With 2015 coming to a close, it’s fun as always to come up with a list of favorite things from the year. But it’s even more fun when the list comes from someone who's an authority on a subject.
Damon Lindelof — who is known best for being one of the creators on “Lost” and now heads arguably the comeback series of the year, HBO’s “The Leftovers” (which you can catch now on HBO NOW or HBO GO) — lives, breathes, and eats television. So we asked him tell us his 10 favorite shows of 2015, hoping for insightful commentary. And we got it.
Here are Lindolof’s top 10 shows of the year.
SEE ALSO: "The Leftovers" season-finale director reveals the biggest challenges of the episode
“Master of None” (Netflix)
The latest hit for the streaming giant stars Aziz Ansari (who also co-created the show) as a 30-year-old struggling actor in New York as he toils through his personal and professional life.
“I just respond to the purity of his voice, and the show surprises me constantly,” Lindelof told Business Insider. “I feel it's easy to be cynical now and that's what I thought I was singing up for when I started watching that show, but it's kind of one of the truest romantic comedies that I've seen. And most importantly, I feel like it is saying things about the Indian community that no television show is. For example, the fourth episode is ‘Indians on TV’ and they just start with this amazing montage and mention of [white actor] Fisher Stevens [playing an Indian character in the ‘Short Circuit’ movies]. This season on ‘The Leftovers’ in the second episode, these MIT guys come and they want to buy Nora's house, and when I spoke to our casting director, I was like, 'We should have an Indian actor play that lead MIT guy.' And I didn't think that I was being racist. Now I do. And that's flattering, who would not want to be an MIT engineer? But when a television show can make you feel guilty and free at the same time, and inform you and then make you laugh a second later, no show is doing that like ‘Master of None’ is.”
“The Knick” (Cinemax)
Creator Steven Soderbergh takes us back to early 1900s medicine as we follow doctor James Thackery (Clive Owen) and his fellow surgeons. They try radical procedures to save lives while dealing with serious personal problems like addiction, racism, and marital issues.
“Let's just put the writing and the acting, the things that make it brilliant, aside for a second, and just talk very specifically about how this show is produced. If you make television and you watch this show just from the costumes to the period to the music, it's such a beautiful show. It feels so pure. As pure as the medicinal cocaine that Thackery injects. Even though I binge it, it does feel like you can watch an episode of ‘The Knick’ and it feels really complete. And they will end episodes in these incredibly artful, beautiful ways. There are other shows that are heavily serialized that I also like and love, but I feel ‘The Knick' really embraces that idea.”
“Transparent” (Amazon)
The award-winning drama follows the lives of a Los Angeles family after discovering that their father (Jeffrey Tambor) is transgender.
“There are shows on this list that I watch alone and there are shows that I watch with my wife. I think one of the great things about marriage is finding television shows that you can watch and appreciate together. We had been hearing good things about 'Transparent.' I was like, ‘Let's check this show out.’ And we're bad at technology so we couldn't figure out how to get Amazon Prime on our television, and she's like, ‘We're not watching a show on your laptop.’ And I'm like, ‘Let's just watch one episode.’ And 18 hours later, we had watched the first season of ‘Transparent.’ That includes dropping our son off at camp and we went to a Starbucks and huddled in a corner with one ear bud in each ear crying watching ‘Transparent.’ At it's got the best opening title sequence on television, in my opinion.”
See the rest of the story at Business Insider