Ranking Every TV Show of 2019: #s 75-51

We’re counting down every TV show that we watched in 2019. If you missed Part I, you can find it here. Also, a gentle reminder that this list isn’t a bell curve; going forward, I mostly liked pretty much every show that appears.

75. His Dark Materials (HBO, Season 1). I get why HBO wants to repeat its Game of Thrones magic, and I get why they chose to adapt Philip Pullman’s trilogy, a fantasy series that’s loaded with intrigue and imagination. The resulting series, at least one season in, is perfectly cast, visually impressive, and maybe just a little bit workmanlike. Some of that may be a function of Pullman’s first novel, which spends a lot of time on world-building before really getting to the good stuff in book two. Still, thus far, His Dark Materials is missing that spark of creativity, that joie de vivre. To be clear, there’s plenty of good stuff: Dafne Keen (from Logan) is terrific as the spunky and inquisitive lead, sparring beautifully with Ruth Wilson’s conflicted zealot; Lin-Manuel Miranda is aces as a gunslinger; there are armored bears. But there’s a disappointing caution to the show that’s restricting its potential. Here’s hoping it takes more chances in Season 2.

74. Tuca and Bertie (Netflix, Season 1). I share in the critical outrage surrounding this show’s premature cancellation. It was telling valuable stories in interesting ways, and its final episodes hinted at a bracing blend of zany animation and powerful humanism. (Analogue: If BoJack Horseman had been shut down after its spotty first season, Netflix would have robbed us of one of its greatest shows.) That said, the first (and now only) season of Tuca and Bertie is very much, well, a first season, full of bumpy storytelling and tonal inconsistencies. It’s great to see (or hear) Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong working together, and some of the colorful animation is marvelously inventive. But while I was taken with the series’ central characters, I never quite bought in to their separate shenanigans, at least not until the final few installments. This was a perfectly decent show that might have turned into a genuinely good one. Now, we’ll never know.

73. The Expanse (Amazon, Season 4; last year: 62 of 93). Amazon stepping in to save The Expanse was a welcome development, and not just because it finally allowed for unbleeped F-bombs. Whereas many shows plainly run their course after a few years, this series has always hinted at gradually developing a broader universe, literally exploring new worlds and charting human dynamics in the process. Season 4 realized glimmers of that potential without fully capitalizing on it. Nothing on the show is bad, exactly; all of the various storylines are sensibly paced and nicely detailed. Shohreh Aghdashloo and Frankie Adams are still both splendid as a no-nonsense politician and an even-less-nonsense ex-marine, respectively, while Wes Chatham’s bruiser is a gruff delight; hell, even Steven Strait’s glum hero lightens up a bit this time around. (Also: Burn Gorman!) But there’s a frustrating lack of momentum to the show, a sense that it’s still setting things up for a future big bang. I’m happy that The Expanse is coming back; I’m also still waiting for it turn into the series it clearly wants to be.

72. Los Espookys (HBO, Season 1). There’s a runner in Los Espookys where one of the main characters, played with magnificent deadpan by Julio Torres, is obsessed with discovering the truth about his birth parents, and he meets some sort of water goddess, and she promises to tell him everything but only if he first watches The King’s Speech, and he’s like, “Eh, I’m not sure I want to see it.” I mean, who the hell came up with that? It’s utter nonsense and total genius. There’s a haphazard nature to the comedy in Los Espookys, a wackiness that chafes against my stubbornly literal-minded brain. I wish the putative lead, played by Bernardo Velasco, were more interesting; I wish Carol Kane were less like Carol Kane. But this is a decidedly singular show, with wonderful performances from both Torres and Ana Fabrega as a spacey dilettante who’s literally indestructible and also… I think she inadvertently seduces a duke at one point? And turns him down? Los Espookys is nuts, but it doesn’t feel aggressively silly; it’s too sweet to be stupid.

