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

My Week in TV Part III: Crashing Season 3 Premiere

This is a series where I capture a single week of TV watching but it's taken me over a month to get through that single week and it's shifting quite a bit as I go, so essentially this is just another TV review

Crashing (HBO)-Season Premiere-“Jaboukie”-As I often say, loving a past season of a show doesn’t necessarily translate to an equal enthusiasm in the present. Because of the increasing gaps in time between seasons, and the subsequent efforts needed to refamiliarize myself, it’s never a given that the content will hit me the same way.

I wrote a gushing fan letter to a producer involved with the show because the show’s second season meant a lot to me and if nothing else, we’ll always have season 2.

However, it’s going to be difficult to tell if Pete is still going to retain his sweetness which is a key part of what makes the show so refreshing.

Let’s look at this week’s story: Comedian protagonist goes on the road a lot where he has gets some laughs, enjoys a relative comfort and some dispassionate (yet loud) sex with a venue booker. He feels a bit lonely in a new way—lost through the grind of travel, so he invites a young comedian with him on the road for the rest of his tour. The new protégé picks up steam and when they get to New York City for comedian protagonist’s audition at a prime comedy spot, the protégé ends up impressing the booker so much that he displacing the now devastated comedian. It’s a solid plot that hinges a good twist, but the question: Is this sufficiently a Pete Holmes story?

It’s inevitable that Pete’s naiveté will disappear as he becomes more experienced but the show’s success relies on him retaining the same character in his core. Both Pete’s treatment of Ally and the way his sexual encounter is framed as uber-casual raise questions. In the case of Pete and Ally, the version of Pete I was hoping to see was the one who awkwardly felt compelled to convey his apologies to Ally and had the conviction to act on it. In the case of the sexual encounter, this should be big news. Sexual encounter #2 was a moral crisis and an interpersonal obstacle course. Maybe not knowing any details of sexual encounter #3 (or possibly more, who knows how many post-Ally rodeos he’s had?) is the point: It’s all just a blur to him. Personally, I want the scoop!

The upshot here is that this is only the season opener. This is one of the better examples where the episodic review format isn’t as great without context.

Crashing Seaon Finale Review: Roast Battle

Oh, my arodably naïve Pete Holmes. You thought that stand-up comedy was all hearts and bunnies and you’d never face the fact that your potential success would often equate to someone else’s failure, didn’t you? And even worse, you were gullible enough to believe you’d never have to face those consequences with your girlfriend in the same field?

If Crashing is a late-in-life coming-of-age story, this week’s lesson is that for all its wonderful camaraderie, there’s an inescapable dog-eat-dog element of comedy. All of capitalism for that matter. And hey, if you want to minimize that kind of stuff, sure, but don’t go into a roast battle expecting to keep that blissful ignorance intact.

But while it’s bad for Pete’s romantic life and moral compass, it plays to one of the show’s main strengths which is give us a rose-tinted inside look into the world of comedy. The roast battle (where people insult one another for comic points) can seems like a mean-spirited exercise to outsiders, and it can seem like lazy comedy (if you see the same jokes being used regardless of the opponent). There is a faction, mostly led by Jeff Ross (who cameos in this episode as one of the judges), who sees it as a unique art and niche format within stand-up that’s worthy of expansion.

To give us the full roast experience, the show features snippets of people we don't know (I'm suspecting d-list friends of Holmes who enjoyed the free exposure here) doing their thing alongside Pete and Ally. Pete's first match first comes off as a pleasant-looking man who we soon learn is playing for blood. As soon as Leif and Jess show up, he barges into their conversation in an effort to get ammuunition to use against Pete. It's a funny moment that provides a world-building detail in a flash.

One can understand the roast’s appeal for an episode of this show. The nastiness of the process contrasts so well to Pete’s self-image as a nice guy with a firm set of principles. Or at least that’s the Pete we used to know. His willingness to sell out in the last episode and the increasing proliferation  of cursing in his language have suggested a slight erosion.

