Welcome to my personal list of the best TV shows that aired in 2016. I watched a hell of a lot of stuff this year, to the point where even this top 50 doesn’t quite cover everything I enjoyed, from new shows like Speechless, Preacher, and Insecure to returning favourites such as Comedy Bang! Bang!, Broad City, and The Mindy Project.
It’s been a really special year for TV. With a lot of my previous favourites such as Fargo or The Leftovers taking gap years, some brand new shows stepped up to fill the void, with a full half of this top 50 being show that premiered their first episode at some point in 2016, including seven of the top 10. This first half of the list includes 80s horror, insane Vatican leaders, YouTube stars making their first full-length series, brain-eating space bugs, and Zach Galifianakis as a clown. Enjoy!
You can find the second part of my article here and the top 10 here.
50. Jack and Dean of All Trades: Plenty of YouTube creators have made the leap to more ‘professional’ fare, with somewhat mixed results (someone watch Haters Back Off! and let me know how long I would make it into episode 1). This series, which premiered on the streaming service Fullscreen, is absolutely one of the best exceptions. The titular comedic duo, along with co-writer Paul Neafcy, have managed to create a web series which keeps the best parts of their off-beat comedic style and blends it with a unique concept and classic sitcom structures. The two give themselves their hardest acting challenges yet and nail every scene (I’m especially enamoured with a set-piece where the two can’t stop talking in each other’s voices), while the legendary Jessica Hynes absolutely kills it as hapless temp agency worker Marv. I’ve been following the filming of season 2 closely, and I cannot wait.
49. This Is Us: Dan Fogelman was already a writer worthy of attention after his excellent script for Crazy, Stupid, Love., but his creation of two of the hottest new shows of this recent fall season really made me stand up and take notice. While baseball drama Pitch barely missed the list, This Is Us made it on by being the strongest, most original family drama in years. The time-hopping concept — following new parents Jack and Rebecca in the past and their grown-up children in the present day — makes it stand out from the pack, while the scripts are frequently fresh and witty while still able to deliver devastating emotional punches. The whole thing is tied together by a remarkably good cast, with Sterling K. Brown being the highlight.
48. Brooklyn Nine-Nine: At the beginning of the year I was strongly considering dropping this show, finding it too goofy and willing to lean on broad strokes for its own good. However, with the introduction of Jason Mantzoukas as former undercover agent Adrian Pimento, the writers seemed to regain confidence in their own storytelling abilities, with the storyline that ensued being the best thing the show has done in years. After a three-part season opener in September closing this plot off with aplomb, the show has gone back to being one of the best, most consistent joke machines on television, with by far one of the greatest ensemble casts. It’s still goofy as hell, but it feels more earned now.
47. Red Oaks: In the current age of peak TV, there are a heck of a lot of shows out there which can be seen as superfluous or unnecessary. A fair few entries on this list could fall under this metric tbh. Amazon’s 80s-set country club comedy is one of the most egregious for this, but manages to be eminently watchable due to its clear affection for its characters. It’s an extremely entertaining, warm show where even the major stakes feel quite light, yet it still manages to contain some thoughtful discourse on privilege, as well as on chasing happiness vs settling for stability. And the list of fun, unique supporting characters is about a mile long.
46. Happy Valley: The first season of this BBC crime drama was (at the time) one of my favourite miniseries’ of the past few years, so I’ll admit to being initially perturbed by the prospect of a continuation. I needn’t have worried — the second season was as brutal and stirring as ever. Sarah Lancashire’s amazing performance as troubled sergeant Catherine Cawood continued to be absolutely gripping, while the various subplots, if admittedly less thrilling than season 1’s kidnapping story, yielded incredibly emotional results, and ensured that villain Tommy Lee Royce was as present and terrifying as ever. There are plans for an eventual third and final season, but this time I no longer feel any trepidation — I can’t freakin wait.
