15.) True Detective - Season 1
The reason for this list is based off of a discussion on a podcast I listened to asking if True Detective Season 1 is a Top-10 HBO season. The answer is no, but it isn't too far off. It's easy to mock the show given how bad the follow-up was and how disappointing the ending of the season was, undercutting all the strangeness and mysticism and brilliant acting with it stripping away the plot anchors and focusing on a fairly staid man-hunt. But before it went to hell, man were McCaughnahey and Harrelson brilliant in their respective roles. Man was the show so well written and directed. It may have been overrated by the media given it was the first real look at movie-stars doing regular TV (something that would become all too common) but let that not outshine the fact the show was really good by itself.
14.) Big Little Lies - Season 1
HBO extended the 'let's get incredible actors to do mini-series' idea further, reaching maybe a final natural resting point, with Big Little Lies. The idea that Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon (add in Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley if you want) would do an HBO show is amazing, and my word did they bring acting chops to what is a fairly rote story. Parts of the story really worked, like the brutally honest portrayal of the complications of domestic violence, and seeing Reese Witherspoon at her WASP-ey best was great. The final outcome with Kidman's husband being the man who raped Woodley's character was cute, but a little forced. It still, against all odds, set up a second season, but the first season of the show was a great use of incredible star-power packed into a well-written, brilliantly-acted show.
13.) Flight of the Conchords - Season 1
The premise of the show is silly. Take a musical comedy duo from New Zealand and give them a show playing bastardized versions of themselves with about four or five characters, with hilariously low production value. Guess what, the show was spectacularly funny, and at least in its first season roped in the Conchord's master catalogue brilliantly. Some of the songs were so well done and staged, taking their performance show and seamlessly putting it in this weird world they created. My favorite has always been the HipHopopotomous vs. the RhymeNocerous, or 'If You're Into It.' What really helped the show make a lasting memory is how good the comedy was even outside the songs. They were great at small, biting moments of awkwardness, adn things like their running jokes of New Zealand's little brother complex with Australia was a master stroke. it's a small show that is easily forgetten in HBO's sizable ouevre, but it truly shouldn't be.
12.) Show Me A Hero
11.) The Deuce - Season 1
It's a shame that Season 2 of The Deuce was a real drop-off in quality, because through its first season, The Deuce seemed to be a fairly good imitation of the tone, complexity and brilliance of The Wire. It's obviously very taboo subject matter, but was played deftly. It was a far more optimistic show than The Wire, showing more happy endings in one season (Franco's good half getting in straight with the mob, Gyllenhall's character moving to the porn production world) but still some darkness. It was a period piece for Simon, something that was still a bit new for him, and he handled it well. Looking back, there were so many tremendous moments in the show, such as everything to do with CC having to deal with him becoming more and more irrelevant, and then seeing the various prostitutes gain more independence. The Deuce could have been a classic, and while it is hard to pinpoint exactly where teh second season fell short, I would point most to the loss of the peerless Simon-esque tone that reverberated so strongly in the first season.
10.) Silicon Valley - Season 2
Overtime, Silicon Valley settled into a good but not great style that is endlessly entertaining, but early on it was slightly better than that. It was a great show in its second season, building off a nice start, but also shifting Monica into a bigger role, and adding Russ Hanneman brilliantly into the show as some weird Sean Parker type (tres commas tequila will never not be funny). Similarly, the second season is when they went heavy into Jianyang vs. Ehrlich and did some great work uncovering what was great about Gavin Belson. The show found its peak early, but to be honest I don't know if it got abny worse over time, just a bit repetitive. The 'almost crash and burn but be saved in the last second by some deus ex machina' bit was a lot more fresh the frist five times.
9.) Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 7
To me, best HBO comedy is clearly between this and Veep, and while Veep has the higher ranked best season (spoiler!), I have two Curb's seasons ranked. The first is maybe ultimately the most memorable becuase of how well its season-long arc rebuilt the long criticized Seinfeld Finale. Denise Handicap might be one of the best episodes in the history of the show in how far it went in pushing a taboo subject. The Black Swan was a great episode as well. But at the end of the day, what truly makes the season is how well the Seinfeld story arc was woven in. That easily could have gone way off the rails. Jerry was game, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis Dreyfus were both great as always. The scene with Michael Richards and Leon in the trailer is one of the funiest pieces of comedy in teh shows run. Curb will always inextricably be linked to Seinfeld, and it drove right into tthat skid in the best way possible.