 

One of the weaknesses of this episode is that we desperately needed to see the aftermath of Pete selling out. Is he now starting all his routines with “Gas it Up”? Granted, those leftover plot threads didn’t fit in the framework of a “rap battle” but this is the second show this Spring season (the other being Silicon Valley) that made the mistake of placing its most pivotal development marker in the season’s penultimate episode.

Instead, the season finale offers another major plot development, because, well, that's the law governing season finales. In this case, we have the break-up of Pete and Ally which, while sufficiently big news, is entirely unfulfilling. For one, what's not to like about Ally (both in terms of being a great character and what her relationship does to Pete)? For another, it seems inorganic and shoehorned in to give the finale oomph. More importantly, it's thematically muddled. If Pete's evolution is toward becoming less of a goody two-shoes, how is dumping Ally because she was a meany head in an entirely appropriate setting consistent with that? If Pete's attempting to take control of his life and independence had to do with being on his own, why not state that rather than dump someone for reasons that made no sense?

I can understand Pete being wrong and the show acknowleding that, but season finales in which the character makes a crucial decision in the closing minutes have a way of portraying a character avoiding reflection for the foolishness of their decision. The end result is making him more dislikeable. Sure, maybe he'll redeem himself months from now when this show returns but it's a sour note to go out on.

In the face of such a wonderful season, one sour note is a minor quibble, because Pete is one of the sweetest characters on TV. Here's hoping there's more of him

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Crashing (HBO) vs Every Other Comedy Series in History

Credit: Deadline.com

Before the HBO series “Crashing” came along, the tired genre of comedians playing slightly modified versions of themselves consisted of two basic categories: Deranged clowns ("Seinfeld", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "The Comedians", "Legit") or depressed clowns ("Mr. Saturday Night", "Louie", Larry Sanders Show"). Because comedians are naturally entertaining and often are good at expressing comedy with a unique voice, much of this fare is still watchable and entertaining even if it’s not particularly innovative.  The freshest take I’ve seen in recent years has been the Netflix offering “Lady Dynamite” which took the deranged metaphor literally and used it as a platform for a soft exploration into mental illness.

“Crashing” however is not just a fresh take within already-tried confines but it’s something I've never seen done successfully. It’s a show that shows that the archetypal comedian is not necessarily synonymous with traits of amorality, loneliness or flat-out craziness.

The first season of the show begins with a wet-behind-the-ears Pete Holmes (played, of course, by Pete Holmes) who’s forced out of his marriage by a wife who cheats on him because she needs someone more exciting in bed. In his late 20s, Holmes is forced to come to the realization that he has quite a bit of adulating to do as his Christian upbringing and the complacency of married life has stunted his development quite a bit.  Unable to support himself, Holmes is saved by a near supernatural ability to fall into random encounters with comic celebrities and, even more luckily, he elicits their sympathy enough to get a place to stay (hence, the title of the show).

The show’s cleverness is that all this depression and vice you ordinarily see in the genre is filtered through the lens of an audience surrogate in Holmes who manages to hold on to his cheerful naiveté in forging his new relationship with himself and his new circle of friends.  Some of these friends like Artie Lange could set the depraved comedian trope to new heights if he were to star in his own show, but through the eyes of Holmes, he elicits empathy. Similarly, the off-kilter nature of many of the other characters –TJ Miller has a bit of a God complex, Richard Burr is a bit miserable in domestic life to the point of being unappreciative of his wife, Sara Silverman is a bit overly trusting – is minimized when seen through the eyes of Holmes who sees them for their faults but also for their generosity.

Whereas the comedy scene is generally portrayed in fiction as a cesspool that collects the bottom feeders of society, “Crashing” is about a man who chooses comedy simply because he feels it’s his life’s calling. The second season sees Holmes in a gradual arc of losing contact with his innocence as he sells out his act with a catch phrase, let’s a little cursing slip into his language, and has his first sexual encounter outside of marriage.  However, whereas the typical the comedy scene is generally portrayed as a cesspool that brings out the worst in people the longer they dwell in it, the sense of camaraderie and mutual support is emphasized here.

