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

Silicon Valley Season 5 Premiere

"Silicon Valley" operates under something akin to a Murphy’s Law but, if you've come to like these guys too much to want to see them become repeatedly screwed over, it’s fotunately become gradually less pessimistic:  The show now operates under a rule of chaos where things never go as expected and there’s some unexpected conflict. Granted, most dramatic television relies on the unpredictable but this show always amps up that variable to the extreme. Every week, the five partners of Pied Piper walk a careful tightrope between massive success and financial ruin. One of the missions of this show is trying to show us that the stakes in Silicon Valley are always high and we get a sense of this when we see just how much these guys are often sued for or how close these guys are to bankruptcy.

As someone who didn’t catch the last season and a half, I’ll readily admit lacking the perspective of someone who might have witnessed Erlich Bachmann’s progression towards obsolescence firsthand, but his departure still seems like a massive hole. This show treads heavily in character-based comedy in the vein of “Parks and Recreation” or “The Office” but (judging by this episode) "Silicon Valley" doesn’t appear to have expanded its universe of recurring characters which puts a lot of pressure on the existing slate to carry all the facets of this multi-layered world. While the eccentricities of Gavin Belson and Laurie Bream are nicely developed and Jian-Yang looks to be getting more screen time, the majority of the show’s dialogue was the main quintet set apart from the outside world in their alternating between trouble-shooting and internal squabbling. My suggestion here: Monica, Jian-Yang, or some newcomer needs to be worked closer into the gang’s inner circle to be able to provide the necessary counter-balance in this new dynamic.

While I’m only marginally qualified to review this show considering I’ve fallen by the wayside for the last season and a half (though I will defend TO THE DEATH the practice of jumping into a show midway through as a viewer), the plot fell so easily into the template of past episodes that I’m starting to theorize that Silicon Valley is designed to appeal in syndication as non-serialized. Sure, the status of Pied Piper has constant changes but the company is fluctuating so constantly and the characters stay constant enough. Besides, there’s generally a nicely-laced narrative within the span of each episode.

This week saw Richard continue his war of attrition with Gavin Belson. As opposed to the first two seasons where Richard and crew were simply taking beatings left and right, we’re seeing two equally matched opponents playing high-stakes chess. As a sign of Richard’s newfound status somewhere between little and big fish in a pond of fluctuating size, he’s able to outmaneuver two more green and naïve competitors. More significantly, he comes into the interactions with these two with a far nastier demeanor and a resolve for vengeance. Considering the Sliceline CEO was more aloof than someone with the vindictiveness of Gavin, Richard’s moral exoneration isn’t as clear-cut and that’s what’s making this show a must-watch. During the heyday of “The Office” we used to have endless debates on the IMDB boards over the morality of the Dunder-Mifflin employees and the grey territory of Pied Piper can be debated in a spiritual fashion along these same grounds.

Last Minute Emmy Wish List in the Comedy Categories

Here are some last minute predictions for the Oscars in the comedy categories using only shows I've seen. Seven shows get nominated in the comedy category and in the writing and directing categories the shows generally go to specific episodes. In this case, I listed overall writing and directing and then picked twelve episodes I really liked in hopes of picking them up. On the drama side, I don't really have many hopes except hoping that Bates Motel gets honored and that Aubrey Plaza gets a supporting nod in Legion.

Credit: Deadline.com

Best Comedy

Good Place

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Trial and Error

The Real O’Neals

Lady Dynamite

Schitt’s Creek

Those Who Can’t

BoJack Horseman

Directing

The Good Place

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Trial and Error

Dirk Gentley’s Whollistic Detective Agency

I Love Dick

Brockmire

Writing:

Dirk Gentley’s Whollistic Detective Agency

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

The Good Place

BoJack Horseman

Trial and Error

Brockmire

Lead Actor:

Hank Azaria, Brockmire

Randall Park, Fresh off the Boat

Pete Holmes, Crashing

Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek

John Lithgow, Trial and Error

Andy Daly, Review

Lead Actress:

Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie

Maria Bamford, Lady Dynamite

Kathryn Hahn, I Love Dick

Constance Wu, Fresh off the Boat

Kristen Bell, The Good Place

Amanda Peete, Brockmire

Ellie Kemper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Supporting Actor:

Danny DeVito, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Fred Melamed, Lady Dynamite

Sam Waterson, Grace and Frankie

Kevin Bacon, I Love Dick

Tituss Burgess, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Ted Danson, The Good Place

Supporting Actress:

