Top TV shows of 2014

[JRibeiro]

Ficam aqui a listas que começam a aparecer das melhores séries do ano:

Alan Sepinwall's Top 10 TV shows of 2014

When publishing last year's top 10 list, I referred to 2013 as "The Year of Too Much Good TV." 2014 looks at 2013, laughs and calls it a piker. Even with last year's clear top show "Breaking Bad" enjoying retirement, 2014 offered an insane amount of quality television. We got good shows that became great ("The Americans"). We get a veritable flood of fantastic new series, some in familiar places ("The Leftovers" on HBO), some not (Amazon's "Transparent"), some arriving with buckets of hype ("True Detective"), some sneaking up on me and everyone who watched them ("Review").

Once upon a time, I would follow the top 10 video with a written list of the top 20 shows. (This year, you can check out the list in either the video above or the written gallery below.) Last year, I expanded that to a top 25. This year, I could easily go to 30, or 40, and not feel embarrassed of one entry on said list. For that matter, my top 10 new shows list (which will appear in my ballot for HitFix's Television Critics Poll on Monday, and perhaps in another form later in the month) made me wince a lot at all the shows I couldn't include on it, and not just because six of the shows were brand-new this year.

You'll note a few trends on this list. In particular, it's filled with dramas, with only one show qualifying as a pure comedy — and that one has a pronounced flair for melancholy. (When I showed a rough draft of the list to NPR's Linda Holmes, she replied, "That's f--king dark.") 2014 was a wonderful year for comedies, and while I would have loved to squeeze in "Broad City," "Enlisted," "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" and a bunch of other hilarious series, these were the ones I ultimately kept thinking about again and again. (Rest assured that whatever form my "best of the rest" post takes later this month, it will have many comedies on it.)

I would offer the usual caveats about any such list — how ranking art is on some level silly, how a show's absence from the list doesn't mean I hate it, etc. — but James Poniewozik did it so well as usual when he published his own top 10 list that I would just point you there.

Since God or David Letterman or someone else invented the idea of the Top 10 list to start arguments, let's get to it.

10. "True Detective" (HBO)
Early in its run, HBO’s “True Detective” was getting praise suggesting it was already one of the greatest dramas in TV history, and a genuine threat to ruin the “Breaking Bad” victory lap at the Emmys. By the end of its first season, and especially in the months that followed, the pendulum swung very far in the other direction, thanks to an ending that couldn’t justify the build-up for many, thanks to various PR mistakes, and thanks to the fact that this was an awfully great year in television. The truth lies somewhere in between the early hype and the late backlash, and it’s why “True Detective” is my tenth place show for the year. The performances by Woody Harrelson and, especially, Matthew McConaughey were jaw-droppingly great and the direction by Cary Joji Fukunaga beautiful and hypnotic. Will writer Nic Pizzolatto’s philosophizing about evolution being a mistake, time being a flat circle, etc., withstand the test of time? I don’t know, but McConaughey made that stuff sing, and the multi-tiered structure Pizzolatto devised gave so much more weight to what was on paper a pretty straightforward serial killer story

9. "Mad Men" (AMC)
Based on the early episodes of this half-season of “Mad Men,” 2014 would be the first year the show didn’t make my top 10 list when it was eligible. Based on the last two episodes, it would probably be number one. So, again, let’s split the difference and put it in the ninth spot, and focus on how the Don and Peggy material paid off years of conflict between the two of them, how Peggy's pitch to Burger Chef was the show's best since Don met with the guys from Kodak, and how delightful the latest agency restructuring was. To quote Bert Cooper, "Bravo."

8. "Hannibal" (NBC)
I remain amazed that my eighth-place show, “Hannibal,” is even on television at all, let alone on a traditional broadcast network like NBC. In its second season, the Hannibal Lecter origin story was more baroquely violent than ever, to the point where I still have shudder to think about its bloody finale. But where so many of television's serial killer dramas are just exploitation schlock, "Hannibal" is thoughtful and oddly beautiful. Each episode comes loaded with imagery that would belong on the wall of a museum — provided it's a museum for people with very strong stomachs. Bryan Fuller and company neatly split the season into two halves: the first an elaborate cat-and-mouse game between Dr. Lecter and his imprisoned patsy Will Graham, the second an elliptical, disturbing con game where Graham got too close to his target, and where each episode took on the quality of a nightmare neither Will nor the audience could escape.

