**Quick note, so I started ranking my favorite TV shows in 2014, but there are a few shows from 2010-2013 on this list - admittedly less as I don't have as many good memories**
**Quick note 2: I limited to a maximum of 2 seasons per show - so there's a few seasons that aren't on this for that reason - like other Breaking Bad seasons**
25.) Veep - Season 3 (2014 - HBO)
Veep was probably in my view the best show that both premiered and ended in the 2010s. It probably gets beaten by a few shows that started in teh 2000s (e.g. Breaking Bad) and may get passed by shows that will end in the 2020s, but maybe no show defined the decade in TV more than Veep. It perfectly satirized politics in the Obama era, and I think I'll rate its work by far to be most effective during those years. The show in Season 3 was the first to truly expand the purview beyond 'veep' and to Selina running for and getting the Presidency (due to resignation), and grew the problems she and her team would face to larger scale. From episodes like London, where she wades right into international geopolotics, to the incredible debate episodes. It also started showing the exodus out of the White House, starting with Jonah and Ryantology. The show started really understanding all its characters. It showed the show could scale up, paving the way for a truly pantheon-level season the next year when she was President and running for it simultaneously - needless to say way up this list. Veep is the first of four shows that I have with multiple seasons on the list as well.
24.) Bojack Horseman - Season 3 (2016 - NETFLIX)
To me, Bojack is the best pure streaming TV show that has been made so far. It doesn't get the hype or pull of Stranger Things or Narcos. Despite it getting increasingly popular over the last couple seasons, NETFLIX CEO Reed Hastings has openly said that it has only lasted this long because it is his personal favorite show that they've done. Anyway, Bojack Season 3 was the show beginning to reach its fully grown form of perfectly balancing incredibly nuanced comedy with incredibly nuanced look at human psychology, fame and depression. The third season had the year-long arc of Bojack being nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Secretariat, but the best focus of the season was it increasingly becoming about Bojack realizing fame doesn't make him happy. The season had some truly astonishing episodes, like 'Fish Out of Water' taking place fully underwater and without dialogue, to 'Brap, Brap, Pew, Pew' a truly deft hilarious take on the abortion debate. The show was probably never funnier than it was in its third season, the one that cemented it as an all-time worthy show.
23.) Narcos - Season 2 (2016 - NETFLIX)
A long time ago, VH1 ranked the Top 100 Songs in Hard Rock. They ranked Van Halen's Running With the Devil at #8. There is no way it is the 8th best Hard Rock song ever - but they ranked it there because they wanted to honor Van Halen and picked maybe their most influential track. That is what thsi ranking is, honoring one of the streaming OGs, the one that crossed nations and backgrounds and became, allegedly, NETFLIX's most-watched original series. The second season grew from the more lecture and history lesson style of the first season, paired back the story to just the cops and mostly Pablo Escobar's slow desolution and isolation. It was a great character study, truly something close to Breaking Bad level. The show also continued with its astounding cinematography and flair. Yes, the acting was inconsistent and the (admittedly, translated) dialogue a bit on the nose at times, but the legacy of Narcos, and Wagner Moura's brilliant portrayal as Pablo, more than make up for it.
22.) Happy Endings - Season 2 (2012 - ABC)
Every few months, some outfit like the AV Club or Vulture will put out a list of shows that went away too soon. The candle-bearer in the 90s was Freaks and Geeks, and then probably something like Firefly in the 2000s. Well, for the 2010s, it has to be (for me at least) Happy Endings. It took a full season for the show to find itself, but once it stripped away the 'plot' of a fried group reacting to a husband-to-be leaving his bride at the altar, and became a simple joke-machine, the show shined. The writing was great, the wordplay was better, the acting was excellent, using a lot of talented people in better ways than any other show has before or since (see people like Casey Wilson, Adam Pally and, most obviously, Elisha Cuthbert in their other comedic work). Episodes like their Halloween party - fit with Casey Wilson and Adam Pally in a baby bjorn costume - or their portrayal of a gay couple played straight or episodes like Big White Lies, a smart showcase homage to shows like Three's Company. It was smart, it was fast, it was great, and yes, it died way too soon.
