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Loving the lists so far, excited to see how the nominations go. There's been a lot of great shows this decade.
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Oct 17, 2021 22:28
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I'm starting to work on my list but I feel like I'm penalizing limited series and shows that ran only a couple of seasons compared to ones that ran longer. BBC just posted a 100 Best Shows of the Century and had Fleabag in the top 5, which made me think about shows that were good but over so quickly I kind of forgot about them.
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Oct 19, 2021 19:48
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I'm starting to work on my list but I feel like I'm penalizing limited series and shows that ran only a couple of seasons compared to ones that ran longer. BBC just posted a 100 Best Shows of the Century and had Fleabag in the top 5, which made me think about shows that were good but over so quickly I kind of forgot about them. This list includes How I met your mother and Dexter, and has no credibility.
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Oct 20, 2021 18:59
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I'm not advocating for this list in particular. It just provided me with an example. I'm sure my list will have some equally suspect picks though!
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Oct 20, 2021 19:15
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I'm not advocating for this list in particular. It just provided me with an example. I'm sure my list will have some equally suspect picks though! Oh mine will too. I've got it narrowed down to 37 right now
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Oct 20, 2021 19:31
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BetterLekNextTime posted:I'm not advocating for this list in particular. It just provided me with an example. I'm sure my list will have some equally suspect picks though! It did remind me to watch Fleabag at least, and after the first episode (hell, the opening scene!) I'm very grateful for this.
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Oct 20, 2021 23:12
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Fleabag is amazing and very well could make it into my top 10 for this list
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Oct 21, 2021 08:07
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Alright, I'm jumping in. First some honorable mentions that I'm not going to bother to rank: What We Do In The Shadows The White Lotus Maniac Russian Doll Schitt's Creek Mystery Road Giri/Haji Cobra Kai Master of None Downton Abbey Dead to Me Marvelous Mrs. Maisel Killing Eve Reservation Dogs WandaVision and the top 20 20-- iZombie (CW). This is definitely my "mock me" pick. iZombie is not a great show but somehow almost perfectly scratches the itch for Funny/ Secret Identity/Supernatural/ (mostly) light police procedural. I don't watch a lot of CW shows at all so I missed this during the original run. I almost stopped after S2 because it looked like it was going to get to bogged down with dumb stuff but then S3 leaned into the humor even more. S4 and S5 did get a bit dreary at times but it ended up with a decent finale. Rose McIver makes the show, usually injecting just the right amount of hamming it up and going all in when necessary. 19-- Longmire. Strong leads and western scenery made this modern-day western sheriff procedural a favorite of ours (possibly the first show we ever paid to get on Amazon Prime). If you only know Katee Sackhoff from Battlestar she does a good job in this show as a loyal but independent deputy and Robert Taylor's Walt Longmire is the perfect anachronistic strong silent small-town sheriff. There are cases of the week with long running mysteries in the background, and they feel well grounded in the setting (energy companies throwing their weight around, conflicts and problems on the local reservation, etc). 18-- Orphan Black (BBC America) I came late to the party for this show. Somehow it's got the Canadian sci-fi feel of doing a lot with a little (see also: Travelers, which didn't make my top 20). I don't think it would land in my top 20 without Maslany's work as the lead, but in almost every episode you can point to something really remarkable with her portrayal of so many characters. There are times when one character impersonates another, or someone else in the cast gets a rare scene with a different persona, and you really appreciate what she's doing. S3 was probably my least favorite, but it starts to recover in S4 cheek maggots aside, and has reasonable closure over the latter half of S5. The messages of family and sisterhood feel well earned and often triumphant (for example, the dance scene at the end of S2 is one of my all-time favorite TV moments). 17-- The Good Place. It was between this and Schitt's Creek for this spot on my list and I chose The Good Place because a) the premise was MUCH riskier and required a lot more creativity to pull off, and b) the finale is hands down one of my favorite show endings ever. Who knew the afterlife and philosophy could be so funny and colorful? 16-- Trapped (Icelandic). Two seasons of Nordic noire, season-long mysteries, set in Iceland. I'm not sure how original these types of shows are, but this one just seemed to do everything right (small town, old crimes and secrets, lots of snow). With the relatively long 10-episode seasons there's a lot of time to roll out the story. 15-- GLOW (Netflix). The premise of this show is pretty ridiculous-- writing a dark comedy about ridiculous, exploitative ladies wrestling show from the 80's. Somehow GLOW becomes a charming story of empowerment, friendship, and found family. Alison Brie and Marc Maron are the perfect driving force. 14-- Fleabag. Just a quick LOL at myself for putting this here after wondering earlier in the thread how it could end up on someone else's list. Certainly not a top 5 show for me but the dark humor and rawness of this show were spot on. 13-- The Boys (Amazon). Of course super heroes would be scary assholes and corporate stooges! The gore in this show feels well enough earned to avoid being completely gratuitous in this context. Nice balance of action and humor. The entire cast is pretty great but the menace and frustration in Antony Starr's Homelander is underrated brilliance. 12-- Ugly Delicious. We like culture/foodie shows, and this one was forward about challenging our assumptions and biases about cuisines. Travel food shows are one thing but this is definitely something different. David Chang brings a fresh approach and this is neither PBS Sunday afternoon mellow-fest nor Food Network faux spectacle. 11- Mindhunter. Premise: take the study of serial killers and while pretending to make it as boring and academic as possible somehow make a really compelling show. Between the era, the chemistry between the partners, and the criminals themselves, this show was surprisingly enjoyable for us and somehow avoided getting too dark and in its own way in spite of the subject. 10-- Game of Thrones (HBO). Final season aside, this show actually did a lot right, and it did something GRRM apparently can't do which is f-ing end. Yes the books are probably better, but the big budget dropped on this series led to some impressive world building. So many sword & sorcery shows feel like they are cheap knock-offs of something else but not GoT. Add to that the cast was pretty fantastic. 09-- Stranger Things (Netflix) Sometimes campy, sometimes scary, but usually good for a fun ride. It can be hard to do a show with kids as the leads but this one usually finds the right notes. The kids act like kids and not mini adults. The 80's nostalgia is well done with roles for actors like Winona Rider and Sean Astin. 08-- High Maintenance (HBO). The conceit of the show is almost secondary. This makes my top 10 for its beautiful, raw glimpses into different peoples' lives. The weed guy makes a relatable through-line for the show. 07-- Lucifer (Fox/Netflix). Don't overthink it. Tom Ellis takes this show from what could be a truly stupid train wreck to a frequently hilarious, sometimes touching, silly supernormal procedural love story. I disliked this show from the trailer and it took me a couple of watches to get past the bratty lead character we find in pilot. And now it's in my top 10 because it sparks joy, fight me! Both the Fox seasons and Netflix seasons have their own charm. Most of the police cases are not that compelling but it really doesn't matter because you are there for Tom and the rest of the cast. 06-- The OA (Netflix) Cancelled too soon, but the two seasons (especially, imo, S2) were some of the most beautiful, haunting, and captivating episodes on TV. This is the show that finally convinced me to join Reddit for the discussion board. It's hard to quickly describe what the show is about but if you like Lost or the new Twin Peaks you may like this. 05-- Brokenwood Mysteries. Not every great show has to have grand ambitions. There are a million light police procedurals out there but somehow this one stands out for us. This New Zealand offering isn't groundbreaking in any particular way but became one of our favorites with its comfortable tone, great music, and nice chemistry between the leads and residents of the small town. This will probably be the only vote in the whole thread for this show but it's the reason we originally subscribed Acorn TV at the beginning of the pandemic after catching some of the episodes on our local PBS station. Bonus points for having long episodes and short seasons. 04-- Borgen (Original network? New season on Netflix) Another show that cracks the Top 10 for me because I wasn't expecting to like it this much. Political drama in Denmark somehow is fascinating! I haven't watched West Wing but I imagine this has a somewhat similar feel (as opposed to much darker stuff like House of Cards). I think one of the reasons I might like this is that (in a pre-Trump, pre-Brexit Europe) paints such an optimistic picture of politics in general. With the parliamentary system there's much more respect between opposing factions and a general patriotism and belief in the political system. I can't wait to see how the writers deal with the poo poo show of the past 5 years in the upcoming season. 03-- The Expanse (Amazon). Best sci-fi show since, maybe ever. Part gritty detective series, part political thriller, part captivating speculative sci-fi. It's re-invented itself through many strong seasons. 02-- Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime). It is happening again! A beautiful, weird show that somehow defied every guess of what I thought would happen and simultaneously felt like every scene was tapping directly into my expectation and nostalgia. What a gift from David Lynch. 01-- The Crown (Netflix). (Mostly/partly true) historical vignettes of British monarchy in the second half of the twentieth century. Why did I pick this as number 1? For something that I'd expect to barely rise to the level of "interesting", this has been a riveting series and exceeded my expectations at every turn. Great acting throughout even with the changes in cast. Especially in the earlier seasons it doesn't feel so much like a dramatized story chopped into episodes (like the recent Victoria series on PBS) but instead as a series of cruical moments that build to tell the broader story.
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Oct 22, 2021 23:52
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My top 20 list. I've listed on parenthesis, which season I think are worthy of the nomination. Usually series went downhill on later season and I didn't list those season. I haven't watched really any new series since the last season of Orville ended. I cheated a bit by lumping similar series under honourable mentions, instead of separate entries. The Honorable Mentions: American Gods (S1, Starz) What a great season based on a modern classic, by the Neil Gaiman. Shame about all the behind the scenes fuckery. Never watched the later seasons. The Librarians (S1-4, TNT) Campy C-tier action-adventure show in spirit of Indiana Jones. What’s not to like? Based on Straight to Brooklyn Nine Nine (S1-3 FOX) Very funny original comedy with Andy Samberg and Terry Crews. Very fresh at the start, but show got flanderised at some point and it mostly started coasting with old jokes. First few seasons were great though. Top 20 list: 20. Lucha Underground (S1-4 El Rey) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYipyNbZimg One of those too beautiful to last concepts. It was a Pro-wrestling show, but it was not as a standard wrestling show. No It was filmed with a TV-series storylines with live-action matches. The production values were good, wrestling was very Luchadory, which is to say it was mostly flippy spotfests, but I loved it. I don’t currently watch any other wrestling, but if a show like LU was on, I definitely would watch it. 19. Awake (S1 NBC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfPVoiQKFvk a Mid-season filler show that never got renewed. A Nice little mini-series about a detective, who was in a car accident and now alternates between realities, where either his wife or his son died. Very interesting concept show and the gimmick never got stale, maybe thanks to the short 13 episode running time. Was earlier on netflix, but can’t find a streaming service that would show it in Finland anymore  18 Jessica Jones (S1-3 Netflix, with honourable mentions to Daredevil) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWHUjuJ8zxE My favourite drunk superhero. 17. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (S1-4, Netflix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIdFa1qLgNQ Quirky, fish out of water comedy from Tina Fey. There’s just something lovely about main character and how she faces the world with such a cheery optimism. 16. Jane the Virgin (s1-2, CW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSizHgQNBZQ CW show, that had a great beginning with the telenovela gimmick and heartwarming characters. Show ended up being stale on later seasons. 15. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (S1-S2, HBO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9wHzt6gBgI Great weekly show about important topics like Indian elections or plight of the chicken farmers. John Oliver mostly avoided topical news as most other pundits would grind all the jokes to the ground, before he had the change to comment on them. Then during the 2016 elections he fell to the Trump derangement syndrome and the show became almost exclusively about Trump and daily Ameripol crap, that he mostly avoided earlier. RIP 14. Ash vs Evil Dead (S1-3, Starz) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdZUN8jdY-g Splatter isn’t my favourite horror genre, but there’s something about Bruce Campbell that makes this show so entertaining. Show kept churning forward and kept going one body part after another. Probably ended right before getting too stale. Great series. 13. Crazy ex-girlfriend (S1-3 CW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIJKuxzWAGs Another CW show? This is a tale old as CW. Couple of great season, got stale… yada yada. I love musicals and the earlier seasons and songs were really great. 12. Arrow (S1-3 CW, with honourable mentions for Legends of Tomorrow S2-3, Flash S1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzRVoGz3maM “My name is Oliver Queen. For five years I was “stranded” on an island with only one goal… survive. Now I will fulfill my father’s dying wish… to use a list of names he left me, to bring down those who are poisoning my city.” Early seasons of Arrow had a very strong narrative with episodes main story gets reflected with what happened on Oliver’s past on the Island. Before this show, I had no idea about DC superheroes outside of the earlier movies like Batman and Superman. This show made me a fan. Special mention to Flash S1. It also had a tight season narrative with Barry, his mentor and his nemesis. Too bad all the cw superhero shows went too saturday morning cartooney and just cruised along churning more bland seasons. But they all had a stronger earlier seasons. Arrow with his streetlevel storytelling was my favourite. 11 Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (S1-3, Netflix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tup-5yOcJuM Lovely series about 3 orphans and their legal guardian Count Olaf. Nothing bad or untoward ever happens. Very happy story that is carried by Neil Patrick Harris performance. 10 Key & Peele (s1-5, Comedy Central) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-2ZxldMO-M Great comedic duo that had lot of really funny sketches. There’s nothing more to say about them so here’s some of the sketches. 09 Legion (s1, Fox) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pep_HiCqYJA Tightly woven story about a z-tier marvel superhero. Very cool stylistical 60-inspired design combined with some modern stuff. First season of this was just magic, with tightly told mystery about main characters past and the weird world they live in. I never finished the 2nd season, but it is on my to do list… eventually.  08 Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (s1-2, BBC America) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mj7xMKxXYvU Quirky little mystery show in Douglas Adams spirit. 07 Doctor Who (S6-10, BBC) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vIsQ25Krq8 Season 5 would have elevated this to top3, but it just missed the cut. Moffats direction elevated this legacy series from merely good to mostly great show about madman with box. Shame that the quality nosedived after Moffat left the show. Haven’t seen the latest season and not planning to watch it until Chibnall is gone. 06 Sense8 (S1-2, Netflix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8vd0AjdNbQ Pretty queer show from the Wachowskis and Straczynski. I love how over the top, bold and sexual this show is and is not ashamed of it. Beautiful visuals and conspiracy storylines carry this story, although the main cast is pretty great too. I loved their individual stories and how they interweave with each other. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el4CQj-TCbA 05 Planet earth 2 (BBC with honourable mentions to other Attenborough documentaries from last 10 years, including: Frozen planet, Africa, Life Story, Blue Planet 2, Dynasties, Our Planet) What can I say. I’m sucker for these high budget BBC nature documentaries and Sir Attenborough voice is simply amazing. He could read me a phonebook and I would listen to it. Modern cinematography really does justice to majesty of the nature and is the best argument for having huge 4k television. Shame about 3D-bluerays being just a fad, because 3d-nature documentaries simply popped. 04 Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey (s1, Fox) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_erVOAbz420 What’s better than nature documentaries? Space/science documentaries. Like Sir Attenborough, Neil DeGrasse Tyson has a great voice. I loved the 1:st season and planning on watching the 2nd one, when I have the time and can find a streaming service for it. 03 Orphan Black (S1-5, Space) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do_BCA-vR9E One womans show about a clone conspiracy. Great story with Tatiana Maslany carrying it with her 4 5 main cast roles. 02 Community (s3, s5 NBC and S6 Yahoo Screen (lol)) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01t_XVaPud8 Apart from season 4, which doesn’t exists, this show was a masterpiece of comedy. I would have even paid for Yahoo screen to see another season of Community, but luckily it was free. Show lost lot of talent in later seasons, but the replacement characters were luckily great. 01 The Orville (S1-2, Fox) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWBRMaKsGN4 Best drat Star Trek show currently on television of all time! Post 9/11 world has been pretty grim dark and modern television shows including current Star Trek shows have mirrored it. The Orville is the shining beacon on the hill about a better tomorrow. Yeah, there’s still problems and conflict in the future, but people are mostly decent and the future spaceships are brightly lit. Currently I’ve mostly given up on following current tv-series, but I’m waiting for the 3rd season of The Orville, which comes in Spring 2022. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heMcSXRXm5Q Edit1: For some reason arrow had wrong number in front of it. Fixed it from 18->12. Issaries fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Nov 19, 2021 |
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Oct 23, 2021 03:20
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I’m having a really tough time ordering my list. What kind of criteria do y’all use when determining what goes where?
