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The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

As is often the case, life during wartime proved to be the impetus for some truly great pop culture, and from the fray emerges our first-ever official TV list.

The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011
Photo: AMC

With plenty of bodies left in the muck, plenty of sides to be chosen, and a fair number of Tolstoyan moments of transcendence, 2011 produced a veritable Hieronymus Bosch-style panorama of violence, heroism, and disgrace during wartime. Breaking Bad’s Walter White (Bryan Cranston) took it to the mattresses with Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) in spectacular fashion on AMC; plenty of hacked-off limbs and nude torsos flew across the screen on HBO’s Game of Thrones; Boardwalk Empire ruminated on how anticlimactic it might be to forcibly conquer Atlantic City; and Showtime’s breakout hit, Homeland, vividly dramatized the networks of shadow and innuendo that animate the now decade-long War on Terror.

And fictional humans weren’t the only ones at odds this year. Two thousand and eleven should forever be remembered as the year of the “sexposition” wars over Game of Thrones’s tendency to set significant plot points in brothels. The barbed back and forth between Mary McNamara and Matt Zoller Seitz on this score was some of the best drama of the year, even if it wasn’t put on film. Not to mention the full-scale blitzkriegs waged by TV critics against Whitney Cummings and the creators of AMC’s disappointing The Killing.

Many of this year’s best shows conscientiously objected to the tide of destruction, instead reveling in studied pacifism or depicting the fumbling slapstick of the peace process. NBC’s Parks and Recreation, for instance, was canonized for the singular generosity with which it treats its characters—in sharp distinction to the veritable BDSM dungeon of snark on shows like 2 Broke Girls. And in the most conspicuous gesture of detente, even Louis C.K.—in an episode critics loved the way Natalie Portman loves the Shins—initiated a sit-down with longtime nemesis Dane Cook. As is often the case, life during wartime proved to be the impetus for some truly great pop culture, and from the fray emerges our first-ever official TV list. Phillip Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

25. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Leave it to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia to wait nine episodes before unleashing the expected flashback installment that explains, as the episode’s title implies, “How Mac Got Fat.” After the season premiere, which used Mac’s (Rob McElhenney) newly obtained girth as the propulsion device for a secondary plotline, the show’s competent group of writers opted to take the gang, and their loyal viewership, on a customarily batty journey through such scenarios as a an ill-advised youth beauty pageant, the manic preparation for an apocalyptic storm, the establishment of an online presence for Paddy’s Pub, and, most memorably, a brilliant, headache-inducing (in a good way) lengthy set up to one of the show’s best closing punchlines ever. By the time we finally see Mac, sweat-drenched and chomping doughnuts in a church confessional, blaming his weight gain on the rest of the gang’s lofty ambitions to build perfect real-life avatars for themselves, it’s clear that It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is such a strong series that it never really needs to rely on a season-long gimmick like the aberrant somatic ballooning of Mac. Mike LeChevallier


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

24. Modern Family

When the Pritchett/Dunphy clan goes on vacation, they don’t need to find an ancient tiki idol. They are the tiki idol, weathered week in and week out by the emotional waves of familial love and obligation. At worst, Modern Family is beholden to formula—which would be fine if it was always its own (see—or, rather, don’t see—the Three’s Company-grade “After the Fire,” a series low-point that rested on a cruel number of contrived misunderstandings). But at its best, as in the superb “Treehouse,” in which Cam pretends to be straight in order to win a bet against Mitchell and Jay refuses to salsa with Gloria, the show continues to humanely attest to the ritual—that perfect balance of work, compromise, and fun—necessary to keeping any family feeling alive. Ed Gonzalez

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The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

23. True Blood

Witches, for the win! Adding a splash of the dark arts to HBO’s overpopulated sex zoo of shapeshifters and bloodsuckers was the exact right move for the writers of True Blood. And casting the spectacular British actress Fiona Shaw sealed the deal. While the season featured plenty of tiresomely batshit subplots (can we please cool it on the were-panthers?) and then predictably descended into an ungodly mess at the end, that kind of dissolution is True Blood’s bread and butter. And the carnivalesque chaos brought about by the new coven in town made for some of the most fun and, especially in the subplot about Eric’s temporary amnesia, most poignant episodes in years. At its best, True Blood is such a good time that you don’t care how stupid it is. Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

