Top 12 Shows of the First Half of 2025

1. Resident Alien (Syfy) – Long one of my favorite series on the airwaves, the increased entanglement of characters in the alien storyline has the potential to improve the sprawling ensemble piece into a tighter catharsis. It's only four episodes, but the infrastructure is really coming together.

2. The White Lotus (HBO) – The first three episodes were too slow of a burn for an eight-episode season. There were minor character tics that didn't quite land: The power lady trio never got hooky enough, the Scott Glenn character's actions made no sense, Sam Rockwell's relationship to his sexual and drug wagon were too tangential, and a White Lotus Parker Posey was more over-the-top than even a Christopher Guest Parker Posey. Still, this is by far, the best thing on TV and has so much ambition and craftsmanship at every step.

3. The Four Seasons (Netflix) – Unfairly compared to the original film by the critical sphere. Steve Carell, restless from his marriage (to Kerri Kinney), experiences a mid-life crisis and subsequent May-December romance that threatens to throw off the long-standing equilibrium of the friendship between three couples. The show's format of rotating over four vacations is clever. The show is largely populated with comedic actors, but it's oh so sweet, and the automatic reaction by the gang to the May-December romance is surprisingly salient.

4. Deli Boys (Hulu) – The show operates at that dark comedy level around Good Girls or the TV version of Fargo, but I'm not sure if I've seen a dark comedy that's so funny despite the WIDE proliferation of this genre. Poorna Jagannathan as the aunt steals every scene, and it's a blast seeing Brian George take on something new (speaking of something new, the Pakistani member of Queer Eye debuts as an Indian mobster). Aasif Ali and Saagar Shaikh handle every turn with this unique comic energy as if they've just boarded a roller coaster that they didn't know was going to be so intense.

5. Poker Face (Peacock)-Leans on the same three tropes every episode -- accidental murderer, detective in the right place at the right time, and deus-ex-machina to get the hero kicked out of her home every -- BUT Riann Johnson imbues every episode with movie-level quality. That's a pretty high level of consistency for a show that switches settings every episode

6. Ghosts (CBS) – My iTunes bill can confirm that I can't get enough of this show even when I think I've quit it. It's a rare sitcom that harkens back to the whimsical comedy of the mid-2000s as laugh tracks were getting left behind. It keeps expanding its world without losing charm: The show is the most evenly balanced and strongest ensemble.

7. Grosse Pointe Garden Society (NBC) – Even with a flat murder twist, the show delivers a compelling take on adulthood adrift and the intersecting plots are doubly rich. Two actors that have been begging for meatier work --Melissa Fumero and Josh Radnor -- turn in career-high work here.

8. America’s #1 Family (Amazon Prime Video) – Ramy Youssef pivots fully into comedy, shedding introspection for a breezier, punchier sitcom approach. It's an animated family sitcom and it fully uses the capacity of animation to make characters visually funny.

9. Black Mirror (Netflix) – Three episodes this season—Hotel Reverie, Bête Noire, and USS Callister: Into Infinity—were fully realized, while one episode (Eulogy) came close but ended up more of a downer than a provocative episode. Still, going four for six at this level of ambition this late into an anthology show's run is highly impressive.

10. Running Point (Netflix) – A sports-family sitcom powered by inspired casting—Kate Hudson, Drew Tarver, Justin Theroux, and Scott MacArthur—as siblings who inherit a basketball team. It moves fast, cleverly segments certain episodes to tangential stand-alone shots, and features a great array of guest stars.

11. Going Dutch (Fox) – Military culture gets a sharp satire here. The humor is a little broad at the dialogue level, but the basic premise-- a military support base that's exclusively designed for bowling, laundry, and cheese-making -- is pretty hilarious. The chemistry is so great between Taylor Misiak and Dennis Leary as a headstrong father and daughter working out their baggage years after childhood has ended, I'm here for it. Catherine Tate is miles better as a foil than she was on The Office.

