THE BEST OF 2017 - The Best TV Of The Year

THE BEST OF 2017 - The Best TV Shows of The Year


- First, a preface: I didn't really blog in 2017, and it was both a relief to pull myself away and sad to not churn out my usual movie reviews like I'd done in years' past. I made a decision to focus less on writing reviews, and more on my screenwriting - and I think that was the smart decision. At the same time, not writing full-length reviews of the movies I loved, the movies I hated, and the movies I was dying to talk about - well, it was hard, and my brief thoughts on social media didn't quite feel like enough. In any case, I'm going to use this year's Best-Of's to talk about some the things I loved this year that I didn't get to write about as I usually would have. So if you've been missing the reviews, buckle up. 

- Now, let's talk TV. Clearly, 2017 was a stressful, even deeply traumatic year for many. There's no getting around the fact that the Trump presidency (which I still can't believe is a real thing) had a profound effect on all pop-culture. 2017 therefore brought with it a number of TV shows (and movies, and music, and comics, etc.) that either directly or indirectly addressed the fears and concerns that many have about the current direction of our country. Yes, there was still a lot of pure escapism out there - and we needed that in 2017, too. But we also needed content that tackled our political climate head-on - and we got that in many forms as far as TV goes: from the just-one-step-removed-from-2017 dystopia of The Handmaid's Tale to the strong feminist messages of shows as diverse as Broad City and Supergirl. Certainly, late night TV series like Colbert and Kimmel - not to mention SNL - felt newly urgent and necessary. In the midst of this already-stormy atmosphere, the string of sexual harassment accusations that snowballed throughout the Fall and Winter exposed a lot of ugly truths about the entertainment industry. The #MeToo movement shed a lot of light on the ugliness that had long pervaded the business, and finally, there was a long-overdue reckoning for many serial harassers, abusers, and worse. As someone who loves TV and movies, it was disturbing to see just how deep the rot ran - not just from the actual abusers, but from those who placated and enabled them - individuals and corporations alike. The positive side of this, however, is that we finally seem to be turning a corner where abuse and misbehavior from those in power will not be tolerated. In 2017, we increasingly saw new and different voices emerge on and behind the camera. That will only continue if the industry as a whole is open, inclusive, and welcoming to new and diverse talent. And *that* will only happen if there's zero tolerance for harassment of women or others. 

- Politics aside, the growth of streaming really pushed the industry in new and bold directions this past year. Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu all took bold chances on series that never would have made it to air ten years ago (when TV series were still expected to fit nicely into pre-defined, well-established genres). Anything is possible now, creatively, in TV - and that's brought us minor miracles like the insane and avant garde Twin Peaks: The Return, or the deceptively layered comedy of Nathan For You. Of course, the downside of this is that there is literally no way to watch everything. There's no way to even watch just the good stuff - there's way too much of it. Netflix alone delivered a ridiculous number of great series this year - some of which I binged, some of which I've not yet gotten to, and many of which I likely never will. There are whole corners of the TV landscape I've not touched (hello, Netflix Marvel shows), and as you can probably tell ... I watch a lot. I still need to watch Mindhunter. I still am way behind on the brilliant Crazy Ex Girlfriend. There is great TV coming from all directions.

- So here is my list of the best of 2017 - a crazy, insane, often nightmarish year that (thank god) produced some incredible, memorable art and some damn fine TV.


DANNY'S TOP TV SHOWS OF 2017:


1. TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN

 “We are like the dreamer who dreams and lives inside the dream, but who is the dreamer?”

- No one knew anything about what the new Twin Peaks would be - and it could very easily have been a disaster. After all, how many recent TV reboots and resurrections have tanked and been creative failures? But Twin Peaks felt different from the start. For one thing, it felt like the show had unfinished business: the original series (which I binged through last year in anticipation of the return) suffered through an uneven second season that saw its co-creator and creative mastermind - the great David Lynch - exit the show. The original also ended on an infamous cliffhanger that begged for some sort of resolution. And man, did we ever get resolution in The Return - but not anything like what we thought, and not anything like what what anyone could have anticipated. Twin Peaks: The Return was just so gloriously original and unique. As good as so much TV is these days, a lot of "Peak TV" does still feel beholden to certain formulas and conventions. In the age of internet hyper-scrutiny, we like our serialized TV told in airtight installments - we want everything neatly laid out and we want the pieces of every show's puzzle to fit together just right. We want shows that make us feel clever by justifying our fan theories and making us feel like we see the big picture. Yeah ... David Lynch was having none of that. Each week, he and co-creator Mark Frost gave us a hyper-concentrated burst of pure, unfiltered Lynchian alchemy. This was serialized TV, sure - with dozens of interweaving subplots, a cast of hundreds, and a labyrinthine mythology involving ancient spirits, mystical lodges, and evil doppelgangers. But it was also abstract, deliberately dreamlike, maddeningly obtuse, and amazingly artistic. I absolutely could not wait to watch each week's new episode. There were some draggy sections, sure, and some moments where it felt like Lynch was quite simply trolling his audience. But that was part of the fun. This wasn't some finely-tuned, made-by-committee pop-culture designed to inspire Twitter hashtags - this was just sheer creativity unleashed. It was messy at times, but frequently it was absolutely mind-blowing. And in that way, it became more fun to talk about than any other show - because the rabbit hole that Twin Peaks invited viewers to follow Lynch and Frost down was endless and full of infinite possibility. No one who watched will ever forget the nuclear blast (literally and metaphorically) of Episode 8 - one of the greatest, most jaw-dropping episodes of TV ever made. In one hour, Lynch gave us a Twin Peaks creation myth that was awe-inspiring, eye-popping, and just plain badass. The show also gave us so many incredible performances - first and foremost from the amazing Kyle McLachlan. McLachlan was iconic as Agent Dale Cooper on the original series - but here, he was transcendent. He was the embodiment of evil as "Mr. C," drop-dead hilarious (and oddly moving) as the child-like Dougie Jones, and finally - after a long, almost interminable wait - back in damn fine form as the returned Agent Cooper. I could go on and on about the cast and the characters. The returning Andy and Lucy - the heart and soul of Twin Peaks. Harry Dean Stanton, still kicking around, still amazing. Miguel Ferrer in his final performance, clearly having a ball playing off of Lynch's hard-of-hearing FBI boss. The haunting presence of the Log Lady. That Michael Cera scene - oh my god, that Michael Cera scene. Naomi Watts as Janey-E - does anyone do Lynch better than Naomi Watts? Again, I could go on and on. But I'll stop here and simply say: Twin Peaks was the best, most riveting, most mind-expanding, scariest, funniest, most haunting, most mesmerizing TV of 2017. Nothing else was even close. 

2. GAME OF THRONES

- I know, people have very strong opinions about Game of Thrones. And many people seem to have been not 100% pleased with this latest, penultimate season. But ... come on. What show inspired more conversation, what show had us on the edge of our seats, what show delivered more sheer epicness than GoT in 2017? After years and years of set-up, Season 7 was all payoff, and hot damn, it was glorious. I won't go into all the things that made this season so great, but I'll just say that this year was like watching all of my grade-school notebook doodles come to life. Dragons, ice zombies, zombie ice dragons! What more does one need?

