The Best of the 10's - Danny's Best TV of the Decade!

THE BEST TELEVISION OF THE 2010's:


1. Breaking Bad

- The gold standard. Breaking Bad was the peak of peak TV - and though it premiered prior to 2010, it was also the first series to make binge-watching catch-up marathons a widespread cultural phenomenon. No series was ever more intense, more impeccably written or acted or saw through from beginning to end. This was the show that knocked, the king of kings.


2. Black Mirror

- An obscure British series that became a viral hit in America thanks to Netflix, Black Mirror is nothing less than the modern day Twilight Zone. No other streaming series has left me waiting in more anticipation for new batches of episodes. And what episodes they were - some of the finest TV installments ever produced, including the all-time-classic San Junipero. A thrilling, disturbing, must-watch sci-fi reflection of the times we live in.


3. Parks and Recreation

-The best sitcom of the decade, Parks and Rec was infinitely quotable, endearingly earnest, and laugh out loud funny. With an all-star cast and an all-star writing team, the show kept getting better and better, up to and including its phenomenal final season in 2015.


4. Game of Thrones

- No other TV series, ever, was more epic. GoT brought sprawling fantasy storytelling TV in a way that had never been seen before, and in doing so produced some of the greatest and most jaw-dropping moments in the medium's history. The last great water-cooler series, the end of Thrones marked the end of a TV era.


5. The Americans

- One of the all-time great TV dramas, The Americans never quite got the fan-following or the critical buzz it deserved. But the show will go down as a classic - a Cold War story that spoke to the troubles and tensions of that era as well as this one. The show was a slow-burn that you couldn't look away from, culminating in perhaps the greatest series finale in TV drama history.


6. Justified

- Speaking of all-time great finales, Justified also gave us one of the best ever. But more than that, the show was a deceptively layered drama filled with iconic characters and memorable locales. A modern Western that never skimped on the badassery, Justified was one of the true can't-miss series of the decade.


7. Community

- A series ahead of its time, Community was constantly on the verge of cancellation - even as it developed a passionate fandom that recognized it as one of the funniest and smartest shows ever. An episode of Community could be anything - and episodes of Community *were* everything. Six seasons and a movie (we still need that movie!).


8. Nathan For You

- Nathan For You is easily one of the strangest, darkest, and most hilarious things I've ever seen. Once you plug into the deadpan wavelength of Nathan Fielder, the only conclusion one can draw is that Nathan For You simply operates on a level of meta comedic genius rarely seen on television.


9. Penny Dreadful

- Those who stuck with Penny Dreadful through its three seasons of gothic Victorian horror were rewarded with one of the most mesmerizing, awe-inspiring, darkly poetic TV series ever made. The series gave us fascinating, re-imagined takes on classic monsters while also introducing Eva Green's iconic Vanessa Ives - tragically struggling with her literal inner demons. And that struggle, man, it made for some incredible TV.


10. Fringe

- The only show in my Top 10 that was *also* on my Best of the 00's list, Fringe started off really good, but ultimately became *great.* What started as a cool new take on X-Files monster-of-the-week procedurals evolved into an epic sci-fi saga that centered around an interdimensional war. The show got better and better as it got more ambitious, and ended up being something unique and unmatched - the decade's ultimate geek-out TV adventure.



THE NEXT BEST:


11. Twin Peaks: The Return

- What an unexpected blast of surreal brilliance this series was - a triumphant return to TV for David Lynch and Mark Frost, revisiting the cult-favorite TV series that had become a pop-culture sensation thirty years earlier. You never knew what Lynch and Frost had in store for you week to week, and that was part of the fun. In fact, it made for some damn fine TV.


12. Mr. Robot

- A series uniquely suited to this decade, Mr. Robot was a mind-bending show that functioned as both a more conventional cyber-thriller and as a meta-journey into the fractured psyche of its main character. Tackling modern political and social issues head-on, Mr. Robot was, ultimately, a bold look at the past decade and a call-to-arms to face the challenges of the next.


13. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

- Nine-Nine! After his incredible sting behind the scenes of Parks & Rec, Mike Schur went on to help create the other best sitcom of the decade - the still-going-strong (and somehow getting better with each season!) B99. Every year, the chemistry of the cast gets better, the joke-writing gets sharper, and I get increasingly annoyed that the great Andre Braugher still hasn't won an Emmy for this show.


14. Fargo

- This show should not have worked. The Coen Bros' cinematic classic did not seem to lend itself to a spin-off TV show ... but creator Noah Hawley proved that there were great stories to be mined from diving back into the snow-covered world of Fargo. And with Seasons 1 and 2 in particular, he gave  us some of the decade's best TV.


15. 30 Rock

- One more holdover from the previous decade - don't get me wrong, 30 Rock is one of the greatest sitcoms of all time. But I also would make the argument that it was just as strong, if not stronger, in the latter half of its run as in the first - producing multiple seasons of hilarity post-2010. Oh how I miss this show. I'm still trying to live every week like it's Shark Week.


16. Eastbound & Down

- Eastbound kicked off in 2009, but a few years later it would go down as one of the craziest, most boundary-pushing, most hilarious TV shows ever. Since the end of the series, we've seen the team of Danny McBride, Jody Hill, and David Gordon Green go on to produce so much great television - but this was really the show that started it all ... and the saga of Kenny Powers remains a comedy classic.


17. Boardwalk Empire

- With an incredible cast and an incredible pedigree of creators behind the scenes, this Martin Scorsese-produced, Prohibition-era crime drama showed the origins of organized crime in the United States - and in so doing showed us a lot about the origins of the world we live in today. Filled with memorable characters both real and fictional, this one was an underrated epic that demands to be binged.


18. Better Call Saul

- Breaking Bad set such a high bar ... it seemed like folly to try to follow it up with a prequel series. But never doubt Vince Gilligan and co. They've made Better Call Saul, in its own way, nearly the equal of Breaking Bad. The show tells a similar story of a good person's slide to the dark side, but it does so with a lighter touch and a more contemplative pace. In the end, Saul will be considered nearly the classic that Breaking Bad was.


19. Silicon Valley

- Incredibly spot-on at all times, always, Silicon Valley was a biting satire of the tech-world culture that has shaped so much of the last decade. Mike Judge again proved his comedic genius here, and the cast was so funny and so good.


20. New Girl

- Another great comedy series, New Girl was a joke-machine with some of the sharpest writing of any recent comedy. The main cast was so good and so funny, and the show did a great job at capturing elder-Millennial issues and anxieties.


21. True Detective

- While True Detective had a bit of a sophomore slump, it was absolutely killer in Seasons 1 and 3 - delivering a certain brand of gothic-noir crime-story I really hadn't seen on TV before (and certainly not done this well). Attracting A-list talent like Matthew McConauhey, Woody Harrelson, and Mahershala Ali - this show at its best was a tour de force.


22. Rick & Morty

- This infinitely creative animated series manages the impossible task of being both laugh out loud hilarious and a genuinely mind-bending sci-fi adventure that never skimps on the science-fiction. In fact, the show's willingness to go all-in on its crazy sci-fi conceits is part of what makes it a legend it its own time.


23. Review

- Hopefully, this under-seen Comedy Central series lives on forever as a genuine cult classic. It's one of the strangest, funniest, craziest shows I've ever seen. Andy Daly plays Forrest McNeil - a man who, for some unknown reason, is forced to host a TV show in which he *must* review any life experience that viewers ask him to. The result is a shockingly dark and daring comedy the likes of which may never be seen again.


24. The Good Place

- Set to finale in January 2020, it will feel like we're all in The Bad Place when this modern comedy classic comes to an end. The Good Place dared to bring high-concept, Lost-esque serialization to a sitcom - and it brilliantly mixed smart philosophical discussion with some of the best comedy writing around. That Mike Schur guy is pretty good.


