Best Shows of 2019

The ridiculous thing about TV right now is that there are a bunch of premium or streaming channels I don't have access to and there's still dozens more interesting shows available to me than I'll probably ever be able to watch. I'm not sure if that's good or bad.

Best of 2019

10. Broad City (Comedy Central)


Broad City has always taken place in a heightened reality, a somewhat idealized version of New York where a couple of youngish Jewish girls can have wacky adventures and harebrained schemes without ever having to truly worry about making rent or other real world issues. So I was a little surprised by how emotionally heavy the final episodes ended up being. Something that happens when you're youngish is you get opportunities, and sometimes those opportunities end up pulling you apart from people you love. The show was still funny as always, but it's clear Abbi and Ilana wanted to say something big about friendship with their final season, and they were totally successful.

9. The Mandalorian (Disney+)


I think we were all expecting a more standard peak TV prestige drama from The Mandalorian, so it was something of a pleasant surprise when it turned out to be kind of a classic episodic action/adventure show. Some of those episodes are better than others, but the fact that it actually has distinct episodes, and they didn't feel the need to bloat them all up with subplots to hit some expected minimum length, made it a lot more pleasurable to watch than some other franchise tie-in series I've seen. It looks nice for a TV series and has a solid mix of action and humor, and the whole cast is well selected and entertaining, although some actors felt like they were wasted a bit. I'm looking forward to more adventures of Not Boba Fett and Baby Yoda.

8. The Deuce (HBO)


At times the first couple seasons of The Deuce depicted prostitution and pornography as potentially enjoyable enterprises, but the third and final run dispelled that illusion by focusing more fully on the human costs of profiting from sex, especially on the young women who could be pressured or coerced into it. The show definitely still has an affection for a bygone period in New York's history, but it looks at everything through a more sober lens. Sometimes things come to an end for a reason. Shoving everything behind closed doors doesn't fix it, and a lot of these issues are still issues today. But it wouldn't be a David Simon show if it didn't show us the structural problems of the society we've created without sugarcoating them.

7. Steven Universe (Cartoon Network)


Something that I don't find difficult to admit is that cartoons made for children are a lot better than they were when I was a kid. Steven Universe is a science fiction comedy show that uses a story about a stalled alien invasion of earth to explain concepts like friendship, responsibility, legacy, and the complexity of gender and sexuality to people who might not totally understand it yet, without talking down or creating something that's unwatchable to an older audience. I wouldn't be surprised if more adults actually watch the show than kids, but I think it's great for either group. They wrapped up the main storyline this year, but the show lives on with an epilogue series that ages up the main character a bit and is continuing to address the psychological effects of everything he's gone through.

6. The Good Place (NBC)


As I've explained before, my 2019 list covers shows whose seasons ended in 2019. So while The Good Place's fourth and final season ends tonight, I'm talking about the third season right now. A good chunk of this season took place on Earth instead of in the afterlife, and while the writing is still sharp and funny, the show just feels less dynamic without access to all the weird tools and systems they've created for that setting. It's still good, but it gets better once the gang finds themselves back in the metaphysical plane. The stakes are raised dramatically at a certain point when the characters become responsible for much more than just their own fates. It's not quite the show at its best, but it's still pretty great to hang out with.

5. Barry (HBO)


Barry might seem like a comedy with its half hour running length and Bill Hader starring, but I didn't really get into it until I started seeing it as a drama with a really dark sense of humor. He plays a hitman who's tired of killing and decides to try his hand at acting. But of course, his old life as a killer keeps finding him again. I didn't think the second season was as strong overall as the first, but I have to give credit to the episode "ronny/lily", which is one of the best single episodes of a show in years. Just a sequence of comically tragic events and coincidences that you don't need to even have the full context for to enjoy. The supporting cast is very good, but Bill Hader deserves a ton of credit for his work in front of and behind the camera.

4. Mindhunter (Netflix)


This is me not being surprised that I really like a TV show about the FBI developing an understanding of and methodology for finding and stopping serial killers produced by and often directed by David Fincher. A lot of shows about law enforcement tend to lionize it despite its flaws, and Mindhunter isn't immune to that, but it does seem aware of the actual limitations of profiling, and the show is more about delving into the psychology of its main characters and the men they interview than the process itself. I thought the second season was better than the first because there was less set up and the story got the characters more personally involved in the subject they're pursuing. I'm torn about the show going on hiatus while Fincher tackles other projects, because I want more of it but I'm not sure how much I do if he becomes less involved.

3. Watchmen (HBO)


Watchmen does a great job of honoring the story and legacy of the original Watchmen comic while also recontextualizing the whole thing through the lens of America's ugly racial history. It's a sequel that takes place in the modern day, as a costumed police force in Tulsa responds to the thread from a masked militia group. The show does a smart job of creating a world that could exist after the world of the comic, finds good ways to bring back old characters and integrate new ones, and does all kinds of weird science fiction nonsense that I loved. It seems like this could be the only season we get, but it tells a full, satisfying story and we were lucky to watch it.