22. How to Make It in America

When How to Make It in America debuted, the series had more similarities than differences with HBO’s other flagship bromance, Entourage (notably, one of the worst shows of 2011). But this year, How to Make It in America stepped confidently out of the Axe-body-spray cloud left by its predecessor and emerged as a compelling, if occasionally surface-oriented, depiction of youth culture and ambition in New York. Where Entourage’s Ed Hardy cinematic house style was perennially as stale as its Jane’s Addiction title credits, How to Make It in America managed to sustain an aesthetic that felt fresh week after week. Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

21. Futurama

Futurama began its sixth season with such ease, bewitched by stories of love, star-crossed and otherwise, that it seemed as if the show had never left us. But during the second half of the season, which began seven whole months after a clunky holiday spectacular, it settled into an ongoing study of matters of life and obsolescence. Once the series seemed permanently fated for oblivion, now the oblivion was its muse. It was in the Planet Express’s struggle to rebrand itself in the wake of bankruptcy as an airline, in Fry’s belief in the supremacy of human life, even in his almost existential need to hatch an egg. But it was the episode “Overclockwise” that yielded both the season’s greatest humdingers and most poignant storyline: Bender shunning his contract of ownership and transforming into an omnipotent being. Both the robot and Futurama seem to share the same state of unrest, best summarized by the introductory words to the show’s season finale: “A wise man once said that nothing really dies, it just comes back in a new form. Then he died.” Gonzalez


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

20. Curb Your Enthusiasm

In what was largely a consistently solid eighth season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, “Palestinian Chicken” stands out as something of a bizarre, unexpected masterpiece, even by Larry David’s high mid-lifespan Seinfeld standards. The episode was a near-flawless mishmash of bleak political comedy and the trademark uncomfortable coincidental happenstances that ultimately leave a disheveled Larry in the most precarious of pickles. Here, his less-than-devout Judaism leaves him choosing between the best chicken dish he’s ever had and another round of verbally abusive intercourse with a tight-bodied Muslim woman, entrapped between arguing mobs of opposing sides in a seemingly never-ending religious, territorial war. The episode is so insightful, in fact, that it was recently sent by Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the hopes he and incumbent Palestinian government officials could sit back, relax, and share a laugh in the wake of a decidedly tumultuous year for the headbutting nations. How’s that for a social assassination? LeChevallier

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The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

19. Childrens Hospital

If ever given the chance to go hang out on a show’s set for just one day, I don’t think I would hesitate in choosing Adult Swim’s exuberant Childrens Hospital. In addition to the fact the series is a massive melting pot of almost every notable “indie” comedic talent working today, it simply looks like the construction of each scene is a regular cork-popping festivity (this season even featured a Party Down reunion of sorts). The series has come far from its web-based roots, capturing in only 11 minutes what other ensemble comedies fail to do in twice the time. The expertly delivered, wide-ranging jokes come in rapid-fire succession, and while it may appear as if much of it is improvised (sans the unusually well-choreographed musical numbers), Childrens Hospital devotees will realize that there’s a surprising amount of continuity and overarching material at play here that, when the moment is right, surfaces to reveal one of the smartest, most conscientious comedies on TV. LeChevallier


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

18. Community

Dearest NBC, I must declare that you ripped out a little piece of my soul when you announced you were placing Community on extended hiatus. Admittedly, the show’s third season started out on rocky ground, but the last few episodes have been a welcome return to exemplary form, even demonstrating a marked maturation for a show that was already relatively cultured to begin with. Jim Rash’s eye-opening turn as an insanity-stricken Dean Pelton in the Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse-inspired episode “Documentary Filmmaking: Redux” will undoubtedly go down as one of the show’s best, further illustrating how characters who were once considered minor have evolved into well-rounded, surprisingly sincere examinations of the type of people we’d like to know. For a series that buries itself in pop-culture homages and dense meta-ness, Community’s lessons dealing with developing dependence and fortuitous friendship hold a tremendous amount of significance in the real world. LeChevallier


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

17. Up All Night

After well-publicized rewrites kept NBC’s Up All Night up in the air until the last minute, it seemed that the sitcom might end as just another sunken vehicle for stars Christina Applegate and Will Arnett. As if by force of will, however, the stars of the show, along with clutch reliever Maya Rudolph, have managed to rescue the show from the morass of incoherence and turn it into a surprisingly incisive comedy about growing up and growing old. The performances are spot-on, the jokes are great, if a bit understated, and the situation in this situation comedy actually feels credible. In a year when a large number of new sitcoms passed off hackneyed conventions as hip cultural satire, Up All Night rang surprisingly true. Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

