Culture Carve

 2010-2019: The Top 50 Seasons of Television

The 2000s gave us some of the all-time best seasons of televisions: the first season of Lost, the second season of Deadwood, the second and third seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and the fifth seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, among others. But I think it’s safe to say that the 2010s have outdone the previous decade (and the decades prior) in every conceivable respect—powered by the ascension of streaming services and a sense of storytelling integrity hard-earned by shows such as The Wire and The Sopranos, these ten years have given us an unprecedented slew of contenders for the televisual canon. I will admit up-front that this list is largely (but not exclusively) focused on American television, and although I still have lots left to watch, I believe this list represents a well-rounded selection of the best shows from this decade.

I elected to make a list of the best seasons of television released this decade rather than a list of the best shows or episodes; the former meant that fluctuations in quality between seasons would unfairly drag long-running shows down, and the latter meant that more serialized shows would suffocate the list. (I did, however, rank my top ten episodes of the decade down below.) I restricted this list to a maximum of one season from each non-anthology show, and I did consider limited series eligible. I’ve highlighted notable episodes from both the season in question and from the show as a whole, but some shows were so consistently high in quality that selecting a standout season or episode was not feasible—in these cases, the final season or episode occupies that slot. Show statuses and availability are current as of March 2020.

First off, a few shows which deserve…

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

American Crime – American Crime is a punishing examination of America’s corrupt systems, and I found it too relentlessly one-note in those examinations to consider it truly great. But it would be unfair to overlook its ruthless craft and intricate moral knots, because they make for riveting television. (Three anthology seasons, concluded, broadcast on ABC/available on Netflix)

Better Things – Emerging out from under the shadow of Louie, Better Things has proven itself to be less experimental but more empathetic than its predecessor; rather than edgy cringe comedy, it’s interested in its dynamic characters and how they learn to function alongside one another. (Four seasons, ongoing, broadcast on FX/available on Hulu)

Bob’s Burgers – No other comedy this decade matched Bob’s Burgers’ mastery (or overzealous usage) of the pun, and only a handful of other comedies entrenched themselves so thoroughly in pop culture. Bob’s Burgers didn’t achieve greatness in the 2010s, but instantly-iconic characters and reliable laughs earn it a spot in my honorable mentions. It’s a lot of fun. (Ten seasons, ongoing, broadcast on FOX/available on Hulu)

The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance – Like the 1982 film, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance is an astounding feat of puppeteering; unlike the 1982 film, however, the tactile craftsmanship in Age of Resistance is paired with a legitimately thrilling fantasy tale. (One season, status unknown, available on Netflix)

Dickinson – Dickinson feels like the fulfillment of what A Knight’s Tale tried to do eighteen years prior: filter historical figures through a modern lens in a such a way that it not only makes history more engaging, but highlights how social dynamics have changed far less than we might think. This isn’t hagiography, either, which is always a plus in my book. It’s rough around the edges, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Dickinson achieves greatness in a season or two. (One season, ongoing, available on Apple TV+)

Generation War – The moral stance of Generation War left me somewhat uneasy (I will readily admit that I don’t know enough about the historical context to make any sort of definitive claim in either direction), but I can say without doubt that it’s a riveting and refreshingly non-American portrayal of WWII. (One season, concluded, broadcast on ZDF/available on Amazon Prime)

The Good Place – “Restless” is the word that comes to mind. Some comedies are content with regurgitating what has already worked over and over again, but The Good Place ceaselessly reinvents itself in the pursuit of both laughs and philosophical significance. Some shows were funnier and some were more intellectually stimulating, but none of them combined these qualities in such interesting ways. (Four seasons, concluded, broadcast on NBC/available on Hulu)

Hilda – Sensitive and thoughtful, Hilda captures the melancholy spirit of the graphic novels upon which it is based. It’s quieter and more introspective than most television for children; it asks us to think about the wants and needs of all living things and to consider how failing to do so can be just as harmful and destructive as intentional maliciousness. (One season, ongoing, available on Netflix)

Jane the Virgin – “Who will be interested in a story of domestic struggles and joys? Doesn’t have any real importance, does it?” says Jo March in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. “Maybe it doesn’t seem important because people don’t write about them,” her sister Amy replies. I thought about this exchange often while watching Jane the Virgin, an homage to soapy telenovelas which wields its own existence as a weapon against the notion that the story of young woman growing up and navigating the complexities of sex, love, religion, and motherhood is meaningless “fluff.” (Five seasons, concluded, broadcast on The CW/available on Netflix)

Killing Eve – Killing Eve is held back from greatness by trying too hard to downplay its campiness when it should be cranking that campiness up to eleven, but it remains enough of a fiendish delight, anchored by crackling performances from Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer, to earn a place in my honorable mentions. Spending time with a sadistic serial killer has never been so much fun. (Two seasons, ongoing, broadcast on BBC America/available on Hulu)

Looking for Alaska – Looking for Alaska is one of the best adaptations I’ve ever seen, and I want to stress the word adaptation. It took fourteen years for it to materialize, and thank goodness it did; if it had been made ten years earlier, it would have been a movie rather than a miniseries, it wouldn’t have featured a black actor playing what was originally a white character (which crystalizes key themes), and the technological liminality of 2005 would not have added so much texture to the story. The book is not always better, and here is yet another of many examples. (One season, concluded, available on Hulu)

Louie – For obvious reasons, I couldn’t bring myself to highlight Louie on the list proper even though it probably deserves to be there, but I also wasn’t comfortable leaving it off completely. It’s whip-smart and formally inventive. That said, I would never recommend it now that there are even smarter, more inventive shows made by people who are, as far as I know, decent. Check out Pen15, Atlanta, or Better Things (which grew up in, but outgrew, the shadow of Louie). (Five seasons, concluded, broadcast on FX)

The Magicians – No show has captured the spirit of Buffy the Vampire Slayer quite like The Magicians. No, the latter is not nearly on par with the former, but it shares the combination of pop culture savviness and high emotional stakes that made Buffy such a success—which makes its cancellation after five seasons an absolute bummer. (Five seasons, concluded, broadcast on Syfy/available on Netflix)

Manhattan – Manhattan is a show which sits comfortably alongside Mad Men and Halt and Catch Fire as a character-driven period drama, even if it doesn’t quite reach the heights of the latter two. For what it’s worth, of all these honorable mentions, Manhattan was the hardest to leave off the list proper, but its clumsy finale—it was cancelled after two seasons, and it shows as it stumbles over the finish line—unfortunately truncated its rise to greatness. (Two seasons, concluded, broadcast on WGN America/available on Hulu)

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power – She-Ra doesn’t quite rise to the level of other animated offerings from Netflix such as The Dragon Prince or Voltron: Legendary Defender, but it treads in that territory. It’s queer, it’s vibrant, and it develops real thematic depth throughout its run. (Four seasons, to be concluded with season five, available on Netflix)

Succession – Succession doesn’t fully find its footing until its second season, but it scratches the same itch that Game of Thrones did in its early days: you cannot help but watch in horror as the 1% drown in the blood (mostly non-literal, in Succession’s case) spilled by their power struggles. (Two seasons, ongoing, available on HBO)

The Tick – This gloriously campy riff on superhero fiction strikes a perfect balance between humor and pathos in its third televisual incarnation (following the 1994 animated series and 2001 live-action series), which makes its cancellation after two seasons an absolute bummer. (Two seasons, concluded, available on Amazon Prime)

Undone – From the creator of BoJack Horseman comes this rotoscoped spiral into existential anxiety starring an astounding Rosa Salazar as Alma, a young woman who bends time to discover the truth about her father’s death. It lacks BoJack’s sharp humor and suffers for it, but a compelling and beautifully-told story remains. (One season, ongoing, available on Amazon Prime)

Voltron: Legendary Defender – A true science fiction epic with a tone and scope similar to Avatar: The Last Airbender—indeed, showrunners Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos both worked on Avatar—Voltron fumbles its handling of some key characters but largely succeeds in the telling of a sweeping tale with invigorating action sequences and real stakes. (Eight seasons, concluded, available on Netflix)

When They See Us – Ava DuVernay directs this four-part miniseries about the Central Park Five, and she wisely focuses not only on how young black men are particularly vulnerable to the injustice of the American justice system, but on how that system took its toll on these young black men in particular, as individuals. (One season, concluded, available on Netflix)

Without further ado, culled from more than 500 seasons across nearly 200 shows, here are…

2010-2019: The Top 50 Seasons of Television

50. 30 Rock (Season seven)

There are few comedies as consistently funny as 30 Rock, especially over seven seasons and a whopping one hundred and thirty-eight episodes; there are no bad seasons here, and only the occasional lukewarm episode. While deliciously skewering its own network, NBC, 30 Rock kept itself vital with instantly-iconic characters perfectly embodied by a talented cast and an ongoing supply of delightful cameos. At times, it even wrestled with the ethics and hypocrisy of racism and misogyny in early 21st-century network television, although not always as deeply as it could have or should have. But 30 Rock ultimately made me laugh a lot, and it’s a testament to the high quality of television this decade that a show this good is coming in at #50 on this list.

Notable episode: “Last Lunch” (7x13)

Network/availability: NBC, streaming via Hulu and Amazon Prime

Status: Seven seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

49. True Detective (Anthology: season one)

True Detective hasn’t aged well. Its pop philosophy is less seductive than it was in 2014, and the anticlimatic end to the first season still dampens its power; prestige anthology shows are no longer novel, and many of them have outdone True Detective. That said, Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson remain one of the most iconic duos to appear on television this decade, and with good reason: Harrelson has rarely been better, and McConaughey has never been better. Bolstered by Adam Arkapaw’s moody cinematography and Cary Joji Fukunaga’s exceptional direction, which reshaped the landscape of television by demonstrating the strength of a single vision behind the camera (without True Detective, we likely would not have—or we would have less focused, more fractured incarnations of—Big Little Lies and Sharp Objects), season one of True Detective is still eight episodes of impeccably crafted and relentlessly watchable television. These qualities were best exemplified by “Who Goes There” (1x04), an episode which flexed its muscles with a six-minute tracking shot that threw down the gauntlet for prestige television.

