Monday, December 21, 2015

Year in review: THE TOP 20 TV SHOWS OF 2015





It’s been a remarkable year in television. So good, in fact, that a Top 10 list just didn't seem like enough.

I’ve watched a lot this year, but first things first: the sad reality of what I haven’t caught up to. Foremost among them, the (reportedly) much-improved sophomore dramas Manhattan and Halt and Catch Fire; HBO’s event series The Jinx; NBC’s three-season gore-opera Hannibal; Netflix’s Marvel triumph Jessica Jones; the CW’s vibrant musical-comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend; and Showtime’s Gothic fantasia Penny Dreadful. I weaved in and out of Black-ish on ABC and Inside Amy Schumer on Comedy Central, among a range of other non-serialized comedies – in most of those cases, I loved what I saw, but didn’t feel comfortable ranking them among programs I’d finished.

FX Networks estimates that over 400 scripted series aired in 2015, an unconquerable number. But you do what you can – and, to give you an idea of just how much I considered, more didn’t make this list of 30 shows than did. These were the programs that moved me, shook me and, in those rare cases, amazed me in the past year. For context, the top four on this list were in a league of their own – the cream of a very impressive crop – but that’s to take nothing away from the greatness represented below them. In every year I've been at this, a top 10 sufficed. This felt like the year to change that.

Without further ado, here are the Top 20 Television Shows of 2015, ranked in order, along with 10 runner-ups. (Click the series' names below for in-depth writing on each show, or click here for my Top 10 TV of 2014.)



1 |   The Americans

Conceptually, The Americans is entrenched in identity politics; at once, it's a methodical contention with the Cold War, a dramatic exposition of nationalism and a meticulous deconstruction of the domestic realm. Characters shift in and out of disguise, switching out wigs, replacing elaborate costumes and altering the very shape of their smiles. Their work, and in turn their livelihood, is performative, ever-dependent on convincing and transforming.

In its intimate depiction of Cold War-era Soviet spies, The Americans makes devastatingly existential arguments. Executive producers Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields tackle our nationalistic understandings of marriage, work and parenthood by writing from the outside in. They work from a coolly sociological perspective, but also break into our homes and our offices – into where we live, and where we work – with unsettling intensity.

Therein lies The Americans’ power, expressed no more clearly than in this masterpiece of a season: the series examines our mystical, varied but threaded states of being by interpreting it literally, in characters whose masks aren’t so metaphorical. The life-and-death stakes of the show’s early days gave way to reflection in season three, a force pushing its characters to look in the mirror and face what they saw. To invest in the Jennings family and those around them was to invest in the sensory gamut as humanity knows it. That The Americans hit the spectrum so broadly and yet so precisely ascertained its consummate emotional intelligence – and why it was, bar-none, the best television program of 2015.



With rigor and unprecedented specificity, Jill Soloway somehow built on the superb first season of Transparent to create the year’s most essential series. After documenting the coming-out process for 70-year old Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) and its initial effect on her family, Soloway and her team grappled with more comprehensive and complex notions of gender and sexuality for season two, merging a treatise on queer identity with a portrait of Jewish culture and family dynamics. The result was breathtaking, a freshly authentic and galvanizingly human demonstration of transition. As traveled by the best ensemble on television, Transparent paved the way for the most universal of journeys: figuring out who you really are.


3 |  Rectify

Soaked in the muggy greenery of small-town Georgia, Ray McKinnon’s wondrous family chronicle meshes photographic beauty with novelistic richness. Coming in at six hours of artistic purity, its third season masterfully draws from the past to tell compelling stories of the present and future. Rectify is elevated by extraordinary performances and luminous imagery; it's dreamy, colorful, lightly funny and generously spare. McKinnon achieves a depth of feeling and a rhythmic grace that seamlessly fits into his Gothic locale. Put simply, there’s nothing like this show – it's as close to poetry as television gets.



A teary meditation and an existential epic, a writing showcase as well as an acting clinic, the second season of The Leftovers never ceased to astonish. In taking the action to a town drenched in mythology and secrets, the series towered over its former self as a more contained, and thereby more affecting, depiction of grief, loss and unanswered questions. The cast was uniformly magnificent, and the episodes ranged from biblical to surreal to agonizingly grounded in theme and conflict. The Leftovers is a show of immense ideas, but it’s the unconventional, cathartic way in which it resonates that is quickly making this one of the decade’s most memorable and affecting series.



This one’s pretty simple: nothing on TV made me laugh harder. After a promising first season, Mike Judge and Alec Berg brought their dorky tech comedy to the next level, with set-piece after set-piece delivering and every actor operating at a precise comedic pitch. There’s plenty of inventive, ambitious half-hour television on this list, but here’s a show that affirms the unbeatable pleasure of non-stop laughter.


