The 25 best TV shows of 2019

As the decade draws to a close, there are more TV view­ing options than ever before. Con­tem­plat­ing every buzz-wor­thy show is a daunt­ing prospect, par­tic­u­lar­ly as Apple and Dis­ney have entered the orig­i­nal stream­ing con­tent fray, and more are set to launch.

Com­pil­ing an end of year list means there will be inevitable absences, in some cas­es because of a drop in qual­i­ty (Killing Eve) or because a glossy veneer isn’t enough (The Crown). It is also impos­si­ble to watch every­thing, how­ev­er, this cross-sec­tion of what tele­vi­sion has to offer in 2019 includes com­e­dy, dra­ma, orig­i­nal sto­ries, adap­ta­tions, real­i­ty, ani­ma­tion and sear­ing inter­pre­ta­tions of real events.

Below you’ll find plen­ty of TV to binge watch over the fes­tive peri­od, but let us know what your favourites of this year have been @LWLies

World War Two is a well-tapped source, so it would be easy to dis­miss Peter Bowker’s dra­ma as anoth­er famil­iar nar­ra­tive. How­ev­er, the var­i­ous threads across Poland, France, and the UK con­nect to reveal human sto­ries that go beyond big bat­tle set-pieces and inspi­ra­tional speech­es, in these try­ing times. The Pol­ish resis­tance, a posh boy social­ist turned hard­ened sol­dier, and those still bear­ing the men­tal scars of World War One, are fac­tors that make this a must-watch. Stand­out per­for­mances include Les­ley Manville’s nuanced turn as a wealthy woman with a bit­ing tongue and Zofia Wichłacz’s descent into vengeance-fuelled survival.

The kids are not alright in Sam Levinson’s drug-fuelled explo­ration of high school­ers deal­ing with the pres­sures of social media, addic­tion, and every­day life. Zen­daya leads the way as the recent­ly out of rehab Rue, strug­gling to stay sober while falling in love with her new best friend, Jules (Hunter Schafer). Stylised edit­ing, incor­po­rat­ing quick cuts and col­lages of images makes it one of the best depic­tions of how the inter­net shapes ado­les­cence in 2019. Movies inform the over­all aes­thet­ic: one char­ac­ter idolis­es Sharon Stone in Casi­no, while oth­ers dress as char­ac­ters from Romeo + Juli­et and True Romance for Halloween.

Net­flix has carved out a space for inno­v­a­tive adult car­toons includ­ing Big Mouth and Bojack Horse­man. The most excit­ing addi­tion to this ros­ter is sad­ly the short­est-lived because the stream­ing giant pulled the plug on Lisa Hanawalt’s series after just one sea­son. Ali Wong and Tiffany Had­dish voice unlike­ly best bird friends Tuca and Bertie in a hilar­i­ous and some­times painful por­tray­al of friend­ship, anx­i­ety, addic­tion, and sex. Don’t let its can­cel­la­tion put you off, this series flies high like a bird.

End of the F***ing World closed out its first sea­son with a huge cliffhang­er leav­ing the audi­ence unsure whether James (Alex Lawther) is alive or dead. Even though two years have passed, the lit­er­al and fig­u­ra­tive scars from that pre­vi­ous adven­ture are still fresh. Still wicked­ly fun­ny, the trau­ma of past expe­ri­ences is too much to bear alone. For­give­ness doesn’t come easy, but Lawther and co-star Jes­si­ca Barden’s por­tray­al of the two lone­ly teens, reveals why writer Char­lie Cov­ell decid­ed there was more sto­ry to tell. Nao­mi Ack­ie as new­com­er Bon­nie and a stel­lar sound­track make this essen­tial viewing.