71. Santa Clarita Diet (Netflix, Season 3; last year: 53). This show was never all that good. The plotting was mostly stupid, much of the humor was strained, and the secondary characters were boring. But I’m still going to miss it, because the central cast was just so much fun to watch. In Season 3, Drew Barrymore and Timothy Olyphant continued to hone their brilliant comic chemistry (they also delivered perhaps my favorite sight gag of the year), while Liv Hewson and Skyler Gisondo developed their own adorably awkward asymmetry. The storytelling may have been lackadaisical, but the tenderness was real.

70. The Umbrella Academy (Netflix, Season 1). Now here’s a show with some narrative ambition. I don’t pretend that I understood everything that happened on The Umbrella Academy, which featured time-traveling teenagers, robotic servants, and maybe a violin that was also a nuclear bomb? It’s a little hard to take seriously, despite the grave tone and the relentlessly dour color palette. But I admire its willingness to take big swings, and to attempt to fuse comic-book tropes with a heartfelt story of a broken family. It doesn’t always work—wait, did one of its characters really just fight in Vietnam?—but even its failures tend to be interesting. Plus, that dance sequence!

69. Shrill (Hulu, Season 1). Aidy Bryant is good in Shrill. She’s so good, in fact, that I’m not sure the show is worthy of her. Bryant plays a nominally overweight single woman, and the series chronicles the challenges she faces, both personally and professionally, on account of her heaviness. It’s a thoughtful show, with a particular emphasis on how the anonymity of social media encourages vile behavior that can have harmful consequences. Yet outside of Bryant’s splendid performance, the series isn’t all that compelling. There’s a restraint to its storytelling that’s admirable, but it also limits just how meaningful the show can be. It’s still well worth watching, but I hope that Season 2 spices things up a bit.

68. Carnival Row (Amazon, Season 1). Valuing art is hard, and also personal. For example, if you value things like writing, acting, and character development, then Carnival Row might not be the show for you. I value those things. But I also value production design, atmosphere, and visual imagination. And by those metrics, this is one hell of a show. There’s a sex scene in the third episode that features a special effect so inspired, it’s downright poignant. The mystery plot of Carnival Row is kinda stupid, and I basically had to use Wikipedia to keep track of everyone’s names. But it’s a visually ravishing series, and its themes of tolerance and inclusivity, while handled clumsily, are still relevant. It struggles to walk, but it can still fly.

67. Goliath (Amazon, Season 3; last year: 57). The second season of Goliath featured murderous mayors, dismembered corpses, and scalding pots of coffee thrown in assassins’ faces, and it was somehow still a comedown from the insanity of its inaugural run. Well, what if I told you that Season 3 features Dennis Quaid and Amy Brenneman as quasi-incestuous siblings who conspire to steal the water from an entire town? Or that Graham Greene plays a casino owner who also hosts meditation sessions where participants ingest peyote and develop their business plans based on their resulting visions? Or that Billy Bob Thornton nearly drowns in an underground tunnel and also spends an entire episode strung out on hallucinogens? This is a season of television about a class-action lawsuit. And it’s nuts. The defense rests.

66. One Day at a Time (Netflix, Season 3; last year: 65). In the past, my complaint about One Day at the Time was that, although it delivered valuable messages, it wasn’t especially funny. Season 3 flips the script somewhat. The themes are still important, but they aren’t articulated with as much force; maybe there are only so many different ways to smuggle political points into a putative sitcom. But the comedy part of the equation is a bit sharper this time around; the jokes have more snap, and the laugh track is less annoying. I don’t know that One Day at a Time will ever fully maximize its dual-pronged conceit (and I’m not sure I’ll ever know, given that Season 4 is moving to something called Pop TV), but the series has settled into a relaxed mode of storytelling that serves it well.

