The Best TV Shows of 2012

Thanks to imports and cable channel choices, the year in TV was very interesting indeed. Where else can classical detectives meet with their updated complements, or sullen 20-somethings smirk at their ancient societal/criminal betters? Oh, and don’t forget squid.

 

TV Show: Squidbillies

Network: Cartoon Network/Adult Swim

Cast: Stuart Daniel Baker, Daniel McDevitt, Dana Snyder, Patricia French, Bobby Ellerbee, Todd Hanson, Scott Hilley

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Squidbillies
Cartoon Network/Adult Swim

While the humor is often uneven in this clever countrified satire, the voice work is beyond impeccable — especially the raging redneck resplendence of musician Unknown Hinson (aka Stuart Daniel Baker) as the tentacled family patriarch, Early Cuyler. With is backwoods, Auburn-hating hilarity and nonstop desire to party and procreate, this is one salacious squid. Still, the focus on ancillary elements, like a sheriff who seems impervious to criticism (or death) and a despotic local tycoon with the oddball name of Dan Halen turns what would be a one note nod to the boondocks into something sublime. Bill Gibron

 

TV Show: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

Network: Comedy Central

Cast: Jon Steward

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The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Comedy Central

After certain segments of The Daily Show during 2012, you could see host Jon Stewart look visibly upset, depressed, and completely over what he’d just had to riff about for the past six or seven minutes. Partisan political screaming on both sides of the aisle continued to escalate this year, as was bound to happen in an election year, and it clearly took a toll on Stewart and the Daily Show’s team. It all came to a head late in the year, when the show began its series, “Chaos on Bullshit Mountain”, which stands up with the best work the show’s ever done at exposing partisan hackery.

Also notable about the year on The Daily Show: the correspondent segments became fewer and fewer, but no less impactful. A winning series right before the election featured ace in the hole John Oliver and Jason Jones showing off the seedy business of political consultants (a well The Daily Show went to multiple times throughout the year) by participating in a student council election. It’s part of the brilliance of The Daily Show that the mainstream news media doesn’t seem to understand: they break down what’s going on and make it relatable. Just because it’s punctuated by a dick joke doesn’t make Jon Stewart’s comedy anymore incisive or impactful. Steve Lepore

 

TV Show: 30 Rock

Network: NBC

Cast: Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Katrina Bowden, Keith Powell, Lonny Ross, John Lutz, Kevin Brown, Grizz Chapman, Maulik Pancholy

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30 Rock
NBC

The last season of the critically acclaimed series is the equivalent of realizing that geek you dated in high school has grown up to become stunningly attractive without losing any of his wit. After winning every award out there, Tina Fey’s ratings-challenged satire entered a period where it was considered a has-been; so the creative team behind it came back with a vengeance to deliver what’s been one of the most flawless seasons of any TV series in recent history. Fey axed stories that weren’t working, brought back a few precious characters for their swan song and has, in Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski), created one of the greatest characters of all time. When this show goes off the air in 2013, we might just never recover. Jose Solis

 

TV Show: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Network: FX

Cast: Glenn Howerton, Charlie Day, Rob McElhenney, Kaitlin Olson, Danny DeVito

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It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
FX

In Season Eight of the FX network comedy, no get-rich-quick plan is off limits to the gang from Paddy’s Pub — not even schemes involving death or mortality: Charlie’s mother pretended to have cancer, prompting her son and his friends to cash in with a charity beef-and-beer. Dennis and Dee pondered pulling the plug on their dying grandfather — a former Nazi — while the rest of the gang raided the old man’s stash of WWII artifacts to sell. And Frank managed to put down the can of wine long enough to trick Dennis and Dee into digging up their dead mother as revenge for insinuating he was going senile. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia tips polite society’s sacred cows with utter (udder?) abandon, skewering pop culture headlines (bath salt zombies, anyone?) and making society’s dregs downright likeable despite their lack of moral fiber. Lana Cooper

 

TV Show: Grimm

Network: NBC

Cast: David Giuntoli, Russell Hornsby, Bitsie Tulloch, Silas Weir Mitchell, Sasha Roiz, Reggie Lee, Bree Turner, Claire Coffee

