*After a very bumpy, meh first season and a great second one comes a brilliant third season. Who'd have thought? I sure didn't as I had originally dropped it halfway through the first one.
**Also, did anyone ever think Gordon would turn into such a sympathetic, rootable character? Wow.
***'The Threshold' is like its own 'Shut The Door, Have A Seat', changes the entire game but this one has stronger personal stakes even if it's obviously not as great as that historic piece of television. Still brilliant.
****Its embracement of episodic television really pulls each episode together and still manages to string the season together as a whole. Haven't seen much better than this season this year.
*****Mackenzie Davis and Kerry Bishé are just terrific. The show's depiction of female relationships neatly contrasts Peggy and Joan on 'Mad Men' who gradually arrived at some common ground by the end whereas 'Halt' seems to be heading towards an unfixable rapture of these two friends and it breaks my heart into two. Feminism wins either way.
******That final five-to-six episode streak is the best one on TV this year.
*******So Mackenzie Davis might have had the best year of TV, being on this and in 'San Junipero'. Go watch her in 'Always Shine' and 'Blade Runner: 2049' next year, don't care if this is shameless promo.
Best Episodes: "Yerba Buena"; "And She Was"; "The Threshold"; "You Are Not Safe"; "NIM"; "NeXT";
*The most frustrating but also the most ingenious, brliliant TV season of the year. This ranking shows what overweight what for me.
**Hopefully, the second season will be more interested in character building instead of audience misleading and twists, but at least the finale justified all of this more than just satisfyingly.
***What does consciousness mean? When can we truly be ourselves and at what point do we know if we've made a decision that is truly and only our own? What does the 'dawn of self' mean? Westworld will answer in 2018, probably by taking even more religious and philosophical anecdotes and turning them into exhilerating, breath-taking and irritating tv.
****Thandie Newton's Maeve is the most feminist character of the year and had the single-most exciting and momentous storyline of the season. "She was alive, truly alive, if only for a moment."
*****Furthermore, Evan Rachel Wood has given the best female performance of the year, masterfully switching between all kinds of ranges within a matter of seconds during a single take.
******Dolores is my favorite new character of the year. Her positive, self-empowering attitude and fruitful view of life as beautiful is inspiring and nicely counters my own. I want to be like her.
*******Honestly, whenever this show worked, it worked better than anything else on TV this year. There isn't much that I personally enjoyed more than 'Westworld' in 2016, except, probably the next show.
********"These violent delights have violent ends."
Best Episodes: "The Original"; "The Adversary"; “Trompe L’Oeil”; "The Bicameral Mind"
*Hey, everyone has their personal favorites and whenever 'Game of Thrones' lands I can't say I love anything else on TV as much as this show. There's also no currently airing show I'm more invested in outside of its airing times.
**How do you come back from your worst season? Infuse your show with new-found energy, actually make up on the promise of long-impending actions and go back to what made the best seasons so strong in first place - uniting single episodes through a single theme.
***While its theme-based episode telling and narrative momentum helped the show gain more weight and reach a strong late peak it's running in danger of forgetting to build out its very essential character moments that have made this such a compelling drama in first place. So far, it's not a problem but next season could potentially suffer from some moments feeling less earned if they're rushed or not anchored in the emotional foundation of previous shockers.
****So this makes Cersei the greatest anti-heroine of TV now. Lena deserved that Emmy, sorry Maggie. It's not hard to imagine a different show in which Cersei is just as great as Tony Soprano or Don Draper, but this is not that show and it's not a problem anyway.
*****Ramin Djawadi is the best artist of the year, with this and Westworld. Beyoncé and Solange can fight about the last two spots in that trinity.
******The first 15 minutes of 'Winds of Winter' are the single-best and most masterfully crafted moments of 'Game of Thrones' yet. Oh, and possibly of the entire year.
