By Jon Kissel
As the first full year without cable, TV watching in 2017 was made slightly more difficult. While cord-cutting meant that staples like Fargo and Better Things went unwatched (along with Better Call Saul and Top of the Lake: China Girl), streaming services like Netflix and Hulu compensated with an ever-expanding amount of options, some immediately great from their first episodes. With half the shows on this list debuting in 2017, the Golden Age of Television continues to renew itself even as critically acclaimed shows like The Leftovers end and Veep and The Americans plan their end in the coming months. When the supply of new shows from ambitious and intelligent creators seems unending, previous favorites Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black can have off-years. With TV, there's always something great ready to take the place of slouchers.
(Other unseen shows that might've made the list: The Deuce, Mindhunter, The Keepers, Alias Grace, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)
As the first full year without cable, TV watching in 2017 was made slightly more difficult. While cord-cutting meant that staples like Fargo and Better Things went unwatched (along with Better Call Saul and Top of the Lake: China Girl), streaming services like Netflix and Hulu compensated with an ever-expanding amount of options, some immediately great from their first episodes. With half the shows on this list debuting in 2017, the Golden Age of Television continues to renew itself even as critically acclaimed shows like The Leftovers end and Veep and The Americans plan their end in the coming months. When the supply of new shows from ambitious and intelligent creators seems unending, previous favorites Game of Thrones and Orange is the New Black can have off-years. With TV, there's always something great ready to take the place of slouchers.
(Other unseen shows that might've made the list: The Deuce, Mindhunter, The Keepers, Alias Grace, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)
20 |  American Gods Bryan Fuller's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book is hardly a flawless work. In a series about the myriad incarnations of ancient gods adapting in an America that is about to discard them wholesale in favor of media and technology and globalization, Fuller spends far too much time with the (probably) human protagonist and audience surrogate. However, when the visionary behind Hannibal lets loose with operatic and mystical scenes of otherworldly exaltation, American Gods is like nothing else on TV. Also, one can't go wrong with Ian McShane. |
 The Mick After years of stealing scenes in It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Kaitlyn Olsen finally gets her solo vehicle in The Mick. One of the most gifted physical comedians working today transplants the misanthropy of Always Sunny to the world of obscene wealth, as her character becomes the de facto guardian of her raised-in-riches niece and nephews. This standard sitcom premise is elevated, or degraded as the case may be, by The Mick's hilarious brand of child endangerment. With the rest of the cast matching Olsen's manic, acerbic energy, The Mick is constantly finding new ways to shock and amuse without ever making the central unit too unlikable. Teen character Chip's (Thomas Barbusca) line expressing his bafflement at his lack of social standing (My hair is bigger than it's ever been!) remains one of my favorites of 2017. | 19 |
18 |  The Good Place Mike Schur's twisty, philosophical follow-up to Parks and Recreation and Brooklyn 99 might air on a staid broadcast network, but it's arguably the most inventive show on TV. What began as a fantastical show about Kristen Bell's Eleanor finding herself in heaven by accident has become something very different over the course of a few dozen episodes. In between the board-flipping restarts the show regularly engages in, Jason Mendoza, the human version of Patrick Starfish, is charming the viewer with his joyous idiocy and Ted Danson's guy-in-charge is showing off his endless talent for obfuscation and rattling off absurd phrases at a steady, cheerful clip. |
 Dear White People A continuation from the 2014 Justin Simeon film, the Netflix series Dear White People is as contemporary as any show released in 2017. Amidst so much hand-wringing about college campuses and PC culture in the broader media, this series shows why things like protests and boycotts and organizing are still necessary even in the cocoon of an elite university. Never strident and often affecting, Dear White People proclaims a new star in Logan Browning and Moonlight director Barry Jenkins jumps in to helm one of the best episodes of the year, culminating in a heart-stopping escalation that is both out of nowhere and wholly believable. | 17 |
16 |  Legion While I may have missed Noah Hawley's latest season of Fargo, his eccentric brand of storytelling is represented in my top 20 with Legion. Oft-opaque and always weird, this off-off-brand X-Men story featured difficult-to-parse plotting off-set by the huge swings it took over its eight episodes. By withholding so much detail about what was happening or taking its sweet time getting there, Hawley plops the viewer in memorable mindfucks, whether that means an attack that takes the form of a silent movie or an extended dance sequence through some of the key sets. A-to-B plotting can be set aside when Aubrey Plaza is fully unhinged, doing high kicks against a red background because... why the hell not? |
 Drunk History An idea that continues to sound awful on its face (comedians get drunk and relay historical anecdotes which are then recreated word-for-slurred-word) gets better and better every year. In its fourth season, seasoned narrators like Paget Brewster and Eric Edelstein are joined by new ones like Bob Odenkirk and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Taking a page from the tail end of its third season which included heartfelt stories about Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, Drunk History's 2017 output wasn't afraid to mix some emotion into the nonsense. A series as silly as this one somehow being able to generate lumps in throats means its operating at its highest potential. | 15 |