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Grimm
NBC

Grimm is one of those shows that flies under the radar, but is a true hidden gem, combining elements of a procedural cop drama with supernatural fantasy. Portland homicide detective Nick Burkhardtlearns he is part of a long line of monster hunters known as “Grimms”. Although the show’s cadre of creatures — humans with animal attributes known as “Wesen” — are rooted in old fairy tales, Grimm’s writers create their own mythology and run with it. In addition to solid writing, the ensemble cast delivers strong performances. (Silas Weir Mitchell is outstanding as Nick’s reformed Wesen sidekick.) On paper, Grimm’s concept seems a bit ridiculous, yet, the show’s writers and actors take it quite seriously, offering compelling stories that weave a complex web of intrigue in both human and Wesen society. Lana Cooper

 

TV Show: The Newsroom

Network: HBO

Cast: Jeff Daniels, Emily Mortimer, John Gallagher, Jr., Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Dev Patel, Olivia Munn, Sam Waterston

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The Newsroom
HBO

Aaron Sorkin’s latest creation, The Newsroom, addresses the dilemma facing all those currently attempting to ply the trade of true journalism without stumbling into sensationalism. As self-described moderate Republican cable news anchor Will McAvoy, Jeff Bridges delivers one of the best performances of his career alongside a brilliant ensemble cast. He finds himself questioning his political stance and life choices when his liberal former lover (Emily Mortimer) becomes his executive producer. Behind the scenes relationships of the entire cable network’s staff are equally a part of The Newsroom’s mix, as are real-life news events of the recent past. Interspersed with the characters’ personal dramas, The Newsroom artfully showcases the difficult balance of reaping those all-important Nielsen ratings and doing so with integrity (and confirmed sources). Lana Cooper

 

TV Show: Wheeler Dealers

Network: Velocity

Cast: Mike Brewer, Edd China

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Wheeler Dealers
Velocity

Leave it to the British to turn even the most mundane exercise — in this case, the buying and restoring of classic cars — into a joyful combination of cheek and DIY. Main presenter Mike Brewer got his start in the automotive trade, and along with master mechanic Edd China, makes it a point to pick iconic vehicles and bring them back to stunning, on the cheap life. Most of the material is as dry as a drive shaft, especially when the duo focus on perplexing performance elements and weird wheel calibrations. But with a few minutes, their winning personalities and earnest honesty win us over, creating an addiction that goes beyond the need for speed. Bill Gibron

28 – 22

TV Show: Elementary

Network: CBS

Cast: Jonny Lee Miller, Lucy Liu, Aidan Quinn, Jon Michael Hill

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Display Width: 250Elementary
CBS

The 2010’s have become suffuse with Sherlock mania. You have the films and the acclaimed BBC series and this year CBS offered up another take, this one set in New York with a Brit Jonny Lee Miller in the lead and Lucy Liu as Holmes’ faithful sidekick, Dr. Watson. It’s not Sherlock, but Elementary has it’s own unique appeal with perhaps the grittiest portrayal of Sherlock Holmes to date. This Sherlock is a recovering drug addict with Dr. Watson as his live-in addiction counselor. Where other shows have hinted at Holmes’ drug use, Elementary shows Holmes to be both an addictive personality and a highly obsessive one. So obsessive and full of constant kinetic energy and high-level brain activity that he can only be satisfied when involved in a high stakes murder case. It’s the only thing that gives his mind any “peace”. Hence, the viewer understands why he previously self-medicated. Elementary‘s approach to the character is arguably the most human in the long history of Sherlock Holmes depictions.

Sarah Zupko

 

TV Show: Archer

Network: FX

Cast: H. Jon Benjamin, Judy Greer, Amber Nash, Chris Parnell, Aisha Tyler, Jessica Walter, George Coe, Adam Reed, Lucky Yates

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Archer
FX

Love it or loathe it, Archer stubbornly refuses to adapt its successful model of mockery, misogyny, and meandering because… well, why would it? Fans adore the heavy-drinking non-secret agent for his inflexible mentality (and flexibility in the boudoir). Last year saw Archer meet his hero Burt Reynolds, travel to space, and even more dangerously, travel to the south. Nothing was quite as risqué as last year’s cancer scare, but creator Adam Reed continued to push the boundaries of P.C. behavior in more subtle ways—particularly the sly, off the cuff comments each character specializes in. Fan or foe, no one can deny Archer is good at what it does. Ben Travers

 

TV Show: The Mindy Project

Network: FOX

Cast: Mindy Kaling, Chris Messina, Ed Weeks, Anna Camp, Zoe Jarman, Amanda Setton, Stephen Tobolowsky

