The shows are ranked by a 50-50 combination of the show’s quality and how much I liked it.
Comedy…………………………………………………………………………Drama
1. Archer (FX)……………………………………………..1. Game of Thrones (HBO)
2. Parks & Recreation (NBC)…………………………….2. Bates Motel (A&E)
2. The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)………………..3. The Americans (FX)
4. Modern Family (ABC)………………………………….3. Southland (TNT)
5. Veep (HBO)…………………………………………….5. Broadchurch (ITV, UK)
5. Daily Show (Comedy Central)………………………..6. Les Revenants (Canal+, France)*
7. The Soup (E!)…………………………………………..6. House of Cards (Netflix)
8. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX)……………..7. Justified (FX)
9. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)……………………………..8. The Almighty Johnsons (TV3, New Zealand)
10. The Crazy Ones (CBS)……………………………..9. Homeland (Showtime)
10. Raising Hope (Fox)………………………………..10. Sons of Anarchy (FX)
12. Derek (Channel 4, UK)…………………………….10. Downton Abbey (ITV, UK)
13. 30 Rock (NBC)…………………………………….12. Black Mirror (Channel 4, UK)
…………………………………………………………..13. Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
…………………………………………………………..13. Shameless (Showtime)
Shows I did not watch this year that may have made the list if I did: Breaking Bad (next summer! really!), Mad Men, Rectify, Eastbound & Down, The Good Wife, Banshee
Honorable Mentions (Comedy): NTSF:SD:SUV:: (Adult Swim), The Awesomes (hulu), Pramface (BBC Three), South Park (Comedy Central), Family Tree (HBO), @midnight (Comedy Central), Alpha House (Amazon), Betas (Amazon)
Honorable Mentions (Drama): The White Queen (BBC), Masters of Sex (Showtime), The Escape Artist (BBC), American Horror Story: Coven (FX), Treme (HBO), The Walking Dead (AMC)
Comedy
1. Archer (FX)
2. Parks & Recreation (NBC)
2. The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)
The Colbert Report broke The Daily Show’s 10 and 2-year winning streaks for Best Variety Series & Best Writing for a Variety Series respectively at the last Emmy’s, and deservedly so. Not to knock TDS, but Colbert’s writing has been crisper and better for awhile now, both in wonderfully satirizing politics and media, and doing absurd bits like this one where Colbert gets a celebrity colonoscopy on air for a “November Sweeps stunt.” Though, all the good writing could fall apart in the hands of a lesser man than Dr. Mr. Stephen T. Colbert D.F.A. whose delivery of the jokes adds a whole ‘nother layer to it. I’ve never seen someone with a faster wit than Colbert, fully on display during interviews, throwing out zingers and off-the-cuff remarks like it was nothing.
4. Modern Family (ABC)
This show has taken some knocks from people who never really got into it, or those who felt it peaked in season x. And yes, Manny Delgado has not been that great since season 1, kinda just coasting on ‘ha ha he’s a young kid with a mature taste.’ And to an increasing degree, much of the humor of Cam & Mitchell is derived from their insecurities, vanities, or jealousies about each other, which is growing to be grating (which thankfully hasn’t been too awful during this whole wedding plot). But hey, 8 out of 11 castmembers still being wildly entertaining ain’t bad. Hell, it could ditch all the families save for Phil & Claire Dunphey & co and it’d still be amazing.
5. Veep (HBO)
I liked Veep’s first season, but others felt it was merely okay. Then came season 2 and won over all the doubters, building nicely on the solid foundation of s1. With more overarching plots giving momentum to the show, it made you more invested in the antics and plans of Vice-President Selena Meyers & staff. So when VP Meyers walks through a glass door, shattering the glass and cutting up her face and then getting loopy off of pain meds right before a press conference, it feels like it’ll have long-term consequences instead of just being a plot contained within this one episode, with everything reset at the beginning of the next ep. But what really propels Veep is that it arguably has the best comedic cast on TV right now (Parks & Rec and ModFam gives it a run for its money).