12. Krapopolis (Fox) – Animated show set in a city adjacent to the glory of Athens. The show gets endless mileage out of reality-bending plots and mythology gags. There's plenty of amusing in-fighting within this clan, but it's more along the lines of a family sitcom, making it a kinder and gentler cousin to the nihilistic-leaning Rick and Morty and Solar Opposites.

Poor Things Review

Saltburn has intrigued me this awards season because people who feel obligated to follow Oscar bait and people caught up on the grotesque buzz (masquerading as something worth seeing), are experiencing something far more horrific than they bargained for with that film.

Similarly, Poor Things has some truly icky scenes (there's lots of nudity, graphic scenes of surgery and eye stabbing, just be prepared to close your eyes at the right moments) that might generate enough cringe to get people into the theater out of morbid curiosity. And then there's Willem DaFoe's grotesque face and the way he burps liquid mercury. As opposed to Saltburn, this delights me because Poor Things is a beautiful unconventional film, but leaves the same meaningful emotional payoff as you hope most love stories would do. Willem Defoe plays a Frankenstein-type, Dr. Godwin Baxter, who re-animates a pregnant suicide-by-drowning victim. His solution is to put the fetus's brain into the grown Emma Stone's body (again, yes, it's very icky, just move past it, people). As such, she starts out like a version of Beck Bennett's baby boss on SNL with a lack of mental acuity to compliment her lack of motor movement. A large through line of the film is all the subtle ways in which she grows into an adult over the course of the film. Without seeing this films, it might seem ludicrous to award a 35-year-old actress who already has an Oscar over someone who seems as worthy as Lily Gladstone (partially because it feels right to give it to a Native American, partially because it's the right type of role, and partially because Gladstone makes a lot out of being passive), but the way Emma Stone's performance is simply too good to ignore. If she wins, it would mark one of the rare moments where a comic performance wins anyway. Godwin wants his character to marry his protege Max, (Ramy Yousef), and while Godwin genuinely cares for her in a paternal way. it's also uncomfortable: She's still pretty close to having the mentality of an infant. Max's earnest declarations of love for her, don't erase the logistical obstacle of connecting with someone who's psychologically a child. Issues of consent aside (I generally don't police fictional works from earlier eras for age-consent issues), there's not really much convincing that Max initially loves her for anything other than her looks? Her next suitor, Duncan (Mark Ruffalo), is a total sleaze but he is at least transparent of his lust for her because of her virginal qualities. In the film's second act, Duncan takes her out and the classic virgin/slut dichotomy comes into play: Duncan's carnal desire for her is because she's virginal, and he goes insane with jealousy at knowing that she shares her sexual exploration with others. Cleverly, the film implies that it's a literal form of madness and then shows him actually going mad. As this is a story of what it means to be human and how one grows into it under conventional circumstances, the central characters we care about (Godwin and Max, in addition to Bella) arrive there as well. Like some of the biggest names of the year (Alexander Payne, Todd Haynes, Greta Gerwig, David Fincher and Christopher Nolan), Yorgos Lanthimos is not a man who makes movies that are ordinary. He will reinvent the wheel each time out. Sure, there are flaws in his style. Like Todd Haynes' May December, the string score can be obnoxious, the film can overly indulge in the gross, and there is way more CGI than needed. But he's always original and in a film like this, it's a story that works beautifully. This might also be the best ensemble of the year despite the way that Holdovers deserves credit for such fully realized characters, and films like Killers of the Flower Moon, Barbie, Asteroid City, and Oppenheimer crammed such an impressive number of high-profile actors onto the same set. Aside from the performances of Ramy Yousef (a comedian who has his own show, this is his coming out performance in someone else's film), DaFoe, Stone, and Mark Ruffalo in the lead, there's a lot of smaller parts to appreciate. Margaret Qualley cameos as the mad scientist's replacement experiment, Christopher Abbott is an able villain and then there's the delightful Martha. Played by Hanna Schygulla, Martha should get a scene stealer of the year award: She lets a developmentally disabled person ask to touch her hair (resembling Effie in the Hunger Games) and probe her sexual history, then being such a good sport about Duncan wanting to drown her in a fit of rage.