*******I was incredibly impressed how this season was able to undo some of its previous mistakes and make them shine in a new light. Sansa's empowering agency and direct addressing of being a rape victim was a powerful scene; the gratuitous use of female nudity being turned around to depict Melisandre's and Cersei's loss of faith and power respectively nicely contrasted with Daenery's own statement of nudity as dominance and control. All three instances constitute a motivational reinforcement for these three women, especially in Daenery's case it's a powerful statement about how time can be a loop and only once aware of it can you break out.
********Feminism.
*********So next season might be generic and hazy, but I choose to see the beauty so far.
**********Hold the door!
***********'Battle of the Bastards' contextualizing the entire war and game of thrones as a violent, gruesome depiction of how corruption, monarchy and the pursuit for more power have destroyed thousands of lives in this world that we've never cared about seeing as almost all characters we root for are the ones gambling with those seemingly irrelevant lives in first place. Tyrion himself nicely points out that episode's goal beforehand when he states how abstract death always seems as long as it's not our own lives at stake just before it moves on to visualize that feeling and literally put us in Jon Snow's mind later on. It's a pivotal moment for the show as its moves towards the end. A 'Saving Private Ryan' for TV and I'm glad 'Game of Thrones' did it first.
************Arya's ark was, at times, a bit too hazily handled but I refuse to argue with someone who didn't see the allegorical nature of the theater scenes on Arya aside from being fun, meta- and social commentary.
Best Episodes: "Book of the Stranger"; "Hold the Door"; "Blood of My Blood"; “Battle of the Bastards”; "Winds of Winter"
*Getting increasingly frustrated about how calculated and by-the-numbers 'The Americans' can sometimes feel on a technical level and how the fact that its direction doesn't live up to the rest of its top-notch qualities imbues it with a cold distance that sometimes makes you feel shut out emotionally.
**Still, ranking it this high, 'The Americans' continued to be on a roll in a stellar fourth season about national identity and the scary misconceptions it can lead towards as well as an intimate exploration of its central couple feels ready to fully confront the misleading foundation their marriage has been built upon.
***'Copperfield' had all the emotion and all the inventiveness I usually miss in it and is arguably the series' best episode yet. It was like the season (or the entire series) increasingly suffocated us with a plastic bag and in 'Copperfield' the bag finally exploded, letting us breathe through after a handful of wrenching moments, if only for a minute.
****Using biological weapons as a metaphor for the season's and several relationship's own inherent dangers that could, and eventually would, implode any minute was golden.
*****Emmy Winner Keri Russell and Emmy Winner Matthew Rhys. How does that sound, my friends?
Best Episodes: “The Magic Of David Copperfield V: The Statue Of Liberty Disappears”; “A Roy Rogers In Franconia”; “Persona Non Grata”
*Well, in an underwhelming year of TV with lots of good seasons but lacking the type of landmark seasons 2015 had, this was an easy one. 'Rectify' was almost always bound to end up as my #1 this year, provided it wouldn't have turned to ****, which, of course, was never going to happen anyway. If this wasn't the most artistic, empathetic, affectionate and liberating watch of the year, I don't know what is.
**I don't think this was its best season. Season 2 and 3 share that cake, but very deliberately this last streak of episodes was constructed much more as an epilogue to a story whose ending had already been written before and everything comes into place too heart-wrenchingly fulfilling.
***For such a depressing, bleak subject at the core of the show, 'Rectify' really did everything it could to work against it and turn into one of the most hopeful and beautiful depictions about the good of humanity, faith and second chances.
****Every single scene of its last hours is bathed in a never-stopping aching yearning for something deeply infinite, melancholic and warmly reassuring. It's a feeling hard to describe but whether any of its characters will ever find out what it is they're yearning for from now on was never 'Rectify's story to tell.
*****To absolutely no one's surprise 'Rectify' lives up to its title and belives in the redemption and absolution of its characters. Everyone finds some inner peace in these final, most ruminative hours of the most ruminative show, all while still being aware of the lengths they have yet to go. No one's problems have been fixed but everyone's come to a state of awareness and resolution that feels like genuine progress anyway and I don't think there could have been a more fitting conclusion than this.