25. Westworld

- In its twisty, time-jumping first season, Westworld rocked the pop-cultural landscape and set the internet on fire. And with good reason: it gave us some of the most compelling, thought-provoking, can't-miss sci-fi television of the decade. Its return in 2020 for Season 3 is easily one of my most-anticipated TV moments of the upcoming year.

THE NEXT BEST

26.) American Vandal

27.) The Handmaid's Tale

28.) Vice Principals

29.) Sherlock

30.) Bates Motel

31.) Atlanta

32.) Orphan Black

33.) Louie

34.) Key & Peele

35.) The Goldbergs

36.) Stranger Things

37.) American Horror Story

38.) An Idiot Abroad

39.) Documentary Now

40.) Broad City

41.) Children's Hospital

42.) Terriers

43.) Portlandia

44.) The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

45.) Big Mouth

46.) Fleabag

47.) Barry

48.) Big Mouth

49.) Fosse/Verdon

50.) Veronica Mars
 

SPECIAL MENTIONS:

a.) 24: Live Another Day was a legitimately great season of 24. Jack Bauer was sorely missed for much of this decade.


b.) The Walking Dead's first season from 2010 truly kicked-ass. But the show's quick downhill slide made it hard to include on this list from a big-picture perspective.


c.) Riverdale was one of the most fun semi-guilty TV pleasures of the decade.


d.) The Righteous Gemstones had an incredible Season 1. I have a feeling this show will, in short order, be a modern classic. But it felt too early to include quite yet.


e.) The Flash, especially early on, provided some awesome comic book-inspired moments. I really loved the show when it first premiered.


f.) Watchmen was one of the most compelling new series of 2019. I'm still digesting it. It just barely missed making the list.


g.) Chernobyl was another show from 2019 that barely missed the cut. It's amazing television.


h.) Gilmore Girls: A Year In the Life was another one that just barely missed the list. A mostly-great return for one of my favorite series ever.

i.) Humans - when this show was on its game, it was genuinely amazing. It faltered at times but I really dug its look at AI.

j.) The Haunting of Hill House just missed the cut ... only one season and it took a few episodes to get great ... but when it was at its best it was truly fantastic.


SHOWS I NEED TO CATCH UP ON:

- Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Bojack Horseman, The Marvelous Ms. Maisel, Succession, The Magicians, Mad Men, The Crown ... and probably about 500 others!

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.

Bye-Bye to PARKS AND REC: The Last Great TV Comedy

PARKS AND RECREATION - Goodbye to the Last Great TV Comedy

- With tonight's series finale of Parks and Recreation, it truly is the end of an era. Parks is the last of its breed - the last broadcast network sitcom that tried to bring edgy, Millennial-friendly comedy to the mainstream. Parks is perhaps the most beloved low-rated sitcom ever - in the grand tradition of The Office, 30 Rock, and Community - all NBC shows that had increasingly small on-air audiences, even if their actual fanbases were much larger. Sure, there are some spiritual successors to Parks out there in TV land. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is the most obvious - it is, after all, from Parks and Rec's Michael Schur (along with Dan Goor). And that show has found solid ratings success on Sunday nights. The Goldbergs on ABC is another potential successor - a family sitcom that combines very traditional sitcom tropes with a surreal and subversive, pop-culture-obsessed streak. But mostly, the best comedy these days is on cable, where it is increasingly able to get weird and niche-y. I love the likes of Broad City, Nathan For You, and Garfunkel and Oates. But those shows are going for very specific audiences. In theory, Parks should have been the biggest comedy of the last ten years. It was jam-packed with a great cast of diverse characters, and had a ton of heart. Parks' humor was razor-sharp, but it was also unabashedly earnest and sweet. It wasn't about off-putting well-off LA one-percenters (hello, Modern Family). It was about hard-working small-town Americans. And in an age of political divisiveness and gridlock, Parks and Rec was a constant reminder of our potential to put aside our differences and work together towards a common goal. Like I said, the fact that this *wasn't* the #1-rated comedy on TV speaks to the reality that no comedy is mainstream anymore. With most shows, I get it. But Parks was so funny, so good, so heartfelt, so universal in its themes that you have to wonder if, upon its end, we'll ever see the likes of it again.

Parks and Rec didn't start out amazing. In a strangely similar fashion as its predecessor, The Office, Parks' first season got out of the gate wobbly. Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope was, well, sort of annoying. And the focus on her undermined the stellar supporting cast. But like The Office, Parks came into its own in Season 2. The show became more of an ensemble comedy, and what an ensemble it was. If the show were launching today, it would have the all-star cast of all-star casts. Amy Poehler, Nick Offerman, Chris Pratt, Aubrey Plaza, Rob Lowe, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Retta, Adam Scott ... and the list goes on.

I heard someone say that the characters on Parks were so perfect because it was as if each represented a certain part of our personality. We all have aspects of these characters inside of us. Leslie is the ambitious go-getter. Ron Swanson the stubborn iconoclast. Andy the big kid. April the sarcastic teenager. Ben the nerd, Tom the would-be player. Jerry/Larry/Gary the loser-dork. There's that, but what makes Parks' characters so fantastic is that, at the same time, none could be reduced to one-note cliches. Leslie was a go-getter, but also a devoted friend who put her BFF Anne above all else. Ron Swanson was a stoic man's man, but he also moonlighted (hilariously) as local jazz legend Duke Silver, and had a kryptonite-like weakness for his ex-wife Tammy. Andy and April seemed polar opposites, but both found joy in each other and became a delightfully oddball couple. Tom, it turned out, was a romantic at heart. Hell, even Jerry was revealed to have an insanely idyllic home life that completely contrasted with his sad-sack reputation in the workplace. Parks never shied away from contradictions and complexity - and showing how and why these characters worked so well together despite their differences.

My favorite example - the one that to me is the heart and soul of the show - is the relationship between Leslie and Ron. Vulture published an essay a few weeks ago about how Ron represented the last gasp of the old man's-man stereotype, how he was the last of a dying breed. I argued that the essay missed the point. What's so brilliant about the Ron Swanson character is that he has his very strong likes and dislikes - he's got a freaking "Pyramid of Success" - but he also was never beholden to outdated views if those views were ugly or mean-spirited. Sure, Ron Swanson doesn't like Europe or skim milk. But he also is a man who sort of transcends specific politics. He likes what he likes. But not because of any ulterior motive or agenda. And that means that when push comes to shove, he admires Leslie's drive and fire and friendship. It's why the "Ron and Leslie" episode in Parks' final season, in which the feuding pair is locked in a room together and forced to hash out their problems - is such a legitimate tearjerker. The show brilliantly led us to believe that the rift that had formed between Ron and Leslie during the two-year gap between Seasons 6 and 7 was about clashing politics. But the real reason behind it was heartbreakingly revealed to be Ron's feeling that his unlikely friend Leslie - wrapped up in her new job - had left him behind.

But even when Parks does have its characters disagree on politics, the disagreements have a purity to them that is inspiring. Ron and Leslie often have different philosophies on government - but again, those views come from a pure place. The political fights on Parks would often see Leslie and Ron united - because it wasn't about Democrat vs. Republican vs. Libertarian - Leslie's battles were about smarts vs. stupidity, integrity vs. shiftiness and hucksterism, community vs. homogenization, and sticking up for friends and family. It's no wonder then that Leslie and Ron were ultimately on the same side when push came to shove.

