The 10 Best TV Shows of 2021

And here we are. We’ve spent the week ranking all 108 TV shows that we watched in 2021. At long last, we’ve arrived at the top 10. If you missed the previous pieces, 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)
#s 60-41 (tiers 6 and 5)
#s 40-31 (tier 4)
#s 30-21 (tier 3)
#s 20-11 (tier 2)

Tier 1: The top 10
10. Midnight Mass (Netflix, Season 1). A literalistic description of Midnight Mass might make it sound silly. Here is a series about a small, quiet island town whose peaceful tranquility is severely interrupted when it suddenly becomes a haven for—spoiler alert!—vampires. It’s a faintly absurd show that risks growing even more absurd because it takes itself absolutely seriously. Yet it’s that sincerity—the willingness to contemplate themes of faith, forgiveness, and salvation with frankness and without irony—which makes it so powerful. As is ever the case with the work of Mike Flanagan (both of whose prior Netflix series also made their respective year’s top 10 on this site), it’s superlatively crafted, with fluid camerawork and unnerving patience. But despite delivering some startling jolts, Midnight Mass isn’t as pound-for-pound scary as either of his Haunting shows, because cultivating fear isn’t its primary goal. It’s more interested in fusing familiar horror tropes with genuine theological examination, and it explores the inherent paradoxes of religion with uncommon candor, and without corresponding judgment. It also features gratifyingly complex characters, most notably Hamish Linklater’s morally conflicted priest. Samantha Sloyan, meanwhile, is unforgettable as one of the most deliciously vile villains ever created. Midnight Mass has the decency to imagine a dark world that’s nonetheless lit by hope. But when Sloyan is on screen, it recognizes that evil is very real, and all too human.

9. The Sex Lives of College Girls (HBO, Season 1). Can your favorite character in a work of art be all of them? I’m not especially interested in ranking things (he writes, as he concludes his week spent ranking 108 TV shows), but now and then I find my mind selecting random winners for non-existent awards. (For example, the best adult character on Yellowjackets is definitely Misty, but the best teenage character is Natalie.) Yet when I watch The Sex Lives of College Girls, forming such an opinion is impossible, because it changes with every scene. I mean, the best character is obviously Amrit Kaur’s aspiring comedienne, except when it’s Reneé Rapp’s closeted conservative. Or maybe it’s Alyah Chanelle Scott’s secretive athlete? No, it’s totally Pauline Chalamet’s frisky virgin (not for long!). Hell, it might even be Midori Francis’ committed activist. My point isn’t to laundry-list all of the excellent actors in this wonderful show, but to acknowledge that it spreads its empathy equally and liberally, creating achingly real characters—vulnerable, winning, filthy, pure—whose constant mistakes only make them more lovable. Despite its title, The Sex Lives of College Girls isn’t really about sex, any more than it’s about math class. It is instead a quadrilateral study of burgeoning womanhood, one that crackles with humor and glows with tenderness. Yet it also is about collegiate sex life, in that it updates its classic sitcom structure with an astutely modern look at sexual dynamics on campus, whether in the context of actual harassment, retrograde politics, or feminist solidarity. That it manages to do all of this while remaining consistently sweet and funny? A-plus.

8. Dickinson (Apple, Seasons 2 and 3; 2019 rank: 24 of 101). There are worse problems in the world, and in the arts, but it deeply irritates me that Apple released two separate seasons of this show in the same calendar year. Guys, you had the chance to crack my top 10 in back-to-back years! But perhaps that honor would be too prominent for the publicity-shy Emily Dickinson, whom Hailee Steinfeld continues to portray with a remarkable combination of sparkling intelligence, wholesome decency, and pigheaded selfishness. The series’ characters are so sharply drawn, it would be pleasurable just to spend time in their cheerful, volatile universe, but Dickinson is more ambitious than that. It’s structurally daring and formally inventive, and individual episodes—a trip to the opera, a bout of invisibility, a travel through time—sing with liveliness and imagination. The show receives part of its kick from the way it smoothly translates fussy historical decorum into breezy modern vernacular, but in its artistic boldness—its decisive style, its emotional fullness, its persistent wit—Dickinson is pure poetry.

