Here Are the 16 Best New TV Shows of 2016

Best of 2016

BY Exclaim! StaffPublished Dec 20, 2016

Just ask Billy Eichner — we've officially reached peak TV. Thanks to new distribution models, a deep talent pool and a willingness to try new things, the medium's golden age has yet to falter.

There's simply too much to wade through to make any sort of comprehensive list, so rather than discuss the minutiae of returning series like The Walking Dead or UnREAL, we decided to focus on the new class of shows gracing our screens.

Here are the 16 best new TV shows of 2016.


16. Westworld



HBO has been floundering in the search for their next big franchise now that Game of Thrones is on its last legs. Despite some duds, they've finally found their new watercooler mainstay in Westworld

The dystopian Michael Crichton adaptation was not without its problems — the show does, after all, rely a little too much on cornball Radiohead covers and often unnecessary plot twists. 

That said, it's a compelling, well-shot thriller that begged existential questions while keeping us riveted by its visuals. Best of all, it was the sort of show that had us wrapped up in conversation every week.
Josiah Hughes


15. The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth



When The Circus first began airing during the New Hampshire primaries, it's up close and personal, stylized documentary look at the U.S. presidential candidates was so candid and far-flung from most of their official campaign and public appearances, it seemed almost invasive. Political experts Mark Halperin, John Heilemann, and Mark McKinnon have been at it long enough that, as hosts of this show, they had incredible access to every key, historic scene of the campaign and everyone who caused them. Watching the show, which recapped the previous week's political news cycle with real talk and candour, felt almost like knowing too much. 

Of course, it only felt really inside until the wee hours of November 9 when it became clear that even the most informed political junkies didn't know shit. Still, this totally unprecedented, high-quality blast of filmmaking featured colourful, intelligent commentary and was an ingenious concept executed beautifully. Once we crawl out of our collective fetal position, maybe we can re-watch the whole series to see if we can spot any Russian spies.
Vish Khanna


14. Easy



It's always interesting to see what happens when microbudget filmmakers are given money and big names to work with. While some flail and sputter under the pressure, mumblecore master Joe Swanberg has seamlessly transitioned into working with big names. 

Easy, his 2016 anthology series for Netflix, is shot like a real TV show and packed with plenty of recognizable names. The show includes appearances from the likes of Aya Cash, Dave Franco, Orlando Bloom, Malin Akerman, Hannibal Buress and Kiersey Clemons, to name a few. Fortunately, Swanberg steps up to the plate, weaving his bigger budget and diverse cast into a stunning tapestry of stories about upper middle class life in Chicago. 

At once laid back and emotionally fraught, Easy is one of the strongest Swanberg projects to date.
Josiah Hughes


13. Jon Glaser Loves Gear



Thanks to bits on Conan, Girls and Parks & Recreation, beloved comedian Jon Glaser continues to slowly rise in the public eye. Still, to really appreciate the man, you must dive into his carefully curated comedic consciousness.

Following Delocated and Neon Joe, Werewolf Hunter, Glaser took his absurdist sensibilities to the next level with Jon Glaser Loves Gear. Ostensibly an excuse for product placement, the show flips the consumer guide on its head with deeply meta story-telling, groan-worthy dad jokes and outlandish premises. Jon Glaser is a truly singular comedian, and all of his best characteristics are on display here.


12. The Crown



In a year in which Netflix's original programming got some of its biggest critical acclaim and audience accolades to date, The Crown almost slipped through the cracks when it was launched online in early November. But as the skies turn grey and more people head indoors for the winter, the British biopic about the early years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign proves to be as binge-worthy as everything else on this list.

Written and created by Peter Morgan (The Queen, The Damned United) and directed in part by Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot), the ten-episode series offers a nuanced (and beautiful, considering the cinematography) look at the inner workings of life in the British monarchy.

Downton Abbey fans will be thrilled to have a whole new royal family to follow for generations (the series is set to film six seasons in total and go up to present day), but producers will probably have to cut a few costs to do so (the show's first season was rumoured to take over $100 million to make).
Matthew Ritchie


11. King of the Road



King of the Road isn't entirely new. The competition, which pits skateboard teams on a scavenger hunt across America, has been documented in the pages of Thrasher Magazine for over a decade, as well as on home video and YouTube. But Viceland turned it into a full-fledged reality show this year, and while that might seem like a good example of synergy at its worst, it actually ended up offering an eye-opening look into the lives of today's skaters and the subculture as a whole.

