Top 10 TV Shows of 2016

The Film Fan Awakens: Top 10 TV Shows 2016

                2016 is quickly coming to an end and it’s time to look back on the year as a whole, the best and the worst.  Here, I’ll go through the top ten TV shows of 2016, from Netflix pop culture takeovers to philosophical examinations of our current society.  Check out my list below and come back later this month for a look at the best and worst of movies this year.

Honorable Mentions

                This year was stuffed with quality, so I’ll start this list with some honorable mentions of shows that have been great but just barely missed the cut.

Supergirl

                Supergirl premiered on CBS last year, but after being on the verge of cancellation thanks to mixed responses critically and in ratings, the show made a gamble swap to CW, joining their established superhero lineup for season two.  This change was exactly what Supergirl needed, allowing to to embrace the fun cheesiness while still managing to create characters and stories that felt engaging and investing.  Mellissa Benoist continues to shine brightly in the lead and played well along with the established characters in the few moments of crossover.  It still suffers a bit tonally, but with some cleaning up around the edges, Supergirl could soar high into the best list next year.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

                In a political season that was divisive and hostile on all fronts, John Oliver’s HBO news commentary show managed to gain a slew of new attention with his comedic and dry approach to the election to end all elections.  His deep focus on singular stories make Last Week Tonight stand out high above his competitors in the genre and his viral hits managed to inspire deeper diving into politics by a generation that had been riddled with disinterest. Being a talk show rather than a scripted series holds it off my list in principle, but it is still a highly significant show especially in this year.

Mr. Robot

                Coming off a fantastic first season and a huge rise in popularity, Mr. Robot Season 2, had a lot to live up to.  Where the first season was a modern spy thriller, the second season was a psychological mystery, examining the shattered mental state of its lead character.  While it was still deeply engaging and well crafted, it felt profoundly less rewarding than its predecessor, relying too hard of mysterious manipulation of the viewer and not answering the questions it asked.  With a third season ahead, Mr. Robot is at a major turning point to decide what show it wants to be, but after two enjoyable seasons, I’m still along for the ride.

TOP TEN

10:

 DAREDEVIL (Season 2)

                I was one of the few viewers who were slightly underwhelmed by the first season of Daredevil, but I certainly enjoyed the Netflix superhit, which propelled the TV side of the Marvel Cinematic Unicerse to a brand new level unmet on ABC's attempts.  The second season returned even bigger breaking my expectations by introducing The Punisher as the most compelling MCU villain of the entire expanded franchise, movie or TV.  Jon Bernthal’s Punisher drives the season to its dramatic height and while the main cast is still fairly one note, the stories around them help propel them beyond the limitations they faced in the first season.  Season Two of Daredevil was a significant improvement on the first, with tense action and increased stakes all around.  The characters were more compelling and complex and Punisher manged to steal the show and deservedly earn a series of his own coming down the line. 

9:

 LUKE CAGE(Season 1)

                Netflix’s Marvel Universe strikes back with Luke Cage, the most recent entry of Netflix’s Marvel shows.  I knew nothing about Luke Cage going in, and after being only decently engaged by the NMCU until recently, I was unsure how to feel about it.  However this series managed to be the biggest tonal shift in the MCU in years, with a true dive into racial issues and divisions in our country all while being an engaging superhero story.  Mike Colter’s Luke Cage did a great job propelling and unknown character to the forefront.  The scale of the story and the low popularity of the character make this the definitive Netflix Marvel show as being a story and character that cannot be done in movie format.  It does what Netflix’s acquired properties should be doing and has revived my excitement on the NMCU for the future.

8:

BETTER CALL SAUL(Season 2)

                AMC spunoff Breaking Bad last year into a comedic drama following the early days of Saul Goodman and season two continued to deliver a high quality origin story where we ironically cheer for the good side of Jimmy McGill to win out, all while knowing that in the end, the good-hearted lawyer ends up lost by the time he meets Walter White.  This season deeply examined the relationships in Jimmy’s life, from his troubled past with his brother Chuck to his budding romance with Kim.  While the intensity of Mike’s dealings with the Salamanca’s is the most Breaking Bad-like element of the show, the relationships in Jimmy’s life are the shinning elements of this series and set it apart from its predecessor. 

7:

THIS IS US (Season 1)

                Nothing was expected for this show, with trailers that made it seem like a sappy tear-bait network drama, and in the end it pretty much was just that.  However it managed to be by far the biggest surprise of the year with truly engaging characters with driving and relatable lives.  The emotional impact of the good and the bad is profoundly relatable for the highs and the lows of life all mixing together in a blend of everything that all comes together to form who we are in the vein of the best of Parenthood that I can truly recommend for families of any type.

6:

BLACK MIRROR (Season 3)

                Black Mirror is a Science Fiction anthology series in the spirit of The Twilight Zone that deeply examines technology’s increasing role in our everyday live and society as a whole.  Originally airing for two seasons on Britain’s Channel 4, Black Mirror was acquired by Netflix to be revived for a fourth season on the streaming service, with the original creator returning as writer and producer.   As there is with any major change in network, there was a lot of fear of how Black Mirror would transition, not only from TV to streaming, but from Britain to America.  Black Mirror Season 3 turned out to deliver some of the best episodes of the entire series and grow into a bigger hit now than it had before, bringing in big name starts like Jessica Chastain to take on the stand-alone stories. From a globe-spanning social network where your online interactions determine you status to a Twitter-fueled murder mystery, Black Mirror is a sure-hit for Sci-Fi fans and is set to continue the quality in to next year.