2. Succession (HBO)


Succession is a show about rich assholes all trying to fuck each other over so they can be the biggest rich asshole around. It's fantastic. The focus is mainly on Logan Roy, the founder and CEO of a massive entertainment company (think if Disney owned Fox News) whose health is failing, and his four ambitious children, who hop between supporting him and trying to stab him in the back as the constantly shifting situation calls for. The show is frequently laugh out loud funny while also being quietly devastating as you learn how one man's single minded drive and lack of empathy instilled the same traits in everyone who looks up to him. You always understand why they do what they do, even as you hate to see them do it. It's a microcosm of the capitalist system we live in that incentivizes personal gain regardless of the cost to others. Also, the entire cast is wonderful. I can't wait for season three.

1. Chernobyl (HBO)


Chernobyl is a show about multiple horrors. It's about the immediate horror of an unexpected disaster. It's also about the unseen horror of a disease that can spread without warning. It's also about the banal horror of a problem being made worse by human error and bureaucratic ineptitude. It's also about the quiet heroism about people who are willing to put their lives on the line to protect others from something that wasn't their fault. It's about the whole of human experience, our failures, our successes, and everything else that comes with a major event like this. It's not a fully accurate accounting of the Chernobyl meltdown and aftermath, but it's one of the best artistic depictions of a real event I've seen.

Delayed Entry

This is the best show that didn't air in 2019 but I didn't watch until then.

Adventure Time (Cartoon Network)

Adventure Time walked so Steven Universe could run. It actually took me a few years to get through the whole series, watching chunks of it in between other things. I love the goofy but cohesive art style, the dynamic between the two main characters, the way the story matures as they do, its silly sense of humor, the way it bounces between D&D inspired adventuring, developing its characters, exploring its long and sad history, and the moments where it gets truly surreal. I love the music, too. I'm jealous of kids who got to watch it growing up.

Best Shows of 2017

A few shows I've been watching for a while had down or least unexciting seasons in 2017, but for the most part it was a great year for TV, with several new series that really impressed me.

Best of 2017

10. Review (Comedy Central)


Review's third and final season was very brief, but it was a perfect send-off for a series that was much more fascinating than I really expected when I gave it a shot. Right up to the end they kept coming up with new ways for Andy Daly's Forrest MacNeill to torture himself, putting his obsession with doing his job over every other concern he should have. You really just have to see it for yourself.

9. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC)


This was maybe the biggest surprise of the year. From the beginning, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been the dutiful television branch of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that cleans up the scraps of story left by the movies and does competent but bland espionage action every week. Things were different in season four, when they finally abandoned the pretense that they were really "connected" to the movies and focused on three tighter story arcs instead of a single meandering thread. It resulted in what was quite easily the show's best season, recalling what works about the Whedon TV formula with smart plots, strong character drama, and twists that really stick the knife in. I don't know if I would tell anyone they really need to watch this show, but that season alone made the years of investment worth it.

8. Samurai Jack (Adult Swim)


Samurai Jack returned after many years to finally conclude the tale of his defeat of Aku and return to his own time. The show matured along with most of its audience, becoming more violent and bittersweet as it introduced a couple of new concepts but focused mostly on creating a proper ending for the series and its characters. I thought the climax could have used a bit more time to breathe, but it was a really good show with some of the best animated sequences you'll ever see on TV.

7. Rick and Morty (Adult Swim)


Rick and Morty's fandom really seemed to boil over into full on insufferable, ashamed-to-be-associated-with-some-of-these-people mode in the last couple years, but the show itself is about as good as ever, mixing razor sharp humor with wild sci-fi ideas and bitterly human moments at a crazy pace. It continues to be formally experimental in eye-opening ways, and a few of these episodes are easily among the most memorable half hours of entertainment to come along in a while.

6. Legion (FX)


FOX has been having a nice of run of success with its X-Men related output lately, and Legion might be my favorite thing they've done. It's a superhero story as a psychological drama. In the comics, David Haller is the son of Professor X. In the show, there are no real references to any well-known mutants to be found, but the character is intact as a mentally unstable, powerful mutant who isn't sure where his abilities end and his hallucinations begin. The show is really more of a horror series than anything else, with some truly unsettling moments as the characters fight to survive some truly bizarre situations. It stands apart from other X-Men adaptations as something truly unique.

5. The Good Place (NBC)


The new comedy from the Parks and Recreation brain trust takes place in "The Good Place", the place good people go when they die, based on a complicated point system. The problem in the first episode is the new arrival and protagonist, played by Kristen Bell, knows there's no way she shouldn't have been sent to "The Bad Place", and from there begins a whole series of complications and screw-ups that drive one of my favorite new comedies in a long time. The Good Place is ambitious, smart, and hilarious, and is story focused in a way that makes compulsive watching easy if not unavoidable. And the cast is diverse and brilliant, particularly Ted Danson as Michael, the architect of the neighborhood the show takes place in. He might be the lifetime sitcom MVP.

4. The Deuce (HBO)


David Simon's new show is a return to what he does best - rich, complicated examinations of systems of crime and neglect that inevitably end up hurting the vulnerable the most. It's about the intertwined industries of prostitution and pornography in 1970s New York, as the former is pushed behind closed doors and the latter starts gaining mainstream acceptance. The ensemble cast is reliably excellent, as is the writing, which takes time to explain how things work and why they're terrible and won't be fixed without being preachy or unnatural. There's a lot of sex in this show, but it feels illustrative rather than titillating. When you know how the sausage is made, you don't want to eat it as much.