3. NATHAN FOR YOU

- One of the most brilliant comedies in the history of TV. Period. This season cemented Nathan For You's place in the cannon, and showed that Nathan Fielder will pretty much do anything to make a great episode of TV. On its surface, Nathan For You is a semi-reality-based comedy in the vein of Ali G or Borat - Nathan (playing a hilariously exaggerated version of himself) interacts with real people, trying to improve their business and their lives via insanely complicated schemes that are patently absurd, yet always conform to a twisted sense of logic. But more so than that - and here's where things get deep - Nathan For You is a very dark comedy about finding human connection. About going out into the world and putting yourself out there, about flailing away and trying to make your existence mean something. I know, that sounds like a lot. But if you don't believe me, just watch this season's tour de force, movie-length finale - in which Nathan accompanies a 70-something acquaintance on a cross-country mission to track down his lost love. It's a weird, awkward, hilarious, yet deeply affecting odyssey that might just be the series' greatest moment. 

4. THE HANDMAID'S TALE 

- Talk about intense. The Handmaid's Tale was almost suffocating in its deeply resonant tale of a near-future gone horribly awry. The series has a methodical, slow-burn pace - but that only serves to emphasize its focus on the little moments that mean everything in the oppressive, dystopian nightmare the show presents. It's the subtle looks on the face of star Elizabeth Moss - who turns in an incredible performance that is among the year's best. It's the small victories, as when Alexis Bleidel's character briefly goes off-the-rails and, for a moment, gets the release, the freedom, the euphoria of being able to stick it to the Man. The writing on this show is truly something else - the way it slowly reveals this world's backstory (and does so with disturbing echoes of our own reality), the way it contrasts the often subdued onscreen action with the sharp, witty inner monologue of Moss' Offred. This was the timeliest, most urgent show of 2017 - but was also just great TV, period.

5. BATES MOTEL

- Talk about going out with a bang. Bates Motel had its ups and downs over its five-season run, but after a creative comeback in Season 4, the show absolutely knocked it out of the park in its fifth and final season. Freddie Highmore plunged new depths as the hanging-to-his-sanity-by-a-thread Norman Bates, and Vera Farmiga killed it (as always) as the now-deceased (but still very-much present) Norma. The one-two-punch of Highmore and Farmiga was consistently amazing - maybe the best acting duo on any TV show this year. And the show deserves credit for going dark and not flinching in taking Norman's story to its logical conclusion, even while cleverly subverting the story we know from Psycho. Bates Motel was often underrated, especially given just how great it got in its final two seasons. Watch it if you missed it!

6. BETTER CALL SAUL

- As Better Call Saul moved closer chronologically to the events of Breaking Bad, so too did the series' quality continue to reach for the very high bar set by its predecessor. This year, Saul was quite simply amazing. Not only did it benefit from the re-introduction of Gus Fring - still as intimidatingly sinister as ever - but it also brought its long-simmering brother vs. brother storyline to a fitting, emotionally gutting end. Not enough praise can be sent in the direction of the great Michael McKean. As many wonderful, iconic characters as he's played through the decades, Chuck McGill might be his crowning achievement. Watching McKean and Bob Odenkirk go at it was one of the true TV pleasures of the year. 

7. VICE PRINCIPALS

- I can't get enough of the powerhouse creative combo of Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, and Jody Hill. Everything they do is comedic gold, and everything they do pushes boundaries in amazingly hilarious, shockingly dark ways. This was undoubtedly true of Vice Principals, which this year delivered its second of two planned seasons and continued to evolve the show's story in wonderfully insane and unexpected ways. McBride, Green, and Hill have a gift for using pitch-black humor to deconstruct the fragility of the male ego - they did it in Eastbound & Down with the irredeemably depraved Kenny Powers, and they did it here with the slightly more layered characters of Neal Gamby and Lee Russell (brilliantly portrayed by McBride and Walton Goggins). The result was a comedic whirlwind that often had me rolling in laughter or my jaw on the floor in shock. I can't wait to see what these guys do next.

8. THE GOOD PLACE

- I've always loved high-concept comedy, and The Good Place is delivering an amazing mix of Parks & Rec-esque humor with a big, crazy, serialized story that's managed to deliver some legitimately jaw-dropping twists. What's more, the show just keeps getting better. Season 1 kept you guessing, finishing off with one of the year's best (and most meme-worthy) cliffhangers. Season 2 has impressed me by sharpening the comedic chemistry, making characters like Jeanyu/Jason and Janet some of the most reliably hilarious and quotable characters on TV. Meanwhile, Kristen Bell is 100% killing it, and Ted Danson has somehow mastered the art of being genial and endearing one minute, and scary and upsetting the next minute. But yeah ... when was the last time a show was this funny AND thought-provoking AND well-plotted? This show has gone from good and interesting to legit forking great. 

9. LEGION 

- The thing about Legion is ... it still feels like it could get a lot better. Season 1 was occasionally uneven, occasionally frustrating - but man, when it was on its game, it was holy-$&%& incredible. I can't wait to see what it can be now that it's gotten its sea legs. But I have faith. Creator Noah Hawley is a genius, and he delivered, via Legion, some of the most memorable sequences I've ever seen on TV. That silent-movie action montage from the penultimate S1 episode? That was straight-up next level. I saw it play again at the show's Comic-Con panel to a packed crowd, and the scene was even more thrilling the second time. And the show is helped by its stacked cast. Dan Stevens is a unique actor who perfectly portrays a mix of everyman likability with barely-restrained madness. And Aubrey Plaza on this show is just ... I mean, who knew that April Ludgate could be this scary-good? It's almost easy to forget that this is a Marvel mutant show - but here, that's just the icing on the cake.

10. BROOKLYN NINE NINE

-  I debated including a couple of different, more-than-worthy series in the #10 slot - but ultimately I went with B99 because it's been that damn good this year. The show was funny from Day 1, but in Season 5 it's funnier than ever. The cast is 100% firing on all cylinders, the show is hitting a storytelling stride, and the back-and-forth banter on the show is consistently making it 30 Rock levels of quotable. I could go through each cast member and extol their virtues, but for now I'll just single out Andre Braugher. The man has made Captain Holt into one of the funniest-ever TV characters, no exaggeration - and he was funnier than ever this year. How has Braugher not won an Emmy for the superlative work he's done here? In any case, S5 has to me cemented B99 as worthy to stand alongside the likes of The Office, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, etc. as one of the best sitcoms of the last twenty years.


The Next Best:

11. FARGO

- Season 3 of Fargo perhaps did not match the soaring heights of Seasons 1 or 2, but it was still damn good TV. So many stand-out performances: Carrie Coon was phenomenal, and her standalone episode that focused on her going to LA was a classic. Michael Stulhbarg, Ewan McGregor, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, David Thewlis ... And how about all the great Coen Bros. tributes, including that scene in the bowling alley with Ray Wise playing the role of otherworldy sage? Noah Hawley and team did the impossible with this series, and once again delivered a must-watch TV event. 

12. AMERICAN VANDAL

- Brilliant. This Netflix Original mockumentary was a pitch-perfect send-up, both of true crime stories like Serial and of life in high school. Mashing up the two was a stroke of genius, and the show's intelligence and attention to detail was matched only by the many, many times it made me laugh with its ingeniously lowbrow sense of humor (the show got more comedic mileage out of the word "dicks" than anything else ever). 

