Ranking Every TV Show of 2021: #s 60-41

We’re continuing to rank every TV of 2021. If you missed the earlier episodes, you can find them at the following links:

#s 108-95 (tiers 11 and 10)
#s 94-84 (tier 9)
#s 83-61 (tiers 8 and 7)

Tier 6: Starting to enjoy myself
60. Physical (Apple, Season 1). The first few episodes of Physical, which stars Rose Byrne as a vexed housewife with a secret eating disorder who originates the workout-video craze, thrum with energy and possibility, suggesting a rich and complex series that will explore a number of important themes: feminine yearning, body image, political entrenchment, ’80s pop music. The show never fully capitalizes on its initial promise, often detouring into weird subplots and unpleasant characters. But it’s still an arresting work, and it’s a great showcase for Byrne, who remains one of our most agile and forceful comediennes. The series around her is still searching for itself, but she’s in complete control of her craft, and she hits it with her best shot.

59. Saved by the Bell (Peacock, Season 2; last year: 63 of 124). Timeout! But seriously, Saved by the Bell?? I was pleasantly surprised by the first season of this entirely unnecessary, strangely interesting sequel/reboot, but I wasn’t especially excited for a follow-up. And yes, the writing still lurches at times, struggling to differentiate between half-clever setups and actual jokes. But the show has somehow become oddly wonderful, twinning its steadily progressive messaging to strong characters and giddy frivolity. Josie Totah remains the obvious MVP—she cracks me up at least once per episode—but Mitchell Hoog and Alycia Pascual-Pena have both improved considerably, while the tender dynamic between Elizabeth Berkley Lauren and Mario Lopez has grown richer without simply preying on our existing nostalgia. I never would have thought it, but I’ve found school spirit.

58. The Mosquito Coast (Apple, Season 1). The story of an off-the-grid family hiding from the U.S. government probably plays a bit differently now than it did in 1986, when the Harrison Ford thriller (which I’ve never seen) arrived in theaters. It’s unclear whether we’re supposed to wholeheartedly root for Justin Theroux’s black-bag patriarch, of if we’re meant to be troubled by the way he constantly spirits his family from place to place and refuses to allow his children to live a normal life. But this ambiguity can be productive, adding an element of uncertainty to a narrative that’s stocked with devious figures and unknown perils. For its first few episodes, The Mosquito Coast is a gripping thriller, breathlessly paced and sharply executed. (Also, in case you had any doubts, Melissa George has still got it.) As it proceeds, its momentum fizzles a bit, and it plays less as a fully realized season of television than a setup for future misadventures. Still, there’s some snap to the set pieces, and the character dynamics are intriguingly complex. That’s enough for me to want to keep on travelling.

57. The Pursuit of Love (Amazon, Season 1). One of the first pieces I ever wrote for my old website was a valentine to Emily Mortimer, whom I’ve adored ever since her heartbreaking performances in Match Point, Lars and the Real Girl, and Redbelt. She’s continued a stellar acting career, but with The Pursuit of Love, she finally makes her directorial debut. And how! The series looks and sounds great, with gorgeous production design, stunning costumes, and killer music cues. Mortimer also casts herself in a small part as The Bolter, a character whose very name illustrates how fantastic she is. More broadly, though, The Pursuit of Love is a nimble and moving dual character study, centering on the fraught friendship between a capricious beauty, played by an appropriately glamorous Lily James, and her more pragmatic pal (Emily Beecham). Overall, the series is heartfelt, sad, and maybe not quite as persuasive as it could have been; running just three episodes, it’s the rare prestige production that feels too short. Nevertheless, it’s a beauty, and it courses with sincerity and tenderness. Let Emily Mortimer make more things, please.

