That’s difficult, and the answer would change over time because picking a “favorite” is as much a product of what the mind is like at the time of asking as it is from an objective internal perception of favorite.

That being said, narrowing it down some helps.

First, ima wipe out anything generated by a streaming service. That narrows the field a lot, and it’s no more arbitrary than any other criteria to do so.

Then, ima wipe out any serial shows that didn’t get a finish of a reasonable kind as part of the original run. That’s because I can’t genuinely highly rate a show that isn’t over. The story is “pending” for me, and that always makes a show a disappointment. It does, unfortunately, eliminate firefly since its “ending” wasn’t aired. By aired, I mean shown on a network of some kind, be it cable or actual broadcast over the air. I also exclude anything not yet finished because how a show ends matters.

This eliminates thousands of shows, so I can maybe process things.

As contenders, there’s wide range. Winnowing those, I have to factor in repeatability. If the show suffers over repeated viewings for me, that’s a major loss. Something like Bones as an example, that I liked well enough when it was being aired, but has killed almost all enjoyment of it when watched one episode after another over a few weeks.

So, I have to decide if I want to include or exclude shows that aren’t serial. Now, I can automatically eliminate sitcoms because even the ones that are properly serial can’t hold up for me. But there’s sketch comedy ala snl and madtv. There’s stuff like the Twilight zone as well. Because of the quality of sketch shows and anthologies, I gotta leave them in. But they’re usually prone to more full on bad episodes than other types, so it leaves gaps.

All of which, nobody but me really cares about, but I’m bored and wanting to think this through in writing.

It does lead me to a few finalists though. Buffy has to be in there, though its ending was barely an ending, but counts enough. Monty Python has to be as well; even the weakest episodes still make me laugh. Trek has to be a possibility, but which iteration? Then there’s quantum leap that manages to be nostalgic without feeling super dated (unlike a show like knight rider that’s still fun, but really feels less enjoyable than it did in its era).

Since narrowing Trek down is nigh impossible for me, I think that disqualifies any individual series from making the grade. Tos and tng are just too closely tied to pick one.

Quantum leap though, damn. I’ve seen it front to back a dozen plus times and still enjoy it, even with the era’s proclivity towards cheese.

However, Buffy manages to be cheesy and it not (for me) trigger the rueful chuckle, so I guess that bumps leap down a notch.

That essentially leaves me picking between Buffy and Python.

Which one I’d cue up first isn’t certain on any given day. That being said, I think the fact that I could always just shrug and default to Python if I didn’t know what I was in the mood for bumps it into favorite status for me.

Yeah, that’s as good an answer as any other.

I will say that some shows, like the walking dead as a perfect example, could push those down if the overall series hadn’t been mismanaged.

Then there’s shows like Dr Who that I’ve spent more years and hours watching, but suffer from a ton of bad sections that make it hard to weed out; I’d have to pick a favorite doctor to be honest with myself about the show’s overall enjoyment factor. Like, Tom Baker era, or the Tennant/Smith era, they top Buffy for sure, but those are small segments of the show as a whole. Plus, the show technically hasn’t ended only individual eras have.

Loooota caveats in there though lol