13. RICK & MORTY

-  Season 3 of Rick & Morty was a long time coming, and expectations were huge - in the interim, the show became a real pop-culture phenomenon, with T-shirts in Target and everything. But Seasons 1 and 2 were so brilliant ... I don't know if S3 100% matched them episode for brilliant episode. But the highs of S3 were high - some amazing installments that continued the show's penchant for mixing crazy, random humor with legit-genius sci-fi concepts and surprisingly dark pathos. Pickle Rick was hilarious. The space spa episode was darkly brilliant. But the high point was "The Ricklantis Mixup" - a next-level episode that presented a dystopian world populated solely by Ricks and Mortys. That one was proof positive that Rick & Morty is still more than capable of being the best thing on TV when it brings its A-game. 

14. THE AMERICANS

-  Even an occasionally sluggish season of The Americans is better than most other stuff on TV. Season 5 was a pretty slow burn, heavily focused on the psychological ramifications of Philip and Elizabeth finally and fully bringing daughter Paige into the secret spy fold. And man, there was some amazing stuff here. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell continue to put on an acting clinic with each episode. Holly Taylor began to show some real depth as Paige. And Noah Emmerich continues to probably be the most underrated actor on TV, making Stan Beeman - the FBI Agent with a heavy weight on his shoulders - into one of TV's most reliably great supporting characters. I am confident that this one is going to up the ante for its upcoming final season.

15. REVIEW

- It's a testament to how genius Review is that I'm ranking it so highly despite it airing only three episodes in 2017 - a surprise final season (truly a gift from the TV gods) designed to wrap up the series. And man, will I miss this show (I already do). Following our intrepid Life Reviewer Forrest MacNeil - so brilliantly played by Andy Daly - down a nightmarish rabbit hole was one of the true comedic pleasures on TV these last few years. I could write a whole essay just on this, but the way in which the series wove its main premise - a goofy show-within-a-show about reviewing life experiences - into a meta-narrative about one man trapped in a sort of nightmare purgatory, forced to ruin his own life in the name of making good TV ... well, it was just a staggering work of dark-comedy genius. I give this show ... five stars.

16. MASTER OF NONE

- I absolutely loved the first season of Master of None. S2 was a slightly more mixed bag for me - occasionally, I felt it veered slightly into pretentiousness (especially with regards to the at times too-melodramatic romance between Dev and Francesca). But even so, S2's best episodes were absolutely among the series' best. In particular, some of the one-off's that took the focus off Dev were brilliant. In fact, "New York, I Love You," a series of three vignettes about NYC life - featuring a diverse and eclectic cast of characters - was one of my favorite TV episodes of the year. Same goes for "Thanksgiving," which deservedly got writer and star Lena Waithe an Emmy. 

17. SHERLOCK

- Back at the beginning of 2017, Sherlock delivered three new movie-length episodes that comprised its long-awaited fourth season. While the first, "The Six Thatchers," was decent if not remarkable, the second and third installments were absolute barn-burners, culminating in an incredibly epic finale dubbed "The Final Problem." Benedict Cumberbatch has created an iconic version of Sherlock Holmes, but S4's MVP was perhaps the consistently excellent Martin Freeman as Watson. The twisty finale delivered some shocking moments - an all-time great episode for the celebrated series.

18. MR. ROBOT

- It will be hard for Mr. Robot to ever top its all-timer Season 1 - and some fans tuned out after S2 felt like a slightly dragged-out retread. But after a year-and-a-half break, the series returned in 2017 and really delivered - smartly focusing less on trying to trick the audience, instead honing in more on Elliott's fractured psychology and his fragile relationship with his alter ego, Mr. Robot. S3 saw the show get more overtly political than ever, sketching its version of Trump's ascension to make his unlikely rise part of the Dark Army conspiracy. It also upped the great Grace Gummer's role, giving her some fantastic scenes - and introduced Bobby Cannavale as a colorful Dark Army fixer. The season gave us a memorable one-take episode that presented a thrilling office-set action shoot-'em-up, and a finale that ranks as one of the series' best-ever episodes. Rami Malek continues to do amazing work on this show. And I'll also give a shout-out to the show's two leading ladies - Portia Doubleday and Carly Chaikin. Both are criminally underrated.

19. WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER: TEN YEARS LATER

- Did we really need more Wet Hot American Summer? Probably not. Will I ever *not* be super excited for more comedy from The State crew? Hell no. While I don't know that these Netflix TV continuations will ever match the pound-for-pound genius of the original Wet Hot movie (one of the funniest films ever made), they are very, very good in their own right, and Ten Years Later delivered some huge laughs. The cast only got bigger and funnier with additions like Adam Scott and Alyssa Milano. But the core State crew of Michael Showalter, Michael Ian Black, David Wain, Ken Marino, Joe Lo Truglio, etc. is what makes this series so brilliant. These guys get absurdist comedy like no one else. 

20. CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM

- First, let's say for the record that Curb is one of the greatest TV comedies of all-time. Like Top 10 great. So like every comedy fan, I was chomping at the bit for more Curb following a pretty, pretty long hiatus (like several years long) between seasons. And while the new Curb season at times faltered - and there was at times an extra cringe-factor to Larry and Jeff's shenanigans, given their advancing age and the current climate - there were still plenty of moments of brilliance to be found here, and still plenty of new, brilliantly-realized observations that will be quoted and re-quoted endlessly. This season taught us about "foisting," about "outfit-trackers," and about the power that comes with sitting at the desk vs. on the couch. And I do have to give a special shout-out to some of the supporting players who make Curb so funny ... every interaction, for example, between Richard Lewis and Larry David is comedic brilliance, for example. Or how about the great Bob Einstein as Marty Funkhauser - consistently one of the best things about Curb? What a genius. 

21. BROAD CITY

- Broad City has such a unique voice and comedic sensibility - it's always a pleasure to visit this world and get into the minds of Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson. The two are completely fearless in the quest for laughs, and in a post-Trump World, Broad City emerged as one of the boldest comedies on TV, hitting back at Trump (whose name is bleeped out whenever it's mentioned) as only Ilana and Abbi can. This year the show gave us everything from a trip to Florida with Fran Drescher to an acid-trip animated episode. Still one of the freshest, most original, funniest shows on TV. 

22. THE LAST MAN ON EARTH

- I had dropped off of this show for a while, and binge-watched earlier this year to catch-up. While things had stagnated for a while, they *really* picked up in the second half of Season 3, which aired in the early part of 2017. Suddenly, you had Kristin Wiig in fine form, you had Chris freaking Elliott, and you had the show just clicking and delivering its funniest episodes since Season 1. Ultimately though, I give so much credit for this show's hilarity to the amazing Will Forte. The guy is just a machine on this series - as the overeager, serially annoying, habitually lying Tandy, Forte delivers great, hilarious performances week in and week out - aided by the sharpest writing the show has seen in a long time. If you fell off of this one as I did, catch-up is highly encouraged. 

23. RIVERDALE

- It's tempting to call Riverdale a guilty pleasure, but I'm not sure there's anything all that guilty about it. I mean, this show knows *exactly* what it's doing - namely, giving us an awesomely atmospheric mash-up of 1950's Archie Comics whimsy, neo-noir Veronica Mars-esque mystery, and addictively soapy CW teen drama. This is all helped by a great cast, and by second-to-none production values that make every episode look amazing. The show pops visually like few others - the colors, the lighting - all perfect. And the way the show rides such a delicate line tonally - it's all just gloriously absurd. This show shouldn't exist, let alone be this good.