16. Homeland

Much like the erratic jazz quasi-theme song that opens each episode, Showtime’s Homeland comes equipped with an arsenal of sudden tonal shifts, played out by its tremendous cast, that come barreling at the viewer like heat-seeking projectiles. Homeland does everything right that Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa’s previous project, 24, did wrong. Although the series does require a small dose of suspension of disbelief, Homeland’s acting and climax-escalating screenwriting is among the most praiseworthy things on television this side of Breaking Bad. Claire Danes, Damian Lewis, and Mandy Patinkin all deserve Emmy nods for their believable, courageous portrayals of Homeland’s equally headstrong central characters, who not only keep the viewer’s eyes glued to the screen as revelation after revelation transpires, but also elicit a firm emotional investment in their inner-turmoils. As Danes’s obsessive, workaholic Carrie Mathison continually strips herself of her personal humanity for the sake of her draining, addictive C.I.A. job, we see one of the finest scripted examples of the silent, mostly non-physical effects of post-9/11 terrorism on our soil. LeChevallier

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The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

15. Boardwalk Empire

It’s ironic that the continued backlash at Steve Buscemi’s “miscasting” as Nucky Thompson mirrors his character’s constant ducking and dodging at the hands of a city that, for the most part, wants him out of power. The mounds of money he once stuffed into the pockets of his so-called allies is no longer satisfying, and thus sets the stage for the devious plotting and backstabbing that highlights a much improved second season. In addition to the aforementioned thrilling bloodshed, Boardwalk Empire’s sophomore season has been able to successfully delve deeper into central characters who often felt shallow the first time around. Most notably, Michael Pitt’s Jimmy Darmody, who was never given enough reason to be the brooding, angst-ridden wounded ex-soldier that chased dreams of Atlantic City underground royalty in season one, has had a new light shined on him. If my mother had birthed me after being raped and told me it was okay to have sex with her, and years later forced me into putting a hit out on the man who raised me, and then barked at me to kill my biological father with a shocking “Finish it!,” I would be perpetually brooding and angst-ridden too. LeChevallier


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

14. Archer

Though it’s an animated series, Archer boasts an ensemble cast with more comedic chemistry at any given moment than the majority of more widely praised live-action shows on TV today. The dynamic, inside-joke-laden wordplay between its stellar group of voice actors, lead by H. Jon Benjamin (who had a marvelous year with this, Bob’s Burgers, and his own live-action show on Comedy Central) as the titular, ever-conceited spy, and his eccentric ISIS co-workers is nothing short of miraculous. I honestly want to know what kind of wackadoodle brainpower-enhancing drugs creator Adam Reed must be taking in order to write and direct every single episode of this constantly hilarious, mind-blowingly shrewd show that began as a lesser espionage spoof, but has grown into a masterful exhibition of outlandish office politics, scarred lineages, and the no-holds-barred prodding and dismantling of bulbous, simultaneously self-serving and self-destructive egos. LeChevallier


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

13. Treme

Like earlier David Simon triumphs, Treme presents a dense panorama of life—in this case the struggle of New Orleans to shake off the ghost of Hurricane Katrina. The way the show tries for observational nuance remains both its strong suit and its Achilles’ heel; though its plots frequently strand together in messily poetic ways, illuminating the painful sense of stasis its myriad characters feel, at times—as in Janette’s journey to and from N’awlins in search of a restaurant gig—they seem to exist only to flaunt just how “with it” Simon is with a region’s culture, from its food to its music. (Please, no more Anthony Bourdain.) Elitism aside, though, Treme remains a remarkable study of inheritance, recognizing that the secret of redemption, as in its strongest plot of the season (Sofia trying to keep her dead father’s firebrand spirit alive), lies in remembrance. Gonzalez


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

12. Bob’s Burgers

The comic realist surrealism of Loren Bouchard’s petulant Sunday-night cartoon makes it a kindred spirit of both Louie and Modern Family. Week to week, the homely Bob barely struggles to make something out of a burger joint with an even less convincing business model than the divey diner at the heart of the execrable 2 Broke Girls. Like Louis C.K., Bob’s financial failure is attributable to his moral fatigue, but also to something far more exasperating to anyone’s system than the consistency of fat in the patties he flips daily for what would seem to be only two or three patrons: raising the craziest kids on network television. Of course, the anarchy of Bob’s children is as much a cause for disappointment as it is for elation, and the beauty of this hilariously performed show derives from its acknowledgement that this family would have it no other way. Gonzalez