21.) Better Call Saul - Season 1 (2015 - AMC)
I don't know if the first season of Better Call Saul was its best. I do know, however, it never seemed so magical as it did, when we were still spellbounded that we could return to this world, take a character that was largely played for comic relief, and make him the lead of an hour-long drama. It worked, and it worked spectacularly. I don't want to compare it to Breaking Bad, but Vince Gilligan has such a laser focus on how to build a show. They smartly kept Mike and Saul (Jimmy) apart for most of the first season, slowly meting out cameos in a way they stopped being so cautious with in later seasons. This was probably the only season it was mostly about Jimmy, the half of the show that always appealed more to me. Better Call Saul remained great, and finished its 2010s portion with Jimmy saying 'Better Call Saul' for the first time, but it was never as true to its ethos as its first season.
20.) Stranger Things - Season 1 (2016 - NETFLIX)
It's hilarious to realize given how ridiculously hyped it was by the time the third season came about in 2019 that Stranger Things got basically zero publicity the first time around. It was dropped without much fanfare, and gained support through random 30-somethings watching it for the nostalgia. It perfectly paid homage to basically everything great from the 80s without going too on-the-nose (something later seasons would tie the line a bit more on). The first season of Stranger Things was just so perfect. The kids too young to be annoying, characters like Nancy so well drawn. And of course there was Winona Ryder and David Harbour's amazing chemistry. The plot itself was tightly wound and didn't go too apocalyptic like it would in its second and third seasons as well. Hawkins seemed like any middle-America town in the best way, and the show pulled all the right heartstrings. Other than maybe one or two shows I have ahead of it, there was no better sudden surprise than the first season of Stranger Things.
19.) Game of Thrones - Season 1 (2011 - HBO)
The first season of what would be the show that would commercially define the decade on TV was hyped in a way, but was nothing like the world-wide phenomenon it would become somewhere around the Season 5 or so time. That said, the reason it ever ended up there was because Season 1 was so good. Again, the best drama centered around King's Landing, with the slow reveal of Stupid Nedd Stark leading to one of the more shocking moments on TV in the decade when he was beheaded. The action in other areas, notably Dany's empowerment arc, also added to a rich canvas that would only keep expanding as it went on. It took a while for the show to match/surpass its incredible start - tough to top it when you get a pilot that starts with incest and a boy getting pushed out the window, and climaxes with a beheading and the birth of dragons.
18.) The Loudest Voice (2019 - Showtime)
The best horror series of the decade, The Loudest Voice was so good in showing just how horrifying the rise and terroristic reign of Roger Ailes was. All in the name of strong numbers, he forever ruined American news, while also being a horrible monster. While the story was true horror, the performacnes and craft behind it were brilliant. Russell Crowe was amazing as Roger Ailes throughout his life from powerful, power-hungry junior executive, to head honcho, to aging monolith. The character actors playing the Murdoch's, Roger's various right-hand-men, and especially Gretchen Carlson were all strong, as the show pivoted well into #METOO discussion. It was written and performed well enough you still exhibited a strong smile of glee when the Murdoch's finally canned Roger Ailes for sexual abuse even though we know it had no real impact on FOX News and its ability to tear this nation apart. There's a movie more or less based on the same source material coming out, but I highly doubt it will be as engrossing as the show.
