Your Top TV Of 2019!

I never got around to finishing Chernobyl on HBO, but what I saw impressed me.

Two words: Doom Patrol

It was incredibly ridiculous that i’d glad to buy a disc, it was so great to see Brendan Fraser get in the spotlight again.

No time for a ranked list, but here’s 25 shows I really liked this year:

• The Good Place
• Russian Doll
• Counterpart
• Get Krack!n
• The Other Two
• This Time with Alan Partridge
• The Tick
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
• Fleabag
• The Magicians
• Star Trek: Discovery
• I Think You Should Leave
• Line of Duty
• Tuca & Bertie
• Bob’s Burgers
• Superstore
• DC’s Legends of Tomorrow
• Doom Patrol
• What We Do in the Shadows
• Chernobyl
• Veronica Mars
• Perpetual Grace, LTD.
• Undone
• Unbelievable
• Lodge 49
• Sorry for Your Loss

Not sure how to rank ’em, so I won’t, but my shortlist would be:

My bests of the year:

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend: This is going to stick around in my all-time best shows for a long time, I think and series 4 brought it to a wonderful end.  It remained a brave and unflinching look at mental health issues while being a heartfelt character drama, romance story, and musical comedy. Even in its final episodes, it maintained a high level of quality, and even had one of its all time best musical numbers in the second last episode.

Silicon Valley: There’s an episode or two left to go, but this final series has been a real high-point for the show.  The conclusion of sorts to Richard and Gavin’s feud has been a rollercoaster of highs and lows for both characters.

The Expanse: OK, series 4 doesn’t go live for another week, but, well, I’ve read the book, and it’s really good? And the clips I’ve seen suggest that the show is going to live up to the book the same way the last three series have provided great adaptations of the first three novels.

Russian Doll: This was just a fantastic little work.  Well-paced, balanced the repetitious nature of the plot with innovative little changes, played the black comedy nature of it in a way that puts even the suicide montage in Groundhog Day to shame… and also a very accomplished drama at the same time.  This is going on my Hugo nomination form for next year.

Star Trek Discovery: Took a good but flawed first year and improved on almost every aspect.  A tighter storyline, fantastic guest cast – especially Anson Mount’s Captain Pike and Ethan Peck’s Spock – and a truly exciting premise for series 3.  I’m really looking forward to what the next year is going to bring to Star Trek, which is not something I’ve taken to saying since I was like 18.

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance: I’m going to admit, I’ve not finished watching this yet, because it’s incredibly uncomfortable viewing.  The plot is an incredibly on the nose and accurate criticism of modern liberal politics, but also a puppet show with really terrible things happening to the puppets, and it just puts me on the edge.  But it’s fantastic from a technical and content perspective.

The Good Place: This show made some very radical statements about modern living in series 3, but stepped back from them a bit this year in favour of a safer statement about how people can be good when divorced from the world, rather than address the inherent issues therein.  Even with that, the show has remained excellent thanks to some broad and spot-on parodies – especially Brent’s entire character, and fantastic character work such as the episode about Chidi’s history right before the mid-series break.

Another Life: Nah, just kidding, this was shit

Damn it’s like you people forgot about the boys =P

Jon wrote:

Damn it’s like you people forgot about the boys =P

https://ew.com/tv/2019/12/05/the-boys-season-2-teaser-trailer/
Arrgh! :rage:

other shows I liked this year

KILLJOYS. it was a great show and it will go into my memory with the other great shows that have been ended by SYFY.

Legion

Legends

Magicians- one of the gutsiest moves of the year

Rick and Morty

Instinct- Alan Cumming was so good in this mystery show

Final Season of Into the Badlands

possible recency bias: Prodigal Son

I should make a list… unlike with movies, I can actually remember some of the TV shows I watched this year… unless they’re from last year and I’m getting a brainfart… but still… =P
 
Overall, it was a pretty amazing year for comicbook stuff on TV, MUCH better than the movies, for sure, and I’m not even considreing any of the CW dreck shows or the AoS kinda things, ’cause I flat-out dropped those some time ago:
 
Preacher: Obviously my top 1, because why wouldn’t it be? Preacher was just frickin amazing, and it kept getting better and better in a beautiful crescendo of wackiness until the end.
 
The Boys: This surprised me, I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was, considering the source material, but man, they’re killing it with the Ennis’ adaptations…
 
Doom Patrol: Another great surprise, this was too good… I like Titans, but it’s a flawed show, I liked Swamp Thing but it was slow and boring-ish… Doom Patrol was perfect, only reason it’s not no.2 is because the boys’ production values were crazy, but Doom Patrol hit that batshit crazy sweet spot in the same way Preacher did… and:
 
Legion: Not as good as S1, but that’s to be expected, I’m glad they ended it, they were running out of fumes, but still, a good season for a good overall show.
 
Umbrella Academy:This was also unexpectedly good… I didn’t know the source material in this case, but the show works super well wether it’s a good adaptation or not (I suspect it is). They pulled off beautifully what they needed to (like the monkey). The only downside was Ellen Page, she really brought down the show for me this time around, kinda like she was phoning it in.
  
Watchmen’s been farily decent, at least in temrs of production, unsurprisingly… we’ll see how well it sticks the landing.
 
Those were definitely the stand outs… The rest were okay, nothing too amazing, tbh. Jessica Jones was fine, Titans was super un-even, but at least they TRY, so that’s worth a lot… I ended up dropping Runaways, and Cloak & Dagger was fine too, but meh… Stumptown’s okay as well, pretty good, but nothing too amazing.
 
As for non-CB TV stuff… damn, there’ve been sooooo many great ones too, hard to even remember them all, but some stand outs in no particular order:
 
Game of Thrones: Warts and all, the final season was still some incredible piece of TV. Very much worth including.
 