65. The Politician (Netflix, Season 1). A scabrous satire set in high school designed to illustrate that politics is a cruel business that comprises selfishness, back-biting, and venality? How novel! But while it’s easy to dismiss this series as an extended riff on Election, doing so would ignore its many pleasures. There’s a deftness to The Politician’s plotting that helps ground its wildness, which is deeply entertaining in its own right. There’s also a crispness to its technique that helps draw you in to its ridiculous world of avaricious teens and spiteful parents. As a piece of commentary, the show is difficult to take seriously. (Also, while I’m generally quite generous about actors aging down, Ben Platt is playing a high schooler, and he’s freaking 26.) But as a soap opera? Let’s just say it polls well.

64. Sneaky Pete (Amazon, Season 3; last year: 40). It’s a shame that Sneaky Pete got cancelled, because it was always enjoyable to spend time in its universe of smiling con artists and oblivious marks. At the same time, the series had probably run its course. Season 3 is still a fun outing, with the usual double-crosses and elaborate schemes, but the serialized plot is too murky and complicated for its resolution to be satisfying. (It didn’t help that the great Ricky Jay died midway through filming, resulting in some awkward Hunger Games-style editing of the final episodes.) But the acting is top-notch as always, and the final season introduces a revitalizing blast in the form of Efrat Dor, who breezes onto the scene armed with flashing eyes, a killer wardrobe, and a gleeful amorality. There’s nothing counterfeit about her screen presence.

63. Barry (HBO, Season 2; last year: 28). Uh oh. The first season of Barry was remarkable, an absurd combination of traditional suspense and ensemble comedy that was somehow glued together by Bill Hader’s performance. Season 2 is rather less inspired. It’s still fine, with strong performances and some great dialogue. And its much-discussed fifth episode, with its sudden swerve into surrealism, is decidedly original. But for the most part, this new season of Barry feels like a retread, and it continually makes you wonder why HBO renewed it (beyond the obvious rea$on). Curiously, the most compelling arc belongs not to Hader’s assassin-turned-actor but to Sarah Goldberg, as a striving thespian who’s just sick of an industry that fails to properly value her. In her scenes, Barry is a show that has something to say. Otherwise, it’s just remixing its greatest hits.

62. The Good Place (NBC, Season 4; last year: 48). UH OH. This show is so beloved—the A.V. Club ranked it as the sixth-best series of the past decade—criticizing it feels downright dangerous. To be clear, I enjoy spending time in this universe, with its well-defined characters and intellectual curiosity and periodic blasts of silliness. But The Good Place’s act has worn thin with me over the years. Sure, it’s clever, and there’s a sincerity to the way it regards its characters. But it’s more witty than funny, and while its extensive trafficking in philosophy is certainly unusual on modern television, it often comes off as repetitive and even preachy. (For the record, the series finale airs Thursday night, though I can’t imagine that it’ll move the needle much for me, unless it has a Season 1-level revelation in store.) I admire this show’s commitment, and I applaud its routinely solid execution. But it’s time for it to move on to a different realm.

61. Big Mouth (Netflix, Season 3; last year: 42). I like this show. It’s funny; in particular, the Hormone Monster is one of my favorite characters on TV. And it traffics in important themes involving sexuality and gender that are probably more informative and helpful than your average sex-ed or gender studies class. It’s pretty good. But is it… memorable? For such a formally creative and ostensibly daring show, I feel like it should leave more of a mark. Looking back on this season, I remember the episode about John Mulaney wanting to fuck his cousin (which was funny), and the one about Nick Kroll falling in love with his smartphone (which wasn’t). Beyond that, its consistent cleverness is sort of a blur.

60. What We Do in the Shadows (FX, Season 1). The film version of What We Do in the Shadows was met with rapturous critical praise in 2015; I’m something of an agnostic on it, so I approached this unnecessary TV adaptation with minimal enthusiasm. But while I still don’t always love Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi’s hijinks, the series largely strikes the right balance between absurdity and hilarity. The obvious highlight is an episode that somehow recruits seemingly every fictional vampire from the past 20 years of pop culture for a tribunal of glorious nonsense. Beyond that, the show’s comedy is fitful, but its unevenness feels right for TV, where its meandering style doesn’t need to serve a three-act narrative. For every dumb joke about ancient pillaging, there’s a scene like the one where Kayvan Novak’s character takes a citizenship test: “What does the Constitution do for the people?” “Oppresses them.” Bravo.