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Oct 23, 2021 05:04
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Raspberry Bang posted:I’m having a really tough time ordering my list. What kind of criteria do y’all use when determining what goes where? I'm deducting spots for shows I didn't finish, were just comfort viewing or had short runs and bumping a few shows up for being personally important to me even if they didn't hold up across their whole run
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Oct 23, 2021 05:10
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Don't overthink it, just make a list. Once you have that you'll quickly realize that you liked X better than Y and when you think about it A shouldn't be on the list at all because you *really* liked B and A is only good because when B was over you needed something else like that to watch. Then when you are done, you'll be like "Holy poo poo, I forgot about J! J was like the loving best show ever!"
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Oct 23, 2021 06:00
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The top 5 was pretty quick from me, and then I could think about other shows that I really liked for the top 10. Figuring out 11-20 out of my top 30-ish list was a lot harder but I just played around with it for a while and adjusted as I remembered new shows.
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Oct 23, 2021 06:06
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The hardest part for me was ordering my top 4, they're all so good 
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Oct 23, 2021 06:11
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Yeah, just put titles on a list. Once you're done, you'll be able to look at it and go,"Hmmm, that shouldn't be over that" or "That one deserves to be higher" and it'll all sort itself out. I say that but I'm still holding off doing anything because I'd like to finish Mad Men before putting it down on the list, but given the pace my real life allows me to watch it, it seems unlike I'll be able to get through it before the year's end.
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Oct 23, 2021 06:19
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gently caress I need to catch up with the Mad Men thread so bad, I think the last one I watched/read up to was 402 702 unread posts lol also these lists are great and I love reading them. even insane ones that put insane choices at 1
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Oct 23, 2021 10:09
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Yeah. I love how people love so different things. I find most 'prestige series' pretentious, boring and filled with unredeemable characters. And I value great comedy more than drama.
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Oct 23, 2021 10:25
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Escobarbarian posted:also these lists are great and I love reading them. even insane ones that put insane choices at 1 At least no one's listed a TV show at 1 that's not even out yet 
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Oct 23, 2021 10:28
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adhuin posted:19. Awake (S1 NBC) Awake was so good, it's a show I go back and re-watch often.
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Oct 23, 2021 10:43
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adhuin posted:Yeah. I love how people love so different things. Hell yeah. I meant it! Insane choices are great and make the poll more interesting!
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Oct 23, 2021 15:06
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Escobarbarian posted:Fleabag is amazing and very well could make it into my top 10 for this list Having just finished both seasons... holy gently caress. What an incredible show, if anybody hasn't watched it then they absolutely must, because holy gently caress. It is SO good.
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Nov 2, 2021 08:03
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Pillowpants posted:This list includes How I met your mother and Dexter, and has no credibility. Those shows are not necessarily bad, I like them (some seasons of Dexter not as much), friends liked them, people talk about them etc. Also I noticed lately that imdb is apparently Dexter country, it's got top 250 ratings there pretty much. But anyways, I just find those shows to be pretty cool. Also, the multi-cam laughtrack style sitcom, it gets a lot of flack, and I can see why. It's an antiquated format, but when done well if you have a taste for it, it can be so good. Cheers for example. For me HIMYM was sort of a last hurrah for that done well, at least, it's the most recent one I enjoyed. But I found it had a lot of merit. And they'll both be on my list most likely. Well, we'll see about Dexter, but I do enjoy season 7 and 8 as it's own pulpy nutty thing. adhuin posted:My top 20 list. Very cool list! I'll have to check a bunch of those out, and plenty of favs on there. Also, just to throw it out there, it's interesting how anime often isn't seen much on this sort of list. Maybe since people put it in a different slot on their entertainment shelf or something. Plus it has a different forum on here. But it is all TV. So I'd probably have at least a few on a top 20. Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 04:18 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 04:04
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I haven't seen an anime series made this past decade I would put in my Top 10 of television.
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Nov 10, 2021 08:12
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Edward Mass posted:I haven't seen an anime series made this past decade I would put in my Top 10 of television. Top 20 anyway? Rainbow: Nisha Rokubou no Shichinin from 2010 is one of my all-time favs. Really moving and powerful stuff. The second Kaiji series, a lot of Lupin the Third, Jojo, Ippo Rising, Space Dandy, One Punch Man, a buncha stuff for me. (editor's note: I forgot 2010 isn't in for Rainbow) Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Nov 10, 2021 |
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Nov 10, 2021 08:21
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Edward Mass posted:I haven't seen an anime series made this past decade I would put in my Top 10 of television. please do yourself a favour and watch literally anything by masaaki yuasa
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Nov 10, 2021 11:30
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Oh no the anime people have found this thread
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Nov 10, 2021 12:49
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Escobarbarian posted:Oh no the anime people have found this thread
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Nov 10, 2021 13:17
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Alrighty, here's my list. A few honorable mentions first: Honorable uno - Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (2010, second season aired in 2012) This deserves to be remembered, just something special. So clever and fun, a nice updating of the classic Scooby-Doo formula. Just one of those underrated shows, I'd put it in the halls of TV glory, it is a masterpiece. Zoinks, jinkies, and quite frankly, lots of really good stuff. For me, perhaps the finest work in the Scoob canon. Honorable dos - Dexter Dexterly Dextering. This show, and especially it's second half, seems to be a laughingstock of this forum. But, I gotta say, for me in a certain context it's pretty good. I didn't enjoy the Colin Hanks season, season 6, but I really enjoyed 5, 7, and 8. I enjoy it for what it's going for, which is not as good as the early seasons. But still a lot of pulpy fun. For me I just set different expectations for the different style. Take say Burn Notice, a show that had its moments, kind of well remembered. These later Dexter seasons to me are a lot better than Burn Notice, and are sort of in this wheelhouse of almost procedural nutty kind of light TV. Whatever it was doing, I enjoyed it a lot, and stayed invested in it. How about that minotaur guy in season 7? Yvonne Strahovski and Ray Stevenson? It's like a buffet of genre cheese, I like it. Honorable tres - Daredevil So nice to finally see a good adaptation of one of Marvel's finest comics. Knocked it out of the park, that first season especially, what a breath of fresh air. While obviously a ridiculously cool premise, the cast really brought heart to it and humanized it all. You really wanted these goofballs to get along and for things to go well for them. 20. Jojo's Bizarre Adventure (2012) This is one mighty fine telling of an 80s manga, just adaptation bliss. I love how fast paced and wild it is. We get several generations of epic over-the-top good times. We get Dio! Holy diver, this is must see. 19. Hung Tom Jane! What a cool show. And I'm gonna say it, an even better showcase for him than The Expanse. Though Miller is very very cool. This I feel shows the full range of Jane, what a uniquely charming dude. Jane Adams is so good, when I see her show up in things it's great to see that quirky nervous energy. And again, just a great great role for her here. Season 3 is the one that aired in 2011, and it was a really good one. It's funny, when thinking about and ranking all these shows, some aspects can blend together. They're about people who want to be understood, want to be loved, how people get along. Getting into trouble, digging yourself out, communication, and ways to put new twists on all that in a clever episodic package. Also fun to see a positive show about a sex worker. However it did it, this show stood out to me as one of my favs. Also very funny. 18. Doctor Who Definitely deserves love, plenty of great stuff over these years. Jenna Coleman, various Doctors, potato guy what's his name, just a cool rear end show overall. Not to sell it short, it's got tons of great clever episodic plots, lots of charisma and charm, very memorable. Well deserving of it's legacy. I'm a fan. 17. GLOW What a show, and shame on netflix for cancelling this. At least just postpone it for a couple years. At the very least, they need to make it right with a TV movie in a while like Deadwood. I know that's a slightly different story. But anyhoo, this show has it all, great music montages, lovable flawed human characters, heightened yet immersive style, great laughs, serious heart. It's like a best of TV playbook, played to perfection. 16. How I Met Your Mother Like a last hurrah for an old style, this is the swansong of the multi-cam sitcom for me. At least, it's a style I'm usually not drawn to in recent stuff, and it worked for me here. Loved hanging out with those characters, and Ted's search for love was pretty cool. Reminded me a bit of that vibe of an oldschool anime romance comedy at times oddly enough, Maison Ikkoku for example. And classic rom-coms. I think it's something special. Also, having marathoned Cheers and Frasier during the past year or two, I've found there can be something magical to getting absorbed by a classic sitcom. And since at least one friend roasts me for digging a laughtrack show, I feel some of these shows can be underrated in modern times. Plus, having listened to sitcom people like Ken Levine and James Burrows on podcasts, I really appreciate the craft that goes into a sitcom that is especially well done. And a shout-out to Kevin Smith for his Frasier podcast. 15. Kaiji: Against All Rules (2011) The second series, so drat good. We've got gamblers in debt etc, forced into deadly games. We've got suspense, dark humor, lots of excitement and it really has it's own voice. Plus it introduced me to one of my favorite bands, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 14. Bojack Horseman This is such a nonstop, wall to wall, well written, clever, terrific show. It's just impressive as hell. Great characters, tons of good gags, well done take on tackling some issues, saying some stuff, going for it. Plus it's nice to see a cool varied animated series aimed at older audiences, I feel we could use more of that worldwide. 13. Lupin the Third: Part IV (2015) Incredible stuff, gotta love Lupin. Like Cowboy Bebop in a lot of ways, and going in anime form since 1971. Miyazaki got started on Lupin. Monkey Punch's creation, this beloved gang of adventuring thieves, can't find more charisma. Plus Lupin is like Japan's answer to James Bond in a lot of ways. And just tons of great humor too, and Yuji Ohno's awesome jazzy score. Lupin is the best thing going. 12. Hajime no Ippo: Rising (2013) This is one of the best sagas ever. It is so good, Ippo is a kind young man who happens to have roaring jet engine fists of fury. Great humor, great characters, drama, and such insane boxing action. So invested in this, as say a Rocky movie fan, this to me is the finest realization of that kind of thing. It was so cool to see them make this third series years after the previous adaptations. I sure hope they make another, but there's always the manga. I can't recommend Hajime no Ippo enough, it is so special. 11. Better Call Saul One of my favs, Jimmy is especially one of my favorite characters ever. Such a great vehicle for a uniquely charismatic actor. I care so much about him, and Kim too, and the world is just a cool one to hang out in. Pulpy (or whatever we call Elmore Leonard), fun down and dirty thrills. And that classic TV vibe of worrying about what will go wrong for our beloved guy this time. Yet somehow hoping for the best. I do have some nitpicks with the show. I love Michael McKean so much, but this character's plot I feel takes up too much time. And in general a complaint I have about some TV is that it lingers too much. I feel they could've gotten to the Saul persona a bit sooner, and in general I'd like more focus on Jimmy compared to the rest of the cast. Seems every show is a big ensemble, so it would stand out to have it focus even more so on one person's life story I feel. Just nitpicks, love the show, I just feel like nothing is perfect, and at times the show is overindulgent in areas I didn't feel like indulging in for as long. And maybe it commits too much to the TV rhythm we expect, having to cut to say the construction plot for example, and over to another plot, and then back over to Jimmy. But it deserves respect for going for it, and I love that it's doing it's own thing overall. And I do love Fring of course. What they do works, I just could've gone for even more Jimmy in place of some of that. The last couple seasons have been terrific, the most recent one especially, no complaints for me there. Just gimme more Jimmy/Saul, I can't get enough of that guy. Kim is cool too. Ok I'm not the pro here. Great show! Lots of transcendent TV moments. Any time Jimmy is jamming, and we're like "oh my... here we go again", you know you're in for some good stuff. Also... the last season better rule! I demand ruling. It'll probably rule. 10. Barry Barry is just terrific. Maybe a bit early to rate it so high, but these two seasons rule no matter where it goes. Henry Winkler is one of the all time greats. Bill Hader rocks. The premise is almost too easy of a delight, it's like Dexter meets aspects of The Sopranos and Breaking Bad etc, just prestige TV gold. Y'know, daring us not to love this character. It has cartoonish comedy gangsters. It has Stephen Root. It has a person doing bad things that we care about anyway, plus we do enjoy seeing this kind of stuff in our stories anyway don't we. It's a clever twist on our fav formulas. I say free the criminals, let all the maniacs with a heart of gold go free, I'm rooting for 'em. Barry you're a winner! 