Top Ten Shows of 2010

I saw more good television this year than a standard Time Warner DVR can actually hold. (Curses, Time Warner!) The number of shows that almost made this list is about as long as the list itself and I was shocked at what didn't crack the Top Ten. (Seriously, there are ten shows I consider better than Modern Family? Apparently so.) Thanks to the exponential growth in the number of original series on cable, we're no longer stuck with network fare, most of which--this season at least--is frustratingly safe and formulaic even when it succeeds.

Cable introduced or developed several unforgettable characters this year, though it sounds downright inaccurate to call it the "Year of the Antihero"--Tony Soprano and Vic Mackey set the mold for that modern archetype at the turn of the millennium. But the complexities that made those two men so fascinating has trickled down into both dramas and comedies, and we're left with some of the most imaginative and unapologetically theme-driven work on television.


A quick run-though of excellent shows that didn't make the cut: Better Off Ted (Somebody please give Victor Fresco a hit show); Burn Notice (a show that consistently reminds us how much fun a one-hour can and should be); Community (some time in October it eclipsed 30 Rock as the best show on NBC's new Thursday night line-up); Eastbound and Down (so much anger, so much unexpected heart); Friday Night Lights (always stunning, but the fifth season is feeling a litte... tired); Greek (one of the funniest, bounciest shows cable has to offer); In Treatment (Debra Winger is the greatest actress alive, if you're interested); Modern Family (consistently gets laughs from characters and set-ups that are both fresh and traditional); Party Down (another cancelled-too-soon comedy with a pitch-perfect ensemble); Survivor: Heroes vs. Villians (one of the best editions of reality's gold-standard game) and Top Chef (although All Stars Edition will almost definitely be on the list next year).

10. SOUTHLAND
A cop show that's actually about the life of cops, not how they solve cases. Southland follows them on the job, watches them scowl through their grimy windshields and question witnesses with alternating compassion and reluctance. It goes home with them, into the kitchens and bedrooms where brittle marriages crumble and loneliness breeds addiction. It makes no promises about clear answers and it sure as hell doesn't promise any happy endings. But Southland--which TNT wisely picked up when NBC canceled it to make room for Leno--involves you so deeply in the up-and-down lives of its characters that I found myself caring about every beautifully-crafted storyline, each one anchored by a bravura performance.


9. ARCHER
Archer, FX's irreverant comedy, is the (only slightly) less eccentric sister of Adam Reed's also-fantastic Frisky Dingo. With its unique computer-animated pen 'n' ink look, Archer seems like it was adapted from some demented comic strip that came with cheap bubble gum, but these tricks are not for kids. Archer is a James Bond that milks his James Bondness for all it's worth--he's oversexualized, hyperviolent, and sociopathically aloof. And, oh, the mother issues. Archer brilliantly layers in call-backs and inside jokes while providing machine-gun blasts of comedy both situational and verbal. It's not just the sister of Frisky Dingo, it's the punk grandchild of Arrested Development.


8. JUSTIFIED
U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) is pure badass. And Justified could simply rely on that, but it'd rather complicate him with a beautiful ex-wife, an equally beautiful (kind-of) girlfriend, and a scum-of-the-earth backwoods Pa whose abuse made Raylan so damn badass in the first place. Halfway through the first season, the show abandoned its fugitive-of-the-week formula and dove into Raylan's Kentucky-bred emotional scars while he used every muscle in his body--but mostly his trigger finger--to bring down the meanest meth-cookin' family in the Bluegrass State. It's one of the first times I've ever really bought Timothy Olyphant in a role, but as Raylan, he's steely without sacrificing his charisma. And Walton Goggins, as the maybe-reformed Boyd Crowder, gave the most underappreciated supporting performance of the year. Again.


7. THE GOOD WIFE
A big, network, by-the-books procedural can still be done beautifully and The Good Wife is the cleverest of the bunch. Julianna Marguilles quietly underplays Alicia Florrick; she's a calm lionness, addicted to the law's rules and logic after her husband's public betrayal. The Good Wife also lets its case-of-the-week and its rich, serialized B stories bleed into one another, turning every relationship on the show into a narratively crucial bond. It asks open-ended questions about morality without ever seeming leading and it argues both sides without ever seeming patronizing. It occasionally makes big leaps of logic, but it's always for the sake of showing how much modern politics have become a circus sideshow. And one of its greatest riches? It has a treasure trove of strong, female characters without ever making a big deal about it. So they're women? So what, who cares?


6. RUBICON
Three Days of the Condor should have been a TV series. And Jason Horwitch figured that out. Rubicon had a bright, urban coldness to its look that reminded me of Sydney Pollack's best films. Except that this time, the characters had cell phones. (Though, to be fair, Rubicon used modern technology sparingly. The characters' own brains found the patterns and deciphered the clues.) Rubicon followed Will Travers and his underling analysts as they picked apart a terror threat. But the terror threat may be part of a bigger conspiracy (of course it is) that might be related to Will's bosses (of course it is). Rubicon got the feel of office politics and mindless busy work just right and it consistently raised the stakes with intriguing twists that always felt earned, never cheap. I wish the four-leaf clover motif would have brought it better luck, ratings-wise.