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The Mindy Project
FOX

A decade ago, this would have been the most daring comedy ever — a sitcom centering on a lovesick Southeast Asian girl, her culture clash backdrop leading to overly harsh criticism from those who would enjoy bashing its multicultural, post-PC bent. Instead, with creator/star Mindy Kaling (she of The Office fame) at the center, we see how race becomes little more than a telling talking point among the many other humorous elements. As with any new sitcom, the developmental material tends to overplay its import, robbing the show of some of its spontaneity. But just as it bends stereotypes, The Mindy Project makes room for the laughs — and there’s plenty to be found. Bill Gibron

 

TV Show: Sons of Anarchy

Network: FX

Cast: Charlie Hunnam, Katey Sagal, Mark Boone Junior, Dayton Callie, Kim Coates, Tommy Flanagan, Ryan Hurst, Johnny Lewis, William Lucking, Theo Rossi, Maggie Siff, Ron Perlman

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Sons of Anarchy
FX

If there was a central concept at the heart of the fifth season of Kurt Sutter’s “Hamlet on Harleys” series, it was that one missing life can make all the difference, and every character felt it in their own specific way. A best friend, a daughter, a sister, the individual life is the most important thing in a world full of “clubs”, “organizations” and government agencies. Even as Jax (an unleashed Charlie Hunnam), Damon Pope (a superlative Harold Perrineau), Tig (Kim Coates) and others attempt to cope with the most personal of familial losses, one can almost see a black hole of vengeance threatening to suck the entire cast in all at once, the way Shakespeare would have wanted it. Kevin Brettauer

 

TV Show: Doctor Who

Network: BBC America

Cast: Matt Smith, Jenna-Louise Coleman

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Doctor Who
BBC America

The first half of the seventh season of Doctor Who (the second half will air in 2013) has also been one of its most emotional ones to date. The final season with Amy and Rory as the Doctor’s companions brought back such classic Who adversaries as the Daleks and the Angels, while also doing a lighter, fun episode that featured dinosaurs on a spaceship, all moving a little closer to the Pond’s departure. The reboot of Doctor Who has seen the show straddle the line between campy humor and effects, and darker story arcs with real emotional payoff. The introduction of the new companion in the Christmas special shows the Doctor moving forward and continuing Matt Smith’s brilliant portrayal of the Doctor’s unique approach to exploring the universe, past and present, setting up an exciting end to the season. Jessica Suarez

 

TV Show: Fringe

Network: FOX

Cast: Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Kirk Acevedo, Blair Brown, Jasika Nicole, Seth Gabel, Mark Valley

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Fringe
FOX

Aimee Mann, in her song “Wise Up”, claims that “It’s not what you thought / When you first began it.” She is, of course, referring to emotional entanglements, but she could easily have been referring to Fringe. What started out masquerading as an X-Files reboot sans aliens has, with three hours left to broadcast at the time of this writing, revealed itself as a powerful meditation on basic human attributes such as love and hate, hope and fear, success and failure, et al, all the while examining how we handle ourselves in the most perilous of situations, ranging from a colossal Trojan War allegory to a sci-fi reworking of Casablanca. 2012’s episodes proved this, with moments like Nina’s (Blair Brown) death nearly cracking the fandom in twain. Kevin Brettauer

 

TV Show: American Horror Story: Asylum

Network: FX

Cast: Zachary Quinto, Joseph Fiennes, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe, Lizzie Brocheré, James Cromwell, Jessica Lange

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American Horror Story: Asylum
FX

Part of what makes American Horror Story so engrossing is that it never lingers very long in one spot. Each season is an anthology unto itself, featuring the same talented ensemble cast taking on different roles within a brand new setting and storyline. This year, the action takes place at a Massachusetts insane asylum, circa 1964. Interwoven with the mélange of serial killers, possessed nuns, Nazis, and aliens residing at the asylum, are equally terrifying subjects of a less supernatural nature. Scarier and more original than most theatrical horror releases, American Horror Story does not shy away from social horrors of the not-so-distant past whose specter still haunts, including discrimination and dehumanization based on race, gender, and sexuality. Lana Cooper

21 – 15

TV Show: The Good Wife

Network: CBS

Cast: Julianna Margulies, Matt Czuchry, Archie Panjabi, Graham Phillips, Makenzie Vega, Alan Cumming, Josh Charles, Christine Baranski