Mr. Robot, still great, almost done for good.
 
Warrior: LOOOOOOOOOVE this show… kinda like Banshee but mixed with westerns and kung-fu… yup it’s as amazing as it sounds.
 
Dark: Still good… super complex, but it’s still good.
 
Billions: Still great as well… and still one of my most anticipated watches.
 
The Man in the High Castle: The ending was… not good… but the season itself was strong, so it still counts.
 
For all Mankind: I’ve been enjoying this a lot. They really screwed it with the marketing.
 
Ugh I’m sure I’m forgetting a ton, there were REALLY A LOT of great shows this year… plus I expect The Expanse, Vinkings & The Witcher to be great as well… I hope so at any rate. This might be a difficult year to top in terms of TV to be honest, seems like we hit some serious peak this year with a lot of great shows ending, and some others starting, but we won’t have another year EVER with the likes of GoT, Preacher, Legion, Vikings, Mr. Robot, etc… at the same time… =(
 

Another high point for me was Mr. Inbetween Season 2. A great new noir that is so grounded and darkly funny at times. One of my favorite shows.

I haven’t watched much new TV this year but here’s what I liked. Hope I’m not forgetting anything. Still have to watch Legion season 3 and The Terror season 2 but I’m not sure when I’ll have time.

1. Mindhunter season 2 – Brutal, unflinching, and very depressing look at how systemic racism and the egos of supposed experts can shade criminal investigations

2. Fleabag season 2 – Unique and brilliant and clever and perceptive in pretty much every way. Oh, and really fucking funny

3. Dark season 2 – This is probably my favorite time travel story ever (I mean, obviously that’d be Twin Peaks season 3 but time travel is much less central to that show than it is to Dark)

4. Chernobyl – Jared Harris FTW

5. Broad City season 5 – One of my favorite ever comedies, anchored by maybe the warmest and most infectiously giddy friendship in TV history?

6. The Good Place season 4 – Honestly the only really gifted comedic actors on this show are Ted Danson and Manny Jacinto but it’s the cleverness of the writing and the strength of the characters’ bonds that make this show soar

7. Unbelievable – Let down by some formulaic procedural writing and a bland aesthetic, redeemed by its three main actresses and its insights into how our society fails victims of rape, over and over

8. Stranger Things season 3 – The weakest season by far but the final, movie-length episode is one of its best ever and mostly redeems the whole thing

9. Big Mouth season 3 – Occasionally the comedy veers too close to Family Guy territory for my liking but mostly the show’s pretty brilliant and has a lot of insights into the experience of puberty

10. Jane the Virgin season 5 – Not as strong as the first 2 or 3 seasons but still a rollercoaster

I’d only put the first 4 in the “Great” range.

Here’s what left an impression:

The Righteous Gemstones: That group knocks another one out of the park. I love the layers of Goodman’s character. The best of their sitcoms so far.

The Mandalorian: Duh. this is Star Wars distilled to the core of what I want Star Wars to do. Like Clone Wars and Rebels, only better. It’s the one show the whole family wants to watch every week.

The World According to Geoff Goldblum: What a delight. It’s frothy and full of Goldblum, but it’s a lot of fun. My daughter and I are loving it.

Silicon Valley: What a great ending, and what a perfect last scene.

The Good Place: Previously mentioned, but Chidi’s episode was a standout.

Legion: I will miss this show, but it left at the right time and on a high note.

Crisis (first half): We stopped watching the CW shows years ago, but it’s fun to check back in, and this has been their best crossover to date.

Lodge 49: Admittedly behind here (we’re watching Season 1 on Hulu), but this is a show making a statement about manhood and personhood in our modern life. Great, wacky, heady stuff.

Punisher: Goddamn, that second season was SO GOOD. I hope they find a way to use Berenthal in the role going forward.

Game of Thrones: Love it or hate it, the last season was thrilling TV. This is what happens when you don’t finish your story and leave others to do it.

That’s really all that’s left a mark, although I’m likely forgetting something.

Meh …

Man in the High Castle: The last season was totally disjointed, adding characters and plots to force things home that weren’t even there in the first season. I was supremely disappointed well before the last scene.

GLOW: How do you make Vegas boring? This is how you make Vegas boring.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia: I will always love the dynamics of the group, but this season was uninspired. Might be time to put it to bed.

Rocket wrote:

KILLJOYS.

Nice to hear, I’m waiting to bag the S5 DVD then will blitz S3-5.

I haven’t watched much TV this year, I forced myself to finish GOT and will never revisit season 8 (the only one I don’t own a copy of) Stranger things 3 was meh but the Watchmen left me wanting more every week. I’m still watching HDM but my interest is waning mostly due to the acting and clunky dialogue.

Yeah, it’s not an easy show to watch: long runtimes for most episodes, as slow-moving as a Bergman movie, it’s incredibly violent and depressing, and as Christian said you really do have to be in the right mood for it. I probably would’ve given up on it after the first episode if my friend hadn’t told me it became a much more gripping show after ep 2 (which is by far the hardest episode to get through, as the character who talks the most is a dying old man who takes even longer pauses between lines than everybody else). But I found it very rewarding in the end.

I love Neon Demon but didn’t like Only God Forgives (outside of the Thai cop and the cinematography). OGF is kind of like a dry run for TOTDY–they both look at extreme vigilantism and have no clear heroes, in fact the protagonists may be just as rotten as the “bad guys.” TOTDY is, imo, that basic story done the right way, and it adds on really meaty themes about fascist instincts on the right and left in the Trump era. Not in a “both sides!” kind of way, just looking at how easy it is to adopt a mindset that dehumanizes people opposed to you. I think it’s the ultimate show for the era we’re in right now.