7. "Rectify" (Sundance)
In a TV landscape — and a top 10 list — overflowing with violent and grisly dramas, Sundance’s “Rectify” found a different way to tell a crime story, focusing entirely on the emotional and spiritual impact of a murder, and how it lingers decades after the event occurred. Season two had more episodes, and therefore more time to get to know the supporting cast, and it was impressive to see how interesting and sympathetic creator Ray McKinnon could make a previously minor, annoying character like Daniel's obnoxious stepbrother Teddy. Few shows on television have more confidence in what they are, and none are so committed to such an idiosyncratic, uncommercial approach. "Rectify," finds beauty and power in moments other shows wouldn't even bother with, so that in every episode, very little seems to happen at the same time that everything seems to happen.

6. "Orange Is the New Black" (Netflix)
A year ago, Netflix’s “Orange Is the New Black” was my number two show in all of television, behind only that incredible farewell to “Breaking Bad.” In many ways, the prison dramedy’s second season was even stronger than its first, and its sixth place finish speaks more to the depth of the year than any lapse in quality. Season 2 leaned even more than before on the show’s deep, wonderful ensemble, setting Piper off to the side to focus on Taystee, Poussey, Crazy Eyes and Red all getting caught up in a gang war instigated by the arrival of Taystee’s mother figure Vee, played so memorably by Lorraine Toussaint. “Orange” continued to get tremendous production from deep on its bench — who would have imagined in season 1, for instance, that elderly cancer patient Rosa would wind up being the emotional keystone of season 2? And just when things threatened to get too heavy, even for a show set in a women’s prison, the stories of the season all tied together in a surprisingly uplifting, if occasionally violent,

5. "Fargo" (FX)
Some of “True Detective”s thunder was stolen by my fifth place show, FX’s “Fargo,” another anthology drama that brought in movie stars to tell a twisty, time-spanning crime story. Few filmmakers' voices are more specific than the Coen brothers, yet Noah Hawley and the "Fargo" TV team made a show that felt like much more than a mediocre cover band performance. Billy Bob Thornton and Martin Freeman were both marvelous as, respectively, a soft-spoken hitman and a longtime sap learning to embrace his inner monster, but the star attraction wound up being newcomer Allison Tolman, who stepped effortlessly into Frances McDormand's Oscar-winning shoes and gave this bleak story a warm heart at its center.

4. "Review" (Comedy Central)
Though this list is very drama-heavy, 2014 was also a great year for TV comedy, and no pure comedy was better — or more surprising — than Comedy Central’s “Review,” starring Andy Daly as “reviewer of life” Forest MacNeil, whose own life is destroyed by the show. As Forrest was asked to review drug addiction, orgies and, yes, what it's like to eat 15 pancakes in one sitting, Daly's commitment was as deep as Forest's, and the show's willingness to embrace the consequences of Forest's activities made this a comedy that was as tragic as it was laugh-out-loud hilarious. To borrow Forest's ratings system, five stars! This was not an upsetting number of TV episodes.

3. "Transparent" (Amazon)
Amazon had a huge creative success with my third place choice, "Transparent," Jill Soloway's dramedy starring Jeffrey Tambor as an aging father who begins a gender transition, and Gaby Hoffmann, Jay Duplass and Amy Landecker as the spoiled adult children who each re-examine their own life in the wake of this surprising news. This was gorgeous, intimate storytelling, at times incredibly funny, at times deeply sad, and Tambor has never been better — not even on "Arrested Development" or "The Larry Sanders Show." "Transparent" is so specific and odd that it's hard to imagine any other outlet making it, so I'm happy Amazon felt the need to make such a bold move in its ongoing battle with Netflix for streaming video supremacy.