3. Better Call Saul (AMC)


In some ways, I think Better Call Saul might be better than Breaking Bad. I don't want that to be taken the wrong way, because there are things that Breaking Bad did that no other show can do as well, and that Saul doesn't really try. But it can do subtler, smaller storytelling in ways that show this team doesn't need Breaking Bad's excesses to make one of the most consistently riveting dramas on TV. The rivalry between Jimmy and Chuck is one of the most heartbreaking family conflicts I can remember, and Mike getting himself intertwined with Gus and the cartel, knowing where that eventually goes, is always great stuff. And what the heck is going to happen to Kim? God this show is fun.

2. The Leftovers (HBO)


The Leftovers' third and final season (déjà vu) brings the story to a close in a way that satisfied, bringing more comparisons to Lost, Damon Lindelof's other show about mysterious, unexplained events. It's all a matter of perspective. While people expected certain things from Lost that the creators never intended to give them, it seemed clear from the outset that the focus of The Leftovers was how the strange disappearance of 2% of the population affected the people who remained, and not the disappearance itself. That was driven home here, as the characters struggle to find some catharsis or really anything to latch onto, as they reel from further events that spun out from the results of the "rapture". The final season was raw, emotional, devastating, and hopeful from beginning to end.

1. Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime)


There was some trepidation about what to expect from David Lynch's return to the world of Twin Peaks for the first time in 26 years, and his first major work behind a camera in 11. Does he still have it? Will it be too familiar? Too different? The answers to those questions are yes, no, and no. Twin Peaks still resembles the old Twin Peaks, but it feels appropriately twisted. Evil has been running free for decades, and the advanced aging of the many returning cast members illustrate the toll it has taken on this world. It's like Lynch got to make an eighteen hour long movie and could do whatever the hell he wanted with it as long as it tied into a story that didn't get a proper ending the first time. There are a few moments of comfort and familiarity, but the show is frequently challenging, even frustrating, and often very experimental. It won't work for everyone, but as a fan of most of Lynch's filmography, I loved the hell out of it. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything as ballsy as that ending. Also, Kyle MacLachlan kills it. I'd love to see another season, or really anything else David Lynch wants to make.

Delayed Entry

This is the best show that didn't air in 2017 but I didn't watch until then.

The Last Man on Earth (FOX)

I'm now caught up on this show, and while it didn't quite land on the top 10, it's also another one of my favorite new-ish comedy series. Will Forte stars as Phil Miller, an oddball of a man and one of only a few who seem to be immune to a virus that wiped out almost all life on the planet (spoiler, the title of the show is quickly shown to be inaccurate). The whole cast is good, but it's really Forte who drives the thing. The show actually takes its premise quite seriously, and it has its share of effective dramatic developments and careful consideration of what would follow the near-extinction of humanity. But taking that story, and putting this character at the center, is so weird and brilliant and funny. Will Forte should have gotten his own show a long time ago.

Best Shows of 2016

Of the ten shows on my list last year, eight had their final season or just took 2016 off. Eight! That left me scrambling to come up with a list, especially since I didn't jump on many new shows to compensate. So there's a few shows here I feel strongly about, and several more than I like and haven't written about before.

Best of 2016

10. Daredevil (Netflix)


Daredevil is a messy show. It's more violent than it needs to be, and the supporting cast can often feel wasted, and the plotting is fairly inconsistent. But as Luke Cage (sorry) showed us, there are definitely worse alternatives. Daredevil has been Marvel's most consistently good comic over the last fifteen years, and the show doesn't reach that standard, but it's a fun adaptation of the darker depictions the character has had, and it has some of the best action scenes of any regular TV series I've seen. The second season added the Punisher and Elektra as foils to Matt Murdock, and while both stories had their ups and downs, their coexistence kept the show's energy high and its tone varied. Not every show needs to be great to be worth watching.

9. Todd Margaret (IFC)


Todd Margaret is sort of a hybrid of American and British comedic sensibilities that works really well. After the apocalyptic ending of the second season I wasn't expecting a third, but it shakes up the formula in a really clever way and gets a lot of comedy out of its half-rebooted premise. David Cross says this was definitely the last season, but I think he's there's another series coming with a similar concept (Cross + England = comedy gold), so I'm looking forward to that.

8. Agent Carter (ABC)


I watch and enjoy Agents of SHIELD, but I don't think it really benefits from having 22 episode seasons. Even the 13 episode Netflix seasons might be a bit long based on the amount of story they come up. Agent Carter is in the sweet spot with 8-10 episodes. Or it was, because it got canceled. I can understand why the show never built a big audience, but the fact that it was an enjoyable, charming, 1940s sci-fi spy action series starring a woman (who was great) was incredible, and I wish there were more series that idiosyncratic.

7. Broad City (Comedy Central)


I've seen Broad City described as something like the female equivalent of Workaholics, but the fact is it's actually better. Abbi and Ilana are a great classic odd couple, with their clashing personalities making their friendship richer and the show's solid emotional core. They're also hilarious, and I would watch them try to work their way through any awkward situation they care to imagine. The third season wasn't the show's best, but it was still very good.

