My 50 Favorite Television Shows of the Decade: 2010-2019

There was a problem facing television as a medium in the 2010s, and if you've been online or reading my year-end lists then you know what I'm talking about: there's too much damn TV.  It's been an outright epidemic over the last 10 years, with new shows and delivery systems for those shows popping up at a rapid rate, far past anyone's ability to keep up with it all.  Somebody once aptly described a TV critic's role as being more like a book critic's nowadays -- there's too much for one person to consume, so you have to make peace with that and curate your experience by finding a niche.

Unfortunately, the influx of TV also led to more bad shows.  The rise of streaming and binge-watching has caused series to indulge in being nothing more than formless pieces of content.  Sometimes it can feel like every writer who knows how to construct seasons, episodes, and even scenes died near the end of the previous decade.  But the sheer magnitude of television in this decade means that there was still alot to love about television.  This list chronicles the best of the best from the 2010s.

The rules: These eligibility rules are slightly more complicated than the ones for the other two lists, so read carefully.  In order for a show to be eligible for this list, it has to have aired more than half of its total episodes within this decade.  Also, only those episodes that aired in this decade are taken into consideration when placing and ranking that show.  For example: 30 Rock is eligible for consideration because 72 of its 138 episodes aired after January 1, 2010 -- that's 52% for all the mathematicians out there -- but the only episodes that determine if it can make the top 50 are Season 4 Episode 9 through Season 7 Episode 13 (the episodes that aired in the 2010s).  Also, only continuing series are eligible for the top 50, while miniseries get their own mini list.



My 20 Favorite Miniseries of the 2010s (alphabetical order)
Alias Grace (Netflix, 2017)
America to Me (Starz, 2018)
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (Netflix, 2016)
The Honourable Woman (Sundance, 2014)
Howards End (Starz, 2018)
The Jinx (HBO, 2015)
Jules and Monty (YouTube, 2014)
The Little Drummer Girl (AMC, 2018)
Looking For Alaska (Hulu, 2019)
Mildred Pierce (HBO, 2011)
The Night Of (HBO, 2016)
O.J.: Made in America (ESPN, 2016)
Olive Kitteridge (HBO, 2014)
The Pacific (HBO, 2010)
Pantheon University (YouTube, 2016)
The Romanoffs (Amazon, 2018)
Sharp Objects (HBO, 2018)
Show Me a Hero (HBO, 2015)
Unbelievable (Netflix, 2019)
Wolf Hall (PBS, 2015)

50. Fringe (Fox, 2008-2013)

There was a period around the turn of the decade where networks were greenlighting any genre show in an effort to find the next Lost, and while most of them were lost to the sands of time, one of the few winners was Fringe.  The series modernized the formula popularized by The X-Files, alternating between freaky procedural stories and grander mythology episodes.  And particularly in the episodes that aired in the 2010s, it used that tried-and-true format to create ambitious, emotional sci-fi.

49. Review (Comedy Central, 2014-2017)

Comedy Central had a fantastic decade, giving shows to great creatives like Andy Daly and letting them see their vision through with minimal tinkering.  And what a vision Review was -- a man on a mission to review life, pushed to lunacy in hilarious and disturbing ways.

48. Barry (HBO, 2018-present)

Bill Hader has long been known as a big time cinephile, but he's finally been able to prove his bonafides with Barry, his Coen brothers meets 70s crime film riff on a hitman who tries to pursue acting.  In its two seasons, the show has deftly balanced tones while interrogating the "bad man goes good" genre.

47. Sym-Bionic Titan (Cartoon Network, 2010-2011)

Genndy Tartakovsky is one of American animation's masters, contributing to the defining style of millennial classics like Samurai Jack, Dexter's Lab, and The Powerpuff Girls; and his short-lived Sym-Bionic Titan was another classic of the medium, crafting a rich world with fascinating characters and impeccable style in just 20 episodes.

46. The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu, 2017-present)

TV shows have to fight so hard to get watched that they can't afford to have any missteps or rough patches, so it's almost refreshing to have a great show be messy like they used to be.  The Handmaid's Tale has long moved past the seminal Margaret Atwood novel its based on and it has often had questionable narrative choices and character motivations, but at its best it's such an expertly crafted, paced, and acted show that its faults feel like minor blemishes.

45. Mr. Robot (USA, 2015-2019)

USA shook off its "blue skies television" image with the release of Mr. Robot, which blended Fight Club with Kubrick and spit out a highly serialized techno-thriller.  The show could always be counted on for some gorgeous visual touches and trippy narrative gambits, but at its best it also tapped into that unsettling sensation of feeling isolated in our hyper-connected world.

