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Rank your 2018 TV shows throughout the year


Corvinus85

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I didnt watch much new tv this year . 

1) The Last Kingdom s3

2) Gommorah s3

3) The Americans final season 

(decent sized gap)

4) Westworld s2

lost interest in Better Call Saul s4 a few episodes in. I’m sure I’ll binge it when it hits Netflix before season 5 comes out. 

Norseman s2 was hilarious but a slight stepdown from s1 imo. 

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26 minutes ago, Mark Antony said:

I didnt watch much new tv this year . 

1) The Last Kingdom s3

2) Gommorah s3

3) The Americans final season 

(decent sized gap)

4) Westworld s2

lost interest in Better Call Saul s4 a few episodes in. I’m sure I’ll binge it when it hits Netflix before season 5 comes out. 

Norseman s2 was hilarious but a slight stepdown from s1 imo. 

Did you not watch Sunny? 

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13 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

How does BoJack Horseman manage to be better and better with each season? People say that about a lot of shows, but in this case, it's true. I didn't think it could top season 4, which was the best season of any show in 2017, but season 5 is even better. Although season 4 had a few more brilliant individual episodes, season 5 was more consistent and had a really strong overall narrative. And was amazingly meta and criticizing itself, while also poking fun and satirizing so many things in its hilarious and witty way, as it always does.

Completely agree. I found S5 harder to love than S4 (less of that beautiful bittersweetness that had in tears several times) but its overall thematic arc is even stronger. Knowing where it goes, I found a second viewing incredibly rewarding, elevating it yet again.

Very much top for me.

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1 hour ago, Mark Antony said:

Nahh I didn’t. I’ll wait for it to get on Hulu. I’ve heard very mixed things about the latest season but I’ll still check it out 

I feel like it was the same as most of the last five or so seasons.  Three or four really good/great episodes, a few that suck, and a couple that are solid but not amazing.

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22 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Finding out from this list that Fear the Walking Dead is on Season 4 is has just blown my mind. 

Yup, and it's actually good. I was done with the show after barely being able to force myself to finish S2, but a good friend was on me for months to give S3 a try, so I finally budged this summer and ending up binge watching it. Likewise for S4. 

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Time for some updates. The year is almost done. I don't think I have any other shows to rank, except Outlander, which I will wait until the end of the year. This season's scheduling is so that it will extend into January.

Adding Travelers and Nightflyers. Travelers had another brilliant season, while Nightflyers was so-so. I wasn't impressed, and in light of SyFy cutting The Expanse, I can only say that once again, they've downgraded on show quality.

I've decided to separate the CW superhero shows. I've kept them lumped together after their spring runs, but this fall Supergirl had a much stronger story, while Arrow at least deserves to be above the turd that is Britannia. I've quit watching The Flash and LoT, so they're at the bottom.

  1. Daredevil
  2. The Expanse
  3. The Last Kingdom
  4. Travelers
  5. Westworld
  6. Altered Carbon
  7. Lost in Space
  8. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D
  9. Cobra Kai
  10. Luke Cage
  11. Iron Fist
  12. Jessica Jones
  13. The Man in the High Castle
  14. Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan
  15. Bodyguard
  16. Legion
  17. The Terror
  18. Homeland
  19. The First
  20. Star Wars Rebels
  21. iZombie
  22. Star Trek Discovery
  23. Nightflyers
  24. Krypton
  25. Troy: Fall of a City
  26. The Walking Dead
  27. The Gifted
  28. Supergirl
  29. Black Lightning
  30. Designated Survivor
  31. Arrow
  32. Britannia
  33. The Flash
  34. Legends of Tomorrow
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Ok... here it goes....Not putting Sense8 on there because it was really a movie... but I loved it...

