25 Best TV Characters of 2018

Again, check out my patreon  to keep me in business. Don't worry. Though I'm posting this in 2020, I have a 2019 edition of this list lined up too. I also did these lists between 2012 and 2015 if you click on the top 25 character tab.

1.       Pete Holmes as himself, Crashing (HBO)-As opposed to most comedians (or the fictionalized TV versions of themselves) who just want to get ahead, this show has a protagonist who’s sincerely trying to navigate the changing boundaries of integrity as he gets a taste of success in the world of stand-up. The apologetic Holmes is gangly, awkward and sometimes wrong but there’s an underlying sweetness to him.

2.       Giovanni Ribisi as Marius Josipovic/Pete Murphy, Sneaky Pete (Amazon)-Watching genius at work is why we’re attracted to a character like Pete whose extroadinary abilities to think on the fly, read people, and work a con make him almost like a stateside Sherlock Holmes on the wrong side of the law. With a supreme expertise in his field, Pete is in the mold of the procedurals of the aughts (particularly Burn Notice but also House and Monk) but his backstory and the progression of his relationship to the Murphy clan make him fit into the serialized mold as well.  

3.       Julie Garner as Ruth Langmore, Ozark (Netflix)-Ruth feels like she wouldn’t fit in anywhere other than the Missouri/Arkansas border and that’s great for the show. She’s pragmatic and tough-as-nails but she doesn’t shy away from showing her emotions with her allegiance to her boss or her hope for a better future for her cousin.

4.       Kristin Chenoweth as Lavinia Peck-Foster, Trial and Error (NBC)-To fill in the shoes of John Lithgow’s unapologetically weird professor and carry the momentum of a sitcom into a second season with entirely different, Chenoweth had a high bar to meet. She’s not just a great caricature of disconnected rich privilege, but she also is a great example of the bunny ears lawyer trope (someone who shouldn’t be as effective professionally as they are) as killers go considering she seems to have so little awareness of reality.

5.       Manny Jacinto as Jason Mendoza, Good Place (NBC)-There is now depth to the stupidity of Jason Mendoza that can’t be mined for comedy. This year’s Jason-centered episode “The Ballad of Donkey Doug” proved quite a bit of impressive backstory for a guy who’s Jacksonville upbringing has sounded too ridiculous to be true.

6.       Wyatt Russell as Sean “Dud” Dudley, Lodge 49 (AMC)-Think of how great the world would be  if we had more people as open to other people (of all generations) and as curious about the world around them as Dudley. The seemingly dense surfer has had some bad breaks with the death of his dad and the decline of his pool business but he never stops seeing the glass as half full.

7.       Carla Jiminez as Alba, The Mick (Fox)-The opening scene of the pilot shows us a protagonist who saunters into a grocery store and uses the cosmetics aisle for her morning routine without even paying. But even then, she’s not the most id-driven character on the show. That would be the nanny left over from a past regime who will happily shirk responsibility and go on a bender if the situation calls for it. She’s also body positive.

8.       Juliett Lewis as Jandice, Camping (HBO)-Most suburbanites probably know a soccer mom or HOA member who resembles Jennifer Garner’s uptight camping trip organizer Kathryn. Likewise, most of those people wish that those Kathryns in their lives could be paired up with a foil like the boundary-pushing hippyish Jandice.

9.       Wilson Bethel as Ben “Bullseye” Pondexter, Daredevil (Netflix)-A fitting doppelganger to our title character, Daredevil’s powers are more fully spelled out than in any other iteration of this story which makes his fight scenes both cool (duh) and menacing within the context of this higher-stakes story.  

10.   Allisyn Ashley Arm as Heather, AP Bio (NBC)-Heather started as one of about  dozen students in  fraudulent teacher Jack Griffin’s teacher through which limited screentime has been divided. But Arm used every opportunity when the camera was on her and every line delivery to be spectacularly eccentric and a treasure in her own right.

11.   Dale Soules as Frieda Berlin, Orange is the New Black (Netflix)-The focus of the show’s sixth season was on two feuding sisters who turned the rest of the prisoners into competing gangs. The squirrelly Frida managed to show how far her survivor instincts had gotten her by quietly outsmarting the show’s main villains in Rube Goldberg fashion.

12.   Jordana Spiro as Rachel, Ozark (Netflix)-The kinds of characters in these high-pressure dramas (like Breaking Bad or The Americans) that get caught between conflicting sides with no way out are generally the innocent bystanders worth rooting for. Rachel is a resilient firecracker with good instincts and it’s wonderful to see her make it out alive.

14.   Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Daredevil (Netflix)-In my previous iteration of this list, I felt I had to make room for Foggy, Matt, and Karen as all three big something to the team besides being well-drawn characters themselves. As the stakes felt higher and the story became more gripping, Karen was the one who was most transparent with her dread and resolve. She also made the list the last time I did this.

15.   Nick Sandow as Warden Joe Caputo, Orange is the New Black (Netflix)-Obviously the main storyline of Season 6 is Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson but to see an ally say he’ll do something and then put his money where his mouth is, is quite cathartic. Yes, the white savior trope can be debated but that doesn’t necessarily mean Taystee’s story has been diminished or Caputo’s stepping up isn’t insignificant.

16.   Tony Shalhoub as Abe Weinberg, Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon)-Poor Abe. Certainly not the most stringent and unreasonable of old-world Jewish fathers from the era but he’s been dealing with a world that’s changed too fast for his comfort. He should have given his wife more agency, and he should have been  less stubborn about his university , but Amy Sherman-Palladino’s shows aren’t built around tragedies: Hopefully, there’s room for Abe to grow in later seasons.

17.   Brandon Flynn as Justin Foley, 13 Reasons Why (Netflix)-While 13 Reasons Why can be tonally inconsistent and come across more like a typical high school show than something worthy of the topics it broaches, Justin has been written surprisingly strong this season. He’s dealt with guilt and remorse over enabling rape, a broken family, a drug addiction, threats from a step-mom and a betrayal by his best friend and it’s all been handled in such a way that I can’t take my eyes off the guy.

18.   D’Arcy Carden as Janet, Good Place (NBC)-Janet can literally do anything, but it’s the moments when she chooses to deal with the mundanities of, say, getting over an ex or dealing with people who aren't at her speed (like Michael typing at 6 wpm) where she shines. And bonus points for that bar brawl that she impulsively starts against Sean's demons in her dress and high heels. And even more bonus points for the creation of the second best character on the show in Jason Matzoukas’s Derrick.

19.   Carol Kane as Lily Kaushtupper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)-The final half-season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was a great showcase for the whole cast but count me in for more of the unattached Lily who has Tracy-Jordan-like namedrops to past chapters of past badassery. Kane gives the monologue of the season

20.   Hillary Anne Matthews as Diedre, Alex Inc (ABC)-An example of how an otherwise forgettable show can be watchable just to see a scene-stealing side character. Deidre is a scatter-brained assistant whose clinginess to her boss (Zach Braff) overtly borders on obsession.

21.   Cedric the Entertainer as Scott Joplin, Another Period (Comedy Central)-Part of the fun of this show has been the exaggerated cameos of historical figures who inexplicably make their way into the lives of the Bellacourt clan like Sigmund Freud (Chris Parnell), Albert Einstein (Matt Bessar) and Thomas Edison (Stephen Tobolowsky). Perhaps none of these comic characters is as cleverly constructed as the show’s version of Scott Joplin who’s presented as an aughts version of Kanye West (complete with self-worship and an Armenian bride).

