2016 Sheldon’s Favorite Fifteen – Television!

In this time of peak TV there were so many scripted shows available that no one person could ever hope to watch them all. So I didn’t.

I did, however, check out an awful lot of shows and discovered several that replaced shows I’d previously thought of as ‘must see’ – over half the list, in fact.

15. The Magicians (Syfy) – Harry Potter goes to university in the real world and discovers that Narnia is real, too. The Magicians unfolds in a deliberate manner, building its characters’ layers while creating a villain whose genesis is truly heartbreaking.

14. The Expanse (Syfy) – politically astute space opera with intriguing characters and the kind of plotting complexity that you usually find in a Game of Thrones. Or (see higher on this list) Westworld. The best outer space sci-fi since Battlestar Galactica.

13. (Tie) Lucifer (FOX)/Preacher (AMC) – DC comics’ two most unlikely protagonists, one rendered very faithfully to its source material in most respects (if a prologue can be so considered) and one that takes the character as he is in the comics and sticks into a new environment – a procedural – to create an er… unholy hybrid that’s a great deal of fun.

Preacher plays with the concept of religion and the existence of God, while Lucifer places the Lord of Hell on Earth and gives him the chance to keep in practice punishing evildoers via a unique partnership with a Los Angeles homicide detective who is the one person he can’t manipulate. Both shows are ridiculous amounts of fun.

12. (Tie) The Flash/Supergirl (The CW) – The best of the superhero shows on TV. Both are sunny, optimistic and well executed. Both feature diverse, intriguing casts and approach DC’s superheroes with wit and charm.

11. (Tie) Ash vs. Evil Dead (Starz)/Stan vs. Evil (IFC) – Although Stan probably wouldn’t exist without Ash, the two shows are almost completely different in tone – and where Ash is definitely the hero on his show, Stan frequently takes a back seat to the woman who took his old job.

Both feature rather dim heroes who rely on luck as much as skill or determination – and neither are afraid to go for the gross as well as the sneakier scares.

10. (Tie) Westworld (HBO)/Person of Interest (CBS) – Person of Interest may well have been the best network Sci-fi series ever, with its engaging characters and exploration of non-humanoid artificial intelligence. Its final season found the first AI, The Machine, in battle with Samaritan to decide whether humanity or machine would rule the planet, while never straying too far from its procedural roots.

Westworld put artificial intelligence and emotions into humanoid robots for the pleasure of guests at the titular theme park. The series looks at humanity and wonders of it might not be a bad thing if AIs developed on a different path – before discovering that it hasn’t.

9. Speechless (ABC)/No Tomorrow (The CW) – two liberating comedies, Speechless features a mute character with cerebral palsy, while No Tomorrow posits a scenario in which the Earth will be destroyed in a specific amount of time, freeing its main characters to try to achieve everything they’ve always wanted to do.

What’s liberating about Speechless is that the writers are writing about a family – not a wheelchair, or J.J., the kid who’s stuck in it, or even about the unlikely character who becomes his voice. Because the show is about a family coping with unique situations, we get to know all of them – and J.J. becomes a character who needs no pity and only rarely any sympathy (and certainly no more than his siblings who have to deal with being secondary priorities to their alpha mom).

No Tomorrow features a character, Xavier, who has possibly discovered that the world is going to end and is on a quest to cross items of his ‘apocalist’ of things he’s always wanted to do before he died. Xavier falls for Evie, a risk-averse quality control assessor for an Amazon-like company. He persuades her to join him on his quest by compiling her own list and the pair working to help each other complete their lists.

It’s not earth-shaking comedy, but it’s about a couple of people who have decided to make the most of their lives, however long they might be. It’s a breath of fresh air.

8. Stranger Things (Netflix) – This original Netflix series recycles themes explored in ‘80s by Steven Spielberg, Stephen King and John Carpenter not by copying them, but by building a solid, believable ‘80s sensibility and introducing something dark and scary into it.

Series creators The Duffer Brothers do reference their influences but those references are used as building blocks in a fresh, very entertaining tale of three boys who set out to find a friend who’s gone missing – and get help from a mysterious girl with unusual abilities.