45. Fresh off the Boat: While it may not have the bite of earlier seasons, Fresh off the Boat is still the most consistently strong family sitcom on the air. Every member of the Huang family is loveable and hilarious, but although the kids are remarkably talented, Randall Park and Constance Wu absolutely dominate the screen as parents Louis and Jessica. There’s also been a heck of a lot more Ray Wise in this most recent season, which is never a bad thing. The show also makes great use of its mid-90s setting, with satirical storylines involving Chris Rock’s Bring the Pain, the death of Tupac Shakur, and the release of Tamagotchis. Creator Nahnatchka Khan may never reach the heights of her previous show, the impeccable (and on most Netflixes!) Don’t Trust the B — , but she’s still doin’ real good work on the small screen.
44. Orange is the New Black: It’s been sorta lame to see this show slip down my lists every year, from being the best non-Breaking Bad show of 2013. The characters are still solid and memorable, but many storylines often seemed to be running on fumes or waiting for later episodes to get going. However, this season definitely had many advantages over the frequently aimless season 3, with the dual storylines of prisoners v sadistic new COs and Head Warden Caputo v the prison’s cheapskate owners creating a powder keg in the prison that exploded in spectacular fashion, with the final two episodes as strong as the show’s best and one hell of a final shot.
43. The Crown: I’ve been a vehement anti-monarchist for as long as I can remember, so I really didn’t expect Netflix’s dramatisation of the early years of Elizabeth II’s reign to have any appeal to me whatsoever. However, it absolutely won me over with its almost-constant depiction of how being a symbol, especially of such an old-fashioned institution, can cause a person to lose sense of themselves and become alienated from those around them. It sometimes suffered from having its lead character be a little too perfect, but it provides an ideal window for audience identification, and usually my complaints were soon swept away by the incredible production design and outstanding lead performances by the core trio of Claire Foy, Matt Smith, and John Lithgow.
42. The Night Of: This should have been one of the biggest prestige dramas of the year. An HBO adaptation of an acclaimed BBC drama with an absolutely stacked cast (led by the amazing John Turturro), The Night Of began extremely well, examining the criminal justice system in excruciating detail and showing how one young man being accused of a murder can affect even of the slightest of things for him and the people around him. Unfortunately, as the show went on, it focused less on this fascinating detail and instead zoned in on the least interesting elements — sub-Oz prison drama, half-baked mysterious, and some truly embarrassing soap opera moments as it approached its conclusion. At its best, it was one of the most effective and painful shows of the year. At its worst? Kinda bullshit, to be honest.
41. Silicon Valley: Mike Judge’s tech comedy left things off on somewhat of a down note last year, with lead Richard Hendricks removed as the CEO of the company he founded. It was an appropriate closer for a show that, while hilarious, did seem to love giving its characters seemingly unfair obstacles to overcome just a little too much. This season went a long way towards fixing that — there’s still conflict, but it seems to come much more naturally from the characters’ personalities. This season also gave us some of the funniest set pieces of the entire show so far, largely stemming from breakout character Erlich Bachmann’s sudden accumulation of (supposed) wealth.
40. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: It still made the list, but I appear to be one of the only people who was actually disappointed by this season. I couldn’t have been more excited for Tina Fey to break free of the network shackles and head to Netflix, yet in the end the most obvious change was the extremely typical streaming issue of episodes occasionally feeling unnecessarily long and slow-paced. When your humour relies on quick-fire jokes with no room for the audience to catch their breath, stretching out the episodes tends to make the issues more glaring. But while I feel the humour suffered at times, the character work was stronger than ever, with Ellie Kemper’s performance only getting more remarkable as the show delved deeper into the darker elements of her PTSD.
39. Superstore: The first season of NBC’s newest workplace sitcom was only mildly funny but showed a lot of promise, with a great set of characters who clearly blended well. The second season, however, has improved tenfold and now gives me by far the most laughs of any network sitcom currently running. A lot of this is probably helped by my years of retail experience — I’m sure many will find this show super relatable — but the ace in the hole is still the great dynamics between the characters, especially between Lauren Ash as stern assistant manager Dina and her boss, Glenn, who is played by the outstanding Mark McKinney and ranks among the funniest new characters of the year.
