In the larger scheme of things, this is very much not a problem. But what if there’s too much good TV? Last year alone, nearly 500 scripted shows were released,
85 percent more TV than aired in 2011. And that’s not even counting
reality TV. Given the fact that we’ve got literally hundreds of options
to choose from, it’s hard to decide what shows to award our limited TV
watching time. So here’s a list that will help you narrow the field. Two
of the best shows of the year were Netflix’s true crime limited series Unbelievable and When They See Us,
important and harrowing tales each taking a deep dive into a real-life
miscarriage of justice. They’re not easy watching, but each tells a
complete story in no more than eight episodes, so they’re ideal for
anyone who’s not looking to make a multi-season commitment.
But if you’ve got the time to dive into a long running series, two era-defining shows, Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black, sang their swan songs in 2019, after eight and seven seasons respectively. Sure, Game of Thrones’
final episodes weren’t the show’s best—but if you got through the first
seven seasons, you pretty much have to see how it all ends. And while
prestige dramas have gotten so much attention, 2019 was pretty great for
sitcoms, too. Hulu’s Pen15 brought junior high to life in all of its horror and hilarity and Schitt’s Creek remains one of the best shows on TV, period. And cult gem like What We Do in the Shadows
is so bizarrely funny and sweet that it deserves a much wider audience.
When They See Us
Ava DuVernay’s Netflix miniseries When They See Us was
unquestionably one of the biggest television events of the year—the
famously tight-lipped streaming service announced that it was watched by
more than 23 million accounts, and it was nominated for 16 Emmy Awards,
eventually winning two. It tells the story of the boys who would be
first known as the Central Park Five and then, after spending years in
jail for the 1989 rape of a young banker, the Exonerated Five, when the
real rapist finally confessed. It’s harrowing and heartbreaking, but a
must-watch, especially for Jharrel Jerome’s Emmy-winning performance as
Korey Wise.
BoJack Horseman
In BoJack Horseman’s standout sixth and final season,
we pick up right where the previous season left off: with everyone’s
favorite equine sitcom star checking into seaside rehab, determined to
kick his alcoholism and mend fences with the loved ones he wronged. What
follows is a singular season where the typically inward-facing show
turns outward, widening the lens to ask what we owe one another. Though
the characters are mostly isolated from one another, set forward on
propulsive paths of individual growth, their journeys make for a
thematically cohesive story. Together they ask how we can get our heads
out of our own asses—how we can build lives of accountability and
service to others. To see these characters consider a more selfless,
outward-facing way through life is to see them grow monumentally, and to
see the show move toward an ending that feels leagues away from where
it started.
Euphoria
Before HBO’s Euphoria—which follows a group of Gen-Zers
in a no-named, vaguely tropical teenage romper-room-world—found its
voice as a funny-but-trippy, heartfelt-but-brutal look at relationships
and growing up, it was a pretty labor-intensive watch. You can’t exactly
follow ketamine-dripping teens and rogue locker room dicks for more
than an hour at a time. But after a couple episodes, Euphoria
stopped trying to shock the olds, and instead focused on its
protagonist, Rue—played by a brilliant Zendaya. This gave us these
inventive, surreal moments—like an ingenious spin on Rue’s
manic-depressive episode as an old-school detective thriller (“I’m
Morgan fuckin’ Freeman and this is the beginning of the third act”), or
the dick pic seminar to end all dick pic seminars. The result? The best
look at the generation born after 9/11 we’ve seen on TV yet.
Mindhunter
Save for playing into our current true-crime-obsessed culture, it’s a little bit of a surprise that Netflix’s Mindhunter
became the hit it did. It’s everything that blink-and-you’ll-miss-it
streaming binges aren’t: Often slow, plodding, think-y, takes time to
kick back and smell the cigarette smoke. But it’s the creeping pace that
makes Mindhunter, which follows the FBI’s Behavioral Science
Unit as they interview serial killers around the country, so damn
engrossing. David Fincher’s big TV splash—which features an incredible
(but never-not-anxious) Jonathan Groff as special agent Holden Ford—if
anything, only improved in Season Two, where we finally met one of the
big bads, Charles Manson.