2. "The Americans" (FX)
Last year, FX’s “The Americans” had itself a solid debut season that got swallowed up in the great year of TV that followed it. The period spy drama’s second season was so tight and powerful that almost nothing could overtake it this time out, and it lands in my number two spot overall. In continuing the story of a pair of KGB spies posing as an all-American couple in the shadow of the Reagan White House, the second season ramped up the tension and conflicting loyalties of our two spies, getting fantastic performances from Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell. And where most modern dramas drag whenever the focus shifts to the kids, "The Americans" somehow managed to be even better and scarier by putting more emphasis on Philip and Elizabeth's daughter Paige, whose exploration of Christianity posed as much of a threat to her family than anything the FBI could do. No show took a bigger leap forward in quality this year, and I can't wait to see what season 3 has in store for us.

1. "The Leftovers" (HBO)
When it comes to my top pick, you could argue that other shows had fewer flaws, made more narrative sense, and/or were more fun to watch. But no work of art in 2014 resonated with me more deeply than HBO’s “The Leftovers.” When books are adapted for TV or the movies, they’re often made more accessible, more conventional, less dark and less dense. But Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta went the opposite way in adapting Perrotta’s novel about an unconventional Rapture that sends the survivors into an emotional turmoil. This was a show that plunged its audience right into the broken world alongside all the poor saps stranded in a reality that no longer makes any sense, some trying to go on as before, some going to extremes in violent religious cults like the Guilty Remnant. This was never easy material, and it left many viewers frustrated over the lack of answers, but the command of tone was stunning and absolute, and the performances by Justin Theroux, Amy Brenneman and, especially, TV newcomer Carrie Coon were incredible. In a year where so much of television brought me great joy, no show was harder for me to get through each week than “The Leftovers.” No show was more rewarding, either.

[No Angel]

As listas valem o que valem, mas não percebo como podem não incluir Outlander e Game of Thrones. De resto, a unica que vejo da lista e Mad Men, e ainda não vi a ultima temporada.

[PanterA]

Das 10 só não vi 3, mas é uma lista que deixa muito a desejar. E como disseram, se não tem lá GoT só por aí já é uma falha mesmo daquelas.

[JRibeiro]

O crítico em questão é actualmente o melhor e mais famoso crítico de TV da actualidade, se não incluiu GoT é porque não achou que devesse estar na lista, tudo resume-se a gosto pessoal. Da lista só não vi Transparent, as restantes não estão mal lá.

[PanterA]

Até podia ser o papa, mas para mim, uma lista sem GoT lá, perde logo credibilidade.

[JRibeiro]

Mais uma lista:

Dan Fienberg's top 10 TV shows of 2014

10. HBO's 'Game of Thrones'
The somewhat uneven, by "Game of Thrones" standards, fourth season still included my favorite episode of the show's run in the literally and figuratively crushing "The Mountain and the Viper," another ill-fated wedding, Tyrion's shattering trial, epic fisticuffs between Brienne and The Hound and the action orgy of "The Watchers on the Wall." That's enough to come in at No.10 for the year.

9. Showtime's 'Shameless'
Because Showtime airs "Shameless" in the first quarter of the year, by December I've often forgotten everything other than Emmy Rossum's criminally overlooked performance. This year, the darkest of dark years for the Gallaghers, I'm remembering Rossum, but also the ever-improving supporting work from the likes of Emma Kenney, Noel Fisher, Cameron Monaghan and more.

8. NBC's 'Hannibal'
One of TV's greatest mysteries is how a show this violent, this lyrical, this grotesque, this appetizing, this well-acted at every turn, this cacophonous, this low-rated ever managed to exist at all, ever managed to exit on a broadcast network, ever managed to get renewed not once, but twice. "Hannibal" is a horrifying and poetic miracle.

7. FX's 'The Americans'
The second season of "The Americans" began with the shocking murder of two Russian operatives and their child, a knife in the seemingly cold hearts of Phillip and Elizabeth. Then that knife twisted in ever-more-uncomfortable ways as our favorite Soviet spies faced challenges in the field that only sometimes caused more heated passions than their insecurities and failings as parents.