6 |  Justified

Justified was never the greatest show on television, but through the vast majority of its run – from the harrowing Bennett family saga of its second season to the compelling serial mystery of its fourth – it came pretty close. Accordingly, enough can’t be said about the fact that its sixth and final season was its very best, bringing five years’ worth of tension and build-up to a thrilling head while also working as a crackling chapter of neo-Western storytelling in its own right. The season gave leads Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins an opportunity to bring their A-game, and allowed supporting players Mary Steenburgen, Sam Elliot and the ever-expressive Jere Burns to turn in vibrant villainous performances. Crucially, it also demonstrated the value of a story well-told, with Justified finishing its run as effectively understated as it began.



A new sitcom from Tina Fey, a political thriller with Kevin Spacey, a groundbreaking, Golden Globe-winning ensemble piece – that BoJack Horseman, the animated series centered on an anthropomorphic horse, emerged as Netflix’s best show of the year was anything but expected. But, in a year full of formal innovations and surprises, this dark, soulful, scathing character study took the cake: from creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg, BoJack blended a melancholy exposition of depression and aging with razor-sharp pop culture satire, making for an irresistible cartoon cocktail.


8 |  Review

Andy Daly’s spoof-lensed display of televised masochism (and, increasingly, sadism) became an otherworldly work of absurdist art in its second year – bizarre, adventurous and disturbingly jubilant. At just 10 episodes of 22 minutes, this was a season rife with classics, from Forrest MacNeill’s (Daly) exploration of “turning a gay person” to forcing his girlfriend into a deranged cult of his own making. If you haven’t seen Review, you’ll likely have no idea what I’m talking about – and in a year as good as this one, it might sound strange to include a show of such content on a best-of list. But if you like your comedy unusual, layered and endlessly inspired, it doesn’t get much better than this.


9 |  Mad Men

One of the greatest shows of all-time went out with one of the best endings of all time – so why so low? Mad Men’s end run was ultimately plagued by AMC’s profit-related decision to split its final season into two halves of seven, a structural alteration that led to some pacing issues and underdeveloped tensions. But this final season was rich with series highlights, including tremendous acting from Jon Hamm and (surprisingly!) January Jones, and an episode that’ll go into the pantheon in “Time and Life.” Plus, it couldn’t have ended on a better, more encompassing image. These seven episodes left me frustrated, breathless, in awe and, finally, uncontrollably nostalgic – a fitting end for Matthew Weiner’s eight-year masterpiece.


10 |  Getting On

A mini-miracle in the vein of Enlightened, HBO’s other unheralded gem, Getting On was an enormously profound, incredibly funny hospital comedy that most people seemed totally unaware of. No matter, the show – now concluded – holds the distinction of being the most compassionate and humane series of its time, and for those who were lucky enough to encounter it, it’ll be hard to get the career-defining performances of Laurie Metcalf, Alex Borstein and especially Niecy Nash out of mind any time soon.
11 |  Bloodline


Located in the sunny Florida Keys, this star-studded production represented the year’s best example of fusing location with narrative. Bloodline’s slow-burn, deliberate approach turned some off early-on, which was too bad: emotionally and thematically, the family-noir built into something spectacularly unnerving, exploring sibling dynamics and parental failings with engrossing intelligence. Plus, you could do worse than that final showdown between Ben Mendelsohn and Kyle Chandler – good acting at its very, very best.



Josh Thomas’ gorgeous autobiographical comedy took some big risks in its third season, from tackling abortion head-on to working out a melancholy-outrageous-meditative psychedelic drug episode. The results affirmed Please Like Me as television’s most underrated show. Between its groundbreaking depictions of mental illness and gayness, and its beautifully lived-in day-to-day, the series is lending new meaning – and new importance – to the function of intimate, naturalistic storytelling in TV.


13 |  Mr. Robot

Sam Esmail swung for the fences with every moment of his USA drama Mr. Robot, and that he knocked it out of the park as often as he did speaks volumes about this show’s sizable impact. There are programs ranked lower on this list with fewer flaws, or more consistency – but rarely in television, or any medium really, does storytelling go this bold, this immersive and this aesthetically urgent.


14 |  Catastrophe

Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney brought their varied comedic approaches together for this brisk, funny and flat-out lovely new rom-com. Alternately sweet and salty, and with a flair for well-executed physical gags, Catastrophe snuck into an unusually crowded summer season and managed to stand out even still. Months later, it holds up as one of the year’s very best new shows.