22.   Libe Barer as Carly Bowman, Sneaky Pete (Amazon)-The Brendon de Wilde to Alan Ladd’s Shane, Carly is the kid of the family (if you can believe a 27-year old actor passing as 16) who stars agape at her older cousin who fascinates her with hints of a less provincial life. What’s interesting behind Carly is that she’s one step behind the others but you can never count her out as she has traces of Bowman ingenuity herself.

23.   Connie Britton as Abby Clark, 9-1-1 (Fox)-No harm in adding a pollyanna to a procedural. Abby is middle-aged and single with an aging parent to care for but there’s a certain upbeatness to her that makes her a quiet sort of stand-out. Her scenes, set apart from the rest of the cast, make her an interesting narrator of sorts.

24.   Jonah Hill as Owen Milgrim, Maniac  (Netflix)-One of the best portrayals of a depressed character to appear on TV. Jonah Hill does an excellent job at portraying the quiet surrender and numbness as he goes about his every day life and eventually enters into the world of fantasy.  

25.   Dania Ramirez as Jacinda/Cinderella, Once Upon a Time (ABC)-When introduced in her featured episode, Jacinda is a femme fatale disguised as a typical Cinderella. It matches well with her real-life persona who’s down on her luck but refuses to play damsel in distress with the two men vying for her affections.

Honorable Mentions:

Armen Weitzman as Garfield, Another Period; Beth Dover as Linda Ferguson, Orange is the New Black; Charlie Cox as Matt Murdoch, Daredevil; Danielle Brooks as Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson; Dascha Polanko as Daya, Orange is the New Black; David Koechner as The Commodore, Another Period;  Henny Russell as Barbara Dennan, Orange is the New Black; Jane Adams as Maggie Murphy, Sneaky Pete; Jayma Mays as Carol Anne Keane in Trial and Error;  Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop, The Good  Place; McKenzie Phillips as Carol Dennan, Orange is the New Black; Parker Posey as Dr. Smith, Lost in Space; Rachel Brosnahan as Midge Masel, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel; Sally Field as Dr. Greta Mantleray; Sophia Black-D’Ella as Sabrina Pemberton, The Mick; Scott MacArthur as Jimmy, The Mick; Ted Danson as Michael, The Good Place; Tituss Burgess as Titus Andromedon, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

If I picked the Emmys 2018 to 2019 (Drama)

Drama Shows (in order):
1. Daredevil
2. Maniac
3. Lodge 49
4. Sneaky Pete
5. Orange is the New Black
6. Dead to Me
7. Ozark

Actor:
Charlie Cox, Daredevil*
Giovanni Ribisi, Sneaky Pete
Jonah Hill, Maniac
John Krasinski, Jack Ryan

In truth, I wasn't that impressed by anyone in this category except for my across-the-board admiration at the "Daredevil" cast and that extends to Cox who doesn't come off as an action star but channels the ferocity needed for the emotional climaxes when he faces King Pin. Though not a humongous fan of "Jack Ryan", I think Krasinski's doing great work and part of the reason to tune in to the show is that it's interesting to watch Krasinski do that same screen persona . Jason Bateman was considered but he deserves more credit for creating and directing the show than he does for doing an extremely slight variation of Michael Bluth.

Actress:
Emma Stone, Maniac
Laura Linney, Ozark
Sonya Cassidy, Lodge 49
Christina Applegate, Dead to Me
Linda Cardinelli, Dead to Me*

Linda Cardenelli's Judy is so needy and desperate to connect, she's possibly the clingiest character on TV and it's hard to take your eyes off her.

Supporting Actor:
Wilson Bethel, Daredevil
Brian Cox, Succssion
Kieran Culkin, Succession
Nick Sandow, Orange is the New Black*
Brandon Flynn, 13 Reasons Why
Vincent D'Onofrio, Daredevil

I'm gonna go with Nick Sandow here because it's not easy to love Caputo on paper and yet you end up with such admiration for the guy because he's credibly the very definition of a dynamic character. Justin Foley's arc (coming back from heroin addiction, facing his actions as a bystander to rape, abusive parents, etc) is definitely a demanding role for a teen (or 25, whatever) actor and Flynn's a close second. I didn't even know D'Onofrio could get that big, what a physical transformation!

Supporting Actress:
Julie Garner, Ozark
Sally Field, Maniac
Deborah Ann Woll, Daredevil
Danielle Brooks, Orange is the New Black*
Libe Bearer, Sneaky Pete
Kelly Reilly, Yellowstone

Woll and Garner have been great among multiple seasons, but Brooks had the best character arc and proved once and for all this past season that Taystee is the show's lead character. Libe Bearer plays 16-year-old Carla who has a guarded skepticism well beyond her years. She's on a show with Margo Martindale and supplanted her. I was tempted to put Parker Posey from "Lost in Space" but it was a competitive category.

Guest Actor:
Matt Peters, Orange is the New Black
Michael Lee Kimmel, Lodge 49
Ethan Embry, Sneaky Pete*
Jacob Pitts, Sneaky Pete
Michael Mosley, Ozark
Trevor Long, Ozark

I couldn't even think of that many guys here and certainly not a lot of names. On Ozark, Michael Mosley was the pastor who went psycho on and Trevor Long is Ruth's absuvie dad. Michael Lee Kimmel was the good-looking Asian guy who kept trouncing Ernie in the sales department on Lodge 49, Matt Peters is the iconic source of comic relief on OitNB known as Luscheck, and Jacob Pitts is Marin's oily ex-husband Lance. Ethan Embry, the category winner, is the original Pete Murphy. 

Guest Actress:
Allison Wright, Sneaky Pete
Jordana Spiro, Ozark*
McKenzie Phillips, Orange is the New Black
Henny Russell, Orange is the New Black
Emily Tarver, Orange is the New Black
Jocelyn Towne, Lodge 49

Spiro plays a fiesty bar owner who starts to get entangled between multiple forces wanting different things from her in the same way that all characters in hyper-tense dramas do these days. She makes a romantic spark that's mostly off-limits between Jason Bateman and herself halway believable and her few scenes tell a story of a woman trapped by circumstances I wanted to know more of. Emily Tarver (Artesian McCulloch) is such a tragic character I want to jump into the TV to give a hug to (and that's saying something since the prisoners are so much more in need of help) but her biggest arc is Season 7. Russell and Phillips played the two feuding sisters in OitNB. Jocelyn Towne is the executive in the empty office who looks like Angela Kinsey that had a May-September romance with Dud.

Best Dialogue:
Dead to Me*
Maniac
Orange is the New Black
Lodge 49
Succession

Writing for characters with more inner monologue than outer monologue is the kind of challenge that Lodge 49 and Maniac (with Jonah Hill and Justin Thoreaux's characters face primarily) face the most. Orange is the New Black has to cover a lot of different dialects and subsets of people and Succession is pretty much all dialogue and no plot. Dead to Me has a lot of misdirects layered in the dialogue to keep the mystery secure and there's a lot of nuance in the way Jen and Judy express themselves

Best Dramatic Art Direction:
Umbrella Academy
Maniac*
Daredevil
Supergirl
Lodge 49

Umbrella Academy gets the most points for effort but it's a bit too much of a sensory overload pastiche to feel organic. In contrast, Maniac doesn't go overboard in its sleek and overly sterlized futuristic world but conveys the visuals well. Daredevil is probably at its best in Season 1 establishing the claustrophobic spaces of its universe and, I give Lodge 49 points for the unenviable task of trying to portray a general spirit of abandonment.