******Aiden Young, without a doubt, gives the best performance of the year, turning every scene with him in it into a reel for future acting lessons.
*******Teddy Jr.'s story this season was magnificient. We can only hope that every douche in this world ends up so self-aware and earnest that they become genuinely likable and rootable at one point in their lives.
********I remain consistently impressed with how 'Rectify' can be such a deeply religious show without ever feeling like it has a propaganda. It uses the most approachable and redeeming values religion preaches at its core and weaves them into the show's themes and journeys so subtle it's almost hard to notice at times.
********And with that we lose one of the most soulful, spiritual and creatively and artistically ambitious shows of all time. It was a gorgeous run with some of the most relatable characters of all time that I don't want to say goodbye to just yet. Their personal journeys might possibly make for the most soul-baring watch ever.
*********"Way more people have tried to help me than harm me. Harm just seems to leave the deeper mark." Wow.
**********No other show has made me cry this much in 2016 so could I have possibly ranked anything else above it? In case of doubt, always go by the cry-o-meter.
Best Episodes: "Yolk"; "Pineapples in Paris"; "Physics"; "Happy Unburdening"; "All I'm Sayin'"
YES a perfect top 4! I think Season 4 of Rectify might've been my least favorite season but like it was still the best show on tv so that's not much of a complaint. I've heard good things about Halt and Catch Fire so I'll definitely check that out soon.
Love most of your other picks, esp Better Call Saul and OITNB. Your insights into everything >>>>
Despite a more than bumpy seventh season in which the show’s Vice setting puzzlingly intentionally ignored many character developments and relationships previously built, FX’s animation comedy staple ‘Archer’ has actually somewhat found its way back to a more relevant and worthy storytelling set-up this year.
Building their own detective agency, ‘Archer’ was able to return to its original spy roots and seemed to showcase a certain mature embracement of its familiarity that made this season a more pleasant watch than many recent ones where the repetitiveness felt much more like creative loops. Instead, ‘Archer’ may have finally figured out that it’s a better story about a miserable and lost group of spies that will always have an egotistical nature and can’t change for the better, no matter how frustrating or aggravating that might be to some characters. As a viewer, however, that revelation turned ‘Archer’ into a more profound show while also relaying back to some of its classic, snippy humor that was the show’s hook in first place.
‘Archer’s last couple of seasons have finally been announced and for all the change that the finale has implied, I’m weirdly confident that it will continue to circle back to its center of accustomed gravity – just as much as this hateful and selfish bunch of people always found their way back to each other, no matter how many reboots or re-innovations some of them have gone through.
Best Episodes:"Motherless Child"; "Bel Banto: Part 1&2"; "Double Indecency"; "Deadly Velvet: Part II"
Judd Apatow, the creator and showrunner of Netflix comedy series ‘Love’, is known for having modernized the (romantic) comedy genre in cinema and turning it into something that works by more realistic rules, taking into account real gender standards and accurate life prospects. Characters in his movies (and all the offspring movies he’s influenced) can often feel more relatable and easily understandable than the ones who live a romanticized version of life because they’re allowed to share our own flaws and existential problems and express them through their humor. Yet, at the same time, this more lifelike approach also takes out some of the fantasy and escapist appeal we long for in our romances that used to define the genre.
All of this also applies to Apatow’s first television series ‘Love’ which works as a modern riff-off of the familiar “cool girl meets geek”-trope and slightly subverts it into something more truthful. Although ‘Love’ can feel a tad washed-out at times, it never feels too played out thanks to the watch-worthy performances of its leads Gillian Jacobs (who’s already proven her worth in the excellent ‘Community’) and Paul Rust as well as its courage to move into slightly darker territory that treats the effects addiction of drug and/or alcohol consumption can have on a person and a (new) relationship. This is a somewhat new path for Apatow who usually enjoys drug abuse in his movies but glamorizes the use of it.