56. Pose (FX, Season 3; 2019 rank: 20 of 101). One of the pleasures of Pose is that it isn’t afraid to reward its characters, who are often ignored and marginalized by broader society, with decent and even farfetched dollops of happiness. In that regard, its final season goes perhaps a bit overboard; much of it feels like an extended curtain call rather than a series of dramatic developments. Still, this remains a show that contains extraordinary reserves of empathy, and it’s difficult to begrudge it for allowing its heroes to bask in the spotlight. Billy Porter grabbed the headlines, but special mention must go to Dominique Jackson, whose marvelously imperious Elektra continues her transformation from sex worker to den mother to virtual mob boss. If she wants her moment of sunshine, I’m staying the hell out of her way.

55. The North Water (AMC, Season 1). One of the most tiresome refrains surrounding modern television is, “It gets good a few episodes in.” And with that in mind… maybe give this grim, grimy series at least two episodes? I found the pilot for The North Water, about a crew of whalers on a perilous voyage, rather underwhelming. But it picks up in a hurry, buoyed by a splendidly loathsome Colin Farrell, who plays one of the most despicable villains this side of Nurse Ratched. Next to him, Jack O’Connell’s stout-hearted doctor seems a bit stiff, but The North Water is generally uncompromising in its vision of human darkness. It isn’t exactly fun to watch, but amid a sea of such unrelenting cruelty, it can be gripping to try to stay afloat.

54. Cruel Summer (Freeform, Season 1). The gimmicky setup for Cruel Summer—each episode takes place on the same humid Texas day, except it hopscotches across three different years—is a hell of a hook. It’s also a fun challenge for the capable young actors, who essentially get to play three roles for the price of one. (The makeup and costuming department rises to the occasion with zeal; I spent the entire pilot mistakenly assuming that Chiara Aurelia was actually three different performers.) And the jumping timelines add considerable kick to the show’s central mystery, which involves a fateful kidnapping and a devastating accusation. It’s all rather brilliant, except that Cruel Summer is still a Freeform show, which means that its nuts-and-bolts details—its dialogue, its production design, its overall understanding of how people act and talk and work—are not exactly credible. This lack of authenticity is a hindrance, but not a devastating one, because realism isn’t really the series’ goal. It’s more designed to convey big, broad emotions, which it does with considerable vigor. It isn’t exactly transportive—you aren’t all that likely to recognize yourself in these characters—but it’s still a trip.

53. Never Have I Ever (Netflix, Season 2; last year: 76). If the first season of Never Have I Ever dutifully performed the unsexy legwork of setting up the show’s crisply realized universe—one that takes the blocks of typical high-school sitcom fare and builds on them with Indian-specific details—the second season reaps the rewards. The show is more confident now, and less concerned with accentuating its teenage hijinks. It’s still a little silly, and some of its romantic beats remain, well, very sitcom-y. But the emotions on display here are real, and the affection that the characters share for one another is irresistible.

52. Y: The Last Man (FX on Hulu, Season 1). As premises go, a female-only apocalypse is a pretty good one. Still, that alone isn’t sufficient to distinguish Y: The Last Man from all of the other end-of-the-world entertainment that has littered TV screens over the past decade. Thankfully, the show exhibits enough wit and ingenuity to avoid feeling like a retread. The obvious highlight is Ashley Romans as a fiercely committed agent for a nebulous government bureau; we’ll be seeing her again. The series is also frank in tackling gender as a theme, whether it’s exploring anti-trans bigotry or pondering how women might remake a heretofore patriarchal society in their own image… and whether it might still look just as ugly as before. Not all of the subplots work (wasting Olivia Thirlby and Marin Ireland? in this ruined economy?), and there’s a raggedness to the storytelling that the show should have received an opportunity to clean up in a second season. Instead, like the civilization it depicts, Y: The Last Man is officially dead. Whether it achieves any posthumous legacy remains to be seen.