Aside from all that, from a sheer comedy perspective, Parks is a bar-setter. I don't know all of the behind-the-scenes people who made the show as sharp as it was. But what's amazing is how, over the years, I've discovered new comedy voices who were associated with the show. Sure, going in, comedy fans knew creators Greg Daniel and Michael Schur's bonafides. And we knew Amy Poehler from years on SNL and Aziz Ansari from his stand-up. But aside even from the breakout cast members like Aubrey Plaza and Chris Pratt, we've seen people like Megan Amram, a writer on the show, become a cult comedy favorite. And tragically, one of the show's Co-EP's - Harris Wittels - a guy who was by all accounts the show's go-to joke puncher-upper, and an emerging stand-up comedian and comedy writer - passed away last week. One only needs to look at Wittels' Twitter to see what an incredibly hilarious voice was lost. But his ability to nail jokes and joke construction - and just the overall talent of the writing staff - was evident on any given episode of Parks. Amazingly, the show is going out sharper than ever. This final season has been a veritable comedy master-class. Each episode is jam-packed with instant-classic quotes and perfectly-constructed jokes. The comedy has been able to swing from character humor to parody (as in the impressively unique Johnny Karate episode from last week), from pop-culture references to absurdism. And yet ... I (and suspect many of you) have been left misty-eyed by nearly every episode this season. To be that funny and that emotionally-involving is a rare feat for any show to pull off.

And that's why I say Parks and Rec might just be the last great comedy. There's something to be said for comedy that doesn't have to swing for the fences, that can just be what it wants to be and get as weird as it wants to. I love that stuff. But there's also something to be said for comedy that can be funny and smart and challenging, but also have the characters and heart and real-world relatability to ensure that there's something there for everyone. It's hard for me to imagine *anyone* giving Parks and Rec a try and not digging it. But increasingly, the Parks-esque shows are disappearing from the air. They're becoming watered down like Modern Family. Or going to Netflix (Tina Fey's upcoming Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) or the web (Community's upcoming sixth season). And as that happens, comedy won't need to appeal to a broad audience anymore. There's a part of that that's cool, sure. But there's also something sad about the end of shows that unite us in laughter, just as the characters on Parks were united around their beloved town of Pawnee. That sense of community is evaporating - we're all separating off into our little tribes where our super-specific tastes are catered to with web series and podcasts. And in that environment, you have to wonder if any show will again be able to be a true national-conversation starter again. Parks was never that show, but it was to a lot of the people that mattered. People who were smart and funny liked Parks. Parks people were my people. And it was watched by the funniest comedians and most important politicians (everyone from the Obamas to Joe Biden to John McCain - who cameo'd multiple times - were fans). The ending of Parks and Recreation makes me sad - it's the end of a great TV show, but also sort of the end of an era for TV. But as long as the spirit of Leslie Knope lives on, as long as Ron Swanson's Pyramid of Greatness hangs on college dorms and office cubicles, as long as we still reference DJ Roomba and Burt Macklin: FBI and JJ's Diner and the Cones of Dunshire and Jean Ralphio and Perd Hapley, then Parks and Rec will *literally* live on forever in Lil' Sebastian-esque fashion.

So long Parks and Rec. It's been an amazing, legendary run.

THE BEST OF 2014 - The Best TV Of The Year

THE BEST OF 2014 - The Best TV Shows of The Year

- So it may not be hyperbole to call 2014 television's best year ever. In the wake of last year's Breaking Bad finale, I think there was a collective panic from industry insiders - was the Golden Age of TV over? Had Breaking Bad set the bar so high that it was all downhill from here? The answer was, in fact, a resounding "no." Breaking Bad did raise the bar, but a number of new and returning dramas stepped up admirably to fill the void. 

You guys know that I'm a huge pop-culture junkie. I watch a lot of TV. But there was no possible way I could keep up with the tidal wave of good stuff this year. In fact, no one could. There was good TV coming from broadcast, cable, and premium networks. There was even more good TV coming from Netflix. And Amazon. And any number of other places. In 2015, we're going to get a new season of Community via Yahoo. We're going to get a new Tina Fey-penned comedy - originally meant for NBC - premiering on Netflix. We're going to watch via streaming, EST, VOD, TVE, and DVR. There's too much content, no question. Luckily, so much of it is good that if you don't have a great show or two that you're into, well, you're clearly living in a cave. 

All of a sudden, IFC is doing great shows. Comedy Central is on an incredible hot streak, helping to usher in a TV comedy renaissance that led to tons of laughs this year. Some of TV's best shows are only getting better - with Game of Thrones having its best-ever season, and Key & Peele emerging as *the* must-see comedy on TV. New shows blew me away with their quality and originality. True Detective, Fargo, Broad City, Penny Dreadful. Even shows that I dismissed have apparently gotten better. Last year, everyone seemed with me as I unceremoniously dropped the likes of Arrow and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. from my DVR. Now, all I hear is how I need to get back onboard. Speaking of superheroes, there were tons of them on TV this year. Some of the new comic book shows bombed, but others soared. The Flash is probably my favorite new show of the 2014 Fall TV season -a fun, fast-paced series unashamed of its comic book roots. 

Perhaps no show best summarizes the state of TV in 2014 as well as Black Mirror - a British series that actually first premiered in the UK back in 2011. Here is a series that was mostly unknown in the US, but then suddenly dropped on Netflix in December and became an instant viral sensation. This modern twist on The Twilight Zone - a sci-fi anthology that tells darkly-tinged stories about the dangers of technology - received no promotion, no advertising ... it simply went live on Neflix and word-of-mouth did the rest. 

The other mega-hit that sort of defines 2014 for me wasn't even actually a TV show, but a podcast. More and more over the last few years, I've found podcasts a great way to go more in-depth on a particular area of interest. But Serial was the first podcast that I listened to with the same sense of what-will-happen-next urgency with which I watch my favorite TV series. Serial quickly became a genuine pop-culture phenomenon, and it's yet another sign that great content is now coming from just about everywhere, in many shapes and forms. You can compare Serial to old radio serials, or to true-crime TV, or to This American Life (from which it spun out), but the fact is ... this is pretty much uncharted territory. Listening to Serial felt like an entirely new kind of entertainment experience for me. Like many, I suspect, I went in skeptical, but quickly became a believer. Ironically, in a world in which we're all encouraged to buy huge, vivid, LED TV's, many of us found ourselves, in 2014, huddled around our listening device of choice, enraptured by an audio-only serialized narrative. Who would have thought?

It's exciting. In the early days of TV, scripted series were crafted like stage plays. Only later did TV embrace more cinematic storytelling. Now we're sort of seeing TV series evolve to fully embrace all the new ways that people are watching them. We're seeing shows made for binge-watching, shows made for streaming, shows made for web-watching, and some shows that aren't really TV at all. From narrative podcasts like Serial to serialized story-based games like Telltale's The Walking Dead - it's a brave new world of content. It's all happening. Just remember to go outside once in a while.


DANNY'S TOP TV SHOWS OF 2014:


1. FARGO

- I was skeptical going in, but Fargo very quickly became an absolute must-watch. With the same sort of wit, humor, and sense of creeping dread as the Coen Bros. classic, but with a sensibility all its own, writer Noah Hawley's FX masterwork was the best thing on TV this year. The cast was off-the-charts good - Billy Bob Thornton played a villain for the ages, Alison Tohlman emerged as a bright new star, and Martin Freeman lay claim to yet another instantly-iconic role. The look and feel of the show was utterly cinematic - paying homage to the film while also carving out its own aesthetic. But ultimately, what I loved about the show was the same thing that makes the film an all-time favorite: Fargo is a left-of-center look at the best and worst of humanity - examining good, evil, and they grey spaces in between. 

2. TRUE DETECTIVE

- It was a close race for the #1 spot this year, and for me it was a near toss-up between Fargo and True Detective. I gave Fargo the slight edge, but man, True Detective was an absolute powerhouse of a show. For one thing, the acting of Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson was titanic. This was some of the best-ever acting on TV. McConaughey wowed as the ultra-intense, scarred-by-evil Rust. Harrelson blew the doors off as powder-keg, would-be family man Marty. The show reminded me of past favorites like Millennium, in that it wasn't content with just being a procedural cop show, but pushed further to instead become a meditation on the nature of evil. The show took on a tinge of existential horror, leading many to believe supernatural elements were waiting in the wings. But True Detective, ultimately, didn't need otherdimensional creatures to make an impact. It did so by showing us the dark side of what ordinary humans are capable of.