In true Apatow nature ‘Love’ also has a knack for overstaying its welcome at parts, stretching a fun and enjoyable premise out too thin over too much time. At only 10 episodes it already feels too long and inarguably would have been more effective with probably half as much, getting rid of all the unnecessities and focusing on the affecting love story at its core. Interestingly enough, then it would also have been cut down to roughly the length of a movie.
Ultimately, I’m willing to invest myself into and root for the love story at the center of this series. Its bolder and more complex dynamics are enough to sustain the interest, but to truly survive ‘Love’ also has to remember the love story anchoring it in first place and not always start drifting apart from it – in more ways than just one.
Best Episodes: “The Date”; “Closing Title Song”; “The Table Read”
#18 - Fresh off the Boat
It is common knowledge that network TV is declining creatively and popularly but weirdly, it still more often than not gets its comedies right. One of its very best is ‘Fresh off the Boat’, a lively, nostalgic comedy about an immigrant Taiwanese family living in Orlando of the 90s.
‘Boat’ continued to be mostly terrific in its second year, albeit less consistent with a few more misses, thanks to sticking to the storytelling patterns of traditional family sitcoms but subverting them by not focusing on the typical American family – at least not on that of the 90s. This comedy thrives whenever it’s throwing its characters into situations in which the two cultures they identify with clash and as a result their own ideas about living through national identity do so, as well.
In parts the latter half of its second season and the third season have failed to live up to the constant heights of its outstanding debut year. However, many of its standout episodes, such as the premiere set in Taiwan or the expertly juicy ‘Jessica Place’ (an homage to Melrose Place’s melodramatic-mysticism), are some of the most intrepid and freshest single installments of the year, dealing with what it means to be an Asian immigrant in the US and the changes that come with it.
Staying true to its traditional premise ‘Fresh off the Boat’, of course, balances familiar themes – family, marriage, growing up and the converging of them all but represents them in a subversive and diverse manner so that nothing ever feels overdone. Additionally, Randall Park and Constance Wu (especially Constance Wu) come together to ground the series in a beautiful, almost conflict-free marriage mirroring that of Eric and Tami Taylor, ironically one that embodies the quintessential, typical American dream probably just as much as their own does.
Consequently, ‘Fresh off the Boat’ remains one of the most varied, inventive and fun comedies, not just on network, but period. It feels both familiar and new all at once and even during its stumbles manages to be a vivid, positive portrayal of America as a melting pot and the common values at its core shared by us all.
Best Episodes: “Jessica Place”; “Hi, My Name Is…”; “Coming From America”
To make one thing clear: This was not the best season of ‘Broad City’. It’s still TV’s best portrayal of a relative conflict-free friendship but also lost some of its novel appeal and unfortunately wasn’t entirely prepared to make up for it. It was bound to happen that modern-day comic-double-punch Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson would use their show as a rocket to deliver their own opinions on some of the many currently heated political debates. Yet, a ‘Broad City’ with a message is also a ‘Broad City’ that loses some of its free-caring and escapist appeal and there were a few episodes that dragged the season down.
Of course, ranking this high, ‘Broad City’ nonetheless remains one of the best shows on televisionm and one of my personal faves, precisely because it keeps daring and experimenting with its own identity and refusing to rest on its laurels.
Every episode is still original, alive and energetic, often going into unforeseeable places one can’t predict early on.
Most importantly, of course, is that the show is also as hilarious as ever because it understands to switch up its jokes. After three years it has enough confidence in itself and its audience to play around with running gags and hide them in the sort of visual innovativeness we’ve gotten used to. The season opener depicts both friends going swiping through several days of their daily morning routines in their own bathrooms and the differences and similarities could not be more striking yet also feel comfortably familiar. A musical dance-session with Whoopi Goldberg reprising her role as Sister Mary Clarence after Ilana gets fired from her job. And yes, even a short meeting with Hillary Clinton after volunteering is played for all the laughs you could get out of it. This season’s evolution is both inevitable and progressive, every episode and joke feeling in the right place despite some tries working better than others.