09. The Expanse Very cool show. Since the Cowboy Bebop days, maybe since the Spaceballs days, whatever days they were, it's cool to tool around in a spaceship with a ramshackle crew. Hard sci-fi no less, this is more real than half of the History channel's output. Ok I'm not an expert there, but this show feels lived in, it handles several spheres well like government and cultures and stuff. And it's just a good sci-fi romp too. Full disclosure, I'm still in the middle of season 4, used to marathon it with some friends pre-quarantine. But I'll get back to The Expanse sometime soon. Update: just marathoned the rest of it, great stuff! Char and Amuro of the ol' Gundam epic would be proud of this saga. And a little Wrath of Khan vibe when we first meet our crazy staring vengeance-y space villain. In other words, playing in the sandbox of "hell yeah" ridiculously cool epic space opera. Season 5 is too good, it's what I like to see. What more can I ask for in an epic space struggle with heart. It is just so drat cool.  Season 6 coming up too!08. Breaking Bad What a show. And also one where I felt it got better and better. So many great characters and moments. Saul, Badger, you name it. I like the hint of surreal over-the-top dark humor and whatnot, like say Terry Gilliam or something like that. Tough to describe, but you know what I mean, just a great unique tone to this show. A pleasure to watch. You know what I'm talking about. 07. True Detective That first season, Great Scott. Hard boiled perfection. Rewatchable, compelling, fun, entertaining, with it's own stamp and memorable characters. "I like mowing my lawn!" Season two wasn't my thing, though it was watchable. Season 3 rocked a good bit too, pretty darn cool. To tie it all back to Bruce Campbell, the old man makeup portion of the ongoing timelines did remind me a little of the great film Bubba Hotep. But I joke because I love, it's a really good season. 06. Game of Thrones Very cool show. I haven't read the books, a couple of my friends I watched it with did, so I gather some stuff about how the later stuff went. And I myself have some reservations with where it went, although I did enjoy it overall to the end, with a few things in the last season I didn't love. The last season being just sort of an event spectacle, which dropped the ball on some things, characterization wise etc. But it's about the journey, and this is nothing new to the anime/manga fan, so many otherwise great shows had a made up rushed ending. Although side note, I've really enjoyed how some anime endings for unfinished manga went. X (TV), Trigun, sometimes lemonade has been made. For why GoT is one of my top favs, well, it's metal. It's got wit, it's got flavor, classic drama and payoffs, thrills, adventure, action. And just stylishly and smoothly done all around. It did so much well I almost feel like we take it for granted, even with its flaws, it is a terrific show. Like milk of the poppy, good stuff. A lotta cool songs have been written about dragons, and this is the finest TV show featuring dragons. Also, hot drat, Peter Dinklage, one of the best actors ever. Station Agent is great, and Tyrion is the one he's gonna be remembered for in 200 years. 05. Ash vs. The Evil Dead Oh baby. This is what I need! I've listened to every Bruce Campbell audiobook, and I love Ted Raimi's classic Lunatics: A Love Story. Lucy Lawless fan as well. Army of Darkness is like the coolest thing ever made. Or Evil Dead II. Big Sam Raimi fan. As far as ranking, trying to do a beautiful dance of different vibes and genres. We know that the genre (B movie-esque) stuff like this is not gonna get the votes like the showstopper mega hits. But every type of entertainment has it's own magic to it, and this is such a uniquely cool and specific thing. It just rocks. And ranking is pretty subjective to me anyway. This show delivered the goods. What we wanted for so long, that first ep by Sam Raimi was a masterpiece. And from there, the new cast was a lot of fun, the laughs and clever fun kept coming. And Bruce Campbell, my god, it was so good to see him utilized this well. I mentioned Burn Notice earlier, and it can be y'know baffling at times when a powerful instrument like Bruce, a man with the gift, has to take a backseat. In some Burn Notice episodes he has like two lines. What were they doing. But anyways, this show, it knew what it was doing. It was being groovy. Also the ending rules. 04. Mad Men Love this show. For me it notably got better and better as it went too. Season 3 was where I knew it was a major favorite, season 4 even more so, and I loved how it kept evolving. So cinematic, comparable to The Sopranos there. Just a very cool life story kind of show, with great dialogue, lots of clever ways of mixing it up, and looking to say some stuff about life, finding happiness. I dig it. 03. Twin Peaks: The Return David Lynch is one of my heroes. I recommend his audiobook Room to Dream to everybody, or in paper form if you prefer. One of the coolest filmmakers ever, such a great mix of surreal, dark, comedy, heart on it's sleeve, experimental, just a unique voice. This felt like a mix of Twin Peaks and his movies like Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, just a treasure for the Lynch fan. I don't know what it is about his vision that makes me love his stuff so much, but he is the definitive surreal filmmaker in our lifetime I'd say. And his particular blend of idiosyncrasies is just really up my alley. "Helloooooooo!" 02. Cobra Kai Good lord Cobra Kai, this show delights me. It is magical, they just nailed it. At times by season 3 it can repeat itself a bit, and it leans a little on it's formula, but it has a recipe for just sublime entertainment for me. It's tough to describe exactly why. It's like it knows what I want to see, and it messes around, goes in different directions, yet it still shows me something that I wanted to see in my soul. And something I maybe didn't expect they'd do, because it's a bit too I dunno 80s genre, or too on-the-nose, or something, but it goes to these majestic places. To try and sum it up, it's not just a parody, you really get invested in it, so it kind of gets to have it's cake and eat it too. And then it throws the cake in the air and kicks it to oblivion! When something plays with convention, it's like music, you know it when you see it (hear it)? Since I've enjoyed so much vintage genre stuff, they're playing me like a fiddle, yet in ways that come across as clever and delightful to me. All I know is, this is the best around! Thank you. 01. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia I hope this show goes forever. At least 20 seasons, but that would be too soon, I need 30. At least several returning specials. Maybe pull a Twin Peaks and make more after some decades. It is comedy perfection, at least, there's no other modern sitcom thingy that rules as much as this. Danny Devito, what can I say, a legend who has ascended to godhood here. In the most recent episode, from last season, the laser-tag one. There's a bit where, as is often the case lately, he has this vacant look like he's this broken shell of a man, who is not in touch with reality in some way. And frankly, I love that, it is the funniest thing ever. The nuances. And the whole cast rules of course, Dennis usually is the showstopper character, but really they all rule. The writing, the chemistry, the creativity, one of the greats. Heavy Metal fucked around with this message at 10:44 on Nov 21, 2021 |
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Nov 16, 2021 05:05
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Just posting to let you know I edited my list, reordered it. Had to raise The Expanse from #20 to #9 after the mighty fine showing when I caught up on it. That is some cool stuff. Also, that and a bunch of shows mentioned here have some new seasons coming soon, that's pretty rad.
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Nov 21, 2021 10:30
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Can you post the Excel of every show ever nominated?
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Nov 22, 2021 00:52
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Warning: Since having kids in 2013, I haven't watched nearly as many Prestige Dramas as I would have hoped and I have a list a mile long of shows I know would be on here instead of some. Special Honorable Mention: Greys Anatomy: My first episode (the massacre in the hospital) was the last episode my wife ever watched. Likable cast, and although the show had run its course - when my kids ask about COVID times I will show them the last two seasons of this - not just because of Covid but because of the George Floyd Protests and how it was handled (same could he said about Million Little things) Honorable mention: Supergirl (only because of Jon Cryer and cast chemistry), The Good Place, Chernobyl, Dexter (for Hate-Watching), Blue Bloods 20. The Punisher. My favorite comic book character of all time - perfectly casted. Season 2 was weak, but it was still awesome. 19. The Circus: This the only way to include the absolute poo poo show that is the past five years of politics. If it wasn’t so horrifying, it would make a great multi year series. 18. Legends of Tomorrow: BEEBO, psychotic telepath gorillas trying to kill Obama, an ever changing cast, clones. I hope they do a whole revamp of the cast now that supergirl and flash have opened up opportunities by ending. 17. Continuum: I love science fiction and especially love time travel. 16. 12 Monkeys I love science fiction and especially love time travel. 15: Game of Thrones: I hate the fantasy theme (always preferred horror and sci fi) so I didn’t watch most of this show as it was airing, and had two failed starts before we then watched five seasons over a summer and started season 6. 8 didn’t disappoint me as much as it did others but I don’t rank it higher because I forgot most of the plotlines after I stopped watching the show. 14. Community - Perfect on almost every level in the first few seasons. 13. Million Little Things: there’s a ton of hype out there for “This is US,” but the cast is better the story is better and everyone just has such great chemistry. Also, James Roday has an amazing presence and I will watch everything he appears in. 12. Schitts creek: I found out about this show after it had ended and marathoned it. Watching rich people have to be poor and suffer hit home as it reminded me a lot of my childhood on a much less dramatic scale. 11. The Walking Dead: I am a huge zombie fan - and if you had asked me a few years ago I was on the verge of giving up after multiple bad seasons, but Angela Kang saved it and introduced some of the best plot lines in the show. 10. Supernatural: This is probably my favorite world building of any show I’ve ever watched. The theme song got me in every time. There are just so many memorable supporting characters and storylines. 9. Psych: I had this spot carved out in my head for either Psych or Chuck, because they were both about pop culture nerds doing things and had incredible cases, bbbbut the themed episodes 8. Daredevil: The Netflix shows were all mostly good, except for Iron Fist but the story in this as well as Vincent D’onofrios character makes the best of the bunch. 7. Breaking bad: An incredible show about a bad person who does bad things with a lot of collateral damage. I still haven’t watched Better Call Saul but that’s more due to a lack of time than anything. 6. Orphan Black: The fact that Tatiana Maslany could play so much different yet compelling characters is awesome. I’ll admit to being confused as hell a lot of the time, but the show is a wild ride. 5. Arrow: Id like to nominate all the shows in the Arrowverse but I’ll stick with Arrow as it is The show that started a Universe. The crossovers were better than most of the DC universe and though we did get entirely too much of Diaz (I generally enjoy watching Kirk Acevedo) this was the one show I watched every episode. I wish the canaries spin off had happened. 4 Veep: Political Satire at its finest. Everything about this show is loving perfect. 3. The 100: This. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect this show to morph into the genocidal masterpiece that it became. 2. Superstore: Watching this brought me back to my days in retail, plus Glenn is the perfect retail store manager. I missed that this has been canceled until I realized I was watching the finale, and I’m still devastated. 1. Fear the Walking dead: A month ago, this wasn’t anywhere on my radar. I had watched the first season because it was pitched as something I thought was missing from TWD, but was boring as gently caress and I hated all the characters. A few months ago, somebody mentioned how good it was now and I said “self, this sounds like a hate watch scenario.” Season 3 was good but the whole new cast in season 4 and it’s subsequent seasons has cemented this as my favorite show of the decade. Pillowpants fucked around with this message at 13:35 on Nov 22, 2021 |
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Nov 22, 2021 03:15
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Pillowpants posted:4 Veep: Political Satire at its finest. Everything about this show is loving perfect. Just a typo or did you include Community but forget to rank it?