Martha Plimpton, Real O’Neals

June Diane Raphael, Grace and Frankie

Lauren Lapkus, Crashing

Mary Steenburgen, Last Man on Earth

Jayma Mays, Trial and Error

Catherine O’Hara, Schitt’s Creek

Guest Actor:

Adam Scott as Trevor, The Good Place

Daveed Diggs as Perry, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Ray Liotta as Paulie Fiuccillo, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Stephen Tobolowsky as Jack Barker, Silicon Valley

Aasif Mandvi as Parshwall, Another Period

John Gemberling as John Hancock, Making History

Guest Actress:

Cheri Oteri as Cattie Goodman, Those Who Can’t

Annie Mumulo as Jill Kwatne-Adelman nee Kwatne, Lady Dynamite

Christine Rose as Josie Davis, Trial and Error

Ramona Young as Allison, The Real O’Neals

June Dianne Raphael as Eleanor Roosevelt, Another Period

Sandy Martin as Mac's mom, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Annual 12 Best Shows of the Year List

This hasn't been a particularly productive year in terms of keeping up my blog, so it's helpful to briefly discuss why I have still been blogging for such a long time. Considering a few professional writers I know stopped blogging after they became published elsewhere because it's difficult to maintain content on multiple platforms, it does seem like at the very least, I can't logistically  put my very best content on this blog if I'm writing for other places. 

Contrary to popular belief, I don't write here to build a fan base. If you came here and are a fan, thank you (donate if you want!). My blog is used to showcase my writing for people that make their way over here, to develop ideas, to test promotional strategies and on rare occasions: Because there's something I just want to write. My 12 best shows of the year is strictly for me. It's literally something I think about every time I write a TV show: Will this show make my top 12? It pushes me artistically to broaden my horizons as a viewer and pushes me critically as well. I also just want to highlight what I think is great TV.

1. 11.22.63, Hulu  (Season 1)-This TV show recalled the work of Frank Darabont (not the "Walking Dead" era, of course) in telling a historic fable that retains its sense of sepia-soaked nostalgia without shying away from the era's darker elements like the casualness of domestic violence or the disenfranchisement of immigrants that could partially show how someone like Lee Harvey Oswald could fall through the cracks in the first place. Through it all, the show plays with all the logistical tropes of a loopy time-travel scenario (essentially, going down all the roads of the Hitler Time Travel Exemption with Kennedy's murder) and centers around a romance (with Sarah Gadon) and fragile alliance/friendship (with George McKay) that's played with utterly convincing sincerity by James "my life is a perpetual art experiment" Franco of all people. Between this, "Timeless", "Agent Carter", and "The Man in the High Castle", 2016 was a good year in television for sun-drenched nostalgia and the year's best show took this on with a singular vision.

2. People v. OJ Simpson, FX (Season 1)-Rarely has a docudrama aired on TV like this with so little wiggle room in the imaginations of its viewers (or, at least the portion who was alive in 1995): If you made the choice not to live under a rock back then, the events of the OJ Simpson trial were simply an inescapable part of daily life. With so much of this history so ingrained in our collective consciousness, it's a wonder at all that a narrative with any sense of suspense or discovery can be crafted at all. But "People v OJ Simpson" doesn't just do that; It weaves together found art to tell what might be the definitive tale of present-day Americana with explorations on the self-imposed tensions around race, our national obsession with celebrity, the fallibility of public opinion, and the curious way fame has a way of magnifying mistakes (although the show got admittedly clunky when trying to posit Robert Kardashian as a lesson in irony). Sarah Paulson, John Travolta, Courtney Vance and Sterling Brown are excellent as lawyers dead set on winning with varying degrees of moral integrity and at the hollow center of it all is OJ Simpson (played with a childlike misunderstanding of his own actions by Cuba Gooding Jr) who ultimately turned out to be the least important part of the equation.

3. BoJack Horseman, Netflix  (Season 3)**-BoJack is rolling in the animal-based puns and
pathos with more self-assurance and ambition than ever before. BoJack's depression is portrayed with such a level of realism that it wouldn't be surprising to know that a mentally-ill person could find comfort here. BoJack's universe continues to expand with the recurrence of his castmates and the reintroduction of Kelsey Jannings (BoJack's efforts to repair this relationship made for 2016's most popular and dissected episode). This is also a great year for Todd, who discovered he was asexual (quite possibly the most underrepresented sexual subset on TV), and for BoJack discovering who his real friends are: It turns Sarah Lynn was really reliable after all (while she was in the "alive" category) and Dianne had a nice moment or two. If the show didn't botch the ending, it would have topped the list.