Either way, the implication is clear: This is a story about two women who use their show as a catalyst to channel their own personal thought-processes.
That means that ‘Broad City’ is as liberating and free-spirited as its young and vibrant voices are sweeping. It also means that at one time or another, it will not only stray off into more provoking thoughts but that some of its experiments won’t quite land as others. ‘Broad City’ will never fall apart, however, as long as its uniquely funny comedy couple knows that their show’s depiction of their beautiful bond of friendship has enough power and strength to hold it all together and transcend it into one of the most remarkable and irreplaceable comedies of all time.
Best Episodes: “Two Chainz”; “Co-Op”; “Game Over”; “Burning Bridges”; “Jews on a Plane”
Grace & Frankie is one of the most beautiful miracles of the year for carrying on quality-wise where it left off last year. Its first season gradually settled into an increasingly impressive and appreciative groove, figuring out how exactly to approach a humorous but heart-rending story about the emotional state of two women in their late lives and what aging and identity means to them.
With its second season, ‘Grace & Frankie’ built up to an even more potent last streak of episodes that more often than not strongly pondered on the powerful bond of long-lasting friendships, the longing for sexual fulfillment and realities of being sexually active even in retirement and one’s ability to redefine the structure of their late life.
When working with familiar premises it’s always important to at least stage its themes differently or try and find new things to say about them. While there might be a handful of better shows about identity in age, ‘Grace & Frankie’ still finds time to tell more outlying things that apply to its broader spectrum of aging nonetheless, such as exploring the effects of terminal disease and the conflicting morals about one’s personal right to determine their own point of death.
Furthermore, the second season was built upon a solid foundation of love, belonging and friendship instead of conflict and as a result capped off in more resonant and dramatically affecting moments that didn’t feel contrived but like natural developments that are essential parts of the story and characters.
‘Grace & Frankie’ can be surprisingly intimate and touching. Whenever the show is able to step back and let its character’s emotions breathe and sink it climbs up towards an elegant stage of thoughtful and contemplating self-analysis without once overwhelming due to its humorous direction.
It’s a sign that the show is aging as gracefully as the stories it wants to tell. Its wisdoms might lack a certain revelation but ‘Grace and Frankie’s second season didn’t only manage to serve proper justice to its material but most importantly also to its two powerhouse actresses, both of whom are able to transcend their characters and the quality of the show with it through their nuanced and relatable performances.
If ‘Grace & Frankie’ is able to continue its slow and steady upwards trend it may just discover that its very best years are still to come.
Best Episodes: “The Anchor”; “The Bender”; “The Party”; “The Coup”
*Second-most acclaimed show of the year, just behind the unstoppable force of ACS: OJ. But I'm sorry, I could not get into this.
**I love Donald Glover, always have ever since the amazing 'Community'.
***'Atlanta' is artistically ambitious and has a lot of merit but too often feels like a young, black 'Louie' to me that indulges in the idea of different weekly vignettes experimenting on how to depict different themes instead of feeling like something that came truly spontaneous, naturally and unforced.
****Also couldn't get past the clear messages it was trying to send despite its creator saying that's the last thing he wanted to do-
*****Despite all of that, 'Atlanta' is still an impressive and creative showcase that, at least sometimes, feels truly inspired and organic and whenever it does, it's an enthralling piece of television about the double standards in society - not just the ones that apply to black people but to all kinds of different minorities and inequalities.
Best Episodes: "Value"; "The Club"; "The Jacket"
#14 - Please Like Me
As far as gay-themed/-led comedies go, ‘Please Like Me’ has probably been the best of them all. Maybe that’s because where other gay-themed shows are overtly occupied with what it means to be gay and live a life in the gay scene, ‘Please Like Me’ treats sexuality as just another facet of its protagonist’s life – one that is messy but fun and depressing yet positive all at once.
