The 25 Best TV Shows of 2017

Photo credit: Showtime/Hulu/Amazon/Netflix/HBO
Photo credit: Showtime/Hulu/Amazon/Netflix/HBO

From Esquire

The years come and go, but TV stays with us. As we march forward in this continued Peak TV era, however, it's tough to find the shows worth watching. Plenty of series get a lot of buzz, but they often peter out. Sometimes, a second season can make all the different. The year in television offered us some surprises - the return of old favorites, A-list film actors making the jump to the small screen, and the continued dominance of the streaming giants. It also brought some great new shows with compelling storylines that spoke to our current times. Here are the best TV shows of 2017.

Photo credit: The CW
Photo credit: The CW

25. Riverdale

What would you get if you crossed Gossip Girl and Twin Peaks? The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is a teenage soap based on the Archie comic books. You don't need to be a fan of the source material to enjoy the CW's moody melodrama (although having some background knowledge of the original Riverdale characters certainly adds something to the ridiculous nature of the show). But you do have to have a taste for scheming cheerleaders, precocious fashionistas, and brooding adolescent sleuths trying to solve a murder mystery and uncover the dark truths of their sleepy little town. And in case you need it totally spelled out for you: This Archie fucks. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: HBO
Photo credit: HBO

24. Girls

For better or worse, Lena Dunham's caustic yet heartfelt millennial comedy Girls is often credited as the genesis of "think-piece culture," and the commentary around the show has sometimes threatened to overshadow its sharp, raw, often surreal portrayal of twenty-something soul-searching. But Girls has never felt more confident or bold than in this sixth and final season, which paired rich and surprising character development with formal experimentation. Take the stellar two-hander in which Dunham's Hannah faces off with a famous writer accused of sexual assault, or the episode spotlighting Elijah (Andrew Rannells), who needs his own spinoff ASAP. After six polarizing yet entertaining years, Girls went out on a characteristically bittersweet high. - Emma Dibdin


Photo credit: FX
Photo credit: FX

23. Feud: Bette and Joan

Ryan Murphy's latest anthology series put a focus on famous rivalries in modern history, and while it doesn't have the urgency of The People v. O. J. Simpson: American Crime Story or the campy batshit insanity any of the American Horror Story seasons, Feud: Bette and Joan does deliver on star wattage alone. As Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, respectively, Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange deliver incredible performances with only a touch of impersonation. But the series' greatest achievement is how it elevated its one-note True Hollywood Story premise into a larger examination of sexism in Hollywood and how men often manipulate the women beneath them into battling each other for their attention. (Also, props to its impressive supporting cast, including Stanley Tucci, Aflred Molina, Jackie Hoffman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Kathy Bates.) - Tyler Coates

Photo credit: HBO
Photo credit: HBO

22. Game of Thrones

Maybe not in terms of number of episodes, but in scope and action Game of Thrones delivered its biggest season this year. And that’s to be expected, given it has become one a cultural phenomenon. With a number of beautifully shot fight scenes worthy of the big screen to small detailed and nuanced performances like Nikolaj Coster-Waldau’s Jaime Lannister, Lena Headey’s Cersei Lannister, and Aidan Gillen’s Petyr Baelish, the show delivered on both a macro and micro scale. And speaking of delivering, this season finally resolved some of the biggest fan theories, like the revelation that Jon Snow and Daenerys are both Targaryens. At long last, the show gave fans what they wanted rather just killing off their heroes. Now the wait begins for that final season. - Matt Miller


Photo credit: Showtime
Photo credit: Showtime

21. American Gods

Any show that depicted a man vanishing into the vagina of a goddess in the first 20 minutes of its plot is obviously not going to be your typical new series. If anything, American Gods continued to get weirder and more visually stunning from there. It's a dense show, but it's also vastly rewarding as long as you're willing to put in the effort to follow along. American Gods is at once a faithful adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 2001 masterpiece while providing a worthwhile update to the themes and content for 2017. The series' creators Bryan Fuller and Michael Green have an imagination to match Gaiman's while making what might be one of the most visually engaging shows of the year. - Matt Miller


Photo credit: CBS
Photo credit: CBS

20. The Good Fight

The Good Wife ended its seven-season run last spring, leaving open a woeful absence of a smart, ripped-from-the-headlines legal procedural with a strong feminist slant. Luckily, less than a year later, The Good Wife co-creators Robert and Michelle King debuted their spin-off series The Good Fight, bringing back Christine Baranski in the leading role of Diane Lockhart (as well as the brilliant Cush Jumbo as Lucca Quinn). And if you're looking for urgent, of-the-moment storylines, look no further to the pilot, "Inauguration," which sees Diane watching with stunned fury as Donald Trump becomes the President of the United States. The show aired on CBS All Access - the network's streaming-only option - which allowed the series to push more boundaries and resemble a prestige cable series (but on an impressive network budget). - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: FX
Photo credit: FX

