My 20 Favorite Television Shows of 2021

Another year, another pandemic-assisted successful attempt to watch less than 100 shows.  Last year I watched 93 TV shows, and in 2021 I shaved that number down 87 shows watched in full (meaning I saw every episode the show aired in the calendar year).  Most people found themselves watching more TV while staying indoors, and here I am passing by in the opposite direction.  I might not even be able to consider myself a television freak anymore.  Have I developed any sort of personality in place of that identity?  My lawyers have advised me to not answer that question.

Maybe part of the reason I watched less was because for a while I thought the television landscape was...pretty lackluster this year, at least until a few bangers came in and saved the day in the 11th hour.  Then after some consideration, I realized that my love of the TV drama was skewing my perception, since really it was only a weak year for dramas.  Comedy had a good 2021 and it was a great year for anime, so you'll be seeing a larger proportion of both of those groups than usual in this list.

Another trend I noticed is a recession of shows that aired on actual, you know, television.  13 of the 20 shows on my final list were available exclusively on streaming services, a count that I think is higher than ever.  FX, which used to be my favorite network, only has a place on this list in the form of its FXX sister channel.  This would usually spell bad news, as I've gone on at length about the rise of Netflix and its proliferation of soulless, formless storytelling thanks to its binge-above-all mentality, but thankfully the other streaming services have embraced the weekly release strategy.  And believe it or not, their shows benefit from it.  Who would've thought that the model that worked for decades is still effective?  So the dominance of streaming isn't necessarily a negative trend anymore, just an interesting one.

Okay, you've read enough of me trying to be like John Landgraf at the TCAs.  Let's get to the list.

The rules: A couple of years ago I implemented a new rule to help account for streaming seasons that got dropped at the end of the year, and I'll be continuing that this year.  So for any show whose entire season drops at once, the eligibility window for this list is if that season dropped between December 11, 2020 and December 10, 2021.   This is just so I don't go insane trying to catch up on any shows whose whole seasons dropped at the end of the year, even though there weren't any examples that come to mind this year.  Thankfully the rules are simpler for shows that air weekly.  For those cases, any episode that aired between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021 are considered for this ranking.

Honorable Mentions (25-21)

Forgive the awful name and you'll quickly fall in love with The Sex Lives of College Girls (HBO Max), whose great cast and wonderful hangout vibe made for a charming debut season.  Though it mostly served as a terrific acting showcase for Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain, Scenes From a Marriage (HBO) also makes fascinating adaptation choices with source material that's considered sacrosanct.  After a few missteps in its third season, The Bold Type (Freeform) closed things out this year with a truncated but exceedingly lovely final season.  Speaking of final seasons, Dickinson (Apple TV+) ended with its third season (the second season aired earlier this year as well), and it remained as singular and passionate as Emily Dickinson herself.  How To with John Wilson (HBO) continues to find ways to amuse and surprise with its visual essays that start on a single subject and then seem to encompass the whole world by the end.

20. Hacks (HBO Max)

Hacks isn't exactly working with a new formula.  You'll find alot of familiarity in the odd couple dynamic that sets up the show, which follows an aging comedian (Jean Smart) who begins working with a struggling young writer (relative newcomer Hannah Einbinder) to try to enliven her material. What makes it stand out is the depth of that relationship, played beautifully by Smart and Einbinder.  There's a push and pull to Deborah and Ava's partnership, challenging one another and inadvertently nudging each other to work on their specific flaws.  If that sounds more dramatic than any comedy should be, then have no fear.  Hacks is often hilarious too, thanks to creators Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky, all of whom have worked on some of the best comedies of the last decade.  Like its two protagonists, the drama and laughs make an excellent pairing.

19. Dave (FXX)

Proving that the success of its first season wasn't just a fluke, Dave came back with a second season that rivaled its predecessor.  The show continues to deliver big laughs with its goofy, playful sense of humor and absurdist perspective on the music industry.  It also does a wonderful job of giving all its main characters meaningful arcs.  This season tracing Dave's inability to come up with material for his debut album, coupled with his ego deteriorating his relationships, was not only skillful as it went along, but it led to a satisfying conclusion in one of the year's best finales.  It's time to stop being surprised by Dave -- it's just flat-out great television.

18. The Pursuit of Love (Prime Video)

Nail the central relationship in a series and the rest comes easy.  The Pursuit of Love, Prime Video's three-part adaptation of the 1945 novel of the same name, does just that as it tells the story of Fanny and Linda, two cousins whose lives take divergent paths as they grow up.  It's a joy to see them remain fervently devoted to one another despite contrasting personalities and life philosophies, and Lily James and Emily Beecham play their dynamic in a way that feels lived-in.  Though the three episodes are laced with wit and charm, there's an undercurrent of melancholy to them as well, as they explore the struggle to find happiness in an age where womanhood has such narrow parameters.  Blending a sense of modernity with classic storytelling chops, The Pursuit of Love captures the heart in a short amount of time.

