TV Rankings

Thirty-three different TV shows made my top 10 list this year.

I mean, not really. Math doesn’t work like that. But if placement on a top 10 list is a signifier of excellence, then 2019 offered far too much stellar small-screen programming to be reduced to a mere decade. There was so much greatness, on so many platforms: great Netflix comedies, great HBO thrillers, great Hulu dramas, great Amazon whatsits, great FX miniseries. It was enough to make you both delight and despair—to revel in the extraordinary vastness of modern television, and also to lament all the shows you couldn’t find time to watch.

Speaking of which, here’s a partial list of shows I’d previously consumed but stalled out on this year: The Affair, American Gods, Arrested Development (good riddance), Dark, Happy!, Preacher, Riverdale (doh!), A Series of Unfortunate Events, and The Terror. In a less cruel, more generous world, I might have found time to continue watching all of these series—along with intriguing new shows like The Boys, David Makes Man, and Too Old to Die Young—but today’s jam-packed TV landscape forces you to make tough choices.

As for what I did watch: Today’s list is the opening salvo in our annual weeklong exercise ranking every TV show from the past year that I watched in its entirety; it’ll wrap up with the top 10 on Friday. There are, to put it mildly, a lot of shows on this list. There also isn’t everything; I’ve probably neglected one of your most treasured sitcoms or beloved procedurals. Sue me. When you watch more than a hundred TV shows in a single year, then maybe I’ll grant you the right to complain about the programs that I so grievously ignored. Until then, pipe down.

Or maybe I’ve just ranked your favorite series far too low. Feel free to take that personally. All I’ll say is that, setting aside the arbitrary nature of ranking works of art—an admittedly foolish endeavor which suggests objective rigidity when the realities of preference and quality are far more fluid—the problem with TV’s glut of greatness is that it creates a false impression of relative mediocrity. By which I mean: If I ranked a series as the 53rd best show of the year, how good could it possibly be?

Pretty damn good. I won’t bother trying to encourage you to watch most of the shows on this list, because I’m confident you have neither the time nor the discipline to do so. What I will do is stress that the list isn’t a bell curve; half of the shows included are not below average. The vast majority are worth watching. The challenge—the existential dilemma that plagues viewers of our time—is to decide which shows are worthy of your limited time.

I’ll leave that impossible choice to you. For my part, here’s every show I watched this year, in reverse order of preference: Read More

We’re ranking every TV show that we watched in 2018. For prior installments, check out the following links:

#s 93-71
#s 70-51
#s 50-31

30. Forever (Amazon, Season 1). What if you ascended to Heaven, only to discover that Heaven is boring? That’s essentially the premise of Forever, a strange, unpredictable, occasionally frustrating, often wonderful show starring Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen as a married couple slated to spend eternity living in the same comfortably boring house; they’re supposed to be content, but they gradually realize that contentment is the opposite of fulfillment. Running a tidy eight half-hour episodes, Forever can nevertheless be listless in its storytelling, and its conclusion lacks the personal and thematic clarity that it clearly desired. But the show is still powerful and surprising, exploring human connection in ways both intimate and sweeping. The obvious high point is the sixth episode, a bottle installment starring Hong Chau and Jason Mitchell that exists entirely on its own yet boldly advances the series’ textured portrait of relationships and regrets. It may not last forever, but you’ll be thinking about it for a long, long time. Read More

Our rankings of every 2018 TV show continue below. For prior installments, check out the following links:

#s 93-71
#s 70-51

50. Legion (FX, Season 2; last year: 29 of 108). Following a fascinating first season that attempted to turn standard superhero entertainments inside out, Legion feels a bit too self-important in its second go-round, too focused on touting its originality without actually advancing a compelling story. It also marginalizes its greatest asset—Aubrey Plaza’s magnificently off-kilter performance—while simultaneously padding out the season with a number of episodes that never really go anywhere. Still, this remains a staggeringly impressive show, with bracing technique and a bold command of lighting, framing, and music. The storyline doesn’t always work, and as gifted an artist as Noah Hawley is, he’d be well-served to tighten things up going forward. But even when it’s nonsensical, Legion always offers something to see. Read More