My Annual Top 12 Shows of the Year:

1. Orange is the New Black (Netflix)-The seventh and final season of “Orange is the New Black” dealt with immigration courts and the continued indignities of the for-profit prison system with harrowing tragedy. At the same time, “Orange is the New Black” didn’t sacrifice realism to throw us a bone with a few well-earned happy endings, and half a dozen other resolutions that at least ended on a poetic note. Through thick and thin, the series has never failed to entertain or stay fresh which is an accomplishment few shows can claim over such a span.

Source: DenofGeek

 2. The Good Place (NBC)- By now, it seems pretty conclusive that we'll never actually see Eleanor and the gang suffering any actual torture (if for nothing else, because no comedy could possibly be mined out of it) but that doesn't mean that this isn't the most high stakes comedy on television. While it is also a TV show that thrives on burning through plot at nearly unsustainable speeds, "The Good Place" found a nice resting perch from which to ease off the gas pedal with a reboot that saw Team Cockroach running their own simulation. The show continued to build the outer fringes of its word giving more fodder for break out characters (Gen, Vicky, Sean, Derek) to fill out the landscape.

3. BoJack Horseman (Netflix)-The tonal marriage of heart-slowing depression and hilarity was on full display in a season opener that saw BoJack going through the motions of rehab over and over while his peers were able to make sudden improvements. BoJack’s universe is when where achievements aren’t easily earned but slowly accrue over time. Despite the show’s rigid progressivism (which the show runners have shouted out quite a bit off-camera), there’s never a lack of empathy for characters like BoJack who have hurt others in their wake. The half-season concluded with one of their great experimental riffs with a “His Girl Friday” send-up that completely omitted the series’ five main characters. The cliffhanger ending properly raised the stakes over how much of his dark past BoJack is going to relive.

Source: Slashfilm

4. Miracle Workers (TBS)-A whimsical take on the classic world-wide doomsday scenario based on the supremely clever book by ex-SNL scribe Simon Rich. Steve Buscemi plays a God who's an idiot among idiots and his angels live in a bureaucratic jungle reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. That the stakes are high yet mundane-seeming from above is a great comedic template but the show builds on a winning premise with smart dialogue and a great confluence of idiosyncratic personalities. Additionally, this is one of the few times where I can say I’ve read the book and this is indeed a smart adaptation.

Source: Variety

5. Lodge 49 (AMC)- Although this show won't be winning praise from the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, there's a great portrait of a city in economic depression and how it limits the imaginations of everyone it affects. Almost everyone, that is. Enter Sean Dudley (Wyatt Russell): An ex-surfer with an inspiringly open heart who recently lost his dad to a shark accident and has nothing to his name except a membership to a lodge whose members are just as aimless as he is. To say the show meanders would be an understatement: The narrative never really has a definite ending point. Characters simply just try to get through their lives without going under. Some chase lofty dreams (David Pasquesi), some are consigned to know their days are behind them (Linda Edmond) , and others (Wyatt's sister played by Sonya Cassidy) are still trying to figure out what the future holds while fending off a string of hellish bosses. The second season asserts itself a little more with converging thread lines and introductions of Paul Giamatti as a blowhard author and Olivia Sandoval as a cooky CEO who desperately needs to adult.

6. A.P. Bio (NBC)-“AP Bio” started out as a fun outliar of a show that pushed the scenario of a reluctant  teacher who inadvertently bonds with his students to extremes. Jack (Glenn Howerton channels about 80% of Dennis from “Always Sunny” here) actively avoids wanting to even teach his students anything and involves them in incriminating activity. But rather than double down on the “Bad Teacher” scenario, this show has created a genuine sense of pathos in the development of Jack and his relationship with his students while still maintaining the veneer his vindictive persona. This show also has a cast of supporting characters that gets better with every moment of the spotlight they’re given from the multi-racial Greek chorus of teachers (Mary Sohn, Lyric Lewis, Jean Villepique) to the class of misfit students. Thank god for Season 3.

Source: WhatCulture.com

7. Arrested Development (Netflix)-Although the show's final half-season slipped under the radar (except for bad press by Jeffrey Tambour), it doesn't diminish the accomplishment of a series finale that tied up so many disparate threads with the idiosyncratic brick jokes and panache that only "Arrested Development" can. The introduction of Kyle Mooney as a dim-witted bastard child of Tobias seemed like an addition that could shake up a very delicate comic infrastructure but towards the end of the season, the makeshift family of Tobias, DeBrie (whose return along with Isla Fisher’s Rebel Alley are often the seson’s two best things), and Murphy Brown felt like a perfect next step in the show’s evolution.

