Honorable Mention
Our list is very long here. Close to making the cut was Scott Frank‘s excellent mini-series “Godless” on Netflix with Jeff Daniels, Merritt Wever, Jack O’Connell, Michelle Dockery and more, Brian Koppelman and David Levien‘s “Billions,” Susanne Bier‘s “The Night Manager” mini-series starring Tom Hiddleston on AMC, the Park Chan-wook-directed “Little Drummer Girl” mini-series, the Steven Soderbergh-produced Starz series ” The Girlfriend Experience” (terrific directing here by Lodge Kerrigan and Amy Seimetz), “Portlandia,” “Ramy,” Pamela Adlon‘s “Louie“-indebted “Better Things,” HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire,” which was terrific and arguably should be on the main list, but shit the bed really hard near the end, FX’s ” “You’re the Worst,” Jean-Marc Vallée “Sharp Objects” mini-series starring an outstanding Amy Adams (robbed during the Emmys), Justin Simien‘s “Dear White People,” “Community,” “Nathan for You,” HBO’s “Big Little Lies” (great first season, not so much the second) and “Westworld” (great first season, not so much the next) and the show many will freak out for excluding, but none of us love it very much anymore, the zeitgeist-grabbing “Stranger Things” (solid first season of mashup influences, but…) which has a lot of cultural influence, but, has already begun to feel played out and overly pastiche-y.
Other shows worth giving a shout out to include the hilarious sketch comedies “Inside Amy Schumer” and “The Nick Kroll Show,” “Jane the Virgin,” CBS’ “The Good Fight,” Hulu’s “Casual,” “Archer,” “Bob’s Burgers,” “Black Mirror” (occasionally brilliant, but too inconsistently so), FX’s “Baskets,” “Penny Dreadful,” Lena Waithe‘s “The Chi,” ” “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” “Alias Grace,” “Homecoming,” David Simon‘s “The Deuce,” HBO’s “Eastbound & Down” (too disliked by certain factions here to make the main list), “Chewing Gum,” ” American Crime Story,” “Fosse/Verdon,” Joe Swanberg‘s “Easy” on Netflix, “GLOW,” “End Of The Fucking World” ABC’s “Fresh Off The Boat,” “Horace & Pete,” “Haunting Of Hill House,” “Howard’s End,” “Last Man On Earth,” “Luther,” “Legion,” “Orange Is The New Black” (early seasons only), “Masters Of Sex,” “Sherlock,” “Silicon Valley,” “Treme” and “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.” That’s it. Hopefully, you feel represented somewhere? If not, sound off in the comments like you are wont to do.