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The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

11. Downton Abbey

Julian Fellowes’s nearly perfect improvisation with the conventions of the upstairs/downstairs period picture hit the States this January to loud critical acclaim. From the arch dialogue, to the spectacular costumes and sets, to the exceptionally restrained performances (except, of course, Dame Maggie Smith’s gleefully unrestrained one), it’s easy to see why this particular U.K. export proved to be such a sensation in America. At once a triumph of televisual realism and a relentlessly compelling soap opera, the first season of Downton Abbey was one of the rarest things on TV: a genuine surprise. Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

10. Friday Night Lights

After five extraordinary seasons, Friday Night Lights ended—twice!—this year, and the final episodes were among the show’s strongest. The elements that worked the best, however, were paradoxically those that seemed the most doomed to fail. Accomplishing something like a television miracle, the final season of Friday Night Lights remained thoroughly satisfying even as it withheld a fan favorite (Taylor Kitsch’s brilliantly blank Tim Riggins), completed major ensemble replacement surgery by reorienting the East Dillon Lions around troubled quarterback Vince (Michael B. Jordan), and, in a gorgeous final episode, actually cut away from the dramatic final play of East Dillon’s state championship game. Friday Night Lights, after all, was never really about football. The show’s true concerns—obsession, class, family—were articulated beautifully as ever in the quiet, familiar relationships between a town and its team, and a coach and his wife. Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

9. The Walking Dead

Given all the hemming and hawing about The Walking Dead not moving fast enough, about there being more talk than zombies in any given episode, you’d think that the show’s harshest critics were all meth heads. Another criticism is that the show’s characters aren’t likeable enough, but the truth is that sometimes bad, even lame, people will survive an apocalypse, and when there’s no zombie immediately lunging for your neck meat, sometimes there’s nothing better—more essential—to talk about than whether it’s worth living in a world, or bringing life into it, when you’re always running for your life. The show, essentially a running commentary on faith, doesn’t lack for grotesque shows of bloodletting, but its heart lies in small, evocative, sometimes unexpected, always richly detailed moments—a woman breaking a chicken’s legs, zombies sitting in church pews—that profoundly attest to the nature of human nurture and our capacity for goodness not only in the face of incredible hardship, but also in death. Gonzalez


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

8. Portlandia

Who would’ve thought that Saturday Night Live’s Fred Armisen and riot grrrl emeritus Carrie Brownstein would be the comedy duo of the year? On their IFC sketch comedy show Portlandia, Armisen and Brownstein, like a gender-bending, indie-rock Martin and Lewis, built on their improbable chemistry to lovingly craft a broad, hilariously detailed ethnography of the hipper-than-thou residents of a—thinly—fictionalized Portland, OR. While occasionally relying on in-crowd winks and nudges, as well as a bevy of hipster-icon cameos, Portlandia transcended its alt-sketch comedy origins to offer a madcap portrait of a city as universally recognizable and maniacally detailed as David Simon’s Baltimore. Maciak

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The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

7. Bored to Death

Bored to Death, the HBO series that enabled the formation of the improbably winning ensemble of Jonathan Schwartzman, Ted Danson, and Zach Galifianakis, started its life as a witty satire of Brooklyn hipsterdom and sexual neurosis couched in the conventions of film noir. While that critique has survived (Danson’s George opens a locavorian restaurant this season while Schwartzman’s Jonathan launched a quest for his sperm-donor birth father), the kinetic energy of its leads has gradually transformed Bored to Death into a perfectly pitched, modern screwball comedy. Equal parts Freud and Sturges, the series found its style and Schwartzman, Danson, and Galifianakis established themselves as some of the most nuanced comic actors in the business. Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

6. Justified

I wondered how Justified could carry on with Raylan Givens’s (Timothy Olyphant) case-of-the-week situations while Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) wallowed in a tedious routine of working at the Black Pike coal mine and periodically wooing his dead brother’s ex-wife, Ava (Joelle Carter). It’s a testament to the show’s expert character-building that, soon enough, the apparently reformed Boyd began to become a downright magnetic screen presence in his efforts to stay on the right side of the law. Yet the forces of evil and their many accompanying temptations wouldn’t loosen their grip on Boyd, and the vicarious aftermath of his inevitable return to the dark side subsequently gives way to the season’s most prominent plotline: the rise and fall of the ruthless Bennett clan. Was there a better female antagonist on TV this year than Margo Martindale’s magnificently manipulative Mags Bennett? I’ll never process the phrase “apple pie” in quite the same way again. LeChevallier


