1 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt - Netflix

 

When have we been more in need of a joyous¹, candy-coloured, relentlessly² perky, exclamation-mark-ridden, outrageously³ funny sitcom⁴ about … an abduction survivor⁵?

 

2 Wolf Hall - BBC2

 

Mark Rylance's Cromwell became one of the people of the year, 475 years after he died.

 

3 Mad Men - Sky Atlantic

 

Sky Atlantic The really magnificent thing was not the nice feeling that Don had attained⁶ career zenith, but that expectation was so totally confounded.

 

4 Catastrophe⁷ - Channel 4

 

Catastrophe is full of cynical⁸ and sinful people, but at its heart it’s an ordinary love story, couched in some first-class swearing, about sexual honesty, served with a side-plate of adultery, lust⁹, elderly parents, flirtatious¹⁰ colleagues, money worries and a dead dog.

 

5 London Spy - BBC2

 

London Spy succeeded in keeping a place in the British schedules for the idea of Hard TV: dramas that demand intense concentration and refuse to give up all their secrets on a first - or even a second - viewing.

 

6 Master of None - Netflix

 

Master of None sits in the post-Louie, Curb¹¹ Your Enthusiasm genre¹² of indie sitcoms¹³: a hybrid¹⁴ of surreal moments and awkward modern manners that’s also deeply moving.

 

7 Mr Robot - Amazon

 

Prime A mesmerising, trippy tale of hacktivism, conspiracies¹⁵ and corporate¹⁶ evil.

 

8 Empire - E4

 

Call it a hip-hop soap, call it the black Dynasty, call it groundbreaking, but above all Lee Daniels’s everyday tale of record company shenanigans was a ray of sunshine in E4’s weeknight TV schedule.

 

9 Better Call Saul - Netflix

 

In the end, Better Call Saul was far better than it had any reason to be. It was funny - but it had real depth. Over its 10 episodes, Better Call Saul delved¹⁷ into territory more emotional (and more weird) than anyone ever expected.

 

10 River - BBC1

 

Abi Morgan's shrewd, charming and sometimes trippy detective series, set in the built-up concrete jungle of east London, did something genuinely new.

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