Out of all the comedy shows on this list, if I had to recommend just one for you to watch (as much as I want to recommend all of them, especially if you’re not on the Parks & Rec train or Archer has flown under your radar), I’d recommend this one. There’s only 2 seasons totaling 18 half-hour eps, that’s 9 hours or one lazy Sunday afternoon. Get on it you jolly green jizzface (one of an abundance of this show’s brilliant insults brilliantly delivered by Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Co)
5. The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
7. The Soup (E!)
The Soup?? Yes. The Soup. It is to reality shows what Daily Show/Colbert Report is to politics and the media. But just because its jokes are about reality shows and not weightier topics such as political discourse and the media, doesn’t make its jokes and humor any lesser than that of TDS/Colbert. As long as Miley’s are twerking, beauty pageant children get juiced on energy drinks, and E! and Bravo keep churning out excrement in the guise of “televison,” Joel McHale & co need to do their civic duty and mercilessly mock their ludicrousness. McHale’s amazing deadpan delivery elevates the barbed zingers, which surprises me every now and then at how far they’ll push it, comedians have gotten in far more trouble for far less offensive jokes than some of the ones told here.
8. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX)
The past couple of seasons were kind of hit-and-miss, though it was never flat out bad, they could still churn out amazingly uproarious episodes like Chardee MacDennis, but not consistently. Going into season 9, I expected more of that, with the various castmembers each having their own projects and gigs, IASIP wasn’t really their baby anymore with various writers going in and trying to emulate the original raunchy jokes and tone to varying degrees of success.
I was wrong.
Sunny had an amazing string of episodes right off the bat and never really let up.
9. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX)
Two longtime writers of Parks & Recreation created this show with an equally capable cast. That alone should get you on board.
10. The Crazy Ones (CBS)
10. Raising Hope (Fox)
12. Derek (Channel 4)
Ricky Gervais does a nearly 180° turn from his earlier awkward cringe-humor work with Derek. It gets on this list because of its unexpectedly poignant moments, this show has hit me in the feels moreso than any other show in a long, long time, going from a heartstring-tugging moment one second to fart jokes the next. While it occasionally crosses into overly-sweet moments and Gervais REALLY loves his musical montages in this show, it nails authentic moments of poignancy far more than it misses.
13. 30 Rock (NBC)
I’ll miss you Liz Lemon et al.
Honorable Mentions:
NTSF: SD:SUV:: (Adult Swim)
The Awesomes (hulu)
It’s not Archer. And it’s not South Park. But this animated comedy (voiced by a who’s who of recent SNL alumni/castmembers including Seth Meyers, Taran Killam, Kenan Thompson, Bill Hader, Cecily Strong, Rachel Dratch and including Ike Barinholtz and Rashida Jones among others) is still a whole lot of fun.
Pramface (BBC Three)
South Park (Comedy Central)
South Park hasn’t had a truly outstanding season since s14 (200, 201, Insheeption, You Have 0 Friends), but you can’t really blame them since Matt Parker & Trey Stone have been busy with The Book of Morman & habitually-delayed video game The Stick of Truth since then. With that said however, a bad/mediocre episode of SP is still usually wildly entertaining even if it doesn’t make you laugh; s17, though, is the strongest season since 14 with some of the most unexpected and hilarious mashups: from World War Zimmerman to putting together Game of Thrones & the next-gen console wars. SP 3-parters are always fun and while the Game of Black Friday isn’t as good as Imaginationland (really, will any 3-parter top that?), it’s better than their last 3-parter (the coon trilogy). Few shows could get a chorus singing ‘Weiner Weiner Weiner Weiner Weiner’ to the tune of the Game of Thrones theme song to be so entertaining.
Family Tree (HBO)
Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids) is my comedy MVP of the year, between this and his own creation Moone Boy, he personifies the quintessential dry British wit.
