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1 | The Americans
The Americans reached a new peak in its fourth season, in many ways a culmination of its rueful meditation on personhood and allegiance. The FX series positions a fake marriage within the very real contours of the Cold War, tracking in meticulous hour-long scripts how cause and purpose — how identity and belief — can gradually push up against emotion and feeling. In Season 4, the show mined profound ideas out of character development: a whole life’s work compromised by falling in love, a single mission aborted by succumbing to guilt, a facade rooted in ideological purity turned achingly real. As detached and as bleak as The Americans has remained through four years, its central juxtaposition has long been the vitality of connection and the sanctity of identity. In continuing to realize that contrast, the utter, painful, mournful brilliance of The Americans came into focus like never before.
2 | Rectify
It ended as it began: curious, strange, ethereal, uncomfortably funny. Ray McKinnon’s soaring account of moving on while reckoning with the past was, in sum, quite the miracle for TV, a work of Southern family portraiture basked in a philosophical daydream, anchored by the best cast around.
3 | American Crime
The second chapter of John Ridley’s provocative anthology series was, almost, too ambitious for its own good, tackling bullying, sexual violence, hacking, and queer identity in one sweeping artistic expression. And yet, it succeeded — remarkably. Ridley’s fondness for gorgeous but unconventional cinematography, as well as his commitment to emotional authenticity, allowed this experimental tapestry of American intolerance to flow and land beautifully.
4 | The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
Ryan Murphy tackling the trial of the century didn’t sound like much on paper. But with the help of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Larry Flynt), he managed to offer the most vital and refined new TV program of the year. Sarah Paulson, Courtney B. Vance, and Sterling K. Brown all gave magnificent performances in a series that expertly balanced camp with tragedy, and social commentary with pulpy entertainment.
5 | Fleabag
Fleabag was inelegantly sandwiched this fall between the buzzier debuts of One Mississippi and Transparent Season 3. But this ended up topping both of them. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s sexy, raunchy, deliriously comic six-part series made for a fascinating character study as well as a thrilling genre experiment, drawing from theater, film, and TV to create something wholly unique.
6 | Atlanta
Is there anything Donald Glover can’t do? The proven actor-writer-rapper took on a new challenge in creating and shepherding the FX series Atlanta, a surreal foray into the streets of Atlanta, Georgia. Strikingly cinematic, lusciously written, and with profound insights into perceptions of race and class, here was the anticipated freshman that exceeded expectations.
7 | Transparent
Jill Soloway’s big-hearted, gloriously cynical family tragicomedy is still going strong, three years in. This season felt like a turning point for Transparent, a look at how its characters have changed (or not) before promising to push them in exciting new directions. Mostly, though, it gave Soloway a chance to continue working out her thorny ideas, Jeffrey Tambor and the rest of the cast (especially Judith Light) to shine, and the audience to both laugh and cry — to look inward, really — along the way.
8 | Veep
What would it look like without Armando Iannucci at the helm? Veep is always so effortlessly great as political comedy that it tends to get the short shrift in this era of formal and structural innovation. But this year it deserved even more attention: Despite its showrunner change to Seinfeld alum David Mandel, the series only got better, bitingly focusing on the perils of the presidency and the hopelessness that meets the achievement of ambition. Julia Louis-Dreyfus took on a larger role behind the scenes, but she shined like never before in front of the camera, too.
9 | Better Call Saul
After delivering a promising but uneven first season, Vince Gilligan and his Breaking Bad team returned to top form with the sophomore run of Better Call Saul. Playing with ostensibly low stakes, the show used the power of craft — as well as the advantage of implicit foreshadowing — to mine astonishing suspense out of relatively minor conflict. Of serial dramas still in their beginning stages, this one feels most primed for greatness.
10 | Better Things
Pamela Adlon’s long-awaited TV breakout played second-fiddle to Atlanta on FX this fall, but the show was spectacular in its own way. Particularly, Better Things nailed the highs and lows of motherhood like nothing else out there.
This new TBS comedy-caper snuck in at the end of the year, without much fanfare surrounding it. But for viewers quickly absorbed by its inspired mix of noir mystery and millennial satire, this was all part of the appeal. Search Party was filled with unexpected treats, both in the plot — with episodes ending on cliffhangers just juicy enough to demand another half-hour spent on the couch — and in its deeper ideas about vanity and projection. The series started out as a fun, frothy ride, but it morphed into something far richer: a sly genre reinvention, rooted in the quixotic search for purpose and meaning.
After a disappointing third season, Jenji Kohan came roaring back with her best run of episodes to date. Balancing dozens of plotlines and weaving broad systemic critiques into intimate character portraits, OITNB realized its panoramic potential, building to a harrowing (if controversial) conclusion that should drastically alter its course.
11 | Search Party
This new TBS comedy-caper snuck in at the end of the year, without much fanfare surrounding it. But for viewers quickly absorbed by its inspired mix of noir mystery and millennial satire, this was all part of the appeal. Search Party was filled with unexpected treats, both in the plot — with episodes ending on cliffhangers just juicy enough to demand another half-hour spent on the couch — and in its deeper ideas about vanity and projection. The series started out as a fun, frothy ride, but it morphed into something far richer: a sly genre reinvention, rooted in the quixotic search for purpose and meaning.
12 | Orange Is the New Black
After a disappointing third season, Jenji Kohan came roaring back with her best run of episodes to date. Balancing dozens of plotlines and weaving broad systemic critiques into intimate character portraits, OITNB realized its panoramic potential, building to a harrowing (if controversial) conclusion that should drastically alter its course.
