EW’s TV critics pick their favorite series from the 2010s.
What were the best 15 television shows ofthe last 10 years?
Read on asEntertainment WeeklyTV critics Kristen Baldwin and Darren Franich talk about their respective lists.
Quick question, trusty colleague: What is television, exactly?
The 2010s transformed the medium beyond obvious definition.
Anthologies and limited series ran alongside ever-more-serialized longforms.
New platforms launched meganetworks of scripted programming.
Co-creator Issa Rae stars as Issa, a woman striving professionally and personally for something more.
(Available on HBO)
KRISTEN:Yes!
The best comedies create a world that viewers want to visit, and while the setting for myNo.
14show isn’t as glamorous asInsecure’s Los Angeles, I still loved spending time there every week.
Discuss) and frank, funny debates about the role of government in modern society.
Something similar happened inNo.
Episode-of-the-week plots blended into an ever-expanding lineup of baddies (character actress Margo Martindale!)
Put another way: It broke badder, with truer detectives.
(Available on Netflix)
DARREN:So much danger in these small towns!
You know what else was dangerous this decade?
The whole world, which was the macro setting for myNo.
12, the sacred Sunday night ritual that isLast Week Tonight With John Oliver.
Individual episode subjects are famously non-topical (untilLast Week Tonightmakes them topical).
Also, yes, jokes about vain Trumplings and dumbo Brexiteers.
in the sweet spot between brainy, silly, and righteously irate.
12show is a sketch comedy from two equally passionate writer-performers.
(Available on Hulu)
DARREN:I’m in tears just thinking about their hyperbolicLes Miserablesparody.
Speaking of hyperbole: Ryan Murphy!!!!
11,American Horror Story: Asylum.
Then came the biggest shock: a sensitive tale of human beings struggling against the prison of society itself.
Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play themselves, two funnymen with divergent careers.
The first series sends them on a restaurant tour of northern England.
It’s a travelogue where most of the action is meal-adjacent.
(The Trip to Greeceis on the horizon.)
Brydon and Coogan capture the spiky closeness of middle-aged friendship, torn between egotist peacockery and genuine feeling.
10show falls into the reality-comedy hybrid genre as well.
Kudrow’s performance, an uncanny blend of buffoonery and heart, is a true marvel.
(Available on HBO)
DARREN:Sometimes entertainers stare into their navel and see the universe.
That’s certainly true of myNo.
9,Netflix’sBojack Horseman.
Creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg and chief visual designer Lisa Hanawalt have builtBojackout from Bojack into a lacerating, lush toonscape.
The redemptive half-season that just aired set the stage, quite stunningly, for a dark reckoning.
(Available on Netflix)
KRISTEN:That’s a perfect segue into myNo.
9show, a dark and chilling British crime drama.
(Available to purchase on Amazon)
DARREN:MyNo.
Mads Mikkelsen stars as a seductive Hannibal Lecter opposite Hugh Dancy’s burnt-ember-of-a-man FBI profiler Will Graham.
The third season kitchen-sinked with luscious grotesquerie, clashing giallo horror into a Euro-trippy showdown.
), but because they’re really hard to do well.
One of the things I love about myNo.
Season 3 pushed deeper into political satire, complete with cartoon interludes and agenuine behind-the-scenes censorship battle.
KRISTEN:MissingThe Good Fightoughtta be against the law, Darren!
(I’ll rave more about Baranski & Co. later in this list.
)Orange Is the New Blacklands at myNo.
Welcome back, Ryan Murphy, because myNo.
6is theThe People v. O.J.
Simpson: American Crime Story.
Simpson trial could have been a cheap prestige gag.
6show spent the majority of this decade making award-winning comedy out of our government’s profound dysfunction.
(Available on HBO)
DARREN:MyNo.
a butterly effect dice-roll adventure!)
(Available on Hulu)
KRISTEN:LikeCommunity, myNo.
5show took the traditional half-hour-comedy format and busted it wide open.
Back in 2016, FX announced it was picking up a new series co-created by Louis C.K.
and Pamela Adlon a writer, working TV actor, and voice-over actor calledBetter Things.
was fired from the show, and FX, in 2017.)
4has a similar quality of twisted emotional whimsy.
Also: cross-dimensional hellscapes, magical futuretech space fantasies, and sweet beats.
Adventure Timewill return next year with special episodes on HBO Max, and its legacy is already assured.
(Available on Hulu)
KRISTEN:God, I love how much you loveAdventure Time, Darren.
It warms my heart.
And the 18-part epic remains elusive even on my current fourth rewatch.
I’m guessing myNo.
On one level,Mad Menwas a drama about a country and a culture in transition.
and empowering (burn it down, Joan burn this place down!
), while also piercing our hearts with its keenly moving depiction of the human struggle.
I have faith in creator Donald Glover (a top 5 two-timer!
(Available on Hulu)
KRISTEN:Cheers to FX!
Here’s hoping next year they scheduleAtlantaandBetter Thingsback-to-back.
(Dare to dream?)
The new platform has beenGood Fight’s blessing and its curse.
On the downside, though, is anybody watching?
It’s everything you could want in a TV show only better.
(Available on CBS All Access)
DARREN:LovingThe Good Fightis a special kind of experience, though.
1TV series of the last 10 years.
WhenMad Menstarted, I was a twentysomething just beginning work in a creative-field Manhattan job.
Now throw all your repressed sadness in the suitcase, and buy the world a Coke.
(Available on Netflix)
Kristen:WhatMad Mendid for repressed sadness, myNo.
1show of the decade did for raw and intense pain.
To be honest, I stopped watchingThe Leftoversmidway through season 1.
“My God,The Leftovers are you watching?”