Best Dramatic Cinematography:
Yellowstone
Lodge 49
Ozark*
Jack Ryan

Yellowstone is scenery porn but Ozark feels like the camera and its subjects are a labor of love.

My Annual Top 12 Shows List

My Big Top 12 TV Shows of the Year has been an Annual Tradition since 2009

Credit: IGN

1. Daredevil (Netflix)-After giving up on season 2, I couldn’t have been more surprised by how transfixed I was here. In terms of technical elements, the color palate is carefully selected, and the fights are a combination of camera virtuosity and choreography that blows most CGI out of the water. Like Christopher Nolan’s films, the story easily transcends the trappings of the superhero genre with a villain whose relationship to his suit is transitive: A means to get things done and can be dropped if need be. The season wrestled with questions of faith and friendship (the bond between Murdoch and his two closest allies drove the show’s emotional push) with a villain (Vincent D’Onofrio) that could provoke genuine anger and fear in an era of superhero glut (not to mention the actual news) where it’s more common to see villains as showcases for actors to ham it up. And then there was Bullseye who took the complexity of the plot (he’s a doppelganger of sorts) to another level.

2. Sneaky Pete (Amazon Prime)-Created by Bryan Cranston and David Shore ("House"), "Sneaky Pete" built on a nail-biter of a first season and continued to find new ways to expand its core cast. As sacrilegious as it is to unfavorably compare "Breaking Bad" to an up-and-coming show, I'm going to go there: This show has a lot to offer that "Breaking Bad" didn't in terms of characters that are honest with themselves over exactly how evil they are and cop characters who don't fall under broad cliches. With the development given this season to Carly (Libe Bearer) and Taylor (Shane McRae), "Sneaky Pete" has earned its stripes as a family melodrama without losing site of the serialized con storyline. Jane Adams also provides great contrast as a psychic threatening to drive Marius/Pete crazy

3. Silicon Valley (HBO)-This show had a distinctive tone in its first season but it didn’t necessarily have a laugh-out-loud cadence with the exception of the twist ending at the end or the occasional gag like the “pros and cons of killing Blake” board). By the fifth season, the character beats are solid enough that the laugh-per-minute humor and overall plot are now on par with Mike Judge’s brilliant screen comedies. The fifth season is even more incredible considering that the group dynamic survived the departure of the show’s funniest stand-alone character Erlich Bachman (T.J. Miller) while characterization continued to march on with Richard developing a harder edge. The show treaded so much in tragedy initially that it’s refreshing to see Pied Piper net a win or two.

4. Crashing (HBO)-The adorably naive Pete Holmes continues his evolution into late adulthood as he finds himself further down the road towards his stand-up dreams and faces increased pressure to decide between personal integrity and fast money (not to mention, all the other dangers that come with being friends with Artie Lange). Also, he somehow lands a girlfriend that looks remarkably like his ex-wife (Lauren Lapkus) in an uncanny bit of casting. TV shows about comics playing themselves are a dime a dozen but few celebrate the joy of mutual creation and camaraderie as well as this, and fewer yet are as thematically thoughtful.

5. Another Period (Comedy Central)-Think “Downton Abbey” crossed with trashy reality show. The show has tremendous fun satirizing historic mores of the aughts and key figures: Sigmuend Frued’s misguided psychotherapy theories are turned into a cringey orgy; Scott Joplin (Cedric the Entertainer) becomes a fill-in for Kanye West;  Eleanor Roosevelt’s feminist leanings get turned into full-on seduction, and yes they even take a shot at sweet pre-teen Hitler because why not? This is a show that, more often than not, goes low-brow and doubles down on low-hanging fruit (lots of incest, an ugly duckling sibling, etc.) but it’s also supremely clever and boasts well-developed comic characters (even the incestuous ones).

Caption: Indiewire

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6. Maniac (Netflix)-The likely one-off season by genius director Cary Fukunaga (“Beasts of No Nation” “Sin Nombre”) takes place in a quasi-futuristic world (a la “Black Mirror”) emphasizing the disconnect between humans (friends are for sale here). A story of mutual healing of two damaged souls (Emma Stone and Jonah Hill) and unlikely friendship (sorry shippers!) becomes a trippy exploration of subsconscious desire, the elusive search for the magic silver bullet that will cure our problems, and the elasticity of trauma.

7. The Mick (Fox)-Lately, I’m finding myself measuring the quality of a comedy through an imaginary decibel meter that records my laughs. “The Mick” isn’t particularly innovative and it’s not even the only place on TV you can see Kaitlin Olson debasing herself, but that doesn’t take away how much I looked forward to this show every week before it’s unceremonious axing. The comedy works through the clash between the snootiness of spoiled children (Thomas Barbusca and Sophia Black-D’Ella) and their unfiltered white trash live-in aunt, but let’s not underestimate the wild cards in wildly overconfident Alba (Carla Jimenez) and Jimmy (Scott MacArthur) who is always dishing inappropriate wisdom to any takers.

8. Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon Prime)-The challenge of following up a hit with a sophomore season that builds upward and maintains the novelty is not easy and “Maisel” came through. The second season had some refreshing location changes (I’ve never wanted to visit the Catskills so badly), a very organic new romance for Midge, bigger arcs for side characters (Joe becoming sympathetic? imagine that!), and a hinting that Midge could become a star down the road. Perhaps the smartest move of the second season was lampshading (particularly, through a frustrated coworker who’s wedding was ruined through Midge’s showboating) how Midge is annoyingly on all the time.

9. Trial and Error (NBC)-The uber-eccentric  small-town comedy traded in aloof bisexual professor John Lithgow for haughty socialite Kristin Chenoweth. Like before, there was no shortage of sight gags (shout out to whoever thought up the daily cannon ball), eccentric characters, and rare illnesses for Sheri Shephard’s character to contract. The podcaster who gets entangled into a love triangle with Josh didn’t do much for me but it allowed Josh to run and duck like Jack Tripper and it strengthened the romance between Carol Anne and Josh which was quite sweet. The show took a while to reach last year’s levels of sublime mania (perhaps the change from defending to prosecuting Lavinia midway broke up the flow?) but it finished strong enough to make this year’s list again.

Courtesy: NBC

10. The Good  Place (NBC)-Mike Schur’s hybrid ethical manifesto/long-form sitcom is still one of the best things on TV but the transition into the third scene took a dive in immediacy as the gang was stranded a little too long in Australia. Even off-episodes still had great content to offer and “The Ballad of Donkey Doug” and “A Fractured Inheritance” provided comic highlights as they combined the “Very Special episode” sitcom format with Jason and Tahini’s ridiculous back stories. Towards the end of the year the show started accelerating fast into game changing twists but unlike the first season, our preconceptions haven’t been shattered so it’s still holding steady.