8. The Boys (Amazon Prime)-With the saturation of the superhero genre there’s already an abundance of TV shows, movies and comic strips that claim enough self-awareness of the genre coupled with the ability to skewer its main traits (see “Guardians of the Galaxy”) but a lot of those efforts try to have their cake and eat it too with humorous tones. “The Boys” manages to divorce itself from what it’s parodying will still maintaining the fun and energy of a proper action film. More than that, “The Boys” has a lot more to say about our society than the genre itself: Whether hero (and, by proxy, celebrity) worship has a function in our society (and its need for role models) or if it makes it easier for our values to be subject to abuse.

9. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)-The show’s seasons range in quality from only a standard level of awesome to off the charts awe-inspiring. The last couple seasons were a little bit of a dip. The characters grew up in terms of facing their demons (for Charlie, the waitress; for Mac, his sexual confusion, for Dennis, giving fatherhood a brief try) so yay! But the new versions of the gang members didn’t necessarily translate into laughs. Season 14 ranged from experimental (the sublime noir send-up “The Janitor Mops Twice”), casually meta (“The Gang Gets Romantic”), skewed takes on social issues (“Thunder Gun 4” and “A Woman’s Right to Chop”), and gleeful callbacks (“Dee Day”) while continuing to rarely drag and have its leads stay hilariously in character.

Source: Cinemablend

10. Dead To Me (Netflix)-A serialized mystery focusing on the connection between a widow (Christina Applegate) trying to make sense of her late husband's death and a awkwardly cheery stranger (Linda Cardellini) who enters her orbit under pretty shady circumstances. Cardinelli's character is so desperate to connect, she's possibly the clingiest character on TV and it's hard to take your eyes off her. But there’s a secret. And another one and a couple more after that. To call this a sunny noir is to short change a story told with a style that defies convention. A second season is on the way and there are few shows where I’m excited to see just how far bad the characters will break.

Source: Reality Blurted

11. Holey Moley (ABC)- 99 times out of 100 I consider the artistry superior in scripted programming than any sort of staged reality, but "Holey Moley" proves the exception to the rule. The mini-golf game show (yes you read that correctly) applies just the right tweaks to every one's favorite backyard game and turns it into an extravaganza akin to ABC's Wild World of Sports. With its three-point twelve-player format, talking head intros, and solid editing, the show introduces us to rootable characters and ups the stakes nicely over the course of an hour. The star of the show though is comedy vet Rob Riggle as a host who adds a surreal level of meta-humor as a play-by-play commentator taking in and spitting out all the absurdity with a straight face.

12. Ramy (Hulu)-Whereas most shows about introspective single men in comedy are about getting laid and occasionally more, Ramy is about an devout Muslim in New Jersey trying to veer away from the secular temptations of sex for a greater religious high. That’s definitely in the category of “something different” worth seeking out when we talk about diversity. Although comedian Ramy Yousef shouldn’t be expected to shoulder the entirety of modern Islam on his shoulders, his show gives us an interesting glimpse.

My list of Honorable Mentions was covered last week: American Horror Story 1984 (FX), Bless the Harts (Fox), Black Mirror (Netflix), Derry Girls (BBC Channel 4/Netflix), Disenchantment (Netflix), Good Omens (Amazon Prime), The Orville (Fox), The Other Two (Comedy Central), Russian Doll (Netflix), What We Do in the Shadows (FX)


Everything I watched last year:
Abby’s (NBC), Adam Ruins Everything (TruTV), Almost Family (ABC), Archer (FX), Baroness von Sketch Show (IFC), Big Mouth (Netflix), Card Sharks (ABC), Castle Rock (Hulu), Carmen Sandiego (Netflix), Carnival Row (Amazon)* Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (CBSAA), Corporate (Comedy Central), Crashing (HBO)*, Chernobyl (AMC)*, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW), Dollface (Hulu), Documentary Now (IFC), Final Space (TBS/Netflix)*, Fresh off the Boat (ABC), Futureman (Hulu), God Friended Me (CBS), Good Girls (NBC), Grand Hotel (ABC), Hot Date (Pop TV), I-Land (Netflix), I Think You Should Leave (Netflix), 9-1-1 (NBC), Perfect Harmony (NBC), Politician (Netflix), Sex Education (Netflix), Schitt’s Creek (PopTV), Shrill (Hulu), Society (Netflix), Superstore (NBC), Sunnyside (NBC), Those Who Can’t (TruTV), Thirteen Reasons Why (Netflix), Undone (Amazon Prime), Umbrella Academy (Netflix), Will and Grace (NBC), Yellowstone (Paramount Network)

* = one episode