THE 20 BEST TV SHOWS OF 2017
With so many TV shows clamoring for attention these days, you almost need special powers to separate the truly great from the supremely mediocre. Or you could just bookmark this list.
To be eligible for this list, a series needs to be 1) a scripted episodic program that made its American debut or began a new season during 2017, 2) at least three episodes into its current season, and 3) absolutely enjoyable to watch.
To find out which shows have made the cut so far this year, and to see a photo of Tom Hardy gazing at a horse, read on.
20. Younger (TV Land)
Season 4. 12 episodes.
If a new episode of Younger — the ongoing saga of a 40-something divorceé who fibs about her age to land a job in the publishing industry — were on every single night of the year, life would be much better.
19. American Gods (Starz)
Season 1. 8 episodes.
Adapting Neil Gaiman’s work has never been easy, but this supremely weird, bloody, and inventive attempt has succeeded wildly so far.
18. Curb Your Enthusiasm (HBO)
Season 9. 10 episodes.
It’s no mystery what this long-awaited season is about: Larry David’s many, many neuroses and opinions vis a vis his daily interaction with other humans.
17. BoJack Horseman (Netflix)
Season 4. 10 episodes.
Somehow, the animated travails of a depressive and chronically sarcastic equine actor (voiced by Will Arnett) and his stable (sorry) of both human and talking-animal pals has built into one of the most affecting, inventive shows coming out of that town they call Hollywoo.
16. Great News (NBC)
Season 1. 10 episodes.
It’s fitting that one of the funniest network comedies to arrive since 30 Rock left the air is executive-produced by Tina Fey. Great News, which stars Briga Heelan as a Liz Lemon-esque producer dealing with the buffoons and egomaniacs working at a cable news show, offers up actual belly laughs, thanks to next-level work by John Michael Higgins as a blustery anchor who’d make Ted Baxter look humble.
15. Billions (Showtime)
Season 2. 12 episodes.
Who is the hunter and who is the hunted? Paul Giamatti’s U.S. Attorney and Damian Lewis’s cocky hedge-fund guru have spent two intense seasons answering that important question, and we still don’t have the definitive answer. But we do have some amazing shots of them eating, as well as a legitimately complex and surprisingly quirky examination of obsession and avarice.
14. Dear White People (Netflix)
Season 1. 10 episodes.
Prediction: you will blow through Justin Simien’s legitimately funny and knowingly woke adaptation of his 2014 movie about social politics at a predominantly white college in a single sitting.
13. Star Trek: Discovery (CBS All-Access)
Season 1. 9 episodes.
More like the recent Star Trek movies than the previous television entries in the franchise, this energetic attempt takes place roughly a decade prior to the events depicted in the original series and focuses primarily on the Federation’s war with the Klingons.
FX12. Taboo (FX)
Season 1. 8 episodes.
Bona fide movie star Tom Hardy stops by FX to play James Delaney, a top-hat-wearing shipwreck survivor who’s determined to thwart the many Londoners seeking to steal his inheritance circa 1814. The actor’s relentlessly intense performanceelevates a show that intertwines maritime trade, the War of 1812, and incest into a cracking yarn. Binge it immediately — the top-hat industry demands it.
11. The Good Place (NBC)
Season 2. 8 episodes.
Four deceased individuals try to avoid going to Hell for all eternity by gaming the afterlife, with the help of a disgraced immortal played by Ted Danson.
10. Stranger Things (Netflix)
Season 2. 9 episodes.
Obviously, I would have preferred to rank this series — which ups the stakes in Season 2 with demon dogs and a bully from California who drives a Camaro — 11. Fail.
9. Game of Thrones (HBO)
Season 7. 7 episodes.
As GoT fans know, the night is dark and full of terrors, and that’s entirely because this epic adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s fantasy series about the never-ending jockeying for an incredibly uncomfortable seat made out of swords, is winding down. No amount of theorizing or shipping is going to change the fact that the show isn’t likely to return for its final season until 2019.
