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SLANT MAGAZINE 2013 25. Treme. David Simon and Eric Overmeyer's abbreviated fade- out on post-Katrina New Orleans is tattered yet hopeful, perfect in its soulful imperfections. Decisions in the Big Easy are slowed down by good booze and better boogie, and by the time the Big Chief (Clark Peters) bows out, very little about this intoxicating menagerie of musicians and other truth-seekers has been convincingly settled on. Life's not tidy in the Treme and the show's creators let all the bad omens hang out, including the impending birth of Delmond's (Rob Brown) first child and Janette's (Kim Dickens) third restaurant opening. Of course, all the trouble made the music sound all the sweeter, as careers begin to congeal and legacies found (temporary) footing amid the city's riotous buzz. The fat lady is singing for Treme, and she's belting it out loud, if not for long. Cabin

24. Downton Abbey. Downton Abbey jumped the shark in season two by tipping its bowler hat too often to the broad strokes of Charles Dickens's pen. Maybe because its scope was limited to the period of a single year, or because the shrilly over- determined Bates prison subplot was finally resolved, but season three felt like a corrective of sorts, regarding the period-specific dramas that gripped the lives of the Crawleys and their servants with an attention to nuance that felt written with the heart's blood. The tragedies weren't so easily forgotten, and while the incessant scheming remained as delicious as ever, even the most furtive of glances was in service of illuminating a privileged society's reckoning with class difference and identity. Ed Gonzalez

23. Arrested Development. The long-awaited fourth season of Arrested Development offered a rarity in television: genuine beguilement. After seven years of picking over the dense interplay of jokes in the first three seasons, viewers scrambled to understand what the fuck just happened in a deliriously abstracted storyline involving the University of Phoenix, an ostrich farm, and Fakeblock. The sui generis comedic invention of the cast felt revitalized, and by focusing on a single character per episode, the creators manifest feelings of alienation, hysteria, desperation, and profound confusion. In effect, this undervalued return mirrored Hurwitz and company's own deep-seated feelings following one of the most seemingly empty-headed cancellations in the history of the medium. Cabin

22. . Taylor Schilling's started out as a perceivable necessity: a Caucasian prism through which Jenji Kohan could portray the far more fascinating lives of black, Hispanic, and LGBT inmates at an upstate prison. Three episodes in, however, Piper became one with her fellow inmates and Kohan's series matured into a scathing comedy, one that depicts the alarming reality of being a liberated woman in a world run by men. And unlike Weeds, Kohan's latest never feels as if it's straining to attain a sense of diverse community. The ensemble performances rank alongside Mad Men and Treme in their unforced fullness, able to find a touching unity among the disparate histories of the incarcerated. Cabin

21. Luther. Coming face to face with two vigilante killers, Detective John Luther (Idris Elba) also became the focus of a secret investigation into his professional behavior and pliable view of justice in the third season of Luther. In other words, it's soul- searching time for Luther, but the series continues to smartly avoid the dull trappings of police procedurals through its effectively lugubrious atmosphere. Elba's troubled variation on Columbo wanders through a rotting working class, rupturing with societal resentment and repressed madness, and what the series consistently expresses is full knowledge that Luther could be one with his enemies, if not for the necessary remove of his mordant humor and a sickly sense of good. Cabin 20. Enlightened. It's fitting how Enlightened's trajectory serendipitously mirrored the journey of its protagonist, Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern). The little series that could until it couldn't told the story of how one broken woman's quest for personal rehabilitation increasingly involved those around her, jostling them from their comfort zones. Unfortunately, her surrounding environment, akin to the bulk of HBO's regular viewership, apparently wasn't quite as prepared for change as she was. When the second season came to a close, every door was left open for a third, with the show's characters finally feeling as if they were ready to embrace true reformation. Which is a shame, because the TV landscape needs more shows that push dramatic boundaries not with shock tactics, but with quiet, insightful fury. Mike LeChevallier

19. The Venture Bros. It's a testament to the boundless creativity of co-creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer how sizable of a cult following The Venture Bros. has generated. When it's at the top of its game (which is quite often), the animated series is one of the best things on TV: a singular tale of a malfunctional family's plight to erase the deep grip of failure from their past, and jam- packed with a mishmash of pop-culture references. Over the course of the show's run (which has been more like a trot, with only five seasons and 63 episodes in 10 years), Publick and Hammer have built a brilliant mythology as complex and varied as the myriad of influences they draw inspiration from. If The Venture Bros. has taught us anything, it's that you can't rush greatness. LeChevallier

18. Bob's Burgers. Bob's Burgers thrives on its impeccably modulated melding of the absurd and the heartfelt. It mines uproarious humor out of seeing children at various states of emotional and sexual development (Gene's relationship with an automatic toilet, the butt-loving Tina caught between two boys with dancing feet, Louise orchestrating a plan to profit from a nude beach), and in two of the greatest episode's of its entire run, "Seaplane!" and " in a Can," it arrives at profound truths about the nature of trust and the need for belonging by mirroring the paranoia of its characters in giddily digressive flights of storytelling fancy. Gonzalez

17. Rectify. Rectify shrewdly and subtly brought to light the one- of-a-kind experience of returning to the place you once called home to find that everything is different yet somehow, vapidly, the same. Daniel Holden (Aiden Young) is released from a Georgia state penitentiary into a world that isn't quite willing to accept him back. Over the course of its first season's six episodes, each recounting a day in Daniel's post-incarceration existence, creator Ray McKinnon and his stellar ensemble cast paint a tragic picture of how one horrendous act can disrupt the harmony of a small town forever. With its languid visuals and breezy dialogue, Rectify is a modern Southern gothic fable that establishes an unshakable tone that simultaneously emanates dread and misplaced hope while staying grounded in the realm of naturalistic self-discovery. LeChevallier

16. Behind the Candelabra. Ripe with flamboyant melodrama and tinged by the grotesque, Steven Soderbergh's long- gestating Behind the Candelabra serves as a landmark transitional work from one of the great popular visual storytellers of the 21st century. The story of Liberace (Michael Douglas) and his most dutiful lover (Matt Damon) provides a thicketed allegory for Soderbergh's own fears about becoming a copy of himself, of passion curdling into a corrupted need for aesthetic perfection in a malleable yet delicate form. It's fearless self-analysis and, by extension, analysis of the filmmaking process, dressed up in the glittered wardrobe of popular history and biographical storytelling. Cabin 15. . Season after season, Homeland has asked us to accept one elaborate twist after another, some more dubious than others, and with a hysterical audaciousness that would be insulting if the cons weren't so convincingly brokered by its incredible cast of actors, namely , , and . Which is to say nothing of the finesse behind the camera, as two of the season's finest episodes were directed by veterans of the screen, Carl Franklin and Keith Gordon, with an uncanny gift for crafting set pieces wherein the needs of government and the needs of the heart are braided together with a corkscrew tension at once riveting and disarming. Gonzalez