5. NURSE JACKIE
I still don't know if it's a drama or a comedy, but I'll never call it a dramedy. Let's call it a half-hour character study, in which Edie Falco's Jackie Peyton tenuously balances her extramarital affair, her high-strung young daughter, and her expensive pill addiction. Oh, and the many patients she treats, the only people in her life to whom she shows sympathy. Everything hinges on Jackie's many deceptions and the lies that snowball from episode to episode, building the tension but keeping the scenes intimate. Merritt Weaver's perky, fidning-her-strength nurse and Peter Facinelli's cocky doctor added several moments of pure, bombastic humor, but Jackie's quirky characters have hearts full of angst and it's satisfying to watch them bleed.


4. PARKS & RECREATION
A show about public works that really works. (Zing!) Amy Poehler is infectiously charming as Leslie Knope, the idealistic director of the Pawnee Parks Department. And although the excellent supporting cast (special nod to Nick Offerman) and guest stars bounced their cynicism, hopelessness, and, well, rationality off of her all season long, she wore optimism as a suit of armor. In an age in which so much comedy comes from sarcastic one-liners and too too much, Parks and Recreation, in the second half of its second season, is courageously sunny. It comfortably settled into the relationships of its characters and provided just the right kind of highjinks to test and stengthen them. It's also, easily, the most lovable cast on television, and I eagerly await its too-delayed January return.


3. MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE
Who would have predicted this as Ray Romano's second act? "This" being a wry, reflective one-hour about everyday men with real problems (awkward divorces, strained relationships with parents and children, getting reading glasses) who achieve small victories. Andre Braugher is excellent as Owen, a car salesman who worries that his father is as disappointed in him as he is in himself. Scott Bakula is perfectly cast as Terry, an aging actor who sets the bar so low for himself that he always feels at ease. Ray Romano shows more subtlety and depth of emotion than you would guess as Joe, an aspiring pro golfer whose marriage fell apart when he gambled with their savings. For a look at how great this series can be, check out the last act of the episode "Powerless" and watch the scene in which Joe sits in the car with his daughter's ex-boyfriend outside of the house Joe used to inhabit, and they ruminate on just how much it hurts sometimes. It's finely-crafted, heartbreaking work.



2. MAD MEN
AMC, you make it so hard to choose! I went back and forth about what my favorite show of the year was. You missed it by only a single slicked-backed hair, Mad Men. Season 4--perhaps my favorite season yet--amped up the turmoil by filling SCDP's hallways with mild desperation. It stuck to its base metaphor--we are all faulty products disguising ourselves as advertisements; Dick: product / Don: advertisement--while dragging Don through one emotional low point after another. As often as he made the wrong decisions, losing his weekends to alcohol and one-night stands, I rooted for him to be a better man. And so those moments in which refused another drink felt just as victorious to us as it did to Don himself. Meanwhile, the office life popped with timely politics this season and the home lives were marked with deep senses of loss (absent fathers, dying mentors and stalwarts, husbands in Vietnam). So yeah, it was bleak. But bleak can be honest, and when Mad Men provides hours of such high quality as "The Suitcase"--the single best episode of television this year--bleakness is worth it.


1. BREAKING BAD
And so, the crown remains firmly on the king's head for one more year. (Yes, topping my personal "Best TV" list is just like inheriting a monarch's throne.) Breaking Bad plays like Quinten Tarantino's version of Arthur Miller: it's raw, chilling, and consistently edge-of-your-seat absorbing (and gorgeously photographed). Walter White's tortured rise through the meth-cooking ranks in season 3 only made him more enemies, each with their own nastily violent strategy. The ax-wielding twins who kick off the season's opening scene--most. ominous. scene. ever.--were only one element in the colorful, haunting, high-stakes world into which Walter has inserted himself. But he hasn't only inserted himself, he's one of its creators. Walter--played by rightful three-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston--is the ultimate ends-justify-the-means mastermind, a man deeply in denial about the loose moral code he's adopted and what he's actually willing to do to anyone who gets in his way. The very people he's fighting for, his fragmented family, have started to feel the pull of the meth business's darkness and Walter's strained relationship with apprentice Jesse (Emmy winner Aaron Paul) produced wrenching emotional moments of regret and reunion. Action, suspense, family drama, dark comedy--Breaking Bad toggles between them effortlessly and it always left me breathless.



I now open the floor to your judgments.

Past lists:
Best TV of 2009
Best TV of 2008
Best TV of 2007

Twitter!