3. GAME OF THRONES

- I've loved Game of Thrones since the first episode, but there was always a slight feeling of inconsistency. The great moments were at times nestled between a lot of padding. Not so this year. This year, Game of Thrones delivered one genuine "holy $%&#!" moment after another, blowing up social media and inspiring endless cries of "no spoilers!" The fact is, GoT was an absolute must-watch this year - and it had everything - from gladiatorial battles to patricide to dragons to ice-zombies to all-out-war. Filled with great, iconic performances and an unmatched sense of epicness, this was the year that Game of Thrones went from almost-great to just plain awesome.

4. NATHAN FOR YOU

- In a year that was a TV comedy renaissance, Nathan For You - and its unlikely star Nathan Fielder - reigned supreme. Nathan For You was good in Season 1, but Season 2 raised the bar and delivered one classic episode after another. The only thing I can rightly compare it to is Da Ali G Show at its peak - because Nathan's ability to meld brilliant sketch ideas with real-world, mostly oblivious-to-the-joke marks is second only to that of the great Sacha Baron Cohen. What's more, Nathan feels like the comedy hero we needed in 2014 - a deadpan geek who mercilessly mocks the consumer culture we find ourselves so squarely immersed in. His outlandish business ideas and get-rich-quick schemes often have a strangely sound logic behind them, but it's Nathan's unflappable commitment to his character and his ideas that sells the joke each and every time.

5. THE AMERICANS

- This show keeps getting better and better. Season 2 of The Americans upped the tension in the Jennings household, increasingly showing the toll that Philip and Elizabeth's double lives takes on both them and their not-so-little-anymore kids. Seeing Philip's fractured psyche start to collapse, as he balances multiple lives and multiple identities, was incredibly compelling. And Matthew Rhys and Kerri Russell (and Noah Emmerich - so great on this show) continue to do top-tier work here. To me, this is the heir apparent of Breaking Bad - a sophisticated, smart, satirical peak down the rabbit hole, showing us the darkest side of the American Dream

6. KEY & PEELE

- I've been a fan of Key & Peele from the start, but this year the show really upped its game, becoming a true must-watch, each episode delivering multiple instantly-viral sketches that will forever live in the TV comedy cannon. The show looks amazing - with movie-quality direction. And Key & Peele seem to be able to do anything - playing every sort of character under the sun. This is the best sketch comedy going today - not relying on gimmicks or recurring characters, but just trying out material, experimenting, and making some of the funniest comedy out there in the process.

7. MASTERS OF SEX

- The most compelling relationship on TV these days is the one between Michael Sheen's Dr. William Masters and Lizzy Caplan's Virginia Masters. The push and pull between them, the delicate balance of love, hate, resentment, attraction, repulsion, respect, and co-dependency is fascinating, and Sheen and Caplan absolutely kill it on this show. Michael Sheen needs to be in the conversation around best performance in a TV drama. He is phenomenal on Masters of Sex - and has delivered some of 2014's best, most memorable, most devastating TV moments as this character. The show excels at depicting this central relationship, but it also has so much to say about men, women, and America - where it's been and where it is. What's funny is how sex is, in some ways, the least essential part of the show. But rest assured, this is one of TV's best.

8. COSMOS

-  All hail Neil DeGrasse Tyson and his unyielding commitment to making science awesome. Cosmos was educational, informative, and often mind-blowing in its depiction of life, the universe, and everything. But it also was a show with a bit of a chip on its shoulder, relentlessly making the case for science, for the scientific method, for the importance of facts over fallacy. In a world in which influential groups and individuals deny science itself - deny evolution, climate change, genetics - Cosmos was a meticulously-presented refutation to the deniers, and a poignant affirmation to everyone else - of the power and awe-inspiring nature of the universe. Each episode left you feeling awed, humbled, and curious. 

9. COMMUNITY

- Community seemed poised for cancellation in 2014, and when word came down, cries of "Six Seasons and a Movie" swelled from the faithful. And with good reason. After a so-so, Dan Harmon-less Season 4, Season 5 was downright next-level, with all-time classic episodes that hit in rapid succession. From "Repilot" to "App Development and Condiments," from "Advanced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons" to "G.I. Jeff," Community went totally off its rocker in S5, did pretty much whatever the hell it wanted, and in the process created a whole bunch of awesome. Six Seasons and a Movie indeed.

10. ORPHAN BLACK

-  At this year's Comic-Con, I saw fans cheering, applauding, crying, and basically going absolutely bat-$&%# crazy for Orphan Black, and for its multi-talented star Tatiana Maslaney. And with good reason, I think. The show can be messy, uneven at times. Its underlying mythology is still a little weaksauce, and the less said about the "Tony" episode, the better. But beneath all that lies the biggest beating heart of any show on TV. We love these sorts of genre shows because we feel like we're along for the ride as characters we love get put through hell, beat the odds, and emerge stronger for it. And no show makes you root for its underdog characters as does Orphan Black, with the unlikely members of its "Clone Club" (each played, in a performance that continues to amaze, by Maslaney) serving as some of TV's most fun and most badass heroes. Want strong female characters? Orphan Black has 'em in spades. It's no wonder then that when the twisty, action-packed Season 2 culminated in an all-clone dance party, it was one of the most purely joyful TV moments of the year. 


The Next Best:


11. BOARDWALK EMPIRE

- Boardwalk's truncated final season got off to a shaky start, but business really picked up as the series finale drew near. In the final summation, Boardwalk was a fantastic show - a brilliantly-woven tapestry of a certain time and place in American history, a look at how the American Dream was sold away to criminals and gangsters. There were so many great, award-worthy performances on the show, but when all is said and done, I have to give credit to Steve Buscemi as Enoch "Nucky" Thompson. It was a quietly powerful performance - a man who thought himself above the fray, but who, ultimately, is undone by his own sins.

12. BROAD CITY

- Don't be surprised if Broad City is even higher on this list next year. It came out of the gate firing on all cylinders, yet another hilarious show in Comedy Central's re-tooled lineup that provided a forum for fresh, funny voices. In this case, the voices belonged to Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, a comedy duo that shows that women can do brilliantly stupid stoner comedy just as well as the guys. Their New York-set misadventures are weird and funny, but there's also an authenticity to these two that you can't manufacture. There's no filter here - these girls are doing their thing and I'm just thankful we get to watch.

13. JUSTIFIED

-  Year-in-and-year-out, Justified is one of the best damn shows on TV, and certainly among the most badass. I sort of feel like I'm underrating this past season, only because while it might have been just a bit of an off year for the show, it still delivered a Stetson's-worth of great moments. Sadly, Justified often flies under the awards-show radar, but Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins - not to mention the kickass supporting cast - just kill it week-in, week-out. And I'll say this: now that there's a bit of a sense of urgency, with the upcoming season being the show's last ... there's absolutely no TV show I'm looking forward to more in 2015 than Justified's last ride.

14. THE GOLDBERGS

-  By the end of Season 1, The Goldbergs had become the best sitcom on broadcast TV. It was sort of a throwback - funny and offbeat, but also charming and sweet. The Goldbergs' nostalgic vision of 1980-something suburbia is like looking through an old photo album, and the callbacks to the pop-culture of my youth are always handled with clear and genuine affection. But the Goldbergs is no mere nostalgia-machine. The writing is clever and the jokes are spot-on. My only concern is that Season 2 has grown just a bit same-y and repetitive. Here's hoping for a Goldberg golden age in 2015.

15. PENNY DREADFUL

- This show seemed made just for me. An Alan Moore-esque Victorian horror-adventure series that combined literature's great monsters into one pulpy universe? Sold and sold. But I'll admit, the first episode of the show left me wondering if it would really be all that I hoped. As it turns out, the show evolved into something truly special over time. The biggest revelation was Eva Green as the enigmatic Vanessa Ives. As we learned more about Ms. Ives' inner demons (both figurative and literal), the show became a true tour de force, with Eva Green doing some drop-dead amazing acting that elevated the show to instant cult-fave. More, please.