Courtesy: Variety

11. Ozark (Netflix)-Much of the first two seasons here were spent squeezing the protagonist between various characters, capable of inflicting death or worse, who exact opposite demands on him like “Malcolm in the Middle” with psychotic thugs. The tension on this show has gone from satisfying to an adrenaline high but there’s a point when you start to wonder if credibility gets sacrificed. Don’t blame this show: It’s been the template of much of peak TV since “Breaking Bad” and “The Americans”: The more implausible obstacles your antihero is faced with, the better the show. “Ozark” has some great characters, even better acting, and a strong sense of place but it really started to distinguish itself towards the latter half of the season when Marty tried to actively look for a way out (as any sensible character would do) which made his moral conflicts so much more interesting.

12. Disenchantment (Netflix)-Matt Groening mined the genre of futuristic tropes for an anachronistic playground in “Futurama”, and he does the same here with medieval Europe. The visual details are rich in a way that humor can be mined out of all the Easter eggs in the backdrop. John DiMaggio doesn’t do much with King Zog to make him interesting but the rest of the cast is pretty solid and like Groening’s two other creations, there’s already an array of solid side characters. To give an idea, Zog’s second wife is a salamander who talks like Eva Gabor and one of the red shirt knights is named Mortimer the Expendable.  It’s not a finished product yet but it’s a good bet that this show will get significantly richer in future seasons.

Honorable Mention:
Baroness von Sketch Show, IFC-These four seasoned ladies continue to kill it with innovative sketches that vary by length and consistently deliver fresh and original commentary on human nature. Meredith MacNeill, in particular, is a great physical comedian who will bend and contort in any which way for a laugh. 
BoJack Horseman, Netflix-#1 last year, "Bojack" felt like it was treading through familiar beats to some extent but there were several positive developments to show character growth including BoJack maintaining a relationship with Hollyhock, going through both ends of the #metoo movement with a determination to cure himself of alcoholism. and holding down a job (harder than it looks for BoJack). The show found avenues for everyone's arc to continue to be worthwhile five seasons in (although Dianne has a ways to go, we'll be pulling for you next season).  On the humor front, it was hard to top Henry Fondle and on the experimantation front, the show batted one for two in my book (the episode with four Halloweens was the season's MVP to me although some prefer "Free Churro") 
Camping, HBO-Co-written by Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner, this show feels like a spiritual successor to "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolff" if the party size was doubled and extended to an entire weekend camping trip. Jennifer Garner stars as Kathryn, an uptight mother in a sexless marraige, who's good graces belie her deep insecurities. Juliette Lewis plays the free-spirited Jandice who is the perfect foil to Kathryn's facade and the season is a slow burn to watching Kathryn unravel. In between these two are a ragtag group who collectively demonstrate that adulting isn't always as complete a process as it seems.
Derry Girls, Channel 4/Netflix-This Irish import found a distinctive voice (quite literally with the thick brogues) and plot format rather quickly. It's rooted in a strong sense of place and a point of view that adolescence is cruel but has moments of rose-tinted nostalgia here and there.
Impractical Jokers, TruTV-On the surface, this looks like four goofballs laughing too hard at their own shennanigans, but this show involving four Staten Island men daring each other to say and do absurd things with strangers involves highly skilled improv packaged in a format that encourages edge-of-your-seat escalation.
Me Myself and I, CBS-A family comedy starring recent SNL alum Bobby Moynihan and John Larroquette that has two things going for it. The gooey morality fables found in the TGIF sitcoms of old, and labyrinthine Sienfeldesque plotting that takes place across the past, present and future of a man's life. Unfortunately the sitcom was cancelled but burned-off episodes are available online. 
Orange is the New Black, Netflix-One of the best ensemble shows in the television history, there are high points and storylines that work in every season. The new dynamic with the two fueding sisters and the moral shading of the guards based on their varying stopping points to a sadistic game of fantasy prisoner were this year's highlights. The tour de force that had the power to get the audience angry enough to want to take action (hello criminal justice reform bill?) was the show's focus on the trial of Tasha "Taystee" Jefferson in all its rawness. The show might have cracked the top 12 if it didn't feel like such a hard reset from last season. 
Rise, NBC-The show was flawed by a protagonist who had such tunnel vision in directing his school play that he was willing to put a not-yet-out gay student in the crosshairs of his conservative family, deny the primadonna her lead role, and screw with the football team's winning formula for the sake of his precious vision. And that's to say nothing of the dues-ex-machinas that continually saved him. But what can I say, somehow this show really worked for me. It hit the right timbre in its emotional relationships (think "Glee" without the whiplash) and has a very strong sense of economically margainalized Red State America
Succession, HBO-There’s not much to write here beyond “spoiled rich family schemes and quibbles and schemes some more” and it’s a lot of fun. A murderer’s row of character actors—Jeremy Strong, Matthew McFayden, Kieran Culkin, Brian Cox, Alan Ruck—lend slightly different shades of nasty to their characters and they’re largely attending a lot of formal events where they’re acting inappropriate.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix-The 4th season regained some of the mojo that the show has had with it's stronger runs when the characters had a consistent thru-line. Kimmy's three supporting characters have come out of the gate more self-assured: Titus had a more definite arc forward in contrast to Jackie's newfound stability. Meanwhile, Lily had much more opportunity to be a wild card that could break an episode open on the humor front as she caused a sexual revolution in nerdom in "Kimmy Breaks the Paradigm." And Xanthippe made another appearance! If the show had more than six epsiodes, it could have really found a groove.

Others Shows I Watched That Didn't Make the List:
9-1-1, Fox*; 13 Reasons Why, Netflix; ACS: Versace, FX; Adam Ruins Everything, TruTV; Alex Inc, ABC*; AP Bio, NBC*; Arrested Development, Netflix; Barry, HBO; Billy on the Street, Lyft; Big Mouth, Netflix; BoJack Horseman, Netflix*; The Break with Michelle Wolff, Netflix; Brockmire, IFC; Comedy Knockout, TruTV, Corporate, Comedy Central*; Casual, Hulu%; Camping, HBO; The Cool Kids, Fox; Corporate, Comedy Central; Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, CW; The Flash, CW; Derry Girls, Channel 4/Netflix; Electric Dreams, Amazon%; Empire, Fox*; Family Guy, Fox; Gifted, Fox; Glow, Netflix; God Friended Me, CBS; Good Girls, NBC; Great News, NBC; It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, FXX; I Feel Bad, NBC%; Jack Ryan, Amazon*; Jessica Jones, Netflix; Kidding, Showtime%, Killing Eve, BBC; Last Man on Earth, Fox;  LA to Vegas, NBC; Last Week Tonight, HBO; Late Night with Seth Meyers, NBC; Lost in Space, Netflix; Modern Family, ABC; Mom, CBS; No Activity, CBS All-Access; Once Upon a Time, ABC: Queer Eye, Netflix*; Mozart in the Jungle, Amazon; Norm McDonald Has a Show, Netflix; Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO; Schitt's Creek, Pop TV; Sick Note, Netflix; SNL, NBC; Superstore, NBC; Timeless, NBC%;  A Very British Scandal, Amazon;  Westworld, HBO%

*=Considered for honorable mention
%=Didn't see more than one or two episodes

Top 25 TV Characters of 2015

It's a bit late for my Top 25 Characters of TV List but better late than never. Here's last year's edition

1. Julianna Marguiles as Alicia Florrick, The Good Wife

Florrick is the epitome of professionalism under pressure. As her principal law partner is alternating between prison and parole, a shady drug lord threatens to pollute her agency's reputation, and the construction of her new office keeps hitting snags, Florrick navigates a political campaign and high-level clients who don't tolerate slip-ups with inspiring levels of grace. And she even has time to go out for an occasional drink with the district attorney who's using every trick at his disposal to keep that aforementioned law partner behind bars.