6. Bob's Burgers (FOX)


For my money, Bob's Burgers is easily television's best current traditional family sitcom. The three kids are generally the standout characters, but the parents are great too, avoiding the cliches of moron husband and shrewish wife. The voice cast is wonderful, including the great names they get for guest voices, even for roles that might easily be forgotten without the right character quirks and performance behind them. The show seems like it should be getting long in the tooth at this point, but I still enjoy it every week it's on.

5. Decker Unclassified (Adult Swim)


Decker Unclassified is televised continuation of Decker, a webseries which was a spin-off of On Cinema at the Cinema, another webseries which was itself based on On Cinema, a podcast satirizing bad movie podcasts. So there's a weird lineage here, a lineage that helps explain what Decker Unclassified is. It's a spy show starring fictionalized versions of Tim Heidecker and Gregg Turkington playing special agents Decker and Kington, with intentionally-unintentionally terrible writing, acting, and production value. It's great and terrible and great because it's terrible. If that sounds interesting, check it out.

4. Stranger Things (Netflix)


I think Stranger Things has some problems. It's eight episodes long but doesn't have much more story than the average two hour 80s movie it's paying homage to, so things feel stretched. Characters often willfully withhold information for no real reason, or fail to change much over time and feel like they're stuck in place. But the core of what it does is so fun that I enjoyed it a lot anyway. The kids are generally great. The horror and sci-fi elements are well done without being too alienating. The period style isn't totally accurate, but works as a pastiche for what's obviously an homage coming from a good place. And the theme music is great. It's got flaws that I hope they improve in season two, but I kind of love it anyway.

3. Game of Thrones (HBO)


So they finally did it. The sixth season of Game of Thrones surpassed the books it's based on in the story, and it makes no apologies about that. Characters die, stories continue, battles are fought, events transpire that readers did not already have knowledge of. It was a new experience, and an interesting one. Part of me wishes I had gotten to read some of these things first, that I had more detail in my mind for what was happening on screen. But part of me also enjoyed being surprised by the show consistently. The show has the same strengths and weaknesses it always had - it's great at big moments, and not quite there on connecting those moments with quieter scenes and meaningful character work. There are two seasons left, and I'm eager to see what happens next.

2. The Venture Bros. (Adult Swim)


Six seasons in and the show is as good as ever. After the Gargantua-2 special wrapped up a lot of long-term storylines, the season proper is a bit of a refresh, as the family moves to a new headquarters in New York and quickly begins piling up new problems and distractions for them to tackle. The series has always been a hodge-podge of genre influences, but super heroes take more prominence here, as the Ventures have trouble with the neighborhood Avengers/Justice League hybrid, and The Monarch starts dressing as a Green Hornet knock-off to go after his enemies in the Guild. It's the same mix of zany plotting and humor it's always been, and I'll continue waiting however long it takes for the creators to return to the wonderful world they've been creating for the last decade-plus.

1. Better Call Saul (AMC)


In its second season, the Breaking Bad spin-off continued to wring more great material out of the backstories of two supporting characters than I thought anyone would be capable of. Jimmy realizes being part of a large law firm might not be his thing while his relationship with his brother gets more complicated and heartbreaking, while Mike finds himself slowly getting pulled further and further into New Mexico's criminal underworld. Obviously Bryan Cranston's work as Walter White was fantastic, but this show proves that it was just part of the entire team's ability to put together a show that is consistently original, beautiful, and enjoyable.

Delayed Entry

This is the best show that didn't air in 2016 but I didn't watch until then.

Friday Night Lights (NBC)

I don't usually go in for shows about sports or family and relationship drama, but there were enough voices saying Friday Night Lights rises above that I gave it a shot. It has its ups and downs, with the latter being exemplified by a pretty weak second season that ignores the show's core charms in favor of easier sensation. On balance though, it's a great drama about being true to yourself and giving everything you have to what you're passionate about. The cast is wonderful, especially Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton as the central married couple, and Taylor Kitsch as the burnout running back you can't help but love. I finally understand why he's been given so many chances in major movies. It has as much heart as any show I've ever seen.

Best Shows of 2015

Man, the competition was CUTTHROAT this year. While pretty much anything I liked made it onto the other lists, there's so much good TV from 2015 that didn't make it to the top 10. The Jinx, Show Me a Hero, Broad City, Daredevil, Inside Amy Schumer, the ends of Key & Peele, Parks and Recreation, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force... by limiting this list to ten, there's a ton of great stuff I don't get to talk about. Which tells you how much I liked what did make the list.

Best of 2015

10. Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp (Netflix)


As I mentioned in the movie post, there were a lot of sequels after long gaps last year, though Wet Hot American Summer may be the only one that moved from film to television. Well, not television exactly, since it was on Netflix... which you can watch on your television... what is television anymore? Anyway First Day of Camp tackles multiple things that are really hard to pull off. Comedy sequels are tough, and so are prequels in general, and so is waiting this long to return to a simple idea. But having pretty much the entire cast back works great, all the new faces mesh in perfectly, and the way the show plays with expectations, works in the prequel format, and develops its own running jokes while returning to existing ones all works much better than could be expected.