5:

ATLANTA (Season 1)

                Donald Glover’s self-produced comedy series is another surprise new series that takes absurdist commentary to reflect the clashing of reality between a low-income struggle and bigger music dreams. Glover plays the self-defeated Earnest Marks living a poverty-stricken neighborhood of Atalanta who, in financial desperation, attempts to reconnect with his troubled cousin, a local rapper on the rise.  It feels slightly autobiographical with Donald Glover’s own musical stardom on the rise (Donald Glover is the real name of Childish Gambino, if you were wondering).  This show works best as a binge as the unraveling of its themes and confclits could feel lost at first, but it reaches it's height in the late-middle and continues on a high note to the end. Atlanta has multiple levels of enjoyment and quality from the simplistic story and comedy to the deeper level themes of absurdism and identity, which helps the show mix comedy, drama, and satire all into a balanced and consistent series that really is unlike anything else in its area.

4:

AMERICAN CRIME STORY: PEOPLE vs OJ SIMPSON

                The year was kicked off by one of the biggest shows it would receive in American Crime Story: The People vs OJ Simpson, and anthology season that told the story of the trial of OJ Simpson, from the initial murder of his ex-wife and her lover all the way through his trail to his infamously divisive verdict.  This series fantastically examines themes of racial divide and the questionable objectivity of the justice system as well as the power and struggle of stardom, including the great divide between the image of a celebrity and who they truly are.  People v. OJ managed to take the most well-known and popular trial in American history and present it in a brand new light, not only giving us a top-tier series to watch, but also sparking new conversation and interest in the trial, all in a time where the justice system and racial tensions are top issues in our country.  With compelling, type-breaking portrayals from John Travolta as Robert Shapiro and David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian plus spot-on accuracy from Sarah Polson’s Marcia Clark and Sterling K Brown’s Christopher Darden, People v OJ is the acting highlight of the year by a mile and leaves us breathlessly curious for what the second season of American Crime Story can bring.

3:

STRANGER THINGS

                Netflix gave us the other big pop culture phenomenon of the year with Stranger Things, an 80's-throwback supernatural adventure following the mysterious disappearance of a young boy and the struggles of his family and friends to find him, along with the introduction of a powerful new girl in town known only as Eleven.  The mystery and the setting are what propelled this series to greatness, giving it a classic Spielberg-age feeling as young kids in the 80’s attempt to outsmart their adult counterparts.  However the series also breaks out of that cliche a bit by having the two main adult characters be very active and intelligent parts of the story rather than just dumb parents who don't believe the silly stories.  As the mystery slowly unravels itself and the Sci-Fi elements of the series begin to take shape, the show develops from a classic kidnap story into a true Soft Sci-Fi thrill ride, complete with government cover-ups and Russian science experiments.  Although it is hard to imagine that you are reading this and have not seen Stranger Things, I highly recommend that you check this series out right now because it is every bit worth your time for 8 episodes.

2:

GAME of THRONES

                This was the riskiest season of Game of Thrones yet as it finally surpassed the source material nearly entirely and got into the territory of new reveals for viewers and readers alike. It also had to answer many questions left in the air (or lying in the snow) last season, and propel the series towards its endgame next year.  While I won’t get into spoilers here, I can say that it managed to do fantastically on both fronts.  Starting with the typical Game of Thrones buildup, this season launched into action quickly with surprising reveals and deaths all along the way as we reached a finale that is going to be hard to top for future episodes of the series.  This year’s infamous 9^th episode bomb was an action spectacle above the level of many movies that truly embodies how far television has come as a respected, funded medium of entertainment.  Above all else, this season set the stage and placed the pieces to prepare for Game of Thrones' final story, the game to end all games, and while the season answered several questions about the fate of some characters and the origins of others, it still managed to leave us gasping for more as we hopelessly embrace the long wait ahead towards the final seasons that are sure to be some of the most debate-inducing and reaction-video-fueling episodes of TV ever. 

1:

WESTWORLD

Westworld follows the struggles of humans and

robots alike who work at a futuristic theme park where rich thrill-seekers can pay to enter a massive meticulously-created Wild West, filled with life-like artificially intelligent robots there to be realistic victims of the human’s whims.  It deeply examines the themes of consciousness, free will, and the morality of technology with a major focus on the robots themselves and their constant teetering on the edge of true self-awareness along with the human technicians who attempts to stop that from happening.  This show is beyond engaging, with intriguing mystery of a hidden maze motif and a compelling examination of what life itself is and the place of technology in morality.  Westworld thrives in its timeliness with the massive popularity of increasingly-realistic video games and the introduction of affordable virtual reality on the mainstream market as well as the advances of robotics.  

                With Anthony Hopkins and Ed Harris standing out along with Evan Rachel Wood and Thandie Newton as surprise stars, along with deep rooted hard Sci-Fi themes and compelling mystery, Westworld was HBO’s attempt to make Sci-Fi cool, and they truly pulled it off.  The questions Westworld asks are not simply hypotheticals; they are questions we will have to ask ourselves as a species going forward.  And this show may be the spark that the mainstream viewer needs to being to question these elements of our lives and open a conversation that was reserved for the deepest tech geeks only a few yearss ago.  While I may have enjoyed Game of Thrones more this year, Westworld is the must watch show of the year for deep thinkers and thrill seekers alike, and has the potential to change television in the same way that Game of Thrones did years ago, and after this first season, it might have done just that.

                So there is our year in TV.  From gritty court dramas to 80's monster thrillers, 2016 was a great year for television.  What did I miss?  Have you checked out any of the shows on this list?  Let me know what you think on the comments here, on on social media on Facebook or Twitter.  Check back here next week for my worst and best of movies as well as what TV and film you should be looking forward to next year.

                 I'm Tristan Mayer, this is The Film Fan Awakens and keep up the binge, onward, into 2017.   

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