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

5. Parks and Recreation

After the post-Carell creative collapse of The Office, the bizarre triumph of the mean-spirited sinkhole Whitney, and the recent benching of Community, there’s been very little reason to celebrate NBC’s Thursday night this year, save for the consistency, humanity, and optimism of Parks and Recreation. The adventures of America’s favorite bureaucracy in 2011 showed a creative team at the peak of its powers. Trading in tired Paul Schneider for the double threat of Rob Lowe and Adam Scott and drawing surprising pathos from the implosion of Tom Haverford’s (Aziz Ansari) preposterous media empire, the series accomplished the nearly impossible feat of expanding its emotional range while actually getting funnier. Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

4. Enlightened

HBO’s Enlightened is possibly the most infuriating half hour on television. The sheer heft of the awkwardness and social toxicity that the show records week in and week out as protagonist Amy Jellicoe (Laura Dern) attempts to reinvent herself after a nervous breakdown, make it almost unbearable to watch. However, anchored by the lyricism of co-creator and writer Mike White, the graceful hand of guest directors like Jonathan Demme, Nicole Holofcener, and Miguel Arteta, and Dern’s brilliant and explosive central performance, Enlightened has also become one of the most rewarding shows on television. An almost operatic meditation on depression and hope set on the pettiest scale possible, the series is the magnum opus of both its creator and star, and it’s more than worth the trouble. Maciak

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The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

3. Game of Thrones

Viewers can be forgiven if, after watching the first several episodes of HBO’s Game of Thrones, they found it a snoozy, pretentiously dense, boob-obsessed, blithely racist, engorged money pit of a show. It was all of those things. But about midway through the season, slinkily escaping the heavy shadow of expectation from fans of George R. R. Martin’s book series, the series quickly began to assert itself as one of the most exciting, audacious, and visually stunning shows on the air. As the network of rivalries and passions whirled and expanded, the show embraced, not just the books’ encyclopedic scope, but the blurry line they teased between the natural and the supernatural. And the world that started out seeming glumly pedestrian despite its splendid production values began to seem bigger and richer than we could have imagined. Problematic, to be sure, but if Game of Thrones started out trying our patience, it ended by confounding our expectations. Maciak


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

2. Breaking Bad

There’s Breaking Bad, and then there’s the rest of television. Beginning with a close-up of a lime-green utility knife and concluding with a chilling tracking shot of a certain, now surely infamous potted plant, the show’s fourth season was all about the limitations of objectivity, both of its characters and its viewers. Series creator Vince Gilligan and his team strived to throw off the audience’s perceptions of what was coming and what was not by employing sly visual quirks (shots from the perspectives of objects, like a Roomba and a shovel, for example) in conjuncture with an effectively slow-burning, chess-like narrative that resulted in some seriously awe-inspiring payoffs. Gilligan admitted that much of season three was the result of his staff writing themselves into corners and coming up with makeshift escape routes on the spot, but season four was much more calculated, taking its time putting every minute detail in place before letting loose the calamities that surface in episodes like “Cornered” and the frantic, ripple-effect aftermath that follows. By the end of “Face Off,” Walter White (Bryan Cranston) has not just broken bad, he’s thoroughly ground up its shards and blown the dust into the New Mexico winds. LeChevallier


The 25 Best TV Shows of 2011

1. Louie

It’s no shock to say that Louie is the funniest show on television. But it’s also the most frank, the most confessional, a profoundly sad yet cathartic commentary on middle-class disenchantment, the cruelties of privilege, and the joys and perils of work, which for Louis C.K. means getting people to laugh at his everyman’s disaffection, fucking Joan Rivers, stomaching being in the same room as Dane Cook, and figuring out how to excite and educate his children when he’d rather be rubbing one off. In the show’s second season, this profane comic, whose uncomfortable truths about family are essentially in the same empowering vein as Adam Mansbach’s Go the Fuck to Sleep, walked through the landmines of family and actual war, from a trip to visit a dying aunt that begins as a lesson in history and ends as a hilarious confrontation with old-fashioned racism, to the mountains of Afghanistan, where Louie’s love for country is illuminated by his love for his daughters, and vice versa. The glory of this great existentialist comedy is that Louis C.K. struggles to see light through the tangle of contradictions that grips him daily, and live to make us laugh another day. Gonzalez

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