The 11-episode series was responsible for making (Aaron "Jaws" Homoki and Elijah Berle were nominated for Thrasher's "Skater of the Year" in part for their performances on the show this year) and breaking a new generation of skaters (Birdhouse rider Clint Walker, whose jock-ish shenanigans constantly infuriated viewers, many of whom now consider him an embarrassment to the art form). Here's hoping Season 2 offers similar amounts of carnage on and off the boards. 
Matthew Ritchie


10. Love



Judd Apatow has been behind some of TV's most empathy-inducing endeavours, whether standing up for high school nobodies with Freak and Geeks or celebrating the nerdy college kids on Undeclared (though, to be fair, it's pretty hard to feel bad for any of the over-privileged, under-prepared characters in the Apatow-produced, Lena Dunham-helmed Girls).

Love lies somewhere in the middle, following the story of radio producer and recovering party animal Mickey (played by Gillian Jacobs) and the hopelessly geeky aspiring screenwriter Gus (played by Paul Rust). By the end of the first season, neither protagonist is particularly likeable — and perhaps, they're all the more relatable for it.

The show ditches typical rom-com tropes in favour of a more realistic approach to millennials' messy, undefined approach to relationships that lets the audience see the main characters falling for each other and fucking up their shots at a happily ever after.

Even when Mickey's at her most selfish and melodramatic, and when Gus is being a dick, the pair are utterly watchable — delivering a series that is packed with as many hilarious moments as there are tender ones.
Sarah Murphy


9. Fleabag 



Phoebe Waller-Bridge has already established herself as a well-rounded star thanks to turns in Broadchurch and her work on Crashing (a show she also wrote). Her IMDb list got all the more impressive, however, with Fleabag

Semi-autobiographical, the show was developed when Waller-Bridge was asked to come up with a 10-minute sketch at a storytelling night. That eventually blossomed into a one-woman play, and now a show. It follows Waller-Bridge as Fleabag, a young woman trying to deal with dating, a failing business and her frustrating family while also grieving the death of her best friend.

Fleabag is messy, lively and emotionally complex, but most importantly it's profoundly funny. 
Josiah Hughes


8. Vice Principals 



Danny McBride and writer/director Jody Hill (The Foot Fist Way) returned to fill the Eastbound & Down-sized hole in our hearts (and TV schedule) by reteaming for the limited series Vice Principals. (The nine-episode first season is actually the first half of a planned 18-episode total run.)

Joining McBride on this journey into the heart of comedy darkness is dramatic actor Walton Goggins (Justified, The Shield), who matches his co-star's intensity in this small town battle for power over the local high school. The two vice principals in question are denied their "rightful" ascension following the retirement of the current principal (Bill Murray). Equally distrustful of McBride's Neil Gamby (who has anger management problems, at minimum) and Goggins' Lee Russell (whose sycophantic toadying seems to mask some deeper psychological issues), he hires a qualified outsider in Dr. Belinda Brown (Kimberly Herbert Gregory). Gamby and Russell immediately put their differences aside and unite to take down this new common enemy.

As Eastbound & Down fans can no doubt attest, Vice Principals is not for everyone. McBride's obnoxious, mulleted, egomaniacal characters are designed to scrape your last nerve — not everyone sees the comedy in that. Goggins' Lee Russell takes a different but equally nasty approach: his dandied-up outer shell hides a mischievous version of terrible human behaviour. Together they pull no punches in trying to destroy the life of a successful black professional in Dr. Brown; that alone is enough for many to simply disembark the Vice Principals train.

But if the dark humour of the Hill/McBride duo hits your comedy sweet spot — as the similarly dark and obnoxious Eastbound & Down did — there are few things in the world as satisfying. McBride, who co-wrote every episode and directed one, is in complete control of his comedy persona and modulates perfectly between insane bouts of self-aggrandizement and regular doses of humiliation dolled out as a result of his own stupidity. Behind Lee Russell we find a comedic, complicated home life and even Dr. Brown herself turns out to be no saint in many respects.