8. American Vandal (Netflix)
Season 1. 8 episodes.
“Who drew the dicks?” is the very important question at the center of this true-crime parody series told in the style of Making a Murderer and Serial. The docu-drama is executed so well that you might forget it’s not about someone claiming to be wrongfully accused of killing someone but instead it’s about a SoCal high-school stoner goofball (played by Jimmy Tatro) claiming to be wrongfully accused of spray-painting phalluses on teachers’ vehicles. Season 2 can’t arrive quickly enough.
7. Silicon Valley (HBO)
Season 4. 10 episodes.
The boys from Pied Piper made it through another season of tech-y shenanigans, dank putdowns, and hot dog-identifying apps. This show may be classified as “not hot dog,” but savvy comedy-seekers know that it’s worth scarfing down anyhow.
6. Mindhunter (Netflix)
Season 1. 10 episodes.
If you like David Fincher’s Zodiac, you will love this new series from executive producer David Fincher (who also directs four episodes) about the FBI’s early forays into criminal profiling of serial killers.
5. Difficult People (Hulu)
Season 3. 10 episodes.
The bitchiest comedy on TV right now, and possibly ever, Difficult People — created by Julie Klausner and starring herself and Billy Eichner as pre-fame versions of themselves — is your best source for prescient one-liners about Kevin Spacey (“His hand shot up faster than Kevin Spacey’s fly at the opening of Newsies.”), obscure pop-culture references (“What do you think John Landis’ worst contribution to society is: his alleged manslaughter or his son, Max?”), and snort-inducing burns (“Ever since Trump replaced the Department of Health with Jenny McCarthy’s blog, nothing makes sense.”).
4. The Leftovers (HBO)
HBO. 8 episodes.
If you’re the type of person who said they’d never forgive the people responsible for the ending of Lost but you haven’t watched The Leftovers yet, please get on that immediately so that you’ll finally let Damon Lindelof — one of the co-writers of that much-reviled 2010 finale who co-created this continually surprising HBO series about the sudden disappearance of 2% of the Earth’s population (and who also co-wrote its immensely satisfying series finale) — off the hook.
3. Better Call Saul (AMC)
Season 3. 10 episodes.
The action’s inching ever closer toward the events depicted in Breaking Bad‘s first season, what with the arrival of Gus Fring into Jimmy McGill’s life this season. But Better Call Saul is so much more than a mere spin-off. Few shows depict sibling rivalry as affectingly, and each new interaction between Chuck McGill (Michael McKean) and the man also known as Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) is sadder than the last.
2. The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu)
Season 1. 10 episodes.
This timely adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel — about an oppressive religious cult that comes to power in America and enslaves fertile women to breed for its sterile elite class — stars Elisabeth Moss and deservedly won a bajillion Emmys.
1. Twin Peaks: The Return (Showtime)
Limited event series. 18 episodes.
Mark Frost and David Lynch’s beautiful, brain-bending revival of their iconic early ’90s series about an investigation into the slaying of teenage girl in a quirky Pacific Northwest town is so far ahead of everything else on this list, it’s like Secretariat at the Belmont Stakes. Not that Lynch, who directed every episode and considers Twin Peaks: The Return to be a movie told in 18 parts, is concerned with that. The limited series, like much of the director’s work, is designed to challenge your assumptions, and requires you to approach it with an open mind and a tacit acceptance that some questions aren’t meant to be answered. That’s not to say this is esoteric nonsense. The story, set some 25 years after FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle Maclachlan) gets trapped in the metaphysical prison known as the Black Lodge and replaced in the real world by the aforementioned ne’er-do-well doppelgänger (also played by Maclachlan), bounces deftly between mysterious events happening primarily in three different locations, but it’s all built around the real Cooper’s bizarre odyssey to return to the real world. Drink full, and descend.