My Week in TV II: American Crime Story, Crashing, Superstore, Another Period

American Crime Story-House by the Lake
The main draw of this show was watching innocent, sweet Darren Criss try his hand at playing a cold serial killer. So far this show lacks any sort of thru-line except Criss’s character himself. Last week, “Random Killing” centered around the killing of a notable real estate magnate presented with little context as for the “why.” Andrew Cunanan was analyzed so little that it felt like we were meant to accept him as simply a deranged man without rhyme or reason. Did we make more progress into figuring out what makes him tick this week? Not yet, but the season is long enough that we have reason to think that the show will at least attempt to mine that territory.
In the interim, this week was a thrill of a ride that seemed unpromising at the first commercial break because it seemed like the episode tipped its hand early. These episodes seem most fun when those around Andrew don’t know he’s a serial killer so I wasn’t sure why I wanted to keep watching once that was done with. I even turned off the episode at that point, but when I returned a couple days later, I realized how wrong I was.

The episode resumed into a tense hostage situation with Andrew taking his reluctant friend/lover- and witness to the murder number one – on the road with him. Why doesn’t David scream for help and run for cover at the diner? Why doesn’t he wait until Andrew is sleeping to make a phone call? All we can say in the wake of David’s tragic end is that hindsight is 20/20.

Like past episodes, the series does an excellent job of spotlighting the tragic nature of living in this community regardless of whether they’re being hunted by a serial killer or not. The way they seek love on the DL makes them more vulnerable to being taken advantage of and the errant looks of passersby invites suspicion no matter what.

Another Period-The Olympics
This show has haphazardly thrown every famous person Helen Keller to Harriett Tubman to Sigmeund Freud to Thomas Edison to Scott Joplin into the circle of the Bellacourts regardless of plausibility. It reeks just a little of stunt casting but that’s generally a complaint to make when such stunts aren’t effective. In these cases, the intersection of the famed historic book cutout with the Bellacourts has presented an opportunity for pointed social satire: Like musicians today, the show posits that Joplin was likely aided by his historic rise through a mix of talent and being in the right place and right time promotion-wise. Similarly, the unabashed reverence that we give historical figures is challenged with Harriett Tubman and the vouyeristic possibilities that came as a result of Edison’s moving picture inventions are commented on by making Edison a snuff film pervert himself.

This week it’s Adolf Hitler. He’s derided by some critics as an easy joke target and that same school of thought translates to putting him in a historical fiction comedy. Aside from my preference for the show to focus on American figures (they jive better with this show’s take on the origins of American excess), there’s nothing much they do with him other than make him play the “who would you kill if you could go back in history game?” and, oh yes, they do give his hatred for Jews an origin story. But still, there’s nothing particularly sharp about it. On the bright side, it is a return for Brett Gelman as the shady lower class squall Hamish who apparently is a friend of the doctor. As a Jew, I can tell you that the praying they do before the Shabbat dinner is authentic Hebrew.

In other news, the incest plot between Freddie and Beatriz sister sort of gets resolved but sort of doesn’t. For my money, this thread seems like a remnant of the show’s early days when they were all over the place tonally and this is one of their ickier ideas. There’s also an archery competition which returns Helen Keller and Lillian who’s not as nasty to her fellow woman as usual. That job belongs to Brian Huskey’s character who’s gay repression has made him angrier and angrier and if seeing him get ANGRY tickles your funny bone, you might like this B-plot.

More of my writings on Another Period

Crashing-Pete and Leif/Bill Burr (Season 2 Episode 2, Season 2 Episode 3)-
There’s significantly more wiggle room in Pete Holmes approach to the rapidly oversaturating genre of comedians playing themselves when one considers that few comedians are as wet behind the ears as the Pete Holmes character. The format of using an audience surrogate who’s naïve and sweet allows us to witness all the freedom and decadence of the comedian lifestyle with enough distance that the audience is freed from complicitness.