24. STRANGER THINGS 2

- Like so many others, I was all aboard the Stranger Things hype train last year. I loved everything about the show, from the spot-on theme song to the great characters to the pitch perfect homages to all things 80's pop-culture. And like everyone else, I was 100% psyched for more. Now I did *like* Season 2, but as a whole I'm not sure that it worked anywhere near as well as S1. Rather than take big bets, S2 felt like a lot more of the same, at its worst, descending into self-parody. At it's best though, Stranger Things still delivered a rush of nostalgia-fueled adventure like few other series. And the characters are so likable, it's hard not to root for them or for this show. But next time, I'd like to see a genuine expansion of the mythology and of the show's world (hinted at in the divisive, Eleven-centric Episode 8 ... which I really liked, but definitely felt shoehorned-in), and less so a greatest hits remix.

25. THE STRAIN

- I again debated what to put into this final slot, but I wanted to mention a show that was, for four seasons, a genuine pulpy pleasure. Now don't get me wrong, there were plenty of moments in the show's run when things got outright bad and hard-to-watch. But those of us who persisted were rewarded with a legitimately pretty-awesome final season that was a satisfying conclusion to this insanely over-the-top horror/action series. The show had a lot of fun characters, but let's face it: the reason to watch The Strain was for its villains - and it had one the most awesomely evil TV villains ever in Nazi vampire Thomas Eichorst, played with the perfect degree of theatrical over-the-topness by Richard Sammel. Eichorst's decades-long rivalry with Holocaust survivor Abraham Setrakian came to a thrilling conclusion in The Strain's final few episodes - and overall, the show had that rare gift - a pretty great final season. 



SPECIAL MENTIONS:

a.) SUPERGIRL / THE FLASH / ARROW / LEGENDS OF TOMORROW - "Crisis on Earth X"

- I have long and complicated thoughts on the CW's slate of DC Comics series. I still keep up with The Flash (though it struggled mightily with its plotting in S3), and the hot-and-cold Supergirl just barely missed out on making the list above. The fact is, these shows all have likable casts and a great spirit that captures the essence of the DC Comics source material in a way that the movies, of late, have not. And at their best, The Flash and especially Supergirl can deliver great TV when they bring their A-game. But these shows get absolutely killed by the fact that they are still forced to churn out 22 episode seasons. It's too much, and there are too many diminishing returns - and way too many draggy storylines that take *forever* to wrap up, and that struggle to deliver satisfying pay-offs. And the shows still get too wrapped up in endless will-they-or-won't-they romance plotlines that, too often, fall prey to the CW's bag of CW cliches ("what are you keeping secrets from me?!"). That said ... as mentioned, these shows *can* deliver, and when they do, they often deliver big. Case in point - the absolutely terrific "Crisis On Earth X" four-part crossover event, which did a big, comic-book-worthy epic and really knocked it out of the park - with tons of humor, heart, and exciting action. Crisis On Earth X was so good that it actually, I think, helped to actively make the big-screen Justice League look even weaker by comparison. More, please! 

b.) BETTER THINGS

- I have such mixed feelings about this show. I was fully onboard previously, but this past season was very up and down. At its worst, the show comes off, to me, as just plain miserable. Sometimes, it seems, it lacks perspective on just how cloying and awful its characters come off. But at its best - in particular, when it finds rays of light amidst the darkness, it can be fantastic. Case in point: was on the verge of dropping this show, until the Season 2 finale, "Graduation," which gave Pamela Aldon and her cast the rare moment of fun, really got be back rooting for this series and its talented cast and crew.

c.) ORPHAN BLACK

- There is so much to like about Orphan Black. At its peak (I'd say Season 2), it really was one of the best series on TV - exciting, unpredictable, and featuring an astonishing and star-making central performance from Tatiana Maslaney. I loved what this show stood for - the way it championed diversity, individuality, and strong female characters. Speaking of which, I loved the characters - Sarah, Cosima, Helena, Alison - so great, each of the cloned "sestras" brought to unique life by the amazingly-talented Maslaney. But as much as I loved the show, it just lost all momentum by the time it got to its fifth and final season. The plot had become a convoluted mess, and the show seemed to lack a real reason for being, with barely any narrative drive left. It thrived only when it gave us those great little character moments that made the show so likeable. Still, I was sad when it ended, and the show gave us a solid-enough finale that provided closure and gave the characters a well-deserved send-off. 

d.) GLOW

- Here is the show that I think has the most room to improve in Season 2. I liked Season 1 all the way through, but felt it really came together and gelled in those last couple of episodes (therefore why it just missed the cut of my Top 25). Now that the beginnings of the GLOW federation have been established, there is a lot of fun to be had in showing the behind-the-scenes goings on of the organization, and a look at all the stranger-than-fiction stories around the world of professional wrestling. The cast is great, all the potential is there - this is most definitely one to watch in 2018.

e.) HUMANS

- I don't know if this should be categorized as a guilty pleasure or not, but I sort of love Humans - the British import sci-fi series that airs here in the US on AMC. It does some things shockingly well (looking at what might happen were human-like robots designed for servitude to suddenly become fully sentient), and does some things sort of clumsily (somehow all the major world events of the show center back to the one main family and their goofy teenage kids). But there's enough nerdy-awesome stuff here - and enough fun characters - to keep me eagerly coming back for more. Also: best/coolest opening credits sequence on TV outside of Stranger Things. 

f.) BLACK MIRROR

- I'm adding this one in as a last-minute addition. As I write this, I've just binge-watched through Season 4 of the seminal anthology series, and it did not disappoint. While I don't know that any one episode matched the A+ highs of last season's Nosedive or San Junipero, S4 still contained some truly great television that re-affirmed this series' status as the modern-day Twilight Zone. I think my favorite was the premiere - a darkly funny, edge-of-your-seat exciting riff on Star Trek, VR, white male privilege, gamer-gate, tech, and about five other things. A new batch of Black Mirror episodes always feels like an enormous treat - it's almost hard to believe that there's a sci-fi anthology like this that exists and that's actually this good. More, please!


INDIVIDUAL AWARDS:


The Best TV Heroes of 2017:

1.) Agent Dale Cooper - Twin Peaks: The Return
2.) David Haller - Legion
3.) Eleven - Stranger Things
4.) Gloria Burgle - Fargo
5.) Jon Snow - Game of Thrones


The Best TV Villains of 2016:

1.) "Mr. C" - Twin Peaks: The Return
2.) The Shadow King - Legion
3.) The Night King - Game of Thrones
4.) V.M. Varga - Fargo
5.) Irving - Mr. Robot


The Best TV Anti-Heroes of 2016:

1.) Neil Gamby and Lee Russell - Vice Principals
2.) Rick Sanchez - Rick & Morty
3.) Jughead Jones - Riverdale
4.) The Hound - Game of Thrones
5.) Mr. Robot - Mr. Robot


Best Actress in a Comedy:

1.)  - Kristen Bell - The Good Place

Runners Up: Pamela Aldon - Better Things, Ilana Glazer - Broad City, Abbi Jacobson - Broad City


Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy:

1.) D'Arcy Carden - The Good Place

Runners Up: Kristen Schaal - The Last Man on Earth, Kristin Wiig - The Last Man on Earth, Edi Patterson - Vice Principals


