When I started making top ten lists, I split up the top ten between dramas and comedies for essentially two reasons. The first is that I find it impossible to directly compare a comedy and a drama in terms of quality. They have such different goals. Plus, I tended to favor the dramas. In other words, I knew I'd probably end up with 8 dramas and 2 comedies or some lopsided amount of dramas. Secondly, there were really that many shows I thought deserving of a top ten. I didn't want to ignore 8 comedies or even the 3-4 dramas I wanted on a top ten. I thought they should all be recognized. (If you're wondering why I didn't do a top twenty, same fear: I felt like I might have 15 dramas and 5 comedies)
This might have gone differently if I had started top ten lists this year. I could very easily have made a top ten combining dramas and comedies - though with extremely difficulty still in comparing the two. I don't know what's different, but I used to be able to roughly guess what a top ten show looked like. I'd label the shows I was certain were a top ten show and then see how many top ten shows I had and I usually ended up with 15 for both genres. Then I'd struggle to cut it down to 10. This year, I did the same and... ended up with like 5 shows. Not sure if my standards are greater, or if TV just hit a boom a couple years ago.
With that said, I ultimately decided to stick with this format, because surprise surprise comedy ended up with over 10 comedies that I thought deserving of a spot once I went past my initial impressions. Dramas? Well that's for tomorrow.
#10 - Bob's Burgers (Fox)
Sample episode: "Taking of Funtime One Two Three"
I will present to you a hypothetical on why Bob's Burgers is on this list. I value peak over consistency. A B show with A episodes and C episodes would stand a better chance at making this list than a B show with all B episodes. Neither are likely to make my top ten list and rarely do television shows present me with that specific problem, but I made an exception for this rule with Bob's Burgers.
That's not to say they don't have any A episodes. The episode above is one such example. It just has about the same amount of A episodes as most comedies considered for this list, and they did it with less episodes. But its weakness is also its strength. In 2018, Bob's Burgers aired 24 episodes and there was maybe one or two weak episodes. Bob's Burgers is remarkably consistent. It's always a good show, sometimes a great one. This is pretty much the definitive family show for me. All the characters are nice, the family is extremely supportive of each other, and the closest thing the show has to a wet blanket is H. Jon Benjamin sighing and commenting on how stupid everything is, which is GREAT.
#9 Corporate (Comedy Central)
Sample episode: "Casual Friday"
"It's another day at heartless, multinational corporate hellhole Hampton DeVille where junior executives-in-training Matt and Jake are at the beck and call of tyrannical CEO Christian DeVille and his top deputies, brown-nosers John and Kate."
Given the channel it's on and its viewership numbers, most people probably haven't heard of this show. I didn't think I could provide an adequate description and I think whoever wrote that in Wikipedia did as fine a job as I would. Corporate is not for everyone. It's a very dark show and I mean that literally. It's like all black, grey, and blue. The episode above is "Casual Friday" and the place goes into chaos because one character actually dresses casual for it. It's that type of show. The highlight is easily Lance Reddick, who plays the CEO. Watch him in this Funny or Die skit, which predated the show by a few years, and if you enjoy that, you'll enjoy him in this show. It's basically the same performance.
#8 Bojack Horseman (Netflix)
Sample episode: "Showstopper"
Bojack is a victim of its own success. I don't mean the character, though it applies there too. I mean that I know what Bojack at its best and I think the most recent season was not Bojack at its best. I'm not sure if any of the episodes from this season would make my own personal top ten Bojack episodes.
But it's still Bojack Horseman. My above paragraph is only necessary because Bojack finished 4th last year. It finished 5th the year before. The fundamental nature of Bojack Horseman the show is such that I imagine it will have a difficult time for the next few seasons without just repeating itself. Bojack must always be struggling, must always do something self-destructive. It's a pretty clear pattern at this point. While I still love the show, I'm not sure it will ever get back in the top five because of this. Happy to be proven wrong though.
Cool note: Bojack Horseman's 4th selection in my 4th year of doing this makes this the only comedy that has been on my list every time. Two other shows were on my list for three straight years. Broad City took the year off. The other show is in my honorable mentions.
#7 Barry (HBO)
Model episode: "Loud, Fast and Keep Going"
It feels like Barry deserves to be higher, but unfortunately two things kept it at a very reasonable 7. The first reason is that it took legitimately three episodes to set up the premise. The premise is that a hit man wants to stop being a hit man and turns to an acting class. To not get into too many details, but they basically need a reason for him to stay in the same city so that he can attend the same acting class in order to make the premise work. Thus, it took about three episodes in order to get the characters where the show wanted them in order to make the comedy they wanted.
The second reason is that the show is only eight episodes. This was probably not an option, but I think it would have worked better if they essentially had an hour and a half pilot episode. Because the third episode still felt like part of the pilot. Nonetheless, the show's last three episodes are all great. If you didn't know Bill Hader was a hell of an actor by now, where the fuck have you been? He's perhaps giving the best performance of his career and Henry Winkler is just delightful in this.
#6 American Vandal (Netflix)
Model Episode: "The Dump"
American Vandal should have been a global phenomenon. It's just way too hard of a show to sell. It's impossible to tell people to watch the show without sounding like an idiot. Season one was such a perfect, impossibly good season that it was foolish to even make a second season. I mean where could they possibly go from there?
