There is simply too much TV, folks. This is a fact. Catching up oneverythingis something of an impossible task. At this point, I’m not sure I’ll ever learn what aKominsky Methodis no matter how many times my dad tells me to watch it. But that also makes it that much more of a minor miracle when a TV showdoesbreak away from the pack, when something so special emerges that you carve out pieces of your precious time just to see what happens next. Here, we’ve collected every series in 2019 that did just that.
As always, though, a few points before we begin. This list is mostly a road-map through the crowded TV landscape, not an etched-in-stone declaration. If you’re asking yourself that age-old question—what should we watch next?—these are the shows that are more than worth your while. There’s variety here, too. Mind-melting mystery boxes, madcap comedy, hard-boiled crime dramas, and some that are a mix of all those and more. Heck, there might even be something that’s not “good”, per se, but you have to watch it if you want to be a part of TV history.
So, without further ado, here are the best TV shows of 2019. And for even more of Collider’s Best of 2019 content,click here.
‘Watchmen’
Creator: Damon Lindelof
Cast: Regina King, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jean Smart, Jeremy Irons
It goes without saying that Damon Lindelof and the brilliant creative team he assembled for Watchmen did not need to go this hard. It would’ve been easy to adaptAlan MooreandDave Gibbons' landmark comic series for HBO and call it a day. And yet, here we are, and Watchmen is, all at once, a brilliant treatise on race and class, a tragic love story, a mind-melting sci-fi mystery, and the first piece of art in which Yahya Abdul-Mateen II straight-up hangs dong. It’s a gift, is what I’m saying.
Picking up 34 years after the comics,Watchmenmostly follows Angela Abar (Regina King), a masked vigilante whose world is rocked when her long-lost grandfather (Louis Gossett Jr.) comes to Tulsa and hangs her police sheriff (Don Johnson) from a tree. From there we are launched into a vast, insidious conspiracy, interrupted occasionally by Jeremy Irons losing his goddamned mind in a giant castle. Peppered with fantastic performances from the top-down—Jean Smartis brilliantly dry as a hero from the comics,Tim Blake Nelsonis wonderfully deadpan as a brand new vigilante—Watchmenwas the superhero show to beat in 2019, and it’s not even close.–Vinnie Mancuso
‘Succession’
Creator: Jesse Armstrong
Cast: Brian Cox, Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin
Few TV shows in 2019 were more entertaining, enticing, and surprising thanSuccession, which vaulted into the pantheon of “great HBO series” with its impeccable second season. What began as a chronicle of a Murdoch-like family empire has fully evolved into an ensemble dramedy that blends high stakes, emotional tension, and profane zingers into one of the most addictive serialized stories being told on TV right now. It’s kind of insane to think we actually care about these multi-millionaire a-holes, and yet the brilliance ofJesse Armstrong’s writing is that each deeply flawed individual not only has redeeming qualities, but also carries a layer of emotional trauma bubbling just under the surface. The cast is impeccable and their often-hilarious verbal tangles further reveal years of familial dynamics at play.Successionis a gift and we should all be thankful. –Adam Chitwood
‘I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson’
Creator: Tim Robinson
Cast: Tim Robinson, Sam Richardson, Brianna Baker, Patti Harrison
2019 was the year about 60% of everything I say was replaced with quotes fromI Think You Should Leave. Nothing, besidesmaybetheCatstrailer, made me laugh harder with its ultra-surreal brand of weirdness than Netflix’s sketch show, created by formerSNLwriter andDetroitersstarTim Robinson. All six episodes clock in at a brief 15-ish minutes, but woo boy the sheer variety of demented comedy within those minutes is breathtaking. You could watch a “Baby of the Year” contest featuring that piece of shit Harley Jarvis. You could see the mortal danger that comes with a sloppy mudpie. You could learn about this rule that the restaurant has where if you’re sharing loaded nachos you can’t just take the nachos with all the toppings on them. (It’s a real rule.) Wildly more hit than miss,I Think You Should Leaveshould stick around as long as Netflix wants to be in the running for comedy king.–Vinnie Mancuso
‘The Mandalorian’
Creator: Jon Favreau
Cast: Pedro Pascal, Werner Herzog, Gina Carano
The Mandalorianis my favorite Star Wars property of the past 30 years, if for no other reason than it finally delivers the experience of exploring the farther reaches of the Star Wars universe with smaller stories about regular non-magic people just tryna get by. Not everything has to be lightsabers and Death Stars and the Skywalkers. All those things are fine, but Lucasfilm has spent over forty years worldbuilding Star Wars without ever actually playing around in any of it. I’ve been screaming “Let me see puppetNick Noltefarming weird lizards in the desert” for years now, andThe Mandalorianhas finally answered my cries.