51. Hawkeye (Disney, Season 1). No, I didn’t strictly need Jeremy Renner’s sulky archer reckoning with the atrocities he committed during the gap in Marvel continuity between Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. You know what I did need? Hailee Steinfeld and Florence Pugh bickering and battling in an elevator. And who cares about necessity, anyway? Hawkeye is appealing in part because it feels so inessential, telling a small and spiky story without fretting about how everything connects to the great big infinity stone in the sky. It also features some unusually spry action sequences, in particular a car chase that hums with kinetic energy and snappy ingenuity. Besides, the Marvel movies have basically turned into connected episodes of a television series anyway. At least Hawkeye affords us the pleasure of Pugh repeatedly saying the name, “Kayt Bee-shup.”

Tier 5: [Palpatine voice] Good, good
50. Starstruck (HBO, Season 1). I’ve previously explained that I refuse to binge TV series, but if you were looking for a quick and easy fix, Starstruck is a choice candidate; it only runs six episodes, and they all fly by. Rose Matafeo is simply perfect as the lead, while Nikesh Patel is appropriately dreamy as her confused crush. But the weird thing about Starstruck is that it’s arguably more delightful on the margins than it is when exploring its central, asymmetrical romance. There’s a murder-mystery party in the third episode that has nothing whatsoever to do with the plot, and it’s completely charming, full of random zingers and wry observations. The show’s brevity can work against it; it might have been nicer to spend more time in its universe, and its main pairing doesn’t have a ton of room to breathe. But it’s deeply enjoyable, and while Matafeo’s character may be the one struck, she’s also the one who’s truly a star.

49. Supergirl (The CW, Season 6; last year: 53). And so, one of my favorite, flawed shows finally comes to an end. I wish Supergirl had been better—that its action had been sharper, its writing cleaner, its plotting less haphazard. I am also grateful for what it gave me: strong characters, resonant themes, warm humor, the radiance of Melissa Benoist. Aside from a gut-wrenching finale, Season 6 wasn’t all that different from other recent reasons, mingling heartfelt messaging and sturdy character dynamics with unconvincing effects and convoluted mythology. So be it. This show made its viewers better people. Not many works of art can say that.

48. Servant (Apple, Season 2; 2019 rank: 33). What if one of the creepiest shows on TV suddenly turned into a comedy? That isn’t a strictly fair description of the second season of Servant, which remains appropriately moody and suspenseful. But if Season 2 falls off somewhat in the intensity department, it picks up the slack with its dark humor. Lauren Ambrose is effortlessly amusing as a deluded, obsessive mother, while Rupert Grint is legitimately hysterical as her hapless brother. I wouldn’t mind Servant cleaning up its mythology and sharpening its characters, but it’s still very much a show with its own, decidedly strange personality. And a funny one at that.

47. The Chair (Netflix, Season 1). Ah, now here’s the stuff of high drama: a scandal of impropriety engulfing the academic leadership at a prestigious university! You can practically hear the New York Times opinion section soliciting conservative think-pieces. Suffice it to say that The Chair doesn’t traffic in the most naturally riveting material, but it does possess an extraordinarily precise understanding of its own setting. The sneering male superiority, the first-world entitlement, the obsession with appearances at the expense of true scholarship—it’s all rigorously presented, with keen attention to detail and pristine authenticity. As our emissary of common sense, Sandra Oh is perfectly harried and exasperated, while Bob Balaban and David Morse are ideal avatars of privileged snobbery. The Chair is about as far removed from so-called “real America” as it gets, but that doesn’t make its subject matter—a toxic cocktail of ginned-up controversy, bad faith, and “cancel culture”—any less real.

46. Dave (FXX, Season 2; last year: 61). Look, Dave could deliver an objectively perfect season of television, and it probably still wouldn’t crack my top 40, because I don’t respond well to art that wants to hurt me. The cringe comedy on display here can be nauseating, and some of the scenes are so awkward that I just want to hide in a hole. With that in mind, Dave certainly has its own personality, and that carries it a long way in its second season, as does a more wistful tone that grapples sincerely with the cost of celebrity. I’m not sure that I ever enjoy watching this show, but I do appreciate what it’s trying to do. Just please stop portraying my parents without their permission, please.

