Hi,
Here is my list for the best shows of 2017. Again these are my choices and of course will be the different to yours. There was some great shows last year and this list changed every so often. Especially the top 5…
Honorable Mention: Time: The Kalief Browder Story (Netflix)
Heartbreaking. The worst story of the year, The worse horror story of the year. This was real life. I thought about putting this one the list, but I felt it was more than the list. I didn’t want to value it because it was not fiction. This was a real life story that shows the horrors of a justice system that is certianly not designed for a certain group of people (ie black people) and how that very system can destroy and destroy not the person that keep hold in a prison, but the family of said person, the family who cannot move on when such injustice is so clear and so apparent and nothing could be done, but should be done. I was haunted by this, destroyed by this and will probably never watch this show again, but I am glad that I watched this. It made me feel more then any other show and yet I couldn’t put this on my list. I figured my list no mattered how each made me feel was designed for my entertainment. This was not. So I have given this an honorable mention because it was an honour to watch this. I think you should watch this, not just because it is neccessary. not just because there is some of you who wonder why people shout “BLACK LIVES MATTER!” and then you watch this and realise “shit this seems to only happen to black men” and why shouting this is important, but for me it is important to watch this because nothing changes if you don’t face the horror and the darkness. We cannot improve, without knowing our failures and the system failed Kalief Browder.
So here they are:
- Love (Netflix): I watched all of this when it was released in March. Then I watched all of the show in May. Then I watched all of it in September. You get the point. I spent a long time thinking about this show, how it improved from the first season, how the characters had grown even more and I cared for them even more. They pissed me off even more. They were layered and real and the last two episodes were the very best of the year for me. Only a few days ago, The excellence of the next two shows pushed Love off the top, but I thought about this list and I had to be honest; Love was my favourite show. The writing was great, Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust should be winning awards every year. God I love this show. It’s the most real show about Love out there. How addictive it is. How painful it is. How wonderful it is. That last scene. My god. Best of the year FOR SURE.
- American Vandal (Netflix) : The surprise contender. The Handmaid’s Tale was my number two, but this was a show that hit me HARD. This was the funniest show of the year, but also probably one of the smartest shows of the year. Literally taking the piss out of Making A Murderer and all the other Murder-Investigation shows on Netflix, it sudden becomes a compelling tale of accusation, teenage pressure and the public court of accusation precluding to instant gulit. How social media is healthy and yet dangerous. It talks about the high school hierachy and the various characters who inhabit that hierarchy. That is also features the most unlikely awards worthy performance by Jimmy Tatro and you got a show that is captivating, funny and very, very smart.
- Godless (Netflix): Man this show threw me for a loop. This is a western that for people that doesn’t like westerns. This is a deconconstruction of Westerns, that still adheres to the very high standards of the formula of Westerns. A post-modern take if you will. Shot in New Mexico, this show has some of the best vistas you’ll ever seen on your TV. This is majestic storytelling that takes its time, but the payoffs are incredible. This features one of the all time best villians on TV with Jeff Daniels excuding a cold sense of malevolence and yet….warmth. He is chilling, charismatic and you CANNOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF HIM. He dominates the screen every time he is on. The fact that this show has an incredible cast of actors including Jack O’Connell, Michelle Dockery, Merrit Weaver, Thomas Broadie-Sangster and Scoot McNairy all giving fantastic performances for all 8 episodes. This is majestic and quite simply an all time classic. The musical score is the best of the year and the very last scene (is like the ending of Shawshank Redemption and remember how good that ending was) was enough to put at the very top of the year. I just watched Love more, but Godless is one show I could watch again and possibly enjoy even more.