@midnight (Comedy Central)
Alpha House (Amazon)
Ep1: Good, easily the best of the 8 pilots Amazon let users preview and vote on
Ep 2-3: Eh
Ep 4-: Here we go, found its groove
Betas (Amazon)
Ep1: Eh
Ep 2-3: Blah
Ep4-: Here we go, found its groove
Amazon’s first foray into original content is a decent start; political buffs will dig Alpha House while the Silicon Valley hijinks of a group of programmers trying to get their start-up app off the ground will appeal to techies. Both find their groove around ep4, but both would be fairly enjoyable to people outside of their respective political/Silicon Valley niches. Before House of Cards, Arrested Development & Orange is the New Black, Netflix had Lilyhammer. And with a pilot from the creator of The X-Files about a thriller set right after the apocalypse in production, maybe Amazon will find its House of Cards in 2014, but for now, House and Betas are promising starts.
Drama
1. Game of Thrones (HBO)
Even without the Red Wedding, this show managed to balance a huge cast of characters and plots, you could cut off a bunch of different characters (and they have!) and plots and this would still be a great show. How many shows can provoke such visceral reactions like this?
2. Bates Motel (A&E)
This is probably where I should explain my methodology a bit more. It’s 50% based 
on the quality of the show and 50% based on how much I like a show (very unscientifically measured of course). This is an instance where if it was purely quality-based, Bates Motel would probably fall a few rungs below Americans & Southland as they are probably ‘better’. But this show hooked me from the beginning, ticking off all the boxes of a show tailer-made towards my tastes: a mystery show set in a small town with many mysterious characters and a moody atmosphere, and ultimately its addictive quality from start to finish propelled BM to #2
A contemporary-set prequel to Psycho from the channel best known for ‘Duck Dynasty’ and not 1, but 3 iterations of ‘Storage Wars’ doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But buoyed by 3 strong lead performances and an intriguing mystery plot, Bates Motel managed to exceed my expectations and made me eagerly await Monday nights.
From the casting to the writing and feel of the show, Motel was firing on all cylinders. Norman and Norma Bates are big shoes to step into, but Freddie Highmore (that kid from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory) and Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, The Conjuring) make it their own. Freddie makes a teenage Norman Bates a sweet kid and quite likable, which makes the brief glimpses into his psychotic side that much more effective. Vera Farmiga turns a clingy, slightly-neurotic mother into a fairly believable character. Equally good is Max Thieriot’s relatively sane character to contrast Norma & Norman. Beyond each of them individually, the relationships between each of them feels like a character unto itself, Thieriot’s antagonistic relationship w/ Norma and his protective one with Norman and the creepy, verging-on-incest-territory relationship between Norman & Norma.
3. The Americans (FX)
The best new show of 2013, bar none. Granted, I’m a sucker for spy dramas, but to label Americans as just a spy drama would be a disservice. Like a secret agent, The Americans wears many masks and wears them well: a family drama about a husband and wife with kids struggling to uphold a marriage tearing at the seams, an espionage thriller with some good ol’ fashion asskickery, a Cold War historical political drama. It seamlessly shifts gears and interweaves its various genres with aplomb.
The acting is great, Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Noah Emmerich, Margo Martindale are all solid and this show has a lot of fighting stuntwork and asskicking, which is fun to watch, I mean, gun shoot-outs are fun and all but sometimes you just wanna watch someone open a can of hand-to-hand whoopass. Fans of Alias will greatly appreciate this show. It took me a couple eps to really get into The Americans, but once you’re in, buckle up, you’re in for a ride.
The 2nd season returns Feb. 26, and if I could only recommend one show from the drama side, it’s The Americans. Its 13 45-minute episodes is definitely worth losing a weekend to
3. Southland (TNT)
Already canceled once, Southland somehow made it through 4 more modestly/low-rated seasons on a channel chock-full of hits, and I’m thankful for the time I had with this show (Christ, I sound like I’m describing a recently deceased person). This is the best cop show I’ve watched (haven’t seen The Wire yet). This is an intense show with action in every single episode. This not a boring show, and it’s shot wonderfully to throw the viewer right into the middle of the action and chaos of the LAPD.