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Nov 22, 2021 11:13
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Jerusalem posted:Just a typo or did you include Community but forget to rank it? I meant to replace Greys Anatomy with it - fixed
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Nov 22, 2021 13:34
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Pillowpants posted:Can you post the Excel of every show ever nominated? I posted the Top 20 from all years in the OP but if you really want ever show: 3 Percent 24 @Midnight 12 Monkeys 13 Reasons Why 19-2 2 Broke Girls 205 Live 30 Rock 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown A Touch of Cloth 3 Adventure Time Africa Aftermath Agent Carter Agents of SHIELD Aggretsuko Almost Human Alpha House Alphas Altered Carbon American Crime American Crime Story American Dad American Gods American Horror Story American Vandal Amish Mafia Angie Tribeca Animal Kingdom Animals Another Period AP Bio Archer Arrested Development Arrow Ash vs. Evil Dead Atlanta Attack on Titan Atypical Awake Babylon Berlin Ballers Banshee Barry Bates Motel Battlebots Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome Being Human Ben and Kate Better Call Saul Better Things Big Brother Big Little Lies Big Mouth Billions Black Earth Rising Black Mirror Black Mirror: Bandersnatch Black Sails Black-ish Blood Drive Bloodline Blue Bloods Blue Planet II Boardwalk Empire Bob's Burgers BoJack Horseman Breaking Bad Broad City Broadchurch Brockmire Brooklyn Nine-Nine Bunheads Castle Castle Rock Castlevania Catastrophe Catfish Celebrity Big Brother Chance Channel Zero Child Genius Childrens Hospital Claws Cleverman Cloak and Dagger Cobra Kai Colony Comedy Bang! Bang! Community Condor Constantine Continuum Copper Corporate Cosmos Cougar Town Counterpart Covert Affairs Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Crime Scene Critical Role Cucumber Curb Your Enthusiasm Damages Danger 5 Daredevil Dark Dear White People Deutschland 86 Dexter Difficult People Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Doctor Who Documentary Now! Dominion Don't Trust the B in Apt 23 Downton Abbey Dracula Drag Race Thailand Dragonball Super Drunk History Dual Survival Ducktales Dynasties Eagleheart Eastbound and Down Easy Eight Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown Elementary Enlightened Enlisted Everything Sucks! Face Off Face-Off Faking It Falling Water Family Guy Fargo Fear The Walking Dead Fiasconauts FLCL Alternative Fleabag Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways Forever Fortitude Franklin and Bash Fresh Meat Fresh off the Boat Fringe gently caress Scientology Full Frontal Futurama Future Man Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san Galavant Game Change Game of Thrones Gatchaman Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life Girls Glee Glitch GLOW Go Back to Where You Came From Go On Godless Gogglebox Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief Gold Rush Gomorra Gotham Gravity Falls Grey's Anatomy Grimm Gundam Build Fighters Try Halt and Catch Fire Hannibal Happy Happy Endings Have I Got News For You Haven Hawaii Five-O Heathers Hell on Wheels Hello Ladies Here Comes Honey Boo Boo! High Maintenance High Moon Hilda Him & Her Hoarders Homecoming Homeland Horace and Pete Hot Ones House House of Cards House of Fools House of Lies How I Met Your Mother How To Get Away With Murder Humans I'm Sorry Impractical Jokers Impulse Inhuman Condition Inhumans Insecure Inside Amy Schumer Inside Number 9 Iron Fist It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia iZombie Jane the Virgin Jayne Jeopardy Jessica Jones Joe Pera Talks With You Joe Schmo Show JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Jordskott Journey to Wrestlemania 30: Daniel Bryan Justified Key and Peele Killing Eve Killjoys Kingdom Kroll Show Lady Dynamite Lake Dredge Appraisal Last Week Tonight Late Night WIth Jimmy Fallon Late Show with Stephen Colbert League of Gentlemen Legends Legends of Tomorrow Legion Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events Lethal Weapon Lewis Liar Game Life In Pieces Limitless Longmire Looking Lost Girl Louie Love Lucha Underground Lucifer Luck Luke Cage Luther Mad As Hell Mad Men Made in Abyss Making A Murderer Man Seeking Woman Manhattan Maniac Maron Master of None Masterchef Australia Masterchef Junior Masters of Sex Matador Mindhunter Miraculous Miraculous Ladybug Misfits Mob Psycho 100 Mockingbird Lane Modern Family Mozart In the Jungle Mr Robot Mr. Robot My Brilliant Friend My Brother, My Brother and Me My Little Pony My Next Guest Needs No Introduction Mythbusters Nailed It! Narcos Nashville Nathan For You Neebs Gaming Neo Yokio New Girl Nikita No Activity No Offence OJ: Made in America Olive Kitteridge On Freddie Roach Once Upon a Time Once Upon a Time in Wonderland One Day At A Time One Piece Orange is the New Black Orphan Black Other Space Outlander Over the Garden Wall Ozark Parade's End Parks and Recreation Parts Unknown Patriot Peaky Blinders Peep Show Penny Dreadful People Just Do Nothing People of Earth Person of Interest Peter Pan Live! Phineas and Ferb Planet Earth II Playing House Pop Team Epic Porkin' Across America Portlandia Pose Powers Preacher Pretty Good Pretty Little Liars Psych Quarry Queer Eye Quite Interesting Raising Hope Ray Donovan Rectify Red Dwarf Red Oaks Regular Show Reign Revenge Review Revolution Rick and Morty Riverdale Runaways Running Man RuPaul's Drag Race Santa Clarita Diet Saturday Night Live Scandal Schitt's Creek Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated Scream Queens Seal Team Search Party Sense8 Sex House Shameless Shark Tank Sharp Objects Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell She-Ra and the Princesses of Power Sherlock Shirobako Show Me a Hero Silicon Valley Skam Sleepy Hollow Smash SMILF Sneaky Pete SNL 44 Sons of Anarchy Soundbreaking South Park Southland Space Patrol Luloco Spartacus Star Trek Discovery Star vs The Forces of Evil Star Wars: Rebels Steven Universe Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle Stranger Things Strike Back Suburgatory Suits Supergirl Superjail Supernatural Superstore Survivor Swedish Dicks Sweet/Vicious Take My Wife Talking Smack Taskmaster Teen Titans Go! Teen Wolf Terrance House The 100 The Affair The Amazing Race Canada The Americans The Apprentice UK The Big Bang Theory The Blacklist The Block The Booth at the End The Borgias The Bridge The Bridge (US) The Brink The Carbonaro Effect The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina The Chris Gethard Show The Colbert Report The Comeback The Crown The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell The Daily Show The Defenders The Detour The Deuce The Elegant Gentleman's Guide to Knife Fighting The Eric Andre Show The Expanse The Fall The Flash The Genius The Get Down The Goldbergs The Good Place The Good Wife The Grand Tour The Great British Bake Off The Grinder The Handmaid's Tale The Haunting of Hill House The Hour The JBL (not Cole) Show The Jinx The Knick The Last Kingdom The Last Man on Earth The Last Ship The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson The League The Leftovers The Legend of Korra The Leveson Inquiry The Librarians The Magicians The Man in the High Castle The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel The Meltdown The Middle The Monday Night War The Muppets The Newsroom The Office The Originals The Orville The Profit The Punisher The Quest The Real Housewives of OC The Returned The Shivering Truth The Sinner The Son The Soup The Strain The Talking Dead The Terror The Thick of It The Tick The Toys That Made Us The Vampire Diaries The Venture Bros The Vietnam War The Walking Dead The X Files The Young Pope This is England This Is Us Titans Toast of London Toddlers & Tiaras Tommy Wissou's The Neighbors Too Many Cooks Top Gear UK Top of the Lake Totally Biased Trailer Park Boys Transparent Travelers Treme Trip to Italy Tron: Uprising True Blood True Detective Twin Peaks Ugly Delicious Ultimate Beastmaster Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt UnREAL Unsupervised Up with Chris Hayes Upper Middle Bogan Utopia (UK) Utopia (US) Veep Versailles Vice Principals Vikings Vixen Voltron Legendary Defender W/Bob & David Waco Wartime Farm Wayward Pines Westworld Wet Hot American Summer White Collar Who Is America? Whodunnit? Whose Line Is It Anyway? Wild Wild Country Wilfred Workaholics World War Two WWE NXT WWE Presents the Cruiserweight Classic WWE Raw WWE Smackdown Live Wynonna Earp Younger You're the Worst Yuri!!! on Ice Z-Nation Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger
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Dec 1, 2021 10:44
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Lists up to this point have been entered into my spreadsheet. If anyone makes any edits, please make sure you reply in this thread to let me know (your post for any edits is listed in the second post of this thread)
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Dec 2, 2021 03:50
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After long thought I decided keep my list to ten shows that I truly love. 10. Game of Thrones Despite a few missteps in the final season, Game of Thrones is truly a great story and fantasy epic. 9. Lodge 49 A feel good story about a group of severely depressed people hanging out at a lodge. It doesn't sound that interesting, but it just works. 8. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency Weird and wacky, Dirk Gently is a fun show. 7. Awake Jason Isaacs is a police officer who lost either his wife or son in a car accident, and each night when he goes to sleep he switches realities where one of them died and the other didn't. It's really a nice story about loss. 6. Legion David Haller is a mutant with god like powers, he's also schizophrenic. Legion is a very weird and cool story. 5. Dispatches from Elsewhere Four lost people go to rescue Clara from the evil Jejune institute, or perhaps they are just participating in a fun game? Either way it's beautiful. 4. Agents of Shield The little Marvel show that could. Despite not getting the budget or recognition it deserved, Agents of Shield is an all-round great show. 3. The Good Place A lot of great things come from the US, comedy is usually not one of those things though. The Good place is very funny, has a great cast and one of the best stories on tv. Without a doubt the best american comedy show ever. 2. Person of Interest Person of Interest starts off as a good action show, but slowly it morphs into being about two godlike AI's fighting for control of the world. Great action and an excellent cast. 1. Fringe For five years running John Noble was the best actor on tv. Singlehandedly carrying a good, but not great first season, by season two the other main actors stepped up big time, and the writing became just amazing. One of the best father/son relationships around and the best science fiction show ever on tv.
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Dec 8, 2021 20:49
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I love that people are giving Awake a shoutout.
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Dec 9, 2021 01:07
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HM)  Elementary This was #20 before I remembered about one of the actual list, hence why it has an image. 20)  Galavant By any objective measure, Galavant is a bad show. It’s crude, only half the songs are funny, and for the entirety of Season 1 I only watched it because I had nothing better to do. Season 2, however, was really fun, and I will defend it as an enjoyable watching experience. My favorite song changes based on which song from Season 2 I heard most recently tbh. 19)  Faking It This is the first of many shows on the list that I watched at first because it looked “very gay” and turned out to be “very gay.” Faking It was a fun show, and my two favorite characters (and favorite fashion item) are in that photo. Lauren is my favorite, period. She was funny. My favorite scene was Lauren and Amy bonding over being dumped in the Season 1 finale. 18)  Cobra Kai I tossed this on YouTube on a whim one day, and 4 hours later I had purchased a month of YouTube Red and ran through the entire season. I was never like amazingly into Karate Kid growing up, but this show was very good. I like the callbacks and the perspectives showing that both Johnny and Danny had a point. Season 4 comes out on December 31st and you can bet I’ll be binging it that weekend. 17)  Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts The first of many cartoons on this list, I really liked this one, even if I can’t hear Kipo without hearing Glimmer. It was a fun show, and I’m glad I tossed it on one day. 16)  Person of Interest I was never a huge fan of the overarching AI battle narrative, but it did lead to a lot of really cool stuff. The Devil’s Share is probably one of my favorite episodes of television ever, and I will fondly remember most of the characters. If I was into the Samaritan plotline as much as the HR plotline, I could see this hitting top 10 if not top 5, but alas. 15)  My Love Story One of those shows that never failed to put a smile on my face. Takeo is a sweetheart and Yamato is equally as lovable. The show was 100% fluff, but it never needed to be anything else. <3 14)  Infinity Train Infinity Train was one of those shows that I want more of. I like the anthology feel of each season focusing on a different character. Don’t really have much more to say about it. It's good, watch it. 13)  Crazy Ex-Girlfriend This show was an impossibly hard sell, but I watched it on a recommendation from a friend and immediately tried to get everyone I knew into this show. There’s a magnetic appeal to Rachel Bloom and especially Santino Fontana. The later seasons suffered from less Greg, but were still very good. I still get songs from it stuck in my head every now and then. 12)  Legends of Tomorrow I spent a disproportionate amount of the last decade watching the DCW shows. Of them, the only one I still watch is Legends of Tomorrow. The latest couple of seasons haven’t been as rock solid as the run of Seasons 2 to 4, but they have still been enjoyable. 3 years ago this would’ve been in top 10 easy, but a combination of shows I like more and the latest seasons being iffy dropped it down to 12. 11)  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents of SHIELD is a show that I blame absolutely nobody for not liking. Season 1 was really bad as they had to set up the season threat while being prevented by the MCU from saying the name of said threat. The ostensible everyman lead character was a deliberate ruse by the character, who was an enemy spying on the heroes, but until that was revealed, he was boring as poo poo. The actual lead character’s identity was hidden for a season and a half, and of course, it’s part of the MCU which is a monolith that is destroying modern media as we know it. That all said, the highs of Agents are some of the highest highs in the entire MCU. 10)  A Series of Unfortunate Events It is with great reluctance, sadness, and despair that I tell you that Netflix made an adaptation of the tragic tale of the Baudelaire orphans. The adaptation, this time overseen by novel author Daniel Handler, expands on the suffering of the children, and the cruelty that they are subjected to. When even the series antagonist actively tries to get the watchers to look away from their television screen to spare them from the misery inflicted, it can be assured that the series of unfortunate events that unfolds is in fact a depressing one. 9)  Harley Quinn Harley Quinn has always been one of my favorite Batman characters. Even before I felt oversaturated by Batman characters, I always liked her unique design. Once I started reading the comics, I enjoyed the deeper looks that were occasionally given into Harley’s personal life. The first big two comic I ever bought was the one where Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy confirmed they were actually dating. I’m just a huge fan of Harley Quinn, and this show is also very good showcase of what I like about the character. 8)  The Owl House I’m a sucker for found family narratives. The show is a very fun show that, at its core, is about a girl who just loves magic doing her best to learn magic, and the trials and tribulations involved with that. Add in a found family narrative with the King of Demons and local crazy witch lady, and make it gay, and you have a show that I will love forever. 7)  ChocoPro During the 2020 Covid pandemic, Gatoh Move, a small professional wrestling company in Japan (honestly basically a glorified wrestling school that mostly performs out of a run-down dentist’s office) decided to start running shows without audiences, and stream it free to YouTube. Since then, ChocoPro has put on 180 episodes of Pro Wrestling, and I’ve found it destination TV (well, youtube) ever since. The owner of the company, Emi Sakura, is one of the most prolific trainers of women wrestlers in Japan, and her mind for the business is acute. She’s been in America for the past few months, but her second in command (and generally the English translator for everyone), Baliyan Akki, has been keeping it afloat. 6)  Power Rangers (Super) Dino Charge I’ve been a fan of Power Rangers since I was a boy, but I will freely admit that the good seasons are few and far between. My favorite season of Power Rangers aired in 2008, well outside of this list’s purview, but the Dino Charge series was also good. Dino Charge is a fun romp, and I had a blast watching it. It’s probably my third favorite Power Rangers season overall, and that’s pretty cool. Putting Dino charge and Super Dino Charge together because they tell a single narrative. Nickelodeon was just being stupid about their branding. 5)  Scooby-Doo Mystery Incorporated Much like Power Rangers, I find good Scooby-Doo to be few and far between, but Mystery Incorporated is one of them. After a bumpy start (which was mostly out of the purview of these lists), the show was a fun story, and I really liked the cast. Also, it has the Hex Girls, which is a sign of good Scooby-Doo, generally. Trap of Love is one of my favorite Hex Girls songs, even! 4)  Kaguya-Sama Love is War An adaptation of one of my favorite Manga, Kaguya-sama Love is War is a really fun show about two geniuses(idiots) trying their hardest to make the other one confess their love. It is an ensemble piece, where there are few characters who actively drain excitement. My favorite character, Kaguya’s personal maid who is both one of the wealthiest characters in the cast excluding the actual corporate heiresses, but also not paid enough for this poo poo. 3)  Steven Universe While “The Devil’s Share” is one of my favorite TV episodes of all time, Steven Universe has three. Mr. Greg, the musical episode, Reunited, the gay wedding, and Change Your Mind, the finale. The show is one of my favorites, and I’ve rewatched it multiple times. It’s one of my favorite shows of all time, and I find myself hard-pressed to think of things I would say are genuine flaws and not just nitpicking. 2)  DuckTales (Set to the Moon theme from the NES game) “Look to the stars, my darling baby boys Life is strange and vast, filled with wonders and joys Face each new sun with eyes clear and true Unafraid of the unknown, because I’ll face it all with you.” The thesis statement of the show was delivered in an episode that featured none of the main cast. DuckTales is a story about how sometimes, a family is three twins, their best friend, her girlfriend, said girlfriend’s found family, the pilot, the twins’ mother and uncle, and, of course, the old man who brought them all together. You never know what you’d find in any given episode, sometimes they solve a mystery, sometimes they rewrite history. The love put into every aspect of this show is obvious, and it reminds me of the direction given to the person who sang the DuckTales theme song: “Sing this like you’re stoked that you get to sing the DuckTales theme song.” I imagine that was everyone’s direction. Also, to tie it into my biases, this show also, much like most of Disney’s oeuvre nowadays, has Disney’s first gay character! 1)  Click for alt image She-Ra and the Princesses of Power I mean, knowing me, could it really have been anything else? Everything about this show drips “gay.” It’s been my avatar on SA for over a year, and for about half that time it was my avatar on Discord. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power ticks off every box for me. Gay? Check. High Fantasy? Check. An episode where they play DnD? Check. There was no queerbaiting, and the voice acting ranges from good to phenomenal. (Seriously, just listen to Keston John’s work in the final season). She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is a show that was made for me. Does it have flaws? Sure. Do I care? No.
