Top Best TV Shows

We're just a few months into the year, but that never stopped the TV networks (or streaming giants) from churning out quality shows for us to binge....
From compelling documentary series, revamped versions of classic favorites, or the continued off-the-wall brilliance of Donald Glover's creative reign, this year's television offerings prove that it'll take a lot of work to clear our DVRs—and our streaming queues.

 

9. Queer Eye

More than a decade after its original run, Queer Eye returned to television to take eight every day men and revamp their lives. With five new experts tackling the areas of food, grooming, design, fashion, and culture, the Bravo cult-series found new life and a new, rabid audience on Netflix (not long after the first eight episodes became available for streaming, the reboot was renewed for a second season). The first season follows the new Fab Five across Georgia as they makeover everyone from a pastor to a NASCAR enthusiast. Though the show has definitely adapted to a new generation and political climate, the core of the show remains the same: Everyone can come together and agree that cargo shorts are not the answer.

 

8. The Good Place

Without revealing the Season One finale’s mind-blowing plot twist (and subsequent cliffhanger), Good Place fans could have been easily nervous about how the cerebral comedy’s writing team would keep the momentum going in its second season. Luckily, creator Michael Schur and his team proved they had plenty of tricks up their sleeves. The result was an equal match to the show’s debut season, with the next 13 chapters delving into heavy logical conundrums that felt less like Philosophy 101 homework and more like the most clever (and funniest) brain teasers one could conjure up.

 

7. High Maintenance

 

While the first season the web-series-turned-TV-show closely followed its small-scale predecessor, linking together the tales of various New Yorkers who were all linked by their weed dealer known simply as The Guy, the second season of HBO’s comedy series made the character more of a central figurer. This shift was a narrative departure from the previous episodes, both because the co-creators Ben Sinclair (who plays The Guy) and Katja Blichfeld ended their romantic relationship and brought in more writers to craft the storylines. What results is a similarly genius look at the lives of everyday city dwellers, but the show also gives some human insight into The Guy that made him less of an omniscient drug dealer and more of a person.

6. The Good Fight

 

 The Good Fight has always been willing to tackle an uphill battle. Before anyone was willing to make any sure bets on CBS All Access, it became one of the first scripted shows to appear on the streaming service. After a successful first season, it’s returned to take on a new narrative challenge: work on very specific plot points associated with our reality. While other shows test the waters with discussions about race and politics, The Good Fight dives in directly and convincingly enough that it doesn’t feel like a trope. Even as the series works to impeach President Donald Trump (why cast drama if it’s already been cast for you?), you believe in the story because the showrunners know exactly where it’s going.

 

5. Wild Wild Country

 

 At a time when we’re fascinated with reexamining how the media and our government reacted to some of the biggest scandals of the ‘80s and ‘90s (think O.J., Tonya Harding, etc), Wild Wild Country does much more than deliver the juicy footage of a notorious sex cult. It uses the community of Rajneeshpuram as a case study for examining the effects of xenophobia in this country. When a religious group relocates to a small Oregon town, the locals’ reluctance to accept the robed foreigners into their community eventually explodes into an international conflict involving plotted assassinations, bombings, and bioterror attacks. Most millennials who come across Wild Wild Country on Netflix might have trouble believing any of this happened at all.

 

4. Barry

 

 Barry’s premise—in which Bill Hader’s titular hitman decides to change career paths and become an actor—sounds like excellent fodder for some slapstick silliness. One could picture this being a ridiculous SNL sketch, bringing the absurdity of Laser Cats or Stefon. But Barry is much more than that. At its heart, the show is about a veteran suffering from PTSD looking for something that makes him feel. Rather than play the goofball, Hader is more the straight man—a broken soldier wandering around in sort of a shell shock. Surprisingly, Hader allows his brilliant supporting cast of Sarah Goldberg, Henry Winkler, Stephen Root, and Anthony Carrigan to get most of the laughs. It’s one of few 30-minute comedies that can pack emotion, surprises, and hilarity into such a short period of time.

 

3. Killing Eve

 

 “You should never tell a psychopath that you’re a psychopath. It upsets them,” says the psychopathic half of BBC America’s new anti-buddy-cop drama. The eight-episode first season, which kicked off in early April, follows MI5 agent Eve (Sandra Oh) and psychopathic assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer) in a cat and mouse game across the world. With neither women having much they’re worried about losing, they become obsessed with each other, resulting in deadpan (and sometimes disturbing) comic moments that wrangles you in. Showing so much promise that it’s already been renewed for a second season, Killing Eve is worth it just to watch Oh and Comer bat back and forth at each other—and, of course, to see if they’re able to survive it.

 

2. The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

 

 

The first season of American Crime Story set an impossibly high bar for later editions of Ryan Murphy’s latest anthology series. While The Assassination of Gianni Versace seemed like the perfect follow up to The People v. O.J. Simpson, the former never quite lived up the hype of the latter. That is essentially a shame—and perhaps its misleading title is to blame. While the 1997 murder of the Italian fashion designer does kick off the season, it’s hardly its focus; instead, serial killer Andrew Cunanan is the leading player as the show follows him on his three-month murder spree across the United States. Darren Criss delivers a phenomenally unhinged performance as Cunanan, bringing humanity to the sociopathic character who left behind little explanation of his motives.

 

1. Atlanta

 

After earning two Golden Globes and two Emmys for its first season, Donald Glover had both credibility and a lot to live up to going into the second season of Atlanta. Yet, if anything, that critical acclaim gave Glover even more freedom to create. The groundwork he laid in Season One was only a foundation to the boundaries he was willing to push. From a 45-minute horror short inspired by Michael Jackson with Glover in whiteface, to a reinvention of Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” to an absolutely spot-on critique of the lame white millennial, Glover’s Atlanta continues to start conversations around race, identity, poverty, and popular culture in ways that have never been done before.
 

April 21, 2018