17.) Babylon Berlin - Season 1 (2018 - NETFLIX)
Yes, I realize almost no one in America watched this series about Germany at the tail end of the Weimar Republic (between WWI and WWII). It was a hit in Europe however, and for the few that did watch it in America, they were treated to a spectacular period piece of a time no one really wants to know about - the pre-WWII Germany, where the Nazi's were slowly rising to combat open communism and the still-breathing democratic structure the Weimer Republic tried to espouse. The acting was great, particularly the three leads of Gereon Rath, Bruno Walter and Charlotte Ritter. The small moments, though, were the best, like the showtune to close out the 2nd episode, the first "damn, this is special" moment of the show, to Charlotte's slow attempt at becoming a part-time inspector. NETFLIX spared no budget - the most expensive foreign-language show ever, allegedly - and it showed with resplendant sets, great action sequences and a largesse in plot and characters that was endlessly entertaining.
16.) Nathan For You - Season 2 (2014 - Comedy Central)
One of the defining shows of the Twitter era, Nathan For You probably had more meme-able and gif-able moments than most shows from its era. It's cult following was tremendously big, probably pushing it to four incredible seasons. Its second season was probably its most memorable, cresting with 'Dumb Starbucks' the first single-idea episode the show did, and the first one that was actually covered as a legitimate news story way prior to it airing on Comedy Central. The season leaned into its first season idea and started mocking Nathan himself, something that became an integral part of the shows third and fourth seasons. This season also started to showcase just how far Nathan would push an idea, with the prime example being having random people pretend to be extras in his film to bring business to a souvenir shop (man do these ideas just sound so hilariously dumb when typed out). Nathan For You somehow lasted four seasons, and a lot of that was on the satirical strength it showcased in its second.
15.) American Vandal - Season 1 (2017 - NETFLIX)
The Office may have been the first show I've seen the term 'mockumetary' used to describe it. Apparently, 'Mockumentary' basically meant every so often you have people talk to the camera directly interview style. That's not a mockumentary, or at the very least nothing compared to what American Vandal released. There may never be a better pure mockumetary ever than two high school kids trying to figure out who drew the dicks. What American Vandal did so well was just play it straight - the people in teh show were really serious about figuring out who drew the dicks. It was played as a true investigative documentary - coming a couple years after Serial begat Making a Murderer. It was brilliant - take a ridiculous farcical premise but play the show as if everyone was 100% serious. Outside of the central plot, the show actually brillaintly constructed and satirized highs-school dynamics better than most shows that are set in high schools, especially when looking at teacher-student dynamics. The show was hilarious, it was smart, it was introspective. It was effortlessly satirical, and it did all of this with basically zero known stars or showrunners.
14.) Parks and Recreation - Season 3 (2011 - NBC)
Parks and Recreation started out as a pretty mediocre show that tried to copy The Office too hard. Then it modified and became a great show in its second season. In its encore, it finally entered true greatness by stripping away a misplaced character (Mark Brendanawicz), replaced his role with the tag team of Adam Scott and Rob Lowe, and catapulted itself into TV Sitcom legend. The third season focused mostly on Leslie's push for the Harvest Fair, a great vehicle for teh season to drive towards, to have a clear local-government type goal. It mixed in so much else though that would ground the show forever, with Andy and April getting married, the introduction of muiltiple Tammy's, so many great scenes at The Snakehole lounge, the launch of Entertainment 720, the first sign of Eagleton and of course Li'l Sebastian. The show peaked in its brilliant third season, the one that probably set the bar for network sitcoms in the 2010s.
13.) Breaking Bad - Season 5.2 (2013 - AMC)
There's a few seasons on this list that will probably seem low, where I have to somewhat defend my intentions and rationale. This is probably one of them, a season that was largely seen as one of the best final seasons of an all-tiem great show ever. And while it was great (let's remember, there was a lot of truly awesome TV on in the 2010s), I had one large issue with the season that will always gnaw at me (and kept it from a Top-10 ranking). This issue was that I just never cared about Todd and the Nazis as a Big Bad. The show should have ended with Walt vs. Hank. It didn't - though it gave us some great material between those two. The Nazis were just so outsized in their evil. The show stopped being about meth. And while you can argue it was just a character study, and seeing Walt's world completely crumble against this enemy was the natural end point, I would have it rather have even come against the cartels than a random plot of nazis who apparently could do what a billion-dollar cartel industry could not. That all said, man were some of the moments so good. The acting was ludicrously good as always, same with the cinematography and the writing. Vince Gilligan was truly a master by this point, and gave the show the ending it deserved.