14 |  Review Andy Daly's painfully hilarious Comedy Central series came to an end with an abbreviated 3-episode run, staying true to the fatally flawed ethos of life experience reviewer Forrest MacNeil. Sure that what he's doing is a valuable contribution to humanity, Forrest has repeatedly put his life and relationships through great peril out of a need to feel important. Daly runs this string as far as it can go and occasionally farther. While this 3-episode run was more about fallout from the earlier seasons than plumbing new depths, it does end perfectly with Forrest in a purgatory of his own making. As a 'critic' putting their effort into the whirlwind to another, I give Review 5 Stars. |
 Vice Principals Another series that concluded in 2017, Jody Hill's Vice Principals continued its exploration of thwarted masculinity by way of the rivalry and tenuous friendship of two seriously blinkered men. Danny McBride's Neil Gamby and Walton Goggins' Lee Russell reiterated what a sharp comic team they are, with Goggins' manic energy complementing McBride's brusque dismissals. This season spent more time with Lee Russell, a true sociopath pulled back from the edge by Gamby's slow and miniscule awakening of how badly he's trampled on people's lives from his pathetic perch. Hill's and McBride's collaborations have always interrogated the delusional male, and Vice Principals stands ably next to Eastbound and Down and Observe and Report. | 13 |
12 |  Bob's Burgers Always reliable, Bob's Burgers is the show that never fails to leave me with a smile on my face. One of many Simpsons successors, each and every member of the Belcher clan are easy to love despite their many odd traits. The series isn't breaking new ground eight seasons in, but by this point in the Simpsons run, Poochie had shown up and Homer had gone on his chili hallucination. Bob's Burgers is keeping it simple, building up its supporting cast without losing the grounding, economic and otherwise, at the center of the series. The number-one hangout show on television, Loren Bouchard's masterpiece has lost none of its irresistibility. |
 One Mississippi Tig Notaro's sadly-canceled autobiographical series improved on a superb premiere season by giving more time to breakout character Bill, Tig's stepfather who she lives with while back in her southern hometown. Played by John Rothman, he's tightly wound and precise in everything he does, making him a figure of fun for Tig and her brother, played by Noah Harpster. Even as they make jokes at his expense, One Mississippi also has a deep well of sympathy for him, as exemplified in one of my favorite plotlines from 2017 in which he embarks on a tentative romance with a similarly mannered woman, played by Sheryl Lee Ralph. Combining this deeply-felt plot with more low-key romances and a thinly veiled jab at executive producer Louis CK's sexual harassment accusations made One Mississippi the series that will be most deeply missed in the coming years. | 11 |
10 |  Insecure Like One Mississippi, Issa Rae's series entered its second season by ably expanding on supporting characters without taking anything away from the main character, played by herself. Combining socially relevant season-long arcs with Rae's talent for honest writing about female friendship, Insecure built on its Los Angeles setting while deepening the people that inhabit it. Though she was not short of screentime in the first season, the broadened scope of the second season most benefited Yvonne Orji's Molly. Issa's best friend had been previously confronted with the difficulty of getting the perfect life she wanted, and the series went on to make her ask why she even wanted it in the first place. Far more tolerable of a young-people-finding-themselves show than Girls was at its best, Insecure proves that characters can be interesting without being broken. |
 Bojack Horseman The show that most dramatically flips between uproarious and depressing, Bojack Horseman used its fourth season to break out of a pattern that would have eventually crippled the show. While it has steadily improved year after year, there was a firm ceiling to how many times the titular horse-man could have abused his friends' trust and then asserted that his inherent brokenness was responsible. Instead, the show recontextualized old relationships, like the one between Bojack and his withering mother, while introducing new ones that allowed Bojack to begin to break out of old patterns. It also had clown dentists (unless they're actually dentist clowns) and a woodchuck governor who had his hands replaced with lobster claws. It's a strange show. | 9 |
8 |  Veep Selina Meyer spent her sixth season in the political wilderness, struggling to stay relevant in the face of nonstop embarrassments and compromise after compromise of whatever values she clung to. Veep reached excruciating new depths of self-immolation and abasement, daring the viewer to look away while keeping them invested with rapid fire insult comedy. It's difficult for a political satire to stay ahead of the debased nature of actual politics, but in hanging onto the barest vestige of power with barnacle-like resilience, the stalwart swampdwellers of Veep showed a level of shamelessness that mirrored much of the political goings-on of the past year. A president that plays whataboutism on a global scale isn't so far from an ex-president shrugging off genital mutilation at a human rights conference. It would be funnier if it wasn't so goddamn sad. |
 The Young Pope The only show in the top 20 that I would call outright bad on more than one occasion, The Young Pope's delirious commitment to its grand setting made for a show that could fluctuate between brilliant and dumb within adjoining scenes. Paolo Sorrentino's foray into TV made me exclaim in delight at nuns playing basketball. Juxtaposing the medieval nature of the Catholic church with how absurd its continued presence is in modern political society, The Young Pope made one question if every scene was genius satire or ill-thought-through nonsense. A majestic Jude Law as the titular pontiff made a meal of his material, a character believably able to force god's hand with repeated incantations of 'You must.' If the viewer could get on the show's very specific wavelength, then a feast of over-acting and outre costume design and political backbiting was set before them. | 7 |
