With an admirable disregard for genre conventions, last year gave us some fine shows to watch. Here are our picks for the best TV shows of 2018.
A spin-off, sort of, from the Good Wife, this show carries itself equally well, with smart writing, great acting, a fine eye on directorial refinement, great design, and clean edits. It’s funny when it wants to be, serious about things that matter, and always on point.
Firmly putting Donald Glover on the map, Atlanta has had priase heaped upon it from critics and viewers alike. On Metacritic, it rated 90 on its first season, and rather than suffer a sophomore slump, Atlanta absolutely killed it with a 97 rating. Miss it at your own peril!
Created by Joseph Weisberg, The Americans was a great show that concluded in 2018 after 6 incredible seasons. Philip and Elizabeth Jennings are an average-looking American couple back in the 1980’s. They have two kids, Henry and Paige. They’re also fully operative Russian agents operating in America during the Cold War. The show is as much an espionage drama as it is a family drama. Trust us, it’s good.
Unless you’ve been buried under a rock you’ve already heard of this, or you’ve already seen it! Margaret Atwood’s dystopian tale of an America under the rule of a totalitarian theonomy (look it up yourself – ed) has been making headlines for two years and for good reason. Elizabeth Moss fires on all cylinders and the art direction, costumes, and sets are sumptuous. Friendly advice: keep napkins nearby.
Killing Eve
Based on the Villanelle novellas by Luke Jennings, and brought to life by BBC America, Killing Eve stars Jodie Charmer as an assassin wunderkind being chased down by security operative Eve, played by Sandra Oh. Much like its main assassin kills, the show is svelte and smart, and did we mention that the soundtrack almost always rocks? You’ll notice it sometime after you’ve seen the montage featuring Unloved’s ‘When A Woman Is Around’!
A 1973 movie about robot cowboys killing visitors at an amusement park remade by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy for HBO in 2016. The show features Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton, Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, (and, incredibly enough, references to Juliah Jaynes – who we’ve previously talked about here), and the high end production values and sensibilities that we’ve come to expect from the same network that gave us Game of Thrones.
Taking place in a timeline in which the allies lost World War 2, The Man in the High Castle won Sci-Fi author Philip K. Dick the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963. Unlike most alternative world fiction, the characters in PKD’s world find out about our own. With a great idea lending itself to truly iconic visuals (one of the early teasers pulled up from the feet of the Lincoln Memorial, only to reveal it was now one of Hitler…), The Man in The High Castle is one of the best things we’ve gotten from Amazon Prime Video.
Another great show from HBO, Barry really does live in its own darkly quirky universe. Barry is a hit-man who follows a mark into an acting class. He likes the class, likes the other students and decides he doesn’t want to a hit-man anymore. Complications, as they say, ensue. It’s low-key, but there’s really nothing else out there that’s like this.
Despite losing T.J. Miller whose character, Erlich Bachman, was one of the highlights of the show, Silicon Valley landed on its feet and did not lose a beat. The show, about a tech startup in Silicon Valley is geekiness at its finest, not to be confused with pretend-geeks that go Bang.
Howard Silk (J.K. Simmons) is pretty regular guy, small time employee in a large agency that he does not fully understand. In fact, his agency is a multi-national organization that controls the crossing point between our Earth and another. The other Earth diverged from ours in 1987 and Silk’s counterpart from the other side is a very different man.
GLOW, Maniac, You, Kidding.