Best Actor in a Comedy:

1.) Danny McBride - Vice Principals

Runners Up: Aziz Ansari - Master of None, Will Forte - The Last Man on Earth, Andy Samberg - Brooklyn Nine Nine


Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy:

1.) Andre Braugher - Brooklyn Nine Nine

Runners Up: Walton Goggins - Vice Principals, Manny Jacinto - The Good Place, Ted Danson - The Good Place


Best Actress in a Drama:

1.) Elizabeth Moss - The Handmaid's Tale

Runners Up: Keri Russell - The Americans, Lena Heady - Game of Thrones, Vera Farmiga - Bates Motel, Carrie Coon - Fargo


Best Supporting Actress in a Drama:

1.)  Aubrey Plaza - Legion

Runners Up: Alexis Bleidel - The Handmaid's Tale, Naomi Watts - Twin Peaks: The Return, Laura Dern - Twin Peaks: The Return, Grace Gummer - Mr. Robot, Mary Elizabeth Winstead - Fargo


Best Actor in a Drama:

1.) Kyle McLachlan - Twin Peaks: The Return

Runners Up: Freddie Highmore - Bates Motel, Rami Malek - Mr. Robot, Bob Odenkirk - Better Call Saul, Matthew Rhys - The Americans, Dan Stevens - Legion, Bob Odenkirk - Better Call Saul


Best Supporting Actor in a Drama:

1.)  Michael McKean - Better Call Saul

Runners Up: Jermaine Clement - Legion, Michael Stuhlbarg - Fargo, David Thewliss - Fargo, Noah Emmerich - The Americans

THE BEST OF 2015 - The Best TV Of The Year

THE BEST OF 2015 - The Best TV Shows of The Year

- Others have said it, but it bears repeating: 2015 was the year of Peak TV. Seriously, every network has good shows now. Really good shows. At least it feels that way. Even if you watched nothing but Netflix in 2015, you still had a potentially full plate. I still have to finish Daredevil. I haven't even started Jessica Jones yet. Or Narcos. Or F is For Family. Or W/Bob & David. Or, probably, the other metric ton of quality TV that Netflix seems to be churning out on a bi-weekly basis. I haven't even mentioned Amazon. Man in the High Castle is supposed to be good. Or how about Casual on Hulu? That's supposed to be good too. It's too much. DVR's across the country are near-capacity. Dinner-table conversations are stuck in an endless loop of "have you seen--?" that usually ends with a round of "nope, but hear it's great!" I routinely see my social media feeds filled with tales of weekend binge-watching in which the watcher has plowed through a solid 13 hours of television over the course of two days. Fear of Missing Out is now the Inevitability of Missing Out. I guess the fun of it is that there's always new stuff to discover. The bad of it is that it never ends.

But really, can one complain about too much of a good thing? A glut of bad TV - that you can complain about. But the stuff that's coming out now is often great. In coming up with my Best of the Year list below, I realized that there are shows that I love - say, Brooklyn Nine-Nine - that despite it being a really solid, really funny show that I look forward to each week - it still couldn't quite make my Top 25 because there was just too much stuff this year that was flat-out awesome. It pained me relegate Children's Hospital - one of the funniest shows ever - to mere honorable mention status (the most recent season was really funny, but not quite up to the standards of previous runs).

What's really encouraging though is how diverse all of these shows are. Not just in terms of casting and points of view (though that's also really great!), but in terms of style, narrative, and genre. I mean, I've watched a lot of TV, and I've *never* seen anything quite like Mr. Robot. The Last Man on Earth is a high concept comedy that, upon its debut, felt completely fresh and different. Nathan For You is just mind-blowingly unique - it wows me and shocks me with each new episode. Rick and Morty is like a direct injection of pure imagination and weirdness and hilarity. How the show even exists I don't know, but man am I glad it does. The risks that cable channels and streaming services are now taking is pretty remarkable. And it's great to see a TV landscape where originality is, increasingly, paying off in terms of ratings and viewer engagement. Where once out-of-the-box series like Pushing Daisies or Veronica Mars struggled to stay on the air thanks to low Nielsen ratings, now they seem like ahead-of-their time forebears of the current Peak TV revolution.

In any case, here are my picks for the Best TV of 2015. Clearly, even though I watched a lot, there's also a lot I didn't watch. So feel free to recommend me your favorites. Just be mindful that my DVR is almost full and I've still got, like, all of Jessica Jones to watch.


DANNY'S TOP TV SHOWS OF 2015:


1. PARKS AND RECREATION

- The final season of Parks and Rec was, quite possibly, the best-ever final season for a TV comedy. Every. Single. Episode was a winning mix of hilarity and heart. And what's crazy is that it made Season 7 of the beloved series the best overall season of the show. When does that happen? I am pretty confident that, years from now, we'll look back on Parks and Rec and think, constantly, "wow, all of *them* were on the same show?" I sort of already do that. Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Aziz Ansari, Chris Pratt, Rob Lowe, Adam Scott, Aubrey Plaza, and the list goes on. An all-star comedy cast if ever there was one. The final season of Parks was great even if only viewed as an extended farewell. We got amazing send-offs for Ron Swanson (that Leslie/Ron locked-in-an-office-together episode was an all-timer) and Andy (the Johnny Karate episode was another classic) and the rest of the cast. Additionally though, the final season was the smartest and funniest-ever extrapolation of the show's core theme - diverse people with different views and philosophies coming together to do positive things for each other and for their community. It's this simple message - a vital one in 2015 - that made this little-comedy-that-could the absolute greatest TV series of the year.

2. JUSTIFIED

- Man, am I going to miss Justified. This was another all-time-great series that came to an end in 2015, but it's a show that absolutely went out with a bang. Season 6 of Justified was just plain badass - it featured a fantastically sinister big bad in Sam Elliott's Avery Markham and an equally great turn from Garrett Dillahunt's as Markham's cold-blooded right-hand-man. But more than that, Season 6 was a great distillation of the themes that have permeated the show from its inception. This season finally brought the contentious relationship of Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder to a head, and their final scenes together - with stars Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins in top form - are already the stuff of legend. Boyd's final comment to Raylan, "we dug coal together ...", made for one of the greatest endings to a TV series ever. You might never leave Harlan alive, but hot-damn did we leave it satisfied.

3. FARGO

- The second season of Fargo had a lot to live up to. Coming on the heels of one of the greatest TV seasons in recent memory, how could S2 possibly be as good as Season 1? I was skeptical at first, but as Season 2 wore on I began to realize I was witnessing something truly special. No other show this year did serialized drama with the same kind heady mix of style and substance. Once again, Fargo gave us an unforgettable tale about good people trying to cope with a world in which evil seems to be gaining the upper hand. And once again, the show nailed it - giving us multiple memorable villains (Hanzee! The Gerhardts! Mike Milligan!), fantastically-textured heroes (how good were Patrick Wilson, Ted Danson, and Cristin Milioti?), and lovably in-over-their-head newbie criminals (Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons - both amazing) who fail to realize that, in the world of Fargo, fate is cruel to all but a select few. I watch Fargo and am basically in awe of what creator Noah Hawley does with the show. To do a series based on an all-time classic Coen Bros. movie takes some real chutzpah. But to make a Fargo series that is every bit as good as the film on which it is based, and one of the TV's greatest modern dramas? That takes an enviable amount of talent.