Best TV Ensembles of 2022

 I contributed a couple entries to this TV Fanatic crowd-sourced article about best ensembles on TV.

My top pick: Reboot (Hulu)

Reboot is about the coexistence of different generations of artists. In that vein, who could be better epitomize that clash than Paul Reiser and Rachel Bloom as an estranged father and daughter entrusted with co-running a sitcom?

Reiser is an old-school 90s sitcom star with a comic delivery that borrows a little from Borscht Belt comedy. Rachel Bloom made her way to TV fame as the star and co-creator of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend via YouTube stardom that turned musical theater conventions on their head.

The pair is complemented by a writing room that echoes Bloom’s Gen Z approach to artistic merit with Riser’s Borscht Belt big laughs approach, and the combination is hilarious.

Meanwhile on the show’s set, Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer, Johnny Knoxville (who thought of that casting choice?), and Calum Worthy play a quartet of has-been actors who form a found family with healthy doses of comedy and heart.

Other picks:
Ghosts (CBS): The eight actors who play the ghosts weren’t particularly hot on casting lists before this show. In an ideal world, they should be now. Each member of the octet provides such pitch-perfect character beats to create this great whirlwind of humor. It’s like your favorite comedic duo expanded by six with the rat-a-tat banter still operating like clockwork. Of course, credit goes to Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) for bringing the heart and grounding the plots. (I also wrote about Ghosts here)

Star Trek Picard (Paramount Plus): Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, and Santiago Cabrera bring a sense of visceral edge that I’ve never seen in Star Trek before. Pill’s displays an antsy-ness at being in space that seems pretty logical for most humans, but somehow Star Trek has never shown that side of the 24th century populance before. It makes sense: Star Trek: The Next Generation was designed to appeal to a broad audience in the 1980s so the actors weren’t aiming for high drama, but when the TNG cast is introduced they also are up to that higher bar.

Yellowjackets (Showtime): The show centers around a plane crash involving a teenage soccer in the 90s, and the way the survivors are traumatized all the way through their adulthoods. How fitting that the show cast three of the most promising ingenues of the 90s as the roles of the four main survivors: Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis. All three have long been underrated actresses and deserve to be attached to one of the hit shows on television. But that’s half the battle: The show also succeeds in casting matching teenage versions of these characters with all their drama.

Winning Time (HBO)-When you have two Oscar winners in your cast (Adrien Brody and Sally Field) and neither of them are central characters, then you’ve got a pretty deep talent pool. This docudrama about the Lakers 1980 championship features John C. Reilly in one of the most complex roles of his storied career as larger-than-life team owner Jerry Buss. Quincy Isaiah shines here in his first screen credit playing Magic Johnson as a bright-eyed superstar that’s still in the incubation phase. His main rival for the starting position is Norm Nixon played with swagger by the real-life figure’s son, DeVaughn. Surrounding them are a murderer’s row of character actors in Jerry West, Hadley Robinson, Jason Segel (did not see that coming), Tracey Letts, and the aforementioned Brody alongside Field who makes a strong impression with little screen time.

Ramy (Hulu): Ramy Yousef just plays a less self-assured version of himself, but there’s so much idiosyncrasy in the characters around him that this show deserves a place. Watching this show and not knowing the names of all the actors is a good reminder of the scarcity of Middle-Eastern actors with name recognition. Ramy’s parents are played by Amr Waked (Syriana, Salmon Fishing in Yemen) and Hiam Abbass (The Visitor) who have both done enough good work to be names among more astute American audiences, but everyone on this show deserves a brighter future. It also helps that the show format gives characters like Dena (May Calamaway), Uncle Naseem (Laith Nakli), and Ahmed (Dave Marheje) an episode in the spotlight or two.