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Dec 9, 2021 01:35
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If brevity is the soul of wit, then I am a lumbering oaf confused by my own reflection. I apologize in advance for how incredibly long this is, click here to bypass all these  if you have no interest in reading my ramblings. 20. Wet Hot American Summer (2015, 2017): Sometimes something magical happens in the world of television, against all odds, and that's what happened when Netflix made the baffling but very welcome decision to greenlight not one but two seasons of a follow-up series to a ridiculously silly (and brilliant) 2001 film that largely disappeared without a trace after it came out in theaters. That movie (which I highly recommend you watch, it's great!) ended with the promise that the characters would get back together 10 years later... so of course the first season was a prequel, with all the actors (many of whom had gone to great success in film and television) returning 14 years later to play even younger versions of themselves from the film! It was exactly that ridiculous, absurdist style of humor that made the film so great, and this was followed up by the second season fulfilling the promise of "10 years later" with yet another period piece, this time involving multiple Presidents of the United States in a scheme to... well, you really have to watch it to do it justice. This was just a very silly, very stupid, and very wonderful television series about weird people doing weird things and somehow playing it completely straight, all while gleefully lampooning summer camp films and eagerly leaping from genre to genre in the process. Here's just one of the many fantastic scenes from this series, and there's 16 episodes of this wonderful nonsense to enjoy.  19. Legion (2017 - 2019): If either of the follow-up seasons had lived up to the quality of season 1, this show would be near the top of my list. Unfortunately season 2 was largely a letdown and while season 3 improved to a degree it really seemed to be struggling to recapture the magic of season 1 (that said, the "Rap Battle" from season 3 was a highlight). But wow that season 1. At a time when it seemed Noah Hawley could do no wrong, he simultaneously worked on Fargo and this series, with the first season hitting a high watermark it would never rival again. Weird, often disconcerting, sometimes funny, often confusing, Legion told the story of David Haller, a young man diagnosed with schizophrenia who discovers he is a "mutant" with enormous telepathic/telekinetic powers, unsure if the monster he continually sees and is threatened by is a real alien presence in his head or simply a manifestation of his mental illness. David is just one of many characters occupying the weird world of Legion, including a woman who briefly "becomes" any person she touches; a twin brother and sister who can coexist as one body, leading to the sister aging far slower than the brother; a man who can remember everything; a man in cryogenic suspension whose mind continues to potter about in a psychic bottle in the astral plane; plus a variety of simply "human" characters including the wonderful Jean Smart as Melanie. But the actor/character who stands out above all others, and was sorely missed due to her reduced presence in seasons 2 and 3, was Aubrey Plaza as Lenny Busker, David's old friend who is killed in the first episode but continues to appear in David's mind as a hallucination... until other people start to see her too. Plaza plays Lenny with a scary intensity, at times the supportive friend whose company David takes great comfort in, at other times... something entirely different. She's the high point of the season that is the high point of the show, and without her I doubt I would have kept this show in my Top 20. Overall, Legion was a letdown, but that first season.... man that first season was GOOD.  18. Game of Thrones (2011 - 2019): It's rare you see a show that ran as long as it did poo poo the bed as badly as Game of Thrones did in its last season or two. That it still makes the list is testament to just how good the show was for a significant chunk of its run, before George R.R. Martin's published books ran out (he only finished ONE extra book in the series across the ENTIRE run of the television show! The same year the first season came out!) and the show's writing went off the deep end. The high production values and impressive setpieces remained (when we could actually see them on-screen) but much of the pacing completely went out the window, with characters making baffling decisions or rushing to sudden shifts in morality/personal decisions that had been slowly teased but not fully developed. There were still high points even from season 6 onwards, such as the Battle of the Bastards which remains an incredible visual spectacle, or The Winds of Winter where Cersei finally achieves her ultimate goal (in explosive fashion!) after endless disappointments or false starts. But it's those first 4-5 seasons that keep the show on my list. It is deeply disappointing that the show seemed to largely disappear from public consciousness after the poor finish, because during its peak period it was well worthy of the constant praise and utter fascination it generated. Ned Stark's fate; Jamie Lannister's slow growth as a human as he experienced true hardship for the first time; the Red Wedding; Daenerys becoming the "Breaker of Chains"; Stannis' failed assault on King's Landing/Tyrion's use of Balefire; The Night's Watch fighting off the Wilding raid on The Wall; The Mountain vs. The Viper; Cersei's disastrous courting of the Sparrows and her walk of shame; Jon and Tormund escaping the assault on Hardhome... this was a show that for a time EVERYBODY wanted to watch and EVERYBODY wanted to talk about. Shows like Westworld and Jessica Jones might have had incredible first seasons, but they fell apart quickly after that. Legion's 2nd and 3rd season weren't bad, just a letdown. But until it all went wrong, Game of Thrones ran for almost half a decade as one of the best shows on television... but boy did it go wrong!  17. Detectorists (2014 - 2017): You ever just want to watch a show that makes you feel.... nice? That's exactly what Detectorists was. For three seasons, it told the mostly low stakes story of a couple of metal detecting enthusiasts who just liked to go out together and enjoy the countryside, chat about nothing, and quietly dream of achieving what they insisted to everybody they didn't really care about : finding actual treasure. To call it a gentle series gives the wrong impression, there's still plenty of drama and character development to be found, moments of sadness and frustration and just wishing you could grab a character by the shoulders and shake them. But overall it's just... it's nice. Created by Mackenzie Crook, probably best known to most as the pirate with the fake eye in Pirates of the Caribbean (or Gareth from the British version of The Office, the "Dwight" character), it's a astonishingly confidently written piece and he more than holds his own as one half of the main duo, alongside the always impressive Toby Jones. It's also a very, very, very funny show, filled with plenty of running gags and callbacks, as well as a truly wonderful opening theme song. It ends on about as perfect note as a show like this could, each season as written could have been the end of the show and it would have still been a tremendous achievement. The ending to season 3 just knocks it out of the park, leaving you feeling a glowing warmth for characters you've come to love and wish only the best for, just as they want only the best for each other. It's.... it's just so nice   16. Community (2009 - 2015): For a man perhaps best known for a cynical sense of humor, especially after the success of Rick & Morty, it's remarkable just how oddly wholesome the show that first brought Dan Harmon to widespread attention is. Which isn't to say it isn't absolutely stacked to the rafters with cynical humor, because it certainly is, but it was a series that really had heart, and I think it was that more than the clever writing and often black humor that makes it stick out in people's memory. Ostensibly the story of Jeff Winger, it didn't take long at all for this to become an ensemble show, with the ensemble cast becoming the "star". The setting and the concept of a study group allowed for a wide variety of different formats to be explored, and the show reveled in playing with genre, parody, and a self-aware meta humor that was carried by the quality writing and direction (the Russo Brothers were heavily involved in the show!) and of course the acting. As a result, you never knew quite what to expect each week, and while the characters continued to develop and change and react to prior events, there wasn't necessarily an overarching plot.... hell, even Jeff getting his degree was settled by about the halfway point of the show. If anything, the show's biggest flaw was its creator, whose poor handling of the relationship with Chevy Chase and clashes with the studio saw him kicked off his own show for awhile. But when he wasn't getting in his own way (and after getting back on the show) he was producing an often brilliant, almost always clever, and most importantly very funny television show. Characters developed and changed, new characters managed to admirably fill in the gaps caused by the departures of Chevy Chase, Donald Glover and Yvette Nicole Brown, and even the odd cultural relic of season 6 being produced by Yahoo! didn't stop that season from being a very entertaining and very funny season with great new characters like Frankie (Paget Brewster) and Elroy (Keith David). The consistency was remarkable all the way through (all the seasons Dan Harmon was showrunner anyway). Plus, of course, one thing the show had from start to finish was Dean Pelton, and there's not a single other show on this list that can make that same boast.  15. The Queen's Gambit (2020): Some shows benefit from lasting for years and really developing characters over a long course of time. Other shows work best as a one-and-done, and sadly some that would have worked best that way become victims of their own success and end up diluting the buzz from a fantastic first season with weak follow-ups (like Legion, Jessica Jones and ESPECIALLY Westworld). The Queen's Gambit wasn't ever expected to be anything other than a single season, adapting the 1983 novel, and despite it's ENORMOUS success it seems likely that it will remain as a one-and-done. After all, the story is told, the journey complete, and while Beth Harmon might have a long life ahead of her, we saw her achieve exactly what it was she had been aiming for during most of her life and end the season on about the most pitch-perfect note possible: returning to what first attracted her to chess in the first place, and just playing the game for the excitement of playing, finding a universal language in Chess that crossed age, gender and even international politics no matter how much people tried to interfere in that. The story of an orphaned girl in the 1950s who discovers a talent for Chess at roughly the same time as she becomes addicted to a drug being casually handled out at her orphanage, she spends roughly the next 20 years slowly overcoming bias against her gender, her age, her looks and endless attempts to exploit her talent for other people's gain. There are plenty of other shows and stories that show us talented and intelligent people who succeed against all odds, but this series really stood out to me. Perhaps it is because when she finally does triumph, her victory doesn't come at the expense of anyone. Rather, what Beth finds when she realizes her visualizations weren't caused by the drugs she finally kicked but her own extraordinary mind is acceptance. Not just acceptance of herself by herself, but the acceptance of the watching crowd, whether Russian or American or British. Acceptance by a terrifying rival she realizes was as intimidated by her as she was by him. Chess was the universal language by which she found a place to belong, and when she found it those who she had always been told or thought were her enemies turned out to be her allies. In America, former rivals and lovers embraced in celebration of her. In Russia, the Soviet Citizens adored the woman who defeated THEIR champion. Her rival embraced her and credited her with a triumph that was fully earned by her. The Queen's Gambit is a story about a brilliant woman who always felt like an outsider, and finally found a place where she didn't just want to be, but was welcomed. That was it, and that was all it needed to be.  14. Parks and Recreation (2009 - 2015): Like Community, Parks and Recreation likes to play with cynical humor and characters who are selfish, self-serving and often not very smart. Like Community, Parks and Recreation is also at heart a very wholesome series about people who care for each other in spite of that cynical exterior. Unlike Community, Parks and Recreation absolutely wears its heart on its sleeve about the weirdos and dorks who work for the Pawnee, Indiana Parks Department caring for and loving each other. Both shows started in 2009 and ended in 2015, and both had a final season that was perhaps not entirely expected to ever actually happen. The similarities are obvious, but I like Parks and Rec a little more because even if the writing isn't quite as clever, it's just a show that gave me an overall more positive feel while watching it. There was rarely any nastiness to the show, even scenes involving the ridiculously corrupt council members, the bizarre eccentricities of the Pawnee townspeople, or the stupendously stupid people who showed up to public meetings didn't feel cruel, more just delivery mechanisms to allow Leslie Knope to gape in horror or struggle mightily to keep up her effort to see the best in everybody. That was something else where the show stood out from Community's ensemble as well: while each of the supporting characters were great to watch or had fun subplots (in particular the awkward romance and eventual marriage of Andy and April as the human equivalent of a dog and cat respectively) this was very much the Leslie Knope show. Amy Poehler as Leslie was a delight, an endlessly optimistic and driven woman who believed with all her heart that Government as public service wasn't just a job but a calling. In spite of everything that got in her way, every bit of bullshit or corruption or complete lack of sincerity/care from those in power she encountered, she continued to just believe and push. From her early seasons obsession with getting Ann Perkins the park she wanted through to becoming Governor of Indiana and possibly President of the United States, Leslie would just keep on pushing through no matter what - or how ridiculous - the obstacle. This was the show in a nutshell, each of the characters had a dream (in Ron's case, a very simple dream) and over the course of the show's run they hit problems and setbacks but they never gave up, not fully, and each of them eventually triumphed in one way or another. Not entirely realistic perhaps (Community, which I keep comparing it to, had a far more down-to-earth but equally happy conclusion) but it's television... it doesn't have to be! For 7 seasons (most of which were in the qualifying range for this decade) I watched these people try hard and eventually succeed, and I got a lot of laughs along the way.  13. What We Do in the Shadows (2019 - Ongoing): In 2014 in New Zealand a film was released about some hapless vampires living together in the 21st Century not really getting how the modern world works. For some bizarre reason decided to let a documentary crew film their daily lives despite one of the few vampire rules being "don't let humans know vampires exist!). It was very, very funny and quite touching in parts, but despite the involvement of Taika Waititi (Thor Ragnarok) and Jemaine Clement (Flight of the Conchords) that's a pretty niche film. So it was a pretty big surprise when 5 years later it was announced that a television version of the film was being made in America, with the same name and concept, but new characters played by mostly British actors. The core cast was good - Matt Berry, Kayvan Novak, Natasia Demetriou and Mark Proksch along with Harvey Guillén who had mostly done one-off appearances in various television shows - but would the humor translate? Would they be able to recapture the magic of the film? The answer, surprisingly, was yes. And not just for a single season either. For 3 seasons now, the show has built on and expanded on the world introduced in the film (which remains "canon", with characters from the film appearing in the tv series) while staying largely true to one very specific concept: vampires are incredibly loving stupid! Maybe as a result of their long lives and falling out of tune with modern society, or being educated centuries earlier and then pissing about "to suck blood and gently caress forever". Whatever the reason, a joy of the show is in watching these frankly terrifyingly powerful and dangerous killers be complete morons and do the stupidest and most hilarious things, while Nandor's familiar Guillermo (who isn't as smart as he thinks) cleans up after them, protects them and keeps everything ticking along while they just assume it all just takes care of itself. The show has a wonderful approach to backstory, keeping characters consistent but not minding tossing things aside in favor of what makes for the strongest joke at any given time. They're not good people, they're monsters in fact, but that dosn't meant they don't have a heart or don't care. The relationship between Laszlo and Nadja - as weird and hosed up and dangerous as it can get, especially to bystanders - is very genuine and sincere and has lasted centuries. Nandor, for all that he thinks of himself as a ruthless warlord, does actually care for others and looks out for them. Even the truly bizarre energy vampire Colin Robinson will take steps to try and make sure his roommates are okay, even if he can't resist feeding on their energy at the same time. Whether it's accidentally murdering their monstrous sire, having bad orgies (and then reveling in shameful batsex afterwards), getting judged by celebrity vampires, learning that their souls live a separate existence to their undead bodies, being threatened by an Internet chainmail scam, jerked off by witches looking to mass produce youth potions, running the local vampire council into the ground, bothering Scott Bakula, having an existential crisis about heliocentrism, or going on the run over an incredibly small debt (seriously, watch the Jackie Daytona episode, it's incredible!), the show just continues to deliver delightful comedy episode after episode, year after year. There's also an endless series of very welcome guest stars: Tilda Swinton, Mark Hamill, Batista, Wesley Snipes, Donal Logue, Paul Reubens, David Cross and more besides. That the show is as good as it is, and keeps up that high quality even after Waititi and Clement stopped actively writing for the show, isn't just a surprise but a goddamn miracle.  