1- The Deuce

2- Counterpart

3 - The Expanse

4- Start Up

5- The Last Kingdom

6- Better Call Saul

7- The Handmaid's Tale

8- WestWorld

9- Daredevil

10- The Chi

... Next 10 --still excellent--in no particular order... Man in the High Castle... Ozark,...The Americans... Outlander... Travelers...Mr. Mercedes.... Altered Carbon... Snowfall.... The Alienist

.... Next 10.... ---really good-- no order.... The Sinner.... Killing Eve... Iron Fist... Jack Ryan.. Luke Cage.... Bosch.... Brintania... Sneaky Pete.... Goliath.... the Terror

Honorable mention... Berlin Station... Jessica Jones... Preacher...Outcast.... Billions... Rellik... McMafia... Assassination of Versace.... the Last Ship... Humans... Sharp Objects... Lost in Space.... Trust

Slightly less honorable mention.... Harlots... CB Strike... Escape at Dannemora.... Nightflyers.... Frontier.... Waco.... the Son.... Yellowstone... Safe... Colony.... Animal Kingdom... 12 Monkeys... Patrick Melrose...

Meh.... I watch while I'm surfing the web because these shows have gone downhill.... Walking Dead(s).... Ray Donovan.... Vikings.... 

Total Disappointments.... Homeland... Shoot the Messenger.... the Little Drummer Girl.... The Purge.... Mosaic... Bellvue....Biggie & Tupac... Hard Sun.... the Oath.... Queen of the South... House of Cards... Troy.... Frankenstein Chronicles... Absentia

Shows I loved this year that are just a shit-ton of fun, but I don;t know how to rank against my top 10...

1-The Magicians ... Christ this show is a pisser... Margo is among the best characters on TV

2- Strike Back ,,,, Explosions, T, and A

3- Ash v Evil Dead...  I imagine this show is what its like to be on acid all the time...

4- Snatch.... Dougray Scott and Ron Weasley... another fun AF show

5- A Series of Unfortunate Events.... New Years day, this is my binge.

6- Killjoys... I never really know whats going on... but I still dig it...

7- The Santa Clarita Diet... Drew Barrymore is fucking hilarious

8- Happy... Just in case you ever wondered what it would be like to trip balls

9- End of the Fucking World... seriously... WTF

10- Mr. Inbetween... I think this was a dark comedy... I'm not sure... 

11- Succession... Based on the Murdock family... Brian Cox riffing...

12- Sabrina... Lucy Davis is wonderful

13- Krypton... not a great show... but a great idea for a show

14- Carter... just some dumb fun on a slow TV week

15- Lodge 49... some major league weirdness

.... and shows cancelled too soon.... Damnation.... Hap & Leonard.... Falling Water.... the Path

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1. The Expanse: The best season of the show yet. It's even more impressive given that they were adapting a (IMO) pretty weak book in the second half of the season. This is the best space sci-fi on TV since the early seasons of BSG,

2. Better Call Saul: Like all seasons of Better Call Saul since Season 1, this show suffers from its fragmented plotlines, which are inconsistent in quality. Everything with Jimmy and Kim is gold. Mike had a pretty interesting plotline this season. Nacho was wasted, and Gus just bores me at this point; he seems to only be there to provide Breaking Bad easter eggs. But when the show is good, it's incredible. I just really hope that Season 5 can actually make this into a single show, not four separate ones that barely feel connected.

3. The Good Place: A fantastic and innovative second season let down only by a kind of weak last few episodes, as the show became slightly too schmaltzy. The first half of season 3 has had some excellent episodes but also some of the show's worst.

4.. Westworld: Season 2 had some phenomenal moments and episodes that topped anything in season 1 (especially episodes four and eight), but as a whole it feels less than the sum of its parts. Too many pointless journeys without much payoff, too little development of secondary characters, too much trying to set up uninteresting mysteries instead of telling an interesting story. Still, the acting and cinematography are amazing, and when it's good, it's really good.