As one of the first Net­flix Orig­i­nal offer­ings, OITNB is a land­mark series for the stream­ing plat­form. After a cou­ple of so-so years, the final sea­son was back to its best with cre­ator Jen­ji Kohan deliv­er­ing a sear­ing swan­song tack­ling the rise in Immi­gra­tion and Cus­toms Enforce­ment (ICE) deten­tion cen­tres. Few are offered a hap­py end­ing, but hope is not extin­guished in a sto­ry­line fea­tur­ing an award-wor­thy turn from Danielle Brooks as fan-favourite Taystee. A real-life fund ensures OITNB’s lega­cy is far more than ush­er­ing in a new age of stream­ing possibilities.

From the mind of for­mer Sat­ur­day Night Live writer Tim Robin­son (and pro­duc­ers includ­ing The Lone­ly Island), the six-part sketch show is a jour­ney into the won­der­ful­ly absurd. The longest episode runs to a tight 18-min­utes, which in this era of Peak TV is a huge sell­ing point. Robin­son has cre­at­ed some­thing so sur­re­al, you will need to watch again to make sure you aren’t expe­ri­enc­ing a hilar­i­ous fever dream. High­lights include extreme per­for­ma­tive social media self-dep­re­ca­tion, an acer­bic ​“Baby of the Year” con­test, and a revenge plan decades in the making.

Brooke (Heléne Yorke) and Cary Dubek (Drew Tarv­er) are sib­ling thir­tysome­things try­ing to get their lives in order, which is com­pli­cat­ed by their teen broth­er Chase’s (Case Walk­er) new­found Bieber-lev­el fame. There is noth­ing more hum­bling (and soul-destroy­ing) than the overnight suc­cess of an artist whose songs include ​“Mar­ry U at Recess,” ​“My Brother’s Gay and That’s Okay!” and ​“Stink.” Cary is an aspir­ing actor still wait­ing tables, which pro­vides the foun­da­tion for the often hilar­i­ous (and some­times heart­break­ing) medi­a­tion on pur­su­ing a cre­ative career.

Con­flict is at the heart of Der­ry Girls, from the pre­car­i­ous (and dan­ger­ous) polit­i­cal sit­u­a­tion to the dai­ly ado­les­cent dra­ma. The first sea­son end­ed on a trag­ic note jux­ta­pos­ing a bomb­ing with the care­free girls (and James) danc­ing on stage. The fol­low-up deft­ly mix­es the real­i­ty of liv­ing in these con­di­tions includ­ing attempt­ed hook-ups with Protes­tant boys. Nineties music, fash­ion, and pop cul­ture ref­er­ences are woven through­out, deliv­er­ing a hit of nos­tal­gia, how­ev­er, the themes are uni­ver­sal. Pres­i­dent Bill Clinton’s vis­it in the finale offers a sem­blance of hope, but it is James’ (aka the ​“Wee Eng­lish Fel­la”) dec­la­ra­tion at the end of the episode, which will leave you grin­ning from ear-to-ear.

The Upside Down expand­ed to include a Sovi­et con­spir­a­cy in a sea­son that recap­tured the heart of Netflix’s flag­ship show. Ref­er­ences to ​’80s movies includ­ing Red Dawn, Back to the Future, and The Nev­erend­ing Sto­ry pep­per the action, but it is the chem­istry between the teen actors, which pro­vides the mag­ic. Hawkins new­com­er Robin (Maya Hawke) is the per­fect foil to big-haired hero Steve Har­ring­ton (Joe Keery) as the four-team Scoop Troop took on the Rus­sians while dressed as sailors. The set-pieces are big­ger, nev­er­the­less, Stranger Things is at its best dur­ing inti­mate moments.

After 11 sea­sons (and four All Star out­ings), RuPaul’s Drag Race came to the UK, inject­ing some much-need­ed oomph back into the long-run­ning com­pe­ti­tion series. The line-up of com­pet­ing drag queens includ­ed per­form­ing vet­er­ans and new­com­ers, which cre­at­ed dra­ma while show­cas­ing charis­ma, unique­ness, nerve, and tal­ent. These queens didn’t try to mim­ic their US coun­ter­parts, instead, they kept to their UK drag roots, while also dis­cussing issues impact­ing the LGBT+ com­mu­ni­ty (includ­ing the stain of Sec­tion 28 and North­ern Ireland’s same-sex mar­riage laws). Guest judges Andrew Garfield and Michaela Coel added ener­gy to the pan­el, along­side Alan Carr and Gra­ham Norton.

