Russell T Davies’s requiem for the lives lost to AIDS in the 1980s was as heartbreaking and furious as you might have expected. But what follows over the first season, from Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi (“What We Do in the Shadows”), is the kind of deep character comedy, rich detail and community portraiture that can only come from loving the thing you want to leave. Likewise, the four central teens of “Dogs” tell you immediately why they can’t wait to escape their Oklahoma reservation town. In “Hacks,” a late-career Vegas comic (an incendiary Jean Smart) and her millennial apprentice (Hannah Einbinder) form an insult-comedy partnership that blooms into respect. The year’s two best new comedy series were love stories disguised as hate stories. ) ‘Hacks’ (HBO Max) and ‘Reservation Dogs’ (FX on Hulu) A quirky running joke became a chilling lesson in how the law is only as strong as people’s willingness to believe in it - a fitting punchline for an age when clownery can turn deadly serious. Its sneakiest gambit was a story arc about Hal Wackner (Mandy Patinkin), an amateur judge who set up a court in a Chicago copy shop. Season 5 of this legal series was a surreal ride haunted by the George Floyd protests and the Jan. What could the essential drama of the Trump era possibly have to say after the Trump presidency? Plenty.

Here, in alphabetical order, are the best things I put in mine. But however it gets to your screen, the important thing is that it gets in your eyeballs. Are these all really TV shows? What isn’t these days? Most of my picks this year appeared not on TV channels (ask your grandparents what those are) but on streaming services. Are they really the best? They are the best I’ve seen nobody, not even a professional, can see everything these days. Are there really 10? I may have engaged in creative math. Because what I also find on this list is ingenuity, humor, defiance, empathy and hope: the things that we need, more than distraction, to get through tough times, and the things that art exists to give us.Īny 10-best TV list these days requires some caveats. I didn’t plan it this way, but looking over my favorites below, the subject matter includes class conflict, civil war, the threat to democracy and multiple pandemics.Īnd yet! Watching TV in 2021 was not at all a bummer for me.

In times like these, I bet you’d love a list of great TV shows that will help you escape the troubles of the world.

Best Shows of 2021 | Best International | Best Shows That Ended

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