14. The Walking Dead. "Too Far Gone," the mid-season finale of The Walking Dead's fourth season, was not just a reflection of the Governor's (David Morrissey) power-hungry temperament. It served just as well as a reflection of the impatient attitude that plagued many fans (present company included) in relation to the show's ambitious new direction. The Governor's final blood- soaked campaign for absolute power changed that right quick. Playing fast and loose with its source material, the ingeniously splintered narrative is remarkable for its refreshing and unpredictable sense of long-form storytelling, genre, and dramatic structure. The show's distinct pacing and attentiveness toward even marginalized characters, though often easy to dismiss, is part and parcel of what makes its vision of weathered hope in a world beyond the brink so damn compelling, finding the humanity in horror that the movies regularly misplace. Cabin

13. : Coven. Exhaustive in its artistic invention, American Horror Story: Coven exudes the force of an epic reckoning. The most Sapphic and chameleonic of television wonders, it delivers unto us week after week a litany of by and large elegantly interlocked plotlines, shot with a heightened sense of audio and visual stimulation that's appropriately nauseating given the show's context and its fixation on the nature of power, from how it's discovered to how it's used to exert control. The series may sometimes stumble in its employment of horror tropes to explore issues of race and gender, but most shows don't have the cojones to risk half as much in their entire run as this dazzlingly humane study in female subjugation often does in a single episode. Gonzalez

12. Top of the Lake. With this breathtaking, well-assured seven- episode miniseries, Jane Campion's fascination with open natural habitats blooms fully. Like the beach in The Piano and the desert of Holy Smoke, the New Zealand lake town of the title, around which the search for a pregnant minor is undertaken, is the main character of Top of the Lake, if not necessarily the most wild and abused. The verdant sprawl of the town's surrounding woods is a literal cradle of creation, shook by man's control and perversities, but the women who come to the aid of the elusive Tui Micham are shedding the yolk of masculinity for good. Campion's eloquent and mystic aesthetic obsession with objects revealed tremulous schisms in the women who inhabit the small town, which has all the hushed terrors of its history shaken out by the series's end. Cabin

11. Futurama. Futurama was always in thrall of its obsolescence, and yet the series remained optimistic throughout its final run of expectedly punchline-laden episodes. It wasn't a peerless home stretch (it's tempting to think that the awful, flagrantly nostalgia- mongering "Saturday Morning Fun Pit" was only released because of contractual obligation), but those that soared did so with the show's customary sense of pathos. The notes were plenty: Fry realizing that a familiar sound that haunts him is rooted in the memory of his mother; All My Circuit hambone Calculon trying to return to notoriety; and Fry getting caught in a heartbreaking time loop. To the very end, and while bringing us to tears, the series achingly expressed its perhaps futile desire to one day live again. Gonzalez 10. House of Cards. House of Cards allowed David Fincher's seductive aesthetic sway to carry on well beyond the inaugural diptych he helmed, despite TV's well-noted preference for story over artistic signature, but that's almost besides the point. The scheming exploits of Kevin Spacey's silver-tongued congressman-devil provide a galvanic shock of political satire and thrillingly modern melodrama, but the real hook is Robin Wright's stirring performance as the politician's better half. In the thick of it, this addictive series convincingly depicts a shifting political landscape, wherein an ascending class of strong and brilliant women retools man's ruthless personal and professional strategies to better advance a contentious, testosterone-weary nation. Cabin

9. Mad Men. It could be seen as cop-out to say that an entire series can be defined by one jaw-droppingly beguiling episode (and one that birthed a treasure trove of GIFs), but Mad Men did just that with "The Crash." The creative staff at the newly merged Sterling Cooper & Partners is injected with a stimulant to boost productivity, and its effects, much stronger than anticipated, galvanize an evening of intense debauchery and hallucinatory musings; for viewers, the sequence was as a welcome respite not only from a season that was somewhat bogged down by tired storylines (the draggy Don and Sylvia affair, the Heinz debacle), but from a series that, much like its characters, was in need of a rejuvenating booster shot. The payoff? A home stretch that was, simply put, divine, concluding with possibly the finest closing imagery of the year: Don Draper's (Jon Hamm) past meeting his present, with the future uncertain. LeChevallier

8. Boardwalk Empire. In Boardwalk Empire's fourth season, the consistency of its storytelling finally matched that of its unparalleled aesthetic purity. A multi-layered minor masterwork of interwoven vignettes uniting to expose a slew of themes (the burden of family, the invisible barriers of race, the inescapable nature of a crime-filled crusade to realize one's dreams), series creator Terence Winter and his team managed to produce 12 episodes, each capable of standing on their own, that told distinct stories of troubled people clawing their way out of debilitating situations and cutting close ties in the process. Each character's individual arc could easily fill an entire film, so thematically rich in their breakdown of morality that there was hardly any time to come up for air. LeChevallier

7. Archer. More so than any other season, Archer's fourth found its characters shooting the shit more often than being wrapped up in the usual high-stakes spy-movie parodies we've come to expect from the series, and it was all the better for it. Not that Adam Reed's show has ever been anything besides an exquisite farce, but there was a certain confidence on display throughout every episode this season that allowed for an uncommonly relaxed narrative flow amid the rapid-fire jokes and jabs launched by the show's ragtag crew of ISIS agents. LeChevallier

6. Girls. The second season of Girls revolved around its characters' dramatic shifts in mood. When one was high, another was low, and when they attempted to meet in the middle everything collapsed on itself. Hannah's (Lena Dunham) highest point of emotional clarity arrived, inarguably, in the divisive "One Man's Trash," which found her naked more often than not, exercising complete sexual and emotional control over a lonely, desperate man (Patrick Wilson) in an idyllic brownstone apartment. And her rock bottom came in "On All Fours" while compulsively shoving Q-tips in her ears to fight the distress brought on by her sketchy e-book deal and crumbling bond with ex-boyfriend Adam (Adam Driver). Girls has never been fond of happy endings, but, surprisingly, it gave us one here in the playful season finale, "Together," uniting couples and rebuilding friendships, but, per usual, avoiding cheesiness with an unwavering sense of bittersweet foreboding. LeChevallier 5. The Americans. Throughout the 13 episodes of its first season, The Americans slowly peeled back the layers of a particularly dark onion in America's past. Except what first appeared to be a mere espionage procedural set during the waning days of the Cold War, though one just as tensely executed but infinitely more playful than Homeland, was revealed to also be a captivating chronicle of a marriage at a difficult and strange crossroads. The Americans treats the union between and Matthew Rhys's Russian spies as a metaphor for political discourse, one difficult compromise and accommodation after another, and it achieves profundity every time they must reckon with the possibility that they're slowly becoming the very thing they're pretending to be. Gonzalez