While I wouldn't say American Vandal's second season is as good as the first, I think it's about as good as it could possibly be. I don't know that there was a way to improve on this season, because it's got a self-limiting premise. The first season's tagline was "Who drew the dicks?" The second season's is "Who is the Turd Buglar?" This show's greatest strength is that they actually care about the mystery. Well, that and that they nail the mockumentary format.
#5 Big Mouth (Netflix)
Model Episode: "Dark Side of the Boob"
I watched Big Mouth's first season earlier this year, and thus have no idea if it would have placed on my top ten last year. Just decided to write it off too soon. It happens. Once I watched the first season this year, I made sure I wasn't going to forget to watch the second season in time. John Mulaney and Nick Kroll have a good comedic relationship, in case you haven't watched Oh, Hello or any of their openings for the Spirit Awards. Big Mouth is no exception.
Big Mouth is a show that I think would be good to show to kids going through puberty. It's too dirty to be shown in schools, but it's freely available on Netflix, so I'm sure kids going through puberty are watching the show. Some people are probably freaked out about that, but the show clearly strives for comedy AND to be educational on these topics. The highlights of this show are still the Hormone Monster, played by Nick Kroll, and the Hormone Monstress, played by Maya Rudolph. Watch this show for Rudolph if for no other reason.
#4 Dear White People
Model Episode: Chapter VIII
Congratulations to DeRon Horton, who appeared in both American Vandal's second season and Dear White People. I liked Dear White People's first season, but it was very clunky in a lot of parts. It reached a high most shows do not, hitting its stride in the middle of the season, but the rest did not live up to a particular incident that colors the whole season.
The second season has one of my favorite episodes of 2018, if not my favorite, when it has two characters in a room for pretty much the entire episode. They have a 25-30 conversation and it's great television. The show was just much stronger in this season. The show has always dealt with complex issues, but it was just better written in this season.
#3 The Good Place
Model Episode: Janet(s)
The Good Place did not have an appreciably better third season than the first two seasons. I placed the first season 6th and the 2nd season 7th in the past two years. The first season is a consequence of the show only airing about 9 episodes in 2016 and the ending of the first season, which I had not reached, kind of changed the game. Last year, The Good Place was in a ridiculously stacked year, full of shows that have ended or didn't air an episode in 2018.
No such issues this year. The Good Place is still constantly changing as a show and I can't explain why without spoiling it. But you should definitely be watching this show. I won't say anymore for fear of accidental spoilers.
#2 GLOW
Model Episode: Mother of All Matches
Unlike The Good Place, which I felt had a similar quality to its last few seasons (if not arguably weaker in fact), GLOW was a huge improvement over the first season in my opinion. I'm not saying it was bad. Indeed, it was only left off my list last year entirely because 2017 comedy was incredibly stacked (Nathan for You, Review, Rick & Morty, Broad City, Master of None - literally none of these shows aired a single episode in 2018 for various reasons).
In "Mother of All Matches," GLOW truly makes one of the hardest episodes of television to watch, but in the best way possible. Starting with that episode, GLOW pretty much nailed the rest of the season's episodes too. They had about seven straight great episodes in a row, with maybe one exception.
#1 Atlanta
Model Episode: "Teddy Perkins"
Atlanta is a show that changes what type of show it is from week to week. It can shift easily from being a horror film (Teddy Perkins), a coming-of-age period piece (FUBU), a road trip buddy comedy gone wrong (North of the Border), or a tale between a couple (Helen). You don't know what you're getting when you start an episode of Atlanta.
That makes it sound like a show that is wildly unpredictable and in some ways it is, but the show still has Earn being a manager for Paper Boi, with Van as the sort of love interest, and of course Darius being Darius. It's not that confusing of a show to follow despite the fact that the tone constantly changes. That's why this is #1. Because it has achieved the difficult task of being unpredictable but not with that pratfalls usually associated with an unpredictable show.
Honorable Mention
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - The was the other show that was on my list for three years running. Ultimately, the show had two outright bad episodes out of 10 and I couldn't really say that about any shows on this list. The finale was excellent.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine - I wanted to include this, I did, but I had to give the nod to Bob's Burgers over B99. I'm unfortunately holding it against the show that they had less episodes and I felt a few more "duds," which is kind of unfair because I still enjoy watching a dud episode of B99.
Insecure - Insecure has taken a weird approach to storytelling since it has just eight episodes. Just too many pointless detours in plot that end up not mattering at all. Good finale kept it in the honorable mentions.
Casual - I'll give a shout out to Casual, which kept me entertained as a solid, but unspectacular show for four seasons.
Archer - Archer is changing its setting and tone for each new season and that's admirable, but I think it's well past its prime. I do give it credit for being different at least.
Blackish - Very solid, very consistent network comedy that only suffers because it's hard for a network comedy to make a list such as this.
Alright, that is my top ten for comedy. I am hoping I can write my top ten drama tomorrow, though I am definitely not guaranteeing it will get done. So if you're here tomorrow and it's not up, well this is your warning of that possibility.
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