2. Nick Sandow as Caputo, Orange is the New Black-For many readers of Piper Kerman’s memoir and viewers of the resulting TV adaptation, "Orange is the New Black" is an eye-opening wake-up call on prison reform. It’s impossible to get engrossed in the series and not put yourself in the shoes of those running the joint and going through a million “what if”s before stopping with the realization that the people in charge just don’t care. He might not be a great role model (his weird relationship with Fig hasn't endeared him to certain corners of the internet) but at the end of the day, he’s someone who cares about improving conditions for the inmates and has some semblance of a pragmatic plan to do so. In Litchfield that’s a rarity. Watching him hold onto that glimmer idealism was a fascinating ride in OitNB’s 3rd season.

3. Constance Wu as Jessica Huang, Fresh off the Boat-As this is a show told from a child’s point of view, Jessica is everything an alpha mom should be: Terrifying, authoritative, unable to be outsmarted and full of charisma. Jessica’s brash indifference to tact and her steadfast belief that no penny should be wasted has led to an endless supply of great quotes. I have an immigrant mother like Jessica and there's an almost frightening degree of verisimilitude between the two.

4. Terrence Howard as Lucious Lyons, Empire-Since breaking out a decade ago in "Hustle and Flow", Terrence Howard has always had a big presence and the role of Lucious Lyon is one ambitious to accommodate that gravity. He is a complicated guy who can navigate street culture and business culture adeptly (note to self: consult with a black friend to phrase that in the best way). More importantly, he has the pretense of a good heart but a bottomless reserve of capacity to do bad and because he can turn on a dime with utmost slyness, that has made him a lot of fun to watch long after the show got overly soapish to hold my interest.

5. Will Forte as Phil Miller, Last Man on Earth-Phil Miller is the type of slacker who chooses to spend the apocalypse shooting pool with bowling balls and making margarita pools rather than worry about running water. When his prayers of finding another surviving human are answered, he discovers that post-apocalyptic social interaction isn’t all it’s made out to be. Watching Forte’s Phil Miller weasel his way out of situations he put himself in is cringe-worthy comedy on par with The Office. It’s been nearly five years since Will Forte left Saturday Night Live and as Flavorwire points out, he is “the rare Saturday Night Live alumnus who actually deserves a sitcom and has taken far too long to get one.”

6. Taraji P Henson as Cookie, Empire-An actress who's been steadily rising in popularity over the last decade, Cookie is an apt breakout role for someone who can deliver sharp dialogue with oomph. Like Constance Wu's Jessica, she's an alpha mom of epic proportions, but she varies in that she can simultaneously stay exlusively focused on herself and herself alone. As Cookie, she gets the best lines on the show and owns them with her trademarkable (yes, that's a word!) style.

7. Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia-Charlie as an idiot savant really took Sunny to great heights this season. We got the idiot Charlie who blindly followed "The Master" when Dennis, Dee, and Frank alternated to create a cult, but we also got the savant in full force when he masterfully duped the new health inspector AND made the chicken scheme run to perfection in "Charlie Work." And in Charlie's drinking contest, it was a mix of Charlie's idiocy, his fortitude, and an extraordinary liver that allowed him to beat Wade Boggs' record in the season opener. Oh and did we mention he slept with Dee and promptly relegated her to "let's never talk about this again" territory. To be fair, the decision to forget their one-night stand was mutual but that's a major step-up for Charlie.

8. Gael Garcia Bernal as Rodrigo, Mozart in the Jungle-"Mozart in the Jungle" is a love letter between an artistic genius and his hundred-member orchestra. The tortured artist trope has been played quite a bit but Bernal plays the part with enough tempered battyness to really sell it. The charisma of Rodrigo is especially important to the majority of viewers who have no idea how to discern a good rendition of Mahler from a great one or why exactly it's important for a conductor to wave his hands in the right way.

9. Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy McGill, Better Call Saul-One of the beautiful things of a sophomore effort like "Better Call Saul" is it allowed Vince Gilligan to continue exploring Albuquerque without the weighted expectations and praises of making the greatest show on TV. And no one represents the grimy sun-baked adobe underbelly of Albuquerque than Jimmy McGill. Watching him work a room and dealing with averse situations is simply magical. The first season didn't have as much of McGill adeptly wiggling his way out of holes as I'd hoped but it set up the character pretty well.

10 Miranda Otto as Allison, Homeland-An upper level State Department

bureaucrat who became an attention-getter first by trying to go against the system and retain her position. I've often imagined (in both real-life and fiction) that government bureaucrats have a big red "emergency resign" button on their desk in case of a PR disaster. It's a rarity to see someone stand up and say: "No, I'm not going to resign, damnit!" But then she pulled the wool over our eyes (or at least mine) by working both sides while maneuvering well under pressure. And bonus points for convincing us that she was enjoying sleeping with Saul.

11. Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as Grace and Frankie, Grace and Frankie-It's hard to pick just one here. This show works so well because it focuses on the trials and tribulations of a different older generation without feeling outdated in its comedic style. A wide range of entries in film and TV fall into this trap: Hot in Cleveland, Golden Girls, Mr. Saturday Night, The Sunshine Boys, etc. It also helps that Fonda and Tomlin have such great chemistries, the characters are pretty perfectly positioned as foils to one another, and it's pretty apparent neither actress is phoning it in.

12. Tim Robbins as Walter Larson, The Brink-Larson first appeared as an apathetic cabinet-level secretary knee-deep in whores, but it was the other way around. He was the only person in the government who knew what he was doing and no one else would get off his back about it when he tries to save the world. There's plenty to appreciate Robbins physical comedy with the way he descends Larson into an urgent monotone and keeps his gaze fixated straight ahead when he's in serious world-saving mode.

13. Kimiko Glen as Brooke Soso, Orange is the New Black-Brooke's otherness has always been an acceptable sort even as unjust consequences were going on around her and being called out. She's a blabbermouth who doesn't know her place, so she gets a bile from Piper and the like that we as an audience have been complicit in looking past through our relative apathy in comparison to the problems faced by other prisoners. In Season 3, Brooke succumbed to a mental breakdown and suicide attempt, and facing our own previous apathy to her struggles proved an eye-opening experience. Her loneliness was a great contrast to all the storylines revolving around inmates bonding: It reminded us that prison is often a lonely place.

14. Deborah Ann Woll as Paige-Murdoch's secretary is a relatively thankless part (Case in point: try to remember who played her in the 2003 movie) but she was a memorably fierce character who was unwilling to let any of her past experiences or being a woman in a dangerous part of town intimidate her. Woll plays the part with a good mix of edginess and down-to-Earth and perfectly conveys the level of exhaustion that being constantly vigilant must exert on Paige.