Chernobyl
This joint BBC and HBO production isn’t just one of the best TV
show’s of 2019, it’s potentially one of the best TV shows ever. It’s
IMDb’s top-rated series of all time, and cleaned up at the Emmys with 10
wins and 19 nominations. The true story of the 1986 disaster at the
Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant created life in 1980s Soviet Union to
painstaking detail, all to demonstrate (with at times stomach-churningly
realistic gore) the ways in which one local accident became a global
disaster.
Jane the Virgin
If you’re in the market for a show that’s smart, infectiously warm, and just plain fun, Jane the Virgin is that show.
Based on a Venezuelan telenovela, Jane is a love letter to the form,
with a very telenovela premise. 23-year-old Jane Villaneuva is a teacher
and aspiring writer waitressing at a hotel restaurant to make ends
meet, but her hyper-planned life is thrown off track when her
gynecologist accidentally inseminates her at a routine check-up. To
complicate matters, Jane becomes pregnant without ever experiencing sex,
as she’s saving herself for marriage to her police officer fiance—and
the sperm donor is her married boss, with whom she once shared a torrid,
fleeting kiss. In an age when prestige TV too often means moody,
navel-gazing drama, Jane the Virgin proves that excellent
television needn’t be dark, self-serious, or humorless. In fact, it can
be an explosion of whimsy, pure delight, and kisses that literally lift
your feet off the ground. Jane herself describes the story best: “a big,
multigenerational story with romance, and drama, and heartache, and
crime, even—all of the lightness and all of the darkness.”
The Mandalorian
The whole internet loves Baby Yoda. Even if they haven't seen a single episode of Disney+'s The Mandalorian,
they know about the little, green 50-year-old child. They've seen him
drink his broth, they've seen him coo in his little crib. Sure, he's the
star, but somehow his adorableness doesn't overshadow what's a truly
impressive, and beautifully made Star Wars series. While sometimes the
story can be rather formulaic, The Mandalorian does exactly what it needs to do: Engross viewers in the gritty side of Star Wars,
placing them in the planets and towns and stories that the films just
don't have the time to expand upon. But more importantly: Baby Yoda. — Matt Miller
Watchmen
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's Watchmen comics revolutionized the
medium. The transgressive series upended our idea of superhero stories
and has been debated by fans and scholars since its first publication in
the mid-'80s. To continue this beloved, challenging series as an HBO
series is a daunting task. Yet, Damon Lindelof pulled off the
impossible—creating a show that's not a carbon copy, but channels the
punk rock spirit of the original source material. With incredible acting
from leads like Regina King and Jean Smart, this is the series that
fans deserve, even if they didn't know it was the one they wanted
Succession
In its second season, Succession continued the Shakespearean
story of the Roy family—one that's hilarious and emotional as it is
prescient. Touching on everything from politics to media, the inner
workings of the billionaires with a vice-grip on our country, Succession
makes our real-life villains into tragic, human figures. Superbly acted
and brilliantly written, Succession is shaping up to be one of the most
important dramas of the next decade. — Matt Miller
Big Mouth
Nick Kroll’s animated creation is as good (if not better) in
Season Three than it has ever been before. Mixing humor with incredibly
difficult topics (#MeToo, gaslighting, homophobia, racism), Big Mouth
never crosses into preachy territory. Yet somehow, the series manages
to tell a story of being a teenager more effectively than anyone else on
television right now. If you’re going to watch a single episode of this
season, “Disclosure the Movie: The Musical” is the most ridiculous,
hilarious offering of the bunch.
Unbelievable
Unbelievable opens with a gut punch of a first episode
that follows a girl named Marie (played to perfection by Katilyn Dever)
through a rape and the subsequent, impossible task of recounting the
details of it over and over to authorities. In Marie’s case, the
officers don’t believe her, kicking off an investigation that spans
across state lines, departments, and years. If you can get past that
devastating premise, Merritt Wever and Toni Collette take over from
there, leading an incredible miniseries based on the real life ProPublica story from a few years prior. The journey, while painful, is some of the best acting and most powerful storytelling on TV this year.
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