44. The Knick (Cinemax, 2014-2015)

For most of its history, television has been known as a writer's medium.  With every single episode directed by the great auteur Steven Soderbergh, The Knick came along and blew that notion up completely.  It had some great characters and solid writing, but the show was thrilling and disorienting because of how it used the camera to push the narrative forward in ways that still haven't been matched.

43. My Mad Fat Diary (E4 [UK], 2013-2015)

Nowadays its legacy is being the show that introduced the world to Killing Eve's Jodie Comer, but My Mad Fat Diary was a terrific series in its own right.  For three seasons the show took us on a journey with Rae Earl, a girl with mental health and body image issues, as she learned how to love herself and the world around her.  Not only was it a wonderful teen show and look at life in the 90s, it was also a genuinely therapeutic experience.

42. The Good Wife/The Good Fight (CBS/CBS All Access, 2009-2015/2017-present)

With its morally compromised characters and complex long-running stories, The Good Wife injected new life into the network legal drama, a format many prestige TV viewers had thought they moved past.  And its sequel series The Good Fight has done the same thing, using a sideways America to quietly tell some of the most fun, revolutionary political stories on CBS's obscure streaming network.

41. Game of Thrones (HBO, 2011-2019)

Though it eventually crumbled under its own weight in that debacle of a final season, Game of Thrones was often a wonderfully ambitious thrill ride.  It's easy to get lost in the weeds of complaining about minutiae, but popular blockbuster entertainment is rarely as good as this show was during its peak.

40. Dear White People (Netflix, 2017-present)

Netflix's Dear White People takes on the same premise as the 2014 film of the same name, but irons out the flaws of its progenitor in its translation to the small screen.  This hilarious, stylized campus comedy proves that sometimes the second time is the charm.

39. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX, 2005-present)

Five full seasons of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia aired pre-2010, and the show is so funny and consistent that it still qualifies as one of the best of this decade.  To last this long, shows have to adapt, and seasons six through 14 have seen many changes for The Gang, and it's exciting to think of the different ways the series will make us laugh in the years to come.

38. Better Things (FX, 2016-present)

When it first started, it was hard for Better Things to shake off comparisons to its spiritual predecessor Louie, but it quickly blossomed into its own form of greatness.  Three seasons in, it's one of the most soulful, electric shows we've got.

37. Degrassi: Next Class (Netflix, 2016-2017)

Degrassi as a franchise is a teen institution, and it may have come to an end for a while with the premature conclusion of its Generation Z reboot, Next Class.  But at least it went out feeling as vital as ever, telling emotional, refreshingly modern stories with its fun cast of characters.

36. Big Little Lies (HBO, 2017-2019)

Rounding up Reese Witherspooon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Zoe Kravitz, and eventually Meryl Streep on the same show together was a big flex on HBO's part.  And they could have just rested on that accomplishment alone.  But Big Little Lies was not just a cash-in, it was a soulful exploration of female pain, collective trauma, and how we heal.

35. Jane the Virgin (The CW, 2014-2019)

Most people think they won't like a telenovela named Jane the Virgin, but that's the magic of the show.  Come in skeptical and leave blown away by this hilarious, inventive, fast-paced, and heartfelt send-up to one of television's most unsung genres.

34. Ping Pong the Animation (Fuji TV [Japan], 2014)

For all of his technical prowess, Masaaki Yuasa creations can feel a little cold, so concerned with chasing experimental flights of fancy that they forget about emotional grounding.  That's why Ping Pong was so particularly impressive.  With this off-kilter sports anime, he finally found a rich, involving story to match his wild animation style.

33. Terriers (FX, 2010)

In FX's dogfighting epic...okay, just kidding.  Confusion over the title led to people missing out on a series bursting with potential, this shaggy, surf-noir detective drama.  Terriers felt like a show without trepidation, unafraid to trap its characters in tight corners of morality but also unafraid to have a good time while doing so.  It may not have been about canines in a literal sense, but the magical quality of this tale of underdogs still lingers.

32. Broad City (Comedy Central, 2014-2019)

TV has a long legacy of great comedy duos, and Broad City's Abbi and Ilana easily join those ranks.  Over the show's five years, it invited us to fall in love with their friendship, watching them go on riotously funny adventures through New York, as they slouched towards adulthood.  In an era where comedies have become increasingly jokeless, Broad City proved you didn't have to sacrifice laughs for heart.

31. Girls (HBO, 2012-2017)

With all of Lena Dunham's offscreen obnoxiousness during and after the run of Girls, it's easy to forget just how good the show was.  Not only was it always more self-aware than it was given credit for, its insularity contributed to the specificity of the New York twenty-something life it examined.  Like them or not, there's no denying that the characters of Girls were fully-realized, and it was fun to see their tics and insecurities crash into each other.

