The 50 best TV shows of 2018: the full list
1Killing Eve
(BBC One/BBC America) Killing Eve was a glittering high-wire act of misdirection and subverted expectations, a mad game of pinball compared to the sober snooker match of most other murder-based dramas. Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s influence as writer and producer meant that, alongside the tension, shocks and gore, it was also very human and very funny. The preposterousness of the whole thing only added to the delight. Read our full review
2
A Very English Scandal
(BBC One) Russell T Davies homed in on this country’s contradictory obsession with moral propriety and tabloid titillation – as well as repression, class-based strictures and the high camp of British politicians. This could all have been heavy weather, righteous on murder or civil rights, or a schlocky murder caper. But Davies and director Stephen Frears rejected that dour approach. Instead, they embraced anarchic queerness – and great writing. Read our review
Anarchic … Ben Whishaw, left, and Hugh Grant in A Very English Scandal. Photograph: Sophie Mutevelian/AP
3
Bodyguard
(BBC One) The BBC’s biggest ratings hit in a decade was that rarest of things: a pure adrenaline jolt of entertainment. For a few weeks this autumn the six-part series from Jed Mercurio, the king of the out-of-nowhere twist, dominated conversation to such an extent that no other programme stood a chance. Yet the water cooler-hit of the decade was also a surprisingly thoughtful show. Read our full review
4
Patrick Melrose
(Sky Atlantic/Showtime) As well as being a remarkable study of addiction, Patrick Melrose was full of wider resonances. It was a case study in the corrupting nature of privilege and a demonstration of how Britain’s upper classes nurture myths to obscure difficult truths. At the heart of all this was a career-best performance by Benedict Cumberbatch, who tweaked his jittery Sherlock persona, replacing brittle neurosis with a despairing wildness. Read our full review
Remarkable … Patrick Melrose. Photograph: Ollie Upton/Showtime
5
Succession
(HBO/Sky Atlantic) Jesse Armstrong’s comedy-drama quickly became the year’s most deliciously guilty pleasure, an engrossing prestige TV melodrama of squabbling and secrecy that doubled as a canny critique of bloated end-times capitalism, and was arguably the year’s funniest show to boot. For all its insights about the 1%, Succession wasn’t made to be studied, it was made to be gorged in one sitting. This was prestige TV’s answer to a night-time soap such as Dynasty, Dallas or Empire, full of twists and turns, showdowns and power grabs. Read our full review
6
Derry Girls
(Channel 4) Its universality was just part of why it became Channel 4’s largest comedy launch in five years. For all its the humour, there is also a gravitas missing from other nostalgic teen comedies. The alchemy of the setup –­ from the whip-smart script to its authentic production ­– suggests that there are plenty of enjoyable telly-watching hours to be had in Derry yet. Read our full review
Whip-smart … Derry Girls. Photograph: Channel 4
7
The Good Fight
(CBS/More4) One of the many joys of this brilliant drama has been its determination to embrace absurdity, without flinching at the grimness of it all. The audacious second season took The Good Wife’s template of riffing on the headlines, combined it with the breakneck pace of the news cycle and added the nauseating lurch of populist politics, all the while creating incisive and funny entertainment from what could have been a sickening brew. Read our full review
8
Black Earth Rising
(BBC Two/Netflix) Hugo Blick set himself the invidious task of converting the subject of the Rwandan genocide into a drama for the BBC, with all its protocols, demands and constraints. He has pulled it off magnificently, thanks to a shrewd approach to storytelling, the unorthodox styling of the show and an excellent cast, which included Michaela Coel, John Goodman, Harriet Walter and Blick himself. Read our full review
Magnificent … Michaela Coel in Black Earth Rising. Photograph: Des Willie/BBC/Forgiving Earth
9
Atlanta