19. Legion

In a time when television and movie theaters are saturated with superheroes, it's almost impossible - almost a death sentence - to mess with the game-winning formula. With Legion, FX could have produced the same Marvel comic book story that has been an easy money grab everywhere else. But creator Noah Hawley not only made something different within the genre, he made a groundbreaking story altogether. Legion is a superhero origin story the likes of which have never been told in this medium before. It dealt with mental health, vulnerability, failure, family, loyalty, substance abuse, and defeat in a nonlinear manner. It was challenging in meta ways that are usually better off in surrealist art projects rather than a popcorn X-Men-adjacent program. - Matt Miller


Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

18. The Punisher

After the widely-derided fiasco that was Iron Fist and the humdrum fan service of The Defenders, the Marvel-Netflix universe needed a win to round out 2017. Having already proven himself a rich supporting character in the second season of Daredevil, Jon Bernthal’s grieving vigilante Frank Castle spun off into a compelling and emotionally satisfying solo series. Chronicling Castle’s efforts to avenge the murders of his wife and children, The Punisher is as much a horror story about the American military as a superhero narrative, and benefitted both from the sharp writing of showrunner Steven Lightfoot (Hannibal) and a strong roster of supporting players behind Bernthal’s soulful lead performance. - Emma Dibdin


Photo credit: NBC
Photo credit: NBC

17. Will & Grace

I was admittedly dubious when NBC announced that the reboot of the long-running sitcom that pushed a lot of boundaries and brought a lot of visibility for the LGBT community when it originally debuted in 1998. Nearly 20 years later, how the hell would an old-fashioned multi-camera sitcom be as possibly relevant today? A clunky season premiere notwithstanding, the Will & Grace reboot has pleasantly surprised me by not conforming too hard to a Prestige TV era. The multi-cam format surprisingly worked in 2017 thanks to seasoned director James Burrows’ sharp eye, and the writing team consistently delivered brilliantly acidic scripts that feel timely and fresh. But it’s the four leading players - Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes, and Megan Mullally - who remind us that they are our greatest living sitcom stars, a talent we’ve sorely overlooked in the last decade. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

16. Mindhunter

On paper, the premise of David Fincher’s cerebral, appealingly off-kilter Netflix show does not sound fresh: Two FBI agents investigate a series of notorious murderers and find their work taking a toll on their personal lives. So far, so CBS - except that the emphasis of Mindhunter was not on chasing killers, but rather on interviewing them and trying genuinely to understand them. Light on action and heavy on psychology, the show played like a small-screen spinoff of Fincher’s masterful Zodiac, starring Jonathan Groff and Holt McCallany as fictionalized versions of the agents whose research gave birth to the term “serial killer.” A rough first episode aside, Mindhunter was a meticulous, mesmerizing character-driven thriller which, thanks to its emphasis on real serial killers like Ed Kemper and Richard Speck, taps right into pop culture’s current true crime obsession. - Emma Dibdin


Photo credit: NBC
Photo credit: NBC


15. This Is Us

Despite its hyped debut last year, the first season of This Is Us was a narrative mixed bag, its compelling moments diluted by over-manipulative schmaltz and underdeveloped characters. But throughout 2018 - beginning with the latter half of Season One and continuing into Season Two - the show developed into a nuanced and thoughtful character drama, a fact that sometimes gets lost in all the endless buzz about crying. Sterling K. Brown’s sensitive, conflicted Randall remained the clear MVP, and his family’s foray into foster parenting was a moving highlight of the new season. But his storylines were no longer the only reason to watch. Along with nimble exploration of Jack’s (Milo Ventimiglia) alcoholism and Rebecca’s (Mandy Moore) relationships with her adult children, Season Two even found a way into Justin Hartley’s self-absorbed actor Kevin. Don’t let the hype fool you; this is a drama more than worth your weekly time. - Emma Dibdin


Photo credit: AMC
Photo credit: AMC

14. Better Call Saul

Despite introducing its most significant Breaking Bad player to date in Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito), the third season of Better Call Saul was further evidence of how thoroughly the prequel stands on its own. Blending a singular visual style with patient, exacting character work, the story of Jimmy’s (Bob Odenkirk) slow slide towards becoming a seedy lawyer named Saul Goodman was one of the most rewarding on television. Though Season Three often felt like two separate shows - one about Jimmy, the other about Mike (Jonathan Banks) - both plot lines were gripping, as Jimmy’s increasingly bitter feud with his chilly brother Chuck (Michael McKean) propelling the season towards its beautiful, scary, deeply upsetting finale. - Emma Dibdin