The White Lotus (HBO)-This one is going to pop up on a lot of my lists because you can't make a TV series that works on so many layers without doing so many things right. This show has Lost/Arrested Development levels of Easter Egg placement and you better believe that the actors are in on the intricacies of each character. The show's brightest star is Emmy-winner Jennifer Coolidge but deserves a lot of credit for finding a new tone of deadpan for Aubrey Plaza, and making spaces for the largely unknown-to-American-audiences Italian newbies.

Is Ramy a Bad Guy? (Thoughts on Season 3)

Ramy (Hulu)-Fun fact: This is one of the three shows I’m listed as a RottenTomatoes critic for. Anywho, to catch you up, Ramy Yousef is the writer and creator of this pseudo-autobiographical show about a highly introspective American Muslin trapped in a phase of Arrested Development and living with his parents. I’m reading insightful reviews from Vulture by a Muslim woman (Deena El Ganaidi) that mention Ramy is about a man who does a lot of wrong. I’m not sure if the show is about a man beating himself up so much as it’s about a man living in a complicated world. Is it really automatic that you should ditch your racist uncle because he says racist things? Is temptation from marriage universal? I’d make the case that Ramy appears to exemplify the type of bad luck that befalls sitcom characters like The Life and Times of Tim or Seinfeld. Not everyone has a past fling show up on the night before their wedding to seduce them, after all.In fact, as much as I loved the second season, Pastor Malek’s pronouncement “F — k you, Ramy, you hurt people” rang a little false to me. Ramy’s friends also use him, his uncle doesn’t really respect him, and his parents often don’t make a sufficient effort to understand the context of Ramy’s world. It’s not as if he’s in the best of circumstances. In a recent episode where Ramy’s parapalegic friend, Steve, is using him for a ride. Over the course of the evening, Steve reveals to Ramy that he wants to propose to his girlfriend whereas Ramy reveals.Comedy often invites us to revel in the misfortune of our protagonists (Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier, Three’s Company) but if Ramy does anything differently, it blurs the lines between comedy and drama enough that we’re invited to witness the tragic undertones of a modern Muslim life for a young single mam.To give credit to Ramy, it’s not just male-centered angst. His sister Deena is also navigating the BS that goes on in corporate culture as an aspiring lawyer. Or maybe it’s standard drudgery that you have to do to work your way up. Or parents who don’t understand her. Or a man who blames her for taking his virginity. If Deena is a female counterpart to Ramy who feels like modern life can’t give her a win, at least she and Ramy are self-aware of their imperfections (if perhaps a little hard on themselves).Both their parents and, especially their uncle, are ill at ease to handle life’s complicated moral quandaries. My mother is an Israeli-born woman of Iranian heritage and you couldn’t drag her to a therapist even if it was free. That’s why I think the thesis of the show is towards the value of self-awareness and the moral costs (something the young generation has due to their unique cultural assimilation) that the older generation is unable to do.

What I'm Watching: June Edition

 

Cruel Summer (Freeform)-Teen melodramas are a dime a dozen and a few of them like The Society (Netflix) and 13 Reasons Why (Netflix) have chosen to incorporate life-and-death stakes into their premise rather than something like "The O.C." which went from glittery and fun to heavy only in later seasons.

This series is generally in the former camp but it toggles between three successive years in the lives of two teenage girls as if the editor was fidgeting with a remote control. The two teenagers—privileged, popular Kate (Olivia Holt), and reserved Jeannette (Chiara Aurelia)—have their lives transformed by trauma. Kate is kidnapped and held hostage in a basement for several months while Jeannette is (from our initial point of view) unfairly blamed for the crime.

Over the course of three years, we see the two transform from relatively innocent to jaded individuals and the series does a pretty impressive job of developing these characters if you can get over the mood whiplash. Kate and Jeannette and the support systems around them don’t feel overly archetypal though there is one exception in Kate’s haughty socialite mother (played by the ordinarily awesome sitcom actress Andrea Anders).

There is plenty of mood whiplash as there seems little rhyme or reason to the editing but the season mostly works. Additionally, it takes about seven out of ten episodes for this show to get into the “I’m hooked” territory which is way too long for a serialized show. On the whole, it’s watchable at every stage, so that’s enough to keep one going.

