The Top 17 Best Television Shows of 2017

17) Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX)
Season(s): 4 and 5
Created By: Dan Goor & Michael Schur
Starring: Andy Samberg & Andre Braugher

Brief Description: It is difficult for a network comedy to be funny. It's harder for it to be both funny and good. It's even tougher to be both funny and good for five straight seasons. Yet Brooklyn Nine-Nine has managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible. There's a reason the show was saved almost immediately by NBC after FOX cancelled it.

16) Black-ish (ABC)
Season(s): 3 and 4
Created By: Kenya Barris
Starring: Anthony Anderson & Tracee Ellis Ross

Brief Description: Blackish is another consistently funny and great network comedy that helps anchor a fresh a new comedy line up that includes Fresh Off The Boat and Speechless. The structure of the comedies is basically the exact same as when television started, but what makes them great is their perspective. By changing that slightly and seeing characters through a different worldview than your own, you get the rebirth of sitcoms.

15) Dear White People (Netflix)
Season 1
Created By: Justin Simien
Starring: Logan Browning, Brandon P. Bell & DeRon Horton

Brief Description: My son was adopted in April, and I remember waking up in the middle of the night feeding him and rocking him to sleep as a watch an episode of Dear White People. It feels apropos considering this exactly the type of show I want him to watch before he goes to college. Based upon his hit Indie film, Justin Simien tells the story of different Black perspectives as they navigate college.

The Top 10 Best Television Episodes of 2017

10) "Who Rules The Land of Denial" 
Fargo (FX)
Season 3 / Episode 8
Premiere Date: June 7, 2017
Directed By: Mike Barker

Brief Description: I know the general consensus was the season 3 of Fargo is the show's worst season, but considering I wasn't the biggest fan on the sophomore attempt, I quite liked the latest from Noah Hawley and crew starring twins played by Ewan McGregor. What makes the show work so well is Hawley's masterful interpretation of films by the Coen Brothers- filmmakers who can make a straightforward kidnapping-gone-wrong film like Fargo and also an absolutely delightfully bonkers film like The Big Lebowski. What makes "Who Rules The Land of Denial" so great is the show's ability to play off of the Coen Brothers tropes and create a delightfully masterfully opening where Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character can be chased by goons one minute, and then sitting in a bowling alley of purgatory with The Wandering Jew (played by Ray Wise) the next.

9) "Time's Arrow" BoJack Horseman (Netflix)
Season 4 / Episode 11
Premiere Date: September 8, 2017
Directed By: Aaron Long

Brief Description: Season 4 of BoJack Horseman dealt a lot with the titular character coming to grips with his past and his relationship with his negligent mother. The series culminates in a trippy penultimate episode where the Bojack's mother (voiced by Wendie Malick) and her dementia flip between the past and present and your left with a David Lynch-ian experience unlike anything you've seen before. A remarkable episode from one of the best and smartest shows on television.

10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2016 Emmy Nominations

1)  I completely understand that in Peak TV, the Emmy voters are going to leave off some obvious choices just because there’s not enough hours in the day to see everything that’s great. But at the same time, now is the perfect time to jump ship on the old shows floundering and let the new ones roll over you like a calm, sunny day. Shows like Homeland, House of Cards, and Downton Abbey are well past their prime, yet are beloved by the Emmy voters. Every year Emmy voters vote on what they did before and not necessarily on the quality of the individual season in front of them, and every year we get upset. I don’t know why we do this to ourselves.

2) Unfortunately, little room for newcomers meant a shut out for an incredible show like The Leftovers. Justin Theroux was always a dark horse to get a Best Lead Actor nomination, which was always a shame, but there was also no love for Carrie Coon, Regina King, or Kevin Carrol. And even though the show was clearly one of the 7 best dramas according to all TV critics, the show couldn’t beat out other shows about old British people and a CIA agent with a mental disorder.

If I Had An Emmy Ballot: Dramas (2016 Edition)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

- Jon Bernthal (Daredevil)
- Kevin Carroll (The Leftovers)
- Michael McKean (Better Call Saul)
- Pedro Pascal (Narcos)
- Nick Sandow (Orange is the New Black)
- Christian Slater (Mr. Robot)

JUST MISSED: Peter Dinklage (Game of Thrones)

Pedro Pascal has that charm and that energy that fills up your television screen with joy, and then he’s gone and you anxiously await his return. He was like that as The Viper in Season 4 of Game of Thrones and he’s like that as DEA agent Javier Pena in the Netflix guilty pleasure hit Narcos… Kevin Carroll’s John Murphy’s presence at the very beginning of Season 2 of The Leftovers was initially jarring, but Carroll’s performance sucked you in to this brave new world which made The Leftovers one of the very best shows of 2015… I can understand why Jonathan Banks gets all of the Emmy love for Better Call Saul, but like last year, I throw my hat in the ring for Michael McKean. McKean’s Chuck’s holier-than-thou smugness contrasted with Bob Odenkirk’s lovable rule-bender Jimmy is the key to what makes Better Call Saul work as well as it does without feeling like a true Breaking Bad prequel like the world Banks’ Mike Erhmantrout inhabits… Jon Bernthal’s performance as The Punisher in Season 2 of Netflix’s Daredevil definitely does not scream prestige, award-worthy television, but Berenthal and his incredible screen presence are so good that I found it difficult to leave him off of my list… There are so many great performances, mainly by females, in Netflix’s Orange Is The New Black, but Nick Sandow as Joe “Beercan” Caputo struggling to keep the prison afloat and then dealing with his Corporate Overlords was excellent in this past season… Even though you saw the twist coming regarding Christian Slater’s Mr. Robot, it didn’t diminish that wonderful feeling you got knowing that Slater is back and in a project worthy of his talents. 