4. Game of Thrones. If Game of Thrones still feels like it's just a bit weighed down by the sheer heft of its narrative strands, to say nothing of the seemingly endless backstories and mythologies, the show's third season seemed lighter on its feet than ever before. The dense interplay of storylines, hemmed down from the endless sprawl of George R. R. Martin's venerable fantasy novels, played more decisively, each exterior and interior conflict having finally come out the other end of its gestation period and allowed to begin to bloom. The uniformly excellent cast continues to bolster the show's talky, myth-ridden stretches, but the action hardly suffers. The drama felt smartly refocused on its chief thematic concern with roleplaying and how allegiances, lies, and familial betrayals can reshape accepted roles. Nearly every frame possessed the feeling of gathering, impending force, as if the whole of Westeros was about to erupt into violent, ceaseless madness and death. And, of course, it did. Cabin

3. Justified. Justified reached staggering creative heights in its fourth season, which opened with a bang, quite literally: In a flashback to 1983, a man wearing a detective parachute plummets from the sky and smashes onto the pavement in Corbin, Kentucky, dying instantaneously. In what could have been a drawn out season-long whodunnit, or, rather, whoisit, Justified uses three decades' worth of bad blood and corruption to arouse a many-faceted face-off, both physically and spiritually, between the citizens of Harlan County, its law- enforcing authorities, prisoners, career criminals, religious folks, hillside dwellers, drug addicts, prostitutes, and the ghosts of all those who fell victim to Harlan's unyielding grip. The season's final, heartrending image speaks volumes: Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) staring ominously at three family headstones, two of them filled, and the other, his own, still in need of an inhabitant. Olyphant's speculative expression says it all: It'll be a while yet. LeChevallier

2. Hannibal. There was no more indelible a TV image this year than Hugh Dancy's Will Graham, wracked by the effects the swelling in his brain was having on his consciousness, ostensibly waking up from sleep only to find himself trapped in some variation of Dali's "The Persistence of Memory." Every week on network TV's best new series, Will floats through a cavalcade of horrors so dizzying in their graying of reality and fantasy as to suggest a perpetual slipstream. Through a hieratic fusion of image and sound, the show's makers have made the focus of Hannibal not so much the cruelty of the debonair, ever-elusive monster played by Mads Mikkelson, but the toll one man's empathy, his anxious desire to save humanity by entering the minds of killers, has on more than just his own well being. Gonzalez

1. Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad went down with guns a blazin', and while it may not have stuck the landing, too forcefully striving as it did to sentimentally redeem Bryan Cranston's Walter White, its final stretch of eight breathlessly constructed episodes corroborated that Vince Gilligan's great American tragedy would belong to the ages. In the desert standoff been money-hungry crooks, in Skyler (Anna Gunn) not so reluctantly allowing herself to play the Lady Macbeth to her drugpin husband and recommend Jesse's (Aaron Paul) murder, and in a poolside hug between father and son (RJ Mitte) that caps a conversation impossibly and depressingly layered with deceit, this great series continued to articulate, and with unnerving clarity, empathy, and flashes of dark humor, how our brutally exclusionary American dream makes monsters out of the men and the women who chase after it. Gonzalez

2012 The 25 Best TV Shows of 2012

25. . As Adventure Time's colorful characters begin to shed their mostly childish personalities and adopt more mature dispositions, so, too, does the show's world begin to evolve into a darker, edgier beast. The series has already begun its fifth season, but its fourth, which delivered 26 consistently offbeat episodes of animated eccentricity set in and around the post-apocalyptic Land of Ooo, firmly cemented it as the best cartoon on TV with no specific demographic in mind. While the ads and merchandise are obviously aimed at youngsters, Adventure Time's creators clearly craft each episode for all to enjoy, filled with fresh slang and utterly unique, unearthly visuals. Mike LeChevallier

24. Weeds. Some shows end with a neat summation of why we loved them in the first place. Others have more explaining to do. When, in Weeds's weepy series finale, Andy (Justin Kirk) tells Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker) that it's time for her to face herself, he places the show firmly in the latter camp, finally calling attention to the neurosis that has sustained eight seasons of Showtime's stalwart comedy. Nancy's self-sabotage had become so egregious over the years that it sometimes felt like a plot device; even so, Parker's performance was urgent enough to suggest an inner machination at work. It might seem a bit convenient that the series fades to black just as Nancy's inner journey begins, but for a show that once seemed to be tailspinning toward a cynical bang, Weeds's final moments of poignancy were surprising and affecting enough to be anything but a whimper. Daniel Goldberg

23. The Good Wife. Stacked with veteran network talent, featuring sharp case-of-the-week plotting, and boasting possibly the greatest roster of guest stars since The Love Boat, The Good Wife, notably the only network drama on our list, is the embodiment of old-school, small-screen class. But far from toeing a traditional line, the series is also as boldly sexual—and sexy— as any of its premium-cable peers, it repeatedly shows off a fresh and credible grasp of contemporary technology, and, this season, has raised the bar on its own already complex gender dynamics by adding a feminist supervillain (played by Maura Tierney) to the mix. The Good Wife is a teasing reminder of the pleasures of restraint. Maciak

22. Portlandia. The array of archetypes portrayed by Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen onPortlandia aren't impressive in their scope so much as their narrow specificity, each one delicately carving Portland's milieu into a well-observed sub- niche. Armisen plays multiple variations of the emasculated goof while Brownstein portrays a bevy of self-righteous killjoys with great aplomb. Yet Portlandia is so much greater than the sum of its caricatures. That the show's humor is entirely derived from its two co-creators gives it a winning constancy, while the improvisational aspect adds an almost surreal element to much of the dialogue. In fact, the bizarre obsession with food (a mixologist crafts a cocktail with rotten banana and eggshells, a waiter asks patrons if they would like to "lobsterize" or "breakfastize" their meals, locals mob a restaurant in search of marionberry pancakes) suggests the fever dream of a very hungry hipster. Goldberg

21. The League. The key to The League's success is the constantly expanding personal history of cumulative shame shared by the members of the titular fantasy-football league. Through nicknames, odd predilections and reactions, and cultural and sexual hang-ups, embarrassments are crucial to the show's unique humor, but married creators Jeff and Jackie Marcus Schaffer rarely look for the squirmy moments where an individual's arguably irregular preferences collide with the thick artifice of social norms. Rather, The League provides a bold and manic take on (mostly) male bonding, wherein each character's perversions are ridiculed, but also quickly accepted with the knowledge that the others in the league have all done something equally disgusting, disturbing, or dumb, and will likely sink even lower in the future. Chris Cabin 20. Boss. In some ways, Boss's first season served as a lengthy piece of groundwork, demonstrating just how far mayor Tom Kane (Kelsey Grammar) was willing to take his ethos of not-quite- necessary evils. Season two capitalized on that foundation to dazzling effect, repeatedly posing the question of Kane's possible redemption by way of a housing-redevelopment project and answering loudly, "Not so fast." The murdered Ezra Stone (Martin Donovan) appears as a kind of hallucinatory Greek chorus, commenting on the action with chilling thematic revelations. The high-toned diction is alternately sung and spat out by the gifted cast, many of whom boast a theatrical background. But the writers also know that when the stakes are truly high, power is best projected silently. Disconcertingly intimate close-ups and atonal blips on the soundtrack added cinematic lyricism to the proceedings, proving that this is no stage play for the small screen. Goldberg

