'Black Mirror,' 'This Is Us,' 'Westworld' among year's best
In this era of so-called Peak TV, the tally of scripted series aired in 2016 is closing in on 500. No wonder it's so hard to pick the best 2 percent of the crop. But that doesn't mean we aren't pleased to salute our 10 particular favorites. Here's our honor roll:
• “The A Word” (Sundance). Loving parents Alison and Paul tell themselves (and everyone else) that there's nothing wrong with Joe, their 5-year-old son. But evidence mounts. And then the unavoidable truth: Joe is on the autism spectrum. This bittersweet drama (with a second season announced) deals with a child growing up in rural England whose striking differences from other kids ignite the question: What constitutes “normal” and what becomes of those who don't meet that standard?
• “Atlanta” (FX). It takes a sure hand to craft a series that blends a pair of young musical strivers from a downtrodden urban neighborhood — while keeping the series touching, relatable and funny. Creator-star-writer Donald Glover has pulled off a minor miracle with this gritty little show that blazes its own path, strewn with setbacks yet powered by hope.
• “Billions” (Showtime). Chuck Rhoades, the powerful and perverse U.S. Attorney, is in a cage match with hedge-fund titan Bobby Axelrod. The result is a delicious drama of two Alpha Males butting heads: Rhoades (played by Paul Giamatti) wants to prosecute Axelrod for financial fraud, while the smooth, ever-calculating Axelrod (Damian Lewis) dares him to try.
• “Black Mirror” (Netflix). Six new episodes on the Netflix site have supplemented seven hours of this nervous-making anthology previously aired by British television. The brainchild of British writer-producer-mischief-maker Charlie Brooker, this series defies clear definition other than to say (a) it deals with technology's sly cultural inroads, (b) it packs the mind-expanding punch of a latter-day “Twilight Zone,” and (c) it reflects a certain, um, Brooker-esque brand of mordant humor.
• “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” (TBS). With her show teeing up for a second season in early 2017, the time is past to celebrate “Full Frontal” as an issues-and-comedy series hosted by a woman. So let's just celebrate Samantha Bee, who, now even more than during her dozen years as a “Daily Show” correspondent, stays true to her name.
• “Making a Murderer” (Netflix). Filmed over a decade, it tells the riveting, true-life story of Steven Avery, who is first seen in 2003 returning home to Wisconsin's rural Manitowoc County after 18 years' imprisonment for sexual assault. After his exoneration, Avery was a free man for just two years. He was then arrested for another crime — this time, a grisly rape and murder. So was his teenage nephew. Are they guilty or being railroaded?
• “The Night Of” (HBO). This dark and irresistible murder mystery stars John Turturro as near-bottom-feeding lawyer John Stone who stumbles on a righteous case: Naz, a Pakistani-American college student implicated as the killer of an alluring young woman. The legal system is stacked against him at every turn, and through the lengthy, often dismaying process, Stone fights on his behalf.
• “O.J.: Made in America” (ESPN). This five-part documentary series covers those ghastly slayings and the so-called Trial of the Century. But it goes even further, framing Simpson's life and career against the racial turmoil and Civil Rights struggle from which he was largely insulated by the warm embrace of celebrity.
• “This Is Us” (NBC). It isn't often that a scripted TV series can be credited with being “humanistic” — at least, not a show you can sit through without grinding your teeth. The intersecting sets of characters are depicted by a cast including Mandy Moore, Milo Ventimiglia and Sterling K. Brown in a display of middle-class diversity that serves as a welcome rebuttal to this polarized age.
• “Westworld” (HBO). This odyssey is simultaneously set in an imagined sci-fi future and the reimagined Old West in the form of an epic theme park where lifelike robots indulge every appetite of paying guests. Its ensemble (which includes Anthony Hopkins, Ed Harris, Evan Rachel Wood, Thandie Newton and Jeffrey Wright) populates an anything-goes getaway with shock value: Who — or what — are the heroes here?
Frazier Moore is the Associated Press television writer.