The world of Vice Principals is often mean, horrible and cruel; it's also dreadfully funny — if you're into that sort of thing. What it's not is one-note: it may be populated by occasionally hateful people, but they're always complicated, bruised and real.
James Keast


7. Luke Cage 



As a series, Luke Cage was as imperfect as its titular protagonist. It charged out the gates with a furious charisma before arguably losing a bit of steam in its second half. But there was a reason the Netflix show represented the streaming service's highest rated original series to date — it was a fun, self-aware, and intriguing show that offered up hip-hop super-heroics without swerving into parody. 

As the Marvel Comics streetwise hero, actor Mike Colter offers an adequate, albeit low-key performance, while Alfre Woodard, Theo Rossi, Simone Missick and Moonlight's Mahershala Ali round out a cast who both elevate and illuminate the material they're given. The action is over the top, the performances nuanced, and the musical soundtrack is on-point. Luke Cage serves as the more grounded corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and it holds it down with an urban, and urbane, edge. 
Ryan B. Patrick


6. Abandoned 



Few people know how to navigate forgotten urban spaces quite like skateboarders, so Rick McCrank's new Viceland docuseries is a match made in heaven. The veteran pro travels through abandoned shopping malls, amusement parts, suburbs and highways throughout North America. 

Sure, he does take the time to shred rusty handrails and make-shift ramps, but Abandoned is so much more than a crass, ruin-porn skate video. 

Thanks to McCrank's empathetic hosting skills and the show's solid production value, Abandoned is a sobering look at the wreckage left behind from boom-and-bust capitalism. And while it's ostensibly a show about abandoned spaces, it's really a show about people — the people who wants lived in those spaces, and the people who are now reclaiming them to revitalize their communities. The resilience of the human spirit is on display in full here.
Josiah Hughes

5. Insecure 



Insecure was reportedly a risky bet for HBO: an original series, inspired by a YouTube web series and that featured an "untested" African-American female actor/writer. But those familiar with Issa Rae's work know that she wouldn't come weak — or wack for that matter — with a high-profile platform. The result was a standout series that is witty, inventive and unapologetically black.
 
By presenting an oft-seen, oft-used premise — twenty-somethings dissatisfied with their life, love and career trajectories — but from an African-American angle, Insecure is coded yet accessible, specific yet universal. Along with co-creator Larry Wilmore (of the cancelled-too-soon The Nightly Show), Rae injects a cringey comedic tone into sitcom storylines featuring an awkward "aggressive-passive" lead and an assortment of flawed and flawlessly genuine ensemble cast dominated by people of colour.

Love, lust, regrets, and ill-advised life decisions — combined with impeccable comedic timing and writing — come off real, nuanced, and in living colour. The fact that this was ever considered a risk in 2016 is the real joke. 
Ryan B. Patrick 


4. The Night Of



Netflix and more traditional television channels may continue to turn out high-quality programming at a breakneck pace, but HBO proved why they're still number one with The Night Of

Based on the critically acclaimed British series Criminal Justice, the eight-part crime drama perfectly captured life in the American prison system and being a Muslim man post-9/11 and pre-President Trump.

Part Oz, part The Wire, and with enough humour to keep it light when things got a little too dark (John Turturro's side-story involving his battle with eczema could be a standalone black comedy — it's only a matter of time before a supercut proves so), The Night Of showed how far the medium can go when taken seriously. Here's hoping they don't mess it up the way they did True Detective.
Matthew Ritchie


3. Baskets



Zach Galifianakis' jump to the mainstream in The Hangover was particularly frightening for those of us who loved his absurd brand of comedy. After becoming a beloved frat boy icon, how could Galifianakis return to the alternative comedy world? 

Fortunately, Baskets proves that his madman genius can never be stifled. The series follows Chuck Baskets, a classically trained circus clown who is now slumming it at a rodeo while living with his mom (an Emmy-winning turn from Louie Anderson) in the Californian suburbs. The show is unparalleled in its uniqueness, at once offering delightful sight gags, stupid-clever dialogue and a morose look at life in the dying middle class. In a way, it's safe to say that Costco serves as its own character in the show. 

