best 2018 THE TV SHOWS OF
Another year brought another embarrassment of TV riches, as departing favourites gave way to audacious new series
TV gets better and better, but it does not necessarily do so in a straight line. The first several months of 2018, I worried I might have a hard time filling this list. The last half of the year, though, came on with a burst of creativity that kept me adding and subtracting to the last minute.
This is one reason I don’t rank it in order. I’d be lying if I told you I liked my No. 7 show measurably better than No. 8, and you could make a solid Top 10 out of my near-misses (Babylon Berlin, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Better Call Saul among them).
THE AMERICANS (FX)
You had to know the ending was going to hurt. The final season of this family spy drama with a melancholy heart as big as Mother Russia brought the long con of Elizabeth and Philip Jennings (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) to an end. The devastating, though largely bloodless, finale stayed true to the series’ theme that often the greatest sacrifices you make for a doomed cause are emotional.
AMERICA TO ME (STARZ)
I cringe when critics say, “You have to watch this” – there’s no better way to make TV sound like a chore. But this 10-part documentary, set at a racially integrated school in Oak Park, Illinois, was not homework. The sprawling, nuance-minded story explored the difficulties of racial inequity, even in a socially conscious school. But more than that, it was an involving, big-hearted story of kids, their dreams, their challenges, their triumphs and their everyday drama. You don’t have to watch America to Me. But you’ll be glad if you do.
ATLANTA ROBBIN’ SEASON (FX)
The second season of Atlanta had a theme: money, scams and the precarious struggle of its characters on the periphery of the hip-hop business to hang on to what they have. But this creation by Donald Glover and company also retained its ability to become anything from episode to episode: gothic horror in the episode “Teddy Perkins,” picaresque comedy in “Barbershop” and poignant coming-of-age in “FUBU.” At a peak moment for pop-culture Afro-surrealism (Random Acts of Flyness on TV, Sorry to Bother You in the theatres), Atlanta remained the kingpin.
BARRY (HBO) AND KILLING EVE (BBC AMERICA)
I pair these shows together not to cheat an extra show into my list – well, maybe a little bit – but because they’re two sides of a bloody coin. Both are mordant stories about assassins: Barry (Bill Hader), a burned out ex-soldier who longs to become an actor, and Villanelle (Jodie Comer), a gleeful huntress playing cat and-mouse with an intelligence agency bureaucrat( Sandra Oh ). But beyond the obvious, these two stories show how some of today’s best TV exists in a grey area between genres. Barry, a halfhour “comedy” from Hader and Alec Berg, developed into something closer to a melancholy short drama; the creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge infused Eve with the brio of a dark comedy, though its hour length marked it as “crime drama.” Label them what you like; each hit its target.
BOJACK HORSEMAN (NETFLIX)
All things being equal, I prefer not to list the same show two years in a row. (This was the tiebreaker that barely eliminated The Good Place.) BoJack is a pristine example; after five seasons, it is so perceptive, moving and hilarious that it is easy to imagine it cemented on this list permanently. Threading a nuanced arc about the #MeToo movement with a running joke about a robot built out of household appliances and sex toys, the season solidified this cartoon’s case as the best series ever made for streaming.
THE GOOD FIGHT (CBS ALL ACCESS)
The second season of The Good Fight was the first great TV response to the election of Donald Trump, which has been marked mostly by a glut of late-night comedy and nostalgia revivals. As the firm of Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) dove into the politics and conflicts of the Trump era — immigration, judicial appointments, #MeToo and a certain rumoured Russian-hotel tape — what had been a perfectly decent sequel to The Good Wife returned invigorated, absurdist and energized for battle.
HOMECOMING (AMAZON)
This defence-industry conspiracy thriller moved with military efficiency and artistic stealth. Julia Roberts’ first starring role for TV was her best in years, and she turned in an astonishing, finely calibrated performance. Adapting the series from a podcast drama, director Sam Esmail applied the cinephilic wizardry he honed on Mr. Robot to a take on the paranoid thrillers of the ‘70s. Best of all, the whole season took a mere 10 half-hour episodes, which flew by but possessed the screen as if they had all the time in the world.
LODGE 49 (AMC)
Every year there’s a show or two for which my honest review is: “I can’t describe this. Just watch it.” Lodge 49 gets to its story eventually, enfolding real estate, surfing and the arcane secrets of alchemy. But this comic-melancholy hangout is most worth watching for its generous portraits of the strivers and losers at and around a fraternal lodge in down-and-out Southern California. Oddball and amiable, Lodge 49 looked for meaning in sports-bar restaurants and closing aerospace factories, and it found a peculiar magic.
POSE (FX)
On the demanding floor of New York’s 1980s ballroom competitions, the judging standard was flawlessness. But to me, moments of transcendence matter more than lack of faults. And in those moments, Ryan Murphy’s resplendent series soared like a plumed miracle. Pose had clumsy and over-sentimental aspects. But it also had an immediate verve, cut-to-the-bone performances and heart to spare. I’ll probably think of Pose more than anything else when I think of 2018 TV, and if that’s not the definition of “best,” then it’s something better.
SHARP OBJECTS (HBO)
I teetered between this limited series and the excellent My Brilliant Friend for what you might call the HBO literary-adaptation slot. Sharp Objects, adapted by Marti Noxon from the novel by Gillian Flynn, was the more inventive reimagining for the screen, and thus better TV as TV. Noxon captured the open-wound psyche of Camille Preaker (a wholly committed Amy Adams). The director, Jean-Marc Vallée, created a soundscape and esthetic that was almost tactile: You could feel the humidity, hear the lazy insects. Few series have done so well at putting you in a protagonist’s mind and in her world.