12. Fargo (2014, 2015, 2017 & 2020): There have been other entries on this (very long) list where I mentioned shows that fell off from a very good season and how it hurt the way I looked at them as a whole. Fargo is remarkable in that fully half of its run I'd classify as being okay on average and only good at best... but the other half, holy poo poo the other half. While seasons 3 and 4 were a letdown (not bad, necessarily, just a letdown), seasons 1 and 2 remain of such a high quality that I couldn't bear to put the show any lower on the list than this. And the crazy thing about that? Season 1 is exceptionally good, one of the best shows to air that year and one of the best seasons of the decade... and it wasn't as good as Season 2. Aiming to recapture the feel of the 1996 Coen Brothers film, Noah Hawley nailed this best in season 1 before he made an even superior follow-up in season 2. The first is set in the modern day, telling the story of a terrifying hitman (Billy Bob Thornton) of seemingly supernatural, perhaps even biblical, prowess who decides to play with his meals for a bit creating a chain reaction of events including most prominently the development of a monstrously egotistical Lester Nygaard (wonderfully portrayed by Martin Freeman), but also the ascension of Deputy Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman) as she seeks to solve the murders only she can (be bothered to) see the connections between. But while the first season was excellent (Lester orchestrating a case of mistaken identity just to test a theory is one of the most horrifying things I have ever seen on television) it is overshadowed by the sensational season 2. Set in the late 70s and featuring Patrick Wilson as Lou Solverson (father of Molly), it details the chaos that ensues when a beautician (Kristen Dunst) accidentally hits a man with her car and simply drives on home with the body on the trunk, too shocked to actually think to stop, convincing her husband (Jesse Plemons) to help her cover it up. Involving a crime family whose Patriarch has been knocked out of the game by a stroke causing a tug of war for ascendancy between the eldest son (Jeffrey Donovan) and his mother (Jean Smart), it spirals out into an attempt by a Kansas City crime syndicate to take control in the chaos, spearheaded (eventually) by Mike Milligan (Bokeem Woodbine, who is incredible) while the terrifying Hanzee (Zahn McClarnon) becomes steadily more unhinged by a lifetime of prejudice and bias against him. If all that sounds like a lot... it is! And that's why the season is so good. Because every single episode is just packed with incredible characters, plot developments, shocking turns of events and revelations... and it's all just so easy to follow, so straightforward to understand. It's the best kind of writing, that makes you not realize how much you're taking in because it happens so smoothly that when you get to the line,"It's just a UFO..." it all somehow makes perfect, beautiful sense. Fargo seasons 3 and 4 are... they're fine. Season 1 is excellent television, just tremendous stuff. Fargo Season 2 is sublime, a work of art. God I wanna go watch it again just writing about it.  11. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005 - Ongoing): Some shows work best as a one and done. Some shows wear out their welcome. Some shows keep up the quality a long time and then fall off a cliff. Then there are the outliers, the ones that make no sense because somehow not only do they run for an incredibly long time but they stay great the entire time. In 2005, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia first aired. In 2006, they added Danny Devito to the cast. In 2021, they're still making episodes and they're somehow still absolutely fantastic. There have been 4 US Presidents since the show started. Parks and Recreation, Community, The Office, Big Bang Theory, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and many, many other shoes started, had their entire run, and finished all between the time Sunny started and today when it is STILL going... and it's STILL funny! Even after all this time, it continually astonishes me with just how incredibly awful and horrible these monstrous people are, aided in part by the fact the actors (3 of whom are the main writers) play up the fact their characters are getting older and straining and struggling to deny this fact which only makes them worse. Somehow the joke hasn't gotten old, the routine hasn't gotten tired, the characters haven't worn out their welcome. This is a Seinfeld where the characters don't even have the benefit of being somewhat successful or charming as they callously wreak havoc in the lives of others, which made their own Seinfeld homage particularly apt. Arguably the show did "peak" during season 7, which is the first season that falls within the 2011-2021 window, because that was the season that featured Fat Mac, a glorious creature too beautiful for our sin-cursed world. Actor/Writer/Creator Rob McElhenney wanted to avoid the usual trope of actors playing poor blue collar workers getting handsomer, healthier and better dressed as seasons progressed due to the actors being in a successful show... so he got superfat while trying to convince the rest of the cast to as well (they, wisely, refused). Then a few years later he got absolutely loving ripped, which he pointed out was far from as enjoyable as getting fat and also represented an unrealistic body goal, purely so he'd be in shape to produce a stunningly beautiful moment that for once stepped aside from the usual comedy and gross-out humor of the show, turning the constant jokes about Mac's homosexuality into an actual serious moment as Mac came out as gay and performed a dance in hopes of reaching his emotionally detached convict father, but did actually reach of all people the disgusting and vile monster that is Frank Reynolds. The show doesn't perform sincere moments like that very often, which is what makes them stand out and remind the viewer that the show's writers/performers are very, very good at what they do. Because outside of these moments, the standard fare is the great enjoyment that comes from watching very stupid, very vile and incredibly selfish people trying to wrap their head around changing societal norms, and figure out how they can try (and almost always fail) to benefit financially, personally, and sexually from it all. They're monsters, and for 15 years they've only gotten worse, and it has been a true treat to watch it happen. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 03:13 on Dec 10, 2021 |
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 10. Atlanta (2016, 2018): A tremendous showcase of phenomenal writing, direction and acting, Donald Glover's creation is a demonstration of his vast multi-talented ability to be clever, to be funny, to seemingly effortlessly (which takes a LOT of effort!) dance between the serious, the hilarious, the surreal and the absurd. As Earn, a Princeton Dropout who has hit his 30s and realized that simply being the smartest guy in the room isn't going to make him a success, Donald Glover manages to walk the tightrope of showcasing a depressed, frustrated and increasingly panicked young man without making him unlikable or annoying. He's joined by a remarkable supporting cast of characters in Paper Boi, Darius and Vanessa who are far from one-dimensional, and often get entire episodes devoted to their own trials and tribulations as they try to navigate their way through a decidedly unfair world. Schoolteacher Vanessa's efforts to fake her way past a mandatory drug test after casually smoking marijuana is hilarious and has a fantastic payoff that also demonstrates the utter futility and unfairness of the system she is trying to work within. Her brush with fame when she attends a party at Drake's mansion is a hilarious send-up of how more value is put on the facade of success than any substance. Paper Boi's success as a rapper means he's in a better position than most, while also showing how "success" doesn't necessarily mean happiness, as he lethargically continues to work the hustle to maintain a career when it seems like all he really wants to know is hang out at home and chill out. The episode where all he wants to do is get a haircut only to be dragged all over town from one scheme to another is a delight, and like Earn there seems to be an (understandable) underlying anger in Paper Boi who is just fed up with all the bullshit he needs to put up with or hurdle simply to survive, let alone thrive. Then there is Lakeith Stanfield as Darius, an eccentric who is a genius in his own way, seemingly living in his own world, always with some plan in motion that makes perfect sense to him even if to nobody else, who seems to know everybody and be everywhere. There are a vast number of other supporting characters, but these four make up the core of the show, which is beautifully shot and stunningly well directed (Hiro Murai directs the bulk of the episodes). But it is the writing that elevates the show to something phenomenal, and most of the credit for that goes to Donald Glover who is the driving creative force behind the show. Plus, this is a show that made the episode Teddy Perkins, one of the most incredible episodes of any television show this decade, a terrifying horror with the atmosphere of Stanley Kubrick's Shining featuring a Michael Jackson-esque "monster". That's what Atlanta does, it just produces episode after episode that stand out as remarkable achievements in writing, directing and acting as the STANDARD, before hitting you with something absolutely extraordinary like Teddy Perkins. It's an incredible show, just incredible.  9. Chernobyl (2019): Another one-and-done, Chernobyl had a story to tell and it told it and left it at that, and was all the better for it. Yes there are some liberties taken, some characters are combinations of multiple people, some of the events are over-dramatized or shifted about in time for a stronger narrative etc. No show is perfect, and this one wasn't either... but it got drat close. At times a horror film, the series also struck a fine balance between showcasing the contradicting human urges to avoid or redirect blame and also to help others and to do the right thing or even sacrifice oneself for the greater good. It would be foolish to try and claim the show simply condemns or especially endorses either Communism or Capitalism, those are largely irrelevant to the key message of the dangers of the lie. Jared Harris gives a tremendous performance as ever, but the final episode where his Legasov appears as an expert witness at the trial of Dyatlov and delivers a horrifying account of how the accident really happened and who is to "blame" is a masterclass in acting, writing, framing and editing. That is a standout scene, but each of the five episodes is replete with standout scenes, all of them tremendous in unique ways. The first episode showing the immediate aftermath of the explosion is incredible all the way through, and provided the audience with striking and memorable visuals and lines ("3.6 roentgen, not great, not terrible..."). But each episode that followed kept up the incredible quality while exploring different aspects of the efforts to first understand and then contain the disaster. The General driving the dosimeter to get a more accurate reading; the lights going out as volunteers race through heavily radiated water to drain the tunnels; the evacuation of Pripyat; the miners agreeing to dig a tunnel directly underneath the highly radioactive remains of the plant; the extermination of wildlife AND domestic animals; the clearing of the plant's roof by individual Soviets due to the malfunction of robots sent to do the job (because the Government lied about what radiation tolerance they needed to save face); the firefighters clothing being dumped into a pile that to the best of my knowledge remains untouched to this day; the visuals of Legasov's accounting for what exactly happened that day. Then there is Legasov's own fate, shown right at the start of the first episode, and the torment he faces as he (and others) struggle with risking their own futures to tell a truth that may simply be buried anyway. It's a story about the explosion of a nuclear power plant's reaction and the clean-up that followed, but it could be about any disaster, any situation, because the message remains the same: "Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later... that debt is paid."  8. Fleabag (2016, 2019): Breaking the fourth wall and/or acknowledging the audience has been a favorite trope of various films and television for a long time, whether taken to the extreme of recognizing the fictional construction of the "world" of the show, or simply having a character share a knowing look with the audience before moving on. Fleabag is full of the latter, including monologues that - while not specifically talking to the audience - make it clear what the inner thoughts of the central character are. That by itself is nothing remarkable, and certainly wouldn't warrant the show's inclusion on this list. But it's what Fleabag does with this concept that makes it something special, adding on to an already extremely impressive list of qualities the show has in its favor. Written by and starring the remarkably talented Phoebe Waller-Bridge, this is the story of a woman (never named), her family, her friends. It is the story of her increasingly desperate efforts not to have to acknowledge all the incredibly painful things that have left her feeling hollowed out, miserable and somehow deserving of unhappiness in spite of her cheerful outer demeanor and delightfully biting sarcasm towards, well... everything!. The audience acts as an outlet for her to express her inner thoughts, whether in words or simply a knowing look, but it becomes increasingly apparent over the two seasons that this inner "truth" is itself yet another coping mechanism, another lie she is telling herself. We get the briefest moments of flashback showing us a truth she simply does not want to remember or deal with, hoping to lose herself in an almost nihilistic pursuit of empty sex rather than open herself up to... well, to anyone. When the truth comes out, it is as devastating as feared, and what we learn as an audience is that we are far from the close confidants we thought: even her own seemingly distant family (particularly her high-strung sister Claire) know more about her deep secrets we do, often referencing them before we know what they are, or serving as the actual source of that information for us rather than Fleabag's own grinning asides sharing her supposedly innermost thoughts with us. But even THAT isn't what is the most remarkable. After a season-and-a-half of Fleabag casually turning mid-conversation to look at or talk to an audience nobody else is aware of, this happens and it's absolutely extraordinary. And the thing of it is.... all that, all I just wrote about... it's only ONE facet of what makes this show so