4. NATHAN FOR YOU

- Once again, Nathan For You provided some of TV's most "what-the-hell-did-I-just-witness?" moments of the year. There are so many great comedies on TV at the moment, but Nathan Fielder's boundary-breaking series stands out from the pack because it's so different, so strange, and so consistently shocking and hilarious. In the tradition of Da Ali G Show, Nathan interacts with regular people in a way that exposes them - and in turn all of us - in ways that never fail to be utterly cringe-worthy yet utterly unforgettable. Watching Nathan For You is like witnessing the ultimate life hack in action - a guy who takes ideas to their most extreme in the name of one giant and insane social experiment. Witness the time Nathan makes an entire bar full of people into an avant garde theatrical production. Or the time he literally takes over another person's life, with the guarantee that by the time he's done he will have turned a socially-awkward loser into a local hero. There's nothing else like Nathan on TV. And that's probably a good thing, for the sake of all humanity.

5. GAME OF THRONES

- I think Season 5 of Game of Thrones inspired more think-pieces than any season of any show ever. But if you get past all the somewhat-manufactured controversy, what you're left with is one of the most flat-out epic seasons of TV I've ever seen. It's crazy that a fifth season of a show can provide so many iconic moments and surprises, but they came fast and furious here. The dramatic re-appearance of Daenerys' lost dragon in the fighting pit battle. Circe's already-legendary walk of shame through King's Landing. The beyond-huge Battle of Hardhome - aka the most metal thing to ever appear on TV. Some quit the show this year in frustration, but I found myself more enraptured than ever with it, and can't wait to see what happens next. If nothing else, Season 5 made it clear that this is not fairy-tale fantasy. The world of Game of Thrones is dark, getting darker, and even more bad things are likely on their way. But as long as the show keeps delivering such captivating moments, fantastic characters, and high drama on a scale never seen before on television - then hell yeah, I'm in for the long haul.

6. THE AMERICANS

- Season 3 of The Americans was totally and uncompromisingly brutal. As the focus shifted to the Jennings' daughter Paige, and her growing suspicions about her parent's true identities - the show so easily could have gone off the rails. Instead, the evolution of Paige's relationship with her parents made for extremely compelling viewing. Give credit to this show's incredible cast. I don't know how Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell continue to get snubbed in terms of Emmys - but they are so, so good on this show. Rhys in particular tends to wow me with the multiple identities that his Philip Jennings regularly assumes. Rhys-as-Philip-as-Clark is always fascinating to watch (and Clark's strange and potentially-dangerous relationship with Martha is consistently one of the show's best storylines). Season 3 took the show to often-uncomfortable extremes. We saw the Jennings become increasingly violent, assume increasingly disturbing aliases (Philip forming a relationship with a teenage girl being the most disturbing of them all), and in general cross a lot of lines that I wasn't sure they'd ever cross. Through it all, The Americans remained must-watch, can't-take-your-eyes-off-it TV.

7. RICK AND MORTY

- I was a latecomer to Rick and Morty, so this year I binge-watched through all of Season 1, prior to the start of the newly-launched Season 2. Now, I'm a full-fledged member of the Rick and Morty cult. Somehow, this show feels like the heir apparent to both Community and Futurama. Think on that, for a second, and you get a sense of just how funny, creative, and genuinely imaginative the show is. Anything can and does happen on Rick and Morty, and the show tackles its sci-fi plotlines with a mix of insane absurdist humor, self-referential cleverness, and legitimately interesting science-fiction that would probably be great even if just played straight and not for laughs. The show probably shouldn't work, but it's such an explosion of imagination and creativity and anything-goes humor that it sort of blows my mind in terms of how good it really is. It's also one of the most quotable comedies ever, and it's only on Season 2. I seriously can't wait for more.

8. MR. ROBOT

- I had fallen behind on Mr. Robot, and one day, while stuck at home feeling sick, I decided to binge. Maybe my sickly state added to the show's fever-dream effect. Like some hallucinogenic drug that seeped into my brain, Mr. Robot seemed to take over my entire state of being. I found myself completely immersed in its trippy, mind-bending, reality-is-fluid world, and endlessly obsessed with its many mysteries. Creator Sam Esmail has crafted something really special here - a hacker drama that isn't just about hacking, but about the unreal reality of the way we live today, and the way that our lives can be manipulated - just like computer code - by unseen forces lurking both in the shadows and in the recesses of our own minds. Rami Malek was a revelation here, and the rest of the cast was similarly awesome (and hey, bonus, Christian Slater is back, and he's great!). And what's crazy is that this is only the beginning. Where does Mr. Robot go from here? I have no idea - but it's one head-trip that you won't want to miss.

9. REVIEW

- Review didn't 100% grab me when I first watched the pilot episode last year, but I gave the series another shot ... and holy lord I'm glad I did. The show is pure comedic genius. Andy Daly, it's creator and star, is a genius. This is one of the most gloriously strange, shockingly dark, and laugh-out-loud funny shows I've ever seen. You probably aren't watching Review - but just trust me, you should be. The premise sounds simple: Andy Daly plays an overeager "life reviewer" who hosts a show-within-the-show, where he's tasked with trying out various life experiences as sent in to him by curious viewers. The catch here is that Daly's experiences tend to make *his* life a living hell. So why does he keep reviewing? It's an existential question that the show gamely teases us with. Is Daly *in* hell? Is he trapped in some kind of weird TV show purgatory? Is his character just naive, or is he a complete sociopath and psycho? Review takes you down a rabbit hole, and oh boy does it go deep. Watching Andy Daly completely ruin his life is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. I don't know what that makes me, but I do know that it makes Review one of the greatest TV shows of 2015.

10. PENNY DREADFUL

-  Penny Dreadful in Season 1 was one of those shows whose flaws I was sort of willing to forgive because it was so flippin' cool. A go-for-broke Victorian London-set show about all your favorite gothic-horror literary characters co-mingling? Yes please. But Penny Dreadful went from really cool in Season 1 to legitimately awesome in Season 2. The overarching plot - about a vengeful witch, Evelyn Poole (Helen McRory in top form), plotting revenge on Eva Green's Ms. Ives - was better. And the talented supporting cast - including Billie Piper and Josh Hartnett - got a lot more to do and much more compelling storylines to call their own. But it was Green who once again stole the show - as Vanessa Ives, she's pure pulp-fiction perfection. Case in point: the standout episode of S2, a flashback in which we learn of the period where Ives was mentored by an outcast witch (the "Cut-Wife") who makes a mortal enemy in Poole. It was one of the best episodes of a TV drama this year - overflowing with moody gothic atmosphere, filled with wonderfully intense and creepy performances (Green is absolutely killer), and a definitive sign that Penny Dreadful had made it to the big leagues of great TV.


The Next Best:

11. THE LAST MAN ON EARTH

- Season 2 of The Last Man on Earth has lost a bit of luster vs. Season 1. But when the show premiered back in March, it really knocked it out of the park. Episode after episode delivered huge laughs and shocking twists (how many comedies have shocking twists?!), and Will Forte was just on fire - completely hilarious as the last man alive who maybe isn't quite the last. Season 2 became a little too overcrowded and watered down, but I was encouraged by its top-notch finale. When this show is on top of its game, it's one of the best and funniest shows on the air.

