Sam Woolf’s Top 10 TV Shows Of 2014

“The Ten Best Xs of Y” lists are subjective. It’s a fact that shouldn’t require statement (though the comments on every Top 10 list ever would indicate otherwise), but one that seems especially true for 2014. This year’s outstanding and growing selection of great television demonstrated that we’re still very much in the throes of boobtube excellence that I’ve been raving about in this format for the last two years. But the big thing missing from TV 2014 was a Breaking Bad-sized juggernaut of commercial and critical success to unite viewers under a single standard bearer for televisual greatness. So, did the absence of one particular show to rally around make 2014 feel like a step back for what’s become entertainment’s most dynamic medium? Far from it. If anything, 2014 is arguably the best year for television in recent memory specifically because of the absence of a safe consensus. More so than ever, comparing your favorite television with others' has become more akin to taste in music than film or literature. Content of greater variety is being released from more voices and more outlets than ever before. With the exception of Mad Men, the old guard of expectations and metrics for quality television has dissolved into a more fluid landscape where anyone can be a contender for "Best Show on TV." As a result, narrowing down my own choices for a Top 10 was harder than it's been years previous. Orange is the New Black and Rectify made my Top 10 list last year, but were resigned to the also-ran camp in 2014. Review, Rick and Morty, and even Game of Thrones made my mid-year list, but couldn’t quite hang in there for the calendar finish. Between just those five, and more than a dozen other nominees I had to eliminate, you’ve got a fantastic crop of shows with which to represent TV at its best in 2014. The arbitrary (but clean) limit of ten shows on this list means it’s more likely than ever I’ll have ignored the bulk of your own favorites, so maybe that’s why it’s important to remember that picks for the 10 Best TV Shows of 2014 are entirely in the eye of the beholder. Here are mine.... 10) Olive Kitteridge Expertly adapting Elizabeth Strout’s episodic novel that explores the ins and outs of a rocky Maine marriage, Olive Kitteridge was often as wryly abrasive and distant as its title character. With a performance built like a powerlifter, Frances McDormand established Olive as one of TV 2014’s most indelible characters over the course of a short 4-hour run. It didn’t hurt to have McDormand backed up by a cadre of acting luminaries that any HBO miniseries can attract, including Bill Murray, Rosemarie DeWitt, and an equally stellar Richard Jenkins as Olive’s willing punching bag of a husband. The scope of Olive Kitteridge never extended much beyond the typical adventures of sleepy coastal living, which made it ideal material for Lisa Cholodenko and her sharp directorial eye for finding the stifled yearning and frustration that accumulate over three decades of domesticity. The show maturely addressed oft-ignored topics of end-of-life care and mental illness, while stoking drama out of the daily struggle not to say something you can’t take back to someone you love. Even without such accomplished performers, the slow-burning hearth contained within Olive Kitteridge’s prickly exterior made it as wholly satisfying as it was unassuming. 9) Bob’s Burgers Another year, another season in which Bob’s Burgers delicately performed the high-wire routine that make it TV's most joyous show, instead of one of its most obnoxious. If your comic sensibilities don’t line up with those of Loren Bouchard’s absurdly loveable revival of the animated family sitcom, it’s understandable. Bob’s Burgers operates on a frequency that can be read as shrill and manic, perhaps because the writing staff can deliver a perfect punchline from any member of the Belcher family, and often choose to go with all five. But what’s become more and more clear with each year of the show is that Bob’s Burgers is not just the warmest and most purely enjoyable animated comedy since classic The Simpsons, but also has the best voice cast, and is the best directed and edited. Of the 20 episodes that have aired in 2014, at least half are stone-cold classics, and when those include antics as delightful as Gene’s Working Girl/Die Hard musical, ridiculous as Bob infiltrating a Brony convention, or anarchic as Louise just being Louise, you know there’s plenty of gas left in the tank for Bouchard and company now that they’ve mastered the art of making Bob’s Burgers. 8) Penny Dreadful Of all the shows on this list, none has imperfections more numerous or glaring than Penny Dreadful. Entire characters were either misused, miscast or both, the overarching mythology that developed by the end of the first season is in shambles, and it’s entirely possible the show will crumble under the weight of its own messy bravado come Season 2. But that particular devil-may-care attitude toward normal and acceptable practices is what made Penny Dreadful such a unique treat, Frankenstein-ing together rollercoaster thrills and a haunted house collection of characters into a show unlike anything else on TV. Part creature feature mashup, part Victorian horror show, and part stage drama, the secret to Penny Dreadful’s success was in how showrunner John Logan made sure to tether the over-the-top theatrics in acting and drama to a yen for connection as deep and dark as the pits of hell. The only thing more monstrous in size than Eva Green’s lead performance, or terrifying to behold as the show’s Grand Guignol influences was the bleeding heart of Penny Dreadful that could make it campy, exhilarating, and romantic all in the same breath. 