Oh man.. this is hard. xD
Only focus on 5 shows? Mhm, let's see.
Anime/Cartoons etc. excluded.
#1 Scrubs
No other show gave me so much joy and sadness at the same time. Scrubs had the perfect balance of comedy and seriousness. The cast was amazing, everyone played their characters perfectly.
Well, a lot of shows are great but get ruined by later seasons or the ending. Scrubs was one of the examples that showed how it is done right ! I'll never forget the last episode of season 8. I cried so much when J.D left the hospital, first meeting older characters again and then there was the look into the future matched with the beautiful song of Peter Gabriel. This show is a true masterpiece.
#2 PrisonBreak
This show comes close after Scrubs. The story of the first two seasons was the best sh!t I've ever seen, but season 3 was kinda boring while season 4 was totally crap. That kinda ruined the series for me. The cast was amazing too, I loved and hated the characters. Gladly there will be another season, I'm hyped!
#3 Breaking Bad
Well, I watched the show last year. Yeah, I was very late with it, which I regret xD
To be honest, I wasn't really impressed by the first season and was kinda annoyed by the ***-scenes.. but the seasons 2-4 were really great. After the death of Gustavo (my favorite Q_Q), the series dropped a bit and the last season was very.. confusing. Everything crumbled down slowly, Walter and Jesse were wierd.. but Walter's resolving of the loose ends was very cool tho. Bryan Cranston and Giancarlo Esposito are legends.
#4 How I met your mother
I don't really know what to say. It was similar to scrubs.
The balance of comedy and seriousness was very good and I liked all the actors ^-^
Also it seems that I'm one of the few people who absolutely enjoyed the "first" ending where Ted ends up with Robin. I was shocked when I heard about the sh!tstorm after the finale.
#5 Fringe
I liked the actors a lot and the show itself was very mysterious. I didn't understand everything of the scientific stuff and the alternative universe plot was veeeery confusing. Especially when I missed one or two episodes xD
Overall it was still very good.