12. SILICON VALLEY

- All hail Silicon Valley, which in its second season continued to be both laugh-out-loud hilarious and a scathing satire of the real Silicon Valley. The show is such a spot-on commentary on corporate America and the tech industry that it can be almost painful at times, but just when things get too serious, the show hits you with some incredible line of instantly-quotable dialogue ("this guy - he #%$&'s!") that reminds you how well the show works as pure comedy. My admiration for Mike Judge continues to grow. He just gets it.

13. BETTER CALL SAUL

-  Could Better Call Saul be as good as Breaking Bad? The question sort of hurt my head. Breaking Bad was so singularly amazing that I almost didn't want more. Leave it be. At the same time, Bob Odenkirk is so great that I welcomed the idea of him getting the spotlight. As it turns out, Better Call Saul isn't Breaking Bad, but it is damn good TV. And as Season 1 progressed, you could really sense the show's creative team figuring out how to make Saul its own thing. It's still sort of a work in progress, but when the show is firing on all cylinders - as it did in the already-classic, BB-level, Mike-centric episode "Five-O" it is sheer brilliance. Also: Michael McKean got progressively more great as Saul's older brother. What an amazing comedic actor.

14. THE FLASH

-  The Flash = the most purely fun action/adventure series on TV. I mean, I'm a longtime DC Comics obsessive and grew up reading Mark Waid's legendary run on the Flash comics. And this show makes me completely geek-out with each new reveal of a character or concept that I *never* thought I'd see on TV. Gorilla Grodd, Earth 2, Jay Garrick - what bit of DC Comics insanity won't this show bring to life? The possibilities are endless on The Flash, and it's that sense of anything-can-happen imagination, and total embrace of the fun and sense of wonder of its comic book roots, that makes The Flash so endlessly endearing. Match that with a great, uber-likable cast, and you've got a recipe for success that makes this one of my must-watch weekly series.

15. MASTER OF NONE

- Aziz Ansari's sharply-written, keenly observational Netflix comedy is the rare show that seems to completely capture experience both specific and universal. All of my late 20's/early 30's friends who have watched the show have had multiple moments of "yes, exactly!" - because Master of None is such a funny and painfully truthful look at what it's like to be a young adult in America in 2015. Master of None is like the TV version of a great conversation with friends - silly, reassuring, eye-opening, and cause for some self-reflection. And that "Parents" episode - one of the best episodes of a comedy this year.

16. WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER: FIRST DAY OF CAMP

- Wet Hot American Summer is one of my favorite comedy movies ever. To me, it's absurdist comedy perfection - the funniest thing that the collective members of The State ever made. So yeah, I was both excited and nervous about the Netflix prequel series. I mean, as awesome as it was that we were getting more Wet Hot - was this a possible legacy-tarnisher? The answer was, thankfully, that while not quite reaching the blissful comedic highs of the film, this series was, to put it simply, funny as hell. There was so much going on here that it was often hard to keep track of it all, but Showalter, Rudd, Banks, Marino, Lo Truglio, Poehler, Meloni, Ian Black, Wain, Cooper, Bell, and the rest of the all-star ensemble delivered a ridiculous number of laughs - so many that this practically demands a re-watch, Many re-watches. Hell, I want to go watch it right now.

17. COMMUNITY

- Six seasons! Yes! Dream achieved, achievement unlocked. Community's final season ended up on Yahoo, of all places. Truly a symptom of too many places trying to distribute too much TV. But also, truly, a gift for fans who have stuck with this underdog cult comedy through thick and thin. The show's new home let it be whatever it wanted to be. That meant that creator Dan Harmon could go hog-wild, crafting extra-long episodes with wildly-random tangents and extreme levels of anything-goes absurdity. Sometimes, it came off as a bit indulgent. But most times, Community's sixth season was a very welcome, very awesome return to form - with some great new cast members (Keith David!), many memorable plotlines (Garrett's wedding was a gut-bustingly hilarious classic), and several classically quotable bits that must take their place in the Community cannon ("you bet your ass I've seen The Lawnmower Man!"). If you somehow missed Community's for-real-this-time finale, track it down asap. We'll not see a comedy as good as this one for a long while. Now bring on the movie!

18. MAN SEEKING WOMAN

- Here's one that many people missed out on, but this was one of the best new series of 2015 - a very creative, super spot-on comedy about dating in the digital age. The twist here is that all of the misadventures of nerdy single guy Josh (well-played by Jay Baruchel) manifest as crazy sci-fi and fantasy flights of fancy. So when a party that Josh is forced to attend feels like hell-on-earth, it turns out that he really is in hell. When a group of girls feels like they might as well be alien beings, it turns out they *are* aliens. It could be gimmicky if done poorly, but Man Seeking Woman does an amazing job of bringing the real sorts of awkward moments and social dilemmas we all face to life in crazy and unexpected ways. And by the way - there's a brilliant episode of the show, "Woman Seeking Man," that totally flips around the formula and gives us all of this from a woman's perspective. If you've yet to get onboard, highly recommended to catch up before Season 2 starts in early 2016.

19. THE UNBREAKABLE KIMMY SCHMIDT

- "Unbreakable!" The series' theme song is a joyously pop-y tune that, immediately gets you in the right mindset for this fun and often hilarious comedy from the creators of 30 Rock. But wait, this fun and hilarious comedy is about ... a woman who'd been kidnapped and held in an underground bunker as part of a religious cult - who now, at 29, has finally been freed and released back into the world? Dude. That's dark. And so it is that Kimmy Schmidt balances upbeat comedy with a real streak of darkness and pain that's often there between the lines of the show. But the brilliance of it is that the smart writing (which churns out 30 Rock-levels of quotable dialogue) works in tandem with star Ellie Kemper (and the fantastic supporting cast) to make Kimmy a unique comedy about emerging from darkness and living life to the fullest. Kimmy is indeed unbreakable, and so too, seemingly, is this show.

20. KEY & PEELE

- And another one bites the dust. Key & Peele was the gold-standard for TV sketch comedy for the last couple of years - bringing social relevance, cinematic production value, and an endless stream of memorable comedy bits and recurring characters to the TV comedy landscape. The show ended right as it was at the height of its powers, as its two stars are off to make movies. But Key & Peele ended with a great final season. Not every sketch hit, but every episode had at least one or two instant-classics. MC Mom? the Gremlins 2 pitch? Just two of the many great sketches from this season. So yeah, Key & Peele was my jaaaam ... and I'm sad to see it go.

21. DOCUMENTARY NOW

- In which Bill Hader and Fred Armisen hilariously skew documentaries. Need I say more? This show is so dryly funny that, at first glance, you might think you're watching an actual documentary. But man, some of the episodes of this show were just instant classics. My favorite? "The Eye Doesn't Lie," a drop-dead hilarious true crime parody where Fred Armisen plays a falsely-convicted man who is so irritating that nobody cares to see him exonerated. Oh, and how about the two-part "Blue Jeans Committee" finale - an amazing homage to / parody of various "whatever happened to that band?" docs. Can't wait for more.

22. iZOMBIE

- I'm still sort of in catch-up mode on iZombie, but this is one of those shows that I'm glad exists. It's the spiritual successor to the likes of Veronica Mars - a noir mystery series with a strong female protagonist, tons of great hard-boiled dialogue, a meaty ongoing plotline combined with tightly-written cases of the week, great characters, and witty pop-culture references a-plenty. Oh, and zombies. Rob Thomas made Veronica Mars into one of the all-time great cult TV series, and he's making iZombie into a more-than-worthy follow-up. It's a show with bite, badassery, and yes ... brains.

