The Top 10 TV Shows of 2014 The Best and the Rest
TIME's annual collection of top-10 lists is up, including my Top 10 TV Shows of 2014. Also up is my list of Top 10 TV Episodes, which I explain in a separate post., Some of you will hate my choiceswhich, let's be honest, is half the reason top-10 lists exist at all, so have at it. Others will have questions, and some of the same ones come up every year, so here's a short FAQ, * Why do you hate ____? This is not the Top 10 and Everything Else Sucks list. I liked far more than 10 shows on TV this year these were tops. It's not a matter of what was wrong with the shows I left off, but what was right with the shows I put on. * Don't you like ____ anymore? Sure I do. Probably. But there are no lifetime slots. Last year, for instance, Mad Men and Game of Thrones were on my list. I still love them! But this list is only about 2014 I didn't feel the first half of Mad Mens last season gave me enough to put it on, and Thrones just had a weaker season. Both, though, are on my Best Episodes list., * How is _____ better than _____? Beyond the first few, honestly, the rank order is fairly arbitrary and apples-to-oranges. I didn't measure these shows with a nuclear qualitometer. Think the 9 shows should be 6? Sure, fine. Print it out and rearrange them. For that matter, there are probably 20 shows that I could just as easily put in the bottom 5 of this list. * Aren't top 10 lists just shameless trolling for readers? You caught us! Also, they're sort of a lie. Yes, this is, more or less, list of what I thought were the 10 best shows of the year. But I also think a list should be a document in itselfa statement, as a whole, of what I value in TV and what TV did best this year. So it's, sort of, a list of the 10 best shows of the year and, sort of, a list of the 10 shows that represented the best in TV this yearwhich are related, but not exactly the same thing. * Um, it's not the end of 2014 yet. Thanks for pointing that out! Because of our production deadlines, I had to finalize this list early in November. They still kept making TV, though! I may be regretting some choices alreadyand it's all undeniably unfair to shows, like Jane the Virgin, that just started their seasonsbut at some point you just have to let it go. * So which shows would you pick for 1120th place? HA HA HA HA HA NO, nice try. I will be, however, be doing a 10 best new shows list for Hitfix's poll, and I'll post about that later. * You forgot _____. Probably not! I keep a running list of potential shows starting in January, and revise it throughout the year. My top-10 episodes list, about which I'll post separately, is a different storyI can't watch everything, and I almost certainly I did forget things. This is a very subjective list, but if it's a likely candidate, I've probably at least considered it. Apologia out of the way, here's my list but read the full writeup to see what I thought of each show 1. Transparent 2. The Americans 3. The Good Wife 4. Orange Is the New Black 5. Fargo 6. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver 7. Broad City 8. Louie 9. High Maintenance 10. Silicon Valley,  and here, in alphabetical order, are some shows I liked, considered for the list, but didn't quite make it here I've certainly left some fine shows off, Bob's Burgers The Bridge The Comeback Cosmos Enlisted Friday Night Tykes Game of Thrones Getting On Hannibal Happy Valley The Honorable Woman Inside Amy Schumer Jane the Virgin Key and Peele The Knick The Leftovers Looking Mad Men Manhattan Masters of Sex Olive Kitteridge Orphan Black Outlander Rectify Review True Detective Veep, And post your own top 10 in the comments. Let the TV wars begin!