7. Succession (HBO, Season 3; 2019 rank: 4). Thematically speaking, I’m not sure that Succession stakes out any new ground in Season 3. This isn’t to say it’s grown stale; its depiction of the corrosive consequences of media malfeasance throbs with verisimilitude, and its narrative of classic familial backbiting in the modern technological world remains propulsive—an Instagram story with a Shakespeare filter. There’s value in continuing to mine that territory. Yet where Succession really shines lies in its micro pleasures—in the fine-grained quality of the dialogue and the slippery charm of its performances. It also routinely delivers seismic scenes of instant memorability: the raid, the birthday party, the dick pic (my god, the dick pic). It takes real skill to craft a series of such eloquence and polish that also makes room for Matthew Macfadyen gloriously unleashing months’ worth of pent-up anxiety against a desk. One of Succession’s insights is that human selfishness is eternal. At this rate, the show’s longevity seems much the same.

6. Sex Education (Netflix, Season 3; last year: 13 of 124). Can a show be too good? I don’t ask as a rhetorical way of lavishing abundant praise on Sex Education, which remains a giddying blend of emotional sophistication, philosophical inquiry, and unapologetic raunch. What I mean is that the series is so stuffed with wonderful characters and interesting subplots, it sometimes seems to lack sufficient room for all of them. Like, who could have predicted Mimi Keene’s Ruby, a seemingly vapid and unsympathetic mean girl, suddenly turning into one of the most complex and compelling figures on the show? She could headline an entire series, and yet she virtually disappears for this season’s final episodes. Needless to say, this is a healthy problem to have, and if Sex Education is arguably undisciplined, that’s only because it bestows an extraordinary measure of dignity to everyone in its path, even its putative villains. Speaking of which, Jemima Kirke is a brilliant addition, a more well-scrubbed version of Dolores Umbridge whose ostensible hipness camouflages a disturbingly tyrannical mindset… which in turns masks her own deep-seated insecurities. See how that works? Everyone on the series is fully realized, and their collective dimension only amplifies the belly laughs and the crushing blows and the big emotional swings. Relationships formed in high school are rarely meant to last, but every now and then, you meet your true sweetheart and you make them yours forever.

5. The Other Two (HBO, Season 2; 2019 rank: 44). What in the world? I liked the first season of The Other Two well enough, but I never imagined it transforming into a flat-out great show, much less one I personally responded to; its cutesy, misfits-having-dopey-misadventures premise is virtually anathema to my anti-comic sensibilities. And yet, out of nowhere, it’s utterly brilliant—an intricately arranged opus of ingenuity, whimsy, and farce. Certain episodes, like a cringeworthy scheme to obtain admission to a celebrity church or a frantic dash to contain the fallout from a leaked photo, are riotous in their mere construction. But The Other Two is far more than an assemblage of clever ideas. It’s a streamlined humor delivery system, cranking out hysterical jokes and witty sight gags with astonishing regularity. It’s also a showcase for its lead actors; Drew Tarver hones an appeal that’s somehow both charismatic and apologetic, while Heléne Yorke is an absolute force of nature, drilling every line reading with uncanny precision. They’re a couple of self-absorbed dolts, but if they keep this up, they just might become the two biggest stars in the world.

4. Station Eleven (HBO, Season 1). The sixth episode of Station Eleven—also known as the one before the episode with That Scene—is titled, “Survival Is Insufficient.” It’s a line from Star Trek: Voyager, which signals the breadth of the series’ pop-culture influences; it traffics heavily in Shakespeare yet also makes room for an extended discussion of the 1993 thriller Alive. But this is no mere genre mash-up, even if it’s vigorously entertaining throughout. Nor is it a straightforward tale of post-apocalyptic survival, despite how convincingly it conjures the starkness of the world in the wake of a deadly pandemic. No, Station Eleven is really about the endurance of the human spirit. That sounds corny—an alternative description, to borrow from another touchstone of ’90s television, might involve what it means to live in a society—but sentimentality is crucial to the show’s themes, even if it consistently spurns easy gratification. It can be brutally cruel, with devastating twists whose impact is magnified by shrewd editing; it glides back and forth in time not haphazardly, but with sharp, loaded purpose. Yet it’s also strangely life-affirming, and in charting the death and rebirth of civilization, it recognizes that people need more than basic biological needs; they need, art, pleasure, connection, love. It communicates this most vividly in the tentative partnership between Himesh Patel’s surrogate father and Matilda Lawler’s precocious young thespian; their bond is strong but not unbreakable, and the actors articulate this fragile loyalty with heartbreaking honesty. The proof is in the telling. Survival is insufficient. Station Eleven is necessary.