16. BROOKLYN NINE-NINE

- Brooklyn Nine-Nine's ensemble is very, very strong - and that's led to some of the funniest TV of the last year. Samberg is the headliner, but Andre Braugher is the MVP. His Captain Ray Holt has quickly become one of TV's best and funniest characters, with a deadpan delivery that kills. But the rest of the cast - Terry Crews, Joe Lo Truglio, Chelsea Peretti - have also really stepped up, in a way that reminds me of early Parks and Rec. All the ingredients are there for B99 to become something truly great, and I think 2015 may be its year.

17. SILICON VALLEY

- 2014 marked the return of Mike Judge to TV, and for a brief moment, all was right with the world. Silicon Valley had all the hallmarks of classic Judge, calling to mind things like Office Space and King of the Hill - with Judge's satirical eye now turned towards the tech industry. The cast of the show was great, especially standout TJ Miller. And the way that the show skewered the real silicon valley was nothing short of brilliant. If this was the year that the nerds took over the world, then Silicon Valley showed what it is that we have wrought, warts and all.

18. 24: LIVE ANOTHER DAY

- Yes, there is a part of me that wants to rank this higher. It's hard to judge Jack Bauer and co. objectively, because no matter its faults, I love 24 without reservation, and nothing made me happier in 2014, TV-wise, than having the JACK BAUER BY-GOD POWER HOUR back on TV, with Jack dispensing gravitas and kicking-ass like it was 2004 again. The end of 24 had really caused a void on TV, a void that needed to be filled. And thank the lord, 24 returned to give us the badass TV show we wanted and needed. And this wasn't just a nostalgia-run. Kiefer Sutherland was in top form, and the return of beloved favorites (Chloe! Heller!) and the introduction of new ones (welcome Yvonne Strahovski!) made this 24 resurrection a true TV event.

19. PARKS & RECREATION

- Parks is one of my favorite TV comedies of the last ten years, and man, I'll be sad to see it go when it finales over the next several weeks. Season 6 sputtered a bit at times, with certain stories feeling a bit dragged out and overdone. But the show rallied late in the season, delivering some flat-out classics, and then shocking us all with an unexpected time-jump cliffhanger to cap things off. Parks is still one of the best - with an all-star cast that I have no doubt will bring us a memorable final season. Saying goodbye to Pawnee is going to be *literally* one of hardest farewells in TV history.

20. AMERICAN HORROR STORY

- Few shows are so all-over-the-place, yet so can't-stop-watching entertaining, as AHS. The final few episodes of Coven ended strong, and so far, Freakshow has been an odd but fascinating iteration of the show - toning down the horror in favor of general weirdness and character-driven soap-opera. But man, even when the storylines don't add up, the cast makes things ever-interesting. I could watch Jessica Lange's Elsa Mars spout oddball insights and lurid anecdotes all day. For sheer, jaw-dropping WTF-ness, it doesn't get any better.

21. NEW GIRL

- After a rough Season 3, New Girl has really bounced back for Season 4 - once again finding the absurdist center at the bottom of the weekly tootsie-pop that made Season 2 really shine. Max Greenfield continues to kill it on this show, with Schmidt giving voice to weekly witticisms that make New Girl, still, one of the most quotable comedies on TV. At its best, New Girl is home to some of the sharpest writing on TV, and can, on a good day, make me laugh harder than anything else out there.

22. SHERLOCK

- I binge-watched through Sherlock this year, and I finally got the hype around the series. Really, it's all in the endlessly-entertaining back-and-forth dialogue. Watching Benedict Cumberbatch's socially-inept Sherlock try to fit in with the rest of humanity is the show's ace-in-the-hole, and that was nowhere more evident than in Season 3's way-too-fun wedding episode. Season 3 also brought back arch-enemy extraordinaire Moriarty, and left the door open for even more adventures to come. Can't come soon enough, says I. 

23. THE FLASH

- My favorite new show of the 2014 Fall TV season, The Flash is pure geekgasm-inducing joy for the DC Comics faithful. Borrowing heavily from classic runs on The Flash comics, the show stands out for actually embracing its superhero and sci-fi premise, showing us a full-fledged superhero, in full costume, doing superhero-y things and going on superhero-y adventures. Imagine that - a show that seems proud and reverential of its comic book origins. It's what makes The Flash one of TV's most purely entertaining series.

24. GARFUNKEL & OATES

- The great Comedy Explosion of 2014 continued as cult comedy faves Garfunkel & Oates got their own show on IFC. I really dug it. The two have a unique sensibility and the observational humor is often spot-on. Match that with the catchy and deceptively biting songs, and you've got yourself a winner. With this, Portlandia, and Maron, IFC had a winning 2014.

25. BATES MOTEL

- Bates Motel has really found its footing as a quirky mash-up of CW teen drama and Twin Peaks-esque small-town weirdness. And, you know, Psycho. Norman Bates is still not quite a psycho-killer, but he's well on his way, and watching him downward-spiral into the abyss has made for some fascinating TV. Freddie Highmore is still fantastic as Norman, and Vera Farmiga turns in one of TV's strangest yet most endearing performances each week as Norma. This show is well-worth a binge-watch if you've yet to get onboard.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

- Portlandia
- Maron
- Sleepy Hollow

SPECIAL MENTION: 

a.) THE COLBERT REPORT

- Fare thee well, Stephen Colbert. For years, The Colbert Report has been the spot-on satire we needed, a show that somehow transcended its initial gimmick to become one of the smartest, funniest, and downright essential shows on TV. I congratulate Colbert on his new gig as Letterman's late-night replacement, but man, I will miss the "Stephen Colbert" character. I can only hope that others will step up to fill the void. In the meantime, hats off to Colbert, as it's been a legendary run.

b.) HELLO LADIES

- I did want to mention the fantastic special that aired this winter on HBO, wrapping up one of my favorite shows of 2013. The Hello Ladies special was a brilliant closer to Stephen Merchant's show, and I can only hope that we don't go long without more wonderfully-awkward cringe-comedy from Merchant and his co-conspirators.


INDIVIDUAL AWARDS:


The Best TV Heroes of 2014:

1.) Molly Solverson - Fargo
2.) Raylan Givens - Justified
3.) Vanessa Ives - Penny Dreadful
4.) Sarah Manning, Alison Hendrix, and Cosima Niehaus - Orphan Black
5.) Barry Allen - The Flash 


The Best TV Villains of 2014:

1.) Lorne Malvo - Fargo
2.) King Joffrey - Game of Thrones
3.) Tywin Lanister - Game of Thrones
4.) Boyd Crowder - Justified
5.) Al Capone  - Boardwalk Empire


The Best TV Anti-Heroes of 2013:

1.) Rust and Marty - True Detective
2.) Philip and Elizabeth Jennings - The Americans
3.) The Hound - Game of Thrones
4.) Nucky Thompson - Boardwalk Empire
5.) Helena - Orphan Black


Best Actress in a Comedy:

1.)  - Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer - Broad City

Runners Up: Amy Poehler - Parks and Recreation, Carrie Brownstein - Portlandia


Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy:

1.) Wendi McLendon-Covey - The Goldbergs

Runners Up: Gillian Jacobs - Community, Alison Brie - Community


Best Actor in a Comedy:

1.) Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key - Key & Peele

Runners Up: Max Greenfield - New Girl, Jake Johnson - New Girl  


Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy:

1.) TJ Miller - Silicon Valley

Runners Up: Nick Offermann - Parks and Recreation, Hannibal Buress - Broad City, Troy Gentile - The Goldbergs


Best Actress in a Drama:

1.) Lizzy Caplan - Masters of Sex

Runners Up: Eva Green - Penny Dreadful, Tatiana Maslaney - Orphan Black, Alison Tohlman - Fargo, Jessica Lange - American Horror Story


Best Supporting Actress in a Drama:

1.)  Maisie Williams - Game of Thrones

Runners Up: Annaleigh Ashford - Masters of Sex, Emilia Clarke - Game of Thrones, Angela Bassett - American Horror Story: Freakshow


Best Actor in a Drama:

1.) Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson - True Detective

Runners Up: Matthew Rhys - The Americans, Martin Freeman - Fargo, Michael Sheen - Masters of Sex


Best Supporting Actor in a Drama:

1.) Michael Shannon - Boardwalk Empire

Runners Up:  Walton Goggins - Justified, Noah Emmerich - The Americans, Charles Dance - Game of Thrones, Peter Dinklage - Game of Thrones


And that's all, folks - my picks for the best TV of 2014.