7) The Knick Through its ten episode first season, conversation about The Knick emphasized two major aspects of its production: the direction by Steven Soderbergh, and Cliff Martinez’s anachronistic score. Both were deserving of the praise they garnered, as what could have been just another period drama or medical procedural developed into something uniquely its own. Soderbergh’s restless camera (reminding TV viewers weekly that there’s more to a great shot than length) and the pulsing electronica of Martinez’s soundtrack gave life to the grim and grimy halls of Knickerbocker hospital, and the equally filthy streets of turn-of-the-century New York. But was The Knick ever more than just a handsomely mounted, gruesomely detailed look behind the operating theatre curtain? It wasn’t until the finale that showrunners Begler and Amiel revealed their White Male Antihero drama to be a Trojan horse all along. Clive Owen’s whirlwind transformation of Dr. John Thackery over the course of the season illustrated how decentralized the show’s ostensible star was from the real story. The Knick explored the period’s class, race, gender and religious dynamics more than it was ever really about any one of them, and in the process built up a full cast of engaging characters, not just a single protagonist. In doing so, the groundwork was laid for a show that can only get better come Season 2. 6) Louie Considering he’s been responsible for writing, directing, starring and (once more) editing the entire show, the big question about Louis C.K.’s Louie was always, “which will happen first: will C.K. run out of ideas, or die of exhaustion?” After taking 2013 off, the recharged, but not necessarily refreshed C.K. delivered more short films disguised as episodes in 2014. Whether it was due to rust or an absence of new material, the early episodes of Season 4 seemed a bit off, with the standout “So Did the Fat Lady” being the cream of early endeavours that felt like rehashes of old stories, or one-note gags. Then came the “Elevator” saga, a six-episode story that showed C.K. hadn’t lost his touch, and was in fact pushing himself further than he ever had before. The surreal elasticity of Louie that had made it so charming years previous was toned down, and replaced with a stricter thematic and narrative focus. Rather than limiting the show, Louie delivered its most complete season yet, one focused on how communication is more than just a matter of speaking the same language. With the help of some fantastic supporting turns from Charles Grodin, Sarah Baker and Jeremy Renner (to name a few), Season 4 marked a major step forward for C.K. as a creator, even proving that Soderbergh doesn’t have a monopoly on TV's best long takes. 5) Happy Valley If you had told me six months ago that, in a year stacked with bite-sized crime dramas, a British Netflix series would be the best of the bunch, I wouldn’t have believed you. After all, 2014 was the year that gave us True Detective and Fargo, which were in my Top 10 midway through the year, and continue to be terrific now that they’re out. True Detective had the actors and atmosphere, Fargo had Allison Tolman and a sense of humor as slippery and dark as black ice; the competition was rigor mortis stiff. Of the three, Happy Valley had the shortest run, the loosest plot, and the least star power, and those qualities are a big part of what put it above such esteemed colleagues. Most crime stories are about making sure all the pieces of the show matter to the mystery, but Happy Valley made every character and twist matter by weaving them into a fully formed world, not just a puzzle. “I didn’t start this” was the refrain heard often in a story of kidnapping, abuse and grief, and Happy Valley succeeded by adopting The Wire’s philosophy that all the pieces matter. Characters were people instead of suspects and plot tools, and the dozen small human stories told by Happy Valley amounted to far more than just one big mystery. 4) Mad Men There’s no denying that AMC did a disservice to the final season of Mad Men by slicing it in half like any of the undead ghouls that are currently keeping the network afloat. AMC’s desire to maintain the pretence of being a gold standard for great TV drama unnecessarily compromised one of the two best shows it’s ever produced, thanks to a truncated season order that rushed character arcs and plotting. But it speaks to the unique appeal of the show that a hamstrung warm-up lap to the final seven episodes still provided some of the most rewarding moments in Mad Men’s already venerated history. When you remember scenes like the slow-dance shared between Don, Peggy and Sinatra, or Bert Cooper’s soft shoe farewell, you can understand AMC’s position a little more easily. So long as Mad Men is still around, it means we’ve still got one of the two or three best casts of characters assembled in a 