The biggest show of the decade came to an end, but the final sea­son didn’t match the hype. Errant cof­fee cups and plas­tic water bot­tles, unsat­is­fac­to­ry char­ac­ter con­clu­sions, and com­plaints about hard-to-see bat­tle scenes don’t negate the over­all Game of Thrones achieve­ment. It is unlike­ly that we will expe­ri­ence a show of this col­lec­tive view­ing mag­ni­tude again and the final sea­son wasn’t a total wash. Gasp-wor­thy moments from Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) and a beau­ti­ful Bri­enne (Gwen­do­line Christie) knight­ing scene before the great bat­tle revealed the best of GoT, even while it was at its most frustrating.

Mind­hunter delves into the psy­che of America’s most infa­mous ser­i­al killers in a bid to learn how this type of crim­i­nal oper­ates. The sec­ond sea­son devi­ates from those behind bars to pur­su­ing a killer ter­ror­is­ing Atlanta as their meth­ods are put into prac­tice. Hold­en (Jonathan Groff) gets his dream inter­view with Charles Man­son (Damon Her­ri­man, who also played the cult leader in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hol­ly­wood), but it is his role in the active inves­ti­ga­tion that cranks up the ten­sion. Minu­tia mat­ters and the some­times David Finch­er direct­ed series implores the view­er to pay atten­tion to every detail.

A change of scenery took the Gor­geous Ladies of Wrestling to a res­i­den­cy in Sin City, which led to cre­ative iner­tia for some while light­ing a fire in oth­ers. Sheila the She-Wolf (Gayle Rankin) had a tran­scen­dent expe­ri­ence in the desert, which led to a pow­er­ful shed­ding of her canine per­sona and stun­ning turn by Rankin. No oth­er show cap­tures com­plex female friend­ships quite as well as GLOW; Ruth’s (Ali­son Brie) betray­al will always cut deep but her bond with Deb­bie (Bet­ty Gilpin) enters a new and deep­er under­stand­ing in its penul­ti­mate season.

Both the first and sec­ond sea­son of Ryan Murphy’s explo­ration into 1980s New York ball cul­ture aired in the UK in 2019. The ground­break­ing dra­ma cen­tres sto­ries that nor­mal­ly play on the periph­ery or pro­vide teach­able moments. Instead, Pose not only focus­es on trans char­ac­ters, but it is also set a record for the num­ber of trans series reg­u­lars in the cast. Nev­er shy­ing away from the dif­fi­cult sto­ry­lines, the AIDS epi­dem­ic and vio­lence against trans women are por­trayed with equal care and con­sid­er­a­tion, along­side the cre­ative free­dom the ball scene offers. A deserved Emmy win for Bil­ly Porter as emcee Pray Tell, Pose is a breath of fresh air.

Craig Mazin’s five-part minis­eries took view­ers into the No. 4 reac­tor at the Cher­nobyl Nuclear Pow­er Plant, por­tray­ing every aspect of the cat­a­clysmic event from the sac­ri­fi­cial hero­ism to the unspo­ken cow­ardice of the peo­ple who tried to cov­er it up. Every ele­ment of the pro­duc­tion from the sound design to the art direc­tion metic­u­lous­ly recre­at­ed the dis­as­ter show­ing the per­son­al and polit­i­cal impact. Ground­ed by a stand­out per­for­mance by Jared Har­ris, Cher­nobyl is unflinch­ing in its por­tray­al of the great loss to a com­mu­ni­ty that still can’t return home.