In the season’s second episode, Pete sleeps with a woman who’s not his wife for the first time and, like many of Pete’s other misadventures, the differing view between Pete and Ally over “what last night meant” is a wake-up call that Pete is woefully unprepared for modern city life. It’s a mostly harmless encounter (I might be wrong, maybe he’ll be in therapy for this all the way through Season 4, who knows?). The distance between Pete and his friends is highlighted by the fact that his friends are much happier than he is that he slept with Ally. Also worth noting, Ally ( Jamie Lee ) looks a helluva lot like Pete’s first wife (Pete the character, that is) Lauren Lapkus that the casting doesn’t seem coincidental here.

Questions of Pete’s masculine identity are once again challenged by his host of the week Bill Burr. I have no idea who Burr (question of the week: does anyone know what Bill Burr is famous for? Does anyone want to save me the trip to IMDB?) so f--- him because he’s more toxic than Artie Lange in continually trying to turn Pete into something he’s not: a man’s man. Then again, Burr’s not that mad at Pete for his screw-up of the week, so it evens out. Although people repeatedly screwing up in epic ways is the hallmark of much of sitcom comedy, this show is too sweet to do that to its protagonist and that’s part of the charm. It’s also revealed somewhere in that Pete Holmes has a new gig as a warm-up comic for Dr. Oz so it looks like he’s at least gotten a second chance which is fitting for a show about second chances.

More on Crashing

Superstore-Groundhog Day
My general assessment of this show has been that it’s a bit overrated but it has its moments. Also some dead weight in Glenn (a waste of Mark McKinney’s talents) and Dena but this is an episode with minimal amounts of those two so that’s a plus. In fact, this was really a great episode all-around with plenty happening on the sidelines to give this place the feel of a hang-out show that it achieves in its finest moments. Jonah and Kelly handling of the announcements (with Sandra as a special guest) is the epitome of workplace goofiness that many with semi-fond experiences in the retail sector (if you were lucky enough to have a boss or two who granted you a little leeway) can relate to. Also worth asking, did anyone else see the lack of build-up to Jonah and Kelly’s romance as a missed opportunity? The show could have used just a few ounces of courtship.

While Kelly and Josh provide some levity, Garrett’s promotion provides a little impetus for self-examination. How much do the people in a place like this crave upward mobility? Most of us can relate to having worked a job like this and simultaneously wishing to be the boss while not wanting the responsibilities of the extra paperwork or coming in to the store early as the key holder. Even bigger question here: Does the show really expect us to believe that intellectually curious egghead Jonah would be content at this job for this long? When I worked at a movie theater or a tea store, the college educated kids would generally be in and out the door in a few months as they used the job as a place holder for the next big thing.

Lastly, there’s the central plot: Amy getting back in the dating scene. The plot nicely uses light-hearted comedy to approach serious challenges in the female dating experience like slut-shaming and objectification. There’s also the more universal issue of the complexities of workplace dating. Also worth noting here, I just noticed that Tate is played by Australian comedy star Josh Lawson of “House of Lies”, “Anchorman 2” and is an amazing improviser. I also just found out while looking at the photo of the Academy Awards Luncheon that Lawson got Oscar nominated this past month for his short film . Congrats!