17. The Good Fight (Paramount+)

The Good Fight has always been a show that likes to take risks, getting playful with the directions their story goes, and in the fifth season they made their most wacky turn yet: introducing a character played by Mandy Patinkin who starts his own unsanctioned court run out of the back of a copy shop.  Only a show like this could have the confidence to pull off something that ludicrous, and they do so beautifully, escalating things gradually enough that you feel like a frog in boiling water, not realizing how insane things are until they've gotten too far.  It helps that the show counterbalances this with more serious storylines, like one character's trauma from having a near-death COVID experience, or exploring what it means to be a white partner at a black law firm.  There's something about season fives in the Good universe -- it was arguably The Good Wife's best season, and this season of The Good Fight might go down as one of the show's best as well.

16. Search Party (HBO Max)

Search Party had a premise that didn't seem like it was built to last, but what started as a missing person mystery has evolved past that in fascinating ways.  This black comedy has achieved that by stretching both ends of its darkness and its satire, proving that the show can handle it thanks to confident storytelling and a main cast that may be the best foursome going right now.  It's marvelous that a season that contained a disturbing, Misery-influenced kidnapping storyline could also achieve an episode like "The Infinite Loop," one of the funniest half-hours of the year.  You might not have guessed that it would last this long, but season four of Search Party managed to push the show to its greatest heights yet.

15. Servant (Apple TV+)

Season two of Servant stayed the course established by the first season as one of the oddest and most eerie shows on television, improving on some of the wheel-spinning found in the latter and having more confidence in its tone.  That tone is what makes the show so unique, an off-kilter mixture of dark humor and supernatural horror.  And it's only enhanced by the impressive roster of directors who helm each episode, including Nimrod Antal, Titane filmmaker Julia Ducournau, and the god himself, M. Night Shyamalan.  Their strange visual style and inventive staging push the askew nature of the show to its absolute limit.  Servant is a series that defies explanation, you just have to watch it and enjoy the nutso ride.

14. Mythic Quest (Apple TV+)

In the year of our lord 2021, the traditional sitcom is inhaling some of its last breaths of air.  Not only are there less network sitcoms in existence these days, but almost none of the ones that are still around are any good.  Part of the appeal of Mythic Quest is that were it not for all of the cursing, it feels like it could exist on an NBC comedy block.  In fact, the show bears alot of resemblance to Community, both in its character dynamics and its willingness to get experimental with episode formats.  Though the show came out of the gate pretty fully formed, it reached a new level in its sophomore season, upping the laughs by finding new character combinations while also exploring the central relationship between Ian and Poppy more.  And once again the season delivered with formula breaking stories, this time doubling the amount from last season's one flashback episode to another flashback episode as well as a wonderful bottle episode.  No other show is balancing conventional comedy beats with expanding the boundaries of what the show can do better than Mythic Quest right now.

13. PEN15 (Hulu)

At the end of November, a week before its new half season was set to drop, the news broke that PEN15 would be voluntarily coming to an end with this latest batch of episodes.  In a way it was a fitting method of ending, as surprising and unassuming as it came along.  If this final set of episodes wasn't quite up to the peak of what we've seen from the show, it's only because its first 17 episodes were Freaks and Geeks-level coming-of-age dramedy.  It was still terrifically funny and moving television, so precisely attuned to the specifities of its two main characters and the universal broad strokes of the adolescent experience.  PEN15 may have had a short run, but something tells me its tail of influence will be very long.

12. Ranking of Kings (Funimation/Japan)

When Japan's WIT Studio relinquished their duties animating Attack on Titan before its final season, it seemed like a major blow to anime.  What we didn't know at the time was that it would clear the runway for them to make shows like Ranking of Kings, whose storybook style feels unlike anything else on at the moment.  Like WIT's previous tentpole series, it's a staggeringly complex show, just in different ways.  You might think you recognize its character archetypes when they're first introduced, but all of its cast begin to upend your expectations for them as they reveal unforeseen depths.  Its art style follows suit in that regard -- assume it's simple at your own risk, but be prepared to quickly realize that this team is still capable of producing fluid, dazzling animation.  We're only halfway though the first season of Ranking of Kings, but it feels like it's a fantasy classic in the making.