(FX/Fox) Donald Glover had a busy 2018. He starred as Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. That was after he announced his departure from the animated Deadpool series by releasing a satirical script mocking Hollywood’s tone-deaf tendencies on race. Then he produced the most talked about music video in years for his song This Is America. But his most impressive feat was arguably following up Atlanta, his surreal examination of African American life, with a second series (subtitled Robbin’ Season) as ambitious and odd as the first. Read our full review
10
Sharp Objects
(HBO/Sky Atlantic) Prioritising mood and thematic texture over narrative, the eight-part drama was a confounding, fascinating and artistically satisfying experience. It’s undeniable ace was Amy Adams, hauntingly measured and utterly unafraid to burrow deep under the skin of her indefinable character. Read our full review
Compellingly indefinable … Amy Adams in Sharp Objects. Photograph: HBO
11
The Good Place
(NBC/Netflix) Yet another flipping of the set-up spun TV’s most philosophical comedy into a more direct, traditional sitcom satire of the modern world in its third season. This was no reason for its torrent of clever gags to slow up, though, so they kept on pouring out. Read our full review
12
Inside No 9
(BBC Two) Even before the genuinely astonishing live episode for Halloween, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton’s anthology had excelled itself again in its fourth regular series. Its peerless ingenuity is now almost as celebrated as it always should have been. Read our full review
Ingenuity … Shearsmith, left, and Pemberton Inside No 9. Photograph: Sophie Mutevelian/BBC
13
This Country
(BBC Three) No difficult second run here, as the Cooper siblings’ rural mockumentary tightened up and got even funnier, adding classic sitcom payoffs and a properly dramatic story arc to its already delicious village idiocy. Read our full review
14
American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace
(FX/BBC Two) One of the performances of the year: against a vividly painted backdrop of US gay culture in the 1990s, Darren Criss seared the screen with a terrifyingly immersive turn as lonely, raging killer Andrew Cunanan. Read our full review
Raging … Darren Criss as killer Andrew Cunanan. Photograph: BBC/FX
15
The Deuce
(HBO/Sky Atlantic) Is this finally David Simon’s second masterpiece, after The Wire? Maybe: season two’s tales of New York pornographers and streetwalkers were richer and less raw, with Maggie Gyllenhaal leading a cast of grubbily authentic characters. Read our full review
16
The Handmaid’s Tale
(Hulu/Channel 4) Not quite the cold fist in the face it was in season one, the dystopian nightmare made up for a loss of forward momentum this year by relying on what had really made it great: a staggeringly courageous lead performance by Elisabeth Moss. Read our full review
Courageous … Nina Kiri and Elisabeth Moss in The Handmaid’s Tale. Photograph: George Kraychyk/Hulu
17
The Bisexual
(Channel 4) The erudite cool of a New York indie movie arrived in literary London, thanks to Desiree Akhavan’s jittery story about a lesbian wondering if she’s bi. It was a world of bad sex, disappointing rented rooms and smothered emotions, captured. Read more
18
Better Call Saul
(AMC/Netflix) On went the subtle Breaking Bad prequel towards its predestined conclusion, this year moving Jimmy McGill much closer to his immoral alter ego. The aftermath of loss lent darker impetus to the fable of a man whose efforts are never rewarded. Read more
19
Queer Eye
(Netflix) February’s debut was such a hit, they did a second season before 2018 was out: five gay men mentoring a straight lost soul proved to be just the funny, wise, tear-streaked analysis of frail modern masculinity a fractious year needed. Read our full review
Modern masculinity … Queer Eye. Photograph: Netfilx
20
Wild Wild Country
(Netflix) A textbook example of the modern long-form doc, setting out detail after astounding detail of how an Indian cult caused bloody mayhem in 1980s Oregon. An interview with one particularly elusive antagonist made it unmissable. Read our full review
21
The Haunting of Hill House
(Netflix) When this dropped on Netflix, word soon spread: don’t watch it alone. But like some sort of undead This Is Us, the ghost story had profound emotional drama to go with the scares and indelibly creepy images. Read more
22
Doctor Who
(BBC One) We might still be waiting for her first stone-cold classic episode, but Jodie Whittaker has coolly excelled in her first shift at the Tardis controls, with no drop in ratings and an instantly snug new slot on Sunday nights. Read our full review