30. Better Call Saul (AMC, 2015-present)

There was alot of great television this past decade, but there were few shows that made it look as easy as the Better Call Saul team consistently does.  It's an assembly of people who know good TV in their bones, and they come together for a masterclass of writing, directing, acting, and construction.  Everybody thought this show was an unwise decision when it was first greenlit, but it has continued to exceed our expectations.

29. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (The CW, 2015-2019)

A musical comedy about mental illness on The CW shouldn't have worked.  But for four glorious seasons, co-creator/star Rachel Bloom helped do just that, giving us a perfect mixture of moving drama, hilarious comedy, and incredibly catchy songs.

28. Space Dandy (Adult Swim, 2014)

With pantheon series like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo under his belt, Shinichiro Watanabe is anime's leading purveyor of cool.  While the goofy romp Space Dandy doesn't share any similarities with those works, it was cool in its own way.  Watanabe used his legendary status to assemble his most talented animator, director, and writer friends together to try something new every week.  The result is one of the most brilliant, zany, impressive anime of the century.

27. Parks and Recreation (NBC, 2009-2015)

Though it got a little too in love with its own niceness towards the end -- something that all shows created by Mike Schur suffer from -- the peak of Parks and Recreation represents the best that sitcoms had to offer in the 2010s.

26. Black Mirror (Channel 4 [UK]/Netflix, 2011-present)

Before The Twilight Zone itself was rebooted earlier last year, Black Mirror served as this generation's version of the anthology classic.  Like all episodic anthologies, not every installment is a masterpiece, but at its best the show offers up excellent stories about technology and the way humanity is shaped by it.

25. Please Like Me (Pivot, 2013-2016)

I don't tend to respond to warm and fuzzy art, but sometimes a show like the brilliant, breezy Australian import Please Like Me is able to sneak past my defenses.  It helps that it always tended to cut the fluff with some sobering depictions of mental illness and growing up in the tumult of your 20s.

24. Enlightened (HBO, 2011-2013)

As the decade progressed, cancellations of beloved and critically acclaimed shows became less common.  One of the last real heartbreakers was Enlightened, HBO's chronicle of one woman's spiritual and ethical journey after suffering from a public mental collapse and the humiliation that came with it.  It may have ended before its time, but what we got was a finely-sculpted 18 episode gem.

23. American Crime Story (FX, 2016-present)

It's fitting that Ryan Murphy, the man who introduced the seasonal anthology to the modern age in the form of American Horror Story, perfected it with American Crime Story.  The People v. O.J. Simpson was a riveting pop culture sensation and The Assassination of Gianni Versace was a less immediate, but more challenging follow-up.  The door is wide open for great new stories in the next decade.

22. The Legend of Korra (Nickelodeon, 2012-2014)

Avatar: The Last Airbender was one of the very best shows of the previous decade, and the folks behind it pulled off the same thing this decade with its sequel series.  Though it was more mature, less sprawling, and sometimes had its hiccups, it delivered the same inventive thrills and moving character arcs.

21. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon, 2017-present)

Amazon became more and more evil as a corporation throughout the decade, but even they managed to point their money in the direction of good a few times.  A few years ago, who would have thought that an idiosyncratic creator like Amy Sherman-Palladino would be given the keys to the kingdom, with unlimited resources to make a screwball comedy with expensive sets, lavish costumes, and eye-popping locales?  The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel truly feels like a gift.

20. Fresh Meat (Channel 4 [UK], 2011-2016)

Fresh Meat pulled off the great trick of making a hangout comedy populated by total jerks, proving that if they're hilarious enough, sometimes the most lovable characters are the ones you'd hate in real life.

19. Treme (HBO, 2010-2013)

How do you follow up a singular television landmark like The Wire? For David Simon, the answer was to dive down another regional rabbit hole, making a shaggy, digressive hangout drama about post-Katrina New Orleans.  Some may have been put off by Treme's initial lack of Wire sensibilities, but space away from its ending has revealed a magical sense of people and places that feels like quintessential Simon.

18. Parenthood (NBC, 2010-2015)

Providing heartfelt family drama better than and before This is Us, Parenthood's mushiness hid the smart storytelling at the core of the show.  Great shows come in all shapes and sizes, and this one stood out when so many of the decade's other shows were edgy prestige dramas.

17. Hannibal (NBC, 2013-2015)

There are still people who are holding out hope for there being some kind of continuation for Bryan Fuller's Grand Guignol examination of murder and male friendship.  Only a show this strange, this hypnotic, this artful in its extremity could inspire a fervor and passion like that.

16. The Deuce (HBO, 2017-2019)

While so many of his peers from the previous decade retreated from public attention, David Simon spent the 2010s giving us one sublime series after another.  The Deuce was tactile and sumptuous in a way that only Simon shows seem capable of being, painting New York as it transitioned from the 70s to the 80s with a million little brushstrokes.  It felt like the entire range of human emotions and experiences was contained in this one show.

