With a finite number of hours in the day to watch television, one can feel there will never be enough time to watch everything the critics, social media, our co-workers, friends, and family say we need to see.
It's not just a feeling. We now know it for a fact: There were 409 scripted TV programs in 2015, a new record. And you just can't see them all.
To sit down and name the 10 best shows of the hundreds that aired and streamed this year is a herculean task. So for this list of 2015's best shows, we reflected on all the well-written, superbly acted, and beautifully shot shows of the year (that we were able to check out) and added one more criterion to mix up the selections just a bit: Was it not only good, but surprisingly so?
With that in mind, here are 2015's 10 best TV shows:
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10. "Casual" (Hulu)
From Jason Reitman and Lionsgate TV, the comedy "Casual" belongs to a new world of low-cost, "indie" shows, like HBO's "Girls" and Netflix's "Master of None."
Hulu's first Golden Globe nominee stars Michaela Watkins as a newly divorced mother, Tara Lynne Barr as her daughter, and Tommy Dewey as her brother, a dating app creator whom she and her daughter move in with. Its twisted humor examines how dating sites and apps that were supposed to make dating easier have actually made us worse off.
9. "Into the Badlands" (AMC)
On "Into the Badlands," there are no guns, but a whole lot of cool kung fu. That and seven barons and their army of trained assassins keep the law of the land. But what happens when a young kid with amazing power could give one baron the jump on all the others?
That's the setup of AMC's new drama starring and executive-produced by Chinese film star Daniel Wu. The show not only breaks ground with its Asian male lead, but also with its biggest villain, the Widow, a highly deadly fighter with an all-female army looking to take over.
The world of "Into the Badlands" is one of the most thoroughly thought-out settings in TV, and just as beautifully shot.
8. "Master of None" (Netflix)
The bright spot of today's "Peak TV" situation is that really good (but niche) shows have a chance outside of traditional television channels. Aziz Ansari's "Master of None" has some important things to say and none of that would've been heard if Netflix didn't get the show made. Minority representation is one thing, but allowing minorities to play roles that exist outside of stereotypes and preset casting equations is even more important. What we got was an incredibly thoughtful season about how we treat and unconsciously stereotype others by race, age, gender, and nationality — with a lot of smart jokes to boot.
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