Top 12 of the year in TV

1. BoJack Horseman (Netflix)-What was once a quirkily-structured universe of Hollywood has-beens and visual animal puns has now attained rare levels of multi-layered humor that will be collectively remembered, celebrated and memed for years to come mixed in with the kind of rare psychological insight from generational depression, to self-fulfilling prophecies of failure, to asexuality. When I wrote a piece on the critical community needing to break itself out of its limited view of diversity, this is the kind of show I was referring to. The fourth season saw BoJack coming back from his worst to achieve a cathartic level of self-moderations with hints that this sitcom has-been taking steps to becoming a better person.  Carolyn, Todd, and especially Mr. Peanut Butter and Dianne have had introspective arcs with the Mr. Peanut Butter/Woodchuck Coodchuck Berkowitz (that name alone should put this at least in any sane person's top twenty) race providing a hilarious government satire that is desperately needed in crazy times like these.
2. Good Place (NBC)-Few comedies have ever aimed this high conceptually and managed to avoid melting their metaphorical wings after a few episodes. By the first season finale, this show had us all collectively by the by the balls (or whatever the female equivalent is) and the show has continued to give us only the most tenuous view of what’s in store for its four denizens of its rapidly fluctuating version of the afterlife. The comic tics for each character have become finely tuned in the second season: In addition to unpredictable Stepford smiler Janet, fussy Chidi, and self-congratulatory Tahani; Jason Mendoza can carry the episode's laugh content single-handedly with his boundless stupidity and Michael has proven just as fun on the dark side as he was as a bumbling klutz. And then there’s Eleanor Shellstrop. Credit Kristen Bell’s fine performance and the crafty writing, but Shellstrop is an anti-hero for the ages with a backstory that’s filled with endless stories of being a hilariously terrible person and the slowly creeping potential inside of her to redeem herself from all of it.
3. Trial and Error (NBC)-This small-town courtroom drama burst out of the gate with a strong sense of place and hilarious characters to populate it with.  Seasoned sitcom pro John Lithgow plays to his strengths as the epitome of eccentricity with Jayma Mays doing her darndest to make you forget she ever played as prissy of a character as Emma Pillsbury in Glee. Nicholas D’Agosto, Sherri Shepherd, Steven Boyer, and even Krysta Rodriguez all are given a lot to work with and they all deliver characters that are memorable, comically sound, and endearing. 
4. Bates Motel (A & E)- The idea of Norman Bates’s character spread out over five seasons must have been a tough sell but the show worked beautifully as an idyllic small-town concealing a cesspool of voice and a sweet young man with a psychopath brewing inside. Over five seasons, Bates Motel accelerated ever so smoothly from a simmer to full-on terror while remaining tonally consistent and keeping an eye out for the long game. The fifth season brought us up to speed with overlap from the events of the landmark 1960 film with Rihanna unexpectedly connecting as Marion Crane and Dylan picking up the slack of the noirish detective. Would good or evil triumph and would either character make it out alive? With all deviation from the source material fair game, it was a nail-biting ride to find out. Hitchcock would have been proud. 
5. Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)-Raise your hands if you even knew stand-up comedy existed in 1958? Me neither and that’s why this show makes all the other comedians-playing-themselves entries look vain by comparison.This show is all that and a bag of matzah brie. Yes, it’s a little heavy on the Ashkenazi Jewish stereotypes (and mazels to Tony Shalhoub on your recent conversion to Hollywood Judaism, was Alfred Molina taken?) but it also has an endearing cultural specificity and a strong sense of momentum. While the show is about comedians, it’s very comfortable with its dramatic beats. The stakes are high – the protagonist goes from being excited about landing the rabbi for Yom Kippur to losing her husband, her home, and getting arrested in the span of a few days—and that’s just the first episode alone. As a period piece, this show allows for relevant feminist overtones without being preachy and also creates a superhero worth rooting for.