good. There is so, so, so much more to it even than that. Her relationship with her sister, with her father, with her MONSTER of a stepmother (you'll be shocked to learn that Best Actress Oscar winner Olivia Colman is good at this whole acting thing!), her revolting brother-in-law, her various boyfriends, her bank manager even! There's her history with her best friend and the source of her cafe's guinea pig motif. There is the hilarious opening sequence of the first episode leading to an incredible punchline. There is the running subplot of the headless/limbless nude statue she steals that crops up again and again throughout both seasons before we get a stunning piece of information that re-contextualizes the entire storyline. Then there is the enthralling and doomed subplot from season 2 of her infatuation with Andrew Scott's Priest (also unnamed), an infatuation he clearly shares even as his own obvious problems (his alcoholism) are clear for all to see but never outright acknowledged. This leads to an absolutely incredible final scene in the final episode, and seeing Fleabag sadly shake her head at the camera to make it clear she is leaving the audience behind is about as perfect an ending to near as perfect a two seasons of a sensational show as you can get. If you haven't seen this show, you must, it really is as good as everybody says it is.  7. Hannibal (2013 - 2015): How this show existed is bizarre enough, how it was this loving good is a goddamn miracle. Every movie since Silence of the Lambs has been diminishing returns, to the point that most people legitimately have stopped their minds from remembering Hannibal Rising even existed at all. So the fact that Hannibal Lecter was being turned into a television series, and it was going to be on Network Television, and it was going to effectively be a "Case of the week" procedural in the "an eccentric genius helps the police solve crimes" vein was... well, hopes weren't high. But.... it was being made by Bryan Fuller. They cast Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter (the studio wanted Hugh Grant!), and though they couldn't get the rights to use Clarice Starling there was plenty of content to mine from Red Dragon/Manhunter. Will Graham, lead character of the first book/film, became the series protagonist, played by Hugh Dancy. Even that on paper seemed like the standard NBC fare you might expect: a troubled "genius" who can "see" what the criminals see and think like they think, like seen in scores of other police procedurals. But right from the first episode, it was clear this show - this beautiful, disgusting, wonderful, horrifying show - was something different. Something special. How Fuller took all the standard elements - wisecracking forensic teams, a no-nonsense boss, criminal-of-the-week, copious use of flashbacks, characters literally just giving exposition on how they felt etc, etc - and turned it into something as grotesquely beautiful as this is beyond me. The show was GORGEOUS, the color design, the hyper-focus on the smallest of details, incredibly beautiful sets (Lecter's private practice makes me drool), sensational framing on EVERY shot, all of it just perfect. It wasn't just visually but audibly amazing: the oddball orchestral music was always perfectly placed to enhance the mood of a scene - an episode in which a particularly annoying character sees his life fall apart at Lecter's machinations has music that almost seems to be actively making fun of the character - because there was NOTHING in this show that wasn't meticulously put together. The wardrobe. The incredibly delicious looking food even when we knew significant portions of it were human. The locations. This show was a feast for the senses, even at its most brutal an episode would leave me ravenous for food... delicious food, perfectly presented and laid out to appeal to every sense, to see, to smell, to taste, even to touch. But beneath the style of the show was the substance of the content. Fuller's "criminal of the week" show was very different to most of its peers. Here each criminal served to further the ongoing and over-arching seasonal arcs around Lecter's bemused slow corruption of Will Graham, his fascination with a man whose nature allowed him to "understand" others. The slow "seduction" of Will was equally an example of Lecter's longing for a peer as well as his contempt for the idea that anybody could ever match him. Bored, killing time by giving "use" to the "rude", here was a project for him to sink his teeth into. As Will fell apart, Lecter reveled in it. When Will rallied and turned his attention back onto Lecter, he reveled in that too. Here was a partner, a peer, a rival. The two were essentially a "couple", Will drawn to Lecter even as he was repelled by him, Lecter making a cruel mockery of the relationships he developed: as "father" to Abigail Hobbs (Kacey Rohl), as "husband" to Will, as "friend" to Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne), as "patient" to Bedelia Du Maurier (Gillian Anderson). As the show developed and played with the continuity of the series (and cleverly backdoored in doing a Silence of the Lambs adaptation of sorts anyway), it quickly grew to eclipse in my mind Anthony Hopkins' version of Lecter. That movie remains great, but Hopkins' Lecter was diminished by various follow-up films. Mikkelsen's Lecter? Untouchable. After three seasons of quality beyond my wildest dreams, the show ended about as strongly as it could in spite of essentially being "canceled" before the story was done. If they were to make another season or a movie that could promise to be anywhere near the quality of the individual episodes of this fantastic show, I'd be all over it in a heartbeat. This was a NETWORK TELEVISION SHOW how the hell is that possible!?!  6. Doctor Who (2005 - Ongoing): I've been watching this show most of my life, from replays of old Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker stories through Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, the television movie with Paul McGann and then 9 years of horrifying silence followed by the revival series. The show has hit incredible highs and miserable lows over the last 16 years and 13 seasons, and what was probably the very best season (Season 5) aired just outside of the eligibility for this decade. With that said, even if the show's writing hasn't been the greatest during the Chris Chibnall era (in spite of looking great and having a great lead actor in Jodie Whittaker), it has been that same constant presence as it was during my childhood, and those dizzying highs have more than made up for the awful lows. That's part of the charm of Doctor Who, really, and perhaps a core theme of the series itself: as bad as things get, there can and will inevitably be something better coming the track. Most of this decade was Steven Moffat's, with Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi playing the titular character respectively though David Tennant returned for the (excellent) 50th Anniversary along with the fantastic John Hurt playing a previously unseen incarnation of the Doctor (and we got some Paul McGann too!). The show was probably at its post popular globally during that period, and it wasn't hard to see why. Moffat, for all that he had a set series of tricks he LOVED to reuse in his own writing, also did a great job finding a ton of great writers to produce excellent episodes, whether one-offs or recurring, multi-part stories. There were bad stories too, some real stinkers in fact, but the standard quality level was very high and the very best of Who was the very best of television. Matt Smith was a revelation in the part, playing "a young man put together from memory by a committee of old men", and Peter Capaldi's follow-up as an old rocker-dad whose gleefully cringey antics belied his often calculating machinations worked well in contrast: a man who looked young but knew he was too old, followed by an old man who wanted to keep acting young. Their companions were well-written, interesting, sometimes tragic but always optimistic. Amy, Rory, Clara, Bill, each bought their own energy to the show and had very different dynamics with the Doctor: Imaginary Friend, "the other man", slightly doddery grandfather, professor/teacher etc. Every genre was explored, weird sci-fi ideas and settings were taken advantage of, things got sometimes political (Oxygen is, ironically, a breath of fresh air in its utter disdain for capitalism), the pace was always quick enough to paper over cracks in the plot, and Moffat's love for puzzle box season arcs where everything came together in a cohesive whole continued to make for seasons where everything largely made sense at the end. Since Moffat's exit, Chris Chibnall has tried hard and fallen short, sadly, primarily perhaps because he takes on so much of the writing duties himself when his strengths clearly lie in other aspects of showrunning: he puts together great casts and talented crews, his shows look great, people seem to genuinely like him and like working with him... but his Who scripts are just kinda... good at best, quite bad at worst. His core cast, good as they were individually, were too large and diluted the scripts, making some well fleshed out (Graham) and others barely sketched (Yaz), while he writes the Doctor as oddly passive, a far cry from the proactive types that preceded her. His interest in the minutaie of prior Who history overshadows good work he is doing elsewhere, giving his series an almost navel-gazing feel like it is more interested in exploring the show itself than the world the show is supposed to be presenting - though Jo Martin as an "unknown" Doctor incarnation has been a highlight. It's still an entertaining watch, there are still good episodes (It Takes You Away from Season 11 is fantastic) and Jodie Whittaker clearly has the potential to be an excellent Doctor if she just had the material to sink her teeth into. It's just a shame that Who as a show feels like it has been treading water the last few years, not helped by two of its seasons happening during the COVID era. Up till 2017 this was one of the best shows on television for me, and I'm looking forward to the time when it inevitably will be again. The Doctor always bounces back. Eventually.  5. Mad Men (2007 - 2015): Maybe this is cheating, because due to time constraints and the self-imposed delays between episodes I put on myself as part of my blindwatch thread, only one of the seasons of Mad Men I have watched actually falls into the eligibility criteria for this decade. With that said, that one season (Season 5) was absolutely extraordinary, building perfectly off of all the material that preceded it in the prior 4 seasons. I had to include this show on my poll, not recognizing the quality of Mad Men in a Best of the Decade poll felt like madness, and even with only "one" season seen I couldn't bear to put it any lower on the list than this. Everything I have heard leads me to believe the last two seasons not only kept up that quality but exceeded it, and having seen the four seasons before 5 I see no reason not to expect it to continue to shine. Mad Men is, to put it simply, magnificent. It seems to have been put together with machine precision to produce a series that shows you how the sausage is made while somehow managing to make all the hosed up, self-destructive, self-sabotaging, egotistical and often out-of-touch people who inhabit this world somehow extremely compelling. Ostensibly about the efforts by a comparatively small New York Advertising Agency to build their business during the turbulent decade of the 1960s, it is so much more than that. Advertising is all about the image, about selling an idea to people who want to believe in something. That same need (pathological at times) to present an image affects almost every character in Mad Men to greater or less degree. In season 5 alone we see how achieving everything you ever wanted still won't bring you happiness if you're living a lie or can't be honest with yourself. This is most obvious in the central character of Don Draper, but it is everywhere else: Roger Sterling's divorce after his LSD trip makes him acknowledge the truth; Peggy Olson's wonderful smile as she chooses to walk away from the comfort of SCDP to take control of her life; Joan Harris finally ditching Greg's worthless rear end; Pete Campbell's desperate unhappiness in spite of enormous personal and professional success; Megan Draper pursuing her dream even though she knows it could wreck her relationship with Don; Betty Francis' weight gain as a symptom of an unhappiness she can't understand why she is feeling when she has "won" in every way it is possible to win; Harry Crane's yearning for the excitement of a life he can represent but never live, and thus resentment of the family that have given him a good and loving life; and perhaps most tragically of all Lane Pryce's ultimate resolution of a problem that was completely of his own making, after failing to take advantage of the multiple solutions that were on offer to him. In a show about successful, respected people on the cutting edge of creativity and business, we see the truth all too often behind that image. But it takes great acting and writing to pull that off without making it obvious or hackneyed, and those are two things that Mad Men has in spades. As a period piece the set design, hair & makeup, and costuming is top notch, of course. But it is the quality ensemble cast of actors and the accomplished, confident writers that raise it up to something special. Matthew Weiner's hands are all over almost every script, and while other shows on my list have suffered from a showrunner that wants to write everything, here it pays off (or maybe Weiner's just a credit-hog? I don't know!) in spades. Then, of course, there is Jon Hamm as Don Draper. An extraordinary performance for an extraordinary character. Writing a confident, handsome, debonair, creative genius is one thing... portraying it is something else, and Hamm's Draper is the sun that every other character revolves around. You can buy him as the powerful, authoritative and appealing figure he is meant to be. But that's only one aspect, and where Hamm truly shines is being able to show us this powerful, handsome, perfect man.... and then make it clear that beneath that mask he is paranoid, fearful, self-doubting and convinced that he is nothing but a fraud and one day everybody will finally figure that out. Getting that balancing act right is tough for any actor, but Hamm makes it look effortless... which it definitely wasn't! Everytime Don Draper snaps at somebody or declares some proclamation that is not to be denied, you know that he's trying just as hard to convince himself of what he is saying. He usually succeeds in convincing those he talks to, but rarely does he succeed at convincing himself. Tall, handsome, a millionaire, married to a beautiful and talented wife, respected and lauded by his peers and society at large.... he's also still a scared little boy just waiting for the other shoe to drop and everybody to declare him an imposter and cast him out. If Mad Men had ended at season 5 and never made another episode, I'd probably still have included it on this list just as high, because it really was just that great a "single" season for the decade. One of the best shows on television, with some of the best writers and best actors, and at the forefront of it all was Jon Hamm's Don Draper  4. Breaking Bad (2008 - 2013): I wasn't sure what to expect when I watched the first season of Breaking Bad. It was a show starring "Hal", the dad from Malcolm in the Middle, who was a fun comedic actor but not somebody I figured I could really take seriously in a serious drama. The opening of the first episode with Walt in his underwear on the road had an almost MitM feel to it, and early almost slapstick scenes such as Walt watching Jesse sneak out of a bedroom during a DEA raid (and what from memory was the ONLY nudity in any episode), or even Skyler giving Walt a distracted handjob as his "birthday treat" gave a muddied impression of a show that was aiming for drama but wasn't ever going to quite hit the tone it was going for. Boy was I wrong! Even in that first episode it became apparent that there was something extremely interesting happening here, that there was a bit more to Walt's character than there initially appeared. Even early on, you see small signs of a former life of accomplishment far beyond a depressed High School Chemistry teacher. More importantly, even early on you saw signs of Walt's ego, long buried perhaps but still there, a man who hated what he had become but was so beaten down by life that he'd given up. His cancer diagnosis gives him a recklessness he thought long since gone, he tracks down his old student Jesse who he found out was cooking meth and he makes him an offer: he'll cook the best quality meth Jesse has ever seen so he can make enough money to pay for his treatments (the old joke stands, this is a show that could ONLY be made in America) but more importantly to put aside cash to look after his family when he's gone. So began one of the best shows on television of the 21st Century. All those elements were there in unrefined form: Walt's ego, his belief in his own superiority and seething resentment for those who either didn't see it or in some way "looked down" on him (whether perceived or in reality). But he didn't just flip a switch. Over the course of the show's life, we saw him go from agonizing over causing harm to others to killing (or ordering to be killed) people without a moment's hesitation or remorse. The moral absolutes he once argued with himself against the intellectual debate between killing and not killing were completely absent. It happened gradually, but the signs were there from the start, and what seemed like a show about a beleagured, desperate man just trying to die with some dignity quickly became the story of one of the most monstrous human beings in television history. And the thing is, by Bryan Cranston's performance alone this was a great show... but there was far, far, far more to it than simply Walt. Even characters that started as broad caricatures like Hank - Walt's loud, obnoxious brother-in-law - were quickly revealed to have real depth and substance to them. Cranston's co-star Aaron Paul as Jesse went from an overly confident dumbass to a character people genuinely felt for, somebody who in spite of all his many flaws and stupid mistakes people longed to see change for the better, and whose shifting relationship to Walt in many ways mirrored the audiences' own sympathies. There was Skyler, Walt's wife who seemed at first an emasculating control freak who the audience got mad at for getting in the way of Walt's "cool" crimes, before it at last sunk in for people that she was not only entirely justified to act the way she did even before she knew the truth, but that she was far more sensible and disciplined than Walt ever was. Plus the supporting cast! Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman! Jonathan Banks as Mike! Jesse Plemons as Coupled with fantastic cinematography and an ever escalating (but believable) upping of both the stakes and Walt and Jesse's own reach/influence in the drug underworld, it's no surprise Breaking Bad was so beloved. It wasn't without its flaws of course: sometimes the marriage of comedy and drama didn't entirely sit right. Sometimes the show got a little self-indulgent (season 2's recurring black & white flashforward to the aftermath of a tragedy). It was also clearly a show produced to be watched one episode a time, one season a year: a binge watch makes clear the show's pace wasn't intended to be watched in that way, and almost every episode features some big moment/shock that can get a little exhausting if not spaced out. Ironically, because I missed the start of season 2 I ended up waiting and catching up on the show before the end of the 1st part of the last half-season, and while I loved what I was watching I had to take time between episodes to avoid getting burned out. Despite that, it remains high on my list. Watching the final half season with friends each week was a highlight of those weeks, everybody wanted to get together and see what crazy thing would happen THIS week. It was an extraordinary experience watching this show. Not just because of Bryan Cranston, great as he was, but it is certainly true that I went into the show thinking of him as Hal, and now whenever I catch an episode of Malcolm in the Middle my first thought is,"That's Walt!"  3. The Good Place (2017 - 2020): Much like he did with Parks and Recreation, Michael Schur made a series full of seemingly cynical, awful and in some cases monstrous characters and... made it incredibly wholesome! The Good Place was magnificent from start to finish, with its first season in particular doing an incredible job of never quite letting the audience in on the full story of what was happening (or making them think they knew more than they did) until the spectacular reveal in the Season One finale. But where other shows might have struggled to live up to such a strong first season, The Good Place never let me down over the full 4 seasons as it explored philosophy, ethics, morality and ultimately what purpose there is to our time in the universe. Nailing the landing in an utterly wonderful series finale where they somehow provided an answer that was not only palatable but uplifting AND made perfect sense, this show was a wonder in how it just never let up on the quality and constantly managed to repurpose itself into compelling narratives and continued to make the characters compelling. Even standard television tropes like the romance between Eleanor and Chidi remained fresh, as did characters that might be one-note in any other show, like Mindy, Derek or even Manny Jacinto's Jason. The show had excellent co-stars and supporting characters like Jameela Jamil's Tahani, D'Arcy Carden's Janet, Maya Rudolph as The Judge, Marc Evan Jackson's Shawn, and a whole slew of Good Place and Bad Place inhabitants and various humans added into the mix, each of whom brought their own distinct and hilarious flavor to the mix. Kristen Bell and Ted Danson as arguably the two leads (William Jackson Harper's Chidi by season 3 is probably right up there with them) are great, with both managing to find a fine balance between maintaining the illusion of their own chosen personas and the underlying neuroses, paranoia and selfishness they're constantly battling with. Eleanor's slothful nature and seeming lack of any moral sense of right and wrong makes her perfect for a character who ends up developing into an ethical and highly moral person as a direct result of studying those things in order to hide that she is slothful and lacks any moral sense of right and wrong! Michael as the architect of "The Good Place" and his own growth as a "human" never feels forced or unearned, and the end result of the series where Michael chooses to live as a human with the PERFECT name in order to truly understand the other side is a beautiful choice to wrap up his character. Perhaps, more than anything else, the message I took away from this show is that it is never too late to be a better person, and everybody is capable of change. That's a good message, and a valuable one, with the benefit of being presented in the form of a very, very, very funny show.  2. Better Call Saul (2015 - Present): When I first heard there was a planned spin-off to Breaking Bad that would star Bob Odenkirk's Saul Goodman, I was sceptical in spite of the quality of that series. Sure, Odenkirk was always a fun guy to watch, and Saul was a neat comedic addition to the main cast, but how could you build a show out of that? I expected maybe one to two seasons of Saul involved in silly cases with guests of the week, a subplot about his efforts to help a buddy sell a lasertag place, and then a quick tie in to his first appearance on Breaking Bad to wrap it all up, if it even got that far. Instead, what I got was a show that in many ways exceeds the incredible series that spawned it. A frequently hilarious but also often heartbreaking and extremely tense series about a man named Jimmy McGill bashing his head against the wall of the role society, the law and even his own brother have pigeonholed him in. Odenkirk's Jimmy is a rapidly approaching middle-aged guy who largely "wasted" his youth as a small-time con-man who went by the name Saul Goodman before being saved from prison by his eccentric but highly respected brother Chuck. After years restraining his natural instincts to hustle and con, Jimmy has tried to follow in said brother's footsteps and managed to attain a law degree of his own, which is when his life goes back off the rails. For the first three seasons, perhaps the defining arc of the series is the relatively low-stakes drama of Jimmy's relationship with Chuck, whose genius and highly respected status as a lawyer allows him to get away with indulging in his belief he has electromagnetic hypersensitivity (not a real thing) when anybody else would be classified as suffering from delusion or even mental illness. Chuck's seeming support and defense of Jimmy are exposed as a patronizing, condescending disdain for his brother's abilities and moral compass that he hides behind directing Partner Howard Hamlin (a delightful Patrick Fabian) to vocalize for him. This all builds to one of the most electrifying and satisfying scenes in television history, when Jimmy and Chuck finally go one-on-one in a courtroom to decide whether Jimmy will lose his license to practise law, and it's just so. loving. good. Since then (and beforehand as well) there has been a growing convergence of what is happening in Jimmy's life in the aftermath of Chuck's reaction to this trial, and the wider aspects of drug dealing/cartel involvement in New Mexico. This has featured returning characters from Breaking Bad such as Mike, Nacho, Tuco, Hector, the Cousins, and of course Gustavo Fring. Along with these are new characters, including Lalo (mentioned in one of Saul's first Breaking Bad episodes but never seen) played with delicious relish by Tony Dalton. But while the drug storylines have been very good (if a little divisive for people who just want more Jimmy) where the series has really shined was the creation of the remarkable Kim Wexler, played by the amazing (and criminally underrated) Rhea Seehorn. As first a friend, then lover, and sometimes partner of Jimmy McGill, Kim is an incredible addition to the world of Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul. A meticulous researcher with an incredible work ethic, Kim's slow shift from lowly HHM associate to striking out on a partnership with Jimmy to becoming a partner at a high end corporate firm to a passion for pro-bono work has been fascinating to watch. Along the way, she has courted with and reveled in brief dips into Jimmy's old con-man world and found it dangerously alluring. Kim's involvement in Jimmy's life constantly puts her own legal status at risk, as well as her moral compass, but while Jimmy anguishes over this fact, Kim is going in eyes wide open. Never is this better demonstrated than one of the most incredible scenes of the prior season, when Lalo makes an unexpected visit to Jimmy and Kim's apartment to make a dangerous accusation and an off-hand comment by Jimmy makes Kim realize the story he's keeping even from her is about to fall apart unless she does something spectacular. Better Call Saul is one of the most incredible television series airing today, and for the last 5+ years. Whether as a prequel to Breaking Bad or as a show in its own right, it was almost the best show on television this decade. Almost.  1. Twin Peaks (2017): It couldn't be anything else. 27 years after David Lynch left the world reeling with a series that revolutionized television of the time, and 25 years after a film that enraged many for gleefully refusing to answer any of the questions asked by the finale to season 2 (in fact it raised MORE questions), a completely unexpected third season was made. Could it possibly live up to the cult status of the original? Could it recapture the magic feeling that watching weekly episodes of Twin Peaks created for viewers in 1990/91? Was Lynch still the master of the medium he revolutionized, despite the explosion in the quality of prestige television in the quarter century since he deigned to work in it? The answer was a resounding yes. Given almost complete creative freedom by Showtime as part of their bid to showcase their streaming network, Lynch had the opportunity denied him in season 2 when the first season's popularity caused television executives to try and "help" and dragged the middle section of the season down, causing Lynch to leave and only return for the (phenomenal) final few episodes. 18 episodes, commercial free, and Lynch could do whatever he wanted with them, using whatever actors he could get, telling whatever story he wanted in whatever way he wanted to. Like in 1990, what Lynch did in 2017 was to once again vault far past what anybody else in television was doing. Noah Hawley was probably the closest to capturing the strange mix of the surreal and the genuinely dramatic/cinematic flavor so much of Twin Peaks has, particularly in his first season of Legion and second season of Fargo, but even that paled in comparison to what Lynch produced. Most of the original cast returned (sadly Michael Ontkean's Harry Truman did not, the one sour note of the season for me, in spite of Robert Forster doing great as his brother Frank), and plenty of others jumped at the chance to be in the show - Madeline Zima, Michael Cera, Chrysta Bell, Jim Belushi, Tom Sizemore, Naomi Watts, Matthew Lillard, Tim Roth, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Monica Belluci and of course Laura Dern. People weren't entirely sure what to expect, and it certainly wasn't what we got. With breaks for musical performances, characters that appeared for a single scene or episode never to be seen again, various cutaways to seemingly completely unrelated events, people acting in highly over-exaggerated ways, special effects that were often crude or amateurish looking... it would have been easy for this season to be a mess. But it wasn't, oh my God it wasn't. It's... it's so loving good. It's a movie. An 18-hour-movie, and the best movie of the decade to boot in addition to being the best television series. It evokes a mood, a feeling, at times deeply disconcerting but also incredibly uplifting. Even on a first watch when the frustration of Dale Cooper's absence is palpable, the adventures of Dougie Jones - a naive and happy blank slate who mostly just repeats what he last heard - were a delight to watch. The show jumps between locations, from Twin Peaks to South Dakota to Las Vegas to New York, and of course all those "other" places that exist outside of known time or space. Then there is Episode 8, perhaps the greatest episode of television ever made. Words can't even begin to do it justice, it was an episode that left me watching with my jaw hanging I could not believe what I was seeing or how it was making me feel. It's that "feeling" that really is what made The Return hit so strong for me, very rarely has any show ever made me feel as strongly while watching it as this one does. There was 8, of course, for obvious reasons, but also Episode 17, in which we come agonizingly close to seeing as "happy" an ending as one could ever hope for a series like Twin Peak. There is a moment where, in a return to the first episode of the first season, we see Jack Nance's Pete simply walk to his favorite fishing spot and cast his line that had me near tears. It seemed as if Agent Cooper might finally fulfill his goal, and when that is (literally!) ripped away from us it is devastating. Which of course lead to Episode 18, which is likely to be the last Twin Peaks we will ever see. An episode filled with a sense of foreboding, of things being not quite right, but one that also invites the viewer to return to the first episode and watch scenes with a whole new context that - for me at least - made me ponder if I had truly just watched a season of a television series with a beginning, middle and end... or just stepped into a never-ending cycle featuring a character who - since the end of season 2 - has no longer truly existed in time and space as we understand it. Twin Peaks is a series that, in my opinion, openly invites and welcomes this kind of perspective. It doesn't offer any answers... it really isn't interested in those. It shows you events, it offers you points of view, and it leaves it to the viewer to ascribe their own meaning to it. Whether those are right or wrong are irrelevant, in the end, it's the pondering that matters. I can watch the rather adrupt and stunning ending of The Return and feel motivated and uplifted, the "scream" exciting the senses and making me consider what it means, where it is going or might be, what the significance if any there is to "Richard" making his odd stutter-step: is he ready to move into a different reality and try again? Is that his (chosen) fate? To always be the guy who tries to save people? Others may see it in an entirely different way, and that's fine. That's what Twin Peaks does, that is what the Return did. For 18 episodes it fascinated, it drew me in, it enthralled me, it offered me tantalizing glimpses of answers before instead offering new questions. But it also provided closure, it acted as a love letter to characters and storylines from the original series, it acknowledged that darkness existing does not negate the light, but nor does light simply banish darkness. I feel like Lynch showed up after 25+ years to simply demonstrate once again that television can and will lift to greater heights than it has before. That is why, for me, Twin Peaks: The Return was the greatest television show of the decade, and despite how good the other shows on this list were... it wasn't even close. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Dec 10, 2021 |
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Dec 10, 2021 02:53
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