My 20 Favorite Television Shows of 2018

I was a bad little boy in 2018.  For the past few years I've used the intro of this list to chronicle my efforts to decrease the amount of TV shows I watch every year, my small but futile way to protest the content wave of Peak TV.  (Truthfully, it's just an effort to clear out space to watch more movies and older TV shows, so I'm no hero.)  And I had been making good progress, progressing from around 130 shows per year when I started doing these lists to last year's 100.  Watching less than 100 shows seems pretty simple, right?

Well...about that.

I watched a total of 103 shows in 2018.  But hear me out!  I really do think I did a better job of managing my TV intake, getting much better at not continuing with shows that I don't like, and even cutting out long-running shows that I still somewhat like but have gotten a little bored with (sorry, Bob's Burgers).  Even my torturous efforts to watch every network pilot are far behind me.  All of this has led to more time for older shows and movies.  After all, I watched more new films than ever this year and I devoted half of this year to watching all 156 episodes of The Twilight Zone.  Still, it's just that the amount of new scripted content keeps growing like a tumor, so even though I most likely watched a lower percentage of shows in existence out there this year, the actual number still ended up being higher.

So while I'm here and still watching too much TV, I might as well sort out the best of the best and give you my favorites from the year.  Really, I do this all for you guys, not to fuel my own sick addiction.  No, not at all.

The rules: Shows are considered for this list based on the episodes they aired in 2018.  This is a pretty plain and simple rule for cable dramas, where full seasons usually air within a single calendar year.  However, it gets slightly messy when considering network shows, which usually air the first half of their season in the fall and the second half starting January of the next year.  So something like, say, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend would be judged based on the second half of its third season (which aired at the beginning of the year) and the first half of its fourth and final season (which started in the fall of this year).  As for what constitutes a TV show, anything that airs on, you know, a TV station counts.  But shows that air exclusively on streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon count too.  Movies that exclusively appear on those services like say, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, do not count.  I give it a few years before all of these definitions become completely meaningless though.  No TV, no movies, just #Content.


Honorable Mentions (25-21)
The deliciously fun thriller You (Lifetime) was one of the biggest surprises of the year, proving you should never judge a show by its network.  Don't sleep on Black-ish spinoff Grown-ish (Freeform), which features an excellent ensemble and refreshingly modern stories.  Despite a bumpy ending and concerns about the future of the show, The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu) was still terrific this year, sometimes even reaching greater heights than the first season.  FLCL Alternative (Adult Swim) made the smart move of not trying to be a rehash of the original FLCL, an anime classic, and instead gave us a more matured and grounded spin on the series' coming of age formula.  The sophomore season of American Vandal (Netflix) was less funny than the previous season, but its mystery and adherence to true crime tropes was even more engrossing.

20. Insecure (HBO)

Another year, another season of Insecure excellence.  You can always count on the vibrant HBO comedy to deliver guffaws, as it did throughout its third season, especially in the hilarious Coachella detour that was "High-Like."  The thing that elevates it past its peers, however, is its ability to build its characters and their relationships with one another.  In between the laughs, season three gave Issa the intriguing arc of pulling herself out from the doldrums of unemployed couch surfing to find a renewed sense of purpose.  It also strengthened the ensemble of the show, giving more time to existing members and also adding characters in the form of Issa's new love interests.  Insecure continues to feel like a show that's a little bit slept on, so if you're one of those people overlooking it, it's never too late to catch up on one of TV's best and most reliable comedies.

Highlight Episodes

1. High-Like (Season 3 Episode 5)

2. Ready-Like (Season 3 Episode 6)

3. Backwards-Like (Season 3 Episode 3)

19. The Good Fight (CBS All Access)

Though it was ostensibly a legal drama, The Good Wife was always a political show, focusing on the inner-workings of the Chicago government and how that intersected with the world its lawyers dealt in.  Its spinoff The Good Fight, however, took those ideas and ran with it, specifically aiming to filter its stories through the lens of an America post-November 8, 2016.  And while nobody was paying attention on the CBS exclusive streaming network, the show went absolutely buckwild in its deliriously entertaining second season.  Taking place in a sideways, somehow more loopy version of 2018, the season framed its story around law firm Reddick, Boseman & Lockhart getting the opportunity to lead the effort to impeach Donald Trump should the Democrats take Congress.  That sounds like a nightmarish attempt at being topical, but because of the writers' rock-solid understanding of weaving standalone stories into a larger arc, it ended up being a fun, unpredictable ride.  The Pee Tape is real, so watch The Good Fight.

