The Larry Sanders Show (1992)

Not a talk show but a merciless sitcom about one, and the clearest look television has taken at its own back office. Garry Shandling drew on his own experience of hosting to play Larry Sanders, a paranoid and insecure late-night host, with an obsequious sidekick in Hank Kingsley and a fiercely protective producer in Artie keeping the machine running. The target is the gap between the warm, easy chat the audience sees and the fear, flattery and bargaining behind it. That gap has not changed since 1992, which is why the backstage scenes still feel current.