If you could only watch one channel to see all your favourite TV series – then which would it be?

For me, it would most certainly be Sky Atlantic. I find that the more TV I watch these days, the more I gravitate toward this channel. It seems to feature nearly all the top quality American HBO stuff – though this isn’t a guarantee of success, of course.

So let’s have a look at a few…

In the beginning there was … The Sopranos.

Now for aficionados of gangster entertainment and black humour by the bucket-load, The Sopranos is simply the greatest TV series ever made. Perhaps there can never be an equal (though many pundits who were fans of the genre would also have said the same after the first Godfather movie, but you’d have to admit that Francis Ford Coppola pulled the rabbit from the hat with G2 – something he singularly failed to do with G3, about which the less said the better).

Now I’m not going to go on about The Sopranos because there’d be far too much to say and it’s already been said. All I will say is that when it first came on our screens back in the late 90s – we’d never seen anything like it before and it blazed a trail – opening the door for more stuff of a similar quality like… The Wire.

Yes, if anything was ever better still than The Sopranos it was that other HBO classic series, The Wire. Sadly no longer in production (though we live in hope…) but still being aired on Sky Atlantic – The Wire is probably peerless (expect for The Sopranos perhaps). Talk about gritty realism! But again, there’s no point talking about how great all the different five seasons were (and check out The Wire’s prequel shorts, too, if you ever get the chance) because we all know it all already. Again – there isn’t much that hasn’t been said.

Now a friend once said to me that he had enjoyed The Wire and hadn’t seen anything better himself either until he watched… that’s right, you’ve guessed it, Breaking Bad. Another five seasons of an absolute cult classic with each getting better than the last – Breaking Bad was simply superb. It isn’t fair to compare it directly with The Sopranos or The Wire for my money as it was a different vehicle altogether – concentrating around a less believable set of circumstances and fewer characters. But it was also superb.

Unlike The Sopranos or The Wire, though, Breaking Bad originally aired on AMC – so were HBO asleep at the wheel or what? It ran from January 2008 to September 2013; sadly no longer with us, but greatly missed (apart from the repeats that is).

What’s more – it shouldn’t be on the list because it wasn’t on Sky Atlantic (or hasn’t been as yet anyway). But it certainly should have been, so we’re including it anyway.

One that thankfully did find its way to Sky Atlantic (appropriately as the series is set in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the prohibition era) is Boardwalk Empire – another HBO series.

Again this is a simply enthralling series. Boardwalk Empire covers everything from organised sports betting when Arnold Rothstein reputedly fixed the World Series of Baseball way back when in 1919 – to love stories, bootlegging, awful violence, motherhood, women’s rights, lesbianism – you name it, it’s in there somewhere. And of course, the brilliant Steve Buscemi (who also turned up in The Sopranos latterly) is simply superb in the lead role.

Incidentally, in the 1919 World Series, the Cincinnati Reds won the series against the Chicago White Sox, and the Reds are 50-1 shots to win again this year with the exchange betting service Betfair.

Meanwhile, the White Sox are 100-1 chances with Betfair  – so if you fancy either to repeat this dubious success, it may be an interesting ride. All you need to do is repeat what Rothstein is thought to have done!!!

The fictionalised  interplay between different figures of the early mafia including the afore-mentioned Rothstein, the main character “Nucky” Thompson, a young Al Capone, and the even younger Charlie “Lucky” Luciano and Meyer Lansky, to name but a few, is simply enthralling.

And it’s easy to see just how and why it’s so good when you consider that the pilot episode was directed by the genius figure of Martin Scorsese. Scorcese in effect, laid the foundation stone for the continued brilliance. Of course, the great man needs no introduction, but just in case you’ve been  on another planet for the last 30 years – just some of his works include Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, The Color of Money, Casino, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York and The Wolf of Wall Street!

And we haven’t finished yet. Because if there’s one more series that deserves a place on this list, it’s Mad Men. This is probably the odd man out on the list as it isn’t overtly connected with crime. In fact, it isn’t connected with crime at all. But if any series ever put any of us old enough to remember the 60s right back in that place and time – then it’s surely this one? All the time you’re watching it, you find yourself marvelling at the sets and costumes etc., and, even more so, the prevailing attitudes of the time. You may even find yourself saying “I remember those…” to anyone unfortunate enough to be watching Mad Men with you.

One the downside, the episodes can begin to feel just a little bit samey after a while – and there’s certainly not quite as much action as the peers on this list.  But it is still compulsive viewing.

So there we have it – if you can only have one TV channel and you have good taste to boot – then it has to be Sky Atlantic; seriously – where would we be without it?