6 Performances That Deserve Emmy Recognition (But Won't Get It)

1) Kysten Ritter (Jessica Jones) Netflix

Award shows like the Emmys can be very snobby and stick their nose up at superhero shows. The ironic thing is that Jessica Jones isn’t a superhero show, not really anyways. Jessica Jones is a drama that smartly deals with tragedy, rape, power, and PTSD. While it’s true that the show is based upon a Marvel comic book and co-produced by Marvel Studios, any semblance of superhero-ness is just an excuse to tell the deeper and more heartfelt story. The lynchpin holding this story together is Ritter who plays the titular character. Ritter has always been great on television from her work from Breaking Bad to Don’t Trust The B in Apt 23, but she really brings it in this star making role. It’s a shame the show has even a whiff of Superhero on it, because chances are, that whiff will cause Emmy voters to take a pass.

2) Justin Theroux (The Leftovers) HBO

While many of you knew of Theroux before The Leftovers as Mr. Jennifer Aniston, I knew him as a writer with such projects as Tropic Thunder and Iron Man 2. But Theroux really won me over as an actor, bringing such gravitas to this heavy role. Critically, The Leftovers was a bigger hit in its second season versus its first, and probably a lot of that had to do by focusing less on Theroux’s Kevin Garvey and focusing more on The Murphys in Miracle, Texas, but Kevin was still integral to the show’s stellar second season, and one of the best television episodes of the year (probably of the past ten years) was solely regarding a journey of Kevin Garvey. I don’t know how an Emmy voter can watch International Assassin and not give Theroux All The Emmys. As great as Theroux was throughout the entire second season of The Leftovers, Emmy voters look at individual submission episodes versus entire seasons. That process will make Theroux's inevitable snub that much more baffling. 

My Top 20 Favorite Shows of 2015

20) Fargo (FX)
Season 2
Created By: Noah Hawley

Thoughts: I have no doubt that Season 2 of Fargo will end up being #1 on many people's year end list, but for me, the FX show almost didn't crack my Top 20. However, I started comparing it against other shows for this last spot (Catastrophe, You're The Worst, Community) and I realized no other show in competition with Fargo made me tune in every week to see what fascinating and exciting new adventure was awaiting me. I absolutely believe that season 1 of Fargo- as a result of better and more interesting characters (both main ones like the ones played by Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, and Allison Tolman, but also the minor characters like the ones played by Glenn Howerton and Kate Walsh)- is better than this current season, but that shouldn't take away from my enjoyment for what Noah Hawley and company created in 2015. Also, please give Bokeem Woodbine all the awards.

19) Mr. Robot (USA)
Season 1
Created By: Sam Esmail

Thoughts: When Fargo's Noah Hawley spoke with Andy Greenwald to promote his show, he never referred to his product as a "show"- he always referred to it as a movie. Television shows have become more serialized than ever nowadays that they basically are 10-13 hour long movies. This concept couldn't be more true than with Sam Esmail's great, of-the-times masterpiece Mr. Robot. Esmail starting writing a script for his new movie that was so long that he just decided to make it a television series. Season 1 of USA's amazing new show about a schizophrenic hacker trying to take down the fictional E-Corp was just Esmail's first act. If this is just beginning, then I can't wait to see what's in store for Seasons 2 and 3. Also, check out Sam Esmail's interview with Andy Greenwald, but only after you've been on the exhilarating roller coaster that was Season 1 of Mr. Robot.

Click here to read my thoughts on how Goodfellas influenced Mr. Robot's voice over

18) Other Space (Yahoo!)
Season 1
Created By: Paul Feig

Thoughts: I originally came to Other Space thanks to Yahoo! airing the sixth (and hopefully final) season of Community, but I stayed thanks to Paul Feig's (you know, the guy that brought us Freaks and Geeks and Bridesmaids) simple yet hilarious new show. While I don't expect Yahoo! to air a second season of Other Space thanks to the massive amount of money they lost trying to get into the television game, I still enjoyed the 8 episode first and final season. The premise of the show is straight-forward, a small group of 20-something's in a Star Trek -esque Star Fleet Academy get lost in space and attempt to get back home; however, the success was in the execution. The humor works thanks to the relationships the show was able to give us from the get go, and it turns out those actors you see in commercials are actually great when given a larger opportunity.