8.) Game of Thrones - Season 1
It's easy to give the show shit now, but I really hope people don't try to restrospectivelly make the early seasons out to be worse than they were. The first season didn't have the budget that the later seasons did - namely the dragons show up for like a minute. But man was it great. The settings, the spectacle, the characters with their varied introductions. Game of Thrones was a groundbreaking show, taking TV as close as it has come to film in terms of largesse, and that was apparent in the first season, with the first strikingly real scene at the Wall. The storylines in Season 1 may seem quaint now given how stuffed the character list would become, but even in Season 1 we had some great stories. None better than stupid Nedd Stark's decline, with his death being a true 'holy shit' moment, as was Dany slowly winning over the Khal (with Vyserion being burned alive) to how evil Jaime was at the time, to all the rest. Game of Thrones first season is excellent on rewatch, a fully made show that would expand each year until it reached the point of no return. Even more-so than The Wire, this is the show I wish I watched live at the time.
7.) Succession - Season 1
Much like a show to come, this may look bad if its second season isn't that great, but holy shit was the first season of Succession awesome. It took a while to really understand what was going on, but once again the tone was set early, and from the second Logan made the speech at the charity event and took back control of running the company, teh show hit overdrive and became a true classic. Succession did the incredibly hard task of making people really care about the lives of stupid rich fucks, and get so invested in corporate back-room dealing and hysteria. There were so many smaller moments of the show beyond the Logan vs. Kendall stuff. Anything to do with Tom adn Cousin Greg, or Connor's 'wife' the hooker was incredible. The last few episodes, with 'Prague' (the bachelor party in the uinderground club) and the two-parter finale with the wedding in UK were both just stunning bits of entertaining TV in years. The season ended brillaintly, and needless to say my hopes are sky fucking high for season 2.
6.) The Young Pope - Season 1
Maybe I'm overrating it, but The Young Pope was one of the singularly most iconic, individual pieces of TV I've ever seen. There are aspects of the show that I don't know have never been matched. First the soundtrack, so effortlessly enthralling. Second, the use of light and haze in the cinematography, making it all feel so dream-like. Third, just how damn good Jude Law was in this role. From almost the first moment, his incredible mix of smarm, charm and guile was incredible to watch. The show was also so smart to make Lenny so damn hilarious, and so conservative, an amazing twist in that first episode that carried through. I'm so happy they're bringing the show back sometime late 2019/early 2020 as 'The New Pope'. This was the role Jude Law was born to play (among quite a few others, admittedly). Tone is such an important aspect of great shows (or great movies) and The Young Pope set its tone in about five minutes, and it never varied one percent through its ten episode run.
5.) Game of Thrones - Season 4
To me, this was the best Game of Thrones season, and it isn't particularly close. Oddly, this season didn't have a truly memorable 9th episode, though Watchers on the Wall plays better on rewatch. What it does have is a perfect blend of political and social drama. The stuff at King's Landing was always my favorite part of the show (my biggest issue with S7-8 is how neutered that part was), and this was that at its best. The death of Joffrey, the death of Tywin, and of course the trail of Tyron, three absolutely incredible moments of political drama. The rest of the storylines were all decent as well, with us finally figuring out what the hell the reek story was about, to Daenarys having to deal with political unrest for the first time, to so much else. This was probably the apex of the show in terms of character count as well, as it introduced Dorne (a total mis-step aside from Oberyn) and starting with Joffrey's death it would start pairing back the character count. Game of Thrones was at its absolute best as a middle-ages political drama, and the politics took center stage in its best season. We can argue what the show was about, but at its best, Game of Thrones was about the Lannisters, the people who through guile, lies and precise brillaince kept that Throne for nearly the entire run, and the Lannisters were never as front and center as they were in its best season.