15. The Eric Andre Show (Adult Swim, 2012-present)

With the appeal of the traditional late-night show dwindling at a rapid rate, its bizarro world Adult Swim interpretation was born in the form of The Eric Andre Show.  Its anarchic spirit would be exhausting if it wasn't so damn funny.

14. The Magicians (Syfy, 2015-present)

One of the best shows of this decade actually cribs from decades past.  The spirit of Buffy is alive and well in The Magicians, which has been applying the former's go-for-broke genre sensibility and deft balance of the serialized/self-contained ratio for four glorious seasons and counting now.

13. The Girlfriend Experience (Starz, 2016-present)

It's too early to tell whether The Girlfriend Experience will have ushered in a new age of television, but this avant-garde exploration of sex work was radical and enigmatic in ways that point to a path forward for original storytelling.

12. Rectify (Sundance, 2013-2016)

Rectify was not a show about religion, but it felt divine nonetheless.  The series followed a man's journey after being released from death row, and along the way it offered some of the most gracious, downright healing storytelling that's ever appeared on the small screen.

11. Justified (FX, 2010-2015)

There's a tendency towards equating quality with seriousness, but Justified dispelled any notions of that correlation.  For six seasons it was one of the greatest and most entertaining dramas airing.  Its densely populated world of Harlan County, Kentucky was full of rich, colorful characters, and it used them to spin out a perfect balance of serialized narrative and weekly storytelling.

10. Orange is the New Black (Netflix, 2013-2019)

It's easy to talk about Orange is the New Black in terms of its importance, what with its role in helping to usher in today's streaming age and its forefronting of women's stories that we didn't often see on television before.  But what a wonderful piece of pure television it was, featuring dense storylines that crested beautifully and an endless supply of complicated characters who lit up every scene.  When many of its peers could only manage to be one, this series was a sterling example of both importance and greatness.

9. Atlanta (FX, 2016-present)

Atlanta only has 20 episodes to its name, but this often experimental and always hilarious show feels so fresh and revolutionary that it demands a placement like this.  Put aside any misgivings you may have about Donald Glover, because this show is too brilliant to ignore.

8. Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008-2013)

Breaking Bad chronicled the rise and fall of Walter White, and in this decade we got to see the dominoes fall in thrilling fashion.  It may not have thematic heft of some of its peers, but the show will be remembered as one of the best at plot construction and tension generation.

7. Succession (HBO, 2018-present)

Just when we thought every avenue of television about the rich had been explored, HBO showed us how wrong we were with the fire-breathing tragicomedy that is Succession.  It operates on such a high level of pleasure that it's easy to miss just how well structured its narrative is, constantly laying the dynamite and detonating its big moments at the perfect time.

6. Halt and Catch Fire (AMC, 2014-2017)

With so many TV options out there, people are less inclined to wait around for a show to become great, which may have caused them to miss out on Halt and Catch Fire.  The first season was more solid than it gets credit for, but its next three seasons are where it truly becomes pantheon-level.  It's a show about digital connection that also was one of the best depictions of the beauty of human connection.

5. The Americans (FX, 2013-2018)

In a decade that increasingly became centered around large-scale, moment-based storytelling, The Americans stood out for its small, assured confidence.  The FX Cold War spy drama proved that with the proper craft, tiny moments can accumulate into something seismic.

4. Nathan For You (Comedy Central, 2013-2017)

Nathan Fielder is more than a funny person, he's a magician.  The segments of his comedic business advice show often unfolded like a beautiful trick, featuring left field escalations and hilarious surprises.  And like a good magician, he knew just when to end it, leaving us with four seasons of pure, untarnished comedy gold.

3. Twin Peaks (Showtime, 2017)

Perhaps the most singular piece of television of the decade, Twin Peaks: The Return may stand as David Lynch's last artistic statement.  And what a bewitching, despairing howl it was.

2. Bunheads (Freeform/ABC Family, 2012-2013)

Sometimes it hurts thinking about how legendary Amy Sherman-Palladino's ballet dramedy could have been if it had lasted a little longer.  But what we got was the era's greatest one season wonder, a dazzling mix of fast-paced dialogue and slow-burning emotional heft.

1. Mad Men (AMC, 2007-2015)

Though seasons four through seven were the ones that ran in this decade, their quality is more than enough to classify Mad Men as the best television show of the decade.  You won't find a series that's more lively and lyrical than Matthew Weiner's look at the 60s through the lens of the advertising world.


Farewell to a decade of television.  Leave your thoughts below, as well as any lists you may have.  If you want to read a longer ranked list of shows that missed the cut, as well as some more data, you can find it on this Google doc.