Photo credit: USA
Photo credit: USA

13. Mr. Robot

After an ambitious but muddled second season that alienated some viewers, USA’s dizzyingly smart techno-thriller returned with an assured third run, cementing its place as one of TV’s most daring and singular current shows. The season’s standout eighth episode, in which Elliot contemplated suicide, gave the consistently mesmerizing Rami Malek some of his best material to date. But the ensemble was on form this year like never before, between Angela’s (Portia Doubleday) mental decline, Darlene’s (Carly Chaikin) unexpectedly thrilling cat-and-mouse dynamic with Grace Gummer’s FBI agent Dom, and the addition of Bobby Cannavale as a slimy, formidable villain. Packed with rich character writing and sly political jabs, Mr. Robot’s third season ended on yet another game-changer which bodes well for its now-confirmed fourth run. - Emma Dibdin


Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

12. The Crown

You don’t need to be a fan of the royals to be gripped by Netflix’s palace drama; in fact, one of the show’s great strengths is drawing out the humanity behind a staid institution that’s easy to write off. Spanning from the mid-’50s into the early ’60s, The Crown’s second season went deeper into its characters, with an episodic structure that allowed each episode to feel like a self-contained story. The exploration of Queen Elizabeth (Claire Foy) and Philip’s (Matt Smith) fraught marriage was subtle and unexpectedly moving, but even more fascinating were the episodes devoted to Elizabeth’s relationships as a monarch - with her prime ministers, with the press, and with the Kennedys. And then there’s the unforgettable chapter on the disgraced former King Edward’s Nazi sympathies, which is bound to leave you frantically Googling to find out if this development can possibly be real. (Spoiler: of course. Of course it can.) - Emma Dibdin


Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

11. GLOW

A half-hour comedy series about the infamous Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling, a crazy-but-true Saturday morning TV entertainment from the 1980s, seemed too wild an idea to truly land. And yet the Jenji Kohan-produced Netflix series created by Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch certainly packed a wallop. Serving as an origin story of sorts, GLOW stars a pitch-perfect Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin as former best friends and aspiring actresses who hitch their wagons to the scrappy and downright bizarre women’s wrestling circuit, pounding out their own anger toward each other inside the ring. With a stellar supporting cast (including a surprisingly warm and human Marc Maron), GLOW is the rare ten-episode Netflix series that could have been double the length. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: truTV
Photo credit: truTV

10. At Home With Amy Sedaris

Any true Amy Sedaris fan has likely waited for her to bring her own spin to the home entertainment television show after the success of her wacky DIY-inspired books I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence and Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People. At Home With Amy Sedaris is exactly that show, with some unexpected twists. It’s not quite a sketch series, not quite serial TV; it exists in its own deranged world, with Sedaris playing the straight man (or, at least, her version of one) alongside a cast of zany characters (including some played by Sedaris herself). It’s both sweet and salty with a smidgen of surrealism - just the kind of treat that goes down nicely. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: Amazon
Photo credit: Amazon

9. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino could have run with the massive success of Netflix’s 2016 reboot of the WB series and continued making the beloved mother-daughter dramedy series. Instead, she hopped over to Amazon and delivered a equally charming and fast-paced show in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Set in New York CIty in the late ’50s, our titular heroine (played with perfection by Rachel Brosnahan) is a Jewish housewife whose world is turned upside-down when her husband leaves her for his secretary. She does what any sharp-tongued, extroverted, go-getter would do: she channels her rage into comedy, making a name for herself on the Greenwich Village comedy club circuit, where she lands a brassy manager played by Alex Borstein and finds a friend in another up-and-coming comic, Lenny Bruce. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: PBS
Photo credit: PBS

8. The Vietnam War

A new Ken Burns documentary series is usually cause for celebration; an exhaustive examination of a definitive period in American culture from Ken Burns is a bonafide event. The Vietnam War, an impeccably detailed, 18-hour series was a beautiful, heartbreaking, and agonizing look at the decades-long conflict in Vietnam, spanning from the country’s colonialist era to the fall of Saigon and the reconciliation of the war’s aftermath. With 79 talking heads from both the American and Vietnamese forces - deliberating omitting the renowned historians, politicians, and celebrities often associated with the war - Burns and collaborator Lynn Novick presented an all-encompassing, compassionate, and human portrait of war and its effects on a grand scale. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: HBO
Photo credit: HBO

