Maybe I’m not the best person to make this list. TV has gotten so goddamn good in the last few years that it’s impossible to absorb it all; moreover, as you’ll see, my tastes skew more towards drama than comedy. Here’s a small sampling of shows that I didn’t get around to watching this year: Broad City, You’re the Worst, Rectify, Bob’s Burgers, The Affair, Homeland, Transparent, Outlander, The Honorable Woman, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, and Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways. I also fell down on some shows like Arrow, The Flash, House of Cards, and How to Get Away with Murder. But you know what? Even with that amount of fuck-uppery, I still had a hard time narrowing down a top 10.
Honorable Mention: Justified, Boardwalk Empire, Archer: Vice, The Walking Dead, Parks and Recreation, Community, Orange is the New Black, BoJack Horseman, Game of Thrones, Review
#10 – The Leftovers
There were a lot of people who didn’t give The Leftovers a chance – or just dismissed it sight unseen – because of Damon Lindelof’s involvement. They were still upset about the ending of Lost. To me that’s like never watching Saving Private Ryan because Spielberg did a shitty job with 1941. If you missed The Leftovers, you missed a bleak, confrontational portrait of grief and despair, of human ugliness, and of small beauty in the face of unspeakable tragedy. The only reason it’s ranked at #10 is because it’s hard to recommend for any but the strongest viewers, those who like to be challenged. The Leftovers challenged me all season.
Best episodes: “Guest,” “Two Boats and a Helicopter”
#9 – Rick and Morty
Okay, I’m fudging it a little with this pick, because Rick and Morty debuted in December of 2013, but all of its episodes save for the first two aired this year, so I’m counting it. An absurd, foul-mouthed riff on Back to the Future‘s Doc Brown and Marty McFly, Rick and Morty is the brainchild of Justin Roiland (who does admirable work voicing both characters) and Community mastermind Dan Harmon, and it was consistently the funniest show I saw all year, beating South Park, Parks and Rec, and yes, even Community for sheer laughs-per-minute. It produced inventive, occasionally scatological sci-fi, and occasionally sucker-punched you with moments of genuine poignancy.
Best episodes: “Rick Potion #9,” “Meseeks and Destroy”
#8 – Louie
Louie this year was unrecognizable from previous seasons. Gone was the now-iconic intro, and Louis C.K. began experimenting with long-form filmmaking, like the three-parter “Pamela” or the six-episode “Elevator” arc. “So Did the Fat Lady” has one of the best, truest monologues you’ll see all year, and “In the Woods,” anchored by a magnificent performance by Devin Druid, is almost too confessional to watch. The show utilized an all-star roster of guest actors, like Ellen Burstyn, Charles Grodin, Jeremy Renner, and Skipp Sudduth, to tremendous effect. This was easily the most personal, intimate season of an already personal, intimate show. Season five can’t come soon enough; let’s just hope C.K. doesn’t make us wait another year.
Best episodes: “So Did the Fat Lady,” “In the Woods”
#7 – The Americans
The Americans has been strong since day one (its debut season made my best-of list last year too, when I was writing for a different website). Its sophomore season was an unbelievably taut slow burn; it slowly ratcheted up the tension to the point where it was nigh-unbearable and you forgot that the people you were rooting for were two Communist spies and a philandering FBI agent. But it was more than just a game of Cold War cat-and-mouse; The Americans took a serious look at the nature of truth, intimacy, and family. It boasts one of the best casts on TV (especially Noah Emmerich, who’s doing career-defining work), and is one of the most well-crafted shows on the air. I feel like it doesn’t get the love it deserves; it hasn’t captured the Internet’s attention the way other FX fare like Justified or Sons of Anarchy has. That’s a shame, because this show – and this season of it – is a goddamn masterpiece.
Best episodes: “Behind the Red Door,” “Stealth”
#6 – Mad Men
What a singular creation is Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men. Critics of AMC’s flagship drama complain that it has “no plot,” which is not only asinine but beside the point. Mad Men is about the march of time, and the horror and beauty that comes with it. Our hero, Don Draper, is left rudderless as the ’60s transition rockily into the ’70s. Weiner approached the show with his usual stately hand, never spoon-feeding the audience. The show is bold and confident, and doesn’t need to justify its existence just because it’s not putting up Breaking Bad numbers. Few shows on the air today would be able to pull off the unapologetic beauty of “The Strategy,” or the aggressive weirdness of “The Runaways.” The only bad part of this season, Mad Men‘s last, is that we have to wait until 2015 to see the rest of it.
Best episodes: “The Strategy,” “The Runaways”
#5 – The Knick
Steven Soderbergh’s turn of the century medical drama – which he shot, directed, and edited all ten episodes of – made an impression right away, with Soderbergh’s dreamy cinematography coupled with Cliff Martinez’s anachronistic electronic score (easily the best music on any show this year). The Knick was so much more than “ER in 1900,” as it took an unflinching look at addiction and race relations (it’s race-riot episode “Get the Rope” aired right as the protests in Ferguson were beginning, an eerie coincidence). Clive Owen and Andre Holland turned in brilliant performances, and the show itself was never anything less than an absolute must-watch. It’s great that The Knick is returning for a second season, but one wonders how it can hope to top itself.