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Display Width: 250The Good Wife
CBS

Cable shows have nothing on this brilliantly played, written, and directed legal drama, sporting one of the best casts in recent history. The Good Wife is a beautifully nuanced mature drama that centers around a moral and responsible woman who’s husband repeatedly and publicly humiliated her with his indiscretions. Politics and obligations have kept her in check, and by her husband’s side, slowly but surely feeling her way through her own happiness. The Good Wife has steadily grown bit by bit and piece by piece, slowly examining every angle and consequence of Julianna Margulies’ character Alicia Florrick’s choices as she bumps up against the variety of characters that live within this world.

And while Mrs. Florrick began as an innocent bystander of her husband’s infidelity, the show never keeps her off the hook for very long, with season three casting her out from under the shadow of scandal that so defined her throughout the course of the first two seasons, we are finally getting to see who this character can be on her own terms. And while Season Three didn’t end with the same one-two-three punch as Season Two, very few shows can boast such a consistent stellar run, with nary a disappointing episode–and that’s quite the accomplishment for a network series that has 22 episodes to play with. Enio Chiola

 

TV Show: The Walking Dead

Network: AMC

Cast: Andrew Lincoln, Jon Bernthal, Sarah Wayne Callies, Laurie Holden, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yeun, Chandler Riggs, Norman Reedus, Lauren Cohan, Danai Gurira, Michael Rooker, David Morrissey

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The Walking Dead
AMC

It’s hard to imagine a TV series having a better year than the 2012 that AMC’s The Walking Dead just finished up, increasing an already-robust viewership while, by most critical accounts, significantly improving its product. The second half of Season Two and the first half of Season Three aired, and they are studies in contrast. While Season Two was a slow burn, as the characters waited at the farm in hopes that a missing child would return — culminating in the pivotal, powerful scene in which Rick is forced to kill the increasingly reckless Shane — Season Three has raced through character deaths, plot developments, and dead zombies with wild abandon, all while managing to keep its two major characters (Rick and the Governor) separated. Their inevitable meeting early in 2013 is likely to break new cable ratings records and hopefully continue the series’ winning streak. Matt Paproth

 

TV Show: Boardwalk Empire

Network: HBO

Cast: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Kelly Macdonald, Michael Shannon, Shea Whigham, Michael Stuhlbarg, Stephen Graham, Vincent Piazza, Michael Kenneth Williams, Anthony Laciura, Paul Sparks, Jack Huston, Bobby Cannavale, Gretchen Mol

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Boardwalk Empire
HBO

From its first season, Boardwalk Empire laid out a complex group of characters and relationships that played against the backdrop of Prohibition-era Atlantic City. Now in its third season, the series has expanded its scope to an increasingly growing cast of characters that includes the cruel and unstable Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale) whose presence threatens Nucky’s (Steve Buscemi) power position in the bootlegging business. The season comes to a head with a war between all the major players, bringing together historical figures like Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and Arnold Rothstein, along with standout fictional characters like Chalky White and Richard Harrow. The season continues Boardwalk Empire’s intricate plotting, with larger than life personalities, political maneuvering, and emotional manipulations, making for another terrific season. Jessica Suarez

 

TV Show: Luck

Network: HBO

Cast: Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Farina, John Ortiz, Richard Kind, Kevin Dunn, Ian Hart, Ritchie Coster, Jason Gedrick, Kerry Condon, Gary Stevens, Tom Payne, Jill Hennessy, Nick Nolte, Michael Gambon

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Luck
HBO

It’s too bad that controversies more or less outside the series’ control lead to its early demise. While it was on the air, this look at mobsters in the world of horseracing had dramatic depth in spades. Most of it came from the amazing casting — Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Farina, Nick Nolte, Michael Gambon — but creator David Milch, responsible for the seminal Deadwood, also brought a similar level of gruff gravitas to this effort. Perhaps the most disturbing aspect, the death of animals aside, was how much potential this series showed. We had the makings of something epic. Sadly, tragedy trumped entertainment and rightfully so. Bill Gibron

 

TV Show: New Girl

Network: FOX

Cast: Zooey Deschanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield, Lamorne Morris, Hannah Simone