12.) Fargo - Season 2 (2015 - FX)
Many people thought Fargo's second season was better than it first, a bit more tightly packed with a few more interesting characters that played central to the main story (unlike teh scores of side-plots in the first season). I disagree, but only because I have unnatural fondness or Fargo's first season. Anyway, this second season was pure magic again, a thrilling period piece with as many strange characters, as many brilliantly drawn archetypes, and once again just amazing acting and writing. The whole Gerhardt family was masterfully cast, including an amazing performance by Jean Smart as the matriarch. Bookem Woodbine was a revelation as Mike Milligan. Patrick Wilson was maybe better than he has ever been, which isn't saying all that much, but you can make the argument the same applies to Ted Danson, which is saying a whole hell of a lot. The story was a bit more intricate than in its first season, with the trade-off being fewer sideplots. I was fine with that trade-off as it left a truly brilliant plot behind, with again the central story of why Fight or Flight should rarely ever fall in the 'Fight' camp.
11.) Watchmen - Season 1 (2019 - HBO)
I've read the comic. I actually enjoyed the movie. I had no real expectations for a Watchmen TV show, and that was before I realized it was something of a faux-sequel. And then I actually watched it and realized Damon Lindelof's Watchmen world was something truly incredible. It was about 5% too complicated and too weird a show to go any higher than this - the two shows ahead of it are pointedly based on real material. But compared to a show like Legion, Watchmen was perfectly weird, perfectly distinct, and perfectly special. The slow reveal of who Dr. Manhattan is, how it is all connected, how Manhattan's circular existence is the cause of so much of the pain: all of it worked. It ended with a flurry of reveals of how everything tied together, down to the flaccid baby squid attack in the first episode - the first sign that this show was something beautifully strange.
**Quick note 2: I limited to a maximum of 2 seasons per show - so there's a few seasons that aren't on this for that reason - like other Breaking Bad seasons**
25.) Veep - Season 3 (2014 - HBO)
Veep was probably in my view the best show that both premiered and ended in the 2010s. It probably gets beaten by a few shows that started in teh 2000s (e.g. Breaking Bad) and may get passed by shows that will end in the 2020s, but maybe no show defined the decade in TV more than Veep. It perfectly satirized politics in the Obama era, and I think I'll rate its work by far to be most effective during those years. The show in Season 3 was the first to truly expand the purview beyond 'veep' and to Selina running for and getting the Presidency (due to resignation), and grew the problems she and her team would face to larger scale. From episodes like London, where she wades right into international geopolotics, to the incredible debate episodes. It also started showing the exodus out of the White House, starting with Jonah and Ryantology. The show started really understanding all its characters. It showed the show could scale up, paving the way for a truly pantheon-level season the next year when she was President and running for it simultaneously - needless to say way up this list. Veep is the first of four shows that I have with multiple seasons on the list as well.
24.) Bojack Horseman - Season 3 (2016 - NETFLIX)
To me, Bojack is the best pure streaming TV show that has been made so far. It doesn't get the hype or pull of Stranger Things or Narcos. Despite it getting increasingly popular over the last couple seasons, NETFLIX CEO Reed Hastings has openly said that it has only lasted this long because it is his personal favorite show that they've done. Anyway, Bojack Season 3 was the show beginning to reach its fully grown form of perfectly balancing incredibly nuanced comedy with incredibly nuanced look at human psychology, fame and depression. The third season had the year-long arc of Bojack being nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Secretariat, but the best focus of the season was it increasingly becoming about Bojack realizing fame doesn't make him happy. The season had some truly astonishing episodes, like 'Fish Out of Water' taking place fully underwater and without dialogue, to 'Brap, Brap, Pew, Pew' a truly deft hilarious take on the abortion debate. The show was probably never funnier than it was in its third season, the one that cemented it as an all-time worthy show.