Best episodes: “Start Calling Me Dad,” “Get the Rope”
#4 – True Detective
We knew this would be good before it even aired. With the one-two punch of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson in the lead roles, to its Byzantine bayou mystery, True Detective was hypnotic, bizarre, nihilistic, philosophical – all things that could turn viewers off were it not for the expertise with which showrunner Nic Pizzolatto (who wrote every episode) crafted the story. Phrases like “Yellow King” and “Carcosa,” meaningless on their surface, became increasingly portentous, as the Internet was completely absorbed in the story. And after all the darknesss, Pizzolatto had the balls to end on an optimistic note. True Detective was spellbinding from its first scene, and it never let up.
Best episodes: “Who Goes There,” “The Long Bright Dark”
#3 – Hannibal
Nothing about this show should work. Everything about Hannibal should be a cynical cash-grab, designed to prey on nostalgia. The fact that Bryan Fuller’s bloody, beautiful fever dream airs on NBC, probably the worst of the five biggest networks, is a miracle – the fact that it’s so damn good is another. The performances – from Mads Mikkelsen, Hugh Dancy, Lawrence Fishburne, and others – are across-the-board perfect, and never fall below the incredibly high bar that Fuller and Co. have set for themselves. In addition, Brian Reitzell’s score is the unsung hero of this show; it’s challening and confrontational, and couldn’t care less if it sounds pretty. Hannibal‘s second season was even better than its first, and it showed how high the stakes are, and how real the peril. No one is safe, not Will, not Hannibal, not the viewer. There is nothing like this show on the air right now, and it will be a long time before we see another of its kind.
Best episodes: “Takiawese,” “Mizumono”
#2 – Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
John Oliver has eschewed the notion of himself as a “real” journalist, but too bad for him, because his show’s debut season proved that he’s one of the smartest, most insightful journalists around. Last Week Tonight wisely dumped its interview portion a few episodes in, which kept it from being something that could be cynically dismissed as “The Daily Show on HBO.” What he did instead was long-form investigative pieces; he didn’t look only at the US, but also at topics like gay rights in Uganda or chicanery behind the scenes of the World Cup (by the way, all these segments are on YouTube, so finish reading this then go watch them). Last Week Tonight was consistently, reliably hilarious and smart, and in my estimation it quickly surpassed The Daily Show and The Colbert Report in terms of sheer watchability and passion. With everything happening right now – The Interview being canceled, an epidemic of black deaths in America – we need Oliver more than ever.
Best segments: “Ferguson, MO and Police Militarization,” “Miss America Pageant”
Before we get to my #1 pick, let’s take a look at the worst show of the year…
The Strain
I’m gonna say something that will earn me a lot of hate right away: Guillermo del Toro is suffering from George Lucas Syndrome. I don’t mean his talent has gone the same place as his head (up his ass, in Lucas’s case), it’s that everyone is so impressed by del Toro that no one will tell him no. And they’re right to be impressed! Pacific Rim was awesome, and I agree with Stephen King’s assertion that Pan’s Labyrinth is the best fantasy film since The Wizard of Oz. But almost everything about The Strain was a misfire, from Corey Stoll’s distracting (and unnecessary) hairpiece to, well, everything else. A guy’s dick fell off. One wonders how much of this could have been salvaged if someone had the balls to “No, Guillermo, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Do you know how excited I was for this show? And after all the buildup – and reading the first two books in the trilogy this is based on – I bailed as soon as Margaux stopped writing her excellent reviews. I didn’t bail on Tyrant, I didn’t bail on Under the Dome, but I bailed on The Strain pretty quickly. What a waste.
#1 – Fargo
When I was compiling this list, I struggled with the placement of #9 – #2. But I always knew Fargo would be my top pick. Good lord, what an achievement. Do you know what showrunner Noah Hawley’s biggest writing credit was before this? SIX EPISODES OF FUCKING BONES. And he not only had the balls to float the idea of a miniseries tangentially related to maybe the best film of the 1990s, but he had the genius to pull it off. Everything about Fargo works, flying in the face of everyone who said it wouldn’t. Billy Bob Thornton turned in the most terrifying performance of the year as the boogieman Lorne Malvo, and Martin Freeman showed a knack for playing a sociopath that fans of Sherlock and The Office never would have imagined (he also nails the Midwestern accent). Alison Tolman gave the year’s best debut as Molly Solverson, the cop who literally everyone was rooting for. The cast was peppered with comedy stalwarts like Bob Odenkirk, Glenn Howerton, and Key & Peele. Fargo got its claws in you and never let go. It was a blackly funny, but its moments of levity did little to mask the dark heart beating at its core. Let me put it this way: I’m moving to Denver in three weeks, and I’ve found myself thinking “I need to make time to re-watch Fargo.”
Best episodes: “Buridan’s Ass,” “A Fox, a Rabbit, and a Cabbage”
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