6. SundanceTV's 'Rectify'
Even in this Golden Age of TV anti-heroes, audiences have never faced and embraced a protagonist as inscrutable as Daniel Holden. Expanded to 10 episodes, the second season of Sundance's spiritually groundbreaking drama seemingly pushed closer and closer to the truth about the murder that put Daniel on Death Row and then challenged how much we could believe, how much we wanted to believe, how much we could forgive. Emmy voters just aren't watching "Rectify," or else star Aden Young would be in every award conversation.

5. HBO's 'Last Week Tonight with John Oliver'
As much as we'd valued John Oliver as a "Daily Show" correspondent and even as a fill-in host, we wondered how he would differentiate himself on his HBO show. The answer? Long-form comedy reporting that was laceratingly funny and, at times, genuinely courageous. Running roughly 15 fact-and-punchline-filled minutes, Oliver's main weekly feature covered anything from drones to Miss America to for-profit universities and challenged viewers not to become informed, outraged and, invariably, amused.

4. AMC's 'Mad Men'
I'm not going to blame Matt Weiner for AMC's questionable decision to split the final "Mad Men" season into two woefully insufficient semi-seasons of seven episodes apiece. I'm just going to concentrate on "Waterloo," "The Strategy," "The Runaways" and "The Monolith," the four episodes that ended this half-season and note that no other show on TV in 2014 can boast a comparable four-episode peak. From Ginsberg and the Computer to Don and Peggy dancing to Betty and her gumdrops to the worst threesome ever to Bob's proposal don't let anybody tell you "Mad Men" has lost a step.

3. Netflix's 'Orange Is The New Black'
"Orange Is The New Black" returned for its second season with a tighter focus that continued to push the show beyond Piper, its initial point-of-entry. The fomenting war between Red and welcome new arrival Vee became the spine of the season and helped to yield shattering and yet still sometimes hilarious revelations about Poussey, Suzanne, Taystee and especially Morello and Miss Rosa. 13 hours per year isn't a long enough sentence.

2. Comedy Central's 'Review'
I watched Andy Daly's 10-episode Comedy Central series in a single Friday evening, marveling at the tonal dexterity that could take its main character from the broad hilarity of a trip to space with a untethered caroming corpse to the depths of marital despair on a quest to sample and review human experiences for a TV show that may never air. There's a blend of humor, sadness and meta-existentialism at work here that's as nourishing as a breakfast of... 50 pancakes. Five stars.

1. FX's 'Fargo'
I'd call FX's "Fargo" a gloriously bad idea magnificently realized, so don't go thinking this is a formula that can be reproduced. Using none of the characters and only fleeting whisps of the narrative from The Coen Brothers' Oscar-winning favorite, Noah Hawley created his own frost-bitten parable of unspeakable evil, the corrosive nature of weakness and greed, the redemptive possibilities of quiet heroism and the visual wonderment of a blizzard. Character acting gets no better than the performances by Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, Oliver Platt, Adam Goldberg, Keith Carradine and a dozen other familiar faces, but it was unknown Chicago theater actress Allison Tolman who grounded this perfectly contained gem of a season.

[BurnCycle]

Para a critica, a 4ª temporada não foi tão bem conseguida como as outras. Depois o resto resume-se aos gostos pessoais.
Basta reparar que a melhor série para um não está sequer na lista do outro. :)

[No Angel]

Para a critica, a 4ª temporada não foi tão bem conseguida como as outras. Depois o resto resume-se aos gostos pessoais.
Basta reparar que a melhor série para um não está sequer na lista do outro. :)

Esta sim na primeira lista... em 5ª lugar.

[BurnCycle]

Para a critica, a 4ª temporada não foi tão bem conseguida como as outras. Depois o resto resume-se aos gostos pessoais.
Basta reparar que a melhor série para um não está sequer na lista do outro. :)

Esta sim na primeira lista... em 5ª lugar.

Referia-me a série "The Leftovers". (Também estaria no meu top com toda a certeza)