Best of the tens?

[beer_good_foamy]

So here's a thing. A while back, me and some friends, all bitter old Buffy fans, decided to get drunk and put together a list of the best TV series of the 2010s. And to make it interesting, we used a format based on the podcast Screendrafts, which means that rather than vote together on a common list we all agree on (and which would be boringly predictable), each of us got to pick 4 pre-determined spots on the top 24 list which we then revealed in ascending order, which means this list gets a little... creative, and much more focused on personal favourites.

So, the list:

The criteria: The show had to have its first episode air between 1 January 2010 and 31 December 2019.
...That's it. That's the criteria. Drama, sitcom, animated, reality, US, international, love all serve all.

24. Dark
23. What We Do In The Shadows
22. The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
21. Pappas pengar
20. New Girl
19. Barry
18. Person of Interest
17. Orange Is The New Black
16. Justified
15. The Leftovers
14. BoJack Horseman
13. Mr Robot
12. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
11. Stranger Things
10. Fargo
9. Orphan Black
8. Vera
7. Derry Girls
6. Billions
5. The Americans
4. You're The Worst
3. Treme
2. The Good Place
1. She-Ra And The Princesses of Power

Now, the fun part of this format is that there are some dark horses here, some that ended up in positions they probably wouldn't on an aggregated list, and some heavy hitters that missed out completely. We had a lot of discussions afterwards and came to some conclusions, for instance:
- Nobody who'd seen the last two seasons really missed Game of Thrones
- Everyone loves Rick And Morty but hates the toxic fandom so much they left it off out of spite
- Most agreed Killing Eve would have been there if the third season hadn't sucked so bad
- Everyone's a fucking idiot, and how dare you play my #2 pick at #14, and are you kidding me, and...
- Everyone had a huge number of favourites they wanted to put around #10, nobody could say for sure they had a personal #1
- None of us had seen all these shows, but most of us thought we had some homework to do. (Which I'm ashamed to say I haven't done as much of as I should, hence putting this up here to kick my own ass a little bit.)

Questions? Comments? Guesses on which four spots are mine...? :)

Comments

[goodbyebird]

Why don't I have bitter old friends that talk about tv when they get drunk? 😭

Very much guessing TGP and The Americans were your additions, bit unsure of the others. I never did continue after s1 of The Leftovers, but it was a great show and I've heard nothing but good things.

If I could sneak four on here, it'd be Bates Motel, The OA, The Expanse, and GLOW. Oh no, no. Actually Haunting of Hill House would bump off Bates Motel. A classic through and through.

[beer_good_foamy]

GP and Americans were definitely on my list, but I didn't get a chance to play them since my spots were 19, 18, 12 and 1. If this were entirely my list, those two would probably be #1 and #2.

I'm making my way through s1 of Leftovers right now, and I'm... ambivalent. There's so much good in there, but I really don't trust either Lindelof or Perrotta based on past form, and my expectations of what they'll do with the material is colouring my enjoyment of it. But I'm told it gets even better in s2, so I'll stick with it.

GLOW should probably have been on there somewhere. Hill House is one of those I enjoyed a lot more on rewatch - both that and Bly House I think suffered some from being sold as something they were not. Once you know the twist, they work a lot better.

[snickfic]

I'm curious what you thought the twist was for Haunting of Hill House. The Red Room? The Bent-Neck Lady?

I'm a couple of episodes into Bly Manor and having trouble getting traction. I didn't like Turn of the Screw that much when I read it, but I hoped that Flanagan would give it the HoHH treatment ie make it basically unrelated to the original. So far that has not turned out to be the case. :/

[beer_good_foamy]

I'm not sure there's a twist in plot so much as a twist in style - both series set out posing as a straight-up horror story and then largely play that down in favour of relationship drama. The first time through Hill, I kept getting disappointed that the show didn't delve deeper into what seemed to be the main plot; the second time I was able to see it for the story it really wanted to tell.

No spoilers, but I ultimately ended up liking Bly more than I thought I would a few episodes in. But it's even less of a horror story than Hill.