9. Jessica Jones (Netflix)


Of the four shows set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe last year, Jessica Jones had the most going for it. The cast is really good, particularly Krysten Ritter as the troubled but resourceful title character and David Tennant as Kilgrave, who is perfectly horrible and menacing even when he's giving you serious Doctor Who vibes. I've heard people describe Jessica Jones as barely or reluctantly a super hero show, which is a bit odd when it's much more open about its various super powered characters actually having powers when Daredevil kind of danced around it. My point is that there's a lot of variation possible within the story space of having super powered characters, and Jessica Jones finds an interesting angle, with Jessica finding that she's better at snooping on people than helping the downtrodden. There were a few moments that didn't work for me, but the cat and mouse game between the hero and the villain provides for several huge twists and thrills, and create one of the most bingeable shows this year.

8. Review (Comedy Central)


Review is plenty funny, but the comedy isn't exactly why it makes this list. Despite the premise (Andy Daly's Forrest MacNeil tries various viewer-submitted life activities and rates them on a five-star scale) sounding every bit like it would result in one of the most episodic shows imaginable, it's actually the long-term storytelling that causes it to really shine. The first season ended with Forrest divorced and depressed, punching his boss and going into hiding. The second season begins with him back in the fold, but it isn't long before the crazy things his audience asks him to try out cause his life to once again spiral out of control and deeply affect his relationships with loved ones. It's really a show where you have to see every episode, because mistakes in the past always find ways to come back and bite him again, and the darkly funny miseries he gets put through work best when you understand exactly how he gets to where he is. I'm not sure if there will be a third season, but I hope so, as much as I wonder how Forrest could possibly handle it.

7. The Knick (Cinemax)


The second season of The Knick isn't quite as great as the first, but it's still one of the most compelling dramas that aired last year. This is another one where I'm not sure if it will come back, but if it does I'll be sure to watch it. It stars Clive Owen as a cocaine-addicted genius surgeon at the Knickerbocker Hospital in New York City at the turn of the century, and explores the struggles of the personal lives of he and several others at the hospital as they try to advance medicine in various ways, some of which we know will work, and some of which we know are disastrously wrong. Historical hindsight is a real bastard on this show. Every episode is directed by Steven Soderbergh, so it's one of the most cinematic shows on TV, and the great writing and cast make sure the quality of the show goes beyond the visuals. If you don't mind something that basically jumps between horrible people being horrible and horrible things happening to the couple decent folks around, or the amazingly gruesome surgery scenes, it's definitely worth watching.

6. Rick and Morty (Adult Swim)


Being a returning show rather than a new one, it was a little easier to see where Rick and Morty relied too heavily on returning to the same dramatic constructs it keeps using or excessive violence for easy laughs, and the experience of watching it wasn't quite as magical as it was before. Still, there were six or seven episodes that were as perfect as anything else I watched in 2015, and there are bits in even the weaker ones that will stick with me for a long time. Being a great comedy and great science fiction at the same time is tough, but Rick and Morty pulls it off.

5. Justified (FX)


This might be the show I'm saddest about ending last year, because its combination of gritty crime drama with highly amusing, wonderfully-styled dialogue seems hard to replace. Being the final season, it had to stop dancing around and tie off its ongoing plot threads, and that means bringing the story of Raylan and Boyd to a close. It doesn't go quite where you expect, because it's written in the style of Elmore Leonard and there's a bunch of other interests at play so of course it doesn't, but it still works out in a way that is dramatically satisfying and fun to watch. Sam Elliott is a strong presence as the driving force behind the season's main elements, and Jonathan Tucker is remarkable as the one last hot shot villain that Raylan has to contend with. I'm glad that the last season cements Justified as one of the great modern crime dramas on TV.

4. Game of Thrones (HBO)


There was some understandable controversy over the way Game of Thrones continued to use sex, particularly sexual violence, for dramatic effect in its fifth season. At some point your audience understands that being a woman in this world is no picnic, and it stops having a purpose being shock value. It ultimately seemed small to me though, in a season that had so many good things going for it, from big fantasy action on a scale that TV basically never has, to great success at moving the story forward in important ways, and for the first time, massive surprises for people who had read the books already. Since the next one won't be out before season six airs, book fans and TV-only fans are on the same level, and it feels exciting, not know what's going to happen and waiting to see how the cast of dozens handles what comes at them with seemingly anything being possible.

3. Better Call Saul (AMC)


I wasn't even sure if I was going to watch this, with my general distaste for spin-offs, but I gave it a shot since Vince Gilligan was involved. It was much better than I expected, telling the surprisingly earnest story of Jimmy McGill, a man who tries his hardest to put aside his dishonest past and find his way as a real lawyer, but is stymied repeatedly by circumstances beyond his control. Eventually he reaches a decision, which is not unavoidable but certainly understandable, and puts himself on a path that will lead to him becoming Saul Goodman. We haven't seen that transformation yet, but it's coming, and I'm definitely excited to see how it happens. It should also be mentioned that coming from a lot of the same people as Breaking Bad, Saul maintains that show's incredible cinematography and sense of style while shifting to a notably more mundane central plot.

2. The Leftovers (HBO)


I watched the first season of The Leftovers last year and enjoyed it, but I guess it didn't really stick with me. That changed with its brilliant second season, which I loved enough to question whether I had paid enough attention the last time it was on. They shifted location from New York to Texas but kept the core cast and general tone of the show intact, which explores grief and loss through the prism of a mysterious event that caused about 2% of the people on Earth to disappear at once. A few years have passed since that happened, but things are still far from normal, and the show's exploration of its characters' reactions and inner lives delivers poignancy and "oh shit" moments at an incredible pace. It's not easy to explain why it works so well, but if you watch it knowing that the point of the show is not to answer its own mysteries but examine how they affect people, it's powerful and mesmerizing with every single episode.

