14. This Is Us
“
Follows a unique ensemble, as their paths cross and their life stories interwine in curious ways, from sharing the same birthday, to so much more than anyone would expect.” – When NBC gets a show in a year-end list, you know it must be really good television. The network's had a lot of noticeable misses in the past few years but it has done a fantastic job with This Is Us to ensure a success in viewership, social media activity, and quality. It offers a comforting familiar story about a complex family and middle America that never fails if properly cultivated ("Friday Night Lights", "Parenthood").
The first 10 episodes were all pretty strong. The show fully embraces the schmaltz and tear-inducing tropes of its predecessors (and I love it so much) but it does so knowing how effective it can be and the sensitive material (i.e. race, weight issues) is handled with care. And on the screen we have great directing and acting from all the cast with Emmy Award winner Sterling K. Brown being the obvious standout. His character's arc is probably my favourite too as it deals with him connecting with his terminally-ill birth father while taking care of his own amazing family and working at a job he doesn't know if he likes or not.
There's a thing to be said about the storytelling structure but it ruins the main twist of the show so I'll just gloss over that and say the show effectively uses a tired technique from television. It also effectively turns character's trivial dilemmas into universal stories that get us invested and give characters that we want to see more of. I'm excited for it to return next month yet I'm wary too about the number of episodes (18) and the show running on twists. They are nicely weighted so far but it can easily go one twist too far at any moment which takes you out as a viewer but I’m ready for that not to happen.
13. Black Mirror
*I hate this write-up
The anthology series was already among my all-time favourites after it aired the final episode of the second season in 2013, so I was super excited when it was announced the series would be returning to
Netflix with a new season consisting of 6 episodes to again examine modern society and new technology. The shift to Netflix meant the new episodes would have newfound freedom in terms of content and format, bigger actors, a bigger budget to maximise futuristic aspects of the episodes and maybe better episodes overall. It was a dream that partly came true.
I think the lead actors from the new episodes–Bryce Dallas Howard, Wyatt Russell, Alex Lawther, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Mackenzie Davis–all did a stellar job, especially at conveying the respective emotions each character were going through. The shift to American settings was successful for "Nosedive" and "San Junipero" in particular as the former amazingly captures a pastel-toned mini universe that looks like the inside of your phone and the latter is one of the most aesthetically pleasing episodes ever. However, I would say the downside with the shift to Netflix is the episode lengths getting expanded by 10 minutes or so because it resulted in too much padding for every episode. "San Junipero" is the only one perfect from start to finish so I'm not surprised it's become so acclaimed. I mean obviously there's other reasons but I'm having a hard time writing about this show, ugh. Let me just finish by saying it wasn't a dream come true but the anthology series remains one of the most significant media items of our time and I enjoyed (kinda) watching all the episodes.
12. Fleabag
“
A six-part comedy series adapted from the award-winning play about a young woman trying to cope with life in London whilst coming to terms with a recent tragedy.” – The show essentially fits in with the growing number of sad comedies ("Baskets", "Transparent") and antiheroine-led shows ("Girls", "You're the Worst") of the new decade but it brilliantly differs in how it is presented. Creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge adapted the show from her award-winning play and it maintains a theatrical energy that is elevated when Fleabag (the leading character) breaks the fourth-wall and speaks directly to us like we are in the audience. It's a device that has been used before on "House of Cards" but Fleabag's use is more to my liking as she does it to share her wry observations and secrets about other characters and it functions almost as an inside joke with us and her. It's a terrific job at characterization and a subtle nod at empathizing with a very flawed character.
More importantly, the show is hilarious and unafraid of improvised tangents and digressions from the narrative. It's held up by the terrific personality of the lead, a 30-something woman living in London, who can be in the middle of a serious discussion to go on and make a joke about anal sex and vibrators, and it's not even as juvenile as it sounds. The humour just perfectly lands with all the scenarios she's in and Waller-Bridge gives us the best facial expressions lol. Some of the other wonderful actors on the show include Olivia Colman who owns her role as the terrible stepmother and Hugh Dennis as the recurring bank manager. The latter's role (as with the entire show towards the end) takes a turn into the dramatic terrority with a scene that is one of the finest of the year. It was hard not to straight-up binge-watch as it's only 3 hours in total but I'm glad I didn't. The third act is a pretty dark experience that pervades the narrative as each moment passes to finally end with one of the most brutal and best twists of the year, which reframes everything we’ve seen before and puts into question the reliability of our narrator Fleabag. It's one of the smartest shows on the list and I'm sure it would be higher on another day.
Replies
Oh yeah, and 29 #Strafford APTS 
it seemed like style over substance if i'm honest. 
Love how polarizing it is.