5. Daredevil: Season 3 is definitely the best Marvel Netflix season since Seasons 1 of Daredevil and Jessica Jones; a very nice return to form, with some great new characters, especially Nadeem, Sister Maggie, and Dex, who was a terrifying villain. That said, Kingpin, who was a phenomenal villain in season 1, really dragged this down for me; the actor is good, but was only rarely given good material to work with. And the writing for his plots and how he constantly manages to outsmart everyone is just ridiculous and very often dumb (the same goes for Foggy and anything involving the legal system in this show).   

_______________________________________

6. Jessica Jones: A good, if flawed, second season

7. Arrested Development: The first half of season 5 was pretty uneven. It's great to have the cast interacting again, and there are some hilarious episodes and gags, but especially in the early episodes, the pacing is pretty bad. In general episodes are too long, and there's still too much exposition. But the good moments make up for the bad. I have no idea if the mythical second half is ever coming.

8. House of Cards: It was deeply average. But that's better than the past few seasons.

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9. Star Trek: Discovery: The second half of the season was a huge disappointment for me, particularly the parallel universe shenanigans. This isn't coming from a Star Trek  purist; this is the first time I've ever watched a full Star Trek season of anything. I just felt there was lots of wasted potential here.

10. Troy: Fall of a City. Wow, this was uninspired. How anyone can take the Iliad and the Trojan War myths and make them this boring and prosaic is beyond me. 

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1. Gomorrah S3

2. Sharp Objects

3. The Haunting of Hill House- Forgot to put this on my first list.

4. Westworld S2

5. Maniac

6. Narcos: Mexico- The first half was great but it started to falter down the stretch. It also didn’t help that I watched S3 of Narcos AFTER this and it was head and shoulders above it.

7. Better Call Saul

8. Castle Rock- I haven’t watched the finale yet(which I’ve heard is very disappointing). It started out decent enough but lost steam as episodes went on. That seems to be the theme this year for many of the shows on my list.

9. AHS: Apocalypse 

I also watched Big Mouth S2 and loved it, but never know where to put comedies. I’m also gonna watch Killing Eve since it’s on Hulu now.

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1 hour ago, Martini Sigil said:

We both work from home.... no commute..... lol

But we actually go out and party a lot, too.... :)

Yeah, I also work from home and it does wonders for my TV consumption.  Pretty much always have something on in the background unless I'm on a conference call.

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11 hours ago, briantw said:

Yeah, I also work from home and it does wonders for my TV consumption.  Pretty much always have something on in the background unless I'm on a conference call.

How do you actually 'watch' these shows though? If something is on in the background, then for me I don't think I have really watched it. I'm so easily distracted and catching 5 mins here or there doesn't really mean I've watched something.

There are some shows where you can get away with that, but with these binge watch Netflix series, it requires a level of concentration and focus that its not something you can just half watch.

I tend to do all my tv show watching whilst I am commuting, thats the one place I can actually turn off all other distractions.

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11 hours ago, Heartofice said:

How do you actually 'watch' these shows though? If something is on in the background, then for me I don't think I have really watched it. I'm so easily distracted and catching 5 mins here or there doesn't really mean I've watched something.

There are some shows where you can get away with that, but with these binge watch Netflix series, it requires a level of concentration and focus that its not something you can just half watch.

I tend to do all my tv show watching whilst I am commuting, thats the one place I can actually turn off all other distractions.

It depends on the show.  I can usually pay enough attention to most shows to catch what I need to follow them.

Certain shows I can't watch while I'm working, though, like anything with subtitles (can't read them properly when you're constantly glancing at another screen) or more complex shows.  Like, I just started watching Counterpart and quickly learned that, if I don't pay attention, I'm going to get lost.  Simpler shows work, though, like most comedies, or any show without subtitles that I am re-watching.  

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On 12/20/2018 at 11:48 AM, Heartofice said:

How do you actually 'watch' these shows though? If something is on in the background, then for me I don't think I have really watched it. I'm so easily distracted and catching 5 mins here or there doesn't really mean I've watched something.

There are some shows where you can get away with that, but with these binge watch Netflix series, it requires a level of concentration and focus that its not something you can just half watch.

