How can any of us define what is the best of all time? For some people, thinking about the best TV show or movie of all time is akin to asking them what their favorite is in the respective medium. But saying something is your favorite movie or TV show isn't automatically the same as considering it the best. For some, being the best means that you have to be influential or that the end result must have a big statement attached. And more importantly, if the question "What is the best of all time?" one wonders if we ask ourselves or rely on outside sources?

The critic's voice is important, but it can also be ignored if the critic doesn't like the show or movie the way we do, or if they just hate something we adore. But if we accept that critics' voices are worth listening to (which they are), then it comes down to either Metacritic or Rotten Tomatoes as to the best options for garnering dozens (and sometimes, in the case of big-budget films, hundreds) of reviews from around Internet and from the world to identify what can be the best. Metacritic is probably the better option, for two reasons. First, Metacritic doesn't pull from hundreds of random sources. Often the reviews he collects, even for the biggest new movie, amount to about 50 essays or articles from the crème de la crème of the internet. And second, because its numbers correlate directly with the ratings a critic actually assigns (as opposed to its main competition, whose scores simply reflect whether a review is generally positive or negative), the combined scores feel more accurate in terms of whether or not it shows up . it's actually good.

So, with all that out of the way, the question before us is this: Who is Metacritic's best sitcom of all time? The image above may have given you a hint, but if not, let's be clear that the answer is the British version of The Office. with a 97 grade. When it comes to influence, few shows can claim to be as massively influential (even without realizing it) than The Office, created and written by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant. For a show with such a deliberately small premise — a documentary crew following the daily lives of people working at a paper company in the English town of Slough — "The Office" is a show whose influence quickly spread across the pond to the US, and continues to do so.

Put aside the fact that Gervais and his co-star Martin Freeman became internationally famous for playing, respectively, the pompous and clownish office manager David Brent and the capable and suave paper salesman Tim. You can even put aside the fact that the show inspired a massively popular American remake helped make Steve Carell and John Krasinski big stars (for playing David and Tim's state counterparts). Imagine how many modern sitcoms, from Abbott Elementary to St. Denis Medical, are essentially derived from the same mockumentary style. "The Office" belongs alongside a few (at best) other sitcoms that have truly shaped the genre over the decades.