15. Carol Kane as Lily, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt-Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s newest creation, "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", is the kind of show where everyone has a different favorite character but I couldn’t get enough of Carol Kane’s quirky landlord with a shady past (she has a friend named “eight ball” and sanded off her fingerprints). Her anarchic leanings would likely have given her an in with the Occupy Wall Street crowd if the show was set a couple of years earlier which made the last couple episodes, in which she was paired with 1% Jane Krakowski’s Jacqueline on a road trip, all the more sweet.

16. Zach Woods as Jared, Silicon Valley-It's all making sense now: Gabe from "The Office" was just an opportunity for Woods to workshop the prototype for his masterpiece of aloofness. Jared has the perfect bland of naïvette, eagerness, and tone-deaf responsiveness that fits in well with the kind of bureaucratic idiots Mike Judge specializes in.

17. Megan Stevenson as AJ Gibbs, Review-Aside from her nice legs and envy-inducing wardrobe, Gibbs does so much with facial expressions and small  snippets of conversation with Forrest that it's hard to imagine any other character getting so much bang for the buck. She's a little bit of an enabler, a little bit of a critic, a little of an airhead, and possibly a little sadistic. It's hard to pin her down, but it's exciting to try.

18. Sam Waterson as Saul in Grace and Frankie-Saul's place on the spectrum of flamboyance that defines gay characters on TV is entirely unique as someone who's newly arriving to gay culture in his later years. While it's easy to pigeonhole Saul in relationship to his more masculine (read: curmudgeonly) partner, the primary trait that comes through for him is that he's an unabashed softie. He is earnest, sincere, and thoughtful enough about his ex-wife that he deserves to be on the textbook cover for "How to Interact with Your Exes 101."
Where Saul is more assertive, it's in how he defines himself: He doesn't want to be gay in any way except for his love for his partner. He's just a Robertsexual and we're happy for him.

19. Cory Michael Smith as The Riddler, Gotham-As an unapolagetic Penguin fan, I spent the 2014 gushing over The Penguin but (see my top 25 characters of last year) but I tired of the fact towards the end of the season that his primary way of getting ahead was begging for his life and being in the right place and the right time. So I'm now on board the Riddler bandwagon. After all, it's the best sign of the show's writing that we had an entire season of the Riddler being a law-abiding citizen with just a few clues here and there of an abnormal personality. For a show that likes to burn through villains and plot lines at a self-defeating rate, the slow burn of The Riddler's arc is pretty compelling.

20. Emily Hampshire as Stevie, Schitt's Creek-In a town plagued by chronic boredom, no one can feign ironic disinterest as well as Hampshire’s hotel clerk Stevie. For Stevie’s best deadpanned look search no further than the scene in which spoiled man-child David (Daniel Levy) wants a job and she has to explain to him that a bagger at the grocery store is a more likely option than a “taste maker.”

21. Michael Ian Black as Mitch "Peepers" Spiritwalker, Another

Period-Let's be honest: "Another Period" was tonally jarring at first. The show's overblown absurdity needed some time to gel in the first few episodes but fortunately Peepers arrived as a ready-made creation from the get-go. Think of the most rigid school teacher you've ever had, give him the classist speech affectations of Margaret Dumont and the aloofness of a cartoon villain and that's Peepers in a nutshell.

22. Elden Henson as Foggy, Daredevil-Daredevil was one of the most gripping comic book adaptations to hit TV in the past few years and that's due to the strong character work. The part of Foggy isn't one that's easy to shine in. No superhero power, no superheroic good looks, and he's completely overshadowed by Matt Murdoch/Daredevil in everything he does. His law partnership also operates with a strange veto power in which nearly everything Henson suggests gets vetoed. Somehow Elden Henson makes the idea of playing second-fiddle endearing. With Foggy as a rootable character, it makes his more dramatic stand against Murdoch's vigilantism towards the end of the first season that much more effective.

23. Kerry Bishe as Donna, Halt and Catch Fire-Too often people are concerned about fair portrayals on media of sex and race, but I think ageism is an interesting undercurrent to explore and Donna's character is definitely a victim of that as she sort of struggles in a young person's world (doubly so). The plots of The Internship (as well as Robert DeNiro's similarly-titled film) and In Good Company deal are two of the few examples of issues of obsolescence among the older generation with working for a younger boss and Donna got some interesting moments. I like where the direction of her marriage went.

24. Christina Hendricks as Celine AKA Chair, Another Period-In a manor that's overrun with terrible people who are all sorts of psychopathic, very few characters gave me as much pleasure as Chair deviously plotting her way to the top. And that's not even mentioning how exciting and unexpected it was to see Christina Hendricks tackle a comic role with such finesse.

25 (tie). Adam DeVine as Andy, Modern Family-Other than popping out new babies (i.e. Joe), Modern Family has done little to shake up their cast which makes the addition of Adam DeVine as the Prichett family’s manny (male nanny) such a welcoming surprise. Andy sells corny eagerness like no other. On a scale of zero to Phil Dumphy, he registers a 9 in cheesiness, and yet he’s convincingly won the heart and affection of Hailey.

25 (tie). Taryn Manning as Pennsatucky, Orange is the New Black-Her odd couple friendship with Boo was one of the most hope-inspiring relationships at Litchfield and her rape storyline was eye-opening and heavy. It left no easy answers but somehow it found a way from Point A to Point B narrative-wise that felt true to Pennsatucky's character and cathartic for the viewer.

Honorable Mention:
Aaron Paul voicing Todd Chavez, BoJack Horseman; Alan Cumming as Eli Gould, The Good Wife; Allison Janney as Bonnie, Mom; Amanda Crews as Dr. Cassandra Railley, 12 Monkeys; Anna Faris as Christy, Mom; Carrie Preston as Elsbeth Tasciano, The Good Wife; Charlie Cox as Matt Murdorch, Daredevil; Claire Danes as Carrie Matthieson, Homeland; Donal Logue as Bullock, Gotham; Hayley Atwell as Agent Carter, Agent Carter; Judy Greer voicing Cheryl, Archer; Maribeth Monroe as Kendall, Brink; Mary Steenburgen as Delia Powell, OitNB, Mary Steenburgen as Linda, Togetherness; Matthew Goode as Finn Palomar, The Good Wife; Max Gall as Mr. McNeil, Review; Michael McKean as Chuck, Better Call Saul; Tara Lynn Barr as Laura Meyers, Casual, Vella Lovell as Heather Davis Crazy Ex-girlfriend; Vincent Rodriguez III as Josh Chan, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

My Top 12 Shows of 2015

It's time for my annual edition of My Top 12 Shows of 2015 (for past editions, check out the Top 10 TV tag):


1. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, FX- There’s little chance that the show will receive

the awards recognition it so bluntly told us it didn't need in "The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award" but, for my money, this is the most sophisticated comedy on TV and deserves even more credit for continuing to be one of television’s most innovative shows after its 100-episode mark. The tenth season featured a drink-a-thon on a cross-country flight, a "Birdman" homage which followed Charlie for a continuous nine-minute shot (with commercials pre-empted), a cult created by Dennis (later co-opted by Dee, Frank, and Dee again), a fight to claim Frank’s bloodline, and an appearance by the gang on Family Feud. With the character beats becoming richer and more complex, It’s Always Sunny not only has one of the most well-developed comic voices on television, but it also has TV’s most finely tuned ensemble.