Mr Robot has gone on quite the jour­ney from break­out first sea­son to an excep­tion­al final out­ing, which is fly­ing under the radar. Rami Malek won an Oscar in 2019, but it is his por­tray­al of hack­er Elliot Alder­son that should be cel­e­brat­ed. Hard truths have pushed Elliot to the edge as he tries to bring down the nefar­i­ous Dark Army. Cre­ator Sam Esmail has always been ambi­tious, and his auda­cious cre­ative swings are pay­ing off. One heist-dri­ven episode paid homage to Rifi­fi with just two lines of dia­logue uttered in an hour, anoth­er took the for­mat of a tight­ly-knit­ted play. The series finale has yet to air; if Esmail sticks the land­ing, it will be the best sea­son yet.

Adapt­ed from a Pulitzer win­ning arti­cle, Unbe­liev­able is a gut-wrench­ing por­tray­al of a teenag­er accused of cry­ing ​“rape” and the two detec­tives who proved oth­er­wise. It has been a big year for Kait­lyn Dev­er star­ring in Books­mart, but it is her dev­as­tat­ing and award-wor­thy turn as Marie Adler that will rock you to your core. Cov­er­ing two dif­fer­ent time­lines, Toni Col­lete and Mer­ritt Wev­er are the detec­tives you want on the case. Unbe­liev­able is not afraid of show­ing the dif­fer­ence between good and bad inves­ti­ga­tors and the series co-cre­at­ed by Susan­nah Grant, Ayelet Wald­man, and Michael Chabon is true crime TV with­out the glossy veneer.

With­out Gwen Ver­don, there would be no Bob Fos­se. In the eight-part minis­eries detail­ing both careers, this is a fact that can­not be denied, even if only one of them is a house­hold name. Dance has fol­lowed Sam Rock­well from movie to movie, but he also nails the dark­er aspects of a man who dreamed of being the next Fred Astaire. How­ev­er, it is Michelle Williams as Ver­don who steals the spot­light at every turn, whether deliv­er­ing seem­ing­ly uncon­scious chore­o­graphed cry­ing dur­ing a fight with Bob, singing ​“Raz­zle Daz­zle,” or fac­ing cre­ative rejec­tion due to her age. Final­ly, Gwen is get­ting the cred­it she deserves.

At the time of writ­ing this, Watch­men hasn’t fin­ished its final sea­son, how­ev­er, the first sev­en episodes speak vol­umes as to the care and atten­tion that has gone into this adap­ta­tion. Set 30 years after the events of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s graph­ic nov­el, cre­ator Damon Lin­de­lof has expert­ly paid homage to the source mate­r­i­al while intro­duc­ing mem­o­rable new char­ac­ters. Moore might dis­avow the HBO series, but the way it exam­ines super­heroes, for­got­ten his­to­ry, and the cur­rent polit­i­cal cli­mate has deep­ened the orig­i­nal work. Med­i­ta­tions on life, death, and pow­er are woven through HBO’s new flag­ship series.

When Bar­ry and Killing Eve debuted in 2018, Bar­ry (Bill Had­er) and Vil­lanelle (Jodie Com­er) were very dif­fer­ent sides of the assas­sin coin. While Killing Eve suf­fered a sopho­more slump, the Had­er helmed dark com­e­dy went from strength-to-strength as the reluc­tant hit­man kept get­ting pulled back into the killer-for-hire busi­ness. All Bar­ry wants to know is if peo­ple have the capac­i­ty to change, oth­er­wise, he is stuck in this role as a killer. Had­er and co-cre­ator Alec Berg didn’t rest on first sea­son suc­cess, cre­at­ing more ambi­tious and dif­fi­cult sce­nar­ios for Bar­ry to get out of, adding to his guilt at each turn.