7. The Deuce

David Simon turned his meticulous eye to the gritty, seedy Times Square of 1971. As he did with The Wire and Treme, The Deuce (co-created with George Pelacanos) brought a multi-layered approach to examine the many people whose lives were centered on a handful of New York City blocks: the nightlife entrepreneurs, the mob, the cops, the pimps, and the sex workers. Maggie Gyllenhaal delivered a tour de force performance as a woman who has aspirations of leaving the streets and entering into the movie business (in the burgeoning porn industry), and James Franco played a pair of twins whose morals - and personal bond - are tested as they become entranced with the Italian mob. With an obsession to detail and a lively, exuberant appreciation of Manhattan's very recent past, The Deuce was one of HBO's most exciting series in years. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: Netflix
Photo credit: Netflix

6. Master of None

On paper, Master of None could be another woke comedy-drama set in New York City. But by exploring themes and characters often ignored in most series, it told some of the most groundbreaking stories on television this year - streaming or elsewhere. What also set it apart were the tasteful and never-pretentious way it handled each and every situation. Plus, Aziz Ansari and Eric Wareheim are quickly becoming the best comedy duo in television. Ansari isn't trying to preach, he's just trying to make you laugh. - Matt Miller


Photo credit: HBO
Photo credit: HBO

5. The Leftovers

There was a pretty convincing Instagram campaign going on, which enticed Emmy voters to nominate The Leftovers cast by promising to show possible messiah and definite hunk Justin Theroux naked. It was a pretty good idea! But it should also be telling that Theroux's abs were far from the best thing about this show. In three seasons, The Leftovers wove an elaborate, mysterious, and often confusing story, the likes of which haven't been told on television since Lost. And its final season turned out to be its finest, juxtaposing the grandest existential human questions with these characters' most intimate, beautiful moments. - Matt Miller


Photo credit: NBC
Photo credit: NBC

4. The Good Place

Parks and Recreation co-creator Michael Schur built an incredible, wacky afterlife for his latest series, which fills the self-referential and absurdist void left open when Parks and Rec went off the air in 2015. When Eleanor (Kristen Bell) lands in the Good Place after her death, she immediately realizes there's been some bureaucratic mistake - but she intends to keep quiet in order to keep herself away from the Bad Place. Season One ended with a major twist that could have derailed the entire series, but the show's second season sees Schur and his writing staff brilliantly skewing the traditional sitcom format, delivering an impressively airtight and incredibly funny narrative each week. And alongside Bell, the show boasts a tremendous cast of talent including Ted Danson, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, and breakout star D'Arcy Carden as Janet, the all-knowing concierge to the hereafter. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: Hulu
Photo credit: Hulu

3. The Handmaid's Tale

Hulu's serial adaptation of The Handmaid's Tale couldn't have come at a better time - even if it was in production well before the election results came in last November. While many have found many parallels between the American in which we live today and the fictional Republic of Gilead on the show, Margaret Atwood's dystopian tale of an ultra-patriarchal society - one that has forced the few remaining fertile women into a form of slavery, serving as surrogates for wealthy couples following a global natural disaster that left most women unable to conceive - would have seemed relevant and deeply troubling had Hillary Clinton become president, too, as The Handmaid's Tale's themes are universal and, unfortunately, timeless. The disturbing nature of the show aside, at least we can welcome the return of Elisabeth Moss to the small screen, playing yet another feminist icon in the starring role of Offred. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: HBO
Photo credit: HBO

2. Big Little Lies

David E. Kelly's adaptation of Liane Moriarty's novel could have been a by-the-book miniseries adaptation of a popular novel about wealthy women and their catty schemes (which end in a shocking murder). Under the direction of Jean-Marc Vallée, however (and with the brilliant performances from Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, and Laura Dern), the miniseries was less your typical whodunit and more a moody satire of modern parenting and a disturbing take on the lengths to which domestic violence can penetrate a family's psyche. But as dark as it can be, the show was ultimately hugely satisfying, balancing the somewhat bleak tone with a heightened, comedic take on the lengths at which adults can exhibit the most immature, childlike traits. - Tyler Coates


Photo credit: Showtime
Photo credit: Showtime

1. Twin Peaks: The Return

One wonder what must have gone through the minds of Showtime executives every week as another hour-long edition of David Lynch's truly mind-melting revival of his cult-classic ABC series aired to the confusion - yet delight - of its viewers. While no one quite knew what to expect from Twin Peaks: The Return, it's possible that a completely disjointed narrative, surprise celebrity cameos, and a talking brain on a stick were not exactly what anyone hoped for. While the new Twin Peaks dove right back into the larger mystery of Laura Palmer's murder - and spun wildly away from the town of Twin Peaks, with settings ranging from Manhattan to the flyover states - one thing is for certain: It is a damn miracle that David Lynch got full rein to do whatever the hell he wanted for a blissful 18 episodes. - Tyler Coates

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