11. I Think You Should Leave (Netflix)

Chaos is the name of the game in I Think You Should Leave.  Most of the sketches start with an absurd premise and only get more insane, all thanks to the off-putting weirdos that Tim Robinson plays with aplomb in each of them.  Like all sketch shows, not everything it tries works, but not only is the hit rate higher than most of its peers, the successful sketches are rib-cracking in their hilarity.  It helps that the show has the wisdom and brevity to get in and out in about 15 minutes, before things get stale.  Season one of I Think You Should Leave might still be more popular due its novelty and meme factor, but season two was funnier and more consistent.

10. The Heike Story (Funimation/Japan)

The announcement of The Heike Story marked a huge shift in the anime world.  It confirmed the rumors that Naoko Yamada, one of the industry's most revered and influential directors, had left Kyoto Animation where she had worked her whole career.  Her first series under arthouse studio Science SARU (home of great shows like Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!) was an adaptation of historical epic, The Tale of the Heike, which chronicles the fall of the Taira clan in 13th century Japan.  That story is one that's well known to most Japanese citizens, so the anime assumes you have a baseline knowledge as it presents an overwhelming amount of characters and relationships.  But that initial information overload is hardly a hinderance when Yamada is throwing so many gorgeous and visually striking images at the viewer.  And once you adjust yourself to the all of the players and their allegiances, the story develops into a moving tragedy about loss and dealing with immeasurable suffering.  If The Heike Story is any indication, then this is the start of a thrilling new phase for one of the medium's greatest talents.

9. Attack on Titan (Funimation/Japan)

As Attack on Titan has gone on it's only become more impressive -- with the scope of its serialized storytelling becoming clearer, we've gotten a macro view of its masterful plotting, clever foreshadowing, and surprising character turns.  The first half of the final season cracked the world of the show wide open, focusing on the society that exists outside the walled cities we've seen the main characters protect for the entirety of the series beforehand.  And with that expansion, the writing continued to mix the psychological exploration of life during wartime with pulse-pounding political intrigue.  Attack on Titan was on fire this year, so much so that a slight dip in animation quality couldn't even detract from this season's storytelling power.

8. Wonder Egg Priority (Funimation/Japan)

For some anime fans, hearing the phrase "Wonder Egg Priority" sets their hairs on end.  The show was a work of staggering ambition, which led to a mountain of production issues that caught up to the finished onscreen product in its closing stretch.  But in the long view, that won't matter -- after all, Neon Genesis Evangelion is considered a masterpiece despite an ending people hated at the time.  Wonder Egg, which follows a teenage girl coping with the recent suicide of her best friend, had a quality that you rarely see in TV anime, overflowing with gorgeous character animation, surreal imagery, and heartbreaking insights into what it means to be a young woman.  This might not be a starter-level anime -- see pick number nine if you want that -- but for the well-initiated, it's a challenging artistic achievement.

7. The Other Two (HBO Max)

Between its first and second seasons, The Other Two moved from Comedy Central to HBO Max, and hopefully it has gained more exposure in its transition to the streaming juggernaut, because the funniest comedy on television needs as many eyes on it as possible.  The show continues to use its premise -- following two siblings (Helene Yorke and Drew Tarver) floundering while their younger brother becomes a famous pop star from a viral video -- to generate some of the most hilarious showbiz plots you'll ever see.  If you're a pop culture junkie (and if you're wasting your time reading this list, you likely are), many of the jokes will be so laser-targeted that it will feel like it's being written solely for you.  It's not just a joke machine either; there's a genuine heart at the core of the hijinks that keeps the show from dissolving in your mind after it's over. 

6. The Baby-Sitters Club (Netflix)

Netflix's adaptation of the formative book series The Baby-Sitters Club felt like a miracle in its first season -- the rare all-ages television show that was smart and wholesome, but didn't talk down to its audience.  It was satisfying to fans of the books while also serving as a wonderful entree to those unfamiliar with its characters and world.  Of course with all miracles, there's the worry of when it will all fall apart, but luckily it doesn't seem like that's happening any time soon here.  Season two of The Baby-Sitters Club was just as good, if not better, than the first, continuing to tell funny, charming stories that make great use of its cast of characters and their amazing chemistry.  Not even having to replace Xochitl Gomez as Dawn due to her getting cast in the new Doctor Strange film could deter them, as Kyndra Sanchez steps in and grows the character in fun and surprising ways.  Netflix shows tend to end after three or four seasons, which would be a true shame, since this would last forever if I had anything to say about it.