5. Broadchurch (ITV, UK)
Most people know David Tennant for portraying the 10th incarnation of the Doctor: frenetic, energetic, and fast-talking. Tennant does his best to make you forget that role, doing a nearly 180 in portraying a sullen, downbeat cop in this 8-episode British murder mystery. Again, this show ticks off the qualities in a show that’s guaranteed to draw me in: mystery, large cast of mysterious characters, moody atmosphere, small-town setting. Beyond that though, this intriguing show explores what happens to a small town when a child is found dead and a local cop (a reliably good Olivia Colman) struggles to separate her personal relationships with the town’s residents to start looking at them as suspects first and friends and neighbors second while paired with Tennant’s character who has a lot of baggage of his own and views this case as some sort of redemption. A bonus for Who fans, Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) has a supporting role in the show. He promptly dies 3 times in the course of the first season (just kidding, only twice).
Fox is planning to adapt this show with Tennant back along with Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn, Nick Nolte and Silver Lining Playbook’s Jacki Weaver. Solid cast, but please Fox, please don’t fuck it up. Please?
Also worth a mention is the gorgeous Dorset cliffs and a great soundtrack.
*6. Les Revenants (Canal+, France)
While Les Revenants aired internationally and in the U.S. in 2013, it was originally broadcast in France at the very end of 2012, and because of that (I’m a stickler for technicalities), it isn’t officially placed on this list. But if it had, it would be #6.
Highest-rated new show of 2013 on Metacritic. A hearty endorsement from Stephen King. An International Emmy for Best Drama. Yeah, Les Revenants is good.
Les Revenants (In English Les Revenants could be translated as either “The Returned” or “They Came Back) is most often referred to as a French zombie drama, I would disagree with that misnomer. There is no brain eating. No rotting flesh (probably). Nothing that is the hallmark of the typical zombie. It’s a mystery show at its heart, about a small mountain town in France where people who’ve been dead (some a couple years, others a few decades) suddenly reappear with no memory of being dead and how they and their loved ones try to adjust. The supernatural element is minimal. Yes, it’s in French, so you’ll have to read subtitles, but if there was one show this year that’s worth the effort, it’s Les Revenants, a deeply engrossing show that’s different from anything coming out of America. A great soundtrack sets the moody, downbeat, spooky tone for the show (it sounds a bit like Explosions in the Sky if they were playing a gig on Halloween).
The kid below is Victor and is the creepiest child character this side of Damien.
6. House of Cards (Netflix)
Best parts of the show for me:
1) Corey Stoll is the stand-out for me, playing a US representative trying to overcome his addictions for the sake of his career and children, unknowingly getting played as a pawn in Kevin Spacey’s political chess game.
2) The dark cinematography sets the mood for the show from the get-go
3) The tantalizing relationship between Robin Wright & Kevin Spacey is greater than either character individually, a marriage built more on mutual benefit than love or romance.
7. Justified (FX)
I never really anticipate or eagerly await Justified’s return, but it’s consistently solid, deftly mixing season-long plots with case-of-the-week episodic storytelling.
8. The Almighty Johnsons (TV3, New Zealand)
I stumbled on this show and quickly tore through its 3 seasons. First, for fans of the formerly-great Misfits, skip s4-5, and watch this show. I practically guarantee you’ll like it.
If I had to use one word to describe this show it would be fun. 2 words: really fun. Johnsons is a just hugely entertaining show that’s very bingeable. It’s a light drama that’s heavy on the laughs and plays with the idea of Norse gods living in New Zealand. It sounds a bit goofy, but there’s no shitty CGI or special effects. Great cast, witty writing, and a fun spin on Thor & Loki different from Chris Hemsworth & Tom Hiddleston’s Marvel versions, this show is just straight-up fun and a breath of fresh air. It comes to America via SciFi Syfy in 2014.
9. Homeland (Showtime)
Oh Homeland. Much has been said about Homeland and many arguments have been waged over Carrie Mathison & co. I’m a sucker for spy shows, so that automatically gives this show a boost. I was in the honeymoon period for the past 2 seasons, and I guess looking back some parts of s2 required quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, but I still enjoyed the fuck out of it. And I still hugely enjoyed the third season.
But about those first 4 episodes…
It felt like an exercise in how this show could function without Brody. And it might have succeeded. If the guy playing Mike had stayed on the show (he left for a regular role in NBC’s disappointing The Blacklist) and explored the Brody family with Mike as a surrogate dad, it might’ve worked. Instead, it focused on serial scowlface Dana Brody for far too much of the runtime. Now, I have a higher tolerance for Dana than most people, I didn’t hit my Dana tolerance threshold until episode 4, but for most people she had long since become Jar-Jar Binks reincarnate. Her story could’ve worked had it not taken up 20-30 minutes of each of the first four episodes, but with Brody MIA and Mike missing, there was a gaping hole and for whatever reason they decided to fill all of it with Dana Brody, and a spy drama just can’t function with half of its episode dedicated to teenage angst.
Still, Homeland is not a show to be judged and ranked episode-by-episode. It plays the long game and is a season-long show with season-long arcs. From episode 5 onwards, it started to find its footing and get back to it’s espionage-thriller-drama roots. Damian Lewis’s performance in episode 9 pretty much made his absence worth it. Between this and Orange is the New Black, I am straight up never doing hard drugs. Seriously, their reaction to withdrawal is like my reaction after eating a bad batch of Mexican food, I can’t imagine what withdrawal would be like for me.
Carrie Mathison: Uglycry MVP 3 years running
10. Sons of Anarchy (FX)
For most shows, going from 45-minute episodes to a season filled mostly with episodes that run a full hour (or more) would dilute the show and have too much filler, but it’s a testament to this show that I didn’t hate this season because of that. Would I have liked it more had they streamlined the plot and stuck to 45-minute episodes? Probably, possibly. But this show had enough jaw-dropping, ‘holy shit!’ ‘Jayzus Chroist!’ moments to (mostly) make up for the extra time. Gemma Teller is the motorcycle gang equivalent of Queen Cercei.
10. Downton Abbey (ITV, UK)
I binged on the first 3 seasons and that’s probably why season 3 was my 2nd favorite show of last year while s4 is #10. No major drop in quality, though the absence of several characters is felt in the first couple episodes. It soon finds its footing though, as plotlines take hold and propel the show forward. One plot in particular is the darkest thing this show has done (moreso than any of the deaths imo) and leads to some fantastic performances. And don’t get between Daisy and her man or she’ll sass & zing the fuck outtaya.
12. Black Mirror (Channel 4, UK)
A part of me really wants to rank Black Mirror much higher (#8? #9?). It only had 3 episodes in season 2, but it managed to do a lot more in those 3 episodes than some shows did with 2, 3, 4x as many episodes. Black Mirror is an anthology series centered on technology in the not-too-distant future. Think Twilight Zone with a technological twist. That sounds goofy and a bit ‘too sci-fi,’ but it’s firmly rooted in human emotion. No show has ever consistently left me as unsettled as Black Mirror did. At the end of nearly every episodes I was left with a sinking pit at the bottom of my stomach, leaving me feeling empty and needing time to decompress that only one other show did (season finale of Homeland). It’s best not to hype this show up too much and just dive right in. It has 6 episodes total and since it’s an anthology you can watch it in any order. Most of them are floating around on either YouTube or Vimeo.
13. Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
13. Shameless (Showtime)
Boardwalk Empire and Shameless are 2 very different shows. One is a lavishly designed and intricately detailed period piece about bootleggers in the 1920s, the other could be shot at any old dumpy house exploring family drama and present-day lower socioeconomic issues. One is a violent gangster drama from HBO slowly building season-long arcs around antagonists, the other focuses on the hectic everyday life problems of the Gallagher family trying to hold it together. Different shows. Different goals. Different tones. But both very satisfying, entertaining and successful in their respective aims.
Shameless handles it’s comedy-drama split extremely well. For the most part, it’s a light show where you laugh at the ridiculously shameless situations and schemes the Gallaghers & neighbors come up with to scrape by in life. And then the tone and mood shifts suddenly to put perspective on the seriousness of their problems and lives to ground the plotlines. It has veered more into less-than-realistic situations like Steve/Jimmy’s whole Brazilian mob boss thing, but plots like custody battles and Mama Cosette’s foster children-run sweatshop don’t feel too far-removed from reality. Also big props to the cast who can shift from hilariously barbed zingers to dramatic scenes in an instant. The Gallagher kids are to drama what the Modern Family kids are to comedy.