19. Bunheads. Based on a morbid spit-take of a premise (Vegas showgirl marries stalker in drunken weekend only to be immediately widowed and inherit his mother's ballet studio), featuring a seductively goofy central performance by Broadway star Sutton Foster, and introducing a genuinely delightful ensemble of teenage actresses, Bunheads was the most surprising show on television this year. Like David Milch, Amy Sherman-Palladino has an unmistakable voice—fully formed complex sentences striated with obscure cultural references from the '80s, '90s, and today!—that can either be mesmerizing or infuriating, but, as Bunheads proved over and over again, there's a lot of heart underneath all that style. In the season's closing image of a group of recently pepper-sprayed ballerinas reciting "O Captain, My Captain" to their showgirl mentor, Sherman-Palladino announced that she was back and that we should all be paying attention. Maciak

18. Treme. The third season of David Simon and Eric Overmyer's Treme confirmed the show's place alongside Simon's The Wire as an essential study of a community in crisis, growing and regrouping, laughing and loathing. On the surface, the season was business as usual: Toni (Melissa Leo) and Terry (David Morse) continued to seek justice in a lawless land; LaDonna (Khandi Alexander) continued to find her footing after her brutal rape; Janette (Kim Dickens) continued to contemplate a return home and opening a new restaurant; and Davis (Steve Zahn) continued the search for the right outlet for his hometown enthusiasm. As always, the devil is in the details and the creative forces behind the series prove consistently attentive and rousing in charting both the communal and personal triumphs and disappointments in a landscape of vibrant characters, played by one of the best ensemble casts currently on television. Katrina has broken all of Simon and Overmyer's lost souls, but astonishingly, almost none of them remain so. Cabin

17. Bob's Burgers. Praise Archie Bunker for flushing the toilet on All in the Family, paving the way for the family unit at the center of Bob's Burgers to stand around the kitchen sink and acknowledge that sometimes you have to get creative when pops is on the throne. The essence of the series remains the children, whose humor is a gut-busting, sometimes poignant response to all of the world's wonders and inconvenient truths. It's in the butt- loving Tina describing, on a dime, "lady parts" as the "vagina and the heart," and in Gene conflating curious cuisine with curious movies, declaring that a turduken is "a poultry within a poultry, it's like Inception withmeats." Always there's an understanding throughout Bob's Burgers that this family would fall apart if they stopped cracking wise. Ed Gonzalez

16. Childrens Hospital. In the season-four finale of Childrens Hospital, fake footage from a security camera shows the writers— supposedly all middle-aged black and Asian women—groaning that they have to work all weekend, with one buxom Caribbean noting that she'll be missing Shabbat. There are more jokes in that shot than I can list here, but chief among them is the notion that the series results from hours of labor by a beleaguered staff. In Childrens Hospital, narratives are left tangled and ignored; the series presents a fictional version of itself that has been on since the 1970s and was remade by the BBC; and the writers barely manage to allocate the show's impressive roster of comedians within its 10-minute container. Childrens Hospital has both the stamina and the gall to jump the shark in every episode and still wipe the slate clean for the next one, allowing viewers to vicariously experience the childlike joy of making a mess and walking away from it. Goldberg

15. . This Zooey Deschanel vehicle debuted last fall with a series of almost unbearably—dare I say it—adorkable episodes that felt like webisode spin-offs of the actress's iPhone commercial. But, miraculously, by the start of 2012, New Girl had managed to right itself with a truly inspiring stretch of self-aware, pitch-perfect half-hours. From cancer scares to class anxiety,New Girl became a goofball comedy with a melancholic soul, and, in the process, a showcase for outstanding, bipolar comic performances from Max Greenfield and Jake Johnson. The series still has some problems to work out (the arrested development of its star and the nonentity that is Winston, played by Lamorne Morris), but even at its worst, very few shows can pull off the hybrid sensibility of off-the-wall lunacy and genuine emotion that New Girl practically patented this year. Maciak

14. Boardwalk Empire. Yes, Boardwalk Empire has always looked amazing, but its routine was growing stale, its characters wearingly dwarfed by the show's obsessive fixation with historical and genre signifiers. In its third season, the writing is all-killer-no- filler, the actors actually seemed to become their characters rather than artlessly pose as them, and the crisscrossing storylines finally began to click within the Prohibition-absorbed universe. None of this is illustrated more soundly than in the transcendent "Sunday Best," which largely puts aside the characters' criminal activities in favor of several vignettes of its regulars having—or attempting to have—normal Easter dinners with their families, a far tenser affair than any of the show's melodramatic set pieces. LeChevallier

13. 30 Rock. In the first episode of 30 Rock's penultimate season, Kenneth (Jack McBrayer) sends up Liz Lemon's (Tina Fey) workaholism by claiming that her failure to show up before her actors must be a "sign of the apocalypse." But while Liz let her plebeian dreamboat move in with her, conquered the perfectionism that threatened to tear them apart, and even managed to rescue their relationship after a trip to IKEA, her anxiety still anchors the series through its final season. 30 Rock feeds on dysfunction like Liz feeds on sandwiches, what with Jack's egging one-upmanship and Jenna's behavior suggesting the comorbidity of several personality disorders. Perhaps it's fitting that the series finale is roughly scheduled to coincide with the end of the Mayan calendar. For many of us, the deliverance of Liz Lemon from her toils at NBC represents the end of the world as we know it. Goldberg

12. Archer. Archer's excellent third season continued to build on the insanely in-sync interplay between its loony batch of egotistical ISIS employees. Through batshit-crazy spy-game plots, like throwing naïve agency accountant Cyril (Chris Parnell) into the field alongside the show's titular pompous operative (H. Jon Benjamin) and the ever-vain Lana Kane (Aisha Tyler) in the South-American drug cartel escapade "El Contador," Archer repeatedly revealed itself as a genuine cable rarity: an animated series that can go for broke and still remain grounded in some sort of bizarrely human, relationship-driven reality. Its deeply disturbed characters, no matter how heinously they behave toward each other, emit a certain magnetism, like a group of acquaintances you wouldn't trust with the life of a stranger, let alone your own, yet somehow wouldn't mind hanging around with on a weekly basis. LeChevallier