4.) The Wire - Season 1
Very openly, my 'only two seasons per show' rule has kept at least one Game of Thrones season (S3) if not two (S2) off the list. I'll go with Season 1, which I already ranked as my second favorite season of The Wire, as the first entrant in the list. Again, to me the most important aspect of any tv show is tone, and The Wire sets its tone, a tone it would not lose or waver from for 60 episodes, in the first episode. The depth of characters, with cops who are more bad than good, and drug dealers who are more human than the cops. Seeing the slow fall of DeAngelo Barksdale and Wallace, the slow scheming of Avon, the alcoholic, nihilistic fury of McNulty. It takes a while to really learn how to watch the show, and maybe more than any other season I've listed, this gets better on a rewatch, when you know how 'all the pieces matter' as Freamon would say. The Wire would get better, would get more expansive and introspective, but it never got more entertaining more dynamic, than it did in its first season when it put on the best cops vs. robbers showcase ever.
3.) Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 3
It may be hard to remember now, as this season is a good seventeen years ago (incredible, right?). This was the season where the running them was Larry teaming up with Ted, Jeff and a few others to open a restaurant. It might have had both the best season-long plot (maybe with the exception of Season 8), and some of the best independent episodes. Krazey Eyez Killa remains a Top-5 Curb episode of all time. There are a handful of other episodes that are truly Curb at its very best, such as 'The Benadryl Brownie', 'The Terrorist Attack' and 'The Corpse-Sniffing Dog'. And of course, no reminiscence of Season 3 can be complete without remembering the wonder that was the tourette's scene in teh finale, maybe the best few minutes of comedy Larry David has ever put to screen (Seinfield included). Curb never really got too far away quality wise from its best or its average, but even then Season 3 stands out as a singular achievement.
2.) Veep - Season 4
A few of these were recent enough (see: 2014 or later) to be ranked on my individual years list of best shows. Veep was one of three that made it to #1 (The Young Pope and Succession the other two). It almost immediately got worse starting in Season 5 as Armando Ianucci left and Selina was ousted as President, but my word was Veep brilliant at its best. This season saw Selina as President throughout, but also having to campaign for re-election. There are, to me, four masterpiece episodes in this season, that are probably each among the 10 best Veep episodes ever. First was Tehran, and then the three that capped the season, with B/Ill a masterstroke in combining a deft look at Washington whipping, with JLD giving a brilliant performance, then Testimony, maybe the best episode of Veep period, and finally Election Night as Selina's life slowly descends to madness. Other reasons to love the season are the true introduction of Richard Splett, everything Hugh Laurie did as Tom James, and Dan and Amy as Washington 'outsiders' as Lobbyists. It's amazing that a show named Veep grew to have its best season when Selina was never Veep. As it had something of a bounceback final season, Veep will take its place as a Pantheon of Comedy TV Show, while also cementing JLD's place on the Mt. Rushmore of comedic actresses (to me, it's her, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore). And Season 4 of Veep was the show at its best, to me the best pure comedic season of any HBO show ever.
1.) The Wire - Season 4
When you get to this point, you realize just how good HBO's vault has been. And I'm not even including any seasons from the following critically or socially acclaimed HBO shows:
* Oz (seen quite a bit of it, but never relaly all the way through)
* The Larry Sanders Show (ditto)
* Six Feet Under (more ditto)
* In Treatment
* Eastbound and Down (will watch it at some point)
* Girls (will never watch it at any point)
Anyway, HBO is still the master at this. And nothing makes that point more than the masterpiece season of its masterpiece show. Season 4 of The Wire is now so acclaimed, so universally hailed that it is almost cliche to put it here, but it is for good reason. It's odd that this is the best The Wire season when it features the least McNulty and is the first season post-Barksdale (the Stanfield org was never as entertaining), but that is how well played the education system subject matter was, how deafening those moments of Randy shouting 'You going to care for me, Lt. Carver', or how sad Dukie's life was, or how bright it was to see the small moments of light in such a hopelessly dark situation, So strong was seeing Cutty's dream come to life, or the fruitless trail of murder investigations the BPD would be led on. It shone such a great light on why people inevitably end up in this cycle that the government, the economy and the world is forcing upon them. The show was never more thought-provoking, more entertaining, and more beautiful. To some degree, I feel hypocrtical ranking it #1 when I would much rather rewatch Season 1 of The Wire (if not Season 3), but I have to agree that this was a pure masterpiece of the form. The masterpiece of the form.
