Best TV Shows of 2021

10. TED LASSO

41 LISTS | 2 TOP SPOTS

“While Ted Lasso may be a believer in rom-communism, it manages to avoid the pitfalls that a lot of rom-coms don’t, by never becoming too cloying, too clever, or too sentimental to be believed. The show embraces optimism without feeling false.” – Jen Chaney, New York Magazine

9. SQUID GAME

48 LISTS | 2 TOP SPOTS

“What writer-director Hwang Dong-hyuk has done principally involves serving old wine in a new bottle. Seen that way, “Squid Game” presents a visually arresting variation on themes seen plenty of times before, which include tapping into the class divide.” – Brian Lowry, CNN.com

8. ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING

52 LISTS | 3 TOP SPOTS

“That material takes some of the life out of what’s otherwise a slight but charming comedy… It never slows down Short, however; he can turn on a dime and make Oliver’s desperation touching, then sail right back into high comic mode.” – Mike Hale, New York Times

7. RESERVATION DOGS

55 LISTS | 6 TOP SPOTS

“The show’s episodic, site-specific misadventures will bring to mind another FX series, Donald Glover’s “Atlanta,” and there’s a loose, throwback ’70s feel to here, as if a scraggly teenage Matt Dillon might wander into the frame at any moment.” – Nina Metz, Chicago Tribune

6. WANDAVISION

56 LISTS | 6 TOP SPOTS

“Bettany and Olsen have a sweet chemistry. It’s refreshing to see the actors at play in a field that doesn’t require them to send some super foe (or friend, the way the Avengers get on) backward through a brick wall.” – Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times

5. The UNDERDOG RAILROAD

57 LISTS | 13 TOP SPOTS

“Director Barry Jenkins adapts Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning 2016 novel about slavery and the continuing myth that it’s been eradicated into an indelible and indispensable 10-episode masterpiece that raises series TV to the level of art.” – Peter Travers, ABC News

4. THE WHITE LOTUS

63 LISTS | 5 TOP SPOTS

“Like a wasp in a strawberry daiquiri, menace seems to be lurking beneath the surface of everything here: think Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None with added tiki torches, aloha nachos and Xanax.” – Rachel Cooke, New Statesman

3. HACKS

64 LISTS | 3 TOP SPOTS

“Would it help if the jokes the two work on were stronger? Sure, but Hacks also talks a lot about how hard good joke-writing is. It gets everything else right, so it deserves the extra time to figure that last part out.” – Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone

2. MARE OF EASTTOWN

72 LISTS | 3 TOP SPOTS

“The challenge facing cop television now is the challenge to depict a desire for greater accountability in a profession notoriously hostile to it. Mare of Easttown doesn’t face that challenge because its protagonist is consumed by accountability.” – Joshua Alston, AV Club

1. SUCCESSION

87 LISTS | 20 TOP SPOTS

“The HBO series, now in its third season, feels almost Seinfeldian in its efforts to capture a group of eccentric, petty characters as they try, again and again, to one-up one another. Is Succession the best sitcom on television?” – Naomi Fry, The New Yorker

RTITLEL#1ARL%#1%
1Succession87203.569.0%20.2%
2Mare of Easttown7234.957.1%3.0%
3Hacks6435.350.8%3.0%
4The White Lotus6354.750.0%5.1%
5The Underground Railroad57133.645.2%13.1%
6WandaVision5666.144.4%6.1%
7Reservation Dogs5564.143.7%6.1%
8Only Murders in the Building5235.741.3%3.0%
9Squid Game4824.938.1%2.0%
10Ted Lasso4125.332.5%2.0%
11It's a Sin3594.327.8%9.1%
12What We Do in the Shadows2815.922.2%1.0%
13Midnight Mass2425.819.0%2.0%
14The Other Two2206.317.5%0.0%
14Maid2206.717.5%0.0%
16We Are Lady Parts2135.516.7%3.0%
17For All Mankind1945.215.1%4.0%
18Yellowjackets1806.414.3%0.0%
19The Beatles: Get Back1724.913.5%2.0%
20Dickinson1616.212.7%1.0%
21Loki1508.111.9%0.0%
21I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson1507.211.9%0.0%
23Station Eleven1224.89.5%2.0%
23Invincible1226.69.5%2.0%
25Dopesick1205.39.5%0.0%
26Schmigadoon1106.38.7%0.0%
27Bo Burnham: Inside1023.47.9%2.0%
28Evil1016.67.9%1.0%

126 Lists have been compiled