2. Last Man on Earth, Fox-A Twilight Zone premise wrapped in the sensibilities of an SNL sketch,
Will Forte plays a guy whose makeshift solutions to being the sole survivor of an epidemic-induced apocalypse are building a kick-ass margarita pool and befriending an array of volleyballs. It's an entertaining enough show but the game changes entirely when he meets Kristen Schaal and the show morphs into an Adam-in-Eve situation in which Eve is a shrewish nag and Adam wants to run away from responsibility. And so on and so forth. The novelty of the premise allowed the show to switch gears with new cast additions and subtractions which leant itself to one of the most unpredictable rides on television backed by one hell of a comic performance in Will Forte as the ever-evolving post-apocalyptic schlub Phil Miller 1.0 .


3. BoJack Horseman, Netflix-Move over "Togetherness" and "Happyish": The most psychologically resonant exploration of happiness and depression didn't come from some prestige cable show but a cartoon about a talking horse. BJH started out as a Hollywood satire and while it hasn't lost any of its funny in the Netflix show's sophomore season, the journey of its central character is heart-wrenching but grounded in such truth that BoJack's highs are well-earned and the lows are deeply felt. The show is also doing an incredible job at world-building with meatier story lines for the side characters, the addition of Lisa Kudrow as an owl stuck in the 80's, and too many other anthropomorphic strokes of genius to mention here. The show creators even tried their darndest to explain the lingering question about where meat comes from in this all-animal universe.  

4. Orange is the New Black, Netflix-Continuing its exploration of oppressed womanhood through the lens of a woman's federal prison, OitNB's new season continued utilizing every facet of one of 
TV's best ensembles to achieve a finely tuned balance of the humorously quirky (i.e. Cindy's attempts to convert to Judaism, Angie's escape attempt), the heartwarming (i.e. Crazy Eyes' crush, the budding friendship between Boo and Pennsatucky), and darker territory (i.e. Pennsatucky's rape, Soso's suicide attempt, Sophia's discrimination) culminating in a glorious free-for-all prison-wide stampede into a neighboring water reservoir for a moment of careless joy. Overlying all this is the clash of idealism verse reality in Caputo's pragmatic attempt to best his predecessor in having a net positive effect on prison conditions. If there is one disappointment to be found in Season 3, it is unclear whether the showrunners are aware that Piper (and Alex) no longer has the potential to be the show's most interesting story line in any given episode. That's just a testament to the strength of the ensemble. 

5. The Brink, HBO-Hampered by early unfavorable comparisons to "Dr. Strangelove" and "Veep", the political black comedy did a wonderful job of amassing fans and silencing haters as its disparate story lines weaved together, the characters got more and more absurd (the sexy no-nonsense Israeli consulate, non-sequitors Vanessa and Martin, the hyper religious ambassador and that's just the side characters), its stakes escalated consistently, and its running gags started hitting with increased frequency. The first season followed a pair of distractable fighter pilots (Pablo Schreiber and Eric Ladin), a low-level State Department attache and his driver (Jack Black and Aasif Mandvi) and one of TV's best comedic performances in Tim Robbins as a hell-bent secretary of state. Maribeth Monroe (mastering the diplomatic walk-and-talk in a manner that would make Aaron Sorkin proud), John Larroquette, and Carla Gugino round out a hyper-talented ensemble.

6. Narcos, Netflix-Narcos is the classic study of power corrupting that's been told many times by De Palma, Scorsese and Coppola but it feels fresh when this tale is transplanted to the leadership vacuum of Colombia. 

Pablo Escobar isn't a Ray Liotta character who fell under the allure of crime and turned cold. Instead, Escobar was a man who grew up in an environment where evil was the norm and he just exploited it better than anyone else. Narcos makes the case that Columbia's drug empire was born out of a dog-eat-dog world. Chance is also a key thru-line that runs through the series: It was through mere chance that the "cockroach" surveyed a Chilean death squad and picked Pablo Escobar for his goldilocks qualities (not too murdery, not too soft) out of the three cartel chiefs in Medellin.

The story is one of the few TV shows where over reliance on narration is welcome and if you listen closely, you'll notice that the narration is a character in his own right (not at the Ron Howard level on "Arrested Development" but maybe it soon).

7. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix-Tina Fey and Robert Carlock attempt to mine

humor out of one of the darkest sitcom premises imaginable -- a woman readjusting to life after being trapped for 15 years in a psychotic preachers' bunker -- and succeed wildly in their sophomore follow-up to "30 Rock." Ellie Kemper (the only actress who seemed like she was trying in the latter seasons of “The Office”) shines as a heroine who drops an odd mix of naivette and spunky enthusiasm with every line of dialogue. Casting Tituss Burgess and Carol "Mrs. Latka Gravas" Kane as Kimmy's sidekicks are both strokes of inspiration and, rounding out the cast, Jane Krakowski proves game at once again poking fun at imagined aristocratic mores as a boomerang bigot (she's secretly Native American). The show regularly delves into absurdity and the direction often breaks the fourth wall, but it never loses site of that underlying "Mary Tyler Moore"-like storyline of a girl trying to make it on her own. 

8. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, CW-Genre-savvy Rachel Bloom has made a name for herself by wielding an axe through the conventions of musical theater in a series of deliciously subversive YouTube videos and hasn't missed a beat in transferring her style of comedy to the small screen. Bloom plays Harvard-educated lawyer Rebecca Bunch who gets a lot of mileage out of being so wonderfully neurotic that she's an unreliable narrator in her own story. Is she really in West Covina for Josh? Is she aware of her illness? The vagueness of her situation lends itself perfectly to the reality-bending nature of the integrated musical and there's a lot of fun to be had. The show also deserves credit for developing all sides of the Josh-Greg-Rebecca love triangle. Greg (Santiago Fontana) is jaded without being unsympathetic and Josh (Vincent Rodriguez) is a sincerely sweet guy who just happens to have not yet caught onto Rebecca's loopiness. Both characterizations are hard to pull off. Other highlights include Donna Lynne Champlin as Rebecca's desperate-for-friends coworker and (my personal favorite) Vella Lovell as a neighbor who could give "Brooklyn Nine-Nine"'s Chelsea Peretti as TV's ditziest character a run for her money.


9. Fresh off the Boat, ABC-Simultaneously a throwback to and a riff on TGIF family-style sitcoms, "Fresh off the Boat" has a modern edginess in the vein of "Everybody Hates Chris" or "Malcolm in the Middle." More than those two shows, however, the show approaches 90's sitcoms with an ironic self-consciousness without omitting that genuine sweetness that those sitcoms were known for. More often than not, 11-year-old protagonist Eddie Huang learns a lesson in a roundabout way.


Featuring the first Asian-American family on network TV in 20 years (if you don't count TBS, and who does?), the show is unashamed to be a product of its place and time and half the fun is ironically reliving the 90's references that the show is so generous to sprinkle out. Showrunner Nahnatchka Khan infuses the plots with labyrinthine storylines that are reminiscent of the looniness she brought to the sitcom with "Don't Trust the B----" but the results are enhanced with the sincere performances of Randall Park and Constance Wu. In particular, Wu qualifies as one of the breakout characters of the season with her wry delivery of some of TV's best lines of dialogue.  