59. State of the Union (Sundance, Season 1). Modern television is often accused of being too bloated: Episodes run too many minutes, seasons run too many episodes, shows run for too many seasons, yadda yadda. If that’s your attitude, have I got the series for you! Written by Nick Hornby and directed by Stephen Frears (High Fidelity reunion alert!), State of the Union features two characters, takes place in one location, and is roughly 100 minutes long. Not 100 minutes per episode—100 minutes total. The logistics recall In Treatment, as does the premise; Rosamund Pike and Chris O’Dowd star as separated parents who meet at the same bar each week, just before their couples therapy appointment. The appeal of the show, beyond Pike and O’Dowd fluidly parrying Hornby’s dialogue, is that it isn’t especially fatalistic. Yes, the characters’ marriage is in crisis, and there are clear resentments being held and problems to overcome. But there are no huge fights or contrived conflicts; these people plainly still love each other, and their affection is evident in their easy laughs and frequent smiles. State of the Union is too slight a show to make a real impact, but its minimalism is part of its charm.

58. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC, Season 6; last year: 80). I give up. This show has dipped up and down in quality so many times, it feels like it’s undergone five creative changes by this point. But so it goes: Following a dispiritingly unmemorable fifth season, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. somehow delivered an inspired (and abbreviated) follow-up, with welcome notes of whimsy and imagination. It’s hardly perfect, of course; the series has always been too earthbound to really take flight. But straight from the Terminator cue that announces his arrival, Clark Gregg’s return as a malicious alien with no memory of his deceased former human self (look, it’s a comic-book adaptation, just go with it) proves to be a brilliant move, one that juices the show’s sense of novelty. Plus there’s an Agatha Christie-style episode where the villain possesses different members of the crew, and they have to deduce which crewmembers are real and who might be the demon in disguise, and if you don’t like that, do you even like TV?

57. Years and Years (HBO, Season 1). Did you know that the world is kind of fucked? If you somehow forgot, Years and Years is here to remind you. This series, which chronicles the lives of an extended family over the span of, er, a whole lot of months, grapples with the swelling anxiety that has understandably gripped much of the European populace (not to mention their counterparts across the Atlantic). It does so via thin characters who are basically ciphers: the sad bureaucrat, the unfaithful husband, the technology-obsessed teen, etc. But what Years and Years lacks in emotional depth, it compensates for in bracing technique and a genuinely disturbing vision. Each episode features a flash-forward, a rushing montage of news clips and micro-scenes, and it’s extraordinary how the show condenses so much data—global and personal—into such tightly edited packages. Years and Years doesn’t hit as hard as it might have, but in conjuring a future that’s both dystopian and all too plausible, it still packs a punch.

56. Black Mirror (Netflix, Season 5; 2017 rank: 19 of 108). Hey, did you know that new episodes of Black Mirror aired in 2019? It’s true! Nobody seemed to care, which I sort of get; pop culture has by now mostly appropriated the show’s trademark technophobia that felt so unique and alarming all the way back in 2011. Still, of the three episodes that the series delivered in 2019, one was an absolute knockout: “Striking Vipers,” which wrestled with marriage, masculinity, and sexuality in the context of a VR game that placed the “virtual” part in precarious quotation marks. It’s a riveting hour of television. The other two—one starring Andrew Scott as a man at the end of his rope, the other featuring Miley Cyrus as a… robot doll?—are rather less excellent. But they’re still fun, and they deserved more attention than they received. Then again, a society where people have inexplicably stopped talking about Black Mirror sounds like the scariest Black Mirror episode yet.

