The Essentials: Ranking Every Amazon Original Series So Far

mad-dogs

10. “Mad Dogs”
The debut of “Mad Dogs” earlier this year came with some serious cred, arguably more so than any other Amazon drama to date. It was a remake of an acclaimed and popular British show, and was overseen by Shawn Ryan, the mastermind of “The Shield” and “Terriers.” And it had a strong cast, including “The Sopranos” star Michael Imperioli, Steve Zahn, Romany Malco, Ben Chaplin (who also appeared in the original), Ted Levine and briefly Billy Zane. The premise is a good one: five old friends who visit one’s Belize retreat, only to discover that he has some very shady connections. To some extent, it lived up to those hopes: it looks beautiful, has enough wit to counter the middle aged angst and took some fun twist and turns. But while the individual performances (particularly by the oft-underrated Zahn and Mike Leigh veteran Phil Davis as a crime boss) are good, the ensemble never really works particularly well together or captures that feel of being lifelong friends, which undercuts much of the premise of the show. Furthermore, like so many shows in the peak TV era, the plot is over-extended at a full ten hours, spinning its wheels and never quite coming to the satisfying ending that you’d like it to. It’s leaps and bounds ahead of the some of the shows lower down on this list, and is an entertaining enough watch, but doesn’t reach its potential either.

man-in-the-high-castle9. “The Man In The High Castle”
Reportedly Amazon’s most popular show, “The Man In The High Castle” is at least so far (a second season debuts in December) a prime example of how a prestige program can do so much well and yet be left wanting because of a falling-down in a key element. Adapted from Philip K. Dick’s novel (it’s done fairly well, given what a minefield it could have been), it’s set in an alternate 1962 where the Axis powers won the war and conquered the United States, with the west coast now run by the Japanese and the east by the Nazis. It’s on the east coast where a young woman becomes involved in the Resistance after finding a newsreel that shows a world where the Allies won. Alternate histories undeniably tap into something intrinsic in us, and the show’s creative team (led by former “X-Files” writer Frank Spotnitz) do a stellar job at building a fascinating world, with production values that can compete with anything else on TV at the minute. It’s mostly well-written, well-plotted and very well-directed, and does a good job at making Dick’s work palatable without completely abandoning some of its trippier elements. And yet its still a struggle to get through, since most of the actors are incredibly boring. Rufus Sewell and Cary Hiroyuki-Tanada bring some interest as the leading Axis representatives, but as the three main heroes (or anti-heroes), Alexa Davalos, Rupert Evans and Luke Kleintank are deeply bland, feeling like they’ve escaped from an early ’90s syndicated Canadian sci-fi show, rather than something more prestigious, and it just saps the show of energy. Bella Heathcote from “The Neon Demon” just joined the cast, which will hopefully pick things up for the second run, because this isn’’t that far off being a really good show.

mozart-in-the-jungle

8. “Mozart In The Jungle”
Amidst some meat-and-potatoes shows, “Mozart In The Jungle” might be the strangest thing on Amazon. It’s great that it exists and it can be wonderful in fits and starts, but it’s also often baffling, enervating and tedious. Created by Roman Coppola and Jason Schwartzman with Broadway big-wig Alex Timbers, it’s as esoteric and highbrow in its subject as you would expect from two guys who hang out with Wes Anderson, following a young oboist (Lola Kirke) who joins the New York Philarmonic, led by a charismatic, strange conductor (Gael Garcia Bernal). Though Coppola and Schwartzman have both directed episodes, the pilot and many other installments are helmed by Paul Weitz, and the show has always had an existential crisis of an sort, unsure if go for Coppola’s high-faluting, experimental comedy, or Weitz’s middlebrow dramedy, or a romance, or something else entirely. It’s watchable, particularly because of the excellent cast including Malcolm McDowell and Bernadette Peters, and occasionally hits real highs, particularly when it gets out of its own way and lets Bernal and Kirke play off each other. But it’s never quite as funny or insightful as you want it to be, at least about anything beyond its rarified setting, and a shift into something marginally more conventional in the second season sees it become less interesting (though it did win a Golden Globe for Best Comedy). It has its passionate fans, but if you’re after a comedy that isn’t especially funny, Amazon has better shows than this.

bosch

7. “Bosch”
If there was any expectation that Amazon was going to use the streaming revolution to reinvent the detective drama, “Bosch” proved fairly definitively that that wasn’t going to be the case (at least yet). It’s a series that, bar some violence and language, could quite happily be on CBS or USA in some ways, with a character who sometimes feels like he’s just a generic rulebook-throwing-out detective of the kind that we’ve seen plenty of times before. And yet as far as this sort of thing goes, it’s well done, with a noirish feel and some pleasingly labyrinthine plotting that, if you’re a crime literature fan, could hit the spot. Adapted from the books by Michael Connelly, it stars veteran character actor Titus Welliver as the title character, a troubled, veteran LAPD homicide cop who in the first season examines a grisly serial killing while under investigation for wrongful death, while in the second he takes on the mob-linked execution of a porn producer. Showrunner Eric Overmyer is a veteran of “The Wire,” and it shows, not just in the cast (which borrows Lance Reddick, James Ransone and Jamie Hector from that classic show), but also in a gritty, no-nonsense, slow-burn approach that just stays this side of your testing your patience. The second season in particular manages to move away from the badge-turning-in cliches while still hanging on to its hard-boiled nature. It’s still not doing anything wildly new or exciting at any point —it might be as low-ambition a show as has been streaming at this point— but if you’ve been longing for a good detective show, this might fill the void.

red-oaks

6. “Red Oaks”
As “Stranger Things” reminded us this summer, 1980s nostalgia can still be a huge draw. As yet, the same kind of adulation hasn’t yet followed “Red Oaks,” which does for Amy Heckerling, John Hughes and “Caddyshack” what the Netflix show did for “E.T.” and “It,” but it’s nevertheless a highly enjoyable series that we’re confident could improve when its second season arrives. Hailing from Steven Soderbergh’s longtime assistant director and “Magic Mike XXL” director Gregory Jacobs, exec-produced by Soderbergh and with an impressive bench of directors including David Gordon Green and Hal Hartley (who’ll helm much of the second season), the show sees an NYU student (Craig Roberts, who’s as good as he’s been in anything since “Submarine” here) working in a country club as a tennis instructor over the summer. Like “Stranger Things,” it’s so indebted to its influences —sometimes directly homaging them, like an “After Hours” episode and, most bizarrely and memorably, a legitimate body-swap plot— that it doesn’t quite stand on its own two feet. But like the Netflix show, it’s very well executed and has a big heart, much of it brought by an excellent cast (including ’80s icons like Paul Reiser and Jennifer Grey, and Bing Bong himself, Richard Kind). Like “Bosch,” its ambitions appear to be modest, but if you’re a fan of “Fast Times At Ridgemont High,” or more recent retro-coming-of-age fare like “Adventureland” (maybe the closest comparison point), this’ll give you a lot of pleasure.