15|  Veep

Selina Meyer went to the White House in Veep’s fourth season – which, while antithetical to the show’s conceit, made for a fitting cap to creator Armando Iannucci’s four-year run at its helm. Within the new parameters, the British showrunner thrived: along with sharper satire and tighter plotting, his final season ended with two deeply unpredictable episodes, right down to one of the most unexpected – and brilliant – civics lessons in television history.


16 |  UnREAL

A nighttime soap fictionalizing the behind-the-scenes action of The Bachelor airing on Lifetime, you say? Well, yes – this might have been the year’s most surprising treat, overcoming its network’s reputation and turning its genre on its head. An audacious formal effort as well as a fascinating social experiment, UnREAL indulged in all the right places.


17 |  Casual

Hulu may have done itself a disservice by releasing this excellent new series week-to-week. Casual quietly came and went this fall, but for those who saw it through, it certainly left a mark: anchored by Michaela Watkins’ exceptional lead performance, the series used its cinematic sensibilities to its advantage, building episode-by-episode into a sweeping survey of contemporary mores. A binge certainly suits this one.



Aziz Ansari’s auteuristic Netflix series made for one of the most polished first-year comedies in recent memory. Along with evocative cinematography and an assured tone, Master of None benefited from its co-creator’s unique and often bracing perspective, asking complex questions and asserting a vital new artistic voice in the process.


19 |  The Affair

After a bumpy first season, Showtime’s provocative psychodrama evened out for a thoughtful and often devastating look at love and heartbreak. The show remains hampered-down by an ill-fitting fatalistic frame, but in expanding the roles that Joshua Jackson and Maura Tierney – who, lest I forget to single her out, provides shattering and unforgettable acting week after week – play as the wounded ex-spouses, The Affair has realized its panoramic potential.



It didn’t present itself as such, but You’re the Worst turned into a surprisingly dark anti-rom-com in its second season. Daring and poignant in equal measure, the tonal shift was an unqualified success – if a little imbalanced between comedy and drama at times – with stars Aya Cash and Chris Geere each doing fantastic work.


20T |  Broad City

Abbi and Ilana’s New York City adventures turned bolder and weirder in Broad City’s second season, by which I mean to say: this shaggy, lovable comedy got even better.

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The 10 runner-ups…

21: Show Me a Hero. Oscar Isaac gave an astonishing performance in this David Simon miniseries, a production of admirable complexity and dramatic intelligence. If not the creator’s best work, it marked a return to form, with expert direction from Paul Haggis imbuing his vision with great depth.

22: Orange Is the New Black. The weakest season of Netflix’s groundbreaking series so far, there was still plenty to love here. New characters had the opportunity to shine, the writing still crackled with humor, and it ended on a sequence as sublime as anything Jenji Kohan has done to date.

23: Better Call Saul. The Breaking Bad prequel could feel inessential at times, but this first season made for a tightly-plotted, gorgeously-realized return to the suburbs of Albuquerque. Plus, it seems to be headed for more intriguing territory in season two.

24: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s 30 Rock-inspired follow-up mainly showcased Ellie Kemper’s considerable comedic gifts, but it also – if unevenly – bravely tackled a dark subject matter with relentless sunniness.

25: Fargo. Most critics viewed this as one of the year’s very best – and while fully aware of everything that made it great, there was something missing for me from this second season of Fargo. That said, it dazzled on more than a few occasions, and the phenomenal performances from Kirsten Dunst and Bokeem Woodbine packed one helluva wallop.

26: Togetherness. The Duplass Brothers’ first foray into series television was a largely successful, and typically understated, endeavor. Bolstered by the terrific Amanda Peet and Melanie Lynskey, this intimate family drama – blink twice if you’ve heard that one before – overcame familiarity with a distinct perspective.

27: Jane the Virgin. Jennie Snyder Urman’s telenovela mash-up tends to get a little overcrowded – and can get in the habit of spinning its wheels over long, 20-plus episode seasons – but Jane the Virgin is always a crafty and delightful genre experiment, elevated by Gina Rodriguez’s standout work.

28: Looking. Andrew Haigh’s tapestry of gay life in contemporary San Francisco made key improvements in its second season, ending on a powerhouse of a finale before an abrupt cancellation. At least HBO’s giving the guys a movie to wrap things up.

29: The Knick. Scattered writing, spotty characterizations and a general lack of drive aren’t enough to keep this period piece down. Steven Soderbergh’s singular direction (and Cliff Martinez’s score) continues to amaze, even if, admittedly, a big part of me wishes it were in service of a more compelling narrative.

30: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Sunny’s tenth season represented the sitcom at its most creative, ambitious and hilarious. How many comedies have been able to say that so late in the game?

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