5. The Underground Railroad (Prime Video)

There are many TV shows out there that are visually impressive, but as a whole the medium of television still feels firmly in second place behind film when it comes to what can be accomplished with the camera.  So it was a big deal when it was announced that Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk), one of America's best filmmakers, would be adapting Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize winning The Underground Railroad as a Prime Video miniseries.  The Underground Railroad lives up to its high expectations, delivering some of the most formally rigorous and visually sumptuous filmmaking ever seen on the small screen, as it charts out the tumultuous journey to freedom that runaway slave Cora embarks on.  Jenkins has an excellent handle on the variation in style a story like this requires: His observant camera captures the brutality of slavery with an unflinching sobriety, but he's also able to nail the dreamlike imagery of its more magical realist elements.  Expanding on the novel's ideas and characterizations, the series' themes come into sharp focus towards the end, as it digs into how trauma and certain societal structures still remain even in liberation.  Just when it felt like we've strip-mined all we could out of slavery, The Underground Railroad comes along and feels startlingly vital.

4. Station Eleven (HBO Max)

When you experience trauma it tends to cleave your life into "Before" and "After" phases.  The thoughts you have, the emotions you feel, the worldview you hold; they're all informed by what side of that bifurcation you're on.  Station Eleven, which follows a group of performers who travel around the Midwest performing Shakespeare plays after a flu-like pandemic wipes out the majority of the world's population, is all about that kind of trauma in the collective sense.  It bleeds together the Before and After, showing the ways its characters have been shaped by this event, all while their lives intersect in strange and beautiful fashion.  Along the way, the series becomes a receptacle for any kind of tone, emotion, and storytelling structure, as it takes entire episode detours to focus on side characters or small moments in time.  Station Eleven is about what it means to suffer pain so immense that it breaks through and becomes something else entirely, and as a result the show itself is a little disorienting and indescribable.  As of the release of this list, only seven out of the miniseries' 10 episodes have aired, but they're beautiful enough that it deserves high placement regardless.

3. The White Lotus (HBO)

There's a simultaneous love and hatred of humanity that runs through The White Lotus, HBO's summer sensation that marked the return of Enlightened creator Mike White to the network.  Consequently, you have to that same mixture of love and hatred of its characters as well.  It asks you to laugh at the lack of self-awareness of their gross privilege, but also get emotionally invested in their struggles all the same.  The show achieves this through its sheer tonal mastery, ably shifting from comedy to tragedy between different scenes and just as often within the same one.  Every episode is structured like a Swiss watch, hanging itself on a complicated web of plotlines that have adroit cause-and-effect implications on one another.  It's so entertaining that the surface pleasures would be enough, but underneath that it's also a wise exploration of class disparity, gender roles, and the way that rich liberals can be unaware of how they're part of the problem.

2. For All Mankind (Apple TV+)

For All Mankind -- the latest show from Battlestar Galactica and Outlander creator Ronald D. Moore -- had to work out a few kinks in its first season, becoming more intriguing once it revealed its actual premise in episode three, and gradually morphing into an unequivocally good show by the final stretch.  Yet this year it proved that it still had greater heights to reach, blasting off into the realm of being one of the best shows on television.  For All Mankind is a gripping drama, presenting the richest ensemble in recent memory, one where almost every character has the potential to be your favorite at any given moment.  There's a power to watching these complex individuals be put through the emotional wringer dealing with personal and professional failures, which makes it doubly satisfying whenever they come together to accomplish something great.  What's more is that season two often engaged in edge-of-your-seat plotting, pushing the alternate history space race stakes to further and more thrilling places.  If the show somehow gets better next season -- and the bold place this season's finale left us at certainly signals that's a possibility -- I'm not so sure our brains can handle it.

1. Succession (HBO)

Cultural commentators like to throw around the term "Shakespearean" for too many works of art that don't deserve it, but Succession feels like one of the few recent shows that has the tragicomic sweep to be worthy of that comparison.  If you just want to have a laugh, the show is a fusillade of the most hilarious and biting barbs you'll ever hear.  But if you want some emotional heft, it's also a devastating show about the corrosive effects of familial abuse and how far-reaching its manifestations can be.  Both sides of its blade were sharper this year, and though it seemed impossible after an all-timer sophomore season, Succession came back from an extended break with their best batch of episodes yet.  Every single hour was its own pressurized diamond, delivering both lizard brain pleasure-triggering and plate spinning of the highest degree of difficulty, culminating in another earth-shattering finale.  What a rare gift it was to watch this series live every Sunday night.  Even rarer it is that the watercooler show of the moment is also TV's best offering.

Well, that wraps things up for my best shows of 2021 list.  I love reading other lists, so feel free to share yours in the comments.  Or if you want to share your thoughts on my list, then you can do that too!  To see a complete inventory of all the TV I watched this year (with even more rankings), you can find it on this Google Doc.

Previous lists
2020

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2018
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2016
2015
2014
2013