Mosquito Coast (Apple TV)-I previously reviewed this show about two episodes in when I felt it had potential through the mysteries of what’s not revealed about the characters.

After making it to the end of the seven-episode first season, I’m having much more trouble recommending this. In the mold of "Prison Break", "Breaking Bad", and more recently "The Americans" or "Ozark", this is one of those shows where characters are pushed on all ends to impossible situations. It’s as if there is a linear relationship between how much tension you infuse a show and how well it’s received.

Well, not according to me. I never bought the “I’m doing it for my family” excuse of Walter White and I buy it even less here with the character of Allie Fox (Justin Thoreaux). Very often these shows make for characters far less likeable or sensible than they’re meant to come across. In this case, Allie Fox has so many deadly bands of baddies after him, it’s generally a miracle if he can survive longer than five minutes. For him to carry his kids into such danger is either underestimating how much of a liability he is (doubtful) or supremely selfish.

The original book and film adaptation are about attempting to create a paradise abroad but this is mostly like watching “The Bourne Ultimatum”: Any philosophical points the work is trying to make plays second fiddle to the extremely engrossing action. Credit goes where it’s due: The action scenes are extremely good, but without more, it’s just a narratively inconsistent action flick.

 

Home Economics (ABC)-Mostly an effort to fill the safe family programming hole left by “Modern Family” except this is a bit more generationally horizontal than vertical. The series centers on the lives of three adult siblings whose kids are roughly the same age. Their parents (Nora Dunn and Richard Kind) make occasional appearances but are safely in recurring guest star territory while the kids are about as important to the formula as “Everybody Loves Raymond”: Screen time is doled out to them if it helps develop one of their parents’ arcs. Frankly, they could have recast the kids in between episodes and I wouldn’t have noticed.

On to the roll call! Jimmy Tatro plays a well-off financial trader who’s a bit difficult to buy considering this actor has appeared quite convincingly in a number of dim guys (from my small sampling). Topher Grace plays a novelist with a bit of neuroticism. Their sister, played by Caitlin McGee, is a lesbian who casually spouts off terms like male privilege and microaggressions. All three are married and all three have kids. The spouses are pretty disposable except Saturday Night Live alum Sasheer Zamata pops up as Caitlin McGee’s other half. Way to bounce back, Sasheer!

As a 30-something with no kids and wife (and highly self-conscious about it), I started the show thinking “what’s in it for me?” until I started to see how well the show poked at the thin veneer of marital bliss.

Within a couple episodes, Tatro’s character gets divorced. In one episode, it’s revealed that neither Topher Grace nor his wife have any ability to attract the opposite sex anymore. As for McGee’s holier-than-thou wokeness, the show does an excellent line of lampooning her occasional moments of self-righteousness without ever showing her beliefs to be unworthy.

The show might not be ambitious, but it’s disarming and has the potential to be consistent entertainment.

We Are Lady Parts (Peacock)-Growing up Jewish, I was never exposed to much about Islam culture and I’m going to take a wild stab here and guess that many of you weren’t either. Perhaps, that’s why I’ve responded like a delighted visitor to shows like “Little Mosque on the Prairie” and “Ramy” which have taken me to a world I might have never seen before.

Part of my fascination is because the way that Islam has been subtly villainized in my upbringing has given me a curiosity of exoticism about the culture. However, there’s a lot of inherent conflict in any practicing Muslim dealing with modernity that makes it ripe for drama. In “We Are Lady Parts”, all the contradictions of modernity and Islam are milked for great character drama among an ensemble that spans the biggest contrasts of the Muslim community in London.

The dominant storyline in fiction of religious Islam, Judaism, and Orthodox strands of Christianity (such as Mormonism) is young people defining themselves against their parents’ expectations of restraint and tradition. This is why it’s such an effective 180 that the protagonist, Amina (Anjana Vasan), is a prim and proper by choice (and more so than her parents, even) because she’s all about husband chasing. Through convoluted circumstances, she meets a quartet of young women who want her to join their rock band. The first season can be seen as a battle for Amira’s soul with the punk rockers on one side and her prom and proper friends which are more “Sex and the City” annoying then what passes for Muslim stereotypes these day. There’s also a nicely meandering love story underneath the story.