4. Lady Dynamite, Netflix (Season 1)-My initial difficulty with this show wasn't because there was nothing like it on TV but because I saw traces of nearly everything else on TV: The cutaways of "30 Rock", the awkward attempts at social justice statements from "Master of None", the use of a comedic veneer to mask trauma that's shown on "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt", the fourth-wall randomness of "Man Seeking Woman", and the feminist celebration of woman as proudly dysfunctional adult from "Broad City." Within a couple episodes, however, Maria Bamford and crew are able to master all these tricks and weave them together into a coherent tone. At its heart is Maria Bamford as Maria Bamford (I know that comedians playing themselves is as old as time, stick with it): A modern-day Mary Tyler Moore if Moore's neuroses were slightly more severe and had clinically-defined labels that she wore on her sleeve.

5. The Good Wife, CBS (Season 6)-To be fair, I never watched a single episode before this year. Once I caught it on a domestic flight, I was immediately hooked and have since been gobbling up the last three seasons when I'm looking for a dependable dose of intellectual excitement. Rarely have I encountered a procedural with such purpose beyond going through the same rote motions. Rarely have I ever seen characters whose intelligence and sense of conviction can come across on screen so well without resorting to blatant Sorkinist cheats.

6. Orange is the New Black, Netflix (Season 4)**-In an era where your average high-profile TV includes an Oscar winner or two, "Orange is the New Black" is still the medium's strongest ensemble. As such, so many balls are being juggled in the air, that there are always going to be plots that will strike the viewer. This year, Soso and Poussay's relationship along with Pennsatucky's liberation from Coates were among the strongest in my eyes, but there were a lot of directions the writers went in that got traction. While I maintain that the season finale resonated with social activists because of erroneous connections, it's good to know that people draw inspiration from the show in whatever ways they see fit. Although cruel guards (have we forgotten "Pornstache" already?) are relatively familiar territory for this show and "Orange is the New Black" seemed relatively unaware that Season 4 was not a particularly new shade of evil, Brad William Henke made a memorable villain as Piscatella nonetheless.

7. Another Period, Comedy Central (Season 2)-For me, “Another Period” is proof positive that with a couple tweaks, a show can really grow on you. During first season, I thought the show was broad and -- because I had trouble finding anything likeable about the two sisters who anchored the show -- quite cruel. The second season has benefited from a grand karmic leveling with the girls being upstaged by Harriett Tubman and Hortense, along with Chair being a serious threat to Dodo's power upstairs. Of course, Blanche still isn't getting any human dignity from Peepers or the universe in general, but here's hoping she channels her inner craziness enough to flat-out stab him soon. The increased maneuvering for power and the *gasp* hidden Belacourt family secret(s) has posited "Another Period" more in line with the upstairs-downstairs class drama (likely "Downton Abbey") it's made to skewer with a more American twist. One jarring thing about the show is its mix of humor. It takes a while to appreciate because the jokes are so intricately plotted, yet there is no limit on how low-brow these guys are willing to go for a joke. Watching this meticulously crafted blue humor delivered by some of the straightest men on TV-- stoic Victorian personalities like Peepers (Michael Ian Black) and the adorably naive Garfield (Armen Weitzman)-has been one of my biggest guilty pleasures this year.

8. Those Who Can't, TruTV (Seasons 1 and 2)-This is an entry in which my head is telling me that it’s absurd to rank this show ahead of some 55-60 other TV shows I saw this year, but my funny bone simply can’t resist. From Denver-based comedy trio Grawlix (Ben Roy, Andrew Orvedahl, and Adam Clayton-Holland), "Those Who Can't" looks at secondary education through the world of three lazy teachers enabled by a dysfunctional school administration. The show is striking in how confident it is of its comic tone right out of the gate and how deeply it dives into that joke no matter how dumb or smart it is. The characters come fully-formed and what’s underlooked is how the episodes have an escalating complexity in their plot that leads to a eureka moment akin to “Seinfeld” (although that’s admittedly a pretty lofty comparison to make). The show also boasts a lot of supporting roles with unsung actors including Sonya Eddy as the off-again on-again principal, Mary Lynn Rajskub as a loopy drama teacher, Rory Scovel (full disclosure: I have no idea who he is and don’t even want to check his IMDB page to find out he’s not particularly Quinn-ish in real life) as a touchy-feely principal, and Maria Thayer (who looks like she’s having the time of her life here) as a librarian desperate to fit in.