11. Futurama. Another year, another series of sterling disquisitions by this ever-trenchant program on the existential panic we feel in trying to keep up with the sometimes wondrous, sometimes horrific advances of our human evolution. Grace, hilarity, and heartache abounded: Bender allowing his son to sacrifice his memories of him so the boy robot could bend objects again; Fry and Leela's severed arms, hands tightly interlocked, spiraling through the infinity of space; and Farnsworth altering his parent's "retirement simulation," moving them from a rundown apartment to the farm where they once lived. But it was the mid- season finale, a trio of wildlife stories presented as a nature program from an alien world, that roundaboutly arrived at the show's most essential truth about our human existence: that this world isn't worth living without nookie. Gonzalez 10. The Walking Dead. The search for home and faith still drive the central characters in The Walking Dead, but it's no longer shielded in speeches and indecisiveness. It's clear now that the gloves are off, whether in the prison taken by Rick's (Andrew Lincoln) group or the bucolic community built by David Morrissey's covertly ruthless and sadistic Governor. The return of Merle (Michael Rooker) and the emergence of Michonne () symbolically lay bare the dividing moral routes of the two groups that will inevitably converge. Corroded by loss, cynicism, isolationism, and vengefulness, the Governor is Rick stripped of his complicated but moral compass and enduring, unlikely faith, while Rick finds himself at once challenged and renewed by the birth of his daughter. The philosophical hesitancy of the characters has given way to an ironclad, primal belief in survival, but the series is most surprisingly adept at contemplating where the line should be drawn, or if there even is a line to be drawn anymore. Cabin

9. Justified. As Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant), the face and attitude of primal western law in the age of incorporated criminals, stares down the crimes of his past, once seen as everyday business, Graham Yost's nuanced series continues to provide a complex study of an America built and sustained by crime. Neal McDonough's ferocious, pill-popping Quarles offered a galvanizing central nemesis, but the real story remains with Givens's relationship with his father, Arlo (Raymond J. Barry), and Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), brilliantly detailed figures of homegrown criminal enterprise in civil war with lawman Givens. Through Givens's connections with these characters, as well as Mykelti Williamson's Limehouse, the head of a formidable criminal enterprise in the disenfranchised African American community, Yost has created a marvelously entertaining, sprawling, and contemplative study of the rural and wooded South in transition. Cabin

8. Game of Thrones. Once a certain head was separated from the body of a certain ostensible protagonist, there was a real possibility that HBO's Game of Thrones would begin to behave like a chicken with its head cut off. But just as the series turned that killer twist into two transcendent hours of television, it came back for a second season with a pledge to not look away from the carnage. Sacrificing the grand shocks of the first season for solid architectural work and for the most part foregoing quick cuts and jabs for extended set pieces and tortures, Game of Thronesbecame a study of the character of its universe. As war broke out among the families of Westeros, the series focused on detailed case studies in the exercise of power, writ small and large. Game of Thrones is still the perviest series on TV, but it might also be the most perversely moral. Maciak

7. Luck. Sadly, HBO had no choice but to put the best new drama of the year out to pasture before it could really stretch its legs. Thankfully, the existing nine episodes of David Milch's ensemble spectacle act as a remarkably compact standalone miniseries. Every separate narrative deserves its own spin-off: Chester "Ace" Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and Gus Demitriou (Dennis Farina) taking on Mike Smythe's (Michael Gambon) mob of elderly ne'er-do-wells; Turo Escalante's (John Ortiz) peculiar romance with stable veterinarian Jo Carter (Jill Hennessy); blundering bookie Joey Rathburn's (Richard Kind) relationship with his interchanging, damaged jockeys. Then there's the hilarious, enlightening, and often poignant rags-to-almost-riches tale ofLuck's improbable Fab Four: Marcus (), Jerry (Jason Gedrick), Lonnie (Ian Hart), and Renzo (Ritchie Coster), who must constantly adjust to the pratfalls that come with being both newly affluent and eternally lonely, something that's unavoidable within the fickle microcosm of horse racing. LeChevallier

6. . Comedy is timing and Parks and Recreation proves that not all good comedy is whip-fast and frenetically paced. The series doesn't deal so much in jokes as it does in memorable slogans that perfectly encapsulate character, and even fans who are behind on the new season can probably guess which character muttered the line, "Government is inefficient and should be dissolved. Please hold while I transfer you." Aside from last season's tensely satirical campaign run, the series has always been extremely low on stakes—even for a comedy. In spite of its willingness to embrace change, Parks and Recreation remains deeply aware that repetition is largely what drives viewers to keep tuning in. As soon as Leslie (Amy Poehler) remarks that "everything's different," Jerry (Jim O'Heir) walks by with his hands superglued together, prompting Anne (Rashida Jones) to assure her, "Not everything is different, right?" Goldberg

5. Breaking Bad. It was a banner year for Rian Johnson, whose Looper will likely land on dozens of Top 10 lists. Johnson can also lay claim to one of the best television episodes of the year inBreaking Bad's gut-wrenching "Fifty-One." For a season full of memorable shots both wide (The Most Awkward Impromptu Family Meal Ever in "Buyout") and close-up (the tarantula crawling out of the mason jar in "Dead Freight"), the most intensely rattling image was that of a completely submerged Skyler White (Anna Gunn) adrift in the Whites' now iconic swimming pool. The sight of Skyler, fully clothed, her garments billowing in what would be a makeshift watery grave is symbolic of the negative effect Walter White (Bryan Cranston) has had on each and every unfortunate individual he comes into contact with. Walt had cancer and now he's taken the form of the deadly disease himself. LeChevallier

4. Homeland. In 2001, months after 9/11, 24 seemed to perfectly capture the fervor of the Bush administration's bloodlust, waterboarding audiences with its frenetic style as the impulsive Jack Bauer, week after week, used violence as a justification for keeping America ostensibly safe. Maybe it's because Homeland has come to prominence under the watch of a more cautious, conscientious commander in chief that every aspect of its production, from its depiction of violence to the role of technology within the CIA, feels so credibly articulated. This phenomenally acted series, which may seem soap-operatic only to someone who hasn't heard of the Patreaus scandal, conveys weekly through its impeccable paralleling of its characters' private and public rituals of deception both the emotional fallout of the war on terror and the moral compromises frequently necessary to attain and maintain power in the halls of our American government. Gonzalez

3. Mad Men. In its fifth and finest season to date, Mad Men arrived at more perceptive truths about its characters and the world they live in than ever before. Less moralizing, more melancholic, the series saw everyone at a crossroads: Don the husband and businessman reeling from a co-worker's tragic death and arriving nervously and insecurely at middle age, Betty souring into an even worse mother as she loses control of her body, Peggy realizing the limits of her tolerance upon second- guessing her decision to leave her money-stuffed purse in the same room as a black woman. In toto, the season presented its richest tapestry yet of a generation's struggle with changing times, the anxieties of being morally right, doing good by being true to self, and the perils of doing wrong by being true to someone else's sense of truth. And it arrived at these insights without ever breaking a sweat. Gonzalez

2. Louie. The radical and brilliant third season of this absurdist- cum-existentialist comedy serves as an endless debate between the profoundly profane comic's wild id and sober super-ego. While tending to his two daughters as a single father, the comedian finds time to ponder death and social worth with Robin Williams, fall head over heels for Parker Posey, vie for David Letterman's job against Jerry Seinfeld (with some help from David Lynch), make peace with Marc Maron, and go down on Melissa Leo in the front seat of a truck. C.K.'s inventiveness and delight in creation is matched by a genuine sense of discovery in each of his narrative concepts, both miniature ("Never") and major (the Late Show arc). Each episode illuminates his complex and fearless humanism in ways that confront and transcend issues of class, race, sex, nationalism, and family. Singular and inimitable in its frenzied hunger for openness and life experience, Louie may be the first instance of a true auterist narrative television series in America. Cabin

