It doesn’t take much time to elapse on the calendar for me to start putting together lists of the best television of the year in my head, and apparently I’m not the only one. So I now feel compelled to unspool from my brain a preliminary list of the best of 2014. There are plenty of shows not on this list because they have yet to debut or have just barely debuted, or because they were not quite as good as those that I selected. It’s looking like, when all is said and done, this could be the most difficult year ever for putting together a definitive ranking. It has been a strong year for new shows, with half of my selections having debuted in 2014 (or late 2013).
Here are my top 2, listed in alphabetical order:
Hannibal – Unbearable in the best way possible.
Rick and Morty – More inventive than I thought was possible.
And now here’s numbers 3-10, also in alphabetical order:
Billy on the Street – There’s a lot of hilarious New Yorkers out there.
Broad City – Just the right amount of wild and zany.
Community – An excitable comeback.
Fargo – It’s got a lot of character.
Louie – I’m not sure if I would prefer to live in the dream world of Hannibal, or the dream world of Louie, and that’s a compliment to both.
Mad Men – Great job tying it all together.
Review – What is this thing we call life?
True Detective – Mystical, but also personal.
Come back at the end of the year and we’ll give you our updated Top 10 TV Shows of 2014.
Jeff Malone is a voracious entertainment consumer and entertainment creator. He currently resides in New York City, where he is working on a Master’s in Media Studies at The New School. In addition to his pieces on TMRzoo.com, you can check out his blog (jmunney.wordpress.com), where he provides regular coverage of Community and Saturday Night Live, as well as other television, film, music, and the rest of pop culture.