9. Shut Eye, Hulu (Season 1)-A breezy noir that has explores the world of psychics with a little bit

of magic, hypnotism, and gypsy mafia culture for good measure. Jeffrey Donovan plays a variation of his character from "Burn Notice": level headed under pressure and always thinking two steps ahead. Donovan plays a former magician Charlie Haverford who reluctantly operates as middle management under a mother-and-son mafia threat. Charlie's ambitious wife (KaDee Strickland) wants to stake out a bigger piece of the pie for herself by going after a wealthy mark. From there, the narrative spirals in all sorts of directions as the couple juggles all sorts of external threats while keeping law enforcement at bay, doing damage control on a drug overdose on their premises, and trying not to let a lesbian tryst with a hypnotist (Emmanuelle Chiriquí) threaten their trust in each other.

10. The Good Place, NBC (Season 1)-The always-game Kristen Bell helms one of the year’s most ambitious sitcoms as a self-absorbed slacker of outrageous proportions who accidentally ends up in Heaven and has to bluff her way through it with the aid of an ethics professor. Helmed be Mike Schur (“Parks and Recreation” “The Office”), the show has a very self-evident sense of fun exploring surprisingly deep moral conundrums under a comic guise while doing an excellent job at building a world. Ted Danson is one of TV’s best characters as a nebbish celestial architect from above constantly fretting over his creation and newcomer D’Arcy Carden is a wonderful bundle of contradictions as an android personal assistant who takes every command too literally. Who knows how long the show can keep up these cliffhangers, but so far, it’s a great ride.

11. American Horror Story: Roanoke, FX (Season 5)^:  "American Horror Story" best functions as a supernatural whodunit of sorts: A regular Joe with a healthy dose of skepticism gets thrust into something otherworldly, and the exact nature of the evil perpetrator is revealed to them (and us) over the course of the season. The first season executed this to a T but the first season was just a house in LA with a bunch of ghosts. It didn't have the same potential for fun as a 1950s asylum or a tourist trap freak show. On the other end of the spectrum, the show became overloaded with excessive plotlines and camp as it set its sights higher. The second season alone had an evil Nazi doctor, a sadistic nun, some freaky form of beasts out in the woods AND a malicious monsignor who all just coincidentally happen to be doing their dastardly deeds in the same cul-de-sac of horrors.

Season Six was a return to form with the best of both worlds: Set within the context of the haunted ground of Roanoke’s Lost  Colony and the racially-tense modern day backwaters of North Carolina, this season exudes a great sense of place while maintaining the scale of a tightly-wound  narrative.

12. Schitt's Creek, Pop TV (Season 2)-Co-created by Eugene Levy and son Daniel (who's apparently semi-famous or, as we like to say, famous in Canada), the show centers around an obscenely rich family with stunted adult children (Levy and Annie Murphy) being stripped of all their assets and being forced to move to a backwater town. The show initially was watchable but didn't really deliver on its potential of a small-town comedy with characters eccentric enough to be engaging. It also didn't help that central character David (Levy) was mostly a sad sack whose lone emotional M.O. was cosmopolitan disgust at his surroundings. In fact, the show's only real source of delight in the first season was Stevie  (Emily Hampshire) bringing David back to reality.

In the second season, we had a David-Stevie relationship that was as fresh as ever, but it also helped that giving the kids jobs enabled their rough edges to be sanded off every so slightly while Moira (Catherine O'Hara) went in the opposite direction. She became more overtly aloof which drew more out-loud laughter from me. The TV landscape is shifting more toward soft-laugh dramedy and Moira's absurdist demeanor keeps "Schitt's Creek" out of that trap. There was also a greater sense of familiarity with the characters that enabled the show's character-based humor to shine more. I enjoyed the sweetness of David and Steevie's evolution alongside each other, but I also found myself suddenly becoming enamored with Twyla's tangential  blabbing, Jocelyn's eternal reservoir of patience and  Bob's creepy intrusions into  Johnny's space. Like "Another Period," this show had one of the best sophomore season spikes I've ever seen.

