The 20 best TV shows of 2017
Picking the best television shows of any given year used to be relatively easy, back when the major networks and a few powerful cable channels dominated the cultural conversation. These days, though, making any list of must-see TV is a downright Sisyphean. It’s impossible to keep up with everything worthy of consideration in television, so best-of lists inevitably become idiosyncratic, determined in large part by whatever limited pool of series a critic regularly watches.
But a handful of dramas and sitcoms clearly stood out this year, demonstrating levels of aesthetic, narrative, and thematic ambition that would’ve been hard for anyone paying attention to dismiss. There are so many projects that deserve kudos, though, and only so much...