The reason for this list is based off of a discussion on a podcast I listened to asking if True Detective Season 1 is a Top-10 HBO season. The answer is no, but it isn't too far off. It's easy to mock the show given how bad the follow-up was and how disappointing the ending of the season was, undercutting all the strangeness and mysticism and brilliant acting with it stripping away the plot anchors and focusing on a fairly staid man-hunt. But before it went to hell, man were McCaughnahey and Harrelson brilliant in their respective roles. Man was the show so well written and directed. It may have been overrated by the media given it was the first real look at movie-stars doing regular TV (something that would become all too common) but let that not outshine the fact the show was really good by itself.
14.) Big Little Lies - Season 1
HBO extended the 'let's get incredible actors to do mini-series' idea further, reaching maybe a final natural resting point, with Big Little Lies. The idea that Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon (add in Laura Dern and Shailene Woodley if you want) would do an HBO show is amazing, and my word did they bring acting chops to what is a fairly rote story. Parts of the story really worked, like the brutally honest portrayal of the complications of domestic violence, and seeing Reese Witherspoon at her WASP-ey best was great. The final outcome with Kidman's husband being the man who raped Woodley's character was cute, but a little forced. It still, against all odds, set up a second season, but the first season of the show was a great use of incredible star-power packed into a well-written, brilliantly-acted show.
13.) Flight of the Conchords - Season 1
The premise of the show is silly. Take a musical comedy duo from New Zealand and give them a show playing bastardized versions of themselves with about four or five characters, with hilariously low production value. Guess what, the show was spectacularly funny, and at least in its first season roped in the Conchord's master catalogue brilliantly. Some of the songs were so well done and staged, taking their performance show and seamlessly putting it in this weird world they created. My favorite has always been the HipHopopotomous vs. the RhymeNocerous, or 'If You're Into It.' What really helped the show make a lasting memory is how good the comedy was even outside the songs. They were great at small, biting moments of awkwardness, adn things like their running jokes of New Zealand's little brother complex with Australia was a master stroke. it's a small show that is easily forgetten in HBO's sizable ouevre, but it truly shouldn't be.
12.) Show Me A Hero
11.) The Deuce - Season 1
It's a shame that Season 2 of The Deuce was a real drop-off in quality, because through its first season, The Deuce seemed to be a fairly good imitation of the tone, complexity and brilliance of The Wire. It's obviously very taboo subject matter, but was played deftly. It was a far more optimistic show than The Wire, showing more happy endings in one season (Franco's good half getting in straight with the mob, Gyllenhall's character moving to the porn production world) but still some darkness. It was a period piece for Simon, something that was still a bit new for him, and he handled it well. Looking back, there were so many tremendous moments in the show, such as everything to do with CC having to deal with him becoming more and more irrelevant, and then seeing the various prostitutes gain more independence. The Deuce could have been a classic, and while it is hard to pinpoint exactly where teh second season fell short, I would point most to the loss of the peerless Simon-esque tone that reverberated so strongly in the first season.
10.) Silicon Valley - Season 2
Overtime, Silicon Valley settled into a good but not great style that is endlessly entertaining, but early on it was slightly better than that. It was a great show in its second season, building off a nice start, but also shifting Monica into a bigger role, and adding Russ Hanneman brilliantly into the show as some weird Sean Parker type (tres commas tequila will never not be funny). Similarly, the second season is when they went heavy into Jianyang vs. Ehrlich and did some great work uncovering what was great about Gavin Belson. The show found its peak early, but to be honest I don't know if it got abny worse over time, just a bit repetitive. The 'almost crash and burn but be saved in the last second by some deus ex machina' bit was a lot more fresh the frist five times.
9.) Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 7
To me, best HBO comedy is clearly between this and Veep, and while Veep has the higher ranked best season (spoiler!), I have two Curb's seasons ranked. The first is maybe ultimately the most memorable becuase of how well its season-long arc rebuilt the long criticized Seinfeld Finale. Denise Handicap might be one of the best episodes in the history of the show in how far it went in pushing a taboo subject. The Black Swan was a great episode as well. But at the end of the day, what truly makes the season is how well the Seinfeld story arc was woven in. That easily could have gone way off the rails. Jerry was game, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis Dreyfus were both great as always. The scene with Michael Richards and Leon in the trailer is one of the funiest pieces of comedy in teh shows run. Curb will always inextricably be linked to Seinfeld, and it drove right into tthat skid in the best way possible.