6. Glow (Netflix)-This show might be the greatest send-up to the joy of wrestling TV has ever produced but I’d have no idea as a complete noob to the sport. Instead, I see a show about raw pluck, girl power, and a docudrama about a ragtag group of underdogs (complete with the economics of constantly being screwed) all wrapped in a delightful 80’s time capsule. Like Jenji Kohan’s other main work of the Netflix era, “Orange is the New Black”, this show is a hodgepodge of diversity in the best sense with Indian and Cambodian characters and even a spoiled rich white guy worth rooting for. Make no mistake, though: Marc Maron (this guy was an actor??) and Allison Brie steal the show
7. Black Mirror (Netflix)-Creator Charlie Brooker’s series works best when tapping into our luddite fears about the future’s advances in technology wielding as much potential to hurt us as it does to help us. This year Brooker really found his groove in terms of delivering consistency (for my money, there was a humongous dip in quality after Nose Dive and San Junipero last season) and infusing his twist endings with the kind of bittersweet poignancy that allows the themes to resonate. The show also mixes emotional tones and genres whether it’s a sci-fi send-up that will make Trekkies drool (USS Calister), a psychological thriller (Crocodile), a cautionary tale framed as family melodrama (Arkangel), a futuristic love story played straight (Arkangel), a meta-commentary on the horror genre (Black Museum), or a Coen Brothers/Soderberghesque look at dystopia (Metalhead).
8. Crashing (HBO)-Pete Holmes is the kind of break from the mold to show us that not all comedians are degenerate, self-obsessed, foul-mouthed slobs. Well OK, some of Pete’s friends are, but that's what makes Pete Holmes (the character, although I'm assuming the person) such a breath of fresh air with his adorable naivete. It's a show about comedy but it is also a show about redefining your relation with your faith, parents, friends, and the concept of adulthood itself.
9. Orphan Black (BBC America)-Full disclosure: As someone who’s not a hard-core binge watcher, I drove myself to exhaustion by the time I set out on my project to go from the pilot to Season 5 within the span of less than a month. By the time I got to the end, my head was spinning whenever I was asked to discern the difference between neolution, Dyad and Castor and Gemini or Kabbalah or whatever, so I’m not necessarily the most reliable judge of the 2017 portion of this series, but this show is a smart thriller that is both tightly-paced and capable of juggling multiple storylines. It’s mostly known for the superhuman acting feat of Tatiana Maslany playing multiple parts at once but it’s been one of the best stories on TV for the past five years.
10. The Mick (Fox)-From the creators of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, this show engages in the same kind of duality of lovable yet deeply offensive characters as its sister show (which is still going strong, even if it didn’t make my list). The show started out as an unremarkable vehicle for Kaitlin Olson to reprise her role as a Dee-like character (maybe the producers will release her from  Charlie Work if she logs in enough hours?) and it’s now one of the most dependable sources of humor on TV. Carla Jimenez is a bona-fide scene stealer as Alba and Jimmy is equally funny as a guy who has no practical use to the Moing-Pemberton household but has managed to stick around thus far. It's the ultimate mix of privilege and cluelessness and the best found family on TV.
11. The Real O’Neals (ABC)-A modern renegotiation of the classic sitcom mold that was really beginning to find its groove before the axe came tumbling down. Curse you, trigger-happy ABC overlords!  The show’s handling of its gay teenage protagonist (Noah Galvin) went under-acknowledged during its three-season run but the show also deserves credit for allowing its progressiveness to coexist with more right-wing elements. Like the new breed of smart sitcoms that’s been reinvented on network TV in the past couple years, this show has the edge to power through gooey sentimental plots with a healthy dose of irony, but it’s ultimately a show about togetherness that this country sorely needs.
12. Schitt’s Creek (Pop TV)-With each season, this Canadian import becomes more assured in its characters and richer in its sense of place. As a result, the (primarily character driven) humor is richer in Season three with Catherine O'Hara leading the way in the laughs department as the ex-soap opera star still coming to terms with her fall from grace. Season Three is an unapologetically happy one with the Rose family finding themselves by embracing their adopted backwater town and at this point it's earned its cheesy feel good vibe. Much like how turning from black-and-white into color is something different for everyone in "Pleasantville," there's a bit of romance for David, a modest professional resurgence for Johnny, and a rededication to her education for Alexis.