- The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu): Eliazbeth Moss. Elizabeth Moss. Elizabeth Moss. The very best individual performance of the year. The best fictional horror story of the year. The tone and sense of place in The Handmaid’s Tale is so shocking, so uncomfortable and what could be so….prescient….I can only hope that this is not our future. Scenes are so unsettling, are so damaging and yet, through Moss, Bruce Miller and director Reed Morano create a horrifying, complex and yet hopeful finale that just hits you to the core. The scene where women lose their jobs and have that bank accounts cancelled and put in their husband’s name is so chilling. My god this show is amazing. I watched it too late. Any other year it would’ve been number one…
- Stranger Things 2 (Netflix): The reality is that nothing could have come close to the social explosion that was season 1 which was a total, unexpected surprise. It hit the cultural zeitigiest. For me though Stranger Things 2 was so much better than Part 1, due to the sheer fact that The Duffer Brothers made a sequel that vastly improved on every aspect. The character work, effects, action and expanding their world, Yes Mike and Eleven are not together for most of the season and that is a loss, but losing that gave, Dustin, Lucas, Will and Steve Harrington more to do and became a much better show because of it. Ultimately the placing of episode 7, knocked this off the top spot (yes, going into episode 7 this was my number one show), but I won’t let that ruin what was a fantastic show that I loved every single moment.
- Mindhunter (Netflix): The best character study of the year portrayed by the second best performance of the year by Jonathan Groff who plays Holden Ford. The genius of his performance is that it is not flashy. He is not showing the acting. Subtely. The subtely of his acting is masterful. Holden Ford is a slowly forming reactionary character who’s arc is probably the best of the year. I cannot believe I have written this and not talked about Cameron Britton as real life serial killer Edmund Kemper. Watch his performance and then go on YouTube and watch the real Kemper. Then you’ll see why Britton like Groff deserves every single award going. The class of David Fincher shines through (getting a world class filmmaker like Fincher to direct episodes and also Asif Kapedia director of Senna and Amy shows the class of the show), Mindhunter is a slow burn of a show which has such a pay off. I will not spoil. It’s unsettling and unmissable.
- Mr Robot (USA Network): This is a very late entry on this list, because I waited until the end of the year to watch it. It was such intense experience and what was going on in my life at the time I could have watched this, I just couldn’t. So I waited for things to get better and focused on watching this. This is masterful work from Sam Esmail who somehow again has more and more surprises in this world he has created. This is hynoptic, thrilling, chilling, exciting and just the on the nose yet complex tale of modern society and individual psychosis I have ever seen. Plus take a bow to Rami Malek and his fellow castmates. Wow.
- The Expanse (Sci-fi/Netflix): This came out at the very start of the year. It was a great start of the year, that turned The Expanse from “Sci-fi’s version of Game Of Thrones” to the very best Space Opera in any medium right now. My word of choice for all these shows is complex. There is moral complexities on show here, yet this features some of the best action set pieces of the year. This works because the writing is class (based on a great set of novels), the performances are great, the musical score is fantastic and the show just builds and builds. The journey to what they are building to right now is just fantastic If there was any justice, The Expanse would be just as huge as Game Of Thrones…..
- Game Of Thrones (HBO): Last year’s number one is all the way down at number nine. This fact has not dawned on me. Read my words. There are a few episodes that were the very best of the year. The very best. Yet because it was only six episodes and that fan fiction writing was too noticable. Characters did not behave or act like the way they should, travel time got reduced to mere minutes and storylines felt rushed. This is not the classic Game Of Thrones. Yet I can also say hand on heart that no other show, thrills me, pushes me and makes me want to see the very next episode like Thrones. It still remains the very best in epic television.
- 13 Reasons Why (Netlfix): I watched this show (much like Time The Kalief Browder Story) and when it finsished I knew that I would never watch this show again. Not because it was terrible. The very opposite. This show haunted me. It truly haunted me. This is a devestatingly emotional and intimate tale about souls dancing about one another, not noticing or knowing one another, and how one person’s decison could affect all of us. Take a bow Katherine Langford, Dylan Minnette and Kate Walsh who throughout 13 episodes found new ways to fucking break my heart and own my soul EACH AND EVERY TIME. I have no clue how they can do a season two, but we are getting one and I cannot wait to see what happens next…
- Riverdale
- The Punisher
- Last Week Tonight With John Oliver
- Master Of None
- Outlander
- Liar
- Doctor Foster
- Narcos
- The Defenders
- Arrow
- Designated Survivor
- The Flash
Eternal Distance Of The Passionate Mind 