55. iZombie (The CW, Season 5; last year: 35). I had hoped, with the foreknowledge that this was its final season, that iZombie might have tightened up its plotting and delivered a true tour de force. Alas, that didn’t happen; despite advancing a laudable political allegory on immigration, this season’s serialized narrative was just as blurry and faltering as the rest. Whatever. The show was still a delight to the very end, with terrific chemistry across the entire cast, most notably Rose McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, and Rahul Kohli. And even if the long-form storytelling was spotty, each episode offered a different treat, from Kohli delivering hard-boiled noir dialogue to Goodwin unleashing moves on the dance floor to McIver inhabiting a new character every damn week. “I’m already dead!” the theme song blared, a feint for a show that always felt alive.

54. The Morning Show (Apple, Season 1). Congratulations to this year’s winner of the “Stick with it, I promise it gets better!” award. The first few episodes of The Morning Show are shrill and clumsy, with stiff dialogue and a decidedly muddled message. Well, guess what? It gets better. Like, a lot better. I can’t entirely forgive the series’ bumpy start, and it crams so much material into its 10 episodes, it still struggles to maintain a consistent tone. But in its back half, The Morning Show turns into something of a powerhouse, becoming an incisive and engrossing examination of gender roles, workplace dynamics, and sexual misconduct. Jennifer Aniston captured the headlines, but my favorite performances came from Billy Crudup, as an astute and seemingly unscrupulous network executive, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, as a competent booker who suddenly finds herself drowning in confusion and self-loathing. This is a show with a lot to say, and it doesn’t always say it clearly. But it still makes you tune in and listen.

53. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (The CW, Season 4.5; last year: 52). Crazy Ex-Girlfriend never quite fired on all cylinders for me; either the comedy was off, or the messaging was too didactic, or the music sputtered. Still: the continuing existence of this show was a minor miracle, and in its final season, it continued to largely deliver. The songs might not have reached the heights of “The End of the Movie” or “Let’s Generalize About Men”, but they still sparkled with energy and wit, and the dexterity of Rachel Bloom’s performance continued to amaze. And the series remained fearless in its commitment to subverting standard romantic tropes and to telling its own story about friendship, mental illness, and self-improvement. This was never a perfect show, but perfection would have been ill-suited to a series so committed to chronicling the messiness of life with such exuberant flair.

52. When They See Us (Netflix, Season 1). Woof. The first two episodes of Ava DuVernay’s four-part series about the Central Park Five are terrifying in their procedural rigor. It’s sickening that this happened in America fewer than 30 years ago; it’s even more sickening that the rank bigotry depicted and decried in the show remains so prevalent today. But in its latter two installments, when it flashes forward to examine how these boys became men after the shameless prosecution that sent them to prison, When They See Us sacrifices a bit of narrative momentum. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still powerful stuff, and exploring the trial’s aftermath is a worthy endeavor. But it just isn’t as chilling as those early hours, when DuVernay reveals the cruel machinery of the (in)justice system. On the whole, When They See Us is a bruising watch. That’s kind of the idea.

51. The Mandalorian (Disney, Season 1). Do you like Star Wars? Disney is betting that you do, and following the explosive success of The Mandalorian, they’re raking in chips. But if you can ignore the naked commercialism behind this series, what’s left is something gratifyingly unusual. It’s not as though The Mandalorian is rewriting the TV playbook; if anything, it’s more traditional than most modern shows, with an episodic focus reminiscent of classic Western series like Gunsmoke. But that itself has its appeal, and the show’s adventures are generally spare and absorbing. The adorableness of Baby Yoda is of course unparalleled, yet there are other pleasures, from Pedro Pascal’s gruff performance, to fun pop-ups from recognizable actors (Nick Nolte, Giancarlo Esposito, Gina Carano), to action sequences that are clean and precise. If Disney wanted to continue shamelessly capitalizing on one of its most prized acquisitions—and to be clear, it did—at least it gave us something well-made and cleverly conceived in the process.

Coming tomorrow: Pyramid schemes, English queens, haunted PIs, hunted minds.