Notable episode: “Who Goes There” (1x04)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Three seasons (anthology), ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch seasons two and three if you’ve exhausted everything else on this list. They’re not bad, but they’re not worth prioritizing.

48. Twin Peaks (Season three/Twin Peaks: The Return)

Here’s the thing: although I have immense respect for his craft (the Winkie’s Diner scene in Mulholland Dr. is one of the most primordially terrifying things ever put on screen), I have never enjoyed the works of David Lynch. I found the first two seasons of Twin Peaks to be profoundly unengaging. So you know it’s a big deal when I tell you that the third season (Twin Peaks: The Return) is absolutely astounding—it’s a sprawling, thrilling work of cinematic poetry that takes the word “visionary” back from the marketing departments who have diluted its potency. Did I understand it? Hell no. But it is never anything less than hypnotic, a quality best embodied by the crowning achievement of “Part 8” (3x08), an episode which splits open the subconscious and splashes it across the screen. Not until Twin Peaks: The Return did I ever feel like I “got” David Lynch, and I am grateful he stormed the world of television with something so transcendent.

Notable episode: “Part 8” (3x08)

Network/availability: Showtime, streaming via Showtime channels (seasons one and two are streaming via Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime)

Status: Three seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch seasons one and two because they’re canonical television and because you won’t understand what the hell is going on in season three if you don’t. Although you probably won’t understand season three even if you do watch them, so…I don’t know. Do what you want.

47. Sharp Objects (Limited series)

Following his phenomenal work on the first season of HBO’s Big Little Lies, Jean-Marc Vallée turned his attention to this adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s debut novel, a razor-edged work tinged with hints of the genre subversions which Flynn would bring to the fore in Gone Girl. Sharp Objects the book is not on par with Gone Girl, and Sharp Objects the show is not on par with Big Little Lies, but there’s still a lot to like here. Evocative cinematography envelopes magnetic performances from Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson, and if you haven’t read the novel, the mix of mysteries throughout the season will keep you on your toes. Insofar as Gillian Flynn adaptations go, two out of three isn’t bad (the less said about Dark Places, the better).

Notable episode: “Milk” (1x08)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Limited series, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There are none!

46. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season four)

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was pleasant but unremarkable in its first season; by the time it reached its fourth and final season, however, it was one of the best comedies on television and had the creative muscle to muster a true crime bottle episode (“Party Monster: Scratching the Surface” [4x03]) that rivaled the razor-edged satire of American Vandal. The show was bolstered by sharp writing and an exceptional cast (including recurring guest star Jon Hamm, who has never been funnier), but no performance on Kimmy Schmidt was more textured than that of Ellie Kemper, Kimmy Schmidt herself, who takes the title role and transforms what could have been a one-note character—she doesn’t understand social mores!—into someone whose humor is inextricable from the deep-seated trauma of her years-long captivity in an underground bunker.

Notable episode: “Party Monster: Scratching the Surface” (4x03)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Four seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

45. Parks & Recreation (Season seven)

Parks & Recreation is less consistent than 30 Rock—the first and final seasons are noticeably lower in quality than its core five-season run, although I still chose the latter to represent the show on this list—but I gave it the edge because its highs are higher, and its characters grow and change in ways the characters on 30 Rock do not. Deriving much of its humor and tension from the dichotomy between an inefficient system (local government) and characters who are striving to make to make positive change within and through that system, Parks & Recreation speaks to something universal and seems to become more relevant with every passing year: how do you become and continue to be a good citizen and a good person in a world in which doing so feels futile? Parks & Recreation may not answer that question, but it offers a helping hand on the way.

Notable episode: “One Last Ride” (7x13)

Network/availability: NBC, streaming via Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon Prime

Status: Seven seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

44. Ash Vs. Evil Dead (Season two)

Ash Vs. Evil Dead feels at times as if it spilled out from some bloodsoaked alternate reality where television has no rules and anything is possible; it evokes the delirious carnage of the original Evil Dead trilogy while still establishing its own identity. Bruce Campbell is as fun to watch as he was decades ago, and his chemistry with co-stars Ray Santiago and Dana DeLorenzo is instant and irresistible. Over and over again, Ash Vs. Evil Dead outdoes its own insanity with jaw-dropping practical effects work, and its humor flirts with offensiveness without losing the satirical edge that allows it to dissect the racism, sexism, and toxic masculinity that often sullies similar stories. There is perhaps no show on this list which provides more minute-to-minute fun than Ash Vs. Evil Dead—and best of all, it ended before it could exhaust its exhausting premise.

Notable episode: “The Mettle of Man” (3x10)

Network/availability: Starz, streaming via Starz channels and Netflix

Status: Three seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

43. The Young Pope (Limited series)

I don’t know how to describe The Young Pope. It’s too outlandish to be a prestige drama, but it simultaneously plays it too straight to be a satire. It’s entirely its own thing. It’s an outrageous mash-up of tones and themes, and trying to get a grip on it is about as easy as grabbing a slippery eel (which I’ve never done and assume is difficult; if it’s not, please disregard this simile). What I do know is that I ate up its quirks and oddities, its lush cinematography, and its delicious lead performance from Jude Law, whose charismatic, conservative pope could conceivably be the cousin of Frank Underwood. The Young Pope is strange and hypnotic. I do know that I love it.

Notable episode: “Episode 1” (1x01)

Network/availability: HBO/Canal+/Sky Atlantic, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Limited series, concluded; it was succeeded by a sequel show, The New Pope, which is a second season in all but name

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Technically, there are none. Technically. But The New Pope (which aired in 2020 and was therefore not eligible for this list) is also worth watching.

42. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Season two)

Rachel Brosnahan flourishes as the titular Mrs. Maisel, a woman who becomes a stand-up comedian in the 1950s, in this vibrant, crackling show from Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino. But while Brosnahan holds Mrs. Maisel together, she is supported by crisp writing and cinematography which is a step above most comedies and dramas on television. Throughout the show, Sherman-Palladino wrestles with feminism and the intersection of art of ethics through the lens of Mrs. Maisel—but she doesn’t let her heroine descend into didacticism, and she doesn’t allow her many flaws to be ignored or her choices to come without consequence.

Notable episode: “Pilot” (1x01)

Network/availability: Amazon Prime

Status: Three seasons, ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

41. Halt and Catch Fire (Season four)

Halt and Catch Fire is a show which I suspect would have landed higher on this list if had watched it more than once (something I plan on doing if and when time allows); like Mad Men, whose time slot it filled on AMC, it is a quiet period drama—in this case, the Texas tech scene of the 80s and early 90s—with a deep focus on its characters. It even outdoes its predecessor in some respects. Whereas Mad Men often felt as if it were patting its viewers on the back for not being as explicitly racist or sexist as its characters, Halt and Catch Fire more successfully portrays the hope, the ambition, and the uncertainty of times which now feel antiquated to us. It’s a smart, thoughtful show featuring strong female characters (I use the word “strong” to mean “complicated and dynamic and textured,” not “wears tight clothing and beats men to a pulp”), and it gets better with every season. It’s a shame we lost Halt and Catch Fire after only four.

Notable episodes: “Who Needs a Guy” (4x07), “Ten of Swords” (4x10)

Network/availability: AMC, streaming via Netflix

Status: Four seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all! Season one is the weakest, and it’s still far from bad.

40. The Knick (Season two)

A relatively traditional hospital drama kicked back to the early days of the 20th century, The Knick wrestles with changing science, medicine, and social mores through the literal lens of creator and director Steven Soderbergh’s expectedly-crisp cinematography and keen attention to detail. Every step of progress, whether it be medical, political, or technological, is hard-won, and The Knick showcases the slow crawl of that progress across two seasons anchored by a strong lead performance from Clive Owen as Dr. John Thackery. Soderbergh was planning multiple successive two-season arcs and I’m bummed Cinemax put an end to the show before we could get them, but the seasons we got comprise a complete story, and it’s a story worth watching.

Notable episode: “This Is All We Are” (2x10)

Network/availability: Cinemax, streaming via Cinemax channels

Status: Two seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch season one!

39. GLOW (Season two)

GLOW didn’t quite click for me in its first season, but it sprang to life in season two as it dove deep into its core characters and unpacked their hypocrisies and insecurities, layering in flavor and texture that created some of the most compelling and complicated women on television. The writing got better in its second season (including the jokes, which are sharper and funnier), but GLOW also featured more confident, dynamic performances from its entire cast after they were allowed more time to inhabit their characters, a strength which carried over into season three as the show quite literally wrestled with identity, performance, and what it means to be a woman. GLOW may have had a rough debut, but in its second season, it proved itself to be a highlight of Netflix’s original offerings. I look forward to seeing how it rounds out its run in season four.

Notable episodes: “The Good Twin” (2x08), “Outward Bound” (3x06), “The Libertines” (3x09)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Three seasons, ongoing (to conclude with season four)

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all! Season one is not as good as season two, but it’s a low time investment and narratively necessary; season three, while not quite on par with season two, is still phenomenal.

38. Hannibal (Season two)

Hannibal never ensorcelled me the way it did other viewers; its precise storytelling and evocative cinematography were undeniable, but its visual and narrative grimness pushed even my high tolerance to the limit. That said, Hannibal’s stellar second season was an achievement in every respect—cleverly riffing on the iconic imagery of The Silence of the Lambs, it offered actors Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen the opportunity to fully flesh out their characters (Will Graham and Hannibal, respectively) and engage with the homoerotic subtext that would be brought to the fore in the third season. Before that, though, the second season culminated with “Mizumono” (2x13), an operatic bloodbath executed with an elegance that put Game of Thrones’ early seasons to shame. Few shows this decade were as difficult to watch as Hannibal, but to deny its craft and its influence would be nothing less than irresponsible. It’s worth it: watch it.