38. Vice Principals: Danny McBride and Jody Hill’s comedy — starring two white male high school VPs who team up to bring down their (black, female) new boss after believing she has usurped their rightful position, could not have been more timely if it had tried. The setting of South Carolina proves the perfect place to scrutinise this inherent entitlement, yet the characters, while absolutely awful, buffoonish human beings, never feel like caricatures, and their reasons for their frustration are examined in detail. The dynamic between the two leads is gold, while the impeccable Walton Goggins proves that his comedy chops are indisputably on par with his dramatic ability as sociopathic weasel Lee Russell.
37. Queen Sugar: Ava DuVernay, writer-director of the acclaimed Selma, took her first foray into scripted television with this adaptation of a novel about a group of African-American siblings who must band together to run their recently deceased father’s sugar cane farm. Although at times it felt like a typical family drama — especially around the midpoint — it proved itself to be a cut above most by having a cast of strong-willed, stubborn characters with conflicting ideologies, yet never having their disagreements feel contrived or anything other than totally genuine. It also tackled a wide range of issues faced by black people in the United States with grace and deserved anger without ever feeling preachy or ham-fisted.
36. Stranger Things: The show that literally was August 2016, Stranger Things came out of nowhere to become one of the most popular Netflix dramas since the inception of the service. Very few shows wear their intentions on their sleeves as much as this one does, but when you’re appealing to everyone’s favourite era for nostalgia it makes sense to put that front and centre. Plus, the blend of Spielbergian wonder and mystery, King-esque childhood camaraderie, and Carpenter-inspired ominous synth was pitch-perfect, while we also encountered some of TV’s most likeable characters. There are flaws, especially with regards to pacing, but while I know it might not sound very critical they honestly don’t seem to matter — perhaps because I’m viewing this as the TV version of a B-movie. TEAM DUSTIN, GET OUT BARB
35. Black Mirror: Netflix’s announcement that they had picked up Charlie Brooker’s speculative anthology series for a double-length third season was probably their most exciting since they told us they were bringing back Arrested Development back in the day. I can’t honestly claim that this season was up to the standard set by the first two — many episodes were stretched out almost to breaking point, while the feature-length finale attempted to blend dry Scandinavian drama style with actual robot bees and just sort of ended up a bit Doctor Who — but the middle two episodes were as strong as anything Brooker has ever written, with highlight San Junipero one of the best science fiction stories I’ve seen in some time.
34. BrainDead: Possibly the only show on CBS I actually watched this year (except when my parents forced me to watch an episode of Matthew Perry’s The Odd Couple), the creators of The Good Wife returned to TV with this bizarro blend of astute political satire and brain-eating space bugs. In a year in which the American political system appeared to go insane and pull itself apart as the seams, there was no better show at depicting the absurdity of life in DC. Even if heads don’t explode quite as frequently as they did in the show. It never went as full-on batshit as I was hoping, but was never less than a blast, with Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Tony Shalhoub alone worth coming back for every week. And I haven’t even gotten to the incredible musical recaps by Jonathan Coulton, which really have to be seen to be believed:
33. Divorce: After the success of Catastrophe, it was only a matter of time before Sharon Horgan began getting offers from across the pond. Luckily she landed with HBO, and brought Sarah Jessica Parker back into the fold for her first TV lead role since the end of Sex and the City for a painful comedy about a suburban couple’s split. Some episodes are stronger than others, and by the end it felt very much like a prequel season, as true to life as the characters uncertainty may be. But it was frequently funny as heck, with Parker bringing her all, some incredible guest turns by Jermaine Clement and Dean Winters, and above all Thomas Haden Church delivering easily one of the top 3 funniest performances of the year as spurned husband Robert.