The show gives us a small-scale space western and lets it play out without needing to tie it to the main series, something that not a single Star Wars film or show has managed to do yet. This may well change, but for now, it’s refreshing to watch a Star Wars property that doesn’t have the burden of being a direct prequel or sequel to any of the films. It’s free to take it’s time building a brand new story with brand new characters. Plus, we’re finally diving into the Mandalorians, a race of Spartan-esque space warriors that have been fan favorites ever since Lucasfilm tossed a bucket onto the head of a random extra onThe Empire Strikes Backand told him to hold a laser rifle and look mysterious. And I hardly need to mention this, but I will take every bullet in the galaxy for Baby Yoda.–Tom Reimann
‘When They See Us’
Creator: Craig Mazin
Cast: Asante Blackk, Jharrel Jerome, Caleel Harris, Ethan Herisse, Marquis Rodriguez
Ava DuVernay’s four-part miniseries about The Central Park Five is devastating, but it’s an absolute must-see. The series chronicles how five young men—four black and one Hispanic—were wrongly accused and convicted for the brutal rape of a white female jogger in Central Park in 1981. The miniseries plays like an extension of DuVernay’s incredible documentary13thby showing how the justice system railroads young, poor men of color to satisfy the needs of white people who crave the illusion of safety. This system not only ruins the lives of these five young men, but also their families, and ultimately society as a whole since these five innocent boys were caged up instead of being allowed to contribute.When They See Usis about more than the crime that happened in Central Park; it’s about the crime of racial injustice we all continue to live with. –Matt Goldberg
Creators: Bill Hader and Alec Berg
Cast: Bill Hader, Stephen Root, Sarah Goldberg, Henry Winkler, Anthony Carrigan
‘Mindhunter’
Creator: Joe Penhall
Cast: Jonathan Groff, Holt McCallany, Anna Torv
In season 2 of Mindhunter, the screws were tightened, the procedures and protocols were bent to their near-breaking point, and constants we thought we knew about the characters were flummoxed – all amidst the real life tragedy of the Atlanta Child Murders, a case that shoved Mindhunter’s usually subtle didacticism screaming necessarily into the forefront. The show’s more surface-level pleasures continued and evolved from season 1. It continued to be one of the most handsomely shot and constructed shows on TV, continued to ratchet up nearly unbearable levels of suspense and tension with nothing but dialogue, and had sterling performances from its locked-the-hell-in ensemble. But I’ll remember Mindhunter’s second season primarily as a “walls caving in” season, collapsing the central beliefs and tropes of its characters to incisive, enthralling results. Can we please have season 3 already?–Gregory Lawrence
‘The Righteous Gemstones’
Creator: Danny McBride
Cast: John Goodman, Danny McBride, Adam Devine, Edi Patterson
Thank God forTheRighteousGemstones,theHBO comedy that unleashes some of Hollywood’s most talented on-screen scumbags likeDanny McBride,Walton Goggins, andAdam Devinewith alltheforce oftheOld Testament. Created by McBride with regular collaboratorsJody HillandDavid Gordon Greentaking on producing and directing roles,theseries followstheuber-famous evangelist familytheGemstones, led up by blowhard patriarch EliGemstone(John Goodman, a blast as always) and often cast into controversy by siblings Jesse (McBride), Judy (Edi Patterson, fantastic), and Kelvin (Devine). Like most McBride projects,TheRighteousGemstonesbasks in its own assholery—it’s a pretty perfect companion to HBO’sSuccession—but it’s impressive how often it whiplashes into high-tension drama and violence. Crude and unflinching its views onthevastly wealthy megachurch scene, fans ofEastbound & DownandVice Principalswill be in from moment on one. But what those shows donothave is Walton Goggins showing up with an absurdly red face and shock of white hair to get “Misbehavin'” stuck in your head for days on end. Praise be.–Vinnie Mancuso
‘The Boys’
Creator: Eric Kripke
Cast: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Erin Moriarty, Antony Starr, Elisabeth Shue
The year marked some significant introspection when it came to the superhero genre. As far as movies go, Joker and Avengers: Endgame killed our superheroes, make real threats out of villains, and imbued the genre with an overwhelmingly morose vibe. And when the time came for television to contribute to the discussion, it did so withThe Boys, the Amazon Studios live-action adaptation of the Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson comics of the same name.
Beneath all of the gore, cursing, and darkness which permeated The Boys Season 1 was a show deeply interested in investigating our cultural obsession with superhero stories and the near deification through over-commercialization of these figures in our everyday life. The Boys followed Billy Butcher (a delightful, always snarling Karl Urban) and his team of merry misfits — played by Jack Quaid, Laz Alonso, Karen Fukuhara, and Tomer Capon — as they work to keep superheroes from abusing their powers and getting too far out of line. Unfortunately for them, the A-list supes doing superhero work for PR perks (led by a deliciously insidious performance from Antony Starr as Captain America stand-in Homelander) give them more trouble than they could ever expect. The Boys was a raucous, welcome relief from the otherwise pristine landscape of comic book-adapted superhero fare of this year and years past, a much-needed palate cleanser, and an indictment of the genre overall. Cynics, this one was for you and I hope you got a kick out of it.