Steady pair of hands … Dr Who. Photograph: BBC/James Pardon
23
Stath Lets Flats
(Channel 4) The 21st-century lettings scene has been ripe for sitcom treatment for a while. Jamie Demetriou gave his ineptly ambitious agent a vulnerable eagerness to please, nicely offsetting a fetid romp through all renting’s worst indignities. Read our full review
24
Sally4Ever
(Sky Atlantic/HBO) The uniquely disturbing Julia Davis developed her “more is more” approach to cringe comedy with a dank romance between an unpredictable artist (Davis) and a timid suburbanite (Catherine Shepherd). Sweet, sweaty agony. Read our full review
25
The Americans
(FX/ITV Encore) It’s the best box set you’ve probably never seen and the 80s-set spy drama bowed out with customary tough elegance, eschewing silly twists but delivering the hyper-tense confrontation fans had been eagerly dreading. Read more
Track it down … The Americans Photograph: Fox / ITV
26
Save Me
(Sky One) Lennie James created his best TV role yet for himself, writing a tight thriller – about a man accused of kidnapping his own daughter – that was grounded in an astute, humane take on working-class urban life. Read our full review
27
GLOW
(Netflix) Smarter, sturdier and warmer in its second season, the comedy about crap 80s wrestlers rounded out its characters this year to become an, at times, intense and profound meditation on patriarchy and female friendship. But in leotards. Read our full review
28
Love Island
(ITV2) The series after the one where the show became cool. It couldn’t avoid a slight hangover, and some of the nuance it used to have (no, really) faded out. Was everyone talking and tweeting about it all summer, though? Yeah babes. Read more
Composite: Lee Smith/Reuters; Joel Anderson/ITV
29
Insecure
(HBO/Sky Atlantic) Issa Rae’s dramedy couldn’t just remain as a document of aimless late-20s Angelenos for ever and this year, as its protagonists settled into their 30s, the show itself changed, grew, tried new things and came out stronger. Read more
30
Cunk on Britain
(BBC Two) Spoof presenter Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) cranked up her malapropistic shredding of pompous factual TV with a sweeping, ambitious and totally stupid history of the UK. Her interactions with real experts were intolerably funny. Read our full review
31
The Cry
(BBC One) Jenna Coleman as we’d never seen her before: a simmering well of sadness and anger, as the initially powerless young mum in a pitiless missing-baby thriller that was narratively always three steps ahead of us. Read our full review
32
Mum
(BBC Two) Such a fine, brittle sitcom, with such a delicate, halting romance in the middle between Lesley Manville and Peter Mullan. When it finally arrived, the release of all that tension was one of the year’s most exquisitely affecting TV moments. Read our full review
33
Kiri
(Channel 4) Confidently scripted by Jack Thorne and boasting a heavyweight central performance by Sarah Lancashire, the four-part drama about a social worker caught in a media storm was calmly furious and deeply insightful. Read our full review
Calmly furious … Finn Bennett and Sarah Lancashire in Kiri. Photograph: Nick Wall/Channel 4
34
BoJack Horseman
(Netflix) Season five of what might just be Netflix’s best ever original commission did not let us down. The comedy about a talking horse turned its restless, fiercely clever gaze on to male privilege, white privilege and the show itself. Masterful. Read our full review
35
The Little Drummer Girl
(BBC One/AMC) A year would feel incomplete now without a graceful Le Carré dramatisation. After The Night Manager came this more measured affair, with a female lead (Florence Pugh) and period setting lending the old business of lies and manipulation new hues. Read our full review
36
Maniac
(Netflix) Helmed by True Detective season one visionary and future Bond director Cary Fukunaga, here was 2018’s wildest black comedy, taking place largely in the heads of its characters and doing whatever it wanted, often to mesmerising effect. Read our full review
Mesmerising … Jonah Hill and Emma Stone in Maniac. Photograph: Michele K Short/Netflix
37
Barry