Notable episodes: “Mizumono” (2x13), “The Wrath of the Lamb” (3x13)

Network/availability: NBC(!), streaming via Amazon Prime

Status: Three seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

37. Master of None (Season one)

This warm, lovely comedy, created by and starring Aziz Ansari, takes advantage of episodic storytelling to experiment with different styles of structure and cinematography; the show is light on its feet, drawing on everything from Woody Allen in its first season to French New Wave and Italian Neorealism in its second. Master of None explores subjects which feel fresh (Indian culture and heritage in modern American) and subjects which feel exhausted (love and identity in early adulthood), but it always brings a singular perspective which doesn’t feel quite like anything you’ve seen before. I am reminded of Emily Dickinson: “Tell the truth, but tell it slant.” This is especially evident in the best episode of season one, “Mornings” (1x09), which tells the story of a relationship through only its mornings. I wish every comedy were this inventive.

Notable episodes: “Indians on TV” (1x04), “Mornings” (1x09)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Two seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Even though I ultimately gave the edge to season one, season two is just as good. Watch it!

36. The Dragon Prince (Season two)

The legacy of Avatar: The Last Airbender looms over The Dragon Prince­ (co-creator Aaron Ehasz was head writer on Airbender), and it didn’t seem like it would live up to that legacy after an unremarkable first season. But no show on this list has a leap in quality quite like the one The Dragon Prince makes from season one to season two: it transforms from a generic fantasy show to the best fantasy show on television in the space of nine brief episodes. Featuring developed, dynamic characters with various disabilities, ethnic identities, and sexual orientations (although I was sometimes left uneasy by how quickly the show dismissed those qualities), The Dragon Prince deepens and adds texture to its world by exploring the intersection between morality and power in all its forms—the power of age, of ability, of political standing, of magical prowess—and asserting that we are all continually atoning for our personal, national, familial, and environmental histories. The future of The Dragon Prince is currently in doubt as allegations of misogyny have been made against Aaron Ehasz and it seems unlikely that the show would continue without him, but even if it doesn’t, the three currently-available seasons are a treasure.

Notable episodes: “Breathe” (2x09), “Sol Regem” (3x01)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Three seasons, status unclear

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all! (Push through season one; it’s worth it.)

35. Fleabag (Season two)

Actor and writer Phoebe Waller-Bridge (you may know her as the creator of Killing Eve) is at the height of her formidable powers both behind and in front of the camera in this comedy, which ran for twelve perfect episodes across two seasons. It’s fiendishly witty, featuring turns from powerhouse actors such as Olivia Colman and Andrew Scott; its ace in the hole, though, is the deft use of fourth-wall breaks at just the right times and in just the right ways. Fleabag is notable for being the highest-rated show of the 2010s according to Metacritic, and it’s with good reason—this is a high-water mark for smart, inventive comedy. It kept things short and sweet, and it made use of its brief run to pack a punch with every episode. I loved it, and you will too.

Notable episodes: “Episode 6” (2x06)

Network/availability: BBC Three, streaming via Amazon Prime

Status: Two seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch season one!

34. Gravity Falls (Season two)

This animated children’s show about a pair of young siblings who investigate supernatural occurrences strikes a perfect balance between fluffy monster-of-the-week fare and ongoing plotlines which unspool, often subtly, over multiple episodes and seasons. Creator Alex Hirsch populates the show with cryptic clues and sly bits of foreshadowing which make rewatching a delightful experience, but the clever plots, dynamic characters, and eye-pleasing animation will be more than enough to satisfy casual viewers. It’s impossible to resist the infectious personality of characters such as Mabel Pines, voiced by the irresistible Kristen Schaal (who you may know from 30 Rock, Bob’s Burgers, BoJack Horseman, and many other projects); the bright, sharp humor of Gravity Falls—and its layered mysteries—will keep both children and adults coming back for more from its brief but consistently great run. There was nothing else like it this decade.

Notable episodes: “Weirdmageddon” (2x18), “Weirdmageddon: Escape From Reality” (2x19), “Weirdmageddon: Take Back the Falls” (2x20)

Network/availability: Disney XD, streaming via Hulu and Disney+

Status: Two seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch season one!

33. The Americans (Season six)

I’m not convinced, as so many others are, that The Americans is Great™. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell are instantly iconic as Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, two Soviet spies working undercover in America near the end of the Cold War (ditto Noah Emmerich, as the FBI agent who happens to live next door and is perpetually on their tail), but this is a show which strained credulity as it struggled to stretch its premise past the point where it should rightfully snap. That said, The Americans has secured its place in the televisual canon; that is a fact. Every season save the fifth was at least good, and it flirted with greatness in its sixth and final season, most of all in the phenomenal series finale, “START” (6x10), which begins with a conversation, climaxes with a killer U2 needle drop, and ends the only way it could have—painfully. The Americans’ weaknesses would likely be less apparent were it not for its similarities to a better show known as Breaking Bad (maybe you’ve heard of it?); still, it had a remarkable run that gave us two great performances from two of our great actors, and that makes it worth watching.

Notable episodes: “START” (6x10)

Network/availability: FX, streaming via Amazon Prime

Status: Six seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all! It’s necessary for narrative reasons, and only season five is less than good.

32. American Vandal (Season one)

True-crime satires are almost as commonplace as true-crime stories these days (e.g. A Very Fatal Murder, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s “Party Monster: Scratching the Surface”), but none have been more convincing or more outrageously entertaining than American Vandal. This is a show that never winks at camera, and it’s all the better for it. Poking fun at our collective obsession with true crime is all well and good, and that would be more than enough to generate a couple seasons of engaging television—especially when the fake crimes are so exquisitely constructed that piecing together the identities and motivations of their perpetrators delivers the same dopamine hits as the real crimes—but American Vandal is ultimately more interested in unpacking the insidious ways in which narrative and pop culture distort our perception of people. Satire is genre which exhausts itself especially quickly, but American Vandal’s unfortunate cancellation after its second season is one of the great pop culture tragedies this decade.  

Notable episodes: “Clean Up” (1x08), “The Dump” (2x08)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Two seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Honestly, I could’ve picked either season for this list. They’re both perfect. Watch them!

31. My Mad Fat Diary (Season two)

Few shows, this decade or otherwise, have managed to capture the highs and lows of being a teenager quite like My Mad Fat Diary. Sharon Rooney is perfectly cast as Rachel Earl, a sixteen-year-old struggling with her body image and mental health (two things I’ve struggled with, and still struggle with, myself); she made me laugh and she made me cry more than once throughout the show’s brief sixteen-episode run. Rooney is supported by sharp writing that deftly balances humor with pathos and has a keen understanding of the realities of living with mental illness, which is quite different from what you typically see on television. I haven’t met many Americans who know about this show, and I’m disappointed I can’t put it higher on this list—it’s a real murderers’ row of great television from here to the top—but I hope this encourages you to seek it out, because it truly is a special show that I feel so lucky and so grateful to have experienced.

Notable episode: “Voodoo” (3x03)

Network/availability: E4, streaming via Hulu

Status: Three seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

30. Chernobyl (Limited series)

Wisely eschewing nuclear fearmongering in favor of framing the disaster as the result of a perfect storm of human greed, laziness, and arrogance, Chernobyl exhibits extraordinary focus as each episode examines the event and its aftermath through a different lens. Jared Harris, supported by Stellan Skarsgard and Emily Watson, anchors the show with a (predictably) excellent performance which captures the challenges of being caught between the hammer of humanity and the anvil of nature, while writer Craig Mazin and director Johan Renck render the paralyzing anxiety of fear in riveting detail. Heroism is never glamorous here: it’s ninety seconds on an irradiated roof, or it’s taking a literal stand against the lies of the Soviet authorities. The creep of censorship, like mortality, is often quiet. In Chernobyl’s best episode, “Vichnaya Pamyat” (1x05), it suggests all we can do is speak into silence and die with dignity.

Notable episodes: “1:23:45” (1x01), “Please Remain Calm” (1x02), “Open Wide, O Earth” (1x03), “The Happiness of All Mankind” (1x04), “Vichnaya Pamyat” (1x05)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Limited series, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There are none!

29. The Terror (Anthology: season one)

Based on Dan Simmons’ 2007 novel, which was in turn inspired by the real-life expedition of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror—a disastrous attempt by British sailors to find the Northwest Passage in the mid-1800s, during which all crew members were lost—The Terror hews closely to its characters and slowly threads supernatural elements into the story, turning up the pressure as the sailors, trapped in the Arctic ice, rapidly running out of resources and living in fear of a mysterious entity hunting them, succumb to, well…the terror. The show is anchored by strong performances from Ciaran Hinds, Jared Harris, and Tobias Menzies, and the cinematography is crisp and thoughtful. The show lightly wrestles with social issues such as colonialism and homophobia, but the focus here is on the dread, tightening like a noose around a neck. The Terror exemplifies the ways in which history can be illuminated by abandoning accuracy and leaning away from realism in favor of a potent mix of myth and allegory. It’s simply great.

Notable episode: “We Are Gone” (1x10)

Network/availability: AMC, streaming via Hulu

Status: Two seasons (anthology), status unclear

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: The evocative imagery and unexpected perspectives of season two make it worth watching.

28. Girls (Season one)

Girls never quite recaptured the magic of its first season, but what a season it is. Featuring an all-time great performance from Adam Driver and some of the best editing on TV this decade (and that’s not a low bar, considering shows such as Better Call Saul and Big Little Lies are included in the competition), it satirized the privileges of white people in the upper-middle class without delegitimizing them. The best episode of the season, or at least the one I love most, “Welcome to Bushwick, aka The Crackcident” (1x07), contains what may well be my favorite smash cut in all of television: Adam and Hannah, arguing about the nature of their relationship next to a rusty traincar, culminates in Adam accosting Hannah. “Okay, I don’t know what you want from me,” he says. “Do you want me to be your boyfriend? Is that it? Do you want me to be your fucking boyfriend?” Instead of hearing Hannah’s answer, we transition into a shot of Adam, Hannah, and Hannah’s friend Marnie sitting in the back of a taxi—Adam’s bicycle awkwardly positioned across their laps—while a smile slowly creeps onto Hannah’s face and Oh Land’s “White Nights” plays and credits roll. It’s so exquisitely timed and so emblematic of what Girls could do when it was firing on all cylinders. Only occasionally would the show reach those heights again.

Notable episodes: “Welcome to Bushwick, aka The Crackcident” (1x07), “One Man’s Trash” (2x05), “Beach House” (3x07), “Sit-In” (4x05), “The Panic in Central Park” (5x06), “American Bitch” (6x03)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Six seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all! The show stumbles in season three, but it recovers and remains worth watching until the end. Every season contains at least one great episode (often the bottle).

27. Dear White People (Season two)

The sophomore season of Dear White People provided the show with an opportunity to continue unpacking the issues raised in the first season and the film that spawned it, and it took advantage of that opportunity to deliver ten sharply-written episodes anchored by excellent performances from the entire cast and a visual savviness exhibited very, very rarely by comedies. The best episode of the season, “Chapter VIII” (2x08), deftly directed by series creator Justin Simien, revolves—often literally, in elegant continuous takes that drift around the lead actors—around an argument between former lovers Sam and Gabe, who attempt to pick apart the nuances of white privilege, white supremacy, and the white savior complex while Gabe films a documentary. It’s a complicated conversation with no easy answers, and Simien frames it with a crackling emotional texture that lends it real stakes and prevents it from slipping into didacticism. Dear White People has been continually overlooked, and never more so than in its exceptional second season.

Notable episode: “Chapter VIII” (2x08)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Three seasons, ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Seasons one and three are not quite on par with season two, but they’re worth watching.

26. Marvel’s Jessica Jones (Season one)

Marvel dominated the decade more in film than in television, but their crowning achievement comes from the latter: the debut season of Jessica Jones wisely focuses on character and theme rather than plot and action, and unlike Marvel’s other Netflix offerings—Daredevil, Luke Cage, Iron Fist—it isn’t entirely suffocated by languid pacing (although it still could have used some tightening up). Krysten Ritter’s titular Jessica Jones is a private investigator and heavy drinker who happens to have super strength, and she clashes with David Tennant’s manipulative abuser Kilgrave throughout the first season; their dynamic allows the show to explore misogyny and PTSD through a metaphorical lens afforded only by a world in which superpowers exist, and it elevates Jessica Jones to heights Marvel has been otherwise unable to reach. Speculative fiction can often illuminate issues by stepping outside the real-world framework, and that quality is evident in this smart, thoughtful season of television. I hope Marvel makes more like this.

Notable episodes: “AKA Sin Bin” (2x09), “AKA 1,000 Cuts” (2x10)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Three seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Only season one is essential, but season two is strong in many respects. Skip season three. 

25. Big Little Lies (Season one)

It’s all about the editing in Big Little Lies. This adaptation of Liane Moriarty’s novel, starring Reese Witherspoon in a career-defining performance alongside Nicole Kidman, Laura Dern, Shailene Woodley, and Zoe Kravitz (what a lineup!), and directed by Jean-Marc Vallée (whose movies largely haven’t connected with me), achieves a hypnotic rhythm in its editing that demonstrates an impressive command of mood and tone throughout the show. The plot, with the exception of a somewhat weak finale, is engaging: it reckons with the insidious nature of abuse and trauma, illuminates how class divisions allow prejudice to fester, and reaffirms the power of women working together. Big Littles Lies is one of the most cinematic shows on this list—and I use the word “cinematic” as defined by critic Matt Zoller Seitz, meaning that the camerawork and visuals, rather than just the dialogue, are crucial to the telling of its story—and it is more than worth your time and attention. The second season, which was plagued by creative clashes between director Andrea Arnold and Jean-Marc Vallée, is, unfortunately, less worth your time.

Notable episode: “Somebody’s Dead” (1x01)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Two seasons, presumably concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There’s a lot to like about season two, but it’s inessential and fails to recapture the magic of season one; watch it if you’ve exhausted everything else on this list, but don’t make it a priority.

24. Pen15 (Season one)

Pen15 is a show that sneaks up on you. What seems at first to be a charming but insubstantial look back at early-2000s middle school (show creators Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle play fictionalized versions of their thirteen-year-old selves; their classmates are played by age-appropriate actors) soon reveals itself to have a keen understanding of the teenage brain and how it distorts the world—not only by blowing up minor disappointments into earth-shattering catastrophes, but by internalizing and normalizing racism and sexism and trauma as parts of everyday life. Pen15 mines the dramatic irony between the characters and the viewer to tremendous effect, but it is equally effective as a portrayal of a singularly-powerful friendship, the kind that can carry an entire show because it makes your heart ache so hard. This is exemplified no better than in the pitch-perfect season finale, “Dance” (1x10) (which barely edged out “Solo” [1x04] as my favorite episode), which captures the quiet significance of growing up in all its agony and ecstasy. This is a show you don’t want to miss.

Notable episodes: “Ojichan” (1x03), “Solo” (1x04), “Community Service” (1x05), “Wild Things” (1x08), “Anna Ishii-Peters” (1x09), “Dance” (1x10)

Network/availability: Hulu

Status: One season, ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There aren’t any yet, but season two is on the way!

23. Adventure Time (Season ten)

Y’all: Adventure Time, a cartoon marketed to children, contains a multi-season riff on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, a 14th-century Middle English Arthurian chivalric romance—that’s how literate and chock-full of allusions this long-running show is. Our heroes here are Finn (a human) and Jake (a dog…who can talk and shapeshift), whose adventures take them across the post-apocalyptic land of Ooo and bring them into contact with all sorts of indelible characters such Ice King, Princess Bubblegum, and Marceline the Vampire Queen. You’ll find the standard moral lessons of children’s television in Adventure Time’s brief episodes—abuse, consent, and toxic masculinity are addressed, among numerous other topics—but the show also builds the backstory of Ooo and its characters via bits of information doled out only occasionally over its nearly three hundred episodes. Vibrant and crackling with infectious energy, Adventure Time spanned almost the entire decade (April 2010 to September 2018) with ceaselessly-inventive storytelling and characters who felt like old friends. I am so thankful for it.

Notable episode: “Come Along with Me” (10x13-10x16)

Network/availability: Cartoon Network, streaming via Hulu

Status: Ten seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all! Yeah, I know it’s ten seasons. Watch them all.

22. Atlanta (Season two)

You never know what to expect from Atlanta. It’s a liminal, mercurial show, not quite episodic and not quite serialized (although it leans more towards the former), always shifting and transforming into something new—but even if you don’t know what genre it’ll be next, or what themes it might explore, or what feelings it might evoke, you do know that it will always have something interesting to say and an interesting way to say it. This is especially evident in “Teddy Perkins” (2x06), in which Atlanta creator and star Donald Glover wears whiteface as the titular Teddy Perkins, an eerie and enigmatic figure who occupies a mansion visited by Lakeith Stanfield’s Darius, who is there to pick up a piano. Atlanta is often marketed as a comedy, and it sometimes is, but the show turns to psychological horror in “Teddy Perkins”; it’s hard not to see the spectre of Get Out in this episode, but Atlanta is more than a match for its predecessor.

Notable episodes: “Teddy Perkins” (2x06)

Network/availability: FX, streaming via Hulu

Status: Two seasons, ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch season one!

21. BoJack Horseman (Season five)

BoJack Horseman is a show which has much in common with Barry: it is as funny as its marketing suggests, but the humor eventually gives way to pathos as its characters spiral further and further down into darkness. The world of BoJack lampoons L.A. and Hollywood with a mix of human and animal characters, and the titular BoJack Horseman is a literal horse(man) who starred in a ‘90s sitcom and is now a washed-up alcoholic reckoning with the sins of his past. Visual and verbal gags come fast and furious in BoJack, the dialogue crackling with puns and delicious wordplay, but the show really shines when it peels away layer after layer of its deeply-flawed characters. This occurs most frequently in “gimmick” episodes such as the dialogue-free “Fish Out of Water” (3x04) or solo monologue “Free Churro” (5x06), which play with structure and storytelling in ways that animated comedies traditionally don’t. BoJack Horseman will be remembered as a defining show of the 2010s, and it is with good reason—it’s one of the best.

Notable episodes: “Fish Out of Water” (3x04), “That’s Too Much, Man!” (3x11), “Time’s Arrow” (4x11), “Free Churro” (5x06), “The Showstopper” (5x11), “The Stopped Show” (5x12)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Six seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

20. Avatar: The Legend of Korra (Season three)

As a direct sequel to one of the best shows ever made (Avatar: The Last Airbender), The Legend of Korra had big shoes to fill—and it does, even if it occasionally stumbles while wearing them. It’s a less consistent show, with higher highs and lower lows, but those highs (the first half of the first season, two knockout episodes in season two, and most of season four) really are high. But Korra’s rich, textured storytelling is no more evident than in its astounding third season, which took advantage of the world-changing season two finale to pit Korra against her most interesting foes: the Red Lotus, an anarchist order devoted to bringing down the Avatar, and their leader, an airbender named Zaheer. Like season one villain Amon and season four villain Kuvira, Zaheer is compelling because he is often able to identify hypocrisy and injustice more clearly than Korra herself—a conflict the show couldn’t figure out how to resolve within the children’s television framework—which lends the season an emotional and intellectual maturity unmatched by even The Last Airbender. Korra may lack the cumulative power of its predecessor, but it proved in season three that, at times, it could stand toe-to-toe with a defining show of the 21st century.

Notable episodes: “Beginnings, Part 1”/“Beginnings, Part 2” (2x07/2x08), “Enter the Void”/“Venom of the Red Lotus” (3x12/3x13), “Korra Alone” (4x02)

Network/availability: Nickelodeon, streaming via Nickelodeon channels

Status: Four seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

19. You’re the Worst (Season three)

In its perfect third season, You’re the Worst balances the best of its acidic humor with some of the most thoughtful depictions of depression and PTSD on television this decade. This is the pivotal season for protagonists Jimmy Shive-Overly (if you’re making a list of the best names on television, bump that one up) and Gretchen Cutler, two cynical anti-romantics who fall in love; their relationship comes to a head for better and for worse here, providing creator Stephen Falk and his team with an opportunity to showcase their sharpest writing, which will make you laugh right up until the moment they go for your heart. This is especially evident in the flawless finale, “No Longer Just Us” (3x13) which brings every emotion to a boil and spins you around with a plot twist that’s as inevitable as it is surprising. Also notable is “Twenty-Two” (3x05), a bottle story which Rashomons the previous episode from the perspective of Edgar, who is struggling to get his PTSD under control. You’re the Worst demonstrates here one of its great strengths: it takes everyone and everything seriously, even—and especially—when its characters don’t.

Notable episodes: “Twenty-Two” (3x05), “No Longer Just Us” (3x13), “Pancakes” (5x13)

Network/availability: FXX, streaming via Hulu

Status: Five seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all! The show falls apart in season four, but it finishes strong in season five.

18. Mad Men (Season five)

There’s no bad season of Mad Men, but the show was never better than in its astounding run from seasons three to five; the high-wire elegance of its storytelling rivaled Breaking Bad, and any one of these three seasons could have taken this spot. Although seasons three and four (arguably) have better individual episodes, such as “Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency” (3x06) and “The Suitcase” (4x07), season five exhibited Mad Men’s most muscular long-term narrative work as it pared characters down and bared their bones, framing them in dimensions that felt as inevitable as they did unexpected—all of which culminated in a moment of Shakespearean tragedy which would hang like a dark cloud over the remainder of the series.

Notable episodes: “Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency” (3x06), “Shut the Door. Have a Seat.” (3x13), “The Suitcase” (4x07), “Signal 30” (5x04), “Far Away Places” (5x05), “Crash” (6x08), “Waterloo” (7x07)

Network/availability: AMC, streaming via Netflix

Status: Seven seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: How dare you even suggest not watching every season of Mad Men!

17. Euphoria (Season one)

Euphoria has received two core criticisms: 1. It’s style over substance, and 2. It’s trying too hard to be “edgy.” There’s merit, I think, to the latter, although it’s inconsequential to me. As for the former—I don’t care. Euphoria’s storytelling bones, though they may be brittle, do not break, and this is a show of such transcendent beauty that it ascends to something akin to photokinetic poetry, a symphony of saturated color and sound that justifies its own existence. Most of all, though, I simply can’t give enough props to the casting of and performance by Hunter Schafer; although not the first transgender performer to play a transgender character in a television show, she is one of the most prominent, and she is absolutely astounding as Jules Vaughn, who could have and should have been the protagonist of the show—she is the singularity around which Euphoria gravitates, and I never wanted to stop watching her perform. I hope to see her in more projects.

Notable episode: “And Salt the Earth Behind You” (1x08)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: One season, ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There aren’t any right now, but Euphoria has been renewed for a second season! 

16. The Crown (Season two)

My interest in the British monarchy has an inverse relationship with its proximity to the present: the closer one gets to our modern moment, the less I care. I was surprised, then, to discover how engaged I became by The Crown, a lavishly-produced depiction of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II. The acting, the writing, and the production design are all top notch, but the show doesn’t lack thematic substance—it wrestles with the roles of antiquated institutions in the modern world and how they remain tangled up in our lives despite wielding no real power. What really elevates The Crown to the upper echelons of this list, however, is its re-assertion of what became a lost art in the 2010s: episodic television. Excluding comedies, every other show on this list leans into serialization—and they do it well—but The Crown tells a complete story with every episode, reminding us how effectively television can unpack bite-sized themes within a larger framework.

Notable episodes: “Marionettes” (2x05), “Vergangenheit” (2x06), “Dear Mrs. Kennedy” (2x08), “Paterfamilias” (2x09), “Aberfan” (3x03)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Three seasons, ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

15. The Leftovers (Season three)

I once read a piece on Watchmen (I wish I could remember who wrote it as I would love to give them credit, but Google turned up nothing) which compared Damon Lindelof shows to degrees in higher education: Lost as bachelor’s, The Leftovers as master’s, and Watchmen as PhD. I couldn’t agree more. The Leftovers doesn’t have the clarity of vision that makes Watchmen so transcendent, but it is the work of an ambitious artist who is no longer making amateur mistakes. Collaborating with Tom Perrotta, who wrote the novel of the same name upon which the first season of The Leftovers is based, Lindelof unpacks the psychological ramifications of an event which evokes the Christian rapture in all but name. The Leftovers occasionally lets its love for obtuse storytelling get in the way of strong storytelling—a balance Watchmen would strike much more deftly—but its ability to grapple with love and loss through a lens of light magical realism marks it as one of the great shows of this decade, and it gets better with each successive season.

Notable episodes: “The Garveys at Their Best” (1x09), “International Assassin” (2x08), “The Most Powerful Man in the World (And His Identical Twin Brother)” (3x07), “The Book of Nora” (3x08)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Three seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

14. Game of Thrones (Season one)

It would go on to become the biggest show on television, but Game of Thrones never again met the high-water mark of its razor-sharp first season—although it came close in seasons three and four, which were one less Ramsay Bolton and one more Lady Stoneheart away from perfection. Every episode of season one is essential, pieces of a puzzle falling into place with clockwork precision: “The Wolf and the Lion” (1x05) through “Fire and Blood” (1x10) may well be the best six-episode run had by any show on this list, with the only real competition coming from the opening half of The Legend of Korra’s first season. But no episode of Thrones was ever more carefully crafted than “A Golden Crown” (1x06)—it’s no coincidence that this was also the only episode to ever benefit from the writing talents of Jane Espenson—which writ large the show’s theses in gold and blood: Tyrion’s life is spared after a trial by combat at the Eyrie takes an unexpected turn, Ned Stark realizes that Robert’s children are, in fact, Jaime’s, and Khal Drogo puts an end to Viserys with the titular golden crown. Not only did this episode introduce key players such as Osha, Bronn, and Beric Dondarrion, but it featured some of the most dazzling dialogue in a series that once crackled with it. Game of Thrones was never better than this.

Notable episodes: “The Wolf and the Lion” (1x05), “A Golden Crown” (1x06), “Blackwater” (2x09), “Kissed by Fire” (3x05), “Second Sons” (3x08), “The Rains of Castamere” (3x09), “The Mountain and the Viper” (4x08), “The Watchers on the Wall” (4x09), “The Door” (6x05)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Eight seasons, concluded; prequel House of the Dragon coming 2022

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Do you enjoy watching TV shows crash and burn (literally, in this case)? If yes, watch until the end. If no, stop after season six. Maybe write some fan fiction instead? Or read the books?

13. Breaking Bad (Season four)

How do you pick the best anything—scene, episode, season—from a show that, for five seasons, ranged in quality from “perfect” to “masterpiece”? I love the clarity and crispness of season one, the cascading structure of season two, the pulse-pounding thrills of season three, and the bloody crescendos of season five. But Breaking Bad was never more confident in the strength of its storytelling than in its jaw-dropping fourth season, which chronicled the frayed-nerve warfare of Gus Fring vs. Walter White with satisfying bombast…and yet, it also trusted its audience enough to communicate key plot points not through dialogue, but through the camera: a lingering zoom here, a nearly-imperceptible tilt there, and the entire tenor of the show would change. Breaking Bad’s most unique quality was its moral metaphysics—every unethical character only made it so long before the universe rebounded upon them like a rubber band snapping back, and that was never clearer than in the crowning achievement of the show: the delirious, mesmerizing spiral of “Crawl Space” (4x11), which braided slapstick humor and suffocating horror to tremendous effect.

Notable episodes: “Peekaboo” (2x06), “4 Days Out” (2x09), “One Minute” (3x07), “Salud” (4x10), “Crawl Space” (4x11), “Face Off” (4x13), “Ozymandias” (5x14)

Network/availability: AMC, streaming via Netflix

Status: Five seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: If you don’t watch every season of Breaking Bad, I will revoke your television privileges and send you to bed without supper, y’hear?

12. Better Call Saul (Season three)

Before it began, the possibility of Breaking Bad’s prequel living up to—perhaps even managing to surpass—its predecessor seemed implausible at best, ludicrous at worst. And yet: five seasons in, Better Call Saul has proven that it may well topple Heisenberg’s empire. It’s a significantly more methodical show, sacrificing relentlessness for deliberateness, but the viscosity of its pacing has paid off handsomely with rich, textured characters unlike any others on television. This was never more evident than in “Lantern” (3x10), which demonstrated the utter emotional power a shocking moment can have when three seasons are spent earning its gravitas. Better Call Saul is still ongoing, so it’s too early to say for sure what its ultimate legacy will be, but it will be a serious contender for the best spin-off of all time if it continues to be this good (it likely will).

Notable episodes: “Lantern” (3x10)

Network/availability: AMC, seasons one through four streaming via Netflix

Status: Five seasons, ongoing (to conclude with season six)

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

11. Nathan For You (Season four)

Of all the shows on this list, Nathan For You may be the most difficult to explain—or at least, the most difficult to explain why it’s so smart, so subversive, and so highly ranked. Within the framework of prank comedy (a genre I find gross more than funny), Nathan For You flips the script by critiquing first and foremost its creator and host, Nathan Fielder; he uses his show to expose the hypocrisy and broken systems of modern society, but he also reckons with his own entitlement and toxic masculinity when his pranks force him to confront his misunderstanding of what it means to make genuine human connection. No show this decade made me laugh more than Nathan For You, but it also features consistently incisive deconstructions of American culture and one of the most resonant and understated character arcs I’ve seen in years.

Notable episodes: “The Claw of Shame” (1x07), “Dumb Starbucks” (2x05), “The Hero” (3x08), “The Anecdote” (4x04), “Finding Frances” (4x07)

Network/availability: Comedy Central, streaming via Hulu

Status: Four seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

10. Fargo (Anthology: season two)

First there was Fargo, the 1996 Coen Brothers film—a very good film. Then there was Fargo, the first season of the Noah Hawley anthology series—a very good season, good enough to rank highly on this list. But then Fargo season two comes along, a season so smart, so inventive, so unexpected, it makes the film and the first season seem amateurish by comparison. At least five of its ten episodes are best of the decade contenders, darting effortlessly between genres without losing their coherence or identity, and they are anchored by a number of knockout performances, especially those from Kirsten Dunst and Jesse Plemons as bumbling spouses Peggy and Ed Blumquist. Fargo goes all-in on one of the most outrageous plot twists of the decade in the climactic episode of season two, “The Castle” (2x09), and it’s a testament to the quality of the writing that the show doesn’t fall apart on the spot. Television doesn’t get much better than this.

Notable episodes: “Loplop” (2x08), “The Castle” (2x09), “Palindrome” (2x10)

Network/availability: FX, streaming via Hulu

Status: Four seasons (anthology), ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

9. The Haunting (Anthology: season one/The Haunting of Hill House)

Fear is not a product of horror; horror is a product of fear. The Haunting of Hill House, which loosely adapts Shirley Jackson’s novel of the same name, understands this better than most of its genre, and it wields that knowledge wisely—supernatural scares abound in this show, but they are all derived from the characters and the things they are most afraid of: being lost, being rejected, being forgotten. Creator Mike Flanagan emphasizes these connections by smartly presenting the story in a circular, looping structure that focuses on specific characters in turn before weaving their conflicts together across the past and the present. The Haunting of Hill House is the only Netflix show I’ve watched twice in its entirety the week it was released, and it’s now my Halloween tradition; even though I’ve become desensitized to its scares, the family drama and its emotional resonance keep me coming back. This is half a good horror show and half a good family drama, but together in complement and conversation, they are elevated wholly to greatness. Not since The Shining in 1980 has horror ascended to these transcendent heights.

Notable episodes: “The Bent-Neck Lady” (1x05), “Two Storms” (1x06)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: One season (anthology), ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There aren’t any right now, but season two, The Haunting of Bly Manor, is coming in 2020!

8. Unbelievable (Limited series)

Based on the real story of a serial rapist and a survivor who was gaslit into retracting her story, Unbelievable sounds like any number of the salacious true crime dramatizations which devour trauma and excrete drama. Don’t be fooled. Unbelievable is leaps and bounds beyond the rest of the genre, a sensitive and thoughtful work that focuses on how crimes and the system set up to deal with them destroy and re-destroy the lives of those who are affected. It emphasizes the importance of survivors (women, in particular), their stories, and how we treat them. And yet, this is still a can’t-look-away show: Unbelievable features three all-time-great performances from Kaitlyn Dever, Toni Collette, and Merritt Wever, and its sharp writing will keep you engaged episode after episode. It’s thrilling, but it isn’t gratuitous. It’s entertaining, but that entertainment doesn’t come at the expense of humanity. Unbelievable isn’t traditional true crime in that it doesn’t present itself as nonfiction, but it has become the gold standard of the genre.

Notable episodes: “Episode 1” (1x01), “Episode 8” (1x08)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: One season, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There are none!

7. Watchmen (Season one)

“Adaptation” isn’t quite the right word to describe Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen as it is technically a sequel, but it is now the gold standard for adaptations in that it demonstrates how to complicate, deepen, and recontextualize an existing work without corrupting or unraveling the source material. Watchmen the show never directly contradicts Watchmen the comic—at least, not in any meaningful way that I can detect; instead, it extrapolates and explores its liminal spaces; it asks how the events which took place in the original text might continue to resonate in unexpected ways through successive decades. Smartly written but also featuring exceptional cinematography and stellar performances from a cast which includes Regina King, Tim Blake Nelson, Jeremy Irons, Jean Smart, Don Johnson, and Yahya Abdul Mateen II, Watchmen transformed a shaky premise into a show that will rightfully take its place as an all-time great.

Notable episodes: “This Extraordinary Being” (1x06), “A God Walks into Abar” (1x08)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: One season, status unclear

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There are none!

6. Barry (Season two)

A comedy about a hitman who becomes an actor—a comedy which gets darker, and darker, and darker—seems like a recipe for disaster, or at least mishandled mediocrity; indeed, Barry walks a knife’s edge, ever at risk of undermining its pathos with laughs or deadening its comedy with sudden, striking violence. But it never loses its balance. Barry’s first season sets an impossibly high bar, and the second season clears it with a dense, resonant set of episodes in which no moment goes to waste. Every scene propels the story, deepens the characters, or lands a killer joke (often all at once), and this is no more evident than in the standout episode of season two, “ronny/lily” (2x05), in which an assassination goes absurdly wrong and Barry and Fuches find themselves in pursuit of a dangerous pre-teen who seems more animal than human. Barry is one of the smartest, tightest shows on television, and its competitors should be taking copious notes.

Notable episodes: “Loud, Fast and Keep Going” (1x07), “ronny/lily” (2x05), “berkman > block” (2x08)

Network/availability: HBO, streaming via HBO channels

Status: Two seasons, ongoing

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch season one!

5. The Girlfriend Experience (Anthology: season one)

Far superior to the Steven Soderbergh film which spawned it, this cold, clinical show from Lodge Kerrigan and the criminally-underappreciated Amy Seimetz portrays the life of a high-end call girl and the emotional and intellectual agility needed to navigate a white-collar world of sex and crime. Riley Keough stars as Christine Reade in a performance which would be career-defining in a lesser career, and the soft focus cinematography creates a dreamlike atmosphere which emphasizes the sharp edges of the storytelling. The Girlfriend Experience, moreso than perhaps any other show on this list, encourages viewers to consider the importance of the image—body language, framing, negative space—as crucial to the literal and allegorical meaning of a scene. This is a show which expects you to listen to what its characters are saying and how they are saying it, but it also expects you to do more: it expects you to be smart, to pay attention, to read and interpret non-verbal cues. There was nothing like it on television.

Notable episode: “Separation” (1x13)

Network/availability: Starz, streaming via Starz channels

Status: Two seasons (anthology), concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Season two is worth a watch, largely for Amy Seimetz’s exceptional direction, but it is not on par with season one.

4. The Hunt (Limited series)

I mentioned in the introduction that I limited this list to a maximum of one season from each show, but there was another limit I didn’t mention: I allowed myself to select only one BBC nature documentary for this list, because there otherwise would have been about ten—Africa, Blue Planet II, and Planet Earth II were especially serious contenders, easily eclipsing many of the astounding shows on this list. But the BBC’s crowning achievement this decade was the one I was most hesitant to watch: The Hunt. Exclusively focusing on the relationships between predator and prey, The Hunt could have easily fetishized or glamorized footage of animals being hurt or killed. Instead, in the hands of perhaps the most talented editors in the world, it becomes a celebration of the natural world and its ceaseless ingenuity. There’s no standout episode here, so the last, “Living with Predators (Conversation)” (1x07), occupies the “notable” slot.

Notable episode: “Living with Predators (Conversation)” (1x07)

Network/availability: BBC One, streaming via Amazon Prime

Status: Limited series, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: There are none! However, the following BBC Natural History Unit productions from the 2010s are essential for anyone who loves great television: Human Planet, Madagascar, Frozen Planet, Africa, Life Story, Planet Earth II, and Blue Planet II. I also want to give a special shout-out to Our Planet even though it technically was not produced by the NHU; its relentless focus on the ruin perpetrated by humanity was unprecedented and necessary.

3. Rectify (Season four)

Every once in a while, a show will end and some people will proclaim that we will never see anything like it again. Rectify is one of those shows—and while I am often wary of such declarations, this is a case in which I believe it. Rectify is about grace, about healing, and about patience; it’s about empathy and connection and the sun-drenched sorrow of fractured souls. It rarely relies on cheap thrills. It understands the importance of humanity and of humility. This is another case in which I could have picked any season as the best (they’re all near-perfect), so I selected its fourth and final season to represent the entire series. The same goes for its final episode, “All I’m Sayin’” (4x08). There are only a few shows that are truly unique and utterly unlike anything else in the vast and varied landscape of television—Rectify is one of them.

Notable episode: “All I’m Sayin’” (4x08)

Network/availability: SundanceTV, streaming via Netflix

Status: Four seasons, concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all!

2. Mindhunter (Season one)

Mindhunter was created by Joe Penhall, but the cinematic fingerprints of executive producer David Fincher (who directs four out of ten episodes in the first season and three more in the second) are all over it; not since his 2007 masterpiece Zodiac has a crime drama paid such careful attention to color grading, cinematography, and the subtleties of storytelling. There is a particular emphasis on empathy in Mindhunter, and the show has an uncanny ability to manipulate that empathy and wield it against you—this is particularly evident in the best (and final) episode of the season, “Episode 10” (1x10), when protagonist Holden Ford, who, like the viewer, has spent the season questioning whether his empathy for murderers is derived from an uncommon kindness or by an untapped capacity for cruelty, is hugged by serial killer Ed Kemper. A threat? An invitation? A moment of grace? All these questions will race through your mind as they do through Ford’s, and Mindhunter, ever ambiguous, will leave them unanswered.

Notable episodes: “Episode 10” (1x10), “Episode 9” (2x09)

Network/availability: Netflix

Status: Two seasons, status unclear

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch season two! Although not quite on par with season one, it solidifies Mindhunter’s status as canonically Great™ television.

1. Steven Universe (Season five)

It couldn’t have been anything else. No other show this decade was as smart, as challenging, as empowering, as subversive, as thrilling, or as thoughtful as Steven Universe. In episodes that were only eleven minutes long, it built a startlingly complex mythology that blew open the doors on abuse, trauma, slavery, genocide, colonization, sexuality, and gender identity, and even as it descended into darkness, it never forgot to be, first and foremost, a show for kids and a show that celebrated joy. I could have selected any season of Steven Universe as its best, but my heart belongs to season five, and to the two-part episode “Reunited” (5x23/5x24) in particular, which does so much to pay off long-running plotlines in unexpected but satisfying fashion. Steven Universe has affirmed and reaffirmed its status not only as one of this decade’s defining artistic achievements, but as a cultural landmark that promises a bold, vibrant future. *Chef’s kiss*

Notable episodes: “Reunited” (5x23/5x24), “Change Your Mind” (5x29-5x32)

Network/availability: Cartoon Network, seasons one through four streaming via Hulu

Status: Five seasons + one movie (Steven Universe: The Movie) + one limited series (Steven Universe Future), concluded

Q: What about the other seasons?

A: Watch them all! And the movie! And the limited series! Watch them again! Why are you still here? Go watch Steven Universe! Go, go, go!

Seasons per year:

Seasons which aired across multiple years were tallied according to the date of their final episode.

2010: 0

2011: 2

2012: 2

2013: 1

2014: 4

2015: 6

2016: 6

2017: 9

2018: 10

2019: 10

Number of shows per network:

Netflix: 12

HBO: 11

AMC: 5

FX: 3

NBC: 3

Cartoon Network: 2

Starz: 2

Amazon Prime: 1

BBC One: 1

BBC Three: 1

Cinemax: 1

Comedy Central: 1

Disney XD: 1

E4: 1

FXX: 1

Hulu: 1

Nickelodeon: 1

Showtime: 1

SundanceTV: 1

2010-2019: The Top 25 Performances on Television

I allowed myself to select a maximum of one performance per show, excluding anthology series.  

25. Jodie Comer as Villanelle (Killing Eve) – Jodie Comer is my guilty-pleasure pick for this list. Her Killing Eve co-star Sandra Oh arguably gives a better (or at least more nuanced) performance, but not since Ledger’s Joker has a villain been so gleefully entertaining.

24. Travis Fimmel as Ragnar Lothbrok (Vikings) – Travis Fimmel was Viking’s ace in the hole. Like a wanderer from another world who found himself in Midgard, his icy eyes and viperish voice made it impossible to tell what manner of wrath lurked beneath his cool exterior.

23. Matthew McConaughey as Rust Cohle (True Detective) – Matthew McConaughey’s most recognizable performance of the decade is probably his best. He transforms hammy lines about time and flat circles into a seductive nihilistic philosophy, perfectly countering the blunt faith of Woody Harrelson’s character with a cynical resignation that sidesteps cheap antagonism.

22. Rachel Brosnahan as Miriam Maisel (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) – A show about a budding comedian doesn’t work if said comedian isn’t funny. Fortunately, Rachel Brosnahan is fantastically funny as the titular Miriam Maisel; her blustery bravado makes her diegetic appeal clear, but she also knows how to capture the moments in which her character crosses the line.

21. Hunter Schafer as Jules Vaughn (Euphoria) – Hunter Schafer, in her acting debut(!), outshines the talented Zendaya and the rest of Euphoria’s impressive cast with a performance that captures the agony and the ecstasy of being a teenager. Her character is often forced to put up facades for others, and Schafer slips effortlessly between the fractured confidence of performance and the full-bodied confidence of a woman who has earned her world.

20. Reese Witherspoon as Madeline Mackenzie (Big Little Lies) – Although the second season of Big Little Lies gave her almost nothing to do, Reese Witherspoon’s performance in the first season is career-defining. She takes a character who would be insufferable in real life and transforms her into pure pleasure on the screen; Madeline Mackenzie is a gossipmonger, but Witherspoon layers her with confidence and intelligence and loyalty to those she loves.

19. Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal) – Anthony Hopkins’ performance as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs is one of the most iconic in the history of cinema, but Mads Mikkelsen reclaims the role with ease. His Lecter is more of a cipher, more cultured and elegant and reserved, less prone to making your skin crawl with every line—but no less menacing. Threats and delicious humor simmer under the surface of his dialogue.

18. Jesse Plemons as Ed Blumquist (Fargo) – The second season of Fargo features an absolute murderers’ row of great performances from great performers—Kirsten Dunst, Patrick Wilson, Jean Smart, Ted Danson, Bokeem Woodbine, Nick Offerman, Zahn McClarnon—and I seriously considered many of them for this list, but the combination of Jesse Plemons’ Midwestern accent and awkward stoicism is like the comedy equivalent of chocolate and peanut butter.

17. Billy Bob Thorton as Lorne Malvo (Fargo) – Billy Bob Thorton gives what may well be a career-best performance as the chilling Lorne Malvo in Fargo’s debut season; he delivers every line of dialogue with hypnotic charm, but every word still drips with malice. Just watch his exchange with Colin Hanks near the end of the pilot episode and you’ll see what I mean. There’s a lot to love about Fargo’s first season, but Billy Bob Thorton is the glue that holds it together.

16. Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson (Mad Men) – I don’t believe anyone on this list has a better body of work from the 2010s—across both film and television—than Elisabeth Moss, and Peggy Olson is her crowning achievement: her transformation from an enthusiastic but inexperienced newcomer at an ad agency to one of its power players is slow and subtle and never feels like anything other than absolutely authentic. Mad Men forgot in the second half of its run that Peggy Olson was its central character (to its detriment), but Elisabeth Moss never lost her luster.

15. Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II (The Crown) – As Queen Elizabeth II, Claire Foy holds her own against titans such as Jared Harris, John Lithgow, and Matt Smith in the first two seasons of the The Crown, capturing both the reserved dignity of a destined queen in her early reign and the cold conservatism of a young woman attempting to hold the monarchy together while the world changes around her with inconceivable speed. Foy is careful to show the cracks in Elizabeth’s façade as she struggles to present herself strong steel rather than brittle iron, which makes her transformation into a considerate and forward-thinking figurehead all the more remarkable.

14. Rhea Seehorn as Kim Wexler (Better Call Saul) – Better Call Saul carries over from Breaking Bad a number of heavy-hitting actors such as Bob Odenkirk, Giancarlo Esposito, and Jonathan Banks, and it introduces other exceptional newcomers such as Michael McKean, but Rhea Seehorn steals the show as Kim Wexler, Jimmy McGill’s best and (arguably) only friend. She is torn throughout the show between the high-powered career she has spent her life working for and her devotion to Jimmy himself, whose loss of faith in the legal system dominoes her own. The show may be titled after Saul, but Kim Wexler, and Rhea Seehorn, is its beating heart.

13. Matthew Rhys as Philip Jennings (The Americans) – Matthew Rhys is almost too good as a covert KGB agent: his tight smile is a shade unnerving, like that of a predator before it pounces, and his eyes gleam like shards of broken glass. Like co-star Keri Russell—also phenomenal—he adopts various disguises throughout the show and dissolves into them like a chameleon, which makes it easy to accept how deftly he is able to fool so many people as he goes about his job.

12. Brian Tyree Henry as Alfred Miles/“Paper Boi” (Atlanta) – Brian Tyree Henry is one of my favorite working performers; he brings an easy, relaxed naturalism—the kind you typically only see from amateur actors—to every role, and his work on Atlanta is no exception. As Alfred Miles, also known as the rapper “Paper Boi,” he exudes warmth and vulnerability, and you get the sense that he is cynical and world-weary but unwilling to let that stop him from treating others with empathy and kindness. Donald Glover, Lakeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz are all great in Atlanta, but Brian Tyree Henry’s nuanced, sensitive performance still stands out.

11. Tatiana Maslany as Sarah Manning, Alison Hendrix, Cosima Niehaus, Rachel Duncan, and Helena (Orphan Black) – Orphan Black provided Tatiana Maslany with a chance to show off: she plays five of the show’s leads—clones, each with their identity and personality—and she is utterly convincing as each of them. Not only does she adopt different mannerisms and speech patterns that never feel forced, she plays clones playing other clones, and the imperfections of their performances come through in hers. I don’t love Orphan Black itself all that much (hence its absence from the list above), but it’s worth watching for Maslany alone. She’s that good.

10. Jared Harris as Francis Crozier (The Terror) – There are multiple performances this decade—Sherlock, Mad Men, The Crown, Chernobyl—which could have landed Harris on this list. But only as Francis Crozier in The Terror was he given the opportunity to fully utilize his talents, and utilize them he does: humbled and humiliated by natural and supernatural forces, he embodies the essence of a man who manages to find peace in a (literally) empty world.

9. Mahershala Ali as Wayne Hays (True Detective) – The third season of True Detective is not a great season of television (it’s not a bad one, either), but Ali’s performance, in which he plays detective Wayne Hays at three distinct ages, is the real deal. With the assistance of some astounding make-up, Ali adapts his speech and body language to reflect each age, and the effect is uncanny. Here is one of our greatest living performers, and his work will only get better.

8. Aden Young as Daniel Holden (Rectify) – Aden Young is perfectly off-kilter as the awkward Daniel Holden, who has just been released from prison and, for all intents and purposes, is experiencing the world for the first time. His speech is slow and considered, and he relishes every shaft of sunlight. It’s easy to understand why some characters find him frightening and others don’t, as his odd mannerisms can come across as threatening or endearing depending on your perspective. It’s an impressive balancing act, and it’s one of the most underappreciated performances of the decade in one of the most underappreciated shows of the decade.

7. Lena Headey as Cersei Lannister (Game of Thrones) – Cersei Lannister is the most layered character in A Song of Ice and Fire, and although Game of Thrones struggled to capture her complexity and eventually reduced her to a one-note villain, Lena Headey spent every episode of the show investing Cersei with the emotional and intellectual depth she deserved. I considered selecting a specific scene to highlight her work, but choosing a standout was too difficult!

6. Bryan Cranston as Walter White (Breaking Bad) – If you’re creating a list of the best performances on television in the 2010s, Bryan Cranston will likely be the first name that comes to mind—and with good reason. His transformation from bumbling high school chemistry teacher Walter White to ruthless drug kingpin Heisenberg is seamless, a towering testament to the magic that happens when a performer is perfectly paired with a character. Breaking Bad was a show that already soared, but Cranston singlehandedly shot it into the stratosphere.

5. Merritt Wever as Karen Duvall (Unbelievable) – I somehow failed to recognize Merritt Wever’s talent until Unbelievable and Marriage Story in 2019, but she quickly became one of my all-time favorite actresses. She can do awkward (Marriage Story) and she can do hard-as-nails (Godless), but she brings something unexpected and fresh to Unbelievable: a detective who is as much social worker as she is investigator. Her performance is sensitive, nuanced, and relentlessly watchable, the perfect complement to her phenomenal co-star, Toni Collette.

