Television doesn't owe permanence. A star might headline the posters, but the story may quietly outgrow them. Sometimes, a new voice takes the lead, or the center just blurs.

Television moms have been teaching us how to love, laugh, and occasionally lose our cool for over seven decades. They’ve parented through laugh tracks, class struggles, feminist awakenings, and cosmic weirdness. From groovy rock-tour matriarchs to unflappable homemakers, these 20 TV moms are the blueprint—each one showing that motherhood, like life, comes in many styles (and occasionally with a martini).

Somewhere between black-and-white TVs and Blu-rays, boomers were watching some truly wild science fiction. Let’s beam up some great sci-fi series that most millennials have never even heard of—but probably should have.