitted live and then re-acted the following Saturday or Sunday in order for a repeat to be shown. However, in some cases, television programmes were recorded onto 16mm film; the age and technology used in order to film titles such as Robin Hood mean that they no longer survive in their original quality, which means that transmission of these episodes by today's standards would be deemed as 'unacceptable'. However, short clips of this serial have aired as recently as 2007 as part of a documentary presented by Jonathan Ross, covering Robin Hood from its beginnings to the more recent BBC production, and shown as an example of television production in the BBC series of documentaries entitled Children's T.V. On Trial The 1950s. The show lasted only for one season, and starred Patrick Troughton as Robin Hood. Later was aired the TV series The Adventures of Robin Hood.

  • Jane Eyre
    Jane Eyre (1956)N/A

    After a bleak childhood, Jane Eyre goes out into the world to become a governess. As she lives happily in her new position at Thornfield Hall, she meets the dark, cold, and abrupt master of the house, Edward Rochester. Jane and her employer grow close in friendship and she soon finds herself falling in love with him. Happiness seems to have found Jane at last, but could Rochester's terrible secret be about to destroy it forever?

  • Theatre Night
    Theatre Night (1957)N/A

    A BBC television series of forty-five-minute excerpts from stage plays running in London.

  • Bleak House
    Bleak House (1959)N/A

    Bleak House is the first BBC adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel of the same name. It was adapted by Constance Cox as an eleven-part series of half-hour episodes first transmitted from 16 October 1959. It stars Andrew Cruickshank in the role of John Jarndyce, Diana Fairfax as Esther Summerson and Colin Jeavons as Richard Carstone. The complete series still exists.

  • Spycatcher
    Spycatcher (1959)N/A

    Based on the real-life activities of Dutch counterintelligence officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Oreste Pinto, who specialised in the interrogation of suspected spies during World War II and had later published his memoirs under the title Spy Catcher. Each episode showed Pinto questioning refugees to England from Nazi-dominated Europe, and eventually exposing them as enemy agents.

  • Sunday-Night Play
    Sunday-Night Play (1960)N/A

    BBC anthology drama series that ran over four seasons and replaced the previous BBC Sunday Night Theatre series.

  • Emma
    Emma (1960)N/A

    Emma Woodhouse is a congenial young lady who delights in meddling in other people’s affairs. She is perpetually trying to unite men and women who are utterly wrong for each other. Despite her interest in romance, Emma is clueless about her own feelings, and her relationship with gentle Mr Knightley.