23.) Narcos - Season 2 (2016 - NETFLIX)
A long time ago, VH1 ranked the Top 100 Songs in Hard Rock. They ranked Van Halen's Running With the Devil at #8. There is no way it is the 8th best Hard Rock song ever - but they ranked it there because they wanted to honor Van Halen and picked maybe their most influential track. That is what thsi ranking is, honoring one of the streaming OGs, the one that crossed nations and backgrounds and became, allegedly, NETFLIX's most-watched original series. The second season grew from the more lecture and history lesson style of the first season, paired back the story to just the cops and mostly Pablo Escobar's slow desolution and isolation. It was a great character study, truly something close to Breaking Bad level. The show also continued with its astounding cinematography and flair. Yes, the acting was inconsistent and the (admittedly, translated) dialogue a bit on the nose at times, but the legacy of Narcos, and Wagner Moura's brilliant portrayal as Pablo, more than make up for it.
22.) Happy Endings - Season 2 (2012 - ABC)
Every few months, some outfit like the AV Club or Vulture will put out a list of shows that went away too soon. The candle-bearer in the 90s was Freaks and Geeks, and then probably something like Firefly in the 2000s. Well, for the 2010s, it has to be (for me at least) Happy Endings. It took a full season for the show to find itself, but once it stripped away the 'plot' of a fried group reacting to a husband-to-be leaving his bride at the altar, and became a simple joke-machine, the show shined. The writing was great, the wordplay was better, the acting was excellent, using a lot of talented people in better ways than any other show has before or since (see people like Casey Wilson, Adam Pally and, most obviously, Elisha Cuthbert in their other comedic work). Episodes like their Halloween party - fit with Casey Wilson and Adam Pally in a baby bjorn costume - or their portrayal of a gay couple played straight or episodes like Big White Lies, a smart showcase homage to shows like Three's Company. It was smart, it was fast, it was great, and yes, it died way too soon.
21.) Better Call Saul - Season 1 (2015 - AMC)
I don't know if the first season of Better Call Saul was its best. I do know, however, it never seemed so magical as it did, when we were still spellbounded that we could return to this world, take a character that was largely played for comic relief, and make him the lead of an hour-long drama. It worked, and it worked spectacularly. I don't want to compare it to Breaking Bad, but Vince Gilligan has such a laser focus on how to build a show. They smartly kept Mike and Saul (Jimmy) apart for most of the first season, slowly meting out cameos in a way they stopped being so cautious with in later seasons. This was probably the only season it was mostly about Jimmy, the half of the show that always appealed more to me. Better Call Saul remained great, and finished its 2010s portion with Jimmy saying 'Better Call Saul' for the first time, but it was never as true to its ethos as its first season.
20.) Stranger Things - Season 1 (2016 - NETFLIX)
It's hilarious to realize given how ridiculously hyped it was by the time the third season came about in 2019 that Stranger Things got basically zero publicity the first time around. It was dropped without much fanfare, and gained support through random 30-somethings watching it for the nostalgia. It perfectly paid homage to basically everything great from the 80s without going too on-the-nose (something later seasons would tie the line a bit more on). The first season of Stranger Things was just so perfect. The kids too young to be annoying, characters like Nancy so well drawn. And of course there was Winona Ryder and David Harbour's amazing chemistry. The plot itself was tightly wound and didn't go too apocalyptic like it would in its second and third seasons as well. Hawkins seemed like any middle-America town in the best way, and the show pulled all the right heartstrings. Other than maybe one or two shows I have ahead of it, there was no better sudden surprise than the first season of Stranger Things.
