The revitalised Doctor Who occupies its rightful position in the TV firmament: rarely the best show in any week or year but always there, always changing, always offering fodder for analysis, arguments and lists. Before there were hipsters, Nathan and his fellow self-facilitating media nodes were already keeping it Mencap. But time has rendered it deeply prescient: Barley occupied a perfectly sealed echo chamber of self-conscious idiocy, and he self-branded furiously, long before social media came for our souls. In 2005, Charlie Brooker and Chris Morris’s twatcom seemed oddly dated – a satire of a cultural moment that had already passed. A supremely measured character piece that has steadily improved as its central tragedy has materialised. The Breaking Bad prequel, centred on a ducking, diving lawyer called Jimmy McGill who will one day become Saul Goodman, is an entirely different drama – albeit exploring the same theme of what actions people are willing to take when their American dreams refuse to come true. A show about black female friendship and relationships that isn’t filtered through a white gaze and doesn’t play into tired stereotypes, this HBO series refuses to compromise on authenticity, and, despite changing viewing habits, has proved one of the biggest web-to-screen hits to date. While popular, Rae was able to have her seat at the table for real with Insecure. Issa Rae started her acting career with a web series called The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. One of the biggest web-to-screen hits to date. If the plotting felt formulaic, the performances were entirely convincing – from Maggie Smith’s dowager countess Violet Crawley to Jim Carter’s impossibly decorous butler Carson, everyone knew their place. This was TV drama as comfort blanket: at a time of austerity, Julian Fellowes’s country house epic offered elegantly realised solace in the homilies of the past. Surely the finest portrayal of addiction ever seen on TV. 51 Patrick Melrose (2018)Īn extraordinary self-flagellating performance by Benedict Cumberbatch as a drug-dependent aristocrat anchored this superb adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s semi-autobiographical novels. Like its predecessor The Good Wife but dialled up to 11, this is the most daring legal drama of them all – with gobsmacking plots about #MeToo monsters, Donald’s pee-pee tape and Melania’s bid to get a stealthy divorce. No contest in the award for the most misanthropic character of the century: Dylan Moran wins hands down for his bile-flecked bookshop owner Bernard Black in this delightfully silly sitcom. 53 Black Books (2000-04)ĭelightfully silly. Twenty minutes a week of pure optimism, this Amy Poehler-starring sitcom about a fizzingly enthusiastic civil servant somehow did the miraculous: it made local government seem fun. Six years on, we’re still wincing at the thought of that eyeball scene, but Dennis Kelly’s conspiracy thriller about an apocalypse-predicting graphic novel was more than just ultraviolence: gorgeously shot and endlessly beguiling, it remains like nothing else on TV. The best of the glut of prestige true-crime programmes that have emerged in recent years, this forensic docuseries about Robert Durst, the estate heir accused of murder, featured one of the most jaw-dropping final moments of TV ever. “I’m dating a guy with the funkiest tasting spunk.” Faced so recently with the movie SATC2: Calamity in Abu Dhabi, it can be easy to forget just how hilarious and refreshingly candid Samantha, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte were when they first graced our screens. A decade later, with death-defying iguanas, its sequel wowed us all over again. Groundbreaking doesn’t even begin to describe this globe-straddling documentary epic, which for the first time showed the world’s wildlife in gleaming HD. 73 Spiral (2005-)įrequently compared to The Wire, this French crime saga offered a forensic view of France’s justice system, albeit with enough twists and turns to keep fans totally hooked. The show that launched a thousand cries of “ooh friends” remains one of the most enjoyable sitcoms of the past decade, with its relatable tale of four suburban normies negotiating sixth form. Inarguably the most gleefully offensive show on this list, the sitcom about the despicable owners of a Philly dive bar is also one of the most consistent: each of its 13 seasons features a truckload of laugh-out-loud moments. 75 It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005-) Hugh Grant was on rollicking form as the Liberal party leader Jeremy Thorpe on trial for conspiring to murder his young lover, Norman Scott (Ben Whishaw). Photograph: Kieron McCarron/BBC/Blueprint Television Ltd
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