Honorable Mentions:
The White Queen (BBC)
The War of the Roses=Real-life Game of Thrones minus dragons & vaginal smoke-monster assassins
Masters of Sex (Showtime)
When I realized this was a good show: the episode 5 scene between Dr. Masters & his wife.
Also, this show seems to be the refuge for legit actors stuck in shitty CBS comedies (Allison Janney, Beau Bridges).
The Escape Artist (BBC)
Between Broadchurch, Doctor Who 50th, and this, David Tennant is 3-for-3 this year.
American Horror Story: Coven (FX)
Stupidly entertaining. Stupid & Entertaining in equal measures.
Treme (HBO)
The Walking Dead (AMC)
Honorable Mention (Comedy?Drama?):
I’m not sure whether television coverage of the political implosion (he’s still mayor btw, albeit with most of his political powers stripped) of coke-snorting Toronto mayor Rob Ford who has “more than enough pussy to eat at home” is hilarious or just downright depressing (if he had a reality show, I would watch the shit out of it). Meanwhile America’s best political scandal of 2013 was a former US representative and NYC mayoral candidate sexting a chick under the name of Carlos Danger (seriously). We’ve gone from Oral in the Oval to dick pics, step up your shit in 2014 America.
Worst Shows of 2013:
1. The Following (FOX)
2. Super Fun Night (ABC)
3. The Millers (CBS)
A colossal waste of talent in front of the camera (Will Arnett, Beau Bridges, Margo Martindale, Jayma Mays…just all of them) and behind the camera (Greg Garcia, creator of Raising Hope and My Name is Earl). This could’ve conceivably worked as a single-camera show, but making it a multi-camera laugh-track show just killed it.
4. Hostages (CBS)
For a show about a surgeon tasked with killing the president during a surgery after her family is taken hostage, this show only got more and more convoluted as the season progressed. A big waste of Toni Collette and Dylan McDermott’s abilities.
5. DaVinci’s Demons (Starz)
A show created and written by David S. Goyer who was advertised as the guy who had a hand in writing the Dark Knight Trilogy? Sign me up. Too bad the series ended up being ham-handed with dialogue that’s clunky as hell and gratuitous nudity liberally inserted in place of plot, or logic. Ends up Goyer co-wrote Batman Begins and only came up with the story for the last 2 movies, and watching this, you can see why they didn’t want him touching the actual screenplays for Dark Knight & Rises.
Believe it or not, America’s Funniest Home Videos still pulls in perfectly decent ratings, and OUaT was rejuvenated in the fall from its Frozen storyline. Though AFHV host Tom Bergeron will be stepping down after this season, that doesn’t seem like it’ll be a catalyst for a precipitous ratings drop.
Tuesday has been a bit of a sore spot for ABC, with the last hour in particular being a graveyard of cancelled shows. The opening hour also barely got to know Selfie/Manhattan Love Story before both got yanked off the schedule. However Spring saw the arrival of Fresh off the Boat which got heavy sampling from premiering two episodes in Wednesday’s comedy block (one after Modern Family). After moving to its regular Tuesday time slot it dropped off as expected but didn’t slide too far, managing to stabilize at perfectly decent levels. To no surprise it’s been renewed. The question is for how many episodes and if not a full season, fall or spring? This doesn’t particularly seem like a show to benefit greatly plot-wise from shorter orders so go ahead and give it a full 22-episode order and have it continue launching the night. Have Dr. Ken follow it up.
very potent self-starter with no lead-in of its own. Sure Modern Family has come down from its ratings heyday. It’s still the highest rated show on Wednesday (when Empire isn’t airing). Don’t. be. stupid.
ABC finally found a way to solve its Thursday first-hour problem, after years of failing to launch a show in the 8/7c hour that stuck around longer than a season (if even), simply shifting the schedule back plugged the hole along with presenting a marketing opportunity under the TGIT banner.
AVthatsme 