50 favorite TV episodes, 2010-19
As with my games list, here I don’t make any claims to completeness of coverage. I watch a fair amount of half-hour sitcoms and not much Serious One-Hour Drama because of lack of time, interest, and premium cable subscriptions (if you’re wondering about Twin Peaks’s absence, do I look like someone who has Showtime or can be bothered pirating things on Showtime?) The average American adult watches 3 to 5 hours of TV a day, depending on how you define “watches” and “TV), so you might want to consult a list by the average American instead: unlike prestige TV fans, at least they won’t try to talk you into watching Homeland or Enlightened and so on.
Atlanta: Teddy Perkins
A horror movie roughly as deep as Get Out in 35 minutes. It does have something to say about the psychic toll getting within two degrees of white fame can take on black men. But it has more to say about the South: shit can get weird there, man.
Community: Remedial Chaos Theory
I believe that this episode’s refusal to abide by the decision of the gods of randomness inadvertently created the current IRL darkest timeline, and it probably wasn’t worth it, but it’s a close-run thing. As it is, it’s an astonishing piece of sitcom construction—the entire darkest timeline unfolds in a bit over a minute, and that includes the gratuitous Donald Glover reaction shots.
Atlanta: B.A.N.
Look, this isn’t going to be an entirely Donald Glover list, but he was at the center of all that mattered in TV just like he was nowhere near the center of rap. His great subject is what it means to be street in an era when your strongest potential allies are educated liberals with whom you barely have a common language to communicate. Since this is also his strongest potential audience, it helps that his other great subject is television.
O.J.: Made in America: Part 2
Who knew that it would be ESPN that, almost incidentally, would make the best documentary about the L.A. riots? Context is the key, and this covers plenty of stuff I should’ve know about but didn’t. Turns out the preceding decades of black lives failing to matter to the justice system has significant explanatory power.
Doctor Who: The Time of the Doctor
Series finales are banned from this list for ideological reasons, but I’ll assert without evidence this is kosher. This was the furthest Steven Moffat was able to push his century-spanning time-wimeyness before completely crossing into self-parody, and he manages to get the requisite fanservice in as well. Matt Smith was probably the best TV actor of the era, and the fact that he hasn’t done anything more notable than playing Skynet since is puzzling.
[redacted]: Duckling
This was the Me Too case that was the most disappointing. It was clear his horny-bordering-on-creepy dude was autobiographical, but it seemed like so sensitive a guy would know what the fjuck a boundary was in real life. I hope I outlive the asshole so I can enjoy this again after he’s gone, among other reasons.
Breaking Bad: Face Off
It says something that a show rightly regarded as one of TV’s greatest-ever dramas had such obvious pacing problems once the show was a hit and Vince Gilligan realized it would be profitable to stretch it out to sixty episodes (problems only amplified in the prequel, When Will Saul Get to the Fireworks Factory?.) Yet the couple of times a season that they had a Major Development, they let you know something was coming, and a slo-mo spelling bee became, like, drama.
BoJack Horseman: That’s Too Much, Man!
I maintain that current discourse surrounding prestige TV focuses too much on strained seriousness, so it’s inconvenient for me that the funniest BoJack episode is also the single most depressing fictional half-hour of the decade. But: the AA meeting! The drywall running gag! Sarah-Lynn’s retelling of the lifeguard story!
Rick and Morty: Total Rickall
The series’s nihilism does get wearying after a while, but when they throw a bunch of parasites at a wall, shoot them, and splatter their guts over said wall, it can be quite entertaining. Also: the true meaning of family or whatever.
Game of Thrones: The Door
It was a good show until it wasn’t, and it wasn’t the case that it wasn’t until very late. This was the one big resolution to a book mystery that GRRM gifted Benioff and Weiss, and they jerk it for every tear in the space-time continuum they can.
Community: Pillows and Blankets
Review: Pancakes; Divorce; Pancakes
Bob’s Burgers: Boyz 4 Now
Watchmen: A God Walks into Abar
Adventure Time: Simon & Marcy
Mad Men: The Suitcase
The Good Place: Rhonda, Diana, Jake, and Trent
The Americans: Dead Hand
BoJack Horseman: Let’s Find Out
Fleabag: Episode #2.1
Veep: Helsinki
Killing Eve: Sorry Baby
Doctor Who: The Doctor’s Wife
O.J.: Made in America: Part 4
True Detective: Who Goes There
Community: Abed’s Uncontrollable Christmas
Broad City: Stolen Phone
The Good Place: The Trolley Problem
[redacted]: Bully
BoJack Horseman: Free Churro
Game of Thrones: The Children
Mad Men: Far Away Places
The Americans: Dyatkovo
Fleabag: Episode #2.3
Rick and Morty: Rixty Minutes
Breaking Bad: Ozymandias
Party Down: Steve Guttenberg’s Birthday
Game of Thrones: The Long Night
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Hour
The Americans: Do Mail Robots Dream of Electric Sheep?
Adventure Time: Lemonhope
Parks and Recreation: Ron and Tammys
Black Mirror: Be Right Back
The Good Place: Most Improved Player
Superstore: Grand Re-Opening
GLOW: Viking Funeral
Bob’s Burgers: Bob Day Afternoon
Review: Murder; Magic 8 Ball; Procrastination
Broad City: Working Girls
You’re the Worst: There Is Not Currently a Problem
TV series of the decade:
The Americans
Community
BoJack Horseman
O.J.: Made in America
Atlanta
The Good Place
Game of Thrones
Watchmen
Breaking Bad
Parks and Recreation