21st century drama, two of the best performances on television in Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss, and the always welcome, rarely practical wit and wisdom of Roger Sterling. We’ll be starving for Mad Men as soon as it leaves the airwaves for good, so if this going to be our last meal with these characters, then, to quote Roger, let’s have another cup of coffee, let’s have another piece of pie. 3) Hannibal “Mizumono”: say it to someone fluent in Japanese, and they might get a hankering for something sweet. Say it to a Hannibal fan, and don’t be surprised if the response is a more volatile mix of revulsion, despair and frenzied enthusiasm. Even removed from its jaw-dropping final episode, the second season put to rest any doubts that Hannibal wasn’t just sublime TV psychological horror, but also as full stop great as it is baroquely disturbing. That Hannibal could also lay claim to 2014’s single most memorable and gut-wrenching hour of programming in “Mizumono” meant that if this was to be the end of the low-rated series, it would have been one as audacious and shocking as the rest of the show had often been. Thankfully, we haven’t seen the last of Dr. Lecter, though creator Bryan Fuller and company have their work cut out for them if they want to follow a sophomore season that made the first seem like a mere appetizer. The hazy dream logic guiding the show’s worldview didn’t always fully jibe with the tight cat-and-mouse game Lecter was playing with Will Graham and the FBI, but did help tighten Hannibal’s stranglehold on the title of Best Looking Show on Television. The peerless visual design alone would warrant its inclusion on this list, but that each dreadfully delicious frame of the show was packed with performances, writing and thematic density almost as rich was icing on the cake. 2) Transparent Somewhat appropriately, given that it’s a show about complicated identities, it’d be very easy to pass off Transparent as just an indie movie made for television. The usual signifiers of mumblecore moviemaking are present, including a sleepy-eyed visual palette, a story thick with family dysfunction, and the presence of a Duplass brother. But if you’re just watching Transparent for the surface narrative, you’re not really seeing it for the precisely constructed and challenging series that was the best new show of 2014 by a landslide. Creator Jill Soloway and an incredible staff of writers and directors put "Amazon: original content generator" on the map with this heartfelt, incisive, painfully funny look at evolving definitions of sexuality and family. While Jeffrey Tambor’s transformative performance as an L.A. patriarch coming out as transgender was the hook that sold the show, the first season of Transparent ended having established the entire Pfefferman clan as the most obnoxious, self-centered and strangely sympathetic family of TV assholes since Arrested Development. Soloway and company didn’t just bring over their arthouse sensibilities to TV, but fully adapted them to the strengths afforded by long-form, open-ended storytelling. Add on top of that the best cast collection of regulars and ringers this side of Mad Men, and the best direction in a comedy I’ve seen all year, and Transparent made for the perfect encapsulation of the diversifying TV landscape 2014 had to offer. 1) The Americans Deep cover intrigue and espionage only got deeper in the sensational second year of FX’s period spy drama. The blood running through The Americans is cold as the war being waged by nuclear parents/KGB agents Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, but that’s the mark of a disciplined show, not a heartless one. The performances continued to be sublime across the board, the show’s direction improved in lockstep with the writing, and the score and music selection upgraded from just “great,” to “the best on TV.” Suspenseful espionage and exceptionally staged setpieces were a weekly demonstration of the show’s killer moves, but The Americans resisted the temptation to strike faster or hotter than its story demanded. Rather then pinballing off the twists, turns and double-crosses typical of the genre, creators Joe Weisberg and Joel Fields doubled down on compromising the characters as people, not just covert operatives. The second season brought the fight closer to the Jennings’ front door than ever before. While Philip’s disillusionment with the cause grew along with his contempt for himself, Elizabeth struggled with being the connective middle to three generations of female agents that might one day include her own daughter. But it’s the relationships between the characters more than any one of them alone that cemented The Americans as my favorite program of 2014. It’s a tightly coiled, yet sensitively observed dissection of the human, moral and ideological casualties that build up in a climate of fear and paranoia. We know the world will keep on spinning well passed 1981, just as we know that the Jennings are ultimately doomed to fail as protectors of the Soviet Union. That The Americans can leave you as conflicted as the protagonists to what fate it is they deserve made it the most thrilling, emotionally complex and just plain satisfying show of 2014. For more on this thrilling show, check out our interview with the cast below: