The A.V. Club’s list of 2016’s best television came together with contributions from 25 writers, who nominated 99 separate programs from multiple genres (including one major sporting event) for the year’s top honor. The writers’ individual ballots are listed below.
Did one of your favorites miss the cut? Someone might be stumping for it in this week’s AVQ&A.
Erik Adams
1. Atlanta
2. The Americans
3. Better Call Saul
4. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
5. Documentary Now!
6. Veep
7. The Good Place
8. Halt And Catch Fire
9. Silicon Valley
10. RuPaul’s Drag Race
11. Baskets
12. Rectify
13. High Maintenance
14. Take My Wife
15. Stranger Things
Joshua Alston
1.The Americans
2. Queen Sugar
3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
4. Better Call Saul
5. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
6. Insecure
7. Westworld
8. Atlanta
9. Veep
10. Underground
11. The Good Place
12. Black-ish
13. The Grinder
14. The Night Of
15. Girls
Dan Caffrey
1. The Night Of
2. Better Call Saul
3. Documentary Now!
4. Atlanta
5. Galavant
By transforming the first season’s antagonist into a complex and sympathetic hero, Galavant managed to transcend its goofy musical trappings into something funny, human, and—at times—a little sweet and sad. But while Timothy Omundson as King Richard was the undeniable MVP, he doesn’t get sole credit—Alan Menken and Christopher Lennertz also deserve a tip of the helmet for stepping up their songwriting game. It’s a shame we won’t get to see how ABC’s little dark horse that could would have continued to grow.
6. Girls
7. Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule
As Dr. Steve Brule, John C. Reilly remains funny on a surface level for his twitchy body language, bursts of guttural emotion, and constantly perplexed facial expressions. But beneath the physicality is a troubling psyche—the brain of a manchild who’s emotionally stunted, desperate to prove his own intelligence and masculinity, and—saddest (and funniest) of all—both intrigued by and scared to death of the real world.
8. Preacher
By widening the Vertigo comic’s lens on Annville, Texas, to focus as much on the supporting roles as the title character, Preacher felt like the darker side of Robert Altman—a small-town ensemble drama with blood by the bucketful and demons (or, more accurately, renegade angels) both literal and metaphorical.
9. Channel Zero: Candle Cove
Uneven? Absolutely. But there was nothing so tangibly creepy on television in 2016. Need we show yet another picture of the tooth monster to all you trypophobes out there?
10. Love
I spent the first half of the series deciding whether or not I hated Paul Rust’s Gus Kruikshank and Gillian Jacobs’ Mickey Dobbs. Then came a pivotal scene of Gus jamming at a house party with several other amateur musicians. There was something so loose, so real, so in-the-moment about the joy he got from playing bass on a sloppy cover of Wings’ “Jet” that you couldn’t help but love the guy. It’s arguably the moment Mickey falls for him, too, and once the show had two humanized (if very flawed) heroes, I was hooked.
11. The Exorcist
It’s rare that a network horror series establishes such a strong sense of place, but in 2016, The Exorcist made Chicago a whole lot scarier. By paying attention to the distinct traits of several neighborhoods—and what would happen if a demon was let loose in these respective communities—it dreamed up nightmare versions of everything from walking on the beach in Edgewater beaches to riding the Red Line after a Cubs game. That’s no small feat, considering the latter’s already nightmarish enough on its own.
12. Decker: Unclassified
Tim Heidecker has described his CIA agent as the result of trying to mimic Tom Cruise and having it come out like Donald Trump. That makes Decker: Unclassified a different kind of funny these days—the impotent action scenes, lame chest-puffing, and squinting of Jack Decker’s piggy eyes not as much an exaggeration as a replication of our president-elect. Just look at the incident in Las Vegas where Trump got ushered offstage after a fight broke out in the audience. When comparing his nervous exit shuffle to his blustery return to the podium, it’s a lot like a scene from Decker.
13. Game Of Thrones
14. Easy
All right, so maybe Easy was a little on the hip side; a little bit too concerned with first-world problems. At the same time though, it was packed with Joe Swanberg’s naturalistic, half-improvised dialogue as he showcased his stomping ground of Chicago with accuracy, specificity, and pride. And at the end of the day, isn’t romantic malaise a fairly common experience, not just in the Windy City, but everywhere?
15. South Park
‘Member when South Park’s serialization format worked against it for half of the season? ‘Member when it still earned a place on this ballot anyway because the Member Berries were so stinking funny, even if they were underused? Oh sure, I ’member!
Les Chappell
1. Rectify
The saga of Daniel Holden came to an end this year, and it remained the show that a precious few of us fell in love with. Answers are still secondary to the mood, the atmosphere, the crushing sense of isolation and struggle for connection. Rectify fills a very specific position in the TV landscape that will be deeply, deeply missed.
2. BoJack Horseman
For the third year in a row, BoJack Horseman got better and darker at the same time, as Will Arnett’s alcoholic misanthropic stallion tried to navigate his way to an Academy Award if he could keep from tripping over his demons. From the visual achievement of “Fish Out Of Water” to the unflinching abortion satire of “Brrap Brrap Pew Pew” to the gutting closing minutes of “That’s Too Much, Man!” this show continued its defiance of expectations and secured its role as TV’s best dark comedy.
3. Better Call Saul
Another year that proved the doubters of a Breaking Bad spin-off wrong. The endless talent of Bob Odenkirk and Jonathan Banks got a lot of room to shine, and the additions of more Breaking Bad players amplified rather than distracted. Jimmy McGill gets closer to Saul Goodman with every season, and every episode proves the road to hell is paved with increasingly less good intentions.
4. Bob’s Burgers
This show remains the best comfort food on TV, a haven for the best working comedians of today and a delightfully anarchic streak that seven seasons have done nothing to dull. Another helping, please.
5. The Good Place
2016’s best new comedy, an exploration of goodness and bureaucracy and just how to sanitize swear words for network television. Winning performances by Kristen Bell and Ted Danson (and a delightfully douchebaggy performance by Adam Scott), an inviting color palette reminiscent of Pushing Daisies, and a series of rules and regulations that become progressively more engaging made this one a vital one to check in with on a weekly basis.
6. The Last Man On Earth
While Will Forte’s performance as selfish everyman Tandy Miller still grates from time to time, The Last Man On Earth has overcome the majority of its early hurdles to become a strong comedy about trying to keep it together at the end of the world. A stint from Jason Sudeikis as Tandy’s brother Mike was a series highlight, and a Jon Hamm cameo gave audiences a delightfully unexpected Mad Men resolution.
7. Quarry
Cinemax’s newest series may have been too slowly paced for some viewers, but the mix of Rectify contemplation and Banshee violence made for a welcome addition to the channel’s portfolio. The authentic Southern setting, the innovative direction of Greg Yaitanes, and some deliciously villainous performances from Peter Mullan and Damon Herriman created a fine pulp adventure.
8. Steven Universe
Still the best kids’ series out there, a relentlessly positive and visually inventive program that’s not afraid to take chances and invest in its mythology. Plus, “Mr. Greg” gave us the musical episode we’ve wanted since the beginning, and “Bismuth” gave Uzo Adoba a welcome vocal showcase.
9. Lucifer
No one’s more surprised than me that this one made it into the top ten. The show that seemed like it would be this year’s guilty pleasure somehow managed to become a legitimate pleasure, embracing its mythology and Tom Ellis’s charisma to leap past a framework of “The Devil solves crimes in Los Angeles.” Yeah, it’s still that, but thanks to its bench of characters—including season two’s introduction of Tricia Helfer as Lucifer’s goddess mother—the story has taken on far more interesting dimensions.
10. Penny Dreadful
It ended somewhat anticlimactically—regardless of any statements that John Logan made on this being the natural conclusion—yet this was still one of the most beautifully florid shows on TV and a feast of actors relishing their roles. “A Blade Of Grass” is easily one of the year’s best episodes, and Billie Piper’s monologue in the penultimate is in the top tier of gutting moments. It will be missed.
11. Banshee
Not the best season for the show thanks to an abbreviated final season and a serial killer plot that brought down everything around it, but this was still a show full of ultraviolence that’s smarter than anyone gave it credit for. And the finale redeemed many sins, restoring the action to its wider glory and ended on a satisfying beat for its cast of broken characters.
12. 11.22.63
The rare Stephen King adaptation that hung together, and a reminder that James Franco can deliver one hell of a performance when he decides not to be Performance Artist James Franco.
13. You’re The Worst
Another year that proves how hard it is to make a relationship work and distressing reminders that it often doesn’t, amplified by a terrifically solid core quartet and some wonderfully dark and nasty humor.
14. Ash Vs. Evil Dead
In our age of half-hour dramedy wealth, it’s a treat to have a show that’s free of motives higher than a groovy good time. Ash Vs. Evil Dead is a reboot that continues to pay homage to its source material while finding newer and bloodier twists on them all, and Bruce Campbell hasn’t lost an ounce of his joyful swagger even as the show gets deeper into Ash’s psyche.
15. Westworld
Narrative flaws aside, this was a show bursting with talent on both sides of the camera, a cold yet compelling look at sentience and humanity. And any project that puts Ed Harris and Sir Anthony Hopkins in a scene together is doing God’s work.
Honorable mentions: Game Of Thrones, Supergirl, iZombie, Jane The Virgin.
Things I have yet to catch up on: Horace And Pete, The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, The Night Of, One Mississippi, Take My Wife, Transparent, Halt And Catch Fire, Catastrophe. This was the year Peak TV finally broke me, full of things I wanted to get to and then just never did.
Danette Chavez
1. Atlanta
2. BoJack Horseman
3. Search Party
I’ve covered just how much I enjoyed Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers’ show, but it bears repeating for anyone who didn’t catch those TV Club reviews. Search Party is one of the best dark comedies I’ve watched, with as much credit going to the writers as the superb cast, led by Alia Shawkat in her first lead role.
4. Insecure
5. Halt And Catch Fire
Our own Dennis Perkins does such a fine job talking about Halt And Catch Fire that I rarely worry about sticking up for it. Elsewhere, I singled out Mackenzie Davis for her work in “San Junipero,” but she should also be lauded for her increasingly nuanced portrayal of Cameron. But more than that, when Halt rebooted itself, it got rid of some of its “bugs,” including a tendency to lean too hard on Joe MacMillan.
6. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
7. Veep
Veep not only didn’t miss a beat after losing its previous showrunner, Armando Iannucci, but it actually became even more cohesive under David Mandel’s watch. The profanity-laden barbs continued to fly as President Selina Meyer’s legacy came undone.
8. American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson
9. Better Things
10. Westworld
I bought into the series’ puzzle-box setup early on, which kept me going despite the stingy characterization. Maybe I was just so delighted to see Anthony Hopkins do more than hiss disdainfully at the mere mortals (or hosts) around him. But the cast MVP for me was really Evan Rachel Wood, who gave such a soulful performance as someone whose humanity remains debatable.
11. Silicon Valley
12. Transparent
13. Steven Universe
14. Lady Dynamite
Maria Bamford’s show remains hard to categorize, but that doesn’t make it any less worthy of your time. Lady Dynamite transcends its meta-comedy origins, touching on many topics that have previously been mined for comedy, and provides an incisive new look at them. Bamford’s warts-and-all approach delivers emotional gut punches along with belly laughs.
15. Black Mirror
Marah Eakin
1. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
2. Veep
3. Halt And Catch Fire
4. The Grinder
5. O.J.: Made In America
6. The Good Place
7. Girls
8. Last Man On Earth
9. Lady Dynamite
10. Silicon Valley
11. New Girl
12. 30 For 30: Believeland
13. Take My Wife
14. Marvel’s Agent Carter
15. Game Of Thrones
Molly Eichel
1.The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
2. O.J.: Made In America
3. The Americans
4. RuPaul’s Drag Race
5. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
6. Better Things
7. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
8. Catastrophe
9. Search Party
10. Insecure
11. High Maintenance
12. Stranger Things
13. Broad City
14. You’re The Worst
15. This Is Us
LaToya Ferguson
1. Halt And Catch Fire
2. Person Of Interest
3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
4. The Detour
5. Casual
6. You’re The Worst
7. Rectify
8. iZombie
9. Banshee
10. Limitless
11. You Me Her
12. Lady Dynamite
13. Atlanta
14. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
15. Horace And Pete
Kyle Fowle
1. The Americans
2. Atlanta
3. Horace and Pete
4. Better Call Saul
5. Halt And Catch Fire
6. American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson
7. Rectify
8. The Girlfriend Experience
9. Girls
10. Baskets
11. Wynonna Earp
12. Mr. Robot
13. Better Things
14. Queen Sugar
15. High Maintenance
Zack Handlen
1. The Americans
2. Better Call Saul
3. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
4. Atlanta
5. The Good Place
6. BoJack Horseman
7. Fleabag
8. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
9. Stranger Things
10. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
11. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
12. Gravity Falls
13. Black Mirror
14. Westworld
15. The Expanse
Gwen Ihnat
I was fairly unimpressed with this year in TV: Not too many new shows seemed invigorating (except for This Is Us, most of Westworld), and so many (Conviction, Notorious, MacGyver) were a total slog. Once-enjoyable series (Scandal, UnREAL, The Affair) took some really unfortunate turns, moving toward getting scratched off my list forever. And yet some beautiful bright spots carried me through, like the ones below. (Although Erik Adams wisely pointed out that if I actually caught up on the stuff I want to catch up on, I might feel quite differently about this year in TV.)
1. BoJack Horseman
I don’t think any series pierced me as much this year as BoJack’s dark turn in its third season. From the beauty of the underwater episode to the tragic arc of Sarah Lynn, the show set a new high bar for the emotionality that animation can accomplish.
2. Documentary Now!
The imagination, creativity, and exemplary production value this crew brings every week is nothing short of astounding. Luckily, Bill Hader is apparently a bit of a film buff, so they aren’t likely to run out of documentaries to parody any time soon.
3. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
4. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
In the wake of the most revolting election development in our lifetime, thank God we had these two to eloquently translate the thoughts the rest of us were too shell-shocked to process.
5. Search Party
6. Westworld
I’m an almost completely squeamish person, but I was so entranced by the world of Westworld, I forced myself to watch, even through all the exploding faces and frequent host stabbings. The scalpings were a bit much. Honestly would have preferred some benign blown-up wires.
7. Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life
There are a lot of revivals on TV right now, many unsuccessful, but A Year In The Life actually pulled off what it set out to do. The Palladinos’ 360 minutes wrap-up was basically a fan-friendly production, offering glimpses of everything from Stars Hollow festivals and a Hep Alien rehearsal to Paris Geller’s career and the elusive Mr. Kim. A variety of fun cameos sure didn’t hurt. But the heavy emotional notes, especially the ones rung by Lauren Graham and Kelly Bishop in the wake of the death of the formidable Richard Gilmore (Edward Herrmann), reminded everyone just why they were so psyched for this revival in the first place.
8. Orange Is The New Black
9. Stranger Things
10. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
11. You’re The Worst
12. Togetherness
13. Grace And Frankie
14. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Togetherness, Grace And Frankie, and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt all had spectacular second seasons, but I feel like they got lost in the sophomore shuffle somehow. Togetherness unfortunately fell to the HBO axe, but was a delightful, intimate look at mid-life relationships. Grace And Frankie and Kimmy Schmidt offer delightful female protagonists that show strength at any age. If you liked the first seasons, no reason in the world not to pick up the second.
15. Black Mirror
The pastel hell of “Nosedive” might have single-handedly cured me of checking Facebook every day.
Series I’m looking forward to catching up on (I promise, Erik!):
Atlanta, The People V. O.J. Simpson, Halt And Catch Fire
Alex McCown-Levy
1.The Americans
2. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
3. Better Call Saul
4. Westworld
5. Veep
6. Atlanta
7. Outcast
8. Difficult People
9. Preacher
10. Mr. Robot
11. Game Of Thrones
12. Stranger Things
13. Transparent
14. Fleabag
15. iZombie
Myles McNutt
In this age of “Peak TV,” the better way to describe this list is “A loosely ranked grouping of 15 television programs I watched which, after a reasonable number of glances, does not offend my memory of the past year of television.” If a show is missing, it could be that I watched it and didn’t love it, or never finished watching it, or never got around to watching it even though I was told by many it was very good. It could also be that I forgot about it. I’ll leave you to judge which status applies to which show I left off.
1. The Americans
2. The People Vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
3. BoJack Horseman
4. Fleabag
5. Better Things
6. Atlanta
7. Orange Is The New Black
8. Catastrophe
9. American Crime
10. You’re The Worst
11. High Maintenance
12. The Good Place
13. Jane The Virgin
14. Game Of Thrones
15. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Josh Modell
1.The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
2. Game Of Thrones
3. Atlanta
4. Better Call Saul
5. Black Mirror
6. The Night Of
7. Fleabag
8. O.J.: Made In America
9. Transparent
10. Veep
11. Silicon Valley
12. Westworld
13. Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule
14. Documentary Now!
15. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
Noel Murray
1. The People Vs. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
2. O.J.: Made In America
3. Better Call Saul
4. Documentary Now!
5. Game Of Thrones
6. Black-ish
7. Halt And Catch Fire
8. Atlanta
9. Veep
10. Silicon Valley
11. Angie Tribeca
Thanks to the scheduling quirks of TBS, this Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker-inspired cop-show spoof aired both its promising-but-rocky first season and its much more polished, ambitious, and hilarious second season in the same calendar year. That’s 20 mostly great episodes’ worth of bad puns, broad visual gags, and winking meta-humor, anchored by the endearingly sincere lead performance of one of our greatest comic actresses, Rashida Jones. If this show were a Netflix original, it’d be a binge-watch sensation.
12. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
13. New Girl
It’s common and understandable for TV critics to be heap praise on the new, especially when the latest buzz hit is edgy, relevant, and mature. But as terrific as many of the more experimental and provocative sitcoms have been lately, for pure gasp-for-breath comedy, nothing really has topped these two Fox stalwarts all year. Back in the spring, Brooklyn Nine-Nine and New Girl were joined by the equally delightful and much-missed Grandfathered and The Grinder; but in a way they work even better as they are now, placed back-to-back on Tuesday night. Because of their breakneck pace and shared love of offbeat characters, they’ve effectively reinvented “the hangout sitcom,” with scripts that are denser with jokes and plot. Every episode of each in 2016 has been a bounty. That kind of generosity deserves some gratitude.
14. The Great British Baking Show
The internationally beloved sixth series of one of reality TV’s most charming competition shows finally made it to U.S. shores this year, after PBS’ relatively under-the-radar runs of two earlier seasons built up word-of-mouth. Stateside interest reached “phenomenon” levels at exactly the right time, as millions of Americans got to go through what our friends overseas had already experienced: watching an especially eclectic and inspiringly supportive batch of home cooks wear their emotions on their sleeves while turning out delicious cakes, cookies, and pies. How odd it was to follow stories of Brexit while watching the benefits of Britain’s cultural diversity play out each week in the kitchen-tent.
15. Alone
History Channel’s eerily poetic spin on the survival competition show drops contestants onto a remote Canadian island with no camera crew, no companionship, and no set limit for how long they can stay. In this summer’s second season, the skill level of the loners was higher, and what they achieved—both in terms of what they built with their hands and what they learned about themselves—was often awesome to behold. Alone’s third season started on December 8. Don’t miss out on what’s been a fascinating reinvention of the whole human-vs.-nature concept.
Honorable mention(s): Can a whole channel make a best-of-the-year list? If so, I’ll have to admit that for all the can’t-miss television being produced by HBO, FX, AMC, or Netflix, I probably spent the largest bulk of my TV-watching time in 2016 tuned in either to my local MeTV affiliate or to AXS TV. The former has really upped its curatorial game of late, rivaling the heyday of TV Land with the way it’s surrounding old Perry Mason and Emergency! reruns with in-house interstitials celebrating the history of the medium. The latter too has been taking its status as one of the last remaining music-centric channels seriously, adding classic documentaries to its line-up of full-length concerts, on-site festival coverage, and the absorbingly banal docu-series Rock Legends. Defaulting to these two channels all year has been like a throwback to the glory days of expanded cable in the 1990s, when surfing through the early years of Comedy Central, TCM, and Cartoon Network was often more fun that watching whatever was on the networks.
Vikram Murthi
1. Horace And Pete
2. Atlanta
3. The Americans
4. The 2016 World Series
5. The Girlfriend Experience
6. Better Call Saul
7. BoJack Horseman
8. You’re The Worst
9. Documentary Now!
10. Red Oaks
11. Veep
12. High Maintenance
13. The Night Of
14. Baskets
15. Silicon Valley
Sean O’Neal
1. Atlanta
2. The People V. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story
3. Halt And Catch Fire
4. Better Call Saul
5. Black Mirror
6. Veep
7. The Americans
8. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
9. Game Of Thrones
10. Documentary Now!
11. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
12. BoJack Horseman
13. Search Party
14. Westworld
15. Togetherness
The next 10: Silicon Valley, You’re The Worst, The Night Of, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, New Girl, Bob’s Burgers, Baskets, The Good Place, South Park, Love
Show that I loved but nevertheless felt odd classifying as a “TV series”: O.J.: Made In America
Show that, given what I’ve been told, would probably love and pledge to watch someday, all right?!: Rectify
Shows that I’d probably also like if they weren’t streaming only, and the wi-fi in my apartment didn’t suck, and come on man, I just want to watch something right now, without all the clicking and buffering: Horace And Pete, Fleabag, Catastrophe, Difficult People.
Shows that I enjoyed earlier seasons of, but have had trouble convincing my very tired wife to catch up on, now that we’re constantly exhausted by small children: Transparent, Orange Is The New Black
Show I liked enough but eventually grew to resent due to the disproportionate attention it received (some culpability of which is certainly ours): Stranger Things
Show I finally cut bait with and feel great about: Empire
Show I’m considering doing that with next: The Walking Dead
Dennis Perkins
1. Rectify
Was my number one last year, is my number one this year. Rectify’s fourth and final season sees Aden Young, somehow, delving even deeper into the wounded, poetic soul of Daniel Holden. Similarly, the magnificent, pitch-perfect cast around him charts their characters’ lives without the departed Daniel as their tragic constant. As Rectify ends, I, too, prepare myself for a life without its heartbreaking—yet impossibly warm—humanity to look forward to.
2. Better Call Saul
3. Silicon Valley
4. The Good Place
5. The Americans
6. Lady Dynamite
7. Halt And Catch Fire
Reviewing this show from its first, often disastrous season as clunky Mad Men clone, I never expected to be as thoroughly impressed with the character-driven, challenging drama it’s become. The virtue of not giving up.
8. Veep
Like everyone else, I imagine the Veep writers room throwing up its collective hands wondering how to satirize an American political system that’s seeming lurched beyond even this series’ razor-edged satire. But if anyone can do it, it’s Veep.
9. Better Things
Louie’s absence fades as Louis CK pal/collaborator Pamela Adlon steps confidently into place in the autobiographical single-parent dramedy slot.
10. Atlanta
I admit I was grumpy and skeptical when Donald Glover left Community in order to pursue his creative vision. Atlanta (and the ambitious new Childish Gambino record, Awaken, My Love!) shows just how clearly he knew what he was doing. Assured, insightful, funny, and risk-taking television.
11. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
12. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver just missed my list. Bee’s tightly focused, righteous fury at the country’s gorge-rising swing to ugly, irrational bigotry gave her the edge—and will serve us all well going forward.
13. Bojack Horseman
14. Insecure
15. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
The next 10: Bob’s Burgers, Search Party, Vikings, Drunk History, Last Week Tonight, The Great British Baking Show, Fleabag, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Yes, I watched these and they’re still not on my list: Westworld, The People V. O.J. Simpson, Stranger Things, The Night Of, Game Of Thrones
Oliver Sava
1. Jane The Virgin
2. Insecure
3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
4. Halt And Catch Fire
5. Last Man On Earth
6. Black-ish
7. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
8. Marvel’s Agent Carter
9. Silicon Valley
10. O.J.: Made In America
11. Speechless
12. Steven Universe
13. Stranger Things
14. Game Of Thrones
15. Teen Titans Go!
Allison Shoemaker
1. Atlanta
The more I think about it, the better it gets. We’ll be talking about Atlanta for years, mark my words.
2. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
If this had been just good, trashy fun, it still would have been a pleasant surprise; instead, it was one of two penetrating looks at an event about which there didn’t seem to be much left to say. Would make the list even without “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia,” perhaps the single best episode of television of the year.
3. The Americans
4. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
Behold “You Stupid Bitch,” three of the funniest, most unsettling minutes of TV in this or any year.
5. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
We don’t deserve Samantha Bee, but we should all be thankful she exists. To be honest, I couldn’t bear to watch the episodes that aired post-election until after our ballots were filed. Had I done so, it probably would have ranked higher.
6. You’re the Worst
7. Lady Dynamite
In January, Sherlock put us inside the titular character’s mind-palace. It’s a lot less unsettling than Maria Bamford’s, but nowhere near as delightful.
8. O.J.: Made in America
Long-form documentary that’s a movie but also a TV show but also a movie? Whatever, it’s excellent on any list.
9. RuPaul’s Drag Race
Season eight was good, with a great winner, but the funniest and most culturally significant reality show on air really hit the jackpot with All Stars 2. Many of the show’s most entertaining personalities, all in one room, subjected to one twist after another? Yes, please. And someone give Katya her own show: I promise to watch it obsessively.
10. Outlander
In its second season, Outlander stumbled a bit here and there, but made up for any missteps with even more incredible costuming, several battle scenes that would hold their own against Game Of Thrones, a terrific guest performance from Simon Callow, wee Fergus, and an episode that took an unflinching look at miscarriage, a topic all too often hushed up and ignored. Plus, the sex is still great.
11. Insecure
12. Better Call Saul
13. Fleabag
14. BoJack Horseman
15. Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life
Yes, I was bothered by the body-shaming, the too-long musical, the unnecessary reappearance of The Life And Death Brigade, and other oddities, but Gilmore Girls is a nostalgia-driven revival that actually worked, and it was worth all the blips for the beauty.
Honorable mentions: Last Week Tonight, Hamilton’s America, the 100th episode of Arrow, The Good Place, Stranger Things, Black-ish, Documentary Now!, The Night Of, Horace And Pete, The Detour
The most painful cut: Supergirl, which isn’t great television, but it sure is wonderful.
Things I have yet to catch up on: Halt And Catch Fire, Westworld, Queen Sugar, Veep, Rectify, Jane The Virgin, and loads of others. Who are you people, and how have you seen everything?
Caroline Siede
1. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
I made the mistake of leaving this show off my ballot last year, so consider its placement here my official amends. Also this remains one of my favorite pop culture satires of the decade:
2. Westworld
We filed our ballots before the Westworld finale aired, and, admittedly, this show might be a little lower on my list if we submitted them after. But I’m always going to be in the bag for cerebral, aesthetically pleasing sci-fi. And whatever disappointments I have with the way Westworld answered (or didn’t answer) its central mysteries, Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, and Jeffrey Wright always made it worth watching.
3. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
4. The Great British Baking Show
Tamal. Nadia. Soggy bottoms. Need I say more?
5. The Get Down
Howard Hawks said that good movies have “three good scenes and no bad ones.” That’s decidedly not the case for The Get Down—Baz Luhrmann’s dreamy salute to hip-hop and disco in the late 1970s. The Netflix show has far more bad scenes than good ones, and yet the ones that are good are truly fantastic. I guess that, unlike Hawks, I have a soft spot for shows that aim big, even when they don’t quite succeed (see also: Sense8). And given that it’s unlike anything else on TV, The Get Down easily earns a spot on my list.
6. The Crown
I’ve spilled more than enough digital ink breaking down this show in my reviews, so let me just say that Claire Foy is terrific, those corgis are adorable, and I could always use more prestige dramas about women.
7. O.J.: Made In America
Given how difficult it is to get people across the political aisle to talk to one another, perhaps the best strategy is to disguise all social commentary in sports documentaries.
8. Jane The Virgin
2016 was a great (and suspenseful) time to be Team Michael.
9. Difficult People
As I wrote about here, I’m not sure any show has ever captured the way my friends and I talk to each other more than Difficult People.
10. Girls
This was one of my favorite seasons of Girls because it gave a palpable sense of forward momentum to the series. Plus it offered a scene of Adam Driver singing to a baby, which is something I didn’t know I needed in my life until I saw it.
11. Atlanta
The only reason this show isn’t higher on my list is because I tend to connect to it intellectually rather than emotionally (which is totally fine, not everything needs to be for me). That being said, I’ve had “Paper Boi” stuck in my head for weeks and Darius just might be my favorite TV character of 2016.
12. Stranger Things
This is another show I liked more on an intellectual level than an emotional one. But goddamnit those kids are cute. Now can we get some nerdy female D&D players in season two?
13. Preacher
This is just the kind of heightened, madcap genre series I love. And my longtime crush on Dominic Cooper finally pays off in dividends.
14. Luke Cage
Imperfect as the latter half of the season may be (ugh, Diamondback), Luke Cage brings a much-needed original voice to the overcrowded superhero genre. Plus I maintain that there’s not a single series that wouldn’t be improved by a guest appearance from Rosario Dawson’s Claire Temple.
15. Supergirl
What started off as a supremely uneven superhero show has grown into a delightfully empathetic female-centric genre series (which is currently doing an amazing coming-out story). For those unhappy with Zack Snyder’s gloomy version of the Man Of Steel, Supergirl offers a pitch-perfect take on Superman’s traditionally optimistic ethos.
Regrets: That any best-of list I put together is going to be inherently limited by the shows I was able to find time to watch this year. Sorry People V. O.J. Simpson, maybe I’ll get around to you next year.
Emily L. Stephens
1. The Americans
2. Lady Dynamite
3. Rectify
4. Atlanta
5. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
6. You’re The Worst
7. Better Call Saul
8. Bob’s Burgers
9. Jane The Virgin
10. Fleabag
11. Insecure
12. Search Party
13. Better Things
14. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
15. The Good Place
Kayla Kumari Upadhyaya
1. Jane The Virgin
2. Agent Carter
3. Black-ish
4. Superstore
5. The Good Place
6. Pitch
7. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
8. Outlander
9. Veep
10. BoJack Horseman
11. Insecure
12. Atlanta
13. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
14. How To Get Away With Murder
15. Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life
Scott Von Doviak
1. O.J.: Made In America
2. American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson
3. Westworld
4. The Night Of
5. Halt And Catch Fire
6. Game Of Thrones
7. Better Call Saul
8. Lady Dynamite
9. Atlanta
10. Mr. Robot
11. Veep
12. Rectify
13. Black Mirror
14. The Americans
15. Survivor: Millennials Vs. Gen X
Esther Zuckerman
1. Full Frontal With Samantha Bee
When I thought about what show to put at the top of my list, I briefly considered our winner, The People V. O.J. Simpson, and our number three, The Americans. Ultimately I couldn’t disassociate 2016 TV from 2016 politics, and that’s why I gave number one to Full Frontal With Samantha Bee. While other comedy shows flailed as they were faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency, Bee got brutal. Her voice was a salve in tough times, and I’m so excited to watch her keep fighting.
2. The Americans
3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
4. The People V. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story
5. Fleabag
6. The Crown
Far from being just porn for Anglophiles and fans of gorgeous costume dramas, The Crown is a fascinating look at a political system.
7. Veep
8. The Good Place
9. Speechless
Minnie Driver is giving one of the best performances on TV. Don’t sleep on it. The hook of this wacky family sitcom is that one of the members is special needs, but it hasn’t yet fallen into “very special episode” territory. In fact, its characters are all marked by peculiar irreverence.
10. Stranger Things
11. You’re The Worst
12. Westworld
13. Transparent
14. Catastrophe
15. Billy On The Street
You may think Billy Eichner’s hilarity solely comes from yelling at people, but you’d be wrong. The games on Billy On The Street are essentially savvy sociological experiments.
Regrets: I mainly just regret not having the time to catch up on certain shows before having to submit my selections. I watched Search Party after our submissions were due, and that would have 100 percent landed on my top 15. Luckily it ended up on the overall top 30, given that I think it’s one of the most trenchant satires of the social media age out there. I also feel bad for cutting Lady Dynamite.