As a comeback vehicle for Winona Ryder, Stranger Things is a success, but also excels as an introduction to a delightful cast of kids who immediately became as familiar as the friends we remember from our childhoods.

7. The Good Place (NBC) – A young woman dies and, in a strange twist, goes to the Good Place. Since she doesn’t belong there, things start to go wrong. In order to stay (the Bad Place sounds perfectly horrendous), she tries to get her ‘soulmate’ to teach her how be good.

The Good Place is unlike anything else on TV and that it’s a network series makes it a truly rare gem. A showcase for Kristen Bell and Ted Danson (who plays the architect of this neighborhood in the Good Place), the series is appointment viewing.

6. Luke Cage (Netflix) – This adaptation of Marvel’s first major black superhero takes the comic’s basics and builds a multi-layered snapshot of the black experience by using tropes from Blaxploitation films and current events to produce a one of a kind series that entertains while Saying Stuff. From the littlest details (Cage being shown reading Ralph Ellison) to its broadest strokes (the only major white cop is a crooked cop), Luke Cage shows that the black experience isn’t a single thing but, rather, a kaleidoscope.

5. People of Earth (TBS) – A top New York journalist is sent to a small New England town to do a story on a self-help group for alien abductees (who prefer the term ‘experiencers’) and discovers he may have been abducted, too.

A top notch cast – Ana Gasteyer, Luka Jones, Alice Wetterlund, Michael Cassidy, H” Jon Benjamin and more – support Wyatt Cenac’s Ozzie Graham in a strange series that looks like a sitcom but features an impending alien invasion that seems, somehow, both funny and not.

Sharp, shrewd and witty, People of Earth is one of the best shows of the season – not just one of the best new ones.

4. Black Mirror (Netflix) – Charlie Brooker’s deeply disturbing ‘twenty minutes into the future’ dystopic anthology hasn’t lost any of its edge now that it’s on Netflix.

3. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency (BBC America) – This is easily the most absurd, ridiculous and thoroughly entertaining new series of the year. Dirk Gently is a detective who solves cases by wandering along until the universe leads him to their solutions.

In season one, we learn about who he is; see him find an assistant and deal with a case that involves a cat, a shark, a corgi and the Rowdy Three (a quartet!), as well as meet a holistic assassin who’s certain she needs to kill him. The case involves mind swapping, time travel and missing persons.

Based on the novels by Douglas Adams, the series uses his characters and concepts to create new adventures that are as odd and as much fun as the books. Adams would likely be flattered and maybe even a little bit pleased.

2. Orphan Black (BBC America) – Orphan Black returned to the place where it all began in season four after discovering that Neolution was not the surface but the underpinning force that the Leda clones were facing. We met a major new clone, M.K., whose computer skills were a huge help, and saw the return of Dr. Delphine Cormier (who was thought dead).

Over the show’s penultimate season, it remained a smart, twisted and entertaining as ever – setting up a final season that promises to be a real humdinger.

1. Horace and Pete (louisck.net/Hulu) – Written, produced and directed by star Louis C.K., Horace and Pete details the day to day goings on at Horace and Pete’s – a New York dive bar run by Horace (C.K.) and Pete (Steve Buscemi) with the help of Uncle Pete (Alan Alda).

Nothing really amazing happens in the show’s first season (now streaming on Hulu), but the lives of the bar’s owners and clientele are always worth watching because they’re just so real.

One miracle of the series is that – despite having a cast that includes Laurie Metcalf, Jessica Lange, deadpan comic Steven Wright, Edie Falco, Tom Noonan and Rebecca Hall among others – it was produced without news of its production being leaked to the public. The first we knew of it was when it went up on C.K.’s website. The other is that it’s the best thing to happen to scripted TV in 2016.

Honorable Mentions: Archer, Better Call Saul, black-ish, Bojack Horseman, Dark Matter, Falling Water, Fresh of the Boat, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Game of Thrones, Killjoys, Rectify, Stitchers,  Lethal Weapon