Honorable Mentions:
Agent Carter, ABC-This action show really nails down the aesthetics and feel of a 1950' action serial but delivers it with a knowing wink. It never failed as a straight-up action story while simultaneously keeping the subversive meta-commentary in the picture.
Billy on the Street, TruTV*-Billy Eichner's refusal to abide by pedestrian social norms as he grills contestants on minute pop-culture details isn't just hilarious, it's also incredibly creative. Look at how Escaping Margo Robbie's moment satirizes the zero-sum game of staying on Hollywood's A-list or how the "This is Olivia Wilde, aren't you hideous in comparison?" segment satirizes the way tabloids encourage us to worship celebrities.
Casual, Hulu**-For a show tonally stuck between drama and dramedy, "Casual" managed to be one of the most engaging programs on TV without a net of laugh-inducing moments to fall back on. If it hadn't lost steam around the last three episodes, it would have made the list again. Why it doesn't just take the leap into "drama" like the recently-concluded "Parenthood," I'm not sure. 
Dirk Gentley's Holistic Detective Agency, BBC-There was some criticism that this wasn't particularly faithful to the source material, but if the source material is as non-linear as Douglas Adams, what would have been the point? This show was one of the most unique television entries and I understand how it could be a your-mileage-may-vary type of series, but it managed to keep me engaged enough in its narrative to keep me involved in the story's endgame. Within an eclectic ensemble of characters, there were enough winning storylines to smooth over any rough patches.
Fresh off the Boat,  ABC**-Nahnatchka Khan continues to use her immigrant experience (though from a different part of the Asian continent) to consistently provide a mix of aw-shucks moments, subversive humor and 90's nostalgia each week. Although this is typical sitcom fare, few sitcoms are as consistently inventive on a weekly basis.
Grace and Frankie, Netflix*-Move over young'uns. Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda can still out-act the Julia Louis-Dreyfuses and Lena Dunhams of the TV world with their hands tied behind their backs. The second season was more of a lateral move narrative-wise than a stakes-raising season. Some of the big developments like Grace's new relationship or Frankie's business idea splattered with a thud but the new directions the show has taken have been interesting nonetheless.
Gravity Falls, Disney-An extremely rare breed of children's show that can be enjoyed straight by adults rather than the way Pixar likes to layer kid-friendly comedy (with references only adults can get). The difference with "Gravity Falls" is that you find yourself rooting for the kids and laughing on their level. The show's strong conclusion was an indication of just how far Dipper and Mabel have come as people and into our hearts. That last sentence was corny, I know, but this show has a way of eliciting those kinds of sentiments.
Late Night with Seth Meyers, NBC-The late night wars were a particularly cut-throat battle for eyeballs this election season, and Seth Meyers' unexpected ascension to must-watch commentary was great validation for those who watched him on Weekend Update and always admired his edge. As the Trump campaign got more ridiculous, Meyers just said "screw it" to fair and balanced and pummeled Trump with every "A Closer Look" he could come up and never surfaced for air until a somber post-election concession speech.
Silicon Valley, HBO^-Mike Judge's show is about how Murphy's Law is always conspiring against America's latest incarnation of the rags-to-riches myth in dot com start-ups. It's a different type of show with less emphasis on the characters' personal lives and more about them as a single (and rarely functional) work unit. This season, Stephen Toblowsky's deceptive billionaire provided the show with its best nemesis to date.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix**-Like "Grace and Frankie" this show didn't raise the stakes, but not all great TV has to make the narrative more intense from season to season. Kimmy and Dong didn't turn into Kimmy and Dong 2.0, for example, but that doesn't take away the merit of the interesting directions the show took. Having Tina Fey play a character again is just showboating, but there were plenty of positive developments with Titus's new romantic relationship being key among them.


**=Made my top 12 last year
*=Made my honorable mentions last year
^=Has made my top 10 or top 12 before  (Silicon Valley here and American Horror Story here) 
To give you an idea of how deep the field was, here were the other shows I saw this year (many of which were very good, but just didn't make the cut):

Adam Ruins Everything, TruTV; America's Got Talent, NBC; Archer, FX; Atlanta, FX; Braindead, CBS; Conan, TBS; The Characters, Netflix; Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, CW; Daredevil*, Netflix; Difficult People*, Hulu; Documentary Now!, IFC; Falling Water, USA*; Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, TBS; Flaked, Netflix; The Get Down, Netflix; The Great Indoors, CBS; Grinder, Fox; Haters Back Off, Netflix; Idiot Sitter, Comedy Central; Impractical Jokers, TruTV; It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, FX; Last Man on Earth, Fox; Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, HBO; Lost and Found, Netflix; Mad TV, CW; Modern Family, ABC; Mozart in the Jungle; Amazon Prime; Night Manager, AMC; One Mississippi, Amazon Prime; The Path, Hulu; Plebs, Hulu; Preacher*, AMC; Real O'Neals, ABC; Saturday Night Live, NBC; Search Party, TBS; Small Business Revolution, Hulu; Sing it Off, Pop TV; Son of Zorn, NBC; Strange Calls, Hulu; Supergirl*, CW; Speechless*, ABC; South Park, Comedy Central; Superstore, NBC; Time Traveling Bong, Comedy Central; Timeless, NBC

The asterisk means I didn't get around to watching the full run because in the case of most of these, I wasn't intrigued. In the case of "Supergirl," I watched it out of order.

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