Ten Honorable Mentions:

13 Reasons Why (Netflix)-The show has some pretty heavy pluses and minuses (do high school students really talk like that? If Hannah was so self-aware that she'd do all that, it never occurred to her to get a therapist?) but it evens out to a TV show that's eminently watchable and provocative enough to at least launch a discussion.
Adam Ruins Everything (TruTV)-A friend who get better grades than I did in high school often told me that "it's all about appearance and presentation." This reminds me of how Adam Conover (AKA the guy with the funny haircut and pocket squares on TruTV commercials) and his cronies from College Humor manage to make this mythbusters-type show so engrossing: With visual ingenuity and a narrative arc (know-it-all educates a rube that they're initial assumptions about topic X are wrong) that's been perfected to a T.

Baroness von Sketch Show (IFC)-This IFC show isn’t just sketch comedy from a woman’s perspective but from a middle-aged woman’s perspective. Whereas many comediennes (Amy Schumer, Sara Silverman, etc.) make it a point to go blue to try to show they can be dirty in a man’s realm, these women are just organically comedic. What makes the show stick out as that this quartet-Meredith McNeil, Aurora Brown, Carolyn Taylor, and Jennifer Whalen- establish their voice and chemistry very quickly out of the gate.

Brockmire (IFC)-Adapted from a Funny or Die sketch, Hank Azaria plays a down-and-out announcer who's shown that out-and-out alcoholic misery can be fun or at least passable (and perhaps we're all going to hell for watching this)

Fresh off the Boat (ABC)-Constance Wu continues her reign as one of TV sitcomdom's richest mothers while the show continues to be one of the most dependably heart-warming and reliably funny on TV. 

Gifted (Fox)-A welcome entry into mutant lore that kept the momentum going from episode to episode.  

Ingobernable (Netflix)-Part Homeland-style thriller, part steamy Mexican soap opera, lots of Spanish subtitles to sort through. The basic plot is the President of Mexico is murdered, the first lady is the prime suspect, and she has to piece together the conspiracy behind it all while on the lam. Kate del Castillo might not be Clare Danes but she's not that far away.
I Love Dick (Amazon)-Set in a artist's collective in Texas that really puts the avante in avante-garde, this show is pretty out there but has a lot of wayward insight into everything in art from the male gaze to productivity and shines a window on the world of weird art.

Powerless (NBC)-A promising series cut before it had the chance to catch on. Although superhero spoofing is nothing new, the shows found a workable original angle and admirable casting: how often are you going to find a good sitcom vehicle for Vanessa Hudgins and Danny Pudi together?

Room 104 (HBO)-The Duplass brothers have used this loose platform to create some very intense and theatrical half hours of drama. The connecting thread between episodes is next to none which kept the show out of my top twelve, but hey, this is better than Togetherness (note to self: never watch Togetherness again)

Sorry folks, maybe next year (everything else I watched this year):
2 Broke Girls* (CBS), American Dad^ (TBS), Archer*^ (FX), Big Mouth (Netflix), Blind Spot* (NBC), Difficult People (Hulu), Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (BBC America), Emerald City** (NBC), Family Guy (Fox), Feud (FX), Friends from College (Netflix), Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (TBS), Future Man (Hulu), Girl Boss (Netflix), Grace and Frankie (Netflix), Great Indoors (CBS), Hack My Life (Pop TV)* I Love You America (Hulu), It's Always Sunny^ (FX), James Corden (CBS), Jimmy Kimmel Live^ (NBC), Lady Dynamite (Netflix), Last Tycoon* (Amazon), Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Late Night with Seth Meyers (NBC), Legion* (Fox), Lost and Found (Netflix), Man Seeking Woman (Comedy Central), Making History (Fox), The Mayor (Fox), Me Myself and I (CBS), Modern Family^ (ABC), Mom (CBS), One Mississippi (Amazon), Orville (Fox), Ozark (Netflix), The Path (Hulu), Rick and Morty (Comedy Central), Scandal (ABC), Sense8 (Netflix), Star Trek Discovery (CBS All Access), Stephen Colbert (CBS), Superstore (NBC), Tarantula** (TBS),Timeless (NBC), Time After Time (ABC), Tarantula** (TBS), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt^ (Netflix), White Famous** (Showtime)
 
^ Made my top 12 in a previous year
* Viewed in limited capacity (two or three episodes)
** Only saw the pilot