19.) Game of Thrones - Season 1 (2011 - HBO)
The first season of what would be the show that would commercially define the decade on TV was hyped in a way, but was nothing like the world-wide phenomenon it would become somewhere around the Season 5 or so time. That said, the reason it ever ended up there was because Season 1 was so good. Again, the best drama centered around King's Landing, with the slow reveal of Stupid Nedd Stark leading to one of the more shocking moments on TV in the decade when he was beheaded. The action in other areas, notably Dany's empowerment arc, also added to a rich canvas that would only keep expanding as it went on. It took a while for the show to match/surpass its incredible start - tough to top it when you get a pilot that starts with incest and a boy getting pushed out the window, and climaxes with a beheading and the birth of dragons.
18.) The Loudest Voice (2019 - Showtime)
The best horror series of the decade, The Loudest Voice was so good in showing just how horrifying the rise and terroristic reign of Roger Ailes was. All in the name of strong numbers, he forever ruined American news, while also being a horrible monster. While the story was true horror, the performacnes and craft behind it were brilliant. Russell Crowe was amazing as Roger Ailes throughout his life from powerful, power-hungry junior executive, to head honcho, to aging monolith. The character actors playing the Murdoch's, Roger's various right-hand-men, and especially Gretchen Carlson were all strong, as the show pivoted well into #METOO discussion. It was written and performed well enough you still exhibited a strong smile of glee when the Murdoch's finally canned Roger Ailes for sexual abuse even though we know it had no real impact on FOX News and its ability to tear this nation apart. There's a movie more or less based on the same source material coming out, but I highly doubt it will be as engrossing as the show.
17.) Babylon Berlin - Season 1 (2018 - NETFLIX)
Yes, I realize almost no one in America watched this series about Germany at the tail end of the Weimar Republic (between WWI and WWII). It was a hit in Europe however, and for the few that did watch it in America, they were treated to a spectacular period piece of a time no one really wants to know about - the pre-WWII Germany, where the Nazi's were slowly rising to combat open communism and the still-breathing democratic structure the Weimer Republic tried to espouse. The acting was great, particularly the three leads of Gereon Rath, Bruno Walter and Charlotte Ritter. The small moments, though, were the best, like the showtune to close out the 2nd episode, the first "damn, this is special" moment of the show, to Charlotte's slow attempt at becoming a part-time inspector. NETFLIX spared no budget - the most expensive foreign-language show ever, allegedly - and it showed with resplendant sets, great action sequences and a largesse in plot and characters that was endlessly entertaining.
16.) Nathan For You - Season 2 (2014 - Comedy Central)
One of the defining shows of the Twitter era, Nathan For You probably had more meme-able and gif-able moments than most shows from its era. It's cult following was tremendously big, probably pushing it to four incredible seasons. Its second season was probably its most memorable, cresting with 'Dumb Starbucks' the first single-idea episode the show did, and the first one that was actually covered as a legitimate news story way prior to it airing on Comedy Central. The season leaned into its first season idea and started mocking Nathan himself, something that became an integral part of the shows third and fourth seasons. This season also started to showcase just how far Nathan would push an idea, with the prime example being having random people pretend to be extras in his film to bring business to a souvenir shop (man do these ideas just sound so hilariously dumb when typed out). Nathan For You somehow lasted four seasons, and a lot of that was on the satirical strength it showcased in its second.
15.) American Vandal - Season 1 (2017 - NETFLIX)
The Office may have been the first show I've seen the term 'mockumetary' used to describe it. Apparently, 'Mockumentary' basically meant every so often you have people talk to the camera directly interview style. That's not a mockumentary, or at the very least nothing compared to what American Vandal released. There may never be a better pure mockumetary ever than two high school kids trying to figure out who drew the dicks. What American Vandal did so well was just play it straight - the people in teh show were really serious about figuring out who drew the dicks. It was played as a true investigative documentary - coming a couple years after Serial begat Making a Murderer. It was brilliant - take a ridiculous farcical premise but play the show as if everyone was 100% serious. Outside of the central plot, the show actually brillaintly constructed and satirized highs-school dynamics better than most shows that are set in high schools, especially when looking at teacher-student dynamics. The show was hilarious, it was smart, it was introspective. It was effortlessly satirical, and it did all of this with basically zero known stars or showrunners.