45. Schmigadoon! (Apple, Season 1). The first episode of Schmigadoon! is such a delightful blast of musical farce that I wanted to erect a statue in its honor. That the remainder of the series never approaches that apex is half an indictment, half an appreciation. I do wish the show had been a bit more brave and had exploited its seductive premise—a quarreling New York power couple get trapped within the homey neighborhood of a classic musical—in more interesting and less predictable ways. And yet, Schmigadoon! is still charming overall, with an ace cast (I’ll highlight Cecily Strong and Dove Cameron), dopily fun songs, and an impish sense of whimsy. It may not contain much substance, but its playfulness still sings.

44. Landscapers (HBO, Season 1). Speaking of playful! Just kidding. Except, this disturbing true-crime drama is sort of mischievous, or at least experimental in how it approaches such a durable genre in such a peculiar manner. Olivia Colman and David Thewlis are both exceptional as oddballs arrested for a long-ago murder after their victims’ bodies are exhumed, but the plot of Landscapers is beside the point. What matters is the strange, dreamlike structure, which abandons realism in favor of surrealistic imagery and bizarre flights of fancy. I’m not sure it strictly works, but then, I’m not sure what it “working” would even mean. Regardless, it’s certainly arresting, and the disconnect between the actors’ clamped-down rigor and director Will Sharpe’s aesthetic audacity produces a powerful kick. There’s fresh blood in those corpses yet.

43. The Witcher (Netflix, Season 2; 2019 rank: 29). The first season of The Witcher toyed with chronology, constantly leaping back and forth in time in such a manner that nobody really knew what the hell was going on. Season 2 proceeds linearly, and the result is that I still had no idea what was going on. Admittedly, this is more my fault than the show’s; I struggle with series where I need to keep track of queens and lands and titles and skirmishes. Still, the heart of The Witcher was never its plot; it was Henry Cavill’s barrel chest and flowing blond wig, and the disdain with which he dispatched countless monsters, human or otherwise. Aside from its stellar opening episode, the second season is largely light on creepy genre thrills, but it compensates with a genuinely moving father-daughter bond between Cavill’s weary warrior and his magically gifted charge, played with gumption by Freya Allan; if Cavill’s signature line reading of the first season was “Fuck,” in this one he snarls the word “Mine” with such deep conviction, it practically quakes the earth. Throw in a welcome return from Joey Batey (providing some much-needed frivolity in this grim world) and some smoldering desire from Anya Chalotra (somebody give her a movie!), and the overstuffed narrative is just another slain monster.

42. The Unusual Suspects (Hulu, Season 1). I am simply defenseless against shows like this. A heist comedy in which a ragtag band of underappreciated women (led by the perpetually underappreciated Miranda Otto) assemble to rip off the cluelessly domineering men who take them for granted? Yes please! And there’s also constant bickering and inevitable mistrust within the group? More please! Safe-cracking, ill-timed drinking, fake blood, and decoy mannequins? Check please!

41. The Underground Railroad (Amazon, Season 1). Directed by Barry Jenkins, this series is undeniably a mighty work. It’s hugely ambitious, fusing a classic-epic tone with a distinctly modern urgency and sensibility. It is also… uneven. The Underground Railroad runs ten episodes, and a handful of them feel lethargic and unnecessary. But when this baby works, well, insert the locomotive metaphor of your choice. The penultimate hour—which actually runs 77 minutes, nearly four times the length of the skimpy seventh episode—is an absolute tour de force, boldly mingling decency with savagery. I wasn’t fully sucked in by this raw, immense show. But even from a distance, I can appreciate its power.

Coming tomorrow: vampiric doctors, hapless vampires, romantic hopefuls, and hopeless romantics.