I tend to do all my tv show watching whilst I am commuting, thats the one place I can actually turn off all other distractions.

For me, "background watching" is only for shows I don't take too seriously and don't care much about. Like all the DC shows on CW, or random procedurals that happen to be on TV atm. And for really bad shows that you only watch for completism, that's the only way that works. That's how I managed to get through Inhumans, Arrow seasons 3-4, and TWD season 7 and 8a, before I finally dropped it.

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3 hours ago, Annara Snow said:

For me, "background watching" is only for shows I don't take too seriously and don't care much about. Like all the DC shows on CW, or random procedurals that happen to be on TV atm. And for really bad shows that you only watch for completism, that's the only way that works. That's how I managed to get through Inhumans, Arrow seasons 3-4, and TWD season 7 and 8a, before I finally dropped it.

I'd say a show like The Walking Dead can only be watched in the background. If I had to sit and stare at that episode after episode I would probably collapse into a depressed coma. 

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There have been SO many shows this year. Rather than mention many of the shows I liked a bit, such as Altered Carbon, Better call Saul and Daredevil, I'll mention the best and the worst.

The Great

The Americans - A fantastic ending to one of the best shows of recent years, I miss it already
Killing Eve - I didn't think I'd like it, but it has a panache you don't see in other tv shows that kept me hooked
End of the F**ing world - We saw it all in one go, being unable to stop, so it was more like a movie, but loved it.
The Terror - Took a while to get going, but the last 3 episodes are gripping.
Glow - I want to hug everyone on this show
Ozark - Obsessed with this.

The Really Bad ( I don't watch many things that I don't like)

The Walking Dead - Deserves to be on every bad list. I'm out
Star Trek Discovery - It has no idea what it wants to be.
Westworld - This show fell apart really quickly, its worst crime is that it is boring.
Big Mouth - It really irritated me, I find the style of humour less funny every second.
Bodyguard - What started off well, ended with a splat. Maybe the worst ending to a show I've seen in a long time
 

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Updating with a new addition at #17, in bold.

 

1. The Americans S6 - So sad to see it go. Keri Russell was robbed. 

2. The Deuce S2 - Really strong from start to finish. Amazing production values, terrific acting, an important and illuminating story. I'll predict this is going to be #1 on the list next year, in its final season.

3. The Terror - What a cast! And the production values -- and sound design, in particular -- were great. It lost something in its latter half, I thought, maybe getting a bit messier, but it ended strongly.

4. Sharp Objects - Gorgeous, great cast, some real biting commentary.

5. Better Call Saul S4 - I think this season has been a bit over-praised, because one substantial plot thread was just left on ice (Nacho) and another was dragged out (the Germans). Still, some beautiful cinematography and a great cast.

6. Daredevil S3 - The first time a Marvel Netflix show has gone 13 episodes without pacing issues. Charlie Cox is so good as Matt Murdock, D'Onofrio's very mannered performance is gripping, the production values just seem better than that of the other Marvel shows. And yes, the show has the best fight choreography of any show I've watched this year.

7. GLOW S2 - So 80s, so fun.

8. Westworld S2 - Bit messy but some really clever, and even beautiful, moments. "Kiksuya" should have had all the awards.

9. Barry S1 - Clever, points for casting and performance and macabre humor, but I will say that I find it hard to imagine it working as well in S2. Should have been a one-and-done. 

10. Poldark S4 - Its economy of storytelling is something a lot of shows could learn from. A winsome cast, beautiful landscape to film, and a good dollop of melodrama works well.

11. The Handmaid's Tale S2 - Didn't like the ending much at all.

12. Maniac - First episode blew my mind with its production design, and everything was meticulously shot ... but as it went on, I felt it was saying a lot less than it could have, and was less bold than it appeared at first glance.