One beautiful thing about the show is that while this quartet of punk rockers doesn’t lack for the requisite anti-authoritarian streaks, they still exist within the confines of Islam. The band manager, Momtaz (Lucie Shorthouse), for instance, smokes and works in a lingerie shop, but we never see her without her niqab.

House Broken (Fox)-On what could be the next big thing in Fox’s animation block, Lisa Kudrow plays a poodle, Honey, who leads a therapy group for all the neighborhood pets. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit here for the jokes—simply imagine what your pet would say if they could talk to a therapist and viola! – but the jokes really hit, so I’ve been gobbling it up so far. There’s also the typical anthropomorphic tics that you see Seth MacFarlane occasionally do with Brian on “Family Guy” (why I predict this will catch on). These anthropomorphic jokes are about 15 times more frequent but I’ll let it slide because, hey, funny is funny.

It also helps that Lisa Kudrow injects Honey with a mix of spunk and relatable aimlessness that makes her character wonderful.  Beyond her, the ensemble is a little bloated but there are some highlights in there. In particular, Will Forte voices a turtle who’s in love with a croc shoe and Jason Matzoukas is a neglected cat with one eye.

To Tell the Truth (ABC)-This game show format has been done before since the 1950s with What's My Line. A group of celebrity panelists try to guess about people with unusual hobbies or claims to fame. With a good host, good guests, and the right finesse, it’s a timeless formula. In the three episodes, I saw the guest panelists and contestants kept things moving along at a jaunty pace so I’m satisfied. The cherry on top is that host Anthony Anderson has his mom on as a fourth panelist of sorts and that’s the sort of randomness that shakes things up.

25 Best Characters on TV in 2020

1. Linda Cardinelli as Judy Hale, Dead to Me-A wet ball of emotion caught in the center of an accidental murder in this dark comedy, Judy is magnetic in her endless positivity, empathy, and hope. She deservedly wins over the cynic Jen Harding and her family and when the two break down crying, it’s worth all the feels. The character is also cleverly dressed in bright colors and cute outfits to radiate her persona and even in times of distress, she remains resolved to make lemonade out of lemons.

2. Mahershala Ali as Sheikh Malik, Ramy- Ali is the first Muslim to win an Academy Award in acting and he reportedly jumped at the chance to be in the most mainstream piece of pop culture portraying American Muslims to date. His character oozes wisdom and authority and there’s a lot to be said about the way Ali pauses in conversations to show that he doesn’t take even basic human interaction lightly.

3. Awkwafina as Nora, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens-Awkwafina broke out in Crazy Rich Asians and has had a number of notable roles on screen in an astonishingly short time but if you want to see her unleashed in her full comic glory, you have to watch Nora from Queens. The character is a developmentally stunted late twenty-something with minimal job credentials who lives at home and completely owns her mediocrity in all its glory. Awkwafina works the character’s baseless positivity through physical comedy, voice inflections, and facial tics and it’s a master class.

4. Jack Quaid as Hughie, The Boys-The closest equivalent modern television has to a Hitchcockian hero a la North by Northwest or The 39 Steps. Jack is constantly over his head and never asked to be on the wrong end of a global conspiracy but he has gradually grown into the role and is a great one to root for.

5. Belinda Bromilow as Auntie Elizabeth, The Great-Cautious enablers of autocrats might not necessarily be in vogue right now, but the beauty of a period piece is it enables us to look at characters from a distance. Rather than looking at Elizabeth as a proverbial Ivanka to an 18th century Donald Trump, we can simply take her as an interesting character on her own merits and that she is. She’s firmly old money but is quite sharp for a woman in a pre-feminist era and is never out of the loop of court intrigue.