1. Girls. Even before its release, Lena Dunham's Girls was being effusively praised as a work of prophetic generational vision and pilloried as crypto-racist, hipster tunnel vision. That the series both invites and repels those critiques, that Dunham's Hannah can be both a voice of a generation and an embodiment of all of that makes that generation monstrous, is a testament to just how good Girls is. A no-wave feminist revision of Sex and the City, a sometimes blindingly funny satire of young New York entitlement, and a frequently heartbreaking ode to being lost,Girls, down to the Simon and Garfunkel song that played over the credits in the , recalled that other great white divisive comedy about generational melancholy, The Graduate. And like that film, Girls isn't only a capital-M manifesto about the mid 20s. In fact, if its cultural ambitions made it great, zeitgeisty think-piece fodder, the fine grain of Girls's central relationships made it great weekly television. Maciak

25. Life's Too Short (HBO) Stars: Warwick Davis, Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant Life's Too Short, a -styled show about "showbiz dwarf" Warwick Davis' delusional hope for a mainstream comeback, was, yes, a one-joke affair: Davis thinks he's a bigger deal than he actually is, and everyone calls him out on that. But when that sole punch line is so regularly well riffed upon, as it was in this uncomfortably funny series, overseen by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, that's not a drawback.

Wisely, Gervais and Merchant kept Davis' arrogance fresh through having him play off of several spot-on celebrity guest stars, most notably Liam Neeson (playing up his tough guy reputation) and Johnny Depp (tapping into his eccentric qualities).

By the end of its limited seven-episode season, Life's Too Short didn't necessarily show much progression in Davis' faux life, nor did it introduce any second or third thematic jokes. Considering how much we laughed each time, we're perfectly fine with that. 24. Treme (HBO) Stars: Wendell Pierce, Khandi Alexander, Steve Zahn, Melissa Leo, Kim Dickens, Rob Brown, David Morse, Michiel Huisman, Lucia Micarelli, Clarke Peters It didn't take long for many fans of The Wire to abandon creator David Simon's Treme after its April 2010 premiere. Looking for more of the Baltimore crime drama's brand of white-knuckle thrills, viewers quickly realized that Simon's latest HBO property operates on an entirely different wavelength: It's slow-moving, conversational, and, most antithetical to The Wire, upbeat. Those who've stuck with Treme into its third, and all-around best, season have been rewarded with a tapestry of colorful, fascinating, and diverse New Orleans folks living in a post-Katrina society. Boldly, Simon continued to focus on multiple characters rather than anchor things to one central figure, meaning that LaDonna's (Khandi Alexander) rape trial was just as prescient as Sonny's (Michiel Huisman) drug relapse. Similar to HBO's Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones, Treme patiently lays all of its narrative pieces out over a season's 10-episode duration in order to tell a complete, well-crafted story. That Simon's calmly paced series doesn't have any gangster shootouts or gruesome sword fights shouldn't be considered a disadvantage. 23. Being Human (SyFy) Stars: Sam Witwer, Meaghan Rath, Sam Huntington, Kristen Hager, Dichen Lachman, Natalie Brown, Dusan Dukic, Deena Aziz On the surface, Being Human, the SyFy channel's crown jewel of original programming, resembles one of those teenybopper-friendly shows on ABC Family, albeit with a horror twist. It's the story of a vampire (Sam Witwer), a werewolf (Sam Huntington), and a ghost (Meaghan Rath) living in a house together, and they're all Tiger Beat attractive. But that's where the lameness stops; in every other way, shape, and form, Being Human is a complicated, entertaining, and slept-on study of well-drawn characters. And in the show's triumphant second season, things got really real. Aidan, the resident bloodsucker, ran across a governing class of ruthless vamps in an undead story line strong enough to pump much- needed blood into pop culture's current abuses of vampire mythology.Josh watched his monstrous lycanthrope ways bring death and sadness to loved ones. Sally, the very sexy spirit, met the darkest sides of the afterlife head on, with mostly undesirable results. Real talk: Being Human, with its mixture of supernatural elements and intimate drama, is the show that True Blood's least content fans wish it could be; meaning, there aren't any were-panthers, questionable acting, or ridiculous developments in sight. 22. (ABC) Stars: , , Powers Boothe, , Eric Close, , Go ahead, tease us all you want—Nashville, ABC's freshman soap, is the year's ultimate guilty pleasure, and we're not afraid to say it. Admittedly, the initial attraction came from the proposition of watching dueling diva-beauties Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere try to outwit and out-sexy each other as an aging country superstar and a chart-topping newbie, respectively. Color us pleasantly surprised, then, that Nashville is much more than a two- hander. Britton and Panettiere are both top-notch, but co-stars like Clare Bowen (as a lovesick poet/songwriter) and Charles Esten (as a veteran guitarist with a contemptuous past) are just as solid. Covering the city's shady political dealings, the music industry's ability to corrupt, and the pitfalls of infidelity, Nashville is a multi- layered drama that's infinitely better than its wannabe-Dallas veneer would lead you to believe. 21. Hunted (Cinemax) Stars: Melissa George, Stephen Dillane, Adam Raymer, Stephen Campbell Moore, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Morven Christie, Lex Shrapnel, Indira Varma, Dermot Crowley Yes, Cinemax does air its own original TV shows—in fact, the cable network's limited but impressive lineup is one of the small-screen's best kept secrets. For action movie heads, there'sStrike Back, a series that melds Michael Bay-like excess with strong characters and sheer unpredictability. Cinemax's crowning achievement, however, is Hunted, an eight-episode transplant from England's BBC One about an espionage agent named Samantha (Melissa George) who's on a one-woman mission to crush the people who tried to kill her. In other words, it's the TV show version of Steven Soderbergh's Haywire, replacing the physically commanding but hardly emotive Gina Carano with the far more expressive and sympathetic George. The Australian actress (previously seen in 30 Days of Night and HBO's In Treatment) upgrades what could've been a run-of-the-mill thriller program into a kinetic and endearing she- against-the-world diversion. 20. Louie (FX) Star: Louis C.K. More so than either of its previous two seasons, the one-of-a-kind FX comedy Louie's third year was marked by its exceptional guest stars. Series creator/star Louis C.K. is, of course, perfectly capable of bringing the wry hilarity all by himself, but the show's best moments in 2012 revolved around his combustibly hilarious interactions with Parker Posey and Melissa Leo, the latter killing it as a forceful blind dater with a dirty mouth and a knack for physical abuse. Guests aside, Louie's dynamite third season ended with a dreamlike finale that cemented the show's reputable standing as TV's most progressive and unclassifiable . 19. (ABC) Stars: , Julia Bowen, Sofia Vergara, Ed O’Neill, , , , , , , Aubrey Anderson-Emmons If not for NBC's Parks and Recreation, Modern Family would own the title of "TV's Funniest Sitcom." As it stands, the Emmy-winning ABC series might be second-best, but it's still an incredibly reliable source for laugh-out-loud hilarity. With such a large ensemble cast of funny actors, it's no small accomplishment that Modern Familycontinues to afford each of its stars well-developed story arcs and copious amounts of memorable one-liners and high-concept situations. The funniest ones of all this year were, in no particular order, Phil Dunphy (Ty Burrell) cluelessly bonding with a gay man (guest star Matthew Broderick), Cam's (Eric Stonestreet) costumed attempt to save an old tree, and Manny (Rico Rodriguez) and Luke (Nolan Gould) bar-mitzvah-hopping to locate a teenage cutie. 18. Scandal (ABC) Stars: Kerry Washington, Tony Goldwyn, Columbus Short, Darby Stanchfield, Katie Lowes, Guillermo Diaz, Joshua Malina, Jeff Perry One can't be blamed for sleeping on ABC's highly addictive political soap opera Scandal. After all, it's the brainchild of Shonda Rhimes, the creator of such guy-repelling programs as Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. But this year, during Scandal's provocative second season, resistance proved futile, especially if you happened to sign onto while the show aired. The social media site was a venerable, constantly updated Scandal message board on Thursday nights.