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New Girl
FOX

When New Girl debuted in the fall of 2011, it was appealing but underwritten, relying on the likability of its stars (particularly Zooey Deschanel) to bring across its lax stories of 30-something roommates in Los Angeles. But in the back half of its first season and the front of its even-better second, the show has turned that looseness into a distinct comic style, blending Deschanel’s sweet awkwardness with Jake Johnson’s cranky flailing, Max Greenfield’s fussy preening, and Lamorne Morris’s deadpan wariness. The whole cast radiates a joy of performance, and it seems infections: the writing has gotten weirder and funnier, too. While many of the best recent sitcoms focus on the workplace, New Girl has turned out to be an unexpected heir to the Friends model of attractive, funny people hanging out — only with a better ear for contemporary thirtysomething angst. Jesse Hassenger

 

TV Show: Community

Network: NBC

Cast: Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover, Jim Rash, Ken Jeong

Chevy Chase

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Community
NBC

What may go down as the last great season of Community after creator Dan Harmon’s exit before this season is also the best year of NBC’s heavily meta-referential sitcom. Featuring such classic episodes as “Pillows and Blankets”, “Virtual Systems Analysis”, and “The First Chang Dynasty”, 2012 saw the Greendale Seven continue to push their medium forward in an admirably aggressive manner. Their refusal to conform for ratings is just another reason to love this uproarious gang of misfits. Ben Travers

 

TV Show: Happy Endings

Network: ABC

Cast: Eliza Coupe, Elisha Cuthbert, Zachary Knighton, Adam Pally, Damon Wayans, Jr., Casey Wilson

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Happy Endings
ABC

Almost a complete rip-off of Friends, this single-camera comedy dares to ask: “What if we remade Friends, only funny?” This whack-ball comedy benefits most from the fact that absolutely every character is monumentally funny in completely different ways, and with Elisha Cuthbert coming into her own by the end of season two, Happy Endings is that rare comedy where any combination of stars results in utter hilarity. However, the show is at its best when all stars come together playing off of each other in break net speed averaging approximately one joke every two seconds. Also, the season two finale was called “Four Weddings and a Funeral (Minus Three Weddings and One Funeral)”, and that’s just awesome. Enio Chiola

14 – 8

TV Show: Veep

Network: HBO

Cast: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Anna Chlumsky, Tony Hale, Matt Walsh, Timothy Simons, Reid Scott, Sufe Bradshaw

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Display Width: 250Veep
HBO

Is Veep really a political satire? It’s labeled as such and it is political, but somehow it goes beyond its labels to become transcendent television comedy. The writing team of Armando Ianucci and Simon Blackwell, who created the unforgettable, savagely funny BBC comedy of Blair-era politics, The Thick of It, have transferred the energy and zaniness of that show onto a new storyline involving that essential, yet unessential figure of American political machinery, the Vice President. Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been given one of the best roles on TV now, and she has a ball with it.

Her VP Selena Meyer is perpetually bristling with rage at not having anything to do. Imagine if Senator Diane Feinstein had a much lower IQ and way less power and ended up getting into as much trouble as Lucy Ricardo and you have something close to what Veep is. The ensemble cast is brilliant with a terrific Anna Chlumsky and Tony Hale (who takes obsequious toadying to new heights). Few shows also really nail DC politics — Veep is the dark comic underbelly of Aaron Sorkin’s hallowed West Wing, and the second episode of the series, “Frozen Yoghurt” with its memorably disastrous ending, is a masterpiece in comedy writing. Farisa Khalid

 

TV Show: Game of Thrones

Network: HBO

Cast: Lena Headey, Peter Dinklage, Maisie Williams, Michelle Fairley, Sean Bean

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Game of Thrones
HBO

Few television shows can match the grandiosity of Game of Thrones’s visual imagery: the stunning natural landscapes and meticulously recreated medieval architecture, the stomach turning battle scenes replete with copious amounts of gore and the operatic story lines of lust, betrayal, treachery and greed. But the show’s second season continues to captivate, not through sensationalism, sorcery and sex alone (of which there is plenty), but by developing some of the most endearing and charismatic characters on television. Peter Dinklage shines as Tyrion Lannister, the cunning and lascivious Hand to Jack Gleeson’s distillation of pure evil as the sadistic, teenage King Joffrey. And Maise Williams, as the dauntless and precocious Arya Stark, breathes a spirit of playfulness and innocence into a show that might otherwise collapse beneath the weight of its often dark and disturbing subject matter. Robert Alford

 