6. Chris Rock as Loy Cannon, Fargo-Rock has been ill-served by a filmography that couldn’t successfully harness his comic gifts or speech cadences. If Chris Rock were to ever fit into a dramatic role, this would be it. It channels his observational prowess, punctuated line delivery and adds a hint of world weariness.

7. Hank Azaria as Jim Brockmire, Brockmire-Alcoholic characters are a dime a dozen but Brockmire is a truly unique brand of mess. Predicated on a Funny-or-Die sketch in which a baseball broadcaster can’t stop tourets-ing about his personal demons on air, Brockmire has been a hilarious character for four seasons whether he’s winning or losing at life. The show’s final season saw the character closing out his own life out on a win. Considering how impossible this seemed from the outset, it was nothing short of inspiring.

8. Jo Firestone as Sarah, Joe Pera Talks to You-In this sweet subplot of two oddballs connecting romantically, Sarah has some lovely quirks. She compliments Joe nicely through her social awkwardness as she is afraid of crowds and has moments of frustration that hint at something deeper. She’s never not animated whereas he is more reserved. The biggest bombshell about Sarah, however, is that she casually believes in an imminent apocalypse like it ain’t no thing. Bring on the brimstone.

9. Ramy Yousef as Ramy, Ramy-How refreshing is it that a male TV show protagonist isn’t about trying to get laid but trying to avoid the perils of sexual temptation? Whatever your thoughts are about religion or Ramy’s particular religion, watching Ramy struggle on his journey is rarely devoid of insight.

10. Wynn Everett as Ellen Johnson, Teenage Bounty Hunters-The guidance counselor every high schooler wish they had. She’s the kind of side character that hints at a richer back story you’d want to see more episodes of.

11. Jessie Buckley as Oraetta Maylower, Fargo-Every season of Fargo has an off-beat character who treats murder with the same gravity as watering their hydrangeas and that’s Oraetta Mayflower in a nutshell. Only this time, it’s baking pies.

12. Bette Middler as Haddasah Gold, The Politician-Hadassah manages to remain endearing (to the audience, at least) while remaining brash, unfiltered, and ruthless.

13. Laura Haddock as Zoe, White Lines-The psychotropic paradise-set noir had a lead protagonist that was pushy, and sometimes foolish but never devoid of passion or charisma.

14. Jillian Bell voicing Violet Heart, Bless the Hearts-The deadpan goth daughter (think a more thoughtful version of Aubrey Plaza navigating high school) stepped into the spotlight quite a bit this season with episodes showing her having a wide range of emotions and puncturing a couple of holes through her veneer.

15. Matthew Berry as Jackie Daytona (AKA Laszlo Cravenworth), What We Do in the Shadows-The alter ego created by Laszlo in order to flee a duel is a high school volleyball coach and bartender who can hide his true form with a simple tooth pick. Few guises could be more ridiculous and few random character traits put together could be as surreptitiously funny.

16. Kayla Cromer as Mathilda, Everything’s Gonna Be Ok-For the show’s tonally jarring mixture of serious and frivolous, it at least gets one thing right: The autistic character of Mathilda, who is far more vibrant than the typical mold of the disabled character we ordinarily get. Like any ambitious person, Mathilda wants to be more than what her condition defined her as: Sexual, popular, independent.

17. Dawnn Lewis voicing Becket Mariner, Star Trek: Lower Decks-The Star Trek canon would forever be incomplete if a character like Mariner didn’t eventually surface. It wouldn’t make sense that in this massive space fleet, a few iconoclasts or slackers wouldn’t pop up among the lower ranks. Luckily, Mariner is an apt mixture of both.

18. Ben Whishaw as Rabbi Milligan, Fargo-For those who found the season’s opening montage confusing (though undeniably visually fantastic), Milligan was the son of an Irish mob boss who was forced as a pawn between the Irish and Jewish mobs to be raised by a Rabbi’s family. As a kid, he abetted his father in a slaughter of Kansas City’s Jewish mafia, then turned on his Irish family years later to secure a top lieutenantship in the incoming Italian mob. In the present, the Rabbi isn’t to be trusted but his instincts aren’t violent or malicious. He simply laments the imperfect hand of cards he’s been dealt with and tries to make do.

