The Best TV Shows from 1981

Below is our top ten list of the best TV shows which first started broadcasting in 1981.

First Aired: 12 January, 1981

Dynasty is a TV series starring John Forsythe, Linda Evans, and Joan Collins. The trials and tribulations of two feuding families, the Carringtons and the Colbys, both oil rich families in Denver, Colorado.

First Aired: 12 September, 1981

Smurfs is a TV series starring Don Messick, Danny Goldman, and Lucille Bliss. The Smurfs are little blue creatures that live in mushroom houses in a forest inhabited mainly by their own kind. The smurfs average daily routine is…

First Aired: 04 November, 1981

The Fall Guy is a TV series starring Lee Majors, Douglas Barr, and Heather Thomas. The adventures of a film stuntman who moonlights as a bounty hunter when movie work is slow.

First Aired: 24 November, 1981

Simon & Simon is a TV series starring Jameson Parker, Gerald McRaney, and Mary Carver. Two brothers of disparate tastes and manners run a private detective agency.

First Aired: 18 March, 1981

The Greatest American Hero is a TV series starring William Katt, Connie Sellecca, and Robert Culp. A teacher is asked to be a superhero using a special alien suit with powers he can barely understand or control.

First Aired: 08 September, 1981

Only Fools and Horses…. is a TV series starring David Jason, Nicholas Lyndhurst, and Roger Lloyd Pack. Comedy that follows two brothers from London’s rough Peckham estate as they wheel and deal through a number of dodgy deals and…

First Aired: 05 January, 1981

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a TV series starring Simon Jones, David Dixon, and Peter Jones. Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect escape the destruction of Earth only to face incredible trials, tribulations and…

First Aired: 15 January, 1981

Hill Street Blues is a TV series starring Daniel J. Travanti, Michael Warren, and Bruce Weitz. The lives and work of the staff of an inner city police precinct.

First Aired: 12 October, 1981

Brideshead Revisited is a TV mini-series starring Jeremy Irons, Diana Quick, and Roger Milner. Two young men meet at Oxford. Charles Ryder, though of no family or money, becomes friends with Sebastian Flyte when Sebastian throws up…

First Aired: 25 July, 1981

Priklyucheniya Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona: Sobaka Baskerviley is a TV mini-series starring Vasiliy Livanov, Vitali Solomin, and Rina Zelyonaya. When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead in his country house, Dr James…