6 |  Rick and Morty Did Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland's sci-fi series get a little full of itself in its third season, reaching the point where its worst fans became insufferable tools? Much like Community, Harmon's previous series, yes, that did happen. However, unlike Community, the series continues to surprise instead of stagnate. The limitless resources of animation combined with the strange imaginations of Roiland and Harmon make for a series that could seemingly never run out of ideas. The show's writing staff could easily coast on what makes the series great, but this year, they found new formats and tropes, particularly a Harmon staple of a clip show episode where the clips are all previously unseen. If the price for this kind of ingenuity are some intolerable Redditors, it's a price worth paying. |
 GLOW There have been so many mediocre sports movies that it's easy to forget how powerful they can be when done right. Netflix's GLOW, about the formation of a women's wrestling league in the 80's, is a practiced observer of the genre and nails every aspect. It's got a distinguished cast of characters, a ragtag origin, an uphill battle, and triumphant performances, resulting in a purely lovable series. Alison Brie and Marc Maron stand out amongst a large ensemble that is clearly having a good time with the material. Unabashedly joyous amongst a TV year that often went for darkness, GLOW stands out for pure fun and entertainment. | 5 |
4 |  The Americans Speaking of TV shows that went for darkness, the most depressing show on the air continues to be one of the best. The Americans finished its fifth season with co-lead Phillip Jennings (Matthew Rhys) in a constant state of shock and misery, a justified state for a man with so much red on his ledger. He and wife/fellow Soviet spy spent the intervening 13 episodes pointlessly murdering scientists and prodding a teen towards suicide, all in favor of a nation that has never been more corrupt and cruel than it's now being depicted in the show. In addition to the fruitless nature of their missions, clued-in daughter Paige (Holly Taylor) is confessing her resignation to exactly the same kind of life they're muddling through, placing the Jennings firmly outside the American idea of children surpassing their parents. In the chilling world of The Americans, it's the status quo or worse. With one season left, if creators Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields can keep this cumulative pace up, their series will be one of the best of the last decade. |
 Big Little Lies Too easily dismissed as soapy melodrama, Big Little Lies' stylishness and peerless acting made for the must-see weekly series of the year, with anticipation of each new installment rivaling plot-heavy juggernauts like Game of Thrones. With its handful of compelling mysteries and high-stakes personal epiphanies, Big Little Lies was able to generate more edge-of-your-seat tension in a therapy session than in a suicide mission against undead demons. Nicole Kidman justifiably received all the awards for her abused wife, but Reese Witherspoon and Laura Dern both wowed with their lower-stakes characters and Jean Marc Vallee's direction continually stunned with his framing of this wealthy California enclave. About the increasingly prevalent theme (Elle immediately comes to mind) of the uselessness of men compared to female unity, Big Little Lies emphasized how the next generation can surmount the mistakes of the previous one, but it won't be men who teach them how to do it. | 3 |
2 |  Big Mouth The show with the biggest heart and most love towards its characters in 2017 is also the one that contains animated adolescent genitalia. The huge gulf between the frequent taboos on display in Big Mouth and the tremendous reservoir of empathy for its pubescent teen characters makes Nick Kroll's Netflix series the best comedy of the year. In one instant, it can be detailing the routine by which a character has sex with his pillow and the next, it can be making the viewer want to give that same character a desperately-needed hug. Kroll gets what's true about this period in a person's life, in that he puts the unmentionable thoughts and impulses of adolescence onscreen and then openly wonders how anyone makes it through all this as a complete person. With the indelibly drawn and portrayed Puberty Monsters (Kroll for the boys, Maya Rudolph for the girls) as the devils on their shoulders, Big Mouth leaves the angels out of it. As a capper, Kroll recognizes that the imposter syndrome that begins in puberty never ends, as no one ever knows what they're doing even when they're long past that messy and embarrassing interval. Eat the soup, reader, and partake in the greatest TV show about teens since Freaks and Geeks. |
 The Handmaid's Tale The best show of 2017 is also the year's most visceral, the most unnerving, the most cathartic. The Handmaid's Tale might've been written in the 80's, but it's relevance has not dulled thirty years later. In its dystopia of patriarchy and enforced sex slavery, The Handmaid's Tale is a grim endeavor, packed with custom and atrocity that author Margaret Atwood pulled from contemporary society. This is speculative fiction that reeks of reality, what's happening now and what's known from the past. An intimate chronicle of life in a totalitarian world that doubles as a guide of how tyranny descends on a civilization, The Handmaid's Tale resonates in the same way something like Contagion does, in that it works because it's true. This series knows history, and it finds space for dehumanization and for complicity and for crisis, all of which are necessary for the worst possible outcome to manifest itself. It would be mandatory viewing even without the incredible performances from Elisabeth Moss and many others, especially Alexis Bledel who reveals herself to be a major talent, and the claustrophobic directing of Reed Morano. This doubled as the hardest show to watch in 2017, but it may also be the most important. | 1 |
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