4. Riley Keough as Christine Reade (The Girlfriend Experience) – Riley Keough, one of this decade’s most underappreciated performers, has an uncanny ability to embody characters of seemingly any socio-economic background. Watch her performance in American Honey and compare it to her performance in The Girlfriend Experience; you’ll see what I mean. The character she plays in the latter, Christine Reade, is a high-end call girl and therefore a performer in her own right, which provides Keough with an opportunity to demonstrate her unbelievable range—and demonstrate it she does. Acting doesn’t get much better than this.

3. Bill Hader as Barry Berkman/Barry Block (Barry) – Bill Hader had already proven himself as a comedic and dramatic actor prior to Barry, but I wasn’t quite sold on him until his powerhouse performance in the titular role of this spectacular series. He generously gives the comedic spotlight to his co-stars; his dramatic prowess, though, is uncontested. Barry is a cold-blooded killer afflicted by anxiety, and Hader captures the spectrum of this complex character.

2. Carrie Coon as Nora Durst (The Leftovers) – Playing a passionate mother who lost her children and husband in the Departure, Carrie Coon was saddled with one of the most difficult roles in The Leftovers. She brings a perfect balance of anger and grace to it, capturing the empathy Nora needs to keep functioning without losing the sharp edges of her grief. The series finale hinges on her ability to sell an Inception-esque ambiguity, and she succeeds.

1. Adam Driver as Adam Sackler (Girls) – As far as I’m concerned, Adam Driver’s performance in Girls is the defining performance of the decade across both film and television. His character as-written is complex and textured, but Driver elevates Sackler into the ineffable, a slightly off-center figure who feels simultaneously both endearing and dangerous. I’ve never seen a performance quite like this before, and I’m not sure that I ever will again.

2010-2019: The Top 10 Episodes of Television

I allowed myself to select a maximum of one episode per show, including anthology series.

10. “Part 8” (Twin Peaks: The Return 1x08)

Dir. David Lynch

Writ. David Lynch & Mark Frost

I never thought I’d be putting an episode of television directed by David Lynch in my top ten of the decade (due not to any lack of craftsmanship on his part; I simply haven’t enjoyed his work in the past), but here we are. After a brief prologue and a performance by Nine Inch Nails, “Part 8” sears the screen with the fire of the Trinity nuclear test that took place on July 16th, 1945, accompanied by the screaming strings of Krzysztof Penderecki’s “Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima,” and transforms into a discordant collage of images and sounds. Some other stuff happens, captured in gorgeous black and white cinematography, and my understanding is that it’s something of an origin story for Twin Peaks. I don’t know what the heck is going on in “Part 8,” but I do know that it’s mesmerizing, unforgettable, and my favorite David Lynch production.  

9. “Teddy Perkins” (Atlanta 2x06)

Dir. Hiro Murai

Writ. Donald Glover

Lakeith Stanfield’s Darius goes to pick up a piano from a mansion and encounters Teddy Perkins—an unnerving Donald Glover in whiteface—in this episode of Atlanta that is hilarious and horrifying in equal measure (well, perhaps horrifying in slightly more measure). The show tends to lean in the direction of comedy, but you never know what you’re going to get with Atlanta, and the turn towards terror never feels jarring or incongruous with the rest of the series. I often found myself thinking about Get Out while watching “Teddy Perkins”; they share a sense of claustrophobia and creeping dread, but “Teddy Perkins” accomplishes what it sets out to do more effectively. It’s a singular episode of television, deeply scary and deeply funny, a reminder of the strengths of the episodic format and of what comedies can do when they play with the limitations of genre (something BoJack Horseman also exemplified). It’s difficult to forget.

8. “The Castle” (Fargo 2x09)

Dir. Adam Arkin

Writ. Noah Hawley & Steve Blackman

There are at least a half-dozen episodes of Fargo which could have had a spot in my top ten, but the show was never better than in the climactic episode of its second season; the “Massacre at Sioux Falls” was referenced back in Fargo’s first season (which takes place after the second in the chronology of the show), and we finally see it in “The Castle.” It’s a knockout sequence, but something as simple as a bloodbath isn’t enough to earn an episode this degree of reverence—the cinematography, dialogue, editing, and performances are all top-notch, and the season gambles everything (successfully) on an outrageous plot twist that would have been the equivalent of jumping the shark in a show handled by less-talented writers. “The Castle” is an astounding achievement in every respect, a defining episode of the decade and indisputably one of the best.

7. “Two Storms” (The Haunting of Hill House 1x06)

Dir. Mike Flanagan

Writ. Mike Flanagan & Jeff Howard

Two storms. Two shots. After wrapping up the first arc of the season with individual episodes devoted to each of the Crain children—culminating in the dark spiral of “The Bent-Neck Lady” (1x05), which is arguably on par with “Two Storms”—the sixth episode brings the family together in an episode composed of two long takes which transition between the past and present, crystalizing the connection between the horror of Hill House and the heartbreak of crying out for help and realizing that the people you love can’t see you, can’t hear you, and aren’t there for you. It’s an achievement both in storytelling and technical craft, and it makes you wonder why it took so long for horror on television to get this good…and how good it still has yet to get. I can’t wait.

6. “A Golden Crown” (Game of Thrones 1x06)

Dir. Daniel Minahan

Writ. Jane Espenson & David Benioff & D.B. Weiss

Picking up after Ned and Jaime’s duel in “The Wolf and the Lion”—another great episode, featuring a conversation between Robert and Cersei which ranks as one of the best scenes the show ever produced—Game of Thrones begins to unravel fantasy tropes with the sharply, smartly written “A Golden Crown,” an episode featuring a perfect balance of action (Bronn versus Ser Vardis Egan in the Eyrie), plot reversals (Khal Drogo crowning Viserys with molten gold), and crackling dialogue (“Wear it in silence, or I’ll honor you again”). This is also the episode in which Ned has a game-changing revelation: blonde Jaime, not dark-haired Robert, is the father of Cersei’s children, which transforms the title of the episode into a delicious pun. After dozens of viewings, I’m still stunned by the delights of this perfect episode of television.

5. “Crawl Space” (Breaking Bad 4x11)

Dir. Scott Winant

Writ. George Mastras & Sam Catlin

“Ozymandias” is most frequently cited as the best episode of Breaking Bad (and as one of the best episodes of the decade), but I’m still partial to the haunting and hilarious “Crawl Space.” The universe of Breaking Bad is governed by a set of moral theses, and “Crawl Space” distills them into their most potent incarnations—Ted, literally running from financial responsibility, trips on the carpet and hits his head, oranges tumbling comically around his twitching body, and Walter slips into hysterical laughter upon discovering that his stash of cash is, once again, gone, given by Skyler to Ted. “Ozymandias” is potent and shocking, but “Crawl Space” is devious and funny and chilling, the high point of a perfect season and a prelude to a bombastic climax.

4. “ronny/lily” (Barry 2x05)

Dir. Bill Hader

Writ. Alec Berg & Bill Hader

Few shows this decade were as consistently smart or inventive as Barry, but it raised the bar(ry) higher than ever with “ronny/lily,” a fiendishly delightful episode in which Barry and Fuches clash with a martial arts expert and his “feral mongoose” daughter. It remains firmly in the realm of the absurd, never quite straying into the territory of the surreal or the allegorical. This isn’t a bottle episode, though: it begins with an assassination gone wrong, blunt and bloody and brutal, and veers into something which seems to be drawing from silent films and slapstick comedy, as if John Wick wandered onto a Chaplin set and was handed a script by Lewis Carroll, but like every episode of Barry, it ultimately propels its titular character to grow and change. Cruelly overshadowed by Game of Thrones, which aired Sunday nights immediately prior to Barry, “ronny/lily” has cemented itself as a defining episode of 2019 and of the entire decade.

3. “This Extraordinary Being” (Watchmen 1x06)

Dir. Stephen Williams

Writ. Damon Lindelof & Cord Jefferson

“This Extraordinary Being” is an extraordinary work of revisionist history—a fictional history, but still. Lindelof and his team exploit the liminal spaces in the original Watchmen comic to unpack the relationship between vigilantism and racial/sexual identity, adding texture and resonance to a bit of worldbuilding addressed only tangentially in Moore and Gibbon’s work. It navigates the treacherous seas of social and political issues while simultaneously deconstructing a canonical artistic achievement without losing reverence for it. This is an impeccably-crafted hour of television, too: featuring beautiful black-and-white cinematography and long takes elegantly edited across multiple timelines, “This Extraordinary Being” is an act of high-wire funambulism which elevates Watchmen to one of the great shows of the decade.

2. “Finding Frances” (Nathan For You 4x07)

Dir. Nathan Fielder

Writ. Leo Allen & Nathan Fielder & Carrie Kemper & Michael Koman & Adam Locke-Norton & Eric Notarnicola

One of the all-time great series finales. When a Bill Gates impersonator who appeared earlier in the show returns and Nathan agrees to help him track down the long lost love of his life, Nathan For You breaks its standard format for a quadruple-length episode which largely abandons laughs in favor of a deconstruction of romance narratives and an incisive critique of toxic masculinity. “Finding Frances” is unexpected and moving, a subtle culmination of the growth Nathan has undergone over the course of the series, and it cements Nathan For You as a defining show of this decade—a show capable of generating consistent laughs, but also one which understands the broken systems of our society and how they prevent us from communicating.

1. “Separation” (The Girlfriend Experience 1x13)

Dir. Lodge Kerrigan

Writ. Lodge Kerrigan & Amy Seimetz

Bodies. Motion. Touch.  Taste. Control. “Separation” distills sex into the realm of high allegory, refracting the growth of Christine’s character throughout the first season of The Girlfriend Experience into an almost-silent ballet of sensual drama. No episode of television this decade was as aesthetically or intellectually stimulating as “Separation”; it lingers in the mind, like a shadow you can’t quite see. I’ve been thinking about it for years, and I’ll likely never stop.

That’s all, folks! Thanks for reading, and here’s to another decade of thrilling television. You can also access this list, without commentary, via my Trakt account.