13: Narcos Mexico - I have some issues with this but I don't know how much is simply not being familiar with the history and how much is that the history isn't that interesting. There's also too much knowing copping from THE GODFATHER films (Gallardo's split with his wife, the "ballroom" scene) and SCARFACE (Rafa's obsession with the film and how it informs his behavior, which seems somewhat wildly at odds with what I can find about the actual Rafael Caro Quintero) as well in a way that I'm not sure reflects the history or is just a somewhat tired attempt to homage them. I think the first five episodes were substantially stronger than the last five episodes, and yes, the callbacks in episode 5 were great. The attack on the marijuna field was very poorly choreographed and Michael Peña seemed utterly out of place shuffling along in that combat scene (his performance was much better elsewhere, especially his final scene). Diego Luna was fine when he was the guy scrambling to claw a position out, but after about the halfway point he just became intensely unappealing because he was so obviously being dumb. From what I can tell, this is because they've substantially changed the timeline related to marijuana production shifting to cocaine transport, and certain major arrests.

14. Homeland S-whatever - Getting long in the tooth, but Mandy Patinkin and Claire Danes remain exceptionally watchable.

15. Godless - Started strong, but I felt it didn't live up to its promise.

16. Silicon Valley - Wearing thin, but still has some spark.

17. The Kominsky Method - Nice to see Alan Arkin and Michael Douglas in a piece that's poignantly about aging and the losses that come with it -- of loved ones, of health, of "virility" -- while still keeping a sense of humor about it all (as well as about Hollywood). It's not particularly ambitious or challenging, but it goes a long way on the charms of its leads.

18. Luke Cage - Nothing as great as Mahershala Ali in the first half of S1, nothing so dire as as Diamondback in the second half of S1. It was fine.

19. Jessica Jones - Worse than its first season, and I wasn't that impressed with its first season. Its supporting cast is notably weaker than that of DD and LC. I don't know that I would watch a third season at this rate.

20. Altered Carbon - Tremendous production values, some solid casting, but let down by a showrunner who did not trust her abilities and so made an utter hash of the premise and chief character to shoe-horn in the bit she really liked. Very dubious of a second season being any better, but we'll see.

21. Disenchanted - Uneven, long stretches of not being particularly funny, but never eye-rollingly bad as some of the things listed below it got at certain points.

22. Star Trek Discovery - Very uneven, but has substantial room to improve.

23. Ozark S2 - Watched this for the first time. S1 was substantially better than S2, IMO. Jason Bateman is a non-entity on the show. Laura Linney and Julia Garner are very much the highlights. S2 had enormous amounts of implausibility and dud storylines (like the daughter wanting to be emancipated), and I thought a supporting character like Russ was really lacking.

24. Iron Fist S2 - Better paced, still just kind of ... eh. I don't think any of them really get Iron Fist, and I still think moving away from the Marvel version and turn him into something more Jackie Chan -- substantially more light-hearted and humorous -- could have been interesting even if it'd be a wild departure. The final scene kind of saved it for me a bit -- if there's an S3, I'd be interested in seeing where they go with it.

25. House of Cards S6 - Rushed through it just to finish it after having watched for five seasons. Of course, the 1st season was by the far the best -- and the one that hewed closest to the British original -- and the 2nd season worked but was a step down. It went increasingly downhill after that, and I think only inertia -- and Spacey's performance -- really kept me watching. This final season happened mostly to keep the cast and crew employed for one more year, and was a complete and utter mess that ended with a whimper. Robin Wright did what she could with what she had been given, but her character had always been too one-note and that really didn't change despite efforts to give her flashbacks to her youth. Good on Netflix for caring about the welfare of its employees enough to go one more season, but this show is well-buried.

26. Versailles S3 - I watch it for the beautiful costumes mostly. It was pretty dire, and was never a good show but did have its moments.

INCOMPLETE:

A Discovery of Witches -- Heard it got a two season renewal, saw some people liked it, gave the first episode a try. It's so lacking in subtext that it hurts. It's just constantly obvious, no subtlety to speak of, so dropped it. Shame, Matthew Goode is pretty good at playing the sort of role he was playing. So, lost Linda and I before even finishing the first episode, and won't be giving it another try.

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