32. Fleabag: Originally performed as a one-woman show by creator, writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag is one of the most honest, smutty, and downright hilarious British comedies of the past few years. Beginning as a witty, true-to-life sex comedy, with a voice that both felt unique to the character and universal to all the things women don’t say out loud to their partners, it gradually opened up the lives of the title character and her family to reveal that much of the initial snark was a mask for disguising some deep mourning. Waller-Bridge is ridiculously talented, balancing the descent into tragicomic drama perfectly in both her scripts and performance, while the side arcs are always moving, especially one featuring an all-time great performance from Hugh Dennis.
31. The Young Pope: The only non-American or British show on this list, acclaimed Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino created and directed every episode of this bizarre, obscure drama about the first American Pope, a passionate yet ferocious man who even manages to worry the higher-ups at the Vatican with his level of conservatism. Jude Law’s performance in the lead role is easily the best he has ever given — it’s utterly incredible how well he pulls off what may be the widest range of emotions any actor has had to give for television this year. The show around him is equal parts strange and hilarious, mixing absurd set-pieces and treatises on faith and humanity with pristine, gorgeous cinematography.
30. Togetherness: You’ll recall I mentioned earlier in this article that many shows in this era can feel somewhat unnecessary. Well, the main conflict in Togetherness comes from trying to found a charter school. Yep, the Duplass brothers’ HBO dramedy about the friendships and marriages of affluent Californians is as white as you would expect it to be, yet in its second (and unfortunately final) season it found its footing and managed to plumb its characters depths while also containing some of the silliest set-pieces of the year. Three words: Dune puppet show. Melanie Lynskey’s performance as Michelle is among the best of the year, and it’s incredible to see her character gain so much strength.
29. Baskets: The incredible Zach Galifanakis has long deserved his own television starring role, and while working with Louis C.K. and Tim and Eric director Jonathan Krisel managed to create a surreal dark comedy that fits perfectly with his sensibilities, starring as a failed artisan clown (trained in a Parisian clowning school) who has to take a job as a rodeo clown in his home town. As well as taking dual roles as both Chip the clown and his arrogant salesman brother Dale, Galifanakis brings in stand-up Martha Kelly to play his downtrodden best friend, and the incredible Louie Anderson as his mother — a role which rightfully won Anderson an Emmy. The humour is impeccable, but the real strength is in the dramatic moments, which were as strong as most actual TV dramas this year.
28. Steven Universe: The inexplicably odd scheduling Cartoon Network give their original series’ mean we’ve gone large swathes of the year without new episodes of Rebecca Sugar’s excellent ode to anime and female empowerment, followed by near-month-long periods of five episodes a week. A strange choice, but one that in the end only served to highlight the incredible evolution of the show. The third season especially began stretching out in every direction, having episodes that were more broad and inspired by classic cartoons while also going deeper into the psyches of its characters than ever before, with a voice cast that are more than game for anything Sugar and co throw at them (and some amazing guest roles from stars such as Uzo Aduba and Dave Willis).
27. Halt and Catch Fire: I only got into AMC’s computing drama a couple of months ago, but it’s been an absolute pleasure to see it grow and develop from “what if Mad Men but in the 80s and with nerds”. This latest season was an absolute barnstormer, being totally unafraid to shake up character dynamics in new and exciting ways while fixing issues with its more problematic characters, particularly turning ex-Don Draper ripoff Joe MacMillan into more of a Steve Jobs-esque figure. I still worry that the show is a little too enamoured with software developer Cameron Howe, and seems to be taking her side even when it’s presenting itself as neutral, but the evolution of her business partner Donna Clarke into a shrewd manipulator and potential villain for the upcoming fourth and final season made up for it.
26. The Eric Andre Show: This year I have seen a number of people completely unironically refer to Eric Andre’s anarchistic, lunatic talk show as the best programme on TV. And honestly, I can totally see their point. Between ramping up the torture of guests, getting ever more audacious and bizarre with the public disturbances, and the best editors on television only improving their craft, a show which could easily have gotten tiresome halfway through its first season is going from strength to strength in its fourth and easily proving itself the true successor to Tim and Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job!
That’s it for today, but come back over the next couple days to check out the rest of the list!