19. Aya Cash as Stormfront (Kiara Risinger), The Boys-Every good superhero series needs a villain and while an argument can be made for putting a moratorium on the Nazis, I’m willing to excuse it with Stormfront for the shock value of the reveal alone. Raise your hand if you saw her origin story coming.

20. Rob Riggle as himself, Holey Moley-This wacky sports competition that would be at home on the fictional TV station, “The Ocho”, as presented by the movie Dodgeball. Helping keep the surreal vibe alive of treating mini-golf as if it’s the world’s most intense sport is comedy vet Rob Riggle who commits fully to the bit while riffing so hard that his broadcasting partner, Joe Tessatore, can barely keep from breaking most of the time.

21. Natasa Demetriu as Nadja, What We Do in the Shadows-Like her fellow vampires, Nadja has about as much empathy to humans as we mortals have towards farm hens that will eventually end up in a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Occasionally, she’ll humor them or entertain a centuries-long romantic fling, but don’t mess with her jewelery. With Demetriu’s vocal inflections, she really sells the “oh, what an adorable human” angle.

22. Justin Kirk as Peter, Kidding-A very rich and nuanced portrayal of a step dad awkwardly trying to fit into a new family. A considerate guy, Peter treads the line in a rough relationship of exes. He tries to be both a supportive husband to a woman who wants space from her ex, and a genuine pillar of support to the severely scarred ex himself. And don’t forget his killer musical number.

23. Geraldine Viswanathan as Alexandra Shitshoveler, Miracle Workers-Imagine being the only sane man (or woman) in the Dark Ages of Europe capable of making the observation, “hey, maybe we’re not living in a good era of history.” Alexandra has ambitions in a time when the concept of ambition doesn’t exist and that’s a pretty solid character to base an ambitious comedy around.

24. Kate Mara as Claire Wilson in A Teacher-Judging by the reviews and internet comments, not everyone was able to move past Claire’s sins to appreciate the complexity of the story being told about her situation. That’s a shame because if you make that leap of empathy, there’s an interesting portrait about the why and the how of someone who falls into a situation which would brand her with quite the scarlet letter.

25. Jennifer Esposito as Brenda, Awkwafina is Nora From Queens-For a socially awkward single dad who’s best dating days are behind him, Brenda is the best you can hope for. She ricochets your lame dad jokes with some old spinster humor and accommodates your mid-life paralysis to see the prince within. Sweet, artsy, and eccentric, Brenda made a big impression with a small amount of screen time.

Honorable Mentions:

Amanda Peete as Jules James, Brockmire; Bowen Yang as Bao, the Chinese Trade Minister, SNL; Catherine Keener as Diedre Pickles, Kidding; Daniel Radcliffe as Prince Frederick, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Elizabeth Berkley, Saved by the Bell; Hamza Haq as Bashir Hamed, Transplant; Heidi Gardner as Bailey Gismert, SNL; Jessica Rothe as Samantha, Utopia; Jessica St. Clair as Kelly, Space Force; Jessica Walters voicing Mallory Archer, Archer; Jimmy O Yang as Dr. Chan Keifang, Space Force; Julie Garner as Ruth Langamore in Ozark; Kate Mara as Claire Wilson in A Teacher; Lisa Kudrow as Hypathia, The Good Place; Maddie Phillips as Sterling Weasley, Teenage Bounty Counters; Mary Mack voicing Jesse, Solar Opposites; Mary Mouser as Sam LaRusso, Cobra Kai; Maya Rudolph voicing Betty Hart, Bless the Harts; Nicole Law as May, Tales from the Loop; Nuno Lopez as Boxer, White Lines; Patton Oswalt as Principal Durbin, AP Bio; Peyton List as Tori, Cobra Kai; Poorna Jagannathan as Nalini Vishwakumar, Never Have I Ever