TV Show: Parks and Recreation

Network: NBC

Cast: Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Aubrey Plaza, Paul Schneider, Chris Pratt, Adam Scott, Rob Lowe, Jim O’Heir, Retta

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Parks and Recreation
NBC

It’s hard to imagine a series as good as Parks and Recreation getting any better, but its episodes this year prove it’s possible. Leslie Knope’s run for city council could have easily set the show off its path, but instead it opened it up for not only more story arcs, but for character development as well. Amy Poehler consistently shines in bringing to life a character as unique and lovable as Knope, part guileless feminist, part silly waffle obsessive. The cast of characters surrounding her is equally as charming and engaging. >From goofy Andy with aspirations of law enforcement, to Ann Perkins, Leslie’s best friend and game-for-anything accomplice, to superficial, status-obsessed Tom, to office scapegoat, Jerry, the series manages to bring these people to life in a way that makes the viewer not only engaged (and constantly laughing), but invested. Jessica Suarez

 

TV Show: Louie

Network: FX

Cast: Louis CK

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Louie
FX

Television’s official home for sad bastards — and sad bastards in spirit — continued following whatever whim America’s funniest comedian damn well pleased in 2012. Despite the show’s small audience, Louie CK’s eponymous, one-of-a-kind series made noise with seemingly every episode of its third season. Rarely does a show — especially what is ostensibly a half-hour comedy — find a way to make every episode of its season unforgettable. But Louie not only did that, he managed to make almost every scene impossible to get out of your brain.

The highlights from Season 3 are too many to list here, but just for starters: Louie’s ridiculous motorcycle (by far the show’s best running gag to date), the horrifying tryst with Melissa Leo, Parker Posey’s two-episode arc, the surrealistic quest for Louie’s father, Robin Williams in the strip club, the entire Late Show arc. It all culminated in a season finale for the ages, in which CK ends up in China, searching for the Yangtze River after Posey’s untimely demise, and celebrating the New Year with a family of strangers.

The show won’t make this list in 2013 (CK will take a hiatus and return in spring of 2014), but I’d be shocked if it still didn’t get a few votes just because it’s generated so much good will with this collection of 13 episodes. The first two seasons of Louie dared you to wonder if this low-budget show on FX could do just about anything. Season three gladly accepted the challenge with aplomb. Steve Lepore

 

TV Show: Treme

Network: HBO

Cast: Khandi Alexander, Rob Brown, Chris Coy, Kim Dickens, India Ennenga, John Goodman, Michiel Huisman, Melissa Leo, Lucia Micarelli, David Morse, Clarke Peters, Wendell Pierce, Jon Seda, Steve Zahn

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Treme
HBO

At this point Treme is the kind of series that has either connected with the viewer or hasn’t, but it’s precisely because of its unapologetic take on post-Katrina New Orleans that makes the series one of the greatest. The third season continues to tell the stories of a varied group of characters — although many more are crossing paths now — mostly struggling to get back to some semblance of their lives before the storm. The acting is consistently excellent and standouts include Khandi Alexander, Clarke Peters, and Wendell Pierce; while the writing is sharp and incisive. As always, the series relies heavily on music to help tell its story and for some viewers this emphasis can be a turn off. However, for those open to it, the music in Treme is exactly what gives the show its authenticity and life, and what makes it a groundbreaking series. Jessica Suarez

 

TV Show: Breaking Bad

Network: AMC

Cast: Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt, RJ Mitte, Bob Odenkirk, Giancarlo Esposito, Jonathan Banks

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Breaking Bad
AMC

For four seasons, Breaking Bad hooked viewers with the antiheroic adventures of Walter White (Bryan Cranston). White transformed from a cancer-stricken family man, desperate to provide for his family, into a meth manufacturing mastermind, eliminating actual and perceived threats to his business empire. Along the way, White stopped “breaking” and simply turned “bad”.

By season five, the show’s hero had become its villain, creating a massive quandary of audience identification. Who in good conscience could continue to root for this guy? The brilliance of season five is in how it deals with this dilemma by shifting focus to the supporting characters’ breaking points. White’s partner/protégé Jesse (Aaron Paul) and wife Skylar (Anna Gunn) draw lines in the sand, attempting to limit his influence in their lives. The very last scene of season five’s pre-hiatus episode is one of the most astonishing pieces of television writing in years. DEA Agent Hank Schrader (Dean Norris), long the show’s underdog hero, finds a crucial piece of information that puts the power in his court. In a television climate full of “gotcha” storylines, this change of protagonists and their fortunes is the gutsiest and best of them all. Thomas Britt

 

TV Show: Mad Men

Network: AMC

Cast: Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Jared Harris, Bryan Batt, Michael Gladis, Aaron Staton, Rich Sommer

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Mad Men
AMC

A specter of meaninglessness and mortality haunts the outwardly dashing and determined men of Madison Avenue in Mad Men’s tumultuous fifth season. Pete’s (Vincent Kartheiser) ill-fated affair with a neighbors wife drives her to electro-shock therapy; Roger’s (John Slattery) dubious LSD-fueled awakening leads only to further depths of narcissism; and Lane’s (Jared Harris) act of desperation culminates in the haunting image of his lifeless body swinging from a noose in the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce office.

But as the men search futilely for meaning amidst their own unbridled pursuit of money and power, the women of Mad Men struggle to define themselves in opposition to the patriarchy and paternalism that permeates their society. Megan (Jessica Paré) refuses to play the role of respectable domesticity in her marriage to Don (Jon Hamm), leaving her job at the firm to pursue her own dream of becoming an actress. Joan (Christina Hendricks) divorces her abusive husband and turns a demeaning act of sexual bribery into an opportunity for influence and power. And Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) finally walks, trading the chauvinistic atmosphere of SCDP and its accompanying glass ceiling for increased autonomy and opportunity with a rival firm.

At the center of all this searching is Don, who clutches at satisfaction in his own life, through his marriage to Megan and his role as a partner at SCDP, until that fatalistic final scene in which a woman approaches him at a bar and asks: “Are you alone”? Robert Alford

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TV Show: Girls

Network: HBO

Cast: Lena Dunham, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Zosia Mamet, Adam Driver, Alex Karpovsky

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HBO

Courting controversy at every step, the pilot for Lena Dunham’s Girls received loads of critical praise, and its hit-or-miss first season has it poised for an even better second season, premiering early in 2013. It is hard to describe the series without mentioning Sex and the City, which it updates, ironizes, and uses as a palimpsest throughout its first season. While we can certainly classify its four female characters in the same vein as Sex and the City’s (the writer, the realist, the nerd, and the free spirit), it is Dunham’s singular voice that epitomizes why this series is important, as her character Hannah expresses in the pilot: “I think I may be the voice of my generation. Or at least a voice of a generation.” Matt Paproth

 

TV Show: Homeland

Network: Showtime

Cast: Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, Morena Baccarin, David Harewood, Diego Klattenhoff, Jamey Sheridan, David Marciano, Navid Negahban, Jackson Pace, Morgan Saylor, Mandy Patinkin

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Homeland
Showtime

Oh, Homeland. No show was more discussed in 2012, as Homeland followed its Emmy-winning first season with a divisive, risk-taking second. As it churned through plot developments and dispatched major characters, Homeland remained grounded in the deeply convincing performances of its leads, Claire Danes and Damian Lewis, newcomer Rupert Friend, and especially Mandy Patinkin, as moral compass Saul Berenson. Spawning SNL spoofs and memes (like Sad Chris Brody), Homeland was a major pop culture talking point in 2012, and, however we felt about its various twists and turns, the season definitely demanded our attention and will undoubtedly keep it in 2013. Matt Paproth

 

TV Show: Nashville

Network: ABC

Cast: Connie Britton, Hayden Panettiere, Clare Bowen, Eric Close, Charles Esten, Jonathan Jackson, Sam Palladio, Robert Ray Wisdom, Powers Boothe

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Nashville
ABC

With all the catfights, shirtless, scruffy men, twangy one liners and politico-sexual intrigue, Nashville could very well reduced to being called the new Dynasty; however look closer into its melodramatic plot and you will find a heartbreaking portrait of what it’s like to be a woman in an industry that constantly changes its hierarchy of values. Connie Britton (the hardest working actress in television) plays a former queen of country music whose reign is threatened by an overtly sexual tween princess (Hayden Panettiere doing a version of Taylor Swift imagined as Anne Baxter in All About Eve). Both women know they are expected to become rivals, the ache lies in watching them try to understand why. Jose Solis

 

TV Show: Justified

Network: FX

Cast: Timothy Olyphant, Nick Searcy, Joelle Carter, Jacob Pitts, Erica Tazel, Natalie Zea, Walton Goggins