8.) Game of Thrones - Season 1
It's easy to give the show shit now, but I really hope people don't try to restrospectivelly make the early seasons out to be worse than they were. The first season didn't have the budget that the later seasons did - namely the dragons show up for like a minute. But man was it great. The settings, the spectacle, the characters with their varied introductions. Game of Thrones was a groundbreaking show, taking TV as close as it has come to film in terms of largesse, and that was apparent in the first season, with the first strikingly real scene at the Wall. The storylines in Season 1 may seem quaint now given how stuffed the character list would become, but even in Season 1 we had some great stories. None better than stupid Nedd Stark's decline, with his death being a true 'holy shit' moment, as was Dany slowly winning over the Khal (with Vyserion being burned alive) to how evil Jaime was at the time, to all the rest. Game of Thrones first season is excellent on rewatch, a fully made show that would expand each year until it reached the point of no return. Even more-so than The Wire, this is the show I wish I watched live at the time.
7.) Succession - Season 1
Much like a show to come, this may look bad if its second season isn't that great, but holy shit was the first season of Succession awesome. It took a while to really understand what was going on, but once again the tone was set early, and from the second Logan made the speech at the charity event and took back control of running the company, teh show hit overdrive and became a true classic. Succession did the incredibly hard task of making people really care about the lives of stupid rich fucks, and get so invested in corporate back-room dealing and hysteria. There were so many smaller moments of the show beyond the Logan vs. Kendall stuff. Anything to do with Tom adn Cousin Greg, or Connor's 'wife' the hooker was incredible. The last few episodes, with 'Prague' (the bachelor party in the uinderground club) and the two-parter finale with the wedding in UK were both just stunning bits of entertaining TV in years. The season ended brillaintly, and needless to say my hopes are sky fucking high for season 2.
6.) The Young Pope - Season 1
Maybe I'm overrating it, but The Young Pope was one of the singularly most iconic, individual pieces of TV I've ever seen. There are aspects of the show that I don't know have never been matched. First the soundtrack, so effortlessly enthralling. Second, the use of light and haze in the cinematography, making it all feel so dream-like. Third, just how damn good Jude Law was in this role. From almost the first moment, his incredible mix of smarm, charm and guile was incredible to watch. The show was also so smart to make Lenny so damn hilarious, and so conservative, an amazing twist in that first episode that carried through. I'm so happy they're bringing the show back sometime late 2019/early 2020 as 'The New Pope'. This was the role Jude Law was born to play (among quite a few others, admittedly). Tone is such an important aspect of great shows (or great movies) and The Young Pope set its tone in about five minutes, and it never varied one percent through its ten episode run.
5.) Game of Thrones - Season 4
To me, this was the best Game of Thrones season, and it isn't particularly close. Oddly, this season didn't have a truly memorable 9th episode, though Watchers on the Wall plays better on rewatch. What it does have is a perfect blend of political and social drama. The stuff at King's Landing was always my favorite part of the show (my biggest issue with S7-8 is how neutered that part was), and this was that at its best. The death of Joffrey, the death of Tywin, and of course the trail of Tyron, three absolutely incredible moments of political drama. The rest of the storylines were all decent as well, with us finally figuring out what the hell the reek story was about, to Daenarys having to deal with political unrest for the first time, to so much else. This was probably the apex of the show in terms of character count as well, as it introduced Dorne (a total mis-step aside from Oberyn) and starting with Joffrey's death it would start pairing back the character count. Game of Thrones was at its absolute best as a middle-ages political drama, and the politics took center stage in its best season. We can argue what the show was about, but at its best, Game of Thrones was about the Lannisters, the people who through guile, lies and precise brillaince kept that Throne for nearly the entire run, and the Lannisters were never as front and center as they were in its best season.