Baskets is one of the year's most unique and assured shows — a collection of pratfalls that come together as a true avant-garde comedy masterpiece.
Josiah Hughes


2. Stranger Things



From Halloween costumes to memes to an upswing in pudding lobbyists, the cultural impact of Stranger Things was undeniable in 2016 — and with good reason. In its first eight-episode season, the hit Netflix show managed to strike the perfect balance between edge-of-your-seat-suspense, emotional investment in its characters and good old-fashioned nostalgia.

Winona Ryder's immaculate performance as Joyce Byers — a hysterical mother whose child goes missing — is heartbreakingly gripping, while viewers' empathy for David Harbour's police chief Jim Hopper builds slowly as details from his own tragic past are revealed. 

It's the kids that really steal the spotlight, though. The ever-compassionate Mike Wheeler (played by Finn Wolfhard) teaches Eleven (played by Millie Bobby Brown) what friendship means —literally — then puts it into practice despite the reluctance of his existing gang of geeky pals. Brown's portrayal of the traumatized child-turned-lab-test-subject is as haunting as it is heartwarming, while Wheeler's other pals provide a charming mix of pre-adolescent adventure, fierce loyalty and, once in a while, even some much needed comic relief.

On paper, Stranger Things is an amalgamation of junior high drama, small-town crime and sci-fi that sounds absolutely ridiculous. On screen, though, it's pure magic.
Sarah Murphy


1. Atlanta



When FX announced that it was launching a show created, written by and starring former Community alum turned rapper Donald Glover, misperceptions abounded. Most took Louis CK's fiercely personal FX show Louie as the model, assuming Glover would be similarly ubiquitous on screen. When news broke that it would centre on Atlanta's burgeoning hip-hop underground, it seemed logical that Childish Gambino — or some fictionalized version of Glover's rap alter-ego — would dominate. When Glover publicly announced his intention to make "Twin Peaks with rappers," then hired only black writers, none of whom had conventional TV writing experience, any expectations for Atlanta were at best a wild guess.

What Atlanta turned out to be was a study in balance between deeply weird and wildly funny and between poignant sadness and absurdity. We follow the exploits of Atlanta rapper Alfred "Paper Boi" Miles (Brian Tyree Henry) and his cousin Earnest "Earn" Marks (Glover), a Princeton dropout who latches on to Paper Boi's rising star as a manager when his single becomes a local hit. Earn is co-parenting his daughter with Van (Zazie Beetz), with whom he has on-again/off-again relationship, often depending on Earn needing a place to sleep.

For most of its episodes, Atlanta weaves tales of Paper Boi and Earn navigating the choppy waters of the music industry and small-scale local fame, punctuated with the realities of their largely dire financial straits. One entire episode revolves around Earn losing his jacket after a night of partying, and his attempts to track it down.

Yet Atlanta isn't interested in letting convention drive its first season and the show takes several remarkable creative risks. It resists the urge to put Glover — as the show's highest profile star — front-and-centre, and in fact, he doesn't appear at all in two consecutive mid-season episodes. One features only Earn's girlfriend Van meeting up with a richer, more successful old friend; the other is Atlanta's most formally challenging episode. The seventh of the show's ten episodes, "B.A.N." is a parody of a BET-style talk show on which Paper Boi has been asked to appear as a panelist. Between awkward interactions on the chat show, "B.A.N." features a series of fake "local" commercials aimed at the black community in Atlanta. That the broadcast is interrupted by real commercial breaks in which the lack of black faces and perspectives becomes starkly evident is surely part of Glover's point (he directed the episode and its commercials).

Atlanta's gifts are plentiful, whether it's watching Earn behave badly as a fancy "Juneteenth" party or face the indignity of being mistaken for another black man by a white woman. Its politics range from boldly obvious (most interactions with white people) to subtle jabs aimed at the entertainment industry itself (an episode involving a charity basketball game and Justin Bieber). By not being what we expected — hell, by not preparing us at all for what we were gonna get — Atlanta turned out to be one of the best surprises of the year.
James Keast


 

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