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Justified
FX

When Graham Yost’s superlative Elmore Leonard-derived series wrapped its second season, garnering an Emmy win for Margo Martindale’s portrayal of southern crime lord Mags Bennett, both fans and critics were concerned that the show’s third season would not be able to meet the bar that had just been set. Those concerns evaporated almost instantly, when the 2012 premiere, “The Gunfighter”, introduced Detroit mob enforcer Robert Quarles (Neal McDonough), by far the show’s most complicated and, frankly, daring villain to date. A fascinating mirror to protagonist Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), Quarles upped Justified’s ante, his introduction not only adding layers of Shakespearean intrigue and unmitigated terror, but also an uncanny sense of narrative and structural parallelism unmatched by any other show on television. Kevin Brettauer

 

TV Show: Sherlock

Network: BBC America

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Mark Gatiss, Rupert Graves, Andrew Scott, Una Stubbs, Louise Brealey

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Sherlock
BBC America

It now looks as though we will likely have to wait until 2014 for new episodes of BBC’s Sherlock, given the busy schedules of stars Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman. This will give audiences more time to chew on how Sherlock managed to fake his death in “The Reichenbach Fall”, the third of three 90-minute episodes comprising Sherlock’s second series. Each of the three episodes brought something new to the table: “A Scandal in Belgravia” introduced Irene Adler, brilliantly exploring her chemistry with Sherlock while introducing the season’s recurring theme of Sherlock’s growing fame; “The Hounds of Baskerville” took on the most famous of Doyle’s original stories, modernizing it and striving for genuine horror in a way that neither of the other episodes do; and, finally, “The Reichenbach Fall”, in which Moriarty’s greatest plot sends Sherlock to the brink of death and tests Watson’s faith in him. Matt Paproth

 

TV Show: The Hour

Network: BBC America

Cast: Dominic West, Romola Garai, Ben Whishaw, Anton Lesser, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Burn Gorman, Anna Chancellor, Joshua McGuire

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The Hour
BBC America

It’s a lazy journalistic trope to label The Hour as the Brit’s Mad Men. After all, the only things they really have in common are that they are set in the late ’50s/early ’60s, the men drink and smoke a lot, and the writing is fantastic. So, forget that point of reference and instead gaze in awe at a truly magnificent TV series, one with some of the finest scripts and performances currently gracing the telly. Set under the cloud of nuclear deployment and cold war fears, the show depicts the professional and personal lives of the crew of an early TV newsmagazine show set on the BBC called The Hour. Where the first season concerns the setting up of the show itself, the Suez Crisis and a spy plot seemingly drawn from classic Cold War Thrillers (rather like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy — the second season delved more deeply into British domestic affairs. A corrupt Soho club owner, matching up call girls with influential politicians and high-level cops, learns all manner of state secrets that allow him forge corporate alliances to make him fabulously wealthy. The Hour gets both personally and professionally involved, blowing the lid off the whole affair. Like few shows, The Hour has the real look and feel of the era it portrays, placing you at another point in history, smack dab in the middle of the action.

Sarah Zupko

 

TV Show: Downton Abbey

Network: PBS

Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Jessica Brown Findlay, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Kevin Doyle, Siobhan Finneran, Joanne Froggatt, Thomas Howes

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Downton Abbey
PBS

In the second season of Downton Abbey, the boundaries of power — between masters and servants, men and women, tradition and modernity — grow ever more blurry, heralding the period of seismic historical change that lies ahead. The Great War and the Spanish Flu claim victims from across the spectrum of wealth and status, but amidst all of the violence and illness, romance continues to blossom throughout Downton, both upstairs, downstairs and increasingly across that closely guarded spatial and symbolic divide.

The meddling of Bate’s (Brendan Coyle) treacherous estranged wife continues to cast an ominous shadow over his pending engagement to Anna (Joanne Froggatt). And Mary (Michelle Dockery) and Matthew’s (Dan Stevens) mercurial affair flickers on despite temporary paralysis and engagements to other suitors. But no relationship on the show better captures the impending tides of change than the forbidden love between Lady Sybil (Jessica Findlay), and the radical Irish nationalist Tom Branson (Allen Leech). And by the season’s end, their engagement threatens to tear a rift through the traditional mores and hierarchies that have defined life in Downton throughout the generations. Robert Alford