The 20 Best TV Shows Of 2016: O.J. Simpson, Samantha Bee, And More
Our keyboard is soaked with tears from the dozens of reveals we lost while winnowing this list down to the 20 most entertaining, most important, most transporting Tv reveals of 2016. Enjoy! “>
We tend to complain a great deal about Tv these days. Too much Tv! Too many choices! Too expensive! Or, in the case of the 467 minutes of O.J .: Made in America, perhaps: Too long!
But never before has a single medium pushed the boundaries of creative aspiration, been so essential to the challenging social norms, played such a crucial role in politics, pushed standards of inclusion in storytelling, and built us laugh, exclaim, and, more simply, wonder. So lets celebrate!
These lists ask us to compare television apples and orangesa revival series resurrecting the zippy banter of a mom and a daughter to the maze-meandering psychodrama or an Old West robot theme parkmaking the resulting rankings resemble somewhat of a Tv fruit basket, and one not nearly big enough to hold the years impressive bounty.
There are shows that were as strong as theyve ever beenYoure the Worst, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Orange Is the New Black, Game of Thrones, black-ish, Casual, Bojack Horsemanthat were sacrificed for no other reason than I thought itd be nice to include some fresher blood this year, although a list of Best Episodes of the year would likely include entries from many of those series.
There were great moments in late-nightspecifically from Seth Meyers, James Corden, and Saturday Night Livethat Id have loved to include if there was room. There was a live Tv musical that I loved, and a glut of spectacular freshman slapsticks, fronted by women in particular, that would merit their own list: Divorce, One Mississippi, Fleabag, Speechless, The Good Place
All of this, plus the embarrassing reality that, on any devoted night we might find ourselves binging episodes of The Great British Bake-Off, Chopped, or reruns of Sex and the City instead of dutifully maintaining up to speed on Homeland, Shameless, or The Crown, which we swear well finish soon.
So it is with bloodshot eyes and a handful of bedsores that we present to you our list of Best Shows of 2016. There were over 400 reveals on Tv last year. Suffice it to say that our taste might not jibe with yours. Thats OK. But we watch a lot of Tv and this is what we think.
The simplest thing a good reveal needs to do is often the hardest: only entertain. Gauging by its full-throttle dominance of the zeitgeist, few reveals executed that basic mandate more successfully than Stranger Things. Creators the Duffer Brother built a painstaking( though blissful, for us) homage to 80 s cinema and sci-fi paranoia, eliciting E.T ., Poltergeist, Alien, Jaws, Gremlins, and even Heathers while creeping out a nation of Tv fans. That, and it brought on a revival of Winona Ryder adoration and introduced us to a brood of preternaturally talented child performers plus Emmy Rossums twin.
Queen Sugar, Ava DuVernays Louisiana soap opera produced with Oprah Winfrey, wasnt so much a slow-burner as a slow-scorcher, least of which because of the fire it set to industry standards. DuVernay inhabited the series with a casting of fresh talent, all actors of color, Hollywood had ignored, and each episode is directed by a woman of color primed for a big break. Criminal justice, rape culture, and the tapestry of black family are explored with DuVernays deliberate pacing, ultimately giving the rich, meditative story therapy to black, Southern life that has typically been set aside for brooding white guys. The impact of a reveal like this is hugehelped by the fact that its so engrossing, too.
Part game show, proportion stand-up slapstick, proportion searing culture commentary, Billy on the Street is sorely underappreciated. Sure, people find it funny. They love it when that gregarious Billy Eichner hollers at all the people. So loud, that one! And the celebrity guests, giddy to be galloping through the street of New York surprising unsuspecting strangers, are a hoot. But underlying all of this is the most stinging satire of pop culture, fame, and sociopolitical pretention that you can buy for a dollar. Its a game-show gag assault thats one of TVs biggest laugh riots, but one that should also be taken seriously.
The anthology series standalone episodes arent so much horror allegories as they are premonitionswarnings, reallyagainst the rise of technology at the expense of human modesty. A Twilight Zone for the Digital Age, as The New Yorker lately labeled it. This season featured San Junipero, which created the years rawest love story in a virtual reality simulation. And then there was Nose dive, which put on blaring, frightening showing the repercussions of a culture reliant on likes and Yelp-like reviews, with the assistance of Bryce Dallas Howard giving the years wildest dramatic performance.
The 20 Best TV Shows Of 2016: O.J. Simpson, Samantha Bee, And More
The 20 Best TV Shows Of 2016: O.J. Simpson, Samantha Bee, And More
The 20 Best TV Shows Of 2016: O.J. Simpson, Samantha Bee, And More
The 20 Best TV Shows Of 2016: O.J. Simpson, Samantha Bee, And More
The 20 Best TV Shows Of 2016: O.J. Simpson, Samantha Bee, And More