14.) Parks and Recreation - Season 3 (2011 - NBC)
Parks and Recreation started out as a pretty mediocre show that tried to copy The Office too hard. Then it modified and became a great show in its second season. In its encore, it finally entered true greatness by stripping away a misplaced character (Mark Brendanawicz), replaced his role with the tag team of Adam Scott and Rob Lowe, and catapulted itself into TV Sitcom legend. The third season focused mostly on Leslie's push for the Harvest Fair, a great vehicle for teh season to drive towards, to have a clear local-government type goal. It mixed in so much else though that would ground the show forever, with Andy and April getting married, the introduction of muiltiple Tammy's, so many great scenes at The Snakehole lounge, the launch of Entertainment 720, the first sign of Eagleton and of course Li'l Sebastian. The show peaked in its brilliant third season, the one that probably set the bar for network sitcoms in the 2010s.
13.) Breaking Bad - Season 5.2 (2013 - AMC)
There's a few seasons on this list that will probably seem low, where I have to somewhat defend my intentions and rationale. This is probably one of them, a season that was largely seen as one of the best final seasons of an all-tiem great show ever. And while it was great (let's remember, there was a lot of truly awesome TV on in the 2010s), I had one large issue with the season that will always gnaw at me (and kept it from a Top-10 ranking). This issue was that I just never cared about Todd and the Nazis as a Big Bad. The show should have ended with Walt vs. Hank. It didn't - though it gave us some great material between those two. The Nazis were just so outsized in their evil. The show stopped being about meth. And while you can argue it was just a character study, and seeing Walt's world completely crumble against this enemy was the natural end point, I would have it rather have even come against the cartels than a random plot of nazis who apparently could do what a billion-dollar cartel industry could not. That all said, man were some of the moments so good. The acting was ludicrously good as always, same with the cinematography and the writing. Vince Gilligan was truly a master by this point, and gave the show the ending it deserved.
12.) Fargo - Season 2 (2015 - FX)
Many people thought Fargo's second season was better than it first, a bit more tightly packed with a few more interesting characters that played central to the main story (unlike teh scores of side-plots in the first season). I disagree, but only because I have unnatural fondness or Fargo's first season. Anyway, this second season was pure magic again, a thrilling period piece with as many strange characters, as many brilliantly drawn archetypes, and once again just amazing acting and writing. The whole Gerhardt family was masterfully cast, including an amazing performance by Jean Smart as the matriarch. Bookem Woodbine was a revelation as Mike Milligan. Patrick Wilson was maybe better than he has ever been, which isn't saying all that much, but you can make the argument the same applies to Ted Danson, which is saying a whole hell of a lot. The story was a bit more intricate than in its first season, with the trade-off being fewer sideplots. I was fine with that trade-off as it left a truly brilliant plot behind, with again the central story of why Fight or Flight should rarely ever fall in the 'Fight' camp.
11.) Watchmen - Season 1 (2019 - HBO)
I've read the comic. I actually enjoyed the movie. I had no real expectations for a Watchmen TV show, and that was before I realized it was something of a faux-sequel. And then I actually watched it and realized Damon Lindelof's Watchmen world was something truly incredible. It was about 5% too complicated and too weird a show to go any higher than this - the two shows ahead of it are pointedly based on real material. But compared to a show like Legion, Watchmen was perfectly weird, perfectly distinct, and perfectly special. The slow reveal of who Dr. Manhattan is, how it is all connected, how Manhattan's circular existence is the cause of so much of the pain: all of it worked. It ended with a flurry of reveals of how everything tied together, down to the flaccid baby squid attack in the first episode - the first sign that this show was something beautifully strange.