Highlight Episodes
1. Day 471 (Season 2 Episode 10)
2. Day 478 (Season 2 Episode 11)
3. Day 422 (Season 2 Episode 3)

18. Sharp Objects (HBO)

After the enormous success of Big Little Lies last year, HBO decided to team up with director Jean-Marc Vallee once more to adapt another popular mystery novel.  This time around, it was Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects, and the Big Little Lies ensemble of heavy hitters was replaced by the singular overpowering force that is Amy Adams.  Sharp Objects is another entry in the long line of detective stories where someone has to return to their hometown and past life to uncover the darkness lingering right under the facade of small-town tranquility.  (One small difference in that formula is protagonist Camille Parker is a journalist, not a cop.)  The miniseries drags the viewer through a swamp of childhood trauma, psychic damage, and fractured memories as Camille attempts to get to the bottom of the mysterious murder of two teenage girls that occurred where she grew up.  It would be unbearably painful if it wasn't so engaging; edited, shot, and soundtracked to evoke a woozy waking nightmare.  Though its ending was a little sloppy, the incredible journey of Sharp Objects was enough to make it a worthy spiritual successor to Big Little Lies.

Highlight Episodes
1. Falling (Episode 7)
2. Closer (Episode 5)
3. Fix (Episode 3)

17. Better Call Saul (AMC)

As it inches closer towards its inevitable conclusion, Better Call Saul increasingly feels like two separate shows: the slow moral slide of Jimmy and Kim, and the boiling conflict of the New Mexico drug trade featuring Mike, Gus, and the Salamanca clan.  Where earlier seasons at least made small efforts to have those worlds intersect, they functioned as total islands in the fourth season.  It's the Jimmy and Kim portion that gives the series its real emotional heft, charting the push and pull of their unpredictable relationship with each other and with righteousness.  And while the drug material isn't as layered, it serves to shake the show out of its more languid impulses.  In that sense, the two sides balance each other out perfectly to create a satisfying whole.  Plus, both halves are just delivery machines for the show's exquisite direction and sense of building scenes, which continues to be some of the best television has to offer.

Highlight Episodes
1. Winner (Season 4 Episode 10)
2. Something Beautiful (Season 4 Episode 3)
3. Pinata (Season 4 Episode 6)

16. The Bold Type (Freeform)

Season two of The Bold Type could have been a disaster.  Showrunner Sarah Watson left between seasons due to creative differences with the network, and it seemed like Freeform's surprise gem was going to be another one of those series that tanked after changes behind the scenes.  But despite some minor hiccups -- the dreaded gun episode, some rickety storytelling towards the finish line -- the sophomore season was pretty terrific overall.  What remains is its commitment to the core trio of the show and how it uses them as a lens to examine friendship, love, and balancing the personal with the professional.   Like its protagonists, The Bold Type experienced an obstacle and turned it into success this year.  Just please, no more episodes about guns.

Highlight Episodes
1. Stride of Pride (Season 2 Episode 5)
2. The Scarlet Letter (Season 2 Episode 3)
3. Rose Colored Glasses (Season 2 Episode 2)

15. Barry (HBO)

"A hitman travels to Los Angeles and ends up deciding to pursue acting."  It's a logline that sounds like a Funny or Die sketch.  But HBO's Barry finds incredible nuance within that seemingly silly premise, to the point where the drama works even better than the comedy does.  Certainly helping is the absolutely committed performance from Bill Hader -- who also serves as the co-showrunner, writing and directing many of the episodes -- excellently capturing the tension of his dual lives, and that added layer of the fact that in some ways, Barry is always acting even when he is not reading lines.  What a satisfying debut season; this could be a self-contained story and still work as is.

Highlight Episodes
1. Chapter Eight: Know Your Truth (Season 1 Episode 8)
2. Chapter Seven: Loud, Fast, and Keep Going (Season 1 Episode 7)
3. Chapter Four: Commit to...YOU (Season 1 Episode 4)

14. Lodge 49 (AMC)

Lodge 49 feels like the product of a bygone era.  Its aimless, shaggy dog pacing is akin to a time when the cable drama was still figuring itself out, and hadn't quite cohered into a singular thing.  And yet here it is today, standing out in a crowd of incident-heavy television.  Describing what makes Lodge 49 special is a difficult task.  It's a hodgepodge of seemingly disparate ideas: a gentle ode to slackerdom, a subtle rejection of the soul-crushing weight of capitalism, a yearning for the return of tightknit communities as the pillars holding up our society, and a Pynchon-esque puzzle about the unexplainable forces holding everything together.  Yet even if it may not seem like it, those ingredients make for a fascinating flavor profile, and the end result is something that's immensely affecting.