(HBO/Sky Atlantic) Deadpan leading man and co-creator Bill Hader skilfully mastered an apparently ridiculous premise – lonely hitman is distracted by a dormant desire to become an actor – to fashion one of 2018’s most unpredictable dramedies. Read our full review
38
Michael Palin in North Korea
(Channel 5) A miniature renaissance for Channel 5 this year was led by Britain’s least dislikable travel presenter, finding the odd moment of friendly human connection in an inevitably restricted view of the awfully secretive DPRK. Read our full review
39
This Is Us
(NBC/More 4) No tears left to cry? We found some for the second season of America’s most shamelessly emotional drama. Sharing its characters’ highs and lows was once again a valuable catharsis, however contrived some of the big moments might have been. Read more
40
Salt Fat Acid Heat
(Netflix) The sleeper cookery hit of the year saw humble, curious host Samin Nosrat tour the globe exploring those four titular base elements of taste. No TV-chef ego, just a delighted foodie taking us with her into a messy, celebratory sensory overload. Read more
Taste test … Samrin Nosrat, right, in Salt Fat Acid Heat. Photograph: Netflix
41
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
(Netflix) The first half of Kimmy’s farewell – season four concludes next year – smartly used the idea of its main character being a victim in recovery to tackle a host of difficult, very 2018 issues. That it did so while maintaining a pinging cacophony of silly gags was remarkable. Read more
42
Stephen: The Murder That Changed a Nation
(BBC One) A sober, exhaustive three-part documentary about the killing of teenager Stephen Lawrence, showing with careful rigour why the pain it caused and the questions it raised are still with us, 25 years on. Damning, shamingly relevant television. Read our full review
43
Informer
(BBC One) A twist on the old grizzled-veteran-plus-idealistic-rookie cop show: Paddy Considine and Bel Powley were counter-terror police, exploiting reluctant informant Nabhaan Rizwan. A politically astute drama that pulled off a terrific last-episode shock. Read our full review
Terrific … Nabhaan Rizwan in Informer. Photograph: Sophie Mutevelian/BBC/Neal Street productions
44
The Terror
(AMC) The Arctic in 1846 was an immediately engrossing location for a horror anthology fed by cold blood. Tobias Menzies led a fine cast of seafarers, slowly frozen into battle with an unseen creature, and each other. Classy, but brutal. Read our full review
45
Trust
(FX/BBC Two) Somewhat overlooked in a rush of big autumn dramas, the saga of the Getty kidnapping repaid those who dived into its iPlayer box set. A juicy true story, myriad fascinating subplots and Donald Sutherland commanding the centre? Quality. Read our full review
Juicy story … Hilary Swank as Gail Getty in Trust. Photograph: Kurt Iswarienko/FX Productions
46
Reporting Trump’s First Year: The Fourth Estate
(Showtime/BBC Two) An answer to the question “name something good about Donald Trump”: he’s made newsroom documentaries vastly more interesting, as evidenced by this intriguing reveal of how America’s most esteemed organ, the New York Times, has struggled to cope. Read our full review
47
Civilisations
(BBC Two) A sort-of remake of the Kenneth Clark classic, but with three presenters and a subtly more inclusive, pluralised title. The scope and ambition were similar, as 10 episodes lectured us gainfully on how art and society enmesh. Read more
48
Ordeal By Innocence
(BBC One) Sarah Phelps drove deeper into her niche – as a writer who extracts the raw, bloody humanity from Agatha Christie books – with another jet-black examination of terrible, shameful people, embodied by an embarrassingly good cast. Read our full review
Terrible people … (from left) Ella Purnell, Eleanor Tomlinson, Anthony Boyle and Crystal Clarke in Ordeal By Innocence. Photograph: James Fisher/BBC/Mammoth Screen/ACL
49
Ozark
(Netflix) Laura Linney and Jason Bateman’s amateur criminals broke even badder in season two of a show that’s too well acted and too irresistibly, addictively dark for any of its manifest flaws to register. The year’s juiciest guilty drama binge. Read our full review
50
Stewart Lee: Content Provider
(BBC Two) “That’s right! Clap the things you agree with!” After the Comedy Vehicle, a film of Lee’s touring standup show gave fans just what they wanted: an even more meta tirade, often directed at them. The extended riff on Brexit deservedly went viral. Read more