23. BROAD CITY

- You've got to love Broad City, Okay, maybe the show's sophomore season was a bit same-y at times in comparison to the breakthrough Season 1. But still, the comedic chemistry between Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer is unmatched, and I could watch these two get into big-city misadventures all day. Hannibal Buress also continues to be a really funny supporting character on the show as well. I can't wait to see where Season 3 takes us. Broad City has a crazy comic energy to it that makes it one of the most refreshingly funny series out there - with a unique voice that is wholly and completely its own.

24. CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND

- Rachel Bloom became a viral video sensation for combining smart ideas with anything-goes, surprisingly subversive comedy. She brings that same sort of killer comedy combo to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, a show that's got a lot more going on than you might think at first glance. The show has an authenticity to it that keeps the comedy real, even as it goes crazy (no pun intended) with elaborate musical numbers that make it stand out from the rest of the comedy competition. The songs aren't just catchy though - they're hilarious, smart, and bitingly-satirical - with Rachel riffing on everything from Christmas in California to unrealistic beauty standards for women. So please don't assume that this show is fluff - it's anything but. In a short time, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend has become a truly standout series - and Bloom has become one of the freshest voices in TV comedy.

25. MASTERS OF SEX

- Some derided S3 of Masters of Sex as a step-down in quality. I can see where some of the criticisms have validity - overall, the show lacked the sustained narrative drive of Seasons 1 and 2, and suffered a bit through plotlines that felt meandering or disposable (yes yes, we all know about the gorilla episode and how bad it was). But with that said, I still think this is one of the best overall dramas on TV, and even in a weaker season, it's got moments of true gravitas that are high-water marks of serialized storytelling. I mean, Michael Sheen continues to kill it on this show. He makes Dr. Masters a tragic hero, filled with hubris and epically poor judgement, but always charging forward with a determination to prove the world wrong. That determination and drive is what makes him such a great companion and foil for Lizzy Caplan's Virgina Johnson. The two have a captivating on-screen relationship that, for me, continues to make Masters of Sex a must-watch.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

- Children's Hospital
- Inside Amy Schumer
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine
- The Grinder
- The Goldbergs
- American Horror Story: Hotel
- Maron
- Portlandia
- Agent Carter
- Supergirl
- Orphan Black
- Scream Queens

SPECIAL MENTIONS:

a.) INSIDE AMY SCHUMER, "12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer"

- Inside Amy Schumer didn't quite crack my top 25 series list. But this one episode, "12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer," was one of the best episodes of anything in 2015. Instead of the usual format of a few sketches mixed with interview segments, this one gave us one, episode-length short-film about a jury weighing in on Schumer's viability as a Hollywood actress. Absolutely scathing, incredibly funny, and completely on-point, the episode (filled with an all-star cast of comedy-royalty guest stars) is the best thing I've ever seen from Schumer and an all-time great episode of TV.

b.) THE GRINDER

- This one also didn't make my Top 25, but I have a strong feeling it will be there next year. The show is just getting started, but it's already one of the funniest comedies on the air. Rob Lowe continues his post-Parks and Rec momentum here, just spot-on hilarious as a former TV actor who played a lawyer now trying to be an actual lawyer. A great cast, sharp writing, lots of laughs - this is one to watch in 2016 and beyond.

c.) SUPERGIRL

- I wanted to mention Supergirl because it's still finding its legs, but it's got a ton of upside. Melissa Benoist is fantastic in the lead role, and as long as she's anchoring the show it's got all the potential in the world to be great. Recent episodes have begun to really capture the same sort of heart and comic book-inspired fun that makes The Flash work so well, so I think this is another show to really keep an eye on.

d.) BLACK MIRROR - "White Christmas"

- Black Mirror became a viral sensation in the US last year, when the British series was released on Netflix. Finally, just as 2015 is coming to a close, the series' Christmas special was made available in the US, and it's a hell of a holiday treat. A dark and disturbing Twilight Zone journey into a future-gone-wrong, this series of three interlocking holiday stories - featuring Jon Hamm - is another seminal installment of Black Mirror. This show is so good - I can't wait for the new episodes that Netflix is producing.


INDIVIDUAL AWARDS:


The Best TV Heroes of 2015:

1.) Raylan Givens - Justified
2.) Vanessa Ives - Penny Dreadful
3.) Lou Solverson and Hank Larrson - Fargo
4.) Liv Moore - iZombie
5.) Barry Allen and Kara Danvers - The Flash / Supergirl


The Best TV Villains of 2015:

1.) Boyd Crowder - Justified
2.) Avery Markham - Justified
3.) Hanzee and Mike Milliagan - Fargo
4.) Olivia Poole - Penny Dreadful
5.) Dr. Harrison Wells - Flash


The Best TV Anti-Heroes of 2015:

1.) Philip and Elizabeth Jennings - The Americans
2.) Saul Goodman and Mike Ehrmantraut  - Better Call Saul
3.) The Creature and Lily Frankenstein - Penny Dreadful
4.) The Countess, Liz Taylor, and James Patrick March - American Horror Story: Hotel
5.) Captain Cold - The Flash


Best Actress in a Comedy:

1.)  - Amy Poehler - Parks and Recreation

Runners Up: Ellie Kemper - Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Rachel Bloom - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend


Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy:

1.) Noel Wells - Master of None

Runners Up: Aubrey Plaza - Parks and Recreation, Gillian Jacobs - Community, Alison Brie - Community, Kristen Schaal - Last Man on Earth, Elizabeth Banks - Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp


Best Actor in a Comedy:

1.) Andy Daly - Review

Runners Up: Will Forte - The Last Man on Earth, Aziz Ansari - Master of None, Nathan Fielder - Nathan For You, Rob Lowe - The Grinder, Michael Showalter - Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp


Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy:

1.) Nick Offerman - Parks and Recreation

Runners Up: T.J. Miller - Silicon Valley, Chris Pratt - Parks and Recreation, Andre Braugher - Brooklyn Nine Nine, Christopher Maloney - Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp


Best Actress in a Drama:

1.) Eva Green - Penny Dreadful

Runners Up: Keri Russell - The Americans, Lizzy Caplan - Masters of Sex


Best Supporting Actress in a Drama:

1.)  Cristin Milioti - Fargo

Runners Up: Emilia Clarke - Game of Thrones, Lena Heady - Game of Thrones, Carly Chaikin - Mr. Robot, Portia Doubleday - Mr. Robot, Kirsten Dunst - Fargo


Best Actor in a Drama:

1.) Matthew Rhys - The Americans

Runners Up: Rami Malek - Mr. Robot, Patrick Wilson - Fargo, Michael Sheen - Masters of Sex, Bob Odenkirk - Better Call Saul, Timothy Olyphant - Justified


Best Supporting Actor in a Drama:

1.) Walton Goggins -  Justified

Runners Up:  Ted Danson - Fargo, Jesse Plemons - Fargo,  Evan Peters - American Horror Story: Hotel, Jonathan Banks - Better Call Saul, Martin Wallström - Mr. Robot


And there you have it, folks - my picks for the best TV of 2015.