The tele­vi­sion equiv­a­lent of a warm hug, Cana­di­an com­e­dy Schitt’s Creek became a rare first-time Emmy-nom­i­nee for its fifth sea­son. Cre­at­ed by and star­ring Eugene Levy and his son Dan, the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of the for­mer­ly-rich Rose fam­i­ly bal­ance absurd humour with a huge dol­lop of love and per­son­al growth. Cather­ine O’Hara as matri­arch Moira has essen­tial­ly cre­at­ed her own lan­guage while deliv­er­ing a career-best per­for­mance. Dan Levy has always said Schitt’s Creek is a homo­pho­bia-free town, ensur­ing an LGBT+ romance can flour­ish with­out fear it will end in tragedy. This led to a com­ing out episode unlike any pre­vi­ous­ly por­trayed on TV. A com­mu­ni­ty the­atre pro­duc­tion of Cabaret end­ed the penul­ti­mate sea­son, show­cas­ing Dan Levy’s direc­to­r­i­al tal­ents behind the camera.

A case that rocked New York City in 1989, the Ava DuVer­nay four-part lim­it­ed series por­trays the gross mis­car­riage of jus­tice that the so-called Cen­tral Park Five expe­ri­enced. Accused of rape and a bru­tal assault, the series will leave you angry at the events that led to the wrong­ful con­vic­tion of the ado­les­cent boys. This series doesn’t hold back when show­ing the unre­lent­ing inter­ro­ga­tion tac­tics, and insti­tu­tion­alised racism the young teens faced. Moonlight’s Jhar­rel Jerome deserved­ly won an Emmy for play­ing Korey Wise (the only boy tried as an adult), but the whole ensem­ble war­rants plaudits.

Described as an exis­ten­tial adven­ture by co-cre­ator and star Natasha Lyonne, Russ­ian Doll is much more than a ​“Ground­hog Day” premise. A med­i­ta­tion on life and death, Nadia is joined in the time-loop conun­drum by Alan (the excel­lent Char­lie Bar­rett) in this explo­ration of past trau­ma and men­tal health. An odd cou­ple of sorts, Nadia’s hard exte­ri­or is the per­fect foil for new friend’s frag­ile shell. Anchored by phe­nom­e­nal per­for­mances from the cen­tral pair, the emo­tion­al stakes rise as each lay­er gets peeled back cul­mi­nat­ing in a dizzy­ing finale (also direct­ed by Lyonne).

Suc­ces­sion isn’t ask­ing the audi­ence to feel sor­ry for a fam­i­ly of bil­lion­aires, rather, Jesse Armstrong’s often hilar­i­ous por­tray­al of the one per cent is a blis­ter­ing exam­i­na­tion of pow­er, the media, and the bonds of blood. The stakes are always high, whether it’s a humil­i­at­ing game of Boar on the Floor or hold­ing off a hos­tile takeover bid. Jere­my Strong as Kendall took the char­ac­ter to a soul-crush­ing low, while also per­form­ing a cringe-wor­thy rap ode to his father with all sin­cer­i­ty. Lux­u­ry yachts, pala­tial sum­mer hous­es, and lav­ish par­ties are what sets this fam­i­ly apart, but at its heart, the squab­bles, long­ing for val­i­da­tion, and play­ful sib­ling ban­ter aren’t pred­i­cat­ed on a trust fund.

The sec­ond (and most prob­a­bly final) sea­son of Fleabag is a self-pro­claimed love sto­ry that goes beyond an illic­it affair with a priest. The chem­istry between Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Andrew Scott as the Priest fuels the nar­ra­tive; each inter­ac­tion between the pair is crack­ling with for­bid­den desire. But their con­nec­tion is more than just a sex­u­al one, fill­ing the hole in Fleabag’s heart caused by the grief of los­ing her best friend, her moth­er, and the rift with her sis­ter Claire (Sian Clif­ford). Even the most fleet­ing rela­tion­ships can cut deep, leav­ing a per­ma­nent mark. Some­thing Waller-Bridge has done to the view­er through­out this phe­nom­e­nal season.