Much of the credit goes to star Kerry Washington, whose work as political problem-fixer Olivia Pope slickly merges vulnerability (seen through her hush-hush dalliances with top-ranking government shotcallers) with imposing tenacity. 17. Boss () Stars: Kelsey Grammar, Connie Nielsen, Hannah Wire, Jeff Hephner, Troy Garity, Kathleen Robertson, Jonathan Groff, Tip "T.I." Harris, Sanaa Lathan, Rotimi Last month's announcement that Starz cancelled its most critically acclaimed series, Boss, surprised nobody—television is a ratings- driven business, and, despite all of its glowingly positive reviews, the psychological/political drama could never find an audience big enough to justify its existence. Now that it's done, though, expect plenty of DVD/ latecomers to kick themselves for not tuning in while Boss was on the air. Previously known mostly for comedy, Kelsey Grammer defied expectations, embodied the morally corrupt and dementia-stricken Mayor of Chicago Tom Kane with a dark pathos, and won a Golden Globe for Best Actor after the show's first season. This time around, Grammer became even more devious, maneuvering around Chicago's construction plans (the decision to redevelop Lennox Gardens or bring in a casino and a shopping center) with a self-serving drive that left his wife (Connie Nielsen) and newly introduced chief of staff (Sanaa Lathan) emotionally devastated. 16. : Vengeance (Starz) Stars: Liam McIntyre, Peter Mensah, , Viva Bianca, Craig Parker, Manu Bennett, Katrina Law, Dustin Clare, Dan Fuerriegel, Brooke Williams Entering the season premiere of Spartacus: Vengeance, the Starz network's first stab at furthering the Roman gladiator's story after the death of first season star Andy Whitfield, the question on every fan's mind was: Does this Liam McIntyre fella have what it takes? The answer: A less than ecstatic yes, as it turns out. Although the new Spartacus wasn't able to fully thrive in Whitfield's huge shadow, the show surrounding him carried on quite dutifully. Because, in the end, the Spartacus brain trust knows what brings viewers back every Friday night, and that's the promise of excessive violence, gore, and copious T&A, all of which Spartacus: Vengeance had in abundance. The series' upcoming season, Spartacus: War of the Damned, will be the franchise's last one. We can't say we're devastated, though: The tale of Spartacus has a known end-game, and there's only so much obligatory debauchery viewers can take before "never enough" becomes "too much." For now, though, bring on the carnage. 15. Dexter (Showtime) Stars: Michael C. Hall, , James Remar, Desmond Harrington, David Zayas, Lauren Velez, C.S. Lee, Ray Stevenson, Yvonne Strahovski, Jason Gedrick Finally, after two years of aimless storytelling following its magnificent fourth season in 2009,Showtime's Dexter regained its pulse. See what actually giving a series some legitimate dramatic stakes can do for its entertainment value. With the sixth season finale's long-awaited closing moment, that of Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter) discovering her bro Dexter's (Michael C. Hall) serial killer secret, the once-great program truly revived itself. Capitalizing on that development, Dexter's seventh batch of fresh episodes has given both Carpenter and Hall ample room to add newfound layers to their formidable chemistry. Outside of Dexter's old reliables, a couple of new faces have bucked the show's negative trend of wasting good actors in throwaway, seemingly pointless roles (see: Julia Stiles, Jonny Lee Miller, Edward James Olmos). Though he was somewhat underused, Ray Stevenson's work as Ukrainian crime boss Isaak Sirko gave Hall's Dexter his best antagonist since John Lithgow's Arthur Mitchell. Most impressive of all, however, is love interest Hannah McKay—played wonderfully by the stunning Yvonne Strahovski, she's the perfect antidote to Dexter's harmfully internalized "dark passenger." 14. (HBO) Stars: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, , , , , , Sufe Bradshaw Even if you couldn't give a shit less about politics, HBO's joke-per- second success Veep had the kind of breathless humor and snappy writing that could make those who know Santigold better than Rick Santorum laugh. Which came as no surprise, since the show's creator, Armando Iannucci, is the same guy who wrote and directed the razor-sharp 2009 political satire In the Loop. Hot and hilarious Julia Louis-Dreyfus gave Girls star Lena Dunham serious comp for "the year's best female comedic performance" as Vice President Selina Meyer, an easily annoyed chief amongst a group of problematic underlings. The gist of Veep is, frankly, that most people working in her field are morons, or at least sympathetically incompetent. More importantly, though, inVeep's case, they also come equipped with rapid-fire senses of humor. 13. Homeland (Showtime) Stars: Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, , Mandy Patinkin, David Harewood, Morgan Saylor, , Diego Klattenhoff, Rupert Friend, , , Often throughout Homeland's daringly breathless second season, viewers' abilities to suspend disbelief and manage patience have been tested, and, frankly, overcome by implausibilities and extreme moments of almost cartoonish action. Which—as anyone who gnawed on their cuticles while watching Homeland's brilliant, airtight debut season last year could tell you—goes against nearly everything that the Emmy-winning Showtime series had previously established (i.e., realistic storytelling powered by believable characters handling dangerous situations in natural ways). So it's a huge testament to the tremendous acting chops exhibited by stars Claire Danes and Damian Lewis that Homeland is still one of modern television's most invigorating and tense hours. Lewis, in particular, had been tasked with selling ridiculous scenes (talking on a cell phone while killing a man; breaking into high-ranking officials' offices with ease) and his Nicholas Brody character's internalized mania, and he's done so with real panache. Always thrilling yet at times frustratingly uneven, Homeland's sophomore season has been a tightrope walk for all involved. Whether the upcoming finale keeps things balanced or sends them crashing downward, it'll definitely be enthralling to watch. 12. Girls (HBO) 11. (FX) 10. Wilfred (FX) 9. Nurse Jackie (Showtime) Stars: Edie Falco, Eve Best, Peter Facinelli, Merritt Wever, Paul Schulze, Dominic Fumusa, Anna Deavere Smith, Stephen Wallem, Bobby Cannavale, Ruby Jerins Nurse Jackie might be the most unfairly misconceived show on television, mainly amongst the dude sect. Ask nine guys on the street if they've ever watched the dark Showtime comedy and you're likely to be met with blank stares and fuck-outta-here indifference. What's to blame? Perhaps a certain close-mindedness about a show centered on a middle-aged woman (the always stellar Edie Falco) and her mixture of workplace drama and domestic headaches. Well, fellas in question, you're missing out on one of TV's best written, intriguingly complicated, and scathingly funny characters. As the titular pill-popper, Falco leads an eclectic cast of comedic talents, an ensemble that grew in strength during the half-hour show's fourth season, its greatest one yet. Bolstered by the addition of the underrated Bobby Cannavale as NYC's All Saints' Hospital tyrannical new leader, Nurse Jackie's wicked support team all brilliantly conveyed the hospital's eroding sense of order. Yet it's always Falco who pushes Nurse Jackie into that upper echelon of cable television superiority. With Jackie's life in a tailspin, due to an erratic stint in drug rehab and a bitter divorce, the four-time Emmy-winning actress showed viewers why she's a foolproof lock for a nomination year in and year out. Per usual, she has our vote. 8. Boardwalk Empire (HBO) 7. Parks and Recreation (NBC) 6. Breaking Bad (AMC) 5. Game of Thrones (HBO) 4. Mad Men (AMC) 3. American Horror Story: Asylum (FX) 2. Justified (FX) 1. The Walking Dead (AMC) [Complex.com] The 25 Best TV Shows of 2013 25. Rectify 24. Nathan For You Creators: Nathan Fielder, Michael Koman Stars: Nathan Fielder Network: Comedy Central Nathan For You is a show that has a simple premise, star Nathan Fielder goes to various businesses and helps them improve in any way he can, but it’s the level of intricacy and shock that makes Nathan For You the funniest new show this year. Nathan’s ideas are both brilliant and stupid at the same time, and Nathan is incredible at utilizing real-world reactions to fit into whatever story and scheme he is going for and evolving it to a much funnier premise than he even began with. An idea for discount gas can lead to Nathan on top of a mountain learning the health benefits of drinking your own pee, or a “8 Minutes or Less” pizza guarantee leaves Nathan bonding with a pizza delivery guy over their poor success with women. Nathan For You is ridiculously hilarious, always surprising and one of the most enjoyable and original shows in years.—Ross Bonaime 23. Sons of Anarchy 22. Doctor Who 21. Top of the Lake It’s hard to think of Elisabeth Moss outside the context of Mad Men’s Peggy Olson, which is why her complete transformation into New Zealand detective Robin Griffin for the Sundance Channel’s seven-part miniseries Top of the Lake was so impressive. She sank fully into the role of a smart, troubled wanderer returning to her hometown to solve the disappearance of a pregnant 12-year-old girl, and despite the fact that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation pulled funding when she was cast (a financial gap later filled by BBC-owned UKTV), director Jane Campion absolutely made the right call. As Griffin, Moss is vulnerable and tough all at once, and the show’s brooding pace suits the slow emergence of her own submerged demons. And that’s what sets Top of the Lake apart; this is a rare modern show that dares you to experience the story on their time, complete with meaningful digressions and patient character studies. The lake itself is a symbolic character, with an alpine surface beauty that belies the secrets beneath. As Griffin approaches the truth of the pregnant girl’s fate, she’s forced to uncover the trauma of her past and the darkness of everything she escaped. Holly Hunter is delightful as CJ, a plain-speaking guru at the head of a caravan of bruised older women, and Peter Mullan often steals the show as the gruff white trash patriarch—and lifelong criminal—Matt Mitcham. But it’s Moss, resilient and damaged, who gives the show its simmering energy.—Shane Ryan 20. Justified 19. The Walking Dead 18. Enlightened 17. Bob’s Burgers 16. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