THE BEST OF 2013 - The Best TV Of The Year

THE BEST OF 2013 - The Best TV Shows of The Year

- What a year for television. There is, as usual over the last few years, a lot to talk about in terms of how the way series are being scheduled, programmed, and watched is changing. This was the year that Netflix became a legitimate TV content programmer, and that Amazon jumped into the fray as well. This was the year that binge-watching went mainstream, and did so in a way that actually helped raise the on-air ratings for current shows, as people caught up on past seasons via streaming and download services. This was the year that cable TV continued to dominate, as The Walking Dead became the most-watched scripted show on all of television, and shows like HBO's Game of Thrones dominated the pop-cultural conversation.

But all that being said, this was, I think, the year of Breaking Bad. Changes in consumption habits are one thing, but ultimately, what's even more interesting is when a medium reaches a new creative peak. And that happened this year: BREAKING BAD ended in stunning fashion, and in doing so, set a new bar for TV drama. It feels weird to call a show the greatest-anything of all-time when it only just ended -- don't we need the passage of time to declare such things? -- but with Breaking Bad, it seems like a fair call to make. Months after the astounding final season concluded, I'm still going through withdrawal, still wondering what became of characters like Jesse Pinkman and Walter Jr. after the final credits rolled.

2013 was also the end for some other all-time great shows. One regret I had earlier this year was not finding time to write a lengthy piece about the end of 30 ROCK. 30 Rock somehow became underrated as time went on - perhaps the disconnect between the devotion of critics and hardcore fans, vs. the low on-air ratings, drove some people to dismiss the show as high-brow elitist comedy. Whatever. 30 Rock was TV's best sitcom since they heyday of The Simpsons. It was endlessly quotable, brilliantly written and acted, and mixed random humor with pointed social commentary better than any other comedy in the last decade. I already miss this show greatly. This was the comedy that would have me jotting down quotes to share on social media, that would have me chatting with friends at work about an episode's funniest moments, that would have me pausing and rewinding my DVR to catch jokes I'd missed because I was laughing too hard from something that had happened earlier. 30 Rock had occasional ups and downs over the years, but it was far more consistently great than people give it credit for, and its final season was flat-out brilliant. What's more, each of the final batch of episodes that aired back in January were among the series' best. The series finale was a classic - everything you could have hoped for from this show.

2013 also marked the end of THE OFFICE. The show was in sort of a weird place ever since Steve Carrel left the cast a few years back, but I do think that the show rebounded a bit for its last couple of episodes, showing signs of what made it, in its early years, one of the best comedies on television. In particular, the series finale was a really well-done send-off. Even though the show had long since lost its spot as one of the elite comedies on the air, that finale was a nice reminder of how great the show had been and could be.

For a number of reasons - personal, professional, and otherwise - the end of The Office and 30 Rock really did feel like the end of an era for TV comedy and for NBC.

Another all-time great comedy that ended in 2013 was FUTURAMA. This is a weird one, because we all thought the show was finished years ago when FOX cancelled it. But it got picked up by Comedy Central, and we've been treated to new episodes of the show for the last few years. The quality didn't always match the level of greatness that the show displayed during its original run. But every so often, there'd be an episode like "The Late Philip J. Fry" that was an all-time classic, and a reminder to be thankful that this show was still churning out new episodes. The final season was more hit-or-miss than usual, but the show gave us one last all-timer with its jaw-droppingly amazing finale. The series-ender was an encapsulation of all that made Futurama great - hilarity, imagination, cleverness, fantastic characters, and the uncanny ability to produce episodes that were so full of heart that they made you misty-eyed. How could an animated comedy about robots and lobster-aliens make me more than a little verklempt? It shouldn't, but it did. The finale was a perfect ending for one of my favorite-ever TV shows. And by the way, one of the truly awesome experiences I had at this year's Comic-Con was the Futurama panel, in which I got to see the show's uber-talented voice cast table-read scenes from the series finale, and artists (including Matt Groening himself) live-draw characters from the show. It was a privilege to experience the ongoing adventures of Fry, Leela, Bender, Zoidberg, and the rest of the crew over the years, and I can only express thanks to the creative people behind the show for giving us so many memorable moments and episodes.

Another finale that I've got to talk about: FRINGE. The show aired its final batch of episodes in January, and this was another one that went out with a bang. The show's final season - set in an apocalyptic future - was a strange and bold leap for the show to take, and at times it did seem like too much of a departure from what made the series work so well originally. That said, the two-part finale was a rip-roaring adventure - a time and universe-spanning epic that, while containing a few head-scratching moments, felt like a fantastic farewell to Olivia Dunham, Peter Bishop, and Walter Bishop. Fringe will forever go down as an underrated cult classic. It never got the attention or awards it deserved, and the fact that the great John Noble never even got a single Emmy nomination is a travesty, given that week in and week out, he was doing the best acting on TV of anyone not named Bryan Cranston. Fringe will be talked about and discussed and rediscovered for many years to come, and it will go down, I think, as one of the great sci-fi shows alongside stalwarts like The X-Files and Lost (and Fringe's ending was better than both). But what I already miss about Fringe is that it was one of the rare sci-fi shows on TV that actually made me think about science. It felt mind-expanding. While I enjoy a good light and fluffy fantasy show on occasion (Sleepy Hollow, anyone?), I've had a serious post-Fringe void of harder sci-fi storytelling on TV. Still waiting to see what new show will rise to the occasion and take the ball from Fringe.

One final finale I've got to talk about, and that's EASTBOUND & DOWN. Here's another show that had a cult following, but that never really got the proper respect it deserved from most critics. I sort of get it, because Eastbound & Down is pitch-black comedy - it's funny as hell, but also deeply disturbing and boundary-pushing at times. Kenny Powers is not a good person, and the show never pretended that he was. For that reason, the final season of Eastbound made for an interesting companion piece to the final season of Breaking Bad. In its own way, Eastbound was just as epic and dark - with Kenny falling into an ever-expanding black hole of depravity as he once again attempts to reclaim his treasured modicum of fame and fortune. Despite its dark undertones, however, the fact is that no show, maybe ever, has made me laugh harder than Eastbound & Down. Through Kenny, his grotesque sidekick Stevie, and the rest of its oddball cast, the show constantly pushed boundaries, thumbed its nose at good taste, and was one of the last shows on the air that truly shocked me and left my jaw on the floor on a consistent basis. There was always a temptation to just make Kenny awesome - a hero for us to root for. But what made this show great was that yeah, sure, Kenny was sort of awesome in his own ridiculous way - but ultimately, the joke was always on him. Take note, all other shows that have no self-awareness about their own main characters' likability factor: Eastbound & Down never tried to sell us on the idea that Kenny Powers was a great man (far from it). But because the show was so funny, so layered, and so completely unafraid to go where no other comedy dared go, it is, indeed, one of the all-time greats.