Highlight Episodes
1. Paradise (Season 1 Episode 5)
2. Corpus (Season 1 Episode 3)
3. Something From Nothing (Season 1 Episode 8)

13. My Brilliant Friend (HBO)

Italian novelist Elena Ferrante's four-part Neapolitan novels are fiercely beloved, so many people were nervous about this HBO co-production, and while I can't speak to that crowd's reaction, I thought My Brilliant Friend was an unequivocal success.  It has all the sweep of an epic novel, tracking its two protagonists from young girlhood to late adolescence, all while populating the city they grew up in with myriad complications, warring families, and troubled histories.  But its intimacy is what really gets you.  The relationship between Elena and Lila is deep and complex, more wrinkled than fabric fresh out of the dryer, and the charting of their stories braid and contrast in lyrical ways.  My Brilliant Friend is in turns dazzling and devastating.  Hopefully, this is just the beginning, both for this series and for HBO's foreign language endeavors.

Highlight Episodes
1. Dissolving Boundaries (Season 1 Episode 4)
2. The Promise (Season 1 Episode 8)
3. The Fiances (Season 1 Episode 7)

12. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon)

After the first season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, creator Amy Sherman-Palladino found herself in a position she wasn't used to: having a bonafide hit on her hands.  The idiosyncratic writer-director is no stranger to critical acclaim, but her previous work fall more into the cult hit category, not the Emmy-sweeping juggernaut that Maisel is.  Season two serves as a bit of an accidental victory lap, taking detours to Paris and the Catskills, and featuring even more gorgeous costumes and elaborate production design than last year.  This 10-episode set was a work of dizzying confection, so entertaining and impeccably crafted on a moment-to-moment basis.  But Amy Sherman-Palladino shows work best when there are real emotional stakes to cut through the fluff, which the season thankfully finds in a finale that snaps everything before it into place.  In its depiction of one woman's conflict in choosing between opposite worlds, Mrs. Maisel is as marvelous as ever.

Highlight Episodes

1. We're Going to the Catskills! (Season 2 Episode 4)

2. Someday... (Season 2 Episode 8)

3. Midnight at the Concord (Season 2 Episode 5)

11. American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace (FX)

The Assassination of Gianni Versace had so much to live up to.  The first season of American Crime Story captured the zeitgeist in a way that shows don't often do anymore, recreating the voyeuristic appeal of the original OJ Simpson trial in miniature.  Something like that is hard to top or even match.  And it's true that Versace didn't have the raw excitement of its predecessor, but it strived for something deeper and more challenging.  Much like People vs. OJ examined the cross between race and celebrity culture in the 90s, this season did with what it was like to be a gay man around the same time, in an environment that was hostile and uncaring towards them.  It did so with murderer Andrew Cunanan at its center, structuring its story like a reverse coming out, funneling deeper and deeper in an effort to understand the man and the lives he ruined.  As Cunanan, Darren Criss gives one of the most astonishing performances of the year, detestable and charismatic all at once.  It's a shame that Versace was ultimately less popular than People vs. OJ, but maybe that's fitting for a season that was all about the effects of feeling unseen.

Highlight Episodes
1. Don't Ask, Don't Tell (Season 2 Episode 5)
2. House By the Lake (Season 2 Episode 4)
3. Alone (Season 2 Episode 9)

10. Killing Eve (BBC America)

Phoebe Waller-Bridge knows her way around the Difficult Woman.  Her previous show Fleabag introduced American audiences to those abilities, centering its prickly story on a protagonist who messes up and behaves badly but is achingly human all the same.  While I wasn't head over heels about that show, I certainly am with Killing Eve.  More than just a distaff version of the classic cat-and-mouse thriller, it's an example of the trope at peak performance.  Part of that is because of Waller-Bridge's flair as a writer, her love of oddness giving every character a twitchy texture, her wild abandon careening the story along for juicy twists.  But the real heavy lifting is done by the aforementioned cat and mouse.  As the twin leads, Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer are electrifying, threatening to dismantle the whole framework of the show every time they appear onscreen together.  Killing Eve may very well go off the rails fast in the future, but you can bet it will have a blast doing so.