4.) The Wire - Season 1
Very openly, my 'only two seasons per show' rule has kept at least one Game of Thrones season (S3) if not two (S2) off the list. I'll go with Season 1, which I already ranked as my second favorite season of The Wire, as the first entrant in the list. Again, to me the most important aspect of any tv show is tone, and The Wire sets its tone, a tone it would not lose or waver from for 60 episodes, in the first episode. The depth of characters, with cops who are more bad than good, and drug dealers who are more human than the cops. Seeing the slow fall of DeAngelo Barksdale and Wallace, the slow scheming of Avon, the alcoholic, nihilistic fury of McNulty. It takes a while to really learn how to watch the show, and maybe more than any other season I've listed, this gets better on a rewatch, when you know how 'all the pieces matter' as Freamon would say. The Wire would get better, would get more expansive and introspective, but it never got more entertaining more dynamic, than it did in its first season when it put on the best cops vs. robbers showcase ever.
3.) Curb Your Enthusiasm - Season 3
It may be hard to remember now, as this season is a good seventeen years ago (incredible, right?). This was the season where the running them was Larry teaming up with Ted, Jeff and a few others to open a restaurant. It might have had both the best season-long plot (maybe with the exception of Season 8), and some of the best independent episodes. Krazey Eyez Killa remains a Top-5 Curb episode of all time. There are a handful of other episodes that are truly Curb at its very best, such as 'The Benadryl Brownie', 'The Terrorist Attack' and 'The Corpse-Sniffing Dog'. And of course, no reminiscence of Season 3 can be complete without remembering the wonder that was the tourette's scene in teh finale, maybe the best few minutes of comedy Larry David has ever put to screen (Seinfield included). Curb never really got too far away quality wise from its best or its average, but even then Season 3 stands out as a singular achievement.
2.) Veep - Season 4
A few of these were recent enough (see: 2014 or later) to be ranked on my individual years list of best shows. Veep was one of three that made it to #1 (The Young Pope and Succession the other two). It almost immediately got worse starting in Season 5 as Armando Ianucci left and Selina was ousted as President, but my word was Veep brilliant at its best. This season saw Selina as President throughout, but also having to campaign for re-election. There are, to me, four masterpiece episodes in this season, that are probably each among the 10 best Veep episodes ever. First was Tehran, and then the three that capped the season, with B/Ill a masterstroke in combining a deft look at Washington whipping, with JLD giving a brilliant performance, then Testimony, maybe the best episode of Veep period, and finally Election Night as Selina's life slowly descends to madness. Other reasons to love the season are the true introduction of Richard Splett, everything Hugh Laurie did as Tom James, and Dan and Amy as Washington 'outsiders' as Lobbyists. It's amazing that a show named Veep grew to have its best season when Selina was never Veep. As it had something of a bounceback final season, Veep will take its place as a Pantheon of Comedy TV Show, while also cementing JLD's place on the Mt. Rushmore of comedic actresses (to me, it's her, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett and Mary Tyler Moore). And Season 4 of Veep was the show at its best, to me the best pure comedic season of any HBO show ever.
1.) The Wire - Season 4
When you get to this point, you realize just how good HBO's vault has been. And I'm not even including any seasons from the following critically or socially acclaimed HBO shows:
* Oz (seen quite a bit of it, but never relaly all the way through)
* The Larry Sanders Show (ditto)
* Six Feet Under (more ditto)
* In Treatment
* Eastbound and Down (will watch it at some point)
* Girls (will never watch it at any point)
Anyway, HBO is still the master at this. And nothing makes that point more than the masterpiece season of its masterpiece show. Season 4 of The Wire is now so acclaimed, so universally hailed that it is almost cliche to put it here, but it is for good reason. It's odd that this is the best The Wire season when it features the least McNulty and is the first season post-Barksdale (the Stanfield org was never as entertaining), but that is how well played the education system subject matter was, how deafening those moments of Randy shouting 'You going to care for me, Lt. Carver', or how sad Dukie's life was, or how bright it was to see the small moments of light in such a hopelessly dark situation, So strong was seeing Cutty's dream come to life, or the fruitless trail of murder investigations the BPD would be led on. It shone such a great light on why people inevitably end up in this cycle that the government, the economy and the world is forcing upon them. The show was never more thought-provoking, more entertaining, and more beautiful. To some degree, I feel hypocrtical ranking it #1 when I would much rather rewatch Season 1 of The Wire (if not Season 3), but I have to agree that this was a pure masterpiece of the form. The masterpiece of the form.