Those were some of the shows that ended in 2013, but not to worry, amigos: the future looks bright. In a matter of week we've got the return of  the reliably awesome JUSTIFIED, and the best new show of 2013, THE AMERICANS. There's so much out there now, it's harder than ever to keep up - but the good thing is that there is a lot of quality stuff being made. The Netflix's of the world see the effect that buzzworthy shows like Breaking Bad have on their platform's usage, and so it's now very much in their interest to create similarly buzzworthy shows of their own, that are drivers to their platform. See: ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK. I'll admit that I've yet to check out that show, but there's no denying that it made a huge impact on the pop-cultural landscape this year. It's a brave new world, people.

So here we go, my top TV shows of 2013. As always, remember: I can't and don't watch everything, so forgive me if I leave out one of your favorites (unless one of your favorites is lame/bad/boring/unworthy, in which case ... not sorry!).

DANNY'S TOP TV SHOWS OF 2013:

1. BREAKING BAD

- Hail to the king of kings. Breaking Bad went out in grand fashion in 2013, and anyone who doesn't just acknowledge that it was not just the best TV of the year, but of any year, needs to get their head checked. Breaking Bad was a triumph of storytelling on TV. So often, TV plotlines are derailed by network interference, budget, time, and the lingering uncertainty of how long, exactly, a show will last. But here, for one of the first times ever on American TV, a story was told exactly as it was meant to be told. And so, finally, here was a TV show that felt as seamless, as confident, as expertly plotted as any great film or novel. Vince Gilligan and the creative team deserve all the credit in the world, as do Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, and the rest of the best-in-the-biz cast. Cranston's work as Walter White was the best-ever acting I've seen on TV - maybe anywhere. Breaking Bad, like I said, set a new bar in 2013.

2. EASTBOUND & DOWN

- After an uneven third season that was meant to be the show's last, Eastbound unexpectedly returned for one more swing. And thank god it did. The show course-corrected itself, delivering its best season since the first, once again taking wannabe bad-boy Kenny Powers and his delusions of grandeur on an epic journey into the heart of darkness. This season of Eastbound was absolutely, drop-dead hilarious - the funniest thing on TV in 2013. If you've yet to dive into Eastbound & Down, do so immediately. As long as you're not too shocked and easily offended. Because be warned: this show boldly went to places that no other comedy had gone before. While it may be gone, it won't be forgotten: long live Kenny Powers.

3. 30 ROCK

- 30 Rock only aired a handful of episodes in 2013, but here's the thing, nerdz: each of them was a stone-cold classic. 30 Rock deserves to be this high on the list because it was just that good - and Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Jane Krakowski, Tracy Morgan, and the rest of the fantastic ensemble cast did some of their best work in those final episodes. 30 Rock did something that few of the great comedies have ever managed to do - it went out at the top of its game.

4. JUSTIFIED

- This year saw the passing of the great writer Elmore Leonard, whose stories serve as the basis for Justified. It's to Leonard's credit that so much of this show - plotlines, dialogue - are lifted straight from the author's novels. Nobody wrote hard-boiled pulp fiction like Leonard, and no show does hard-boiled pulp fiction like Justified. The show's fourth season created yet another sprawling new-Western yarn, that once again pitted Raylan Givens against his sometimes-friend, most-of-the-time nemesis Boyd Crowder. Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins really are the perfect yin and yang. As long as these two are involved, you know that Justified will continue to be the most badass show on TV.

5. THE AMERICANS

- This show really wowed me in 2013. It took a few episodes to really get going, but soon enough, business picked up bigtime. This cold war-set series mixes the moral gray areas of a Breaking Bad with spy thriller action, and one of the most volatile husband-and-wife relationships ever seen on TV. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys are phenomenal on the show as a pair of Soviet spies posing as ordinary US citizens, and Noah Emmerich is similarly fantastic as the dogged agent pursuing them (though unaware, so far, that the normal-seeming couple next door are, in fact, who he's after). Gripping and full of surprising twists, The Americans became an absolute must-watch for me in 2013, and I can't wait for Season 2.

6. GAME OF THRONES

- In a year full of great TV, no single scripted event was more shocking or talked-about than Game of Thrones' already-infamous "red wedding." Sure, fans of the books may have known it was coming, but for the rest of us - holy $#%&. But weddings-gone-wrong aside, this was just a great season for Game of Thrones - a show with so many great actors and characters that it's hard to pinpoint just a few standouts. But I'll try. This was the season that Emilia Clarke's Daenerys became really, really badass - a true mother of dragons. This was the season that Margaery Tyrell and her scheming family came into the picture, and added a new level of intrigue to the ongoing saga. This was the season that "you know nothing, John Snow" entered the popular lexicon, as Snow made a home for himself beyond the Wall. Great, epic stuff. 

7. CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL

- Children's Hospital continued to be awesome in 2013, with some of the show's craziest and most ambitious episodes to date. I saw the season premiere over the summer at Comic-Con, and it absolutely killed, leaving the crowd in stitches. This show has still got one of the flat-out funniest casts of anything on TV - Ken Marino, Rob Huebel, Rob Cordry, Lake Bell, Malin Ackermann, Erin Hayes, David Wain, Henry Winkler, Meagan Mullaly, guest appearances from Nick Offermann, and the list goes on ... I hope this show just keeps going and going.

8. BOARDWALK EMPIRE

-  Boardwalk is one of those shows that sometimes takes a while to build up steam. Sometimes the pace feels a little slow, and the many divergent plotlines a bit all over the place. But when everything comes together, when Boardwalk really nails it, there are few shows better. I was reminded of this while watching the incredible Season 4 finale. I'd been feeling a bit down on S4 as compared to the superb S3 ... but that finale, man, that was Boardwalk at the top of its game. A key character died in a tragic, unsettling, and memorable fashion. The rift between the Thompson brothers grew bigger yet again. And poor Gillian seems to be in the worse shape she's been in since the show began. So many amazing actors on the show - S4 benefited from a spotlight on Michael K. William's ultra-intense Chalky White, and the introduction of Jeffrey Wright, playing Chalky's enigmatic new rival. 

9. AMERICAN HORROR STORY: COVEN

- What's this show doing on here? In past years, I dismissed American Horror Story as all-style, no-substance shock TV. But Season 3, Coven, has me absolutely hooked. This season's yearly reboot is just clicking on all levels. The show is still wildly over-the-top and crazy, but this year, it feels like there's an actual narrative driving all of the insanity. It feels like a show I can sink my teeth into, rather than just watch to see what crazy $#%# will happen this week. But man, Coven has become an absolute playground for Oscar-caliber actresses to go at it: Jessica Lange, Kathy Bates, Angela Bassett, Gabourey Sidibe, Sarah Paulson, and more are making this season ridiculously fun and entertaining. 'Tis the season of the witch, and I couldn't be happier. If you bailed on the show previously, it's time for a second look.

10. PARKS AND RECREATION

-  All hail one of the last great network comedies left standing. With 30 Rock and The Office finito, and Community suffering through a Dan Harmon-less season, Parks and Rec assumed the mantle of king-of-comedy at NBC. And Leslie Knope and the rest of the citizenry of Pawnee delivered yet again, with numerous fantastic episodes and more great moments for some of comedy's best characters. With the hsow bouncing around the schedule, and Rashida Jones and Rob Lowe set to leave the cast shortly into 2014, it felt like we had to savor each new episode this year. And savor we did, Ron Swanson-eating-a-raw-steak style.

The Next Best:

11. MASTERS OF SEX

- One of the year's best new shows, this Showtime drama features incredible performances from leads Michael Shannon and Lizzy Caplan. Come for the sizzle, but stay for the steak - namely, an insightful and thought-provoking look at the sexual and social revolutions of mid-century America. 

12. NEW GIRL

- New Girl was on top of the comedy heap earlier this year, but I'm docking it a few points for an only so-so season since September. Still, New Girl was one of the funniest, most laugh-out-loud comedies on TV this year, and the ensemble cast is second to none. 