1. Mad Men (AMC)


Mad Men's final season aired in two chunks over the last two years, bringing its cast out of the 60s and into 1970, as their efforts to keep Sterling Cooper as its own entity finally run their course and their lives begin to permanently alter irrevocably. Since the plot is basically driven by the decisions and personalities of the main characters rather than something more direct like an inevitable violent confrontation, it's not as easy to know what the conclusion will be or to reach it in a fulfilling way, but Matthew Weiner and his team of writers understand these people and the world they live in, and managed to find a perfect ending for pretty much everyone. There are multiple ways to interpret the final scene, but they all have the same general dramatic meaning, and its one that works as a way of summing up the whole series. I look forward to revisiting the show somewhere down the road, and I expect that to be as worthwhile as watching it all for the first time.

Delayed Entry

This is the best show that didn't air in 2015 but I didn't watch until then.

The Simpsons (FOX)

While I'm not actually done watching the show, I plan to stop well before I catch up to the current season - I just finished the 11th, and I'm really feeling the decline everyone who kept up with it experienced years ago. If you can ignore the fact that The Simpsons has been bad for longer than it was good, you can find a show that holds up as one of the best and most influential series ever made, casting a shadow over the 90s just as big as Seinfeld or anything else. The fact that it couldn't keep up after it reached double digits in years shouldn't count too much against it, since almost nothing else even gets a chance to. There's a period there, probably the 3rd through 8th seasons, where it's just unbelievable, where every joke is laugh out loud funny or at least undeniably well constructed, and where it's coining words or phrases constantly that still get used today. I'm glad I finally took the time to see why people love this show so much.

South Park - Season 15

I'm at a crossroads with South Park, as I am with a number of other shows. It used to be I could just pick a show I'm interested in and watch every single episode, but now that I'm working full time it's harder to justify that. There has to be something more to keep me watching, or else I might have to stop watching a show before it actually ends its run on television. I've already done it a few times, and I'm sure I'll do it again. It doesn't take a lot for a show to stay in my rotation - all it has to do is be consistently very entertaining, or compel me to stay interested in its plot or characters. South Park does very little in the way of ongoing character development or story elements, so it has to rely on the former, and I'm not sure South Park does that. With the news that the show will continue to keep running through at least 2016, should I keep watching, or should I stop while I'm ahead and be glad to have gotten 15 mostly enjoyable years out of it?

The problem with the show now is that in its heyday, South Park was special because it was shocking and original. Both of which are hard to maintain after being on the air for over a decade. It's not that the show is afraid to tackle delicate current events, now - it was pretty much expected for them to react to the Penn State scandal, and they did so last night with a character who constantly cracked inappropriate jokes about it. It's just we're so used to their lampooning of pop culture what's in the news that it's not really fresh anymore. It eventually falls to our affection for the characters to keep us watching, and they're still an entertaining group, and there were actually a few episodes that teased at doing something different with them, like the cliffhanger where Stan's parents separate (again) or the one where Cartman has to move on from his doll collection. But while I enjoyed most of this season's episodes, I'm not sure if I still care enough to keep watching, especially when I know there definitely isn't any sort of end goal in sight. It's not like it's a terrible sacrifice to give up a half hour on fourteen Wednesday nights every year though, so I guess we'll see how I feel later on.

Futurama - Season 6-B

Futurama continues to have the messiest mishmash of seasons and non-seasons I've ever seen. Although they aired in a chunk last year, culminating in what Comedy Central called a season finale and being released together on a DVD set, the 13 episodes from 2010 are apparently only the first half of what is officially "season 6". The second half just finished airing. They're doing thee same thing again, with the show getting renewed for 26 more episodes of a season which will air in two parts in 2012 and 2013. They can do whatever they want, I guess, it's just kind of weird.

Anyway, these episodes were about on the same level as the ones from last year, just a bit less up and down. Nothing ever got as bad as the eyephone episode, but nothing was as consistently funny as the robot evolution one either. The thing that bothered me the most was that they attempted several times, as in last year's "The Late Philip J. Fry", to capture the touching side of the show that used to come out of nowhere and really tug on the heartstrings. Episodes like "The Luck of the Fryish" and "Jurassic Bark" were easily among the show's best, both because they were really funny and because they came around to end up hitting on some really emotionally resonant moments. This year, episodes like "Cold Warriors" and "Overclockwise" attempted the same, but those moments felt less earned, less integral to the story, and more like the show was just trying to capture some magic they lost in the years the show was dead. I don't want to be overly dramatic, but in 26 episodes, I've enjoyed most of what they've done, but I've come to believe they will never quite find the same groove they had when the writers were all peaking together.