Highlight Episodes
1. God, I'm Tired (Season 1 Episode 8)
2. I Have a Thing About Bathrooms (Season 1 Episode 5)
3. Sorry Baby (Season 1 Episode 4)

9. Dear White People (Netflix)

Netflix shows generally have a structure problem.  That's what happens when you design your content to be consumed in an endless binge: the episodes begin to feel like arbitrary installments that all sag and bleed together.  Dear White People, with its choice of focusing on a single character in the ensemble per episode, is the rare exception.  That strategy is a common way to signify some self-containment in your stories, but the show pulls it off with a particular panache.  The sophomore season of this campus comedy showed an increased confidence, deepening its characters and exhibiting a visual flair that its peers could stand to cheat from.  Dear White People is one of the few shows that feels like it's in conversation with our modern times, particularly when its characters wrestle with their identity and what their role is in creating a better, more progressive world.  Though I can't say the same for most of Netflix's offerings in 2018, this show receives passing marks.

Highlight Episodes
1. Chapter IV (Season 2 Episode 4)
2. Chapter VIII (Season 2 Episode 8)
3. Chapter V (Season 2 Episode 5)

8. The Deuce (HBO)

The Deuce may not have the framework of a season-long case that David Simon's most beloved show The Wire had holding it together, but it does have central ideas that it likes to explore each year.  And if there was one theme running through the entirety of its second season, it's that the times they are a-changin'.  The story jumped ahead five years to 1977, and with that came the evolution of these characters, their city, and the porn industry that was only fledgling when we last left things in 1972.  With the change in time came a change in perspective as well, as season two honed in on the lives of its female characters and their struggle to find their own station that didn't exist under the thumb of pimps, johns, and money-mongering mafiosos.  Season two retained the simmering, hypnotizing energy that originally made the show so terrific while also giving it a greater scope and narrative purpose.  At this point, The Deuce's greatness comes as no surprise, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

Highlight Episodes
1. We Are All Beasts (Season 2 Episode 6)
2. What Big Ideas (Season 2 Episode 4)
3. Seven-Fifty (Season 2 Episode 3)

7. The Romanoffs (Amazon)

With its abstract premise -- an anthology series where each episode is about a different set of people who believe themselves to be descendants of the last Russian royal family -- and the sexual harassment allegations against creator Matthew Weiner, The Romanoffs definitely didn't come into the world on the best footing.  That continued throughout its run -- it's by far the most critically reviled show to make this list, with many detractors disparaging the bloated lengths of each episode, its listless stories, and tone-deaf point of view.  And while it's certainly an imperfect work, it's also 2018's most peelable show, an endlessly fascinating cogitation on identity, noblesse oblige, and our duty to righteous action.  Though the eight stories featured different characters, locales, and even genres, they all coalesce around the same ideas and emotions, in conversation with each other in small ways that made each component part more powerful.  The Romanoffs may have been a show that baffled and frustrated some, but not all great experiments are embraced right away.

Highlight Episodes
1. End of the Line (Season 1 Episode 7)
2. The Royal We (Season 1 Episode 2)
3. Expectation (Season 1 Episode 4)

6. Succession (HBO)

"Shows teach you how to watch it."  That's a phrase that's been paraded out in so many television thinkpieces that it should be locked in the critic vault for good.  But if there's any show that's worthy of dusting off that old maxim for, it's HBO's Succession.  It's a series that befuddled many critics when they had to write their initial reviews -- "Is it a comedy?  Is it a drama?" everyone seemed to be asking.  The answer is simply "Yes."  Succession is a hulking beast that defies classification -- its debut season was hilarious, vicious, and by the end, yes, dramatically satisfying.  Every member of the Roy clan, a venal bunch whose patriarch is the head of a major media conglomerate, is awful but uniquely watchable in their odiousness.  Even describing it like that doesn't properly sell its greatness -- it makes it sound cheap and empty.  But watch Succession and you'll quickly be engrossed and highly entertained.  This show is a full meal.

Highlight Episodes
1. Nobody is Ever Missing (Season 1 Episode 10)
2. Prague (Season 1 Episode 8)
3. Austerlitz (Season 1 Episode 7)

5. The Americans (FX)

The concept of "sticking the landing" gets thrown around frequently in the discourse around great dramas, a heavily weighted element in judging its legacy for some.  Many shows buckle under the pressure of sticking that landing.  But in its sixth and final season, The Americans didn't seem to be feeling the heat at all.  It just kept its eyes forward and continued delivering the same assured, gorgeously wrought storytelling that made it one of the best shows on television for the previous five years.  Operating at a pace that causes some to dismiss it as boring, the show accumulates in millions of tiny, glacial moments, building up tension to a point where the payoff can capsize the audience.  And its final set of ten episodes did just that, offering a trek that grew more ominous as it sped towards its destination, arriving at a devastating and satisfying finale.  In the end, The Americans checked off all the boxes it possibly could, giving us a pulse pounding conclusion that also served as a moving rumination on the intersection of family, duty, and country.  There's no better sticking of the landing than that.