10. Casual, Hulu-Shows centering around flawed people dating are generally problematic because
it's hard to empathize with the trials and tribulations of good-looking actors with active sex lives. Few shows have highlighted the emptiness of sex like this show which features the talents of SNL's biggest firing mistake of the century in Michaela Watkins. Watkins plays a recent divorcee cohabitating with her brother (Tommy Dewey) and trying to get herself back in the field. As a psychiatrist, she has an impeccable grasp on relationship problems but can't get over the hump that involves herself.

Jason Reitman directed the first two episodes of this show and his penchant for combining a light comedic (or as they say "dramedic") tone and truthful character work is in full form here. With Tara Lynn Barr's character pushing the envelope of the bratty teenage daughter trope; Eliza Coupe as a manic pixie sexual nightmare, and one of the most meaningful sibling relationships on TV, there's a lot of great character work being done here.



11. Empire, Fox-With it's two instantly iconic leads in Terrence Howard and Taraji P Henson and a kinetic pace, Empire's first season was entirely worthy of being the buzziest show on TV.. In an age where TV critics are becoming increasingly difficult to please as a de facto diversity police of sorts, Empire has been transcendent in its ambition to tell an Orson Wellesian version of the modern African-American narrative. The modern portrayal of the rags-to-riches myth as a hip-hop empire is given its proper due here. Unfortunately in the second season, the show started shuffling alliances and plot sequences with too much carelessness to maintain any consistency. A groundbreaking first season and a shockingly disappointing second season average out somewhere around 11th place.

12. Homeland, Showtime-After skipping a season and a half, it's relatively comforting to jump in on

Season 5 and see it's not impossible to get back in stride with this show. With Brody's story line having run out of steam (along with, you know, his being dead), the show has turned a new chapter (complete with an exciting new atonal opening credit sequence). As the show relocates to Berlin, the show takes on the aura of a neo-Cold War thriller. Saul, Rupert and Dar Adal return in roles that stretch them (particularly Saul) in new scenarios while Miranda Otto as Saul's cunning new right hand woman and Otto During as a high-powered business man with a big heart are among the new characters added to the mix. What's refreshing about the 5th season of "Homeland" is that there's a normalcy to these characters while there's plenty of room to make the principals squirm.

[UPDATE: I HAVE NOW WATCHED MOZART IN THE JUNGLE AT AMAZON PRIME AND THIS SHOW WOULD HAVE MADE MY TOP 12 BUMPING HOMELAND INTO HONORABLE MENTION AND BUMPING MODERN FAMILY OUT OF HONORABLE MENTION]

Honorable Mention:
12 Monkeys, SyFy-"Honorable" is the key word here. The show started strong out the gate with wonderfully loopy time travel plots (I'm a sucker for that kind of thing) and a tangible chemistry between leads Amanda Schull and Aaron Stanford. The show started to muddle itself up by going in tangential directions and I have yet to complete it, but we'll always have the show's great start.

Adam Ruins Everything, TruTV-Of all the sketches from CollegeHumor's catalogue to turn into a TV show, this is a winner. Adam Conover's know-it-all skeptic is a fully-formed comic character who succeeds in both entertaining and enlightening, but much of the credit also goes to the way the show makes full use of the cinematic possibilities of the half-hour format.

Better Call Saul, AMC-It's a breath of fresh air to revisit Vince Gilligan's version of Albuquerque without having the expectations and elevated prestige of "Breaking Bad" and Bob Odenkirk certainly didn't let us down in his new role as series lead. The character work and sense of place were both rich as can be but the storylines weren't as memorable so many months later.

Billy on the Street, TruTV-One of my favorite discoveries of 2015, Billy Eichner is raw, hilarious, and fearless. His obsession with pop culture taken to violent extremes is something that I suspect a lot of us see in ourselves (I know I do).

Daredevil, Netflix-Probably, my #13, Daredevil was a highly satisfying trip that really succeeded at being grounded in an age where every other superhero blockbuster tries to hammer the point in that their hero is an everyday guy. The cast of Charlie Cox, Elden Henson, Vincent D'onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll, Rosario Dawson, Ayelet Zurer, and Toby Leonard Moore produced some of the richest characters on TV.

Grace and Frankie, Netflix-Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin can act circles around all the young guns on TV so their arrival to serialized TV this year was a welcome surprise. The show is one of the few examples that shows about older people don't have to be tailor made for the AARP crowd. The trials and tribulations of Grace and Frankie were transcendent for all generations.

Inside Amy Schumer, Comedy Central-One of the most distinct, edgy and consistently funny sketch shows out there. "12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer" can stand up against any 30 minutes of TV this season but so many smaller sketches like the "Friday Night Lights" parody and the "I'm Sorry" sketch were inspired pieces of satire as well.

Last Week tonight with with John Oliver, HBO-Oliver made my list last year and he continues to make me laugh and inflame my passions in equal measure.

Modern Family, ABC-In recent years, I joined the critical chorus in proclaiming the show's arrival into the land of diminishing returns, but the show seemed to have a revival as of late. The Andy-Haley storyline has been deftly handled and the show continues to find inventive uses for the comedic talents of Ty Burrell and Sofia Vergara. In all honesty, I'm not suggesting this show is groundbreaking but with an uptick in writing quality, it is one of my most consistently enjoyable viewing experiences week in and week out.

Sense8, Netflix-A highly ambitious global soap opera and superhero show from the Wachowski Brothers that feels tonally different than any other superhero show out there with it's more humanist and global tone.

To let you know what exactly I did watch this year so you can see the pool I chose these TV shows from (some of these are in fact, pretty good, too):
2 Broke Girls, CBS, American Dad, TBS; Agent Carter, ABC; American Horror Story, FX (only the 1st episode); Americans, FX (only about 4 episodes, might have made the list if I finished the season); Another Period, Comedy Central; Archer, FX; Bates Motel, A and E; Ash vs Evil Dead, Starz; The Awesomes, Hulu; Big Time in Hollywood Florida, Comedy Central; Blind Spot, NBC; Bloodline, Netflix (only 3 episodes); The Comedians, FX (only 2 episodes); Daily Show w/Trevor Noah, Comedy Central; Difficult People, Hulu; Documentary Now, IFC; Dr. Ken, ABC; Elementary, CBS; Family Guy, Fox; Fugget About It, Hulu; Garfunkel and Oates, IFC; Glee, Fox; Gotham, Fox;  Grinder, Fox; Halt and Catch Fire, AMC; Humans, AMC; Impress Me, Pop TV; Key and Peele, Comedy Central; Librarians, TNT; Late Show with David Letterman/Stephen Colbert, CBS; Late Show with James Corden, CBS; Master of None, Netflix; Man Seeking Woman, FX; Middle of the Night Show, MTV; Mom, CBS; Other Space, Yahoo; Playing House, USA (only 3 episodes); Project Greenlight, HBO; Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO; Review, Comedy Central; Rick and Morty, Adult Swim;  Seth Meyers, NBC; Seven Days in Hell, HBO; Schitt's Creek, Pop TV, Silicon Valley, HBO; Sing it On, Pop TV; SNL, NBC; Toddrick, MTV; Togetherness, HBO; Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, NBC; True Detective, HBO (only the 1st episode)