The comedy’s fourth season, while not as exceptional as the stellar third, continued the spirit of turning its characters’ imperfections but also its own flaws into descriptive, definitive features illustrating that nobody’s perfect and why they shouldn’t try to be in first place.
On top of its spontaneous nature about everything, ‘Please Like Me’ has also been an incredibly progressive and insightful depiction of depression and in the series’ standalone best and most tragic episode to date this season creates a tragic conclusion to something long inevitable. The aftermath and its emotional consequences are dealt with in the finale but by no doubt will never be completely fixable. ‘It’s something that will just suck less with time’.
If the third season was about embracing and celebrating the beauty of small and intimate moments, and people finding their way back together despite everything, the fourth one is the natural succession of these thoughts. The late realization about why those moments should be cherished to begin with and their sneaky, quiet ways of shaping us as beings over time.
It might not have made for quite the same steady and fun watch as last year, but it’s even bolder and just as creative and most importantly commendable as ever.
Best Episodes: “Porridge”; “Degustation”; “Burrito Bowl”; “Souvlaki”
*This tech-satire's third season is arguably the best one yet that further delved into the machinations of the Silicon Valley industry and truthfully depicts the creative and personal cutbacks one has to suffer if they want to end up getting the rightfully earned recognition and rewards.
**Good depiction about the intersection of real and technical lives and which ones actually feel more real and true to us than the other.
***Undoubtedly one of the purely funniest series on this list and for that alone everyone should give it a try. I have no doubt its fourth season will be able to live up to its previous ones.
Best Episodes: "Meinertzhagen’s Haversack"; “To Build a Better Beta”; "Bachman’s Earning’s Over-Ride"; "The Uptick"
*One of the weirdest, most surreal experiments on TV you could come across this year but it works.
**Slightly reminiscent of Kudrow's 'The Comeback' as both are shows about two women who suffer from a clear dichotomy between the real life and their own perceived self-image and usually take a lot of suffering from that difference. Cringe-worthy even, at times, but always heartfelt.
***Loosely based on Bamford's own life and struggles with mental illness and as a consequence hits some truly powerful weights that are never overwhelming thanks to its ability to laugh through even the darkest of its hours. Definitely feels like her own personal way of trying to cope with everything she's gone through and expand it into a more universally lauded experience, no matter how surreal and illogical the show deliberately is.
Best Episodes: "A Vaginismus Miracle"; "No Friend Left Behind"; "Knife Feelings"; "Enter The Super Grisham"
#11 - Catastrophe
TV’s most filthy pleasure ‘Catastrophe’ managed to produce a second season that inhaled the same raunchy and coarse humorous air of its first outing but was also able to balance it with genuinely raw and grounded moments – a combination that worked so perfectly that it only elevated an already great show.
In season two the ‘Catastrophe’ was able to grow up alongside its characters (ok, at least they’re trying) and move past the intentionally chaotic set-up of its debut season by devoting time to its characters actually thinking and questioning their choices. Rob and Sharon, the raucous couple forming this comedy’s center, are now slowly settling down and after a seemingly never stopping turmoil in season one now have to confront themselves and their relationship. And it works phenomenally – not only because its two leads share a convincing and entertainingly destructive chemistry but also because both of them (who also write and run the show together but aren’t actually married) enrich the show’s world with even crazier supporting characters that almost fools us to believe its leads are the most normal, stable people that could possibly exist (they’re not).
‘Catastrophe’ isn’t just worth a shot anymore. Its second season has proved that it’s one of the best comedies around; finding its very own, unique voice. And as vulgar as the words coming out of it may be, they’re just as honest as they are cutting.
(Also, who wouldn’t want to see more of Carrie Fisher never failing to find new ways to insult her daughter-in-law and her family? RIP.)
Best Episodes: Episode 1; Episode 4; Episode 6 Favorite line: ‘You’re not an asshole. You’re a hemorrhoid on an asshole.’