Highlight Episodes
1. The Great Patriotic War (Season 6 Episode 5)
2. START (Season 6 Episode 10)
3. Rififi (Season 6 Episode 6)

4. Howards End (Starz)

Kenneth Lonergan had already proven his bonafides in two separate media.  He started out as an award-winning playwright before moving on to directing three of the greatest films of this century (You Can Count on Me, Margaret, Manchester By the Sea), and this year he set his sights on conquering television as well.  Written by Longeran and directed by Hettie MacDonald, this four-part adaptation of E.M. Forster's famous turn of the 20th century novel was a lovely and deeply felt story of humanity, empathy, and compromise.  Those who have read the book or seen the 1992 film won't find anything new in the plot, but this version has its own pleasures that make diving in more than worth it.  Lonergan's dialogue is bright and lived-in, and it's paced in a way that makes you lean forward and get drawn in.  But it's the performances that are really the selling point, particularly Hayley Atwell's multitudinous turn as Margaret Schlegel.  So whether you're a newcomer or a seasoned veteran, there's much joy to be found in Howards End.

3. The Magicians (Syfy)

We live in an era of width over depth when it comes to our genre television.  There are more sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero shows being broadcast than ever before, and they're no longer just ghettoized to the desolate corners of your cable package.  They're basically the new mainstream.  And yet, for all of its ubiquity, genre television hasn't given us many stone cold classics in recent years.  If its current trajectory is to be believed, Syfy's The Magicians is looking to change that.  After a big leap in quality from its first to its second season, the third season was somehow even better, surging forward with a relentless sense of fun and invention.  Its cast of characters is such an embarrassment of riches that the writers can reach in an pull out any combination of them and have it work.  And the world just keeps getting more finely chiseled, deftly threading the needle between being a delightful sandbox but also a vessel for real dramatic stakes.  The Magicians makes the case that good dramas don't need to be monotone and monochrome.

Highlight Episodes
1. Be the Penny (Season 3 Episode 4)
2. All That Josh (Season 3 Episode 9)
3. Life in a Day (Season 3 Episode 5)

2. Atlanta (FX)

The wait was long for season two of Atlanta -- a full 18-month gap between it and the first season, to be exact.  Though when it finally arrived right on the cusp of spring this year, it came through like a storm.  FX's already formidable comedy returned stronger, funnier, and more formally dazzling than ever.  Season two gave us "Barbershop," a hilarious romp full of amusing side-roads and detours.  It also provided us with "FUBU," an all too relateable flashback episode that perfectly captured the cruelty of childhood and the ephemeral nature of trend-hopping.  But most importantly, it delivered a surefire episode of the year contender in "Teddy Perkins," an odd, haunting installment centered on a mysterious Michael Jackson-esque figure.  You never knew what you were going to get with Atlanta this year, but you could bet on it being great.  It can make us wait as long as it wants for season three if we're going to get something of this quality again.

Highlight Episodes
1. Teddy Perkins (Season 2 Episode 6)
2. Alligator Man (Season 2 Episode 1)
3. North of the Border (Season 2 Episode 9)

1. America to Me (Starz)

No show can last forever, but sometimes don't you just wish one could?  That's the sensation that America to Me brings.  The 10-part Starz documentary from filmmaker Steve James (Hoop Dreams, Life Itself) aims to take a look at a year at Oak Park & River Forest High, a school with a high level of diversity but an achievement gap between black and white students that's just as high, and what it accomplishes is something far more grand than its initial goal.  It's incisive in ways both micro -- its unvarnished look at modern high school might make it the best teen drama of the decade -- and macro, with the way it quietly examines how institutional issues are so firmly entrenched that it's hard to have any hope of change.  As each episode passed, the show became deeper in its insight and wider in scope, fully earning the show's namesake by the end.  Maybe it couldn't have lasted forever, but I'd kill for somebody to let James and his crew observe this school for a few more years.

Highlight Episodes
1. Listen to the Poem! (Episode 6)
2. There is No Pain That Compares to the Struggle (Episode 3)
3. The Invisible T-Shirt (Episode 9)


Well, that wraps things up for my best shows of 2018 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
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013