Not that there wasn't good stuff. I didn't think I needed to know how Dr. Farnsworth and Dr. Zoidberg met, but the episode that explored that was surprisingly one of the best. I miss the concept of the original anthology episodes, but this year's out-of-continuity three-parter, "Reincarnation", was possibly their best ever, changing up the show's visual style without compromising the fun of the comedy. I continue to be disappointed by the way they still haven't figured out where to go with Fry and Leela's relationship, but when they actually do get back to it, it tends to work well. I just remembered something else that bothered me - I always liked Hermes partly because he avoided a lot of really easy Jamaican jokes, but since they've moved to Comedy Central and gotten used to looser standards, he's turned into a regular old pothead. I'm trying to talk about why I still like the show and I keep remembering how it bothers me. It's just to be expected when one of your favorite shows ever goes away for a while and isn't quite the same when it returns. I still think it's worth watching though, the writing is just less consistently brilliant, and they might be running short on great ways to play with old sci-fi tropes. I'll definitely keep watching through the next production season, at least.

Television Update 7: Holiday Specials

There seemed to be an unusual amount of special episodes of shows I watch around the Holiday season this year, so I thought I'd go over them. To get here, the episode didn't have to be Christmas themed, but it did have to be separate from the standard season airing schedule for the show.

Doctor Who - "A Christmas Carol"

Hey, an episode of Doctor Who actually aired in America on the same day as in England! It's a Christmas miracle! While Russell T. Davies' Who Christmas specials tended to at least acknowledge the existence of the Holiday, they also tended to be about everything except it. Now that Steven Moffat's in charge of the show, he's put the Christmas back in Christmas Special with one of his better episodes, and definitely the most holiday-themed Who I've seen. The episode is obviously a take on a story that's been retold countless times, but Moffat and the cast make it work surprisingly well. Michael Gambon plays a man in control of a planet's dangerous cloud layer who takes family members for collateral on loans, and is very much a future version of Scrooge. Needing his help to save a ship full of people including Amy and Roy, the Doctor takes the role of the various Christmas ghosts and creatively uses the TARDIS to try to change his mind. The time travel twists on the classic story freshen it up quite a bit, and there's a lot here to justify Moffat's conception of the show as fairy tale more than science fiction. A very fun, very British hour of television.

Futurama - "The Futurama Holiday Spectacular"


This special is a lot like the Anthology of Interest episodes from the past, showing three silly short films within the Futurama framework, although this time there's nothing to frame the different stories and everyone dies at the end of all three, making them decidedly out of continuity. They're all based on a different holiday and also have sneaky environmental themes attached, providing a Christmas story about seed contamination, a Robanukah story about the depleting Petroleum reserves, and a Kwanzaa story about honey bees disappearing. It's far from one of the best episodes the show has done, with many of the jokes falling flat and yet another Al Gore appearance feeling a bit redundant at this point, but I'll give it a pass because each segment made me laugh out loud at least once. A bit scattershot, but they were probably constrained by the short running time for each bit, needing to hit multiple themes in each one, and finding a way to kill off the cast at the end each time, so the end result is respectable if not outstanding. A decent hold over until the next season starts.

Robot Chicken - "Robot Chicken: Star Wars Episode III"


There was actually a proper Christmas episode that aired before this, but it appears to be part of the regular fifth season which is starting up soon, while this is definitely a special. While the Family Guy Star Wars tributes have a clear purpose to go on for three episodes, retelling the story of the original trilogy, the Robot Chicken Star Wars episodes have been all over the place with all six movies, making a third seem less necessary. And at an hour long it could have easily dragged. Luckily the writers saved it with a real concept this time, going forward chronologically through the whole series, following Emperor Palpatine's ascent to the throne. It's still just an excuse for a lot of random gags and jokes, but the general progression makes it more interesting than it could have been. Their take on Palpatine is still pretty funny, and a lot of the sketches are among the best and most elaborate they've ever done. It's still definitely just more Robot Chicken in places, but I liked the episode more than I expected.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! - "Chrimbus Special"


The Awesome Show's apparent ending earlier this year was a surprise heartbreak, though they've changed that sentiment in the last couple months with a new tour (that I missed getting to go to), a new hour long episode, and an announcement of a coming movie as well as the possibility of more seasons if they feel like it. That's all great news, and the holiday "Chrimbus" episode was hilarious as expected. Chrimbus is a warped version of Christmas much more focused on the receiving aspect of the holiday than the giving side, and it's an opportunity for more awkward audience reactions, mildly disturbing song and dance numbers, and one off sketches. The episode works as an excuse to bring back all of the old favorite guests, from known celebrities like Zach Galifianakis to fan favorite oddities like Ben Hur. There's a couple more ridiculous Cinco products to throw on the gigantic pile, and a multi-part arc with Carol and Mr. Henderson that wasn't exactly necessary but still pretty outstanding. More fun for Tim and Eric fans, and if it had ended up as the last thing they did, it would have been a nice send off.

South Park - Season 14

South Park is really quite venerable at this point. They've now completed more seasons than The Simpsons had when they did the episode about how The Simpsons had been on so long that there weren't any stories it hadn't done. Of course South Park seasons are typically only about two thirds as long as Simpsons ones, but the fact is it's been around for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if the creators are sick of making it at this point, and decide not to continue after their contract is up following the 15th run next year. I mean, making 14 20 minute cartoons a year seems like a pretty cushy job, but at some point you gotta move on, right? It's not like animated shows on networks that have a lot of turnover on the writing staff and can perpetuate themselves seemingly indefinitely. Not that I'm really complaining about the quality of the season. It was pretty good. I've come to accept that the show is no longer the mixture of laugh out loud hilarity and absolutely shocking imagery that it was, and has settled into being quietly amusing and mildly provocative.