13 | The Crown
This supremely expensive, outwardly ambitious investment for Netflix had obvious risks attached. But the vision of creator Peter Morgan paid off nonetheless: Smartly using an episodic structure (quite unlike other dramas on the streaming platform) and balancing stunning production design with acute acting and writing, The Crown offered intriguing historical depiction without losing sight of what makes for satisfying drama.
14 | Jane the Virgin
It’s an extremely difficult trick to pull off, and somehow, creator Jennie Snyder-Urman manages to do it every single week. Jane the Virgin has always been a good show, but it really came into its own in the back-half of Season 2, zeroing in on the challenges of new motherhood while keeping the telenovela spirit alive and well. Season 3 hasn’t slowed down a bit.
15 | Queen Sugar
Chalk this up as one of the most successful film-to-TV transitions yet. Selma director Ava DuVernay used her new platform to provocatively juxtapose resonant family drama with sharp political messaging. The result was a show both rich with feeling and unafraid to grapple with big, complicated ideas.
16 | Broad City
A little distant in memory since it was so early in the year, but Broad City — always one of the best out-and-out comedies on television — was as great (and funny) as ever in its third season, and even dug a little deeper into the Ilana/Abbi dynamic (most notably in the standout episode “Burning Bridges”).
17 | Black-ish
Broadcast’s best comedy and, increasingly, a bracing return to form for the American family sitcom. The show has only gotten bolder in its exploration of racial identity, with recent episodes shifting perspective to Bow (the great Tracee Ellis Ross) and unabashedly contending with prescient topics like police brutality and the divisive election. It’s pleasurable, fun, and sharp — a rare mix nowadays.
18 | Horace and Pete
Louis C.K.’s barroom drama — modern in structure and distribution, retro in feel and execution — was the best kind of one-off. An unprecedented genre mashup that worked through elements of classical tragedy and on-the-nose political commentary, Horace and Pete showcased the immense value of a great artist trying something unusual and different, and throwing it out there for all to see. Come for the surprise factor, stay for the dynamic acting.
19 | BoJack Horseman
I didn’t love BoJack this year as I did Season 2 — some themes got a little repetitious, and its storylines didn’t come together as seamlessly — but it’s hard to argue with the show’s continued greatness. Individual episodes were as excellent as BoJack has ever been, maybe even better, and the show’s infectious combination of melancholy and satire was no less beautifully calibrated.
20 | Insecure
After a rocky pilot, Issa Rae’s new HBO comedy Insecure grew into something special. In addition to Rae’s distinct comic sensibility, the series offered some valuably nuanced perspective on friendship and romance, fearlessly throwing itself into the grey area before brimming with surprising truths.
Remakes don’t often make for great art, but the History Channel’s urgent update on Roots was a welcome exception. Divided into four episodes of feature-film length, the new limited series traced the origins and legacy of American slavery without compromise. In its scope and accessibility, it maintained the original’s vitality while asserting new relevance.
21 | Roots
Remakes don’t often make for great art, but the History Channel’s urgent update on Roots was a welcome exception. Divided into four episodes of feature-film length, the new limited series traced the origins and legacy of American slavery without compromise. In its scope and accessibility, it maintained the original’s vitality while asserting new relevance.
And the 10 runner-ups…
22. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: A lovely outlier of a show that deserves accolades merely for lasting as long as it has. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend doesn’t have all of its elements in place, but creator-star-songwriter Rachel Bloom demonstrates an enviable level of ingenuity, creativity, and sheer passion on a weekly basis.
23. Casual: I continue to love this show, flaws, occasional smugness, and all. Michaela Watkins gives one of TV’s best performances — no question — and its focus on connection in the digital age remained refreshingly original and restrained in Year 2.
24. Vice Principals: Proudly divisive and not always so clever, Vice Principals swung for the fences with every episode and didn’t consistently connect. But when it did, Danny McBride’s treatment of white male grievance doubled as a brutal satire and a full-on horror show.
25. High Maintenance: The ingenious web miniseries proved naysayers wrong with this terrific HBO upgrade. Not all episodes were created equal, but the highs — the Max/Lainey sequel of “Meth(od)” and, especially, the dog-centric “Grandpa” — were arguably better than anything the show had tried before.
26. Difficult People: The polish of Difficult People Season 2 was undeniable. Its first season was clever, but a little light and all over the place; this new batch of episodes was more confident and, in turn, far more rewarding.
27T. Hap and Leonard: Sundance’s new series was weird, short, and completely under-the-radar. But the aesthetic introduced by director Jim Mickle was deliciously swampy and cinematic, and Michael K. Williams added another sensational performance to his resume.
27T. Greenleaf: Before Queen Sugar, OWN proved its seriousness as a cable TV player with Greenleaf. From veteran TV writer Craig Wright, the show sincerely (and, okay, a little soapily) dove into the world of the black megachurch — a completely new milieu for TV.
28. Girls: I’d mostly written Girls off after its superb first season, despite some great episodes along the way. Not only was its fifth (and penultimate) season its best since, but it reminded that, both for a show and its characters, change can be a difficult but worthwhile endeavor.
29. The Carmichael Show: Jerrod Carmichael's throwback NBC half-hour is the best thing the multi-camera format has going for it. Lively, smart, and a tremendous showcase for David Alan Grier and Loretta Devine, it's the rare talky, issue-centric sitcom to successfully hit home.
30. Billions: Billions was a bit unfairly labeled as the latest empty, antihero prestige cable drama to hit the landscape. It eventually realized its potential as a compelling cat-and-mouse game, and its very conceit — privileged power players in New York City going after one another, with everyone beneath them treated like pawns — worked as sly social commentary.