13. FRINGE

-  I spoke about Fringe at length up top - only a few episodes aired in 2013, but the episodes that we got provided an epic finish to one of the best sci-fi series of the last ten years. Emmys for everybody, said I. If only people listened. 

14. THE GOLDBERGS

-  This new comedy has been a great surprise so far. I'm loving the mix of wacky humor and heartwarming storylines, many of which feel lifted from tales of the Baram household circa twenty-odd years ago.

15. BATES MOTEL

- Go, now, and binge-watch Season 1 of Bates Motel. It gets good, really good, and the high quality of the last few episodes in the season gives me high expectations for Season 2. Vera Farmiga owned it on this show as Norma Bates - a woman both comforting and creepy, heroic and deranged.

16. FUTURAMA

- Futurama deserves to be on here for its series finale alone - a masterful close-out to one of the best-ever animated comedies. Futurama will be quoted, re-watched, and made into memes for years and years - possibly up to and beyond the year 3,000 when it will be directly ingested via neural implant. So I'm glad that the show got to give us a couple more classics before all was said and done.

17. KEY & PEELE

- This year, Key & Peele became one of my most anticipated weekly shows. The ambition of the sketches is high - you could get anything from a viral video-ready music video parody to a pointed political satire. But what's consistent are how high-quality each sketch is, impeccably shot and directed, impeccably acted by Key and Peele. These guys have just been killing it of late.

18. HELLO, LADIES

- I'm a huge fan of what I'll call the Ricky Gervais school of comedy. The original UK version of The Office is one of my all-time favorites, and now, Gervais' partner-in-crime, Stephen Merchant, has an ultra-awkward, ultra-funny comedy to call his own. Hello Ladies grew on me as it went on, and ultimately I'd say it had a great first season. This is cringe-worthy comedy on par with The Office and Extras, but Merchant does this stuff so well - he finds the humor and heart in all the awkwardness to make this show something special.

19. AN IDIOT ABROAD

- Speaking of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, I've been a huge, huge fan of their brainchild An Idiot Abroad. I'd probably rank this higher, except there were only three episodes of the show's third season, and man, I wanted more! In S3, reluctant adventurer Karl Pilkington explores various remote destinations, accompanied by Gervais' pal Warwick Davis (of Willow and Harry Potter fame). Davis and Pilkington make an amazing odd-couple, and the two share some amazing, hilarious moments. Please lord, let there be more Idiot Abroad. This show is too great to end now.

20. ORPHAN BLACK

- I marathoned through this one on DVD at the recommendation of friends, and I dug it. What makes the show special is the phenomenal work of actress Tatiana Maslaney, who plays several highly distinct characters - all clones. I'm hoping that S2 ups the ante in terms of ongoing plot and overarching mythology, but S1 was a fine start. And Maslaney has crafted not just one, but several, of the most kickass female characters on TV today. For that, she's got to be commended.

21. WORKAHOLICS

- Workaholics is a random, goofy comedy series that has a DIY feel. It's clear that its three leads love hanging out and doing this show and putting their unique brand of stoner-bro humor out there into the world. In other hands, it might be grating. But these guys are funny - really funny - and the sharp writing and imaginative plotlines make this series about hapless slackers a must-watch.

22. SLEEPY HOLLOW

- I saw the Sleepy Hollow pilot at Comic-Con this past summer. I went in skeptical, but came away very impressed. This was clearly a show that fully embraced its over-the-topness, and it had an earnest, geeky sensibility that was incredibly endearing. Credit star Tom Mison for making it work. As Ichabod Crane, he gives gravitas and humor to a show that you can't help but root for. I'm still waiting for the show to have its first truly great episode, but there's enough good raw material here that I'm optimistic we'll get it soon.

23. MARON

- As a huge fan of Marc Maron's WTF podcast, I was curious to see how the comedian's world-weary humor would translate to a Louie-esque TV comedy. Things started out a little rough, but by the end of S1, the show had produced some truly winning, highly funny episodes (my favorite: a hilarious teaming of Maron with Danny Trejo as an ex-con). Can't wait to see more.

24. PORTLANDIA

- Season 3 of Portlandia started off on a high note, with a fantasticaly funny sketch about an aging hipster trying to take back MTV, storming the network's NYC offices and recruiting guys like Kurt Loder to help in the cause. It was proof that when it's on its game, Portlandia is capable of doing great sketch comedy. I look forward to new episodes this year.

25.THE WALKING DEAD (TIE)

- I know, this show has its share of haters. And occasionally, I'm one of them. But the fact is that The Walking Dead, for all its flaws, remains a must-watch because it's a show capable of producing big, crazy, jaw-dropping moments like few other series can. The latter half of Season 3 early in the year was a high point, as the war between Rick and company and The Governor escalated. Season 4 floundered for a while, but picked up steam when the Governor returned. The mid-season finale in December was a great episode of television, delivering a climactic final showdown with the Governor, and opening up some exciting possibilities for 2014.

25. BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (TIE)

- Another funny new comedy with boatloads of potential, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, I feel, is right on the verge of greatness. The ensemble they've assembled is top-notch, episodes so far have shown flashes of brilliance, and the show seems like the spiritual heir to the aging Parks and Recreation: a workplace comedy with both wackiness and heart. 

INDIVIDUAL AWARDS:

The Best TV Heroes of 2013:

1.) Daenerys Targaryen - Game of Thrones

2.) Raylan Givens - Justified

3.) Ichabod Crane - Sleepy Hollow

4.) Walter Bishop, Peter Bishop, and Olivia - Fringe

5.) Sarah Manning, Alison Hendrix, and Cosima Niehaus - Orphan Black

The Best TV Villains of 2013:

1.) Todd - Breaking Bad

2.) Tywin Lanister - Game of Thrones

3.) King Joffrey - Game of Thrones

4.) Dr. Valentin Narcisse - Boardwalk Empire

5.) The Headless Horseman - Sleepy Hollow

The Best TV Anti-Heroes of 2013:

1.) Walter White and Jesse Pinkman - Breaking Bad

2.) Margaery Tyrell - Game of Thrones

3.) Boyd Crowder - Justified

4.) Saul Goodman - Breaking Bad

5.) Chalky White - Boardwalk Empire

Best Actress in a Comedy:

1.) Christine Woods - Hello, Ladies

Runners Up: Amy Poehler - Parks and Recreation, Zooey Daschanel - New Girl

Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy:

1.) Katy Mixon - Eastbound & Down

Runners Up: Lake Bell, Erin Hayes and Malin Ackermann - Children's Hospital

Best Actor in a Comedy:

1.) Danny McBride - Eastbound & Down

Runners Up: Max Greenfield - New Girl, Jake Johnson - New Girl, Stephen Merchant - Hello, Ladies 

Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy:

1.) Ken Marino - Eastbound & Down

Runners Up: Nick Offermann - Parks and Recreation, Aziz Ansari - Parks and Recreation, Rob Cordry - Childrens Hospital

Best Actress in a Drama:

1.) Keri Russel - The Americans

Runners Up: Lizzy Caplan - Masters of Sex, Vera Famiga - Bates Motel, Tatiana Maslaney - Orphan Black

Best Supporting Actress in a Drama:

1.)  Anna Gunn - Breaking Bad

Runners Up: Natalie Dormer - Game of Thrones, Emilia Clarke - Game of Thrones, Jessica Lange - American Horror Story: Coven, Kathy Bates - American Horror Story: Coven

Best Actor in a Drama:

1.) Bryan Cranston - Breaking Bad

Runners Up: Matthew Rhys - The Americans, Timothy Olyphant - Justified, Michael Sheen - Masters of Sex

Best Supporting Actor in a Drama:

1.) Aaron Paul - Breaking Bad

Runners Up:  Dean Norris - Breaking Bad, Walton Goggins - Justified, Jack Huston - Boardwalk Empire, Michael Kenneth Williams - Boardwalk Empire, Noah Emmerich - The Americans

And that's all, folks - my picks for the best TV of 2013.