15. Key & Peele Creator: Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele Stars: Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele Network: Comedy Central The show starring MADtv alumni Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele will soon wrap up its third wonderful season of sketch comedy driven by a unique comedic perspective, a keen understanding of social media and, of course, the hilarious chemistry of its two stars. There’s an unrivaled sense of camaraderie between Key and Peele. Because of their off-camera friendship and extensive improv training, it’s clear that they listen to each other, bounce ideas off each other and, as a result, always seem in sync. It makes their between-sketch banter pop with endearing goofiness. The creation of Luther, President Obama’s anger translator, captured the zeitgeist so fiercely that the President himself spoke about his experience watching it. It’s a brilliant take on our nation’s soft spoken, thoughtful leader, and it wrings out cathartic laughs in seeing the genuine anger bubbling just under the surface. Every character on Key & Peele feels real. They’re not caricatures that spew jokes and catchphrases; they’re fully formed humans with hearts, souls and, in the case of Mr. T, hurt feelings.—Greg Smith 14. Veep 13. The Good Wife 12. Orphan Black 11. Girls 10. Eastbound & Down Creators: Jody Hill, Ben Best, Danny McBride Stars: Danny McBride, Steve Little, Katy Mixon Network: HBO Always hilarious, but as painful and emotional as any drama,Eastbound & Down deserves a depressing ending. This isn’t a feel-good show. It’s a dark look at fame and fortune and suburban America, with a particular focus on the nouveau riche soullessness that has overtaken the sprawling cities of the South. There’s no major catastrophe at the end of the show’s final season, but it’s hard to see how Kenny will be happy with his newly resettled domestic life. It makes sense to end the show with Kenny and his family leaving North Carolina—Eastbound is unmistakably Southern, and couldn’t exist outside of it. Part of its greatness is that, outside of Kenny and certain secondary characters, it has generally presented the South in an understated and naturalistic way, cutting through much of the annoying exoticness with which Hollywood presents the South.— Garrett Martin 9. Brooklyn Nine-Nine Creators: Daniel J. Goor, Michael Schur Stars: Andy Samberg, Andre Braugher, Terry Crews, Chelsea Peretti Network: NBC Created by Parks & Rec showrunner Michael Schur and his fellow Parks writer Dan Goor, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is populated with the same kind of hilarious and lovable characters as the Pawnee Parks Department. It all starts with the unexpected chemistry between Andy Samberg as the wise-cracking detective and his all-business chief played by Homicide’s Andre Braugher. There’s misantrhopic Gina (Chelsea Peretti), food-blogging Boyle (Joe Lo Truglio), street-tough Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz), brown-nosing Santiago and gun-shy hulk Terry (Terry Crews), but after just a handful of episodes, they’re already characters you want to pull for. Schur never wants to sacrifice heart for humor, and his shows have plenty of both.—Josh Jackson 8. New Girl 7. House of Cards 6. Game of Thrones 5. Arrested Development 4. Orange is the New Black 3. Mad Men 2. Parks & Recreation 1. Breaking Bad

[Paste Magazine]