3. Maid (Netflix, Season 1). If Station Eleven is an ostensibly disturbing story that’s oddly uplifting, Maid is a tale of ultimate triumph that’s relentlessly depressing. It doesn’t skimp on the bleakness; at time, it’s almost punishing in how persuasively it conveys its hero’s despair. Yet while Maid is unusually rigorous in the way it depicts the numbing banality of poverty—a seemingly endless procession of applications, transportations, and cancellations—it wouldn’t be accurate to deem the series miserable. That’s thanks in part to the vivacious imagination of the various directors, who possess the nerve to dress up the narrative drudgery with visual flair; simple devices like a mental cash register, routinely reminding the title character of her constantly dwindling budget, add pop to the proceedings. But it’s mostly courtesy of Margaret Qualley, who delivers arguably the year’s greatest performance (though #1 on this list might have something to say about that) as a woman whose steadfast resolves mingles with her omnipresent panic. Qualley is too subtle an actor to succumb to wild swings of temperament; she instead keeps everything on an even keel, allowing tiny gradations of emotion to slip into her tone and body language. She’s a tightly controlled tempest, and her abiding restraint only makes the show’s frequent stomach punches hit that much harder. Her maid is resolutely human, which is why her Maid can feel downright historic.

2. The Great (Hulu, Season 2; last year: 4). The commingling of comedy and drama is hardly revolutionary—it’s why we have the word “dramedy”—but The Great still feels weirdly unprecedented. It isn’t just that the show is incredibly funny and profoundly sad. (To be clear, the show is incredibly funny and profoundly sad.) It’s that the series’ sharp comic instincts and its astute dramatic choices somehow feed into each other, like a hydra that never loses any heads but just keeps growing more. Scene for scene and line for line, the show remains utterly hilarious and staggeringly gorgeous, with whip-smart dialogue, heavenly costumes, and a giddy sense of forward momentum. Yet The Great is somehow greater than the sum of its already-great parts. It’s transcendent, really, in a restlessly metamorphic way—a prestige drama that turns into a comedy of manners that shifts into a satire of government that bleeds into a shockingly touching love story. The entire supporting cast is aces (bringing Gillian Anderson into the fold just feels like cheating), but as the leads, Elle Fanning and Nicholas Hoult collectively achieve more than just convincing inhabitation and credible emotions. Together, they develop a pairing that somehow feels alive, as though we’re watching it evolve in the present tense. As a piece of playful ahistoricity, The Great is dazzling; as an intricate dual character study, it’s overpowering. Huzzah, indeed.

1. Mare of Easttown (HBO, Season 1). This doesn’t make sense. I don’t even like whodunits. They’re cheesy and chintzy, replacing the immersive act of watching with the tedious obligation of predicting. And yet, here at the top of the heap lies a murder mystery, a conventional thriller loaded with red herrings, fraught clues, and sharp twists. I’d like to argue that Mare of Easttown isn’t really about the search for the culprit, but that would diminish the elegance and alacrity of Brad Ingelsby’s script, which plays fair with the genre’s rules yet nevertheless builds to indecent levels of suspense. Besides, it’s impossible to bifurcate the show’s plot from its characters, because they’re too knotted up in one another; the loving attention paid to the small-town setting heightens the intensity of the crime-solving, and the meticulous details of the crime-solving lend even further intimacy to the town. The white-knuckle set piece that concludes the fifth episode is unspeakably tense, and it wouldn’t be nearly as agonizing if we didn’t care so deeply about Evan Peters’ smitten, out-of-his-depth detective.

That said, I suppose it is possible to reduce Mare of Easttown to its bare essentials, because its greatness can really be summed up in two words: Kate Winslet. She isn’t even playing an especially original character—the gifted cop with a ravaged personal life is a familiar archetype—but we’ve still somehow never met anyone quite like Mare, with her hunched posture, haunted eyes, and sparks of irritability. Of course, she’s more than just a gruff gumshoe with a dark past; Winslet is a highly versatile actor, and she leverages her inherent mutability here, to the point where her scenes opposite Peters hum with the playfully mismatched patter of a workplace sitcom. Yet there’s more to the performance than flexibility and technical skill (which also happens to involve nailing the Delco accent). Pouring her soul into the character, Winslet somehow gives Mare a certain fullness, a permanent weight of existence. She takes up real space, and we can perceive an invisible sense of history surrounding her, an aura that no number of episodes could ever fully explore. Watching her solve a murder is a privilege. Spending time with her is a gift.

(For the complete list of our 2021 TV rankings, click here.)