I'm not even sure that it's actually the quality of the content anymore - it would be pretty surprising if another episode had characters bouncing around on their gigantic cancerous testicles. It could be just that South Park is more like an old friend than anything else now. Two multi-part episodes this time, including a three parter that seemed to dominate the second half of the season. It's probably easier to work on fewer stories per year. The 200th episode really brought a lot of crap the creators have to put up with to light, and the Coon storyline seemed a bit long but was fairly packed with amusing bits from all sorts of origins. Facebook, Jersey Shore, and Inception were mocked, NASCAR and the Shake Weight were poked fun at. There's actually not very much from this season that wasn't taken from pop culture somehow. That can be fine, although sometimes the best South Park episodes aren't topical at all, and there weren't really any classics this year. Not a big deal though. Just a few months until the next batch of shows.

Futurama - Season 6

The hardest part of writing this was determining what number season to call it. Any number from 5 to 7 might have applied. Do I count the show's original run as four or five seasons, basing it on the production order or the televised order? Do the televised versions of the movies count as a season? Ultimately I went with this as the sixth, because I couldn't even be writing this at all right now if I went with production seasons since this current one is only half over, and counted the movies as a precursor rather than an official season.

Boy what a waste of words. Anyway, I was kind of worried about the show for a while. Like the movies, it was still entertaining, but had failed to yet reach any of the heights from the series' best episodes in its original run. Was I doomed to watch one of my favorite series ever gradually decline into unwatchable crap? But luckily, things started really picking up somewhere around halfway through this run. "Lethal Inspection" attempted sentiment but only ended up bothering me with some inconsistencies about Bender's origin (yes, I'm a giant dork, why do you ask?), but the next episode more or less got it right with Fry and Leela, and featured one of the series' best sequences ever. And then after a merely decent cat episode, it ran off several in a row that were as funny and inventive as the show has ever been, minus a couple of the true greats. It looks like they more or less righted the ship, and they're not even half done with the current production order.

So while I'm happy to see the show back and doing pretty well, part of me wishes it had stayed canceled. Now, I would never say I don't want there to be more of a show I love that's course hasn't fully run out. But when something has a perfect ending already, there's at least a nagging thought that it should stay ended. Futurama's first series finale was heartbreaking, but it also managed to send off the series brilliantly, with some of the best comedy in the whole show and a truly sweet ending. And it's getting to the point where that sort of emotionally perfect conclusion will get harder and harder to reach. There's only so many times the show can put Fry and Leela together and then split them apart again before I stop caring about the characters. The handling of their relationship was the most consistent issue I had with this season. They declared their love at the end of the fourth movie, but in half the episodes it seems like they're dating or at least considering it, and in the other half it's like nothing ever happened. It's inconsistent and lazy and annoying. It shouldn't be this hard to figure out what the situation is, right? Amy and Kif have been together for years with only a couple hiccups, and it's worked out fine. But whatever, it's a cartoon and I should worry that much, right? There's a new anthology episode in November and then thirteen more episodes next year, and that's all that really matters.

Important Things with Demetri Martin - Season 2

And here's the other show that I fear has told its last joke. The second season was barely distinguishable from the first, featuring the same formula of stand up, brief and unique transitional material, and a smattering of inconsistent but occasionally brilliant sketches. Fewer recognizable celebrities than last time, although H. Jon Benjamin was again basically guaranteed to appear in every episode. It wasn't completely stagnant though, with a new way to introduce the week's topic reminiscent of an old kid's science show or something, and more repeated in-studio segments than reused characters in the sketches. It's really hard to say too much about ten half hours of comedy that definitely feels like mostly the work of a single pretty funny guy, humorous though it may be. Some of the better bits were an emergency on an airplane where people have to keep taking other people's places that comes full circle in an amazing way, a fake documentary about the other Civil War between East and West, and Bruce the Funny Dog, who just doesn't know when comedy is appropriate. I'd like for the show to continue, though I won't be heartbroken if it doesn't.

The Sarah Silverman Program - Season 3

I've enjoyed both this show and Demetri Martin's the whole time they've been airing. They're the only worthwhile things Comedy Central has developed in years, which is why it was distressing to learn in the middle of the season without warning that they'd been pushed from their previous time slots to after midnight. Apparently they've been starved for ratings enough that the channel saw more profit in airing reruns of the previous night's animated series than new episodes of two really funny shows. It makes their bids for renewal look tough, so we're probably seeing the final episodes here.

It's a shame too, because while I thought the second season of Sarah Silverman was still funny but not as good, it was every bit as awesome this year as it's ever been. Again, nothing's untouchable, as Sarah learns that she was born a hermaphrodite, accidentally murders people and blames it on Home Alone, gives acid to senior citizens, and accidentally brings some Nazis to a Holocaust memorial. On occasion I laughed as hard as I ever have, and it was consistently enjoyable throughout. My favorite episode was probably "Just Breve", which actually has very little of Sarah at all, but the culmination of the robot story is one of the best things I've ever seen on cable. I won't give up on the show until it's officially dead, but unfortunately I don't think there's much hope.