Not only will this decade of peak television be remembered as the “golden age” of the small screen, but, these past 10 years, the lines were blurred between television and cinema. Cinematic auteurs such as David Fincher, Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Steven Soderbergh, and Spike Lee all made the jump to the small screen with personal projects they had been trying to develop for years. The fact that television accepted them with open arms meant that the small screen was just as much a place for risky storytelling as the big screen. It was very hard to choose just ten selections from the past decade to make this case, but the following are the TV shows which I believe could stand toe-to-toe with the best movies of the decade.
1) "Breaking Bad"
It took 5 immaculately constructed seasons to slowly, but masterfully, tell the epic story of a goody-two-shoes high school chemistry teacher’s transformation into one of the most fascinating criminals in TV history. Creator Vince Gilligan, a master at character and suspense, claims he already knew the beginning, middle and end of the story he was telling in "Breaking Bad" even before the TV pilot was even shot -- it shows in the minutiae of detail he evoked in every frame of his series. Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman's (Aaron Paul) rise and fall story is the stuff of Shakespearean tragedies, a dreaded ode to the evil that lurks in us all as New Mexico Mr. Nice Guy, whom even his street smart DEA brother-in-law (Dean Norris) can't even bear to think of as anything but a law-abiding loser. The way Gilligan developed the mosaic of characters, with every calculated word and shot, was nothing short of triumphant filmmaking. TV show or movie, it was irrelevant and made no difference to the audience, "Breaking Bad" deserved a spot in the crime genre pantheon, right alongside "The Godfather`," "Goodfellas" and "The Sopranos." Gilligan's landmark creation is that important, that groundbreaking and that impressive of an achievement.
2) “Mad Men”
Where to begin when it comes to Matthew Weiner’s “Mad Men”? The series started off being set in 1960 and ended, seven seasons later, in 1969, in what seemed like a completely different world from where we first began. Never has screen art, movies or television, managed to breathlessly depict, in such thorough ways, the manner in which America, and consequentially the world, changed in the span of a single decade. The cultural, political and economic landscape of 1960’s America was seen through the eyes of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), a handsome, well-off, but abnormally disturbed ad man who has to juggle a crumbling marriage, constant cheating, alcoholism, and work stresses, all while the world and, more importantly, the role and power of the matriarch changes before his very eyes. It’s an astonishing triumph by Weiner, one filled with masterfully written characters, from Peggy Olsen (Elisabeth Moss) to Roger Sterling (John Rafferty).
3) “Twin Peaks: The Return”
An almost indescribable journey into the twisted and visionary psyche of David Lynch. This was the show which prompted the ultimate screen question of the decade: TV or movie? Whichever side you were on when it came to this debate, there was no denying that “Twin Peaks: The Return” was very much a David Lynch endeavor through and through. An 18-hour film that is incomprehensible and dreamlike in the most beautiful and adventurous of ways, ‘Twin Peaks’ ultimately is about the psyche of Agent Dale Cooper and his many morphing identities. Compelling from start to finish, Lynch used slow, hypnotic rhythms to tell his story, one filled with loose ends, unresolved plots, ambiguity, and odd pacing. Lynch gives you space to let your mind wander into the unknown, in very much the same way an Apichatpong Weeresthekul film would do. The tonal jumps from humor to horror coalesce into a mosaic of Americana. The show felt liberated from the television form, going by its own rhythms, at times putting you under an unusual spell, as its never-ending puzzle kept unraveling.
4) “Fargo” (Season Two)
We all had our doubts when we first heard that Joel and Ethan Coen‘s masterpiece “Fargo” was going to get a small screen adaptation, courtesy of FX, but after the first episode of creator Noah Hawley‘s brilliant series adaptation, we were converted. If you’ve yet to catch up with the FX series that bears the same name and style as the Coens’ landmark 1996 film noir, then you are missing out on one of the best and most ingenious shows on TV (we’ll pretend that flawed third season didn’t exist). The first season was a home run, the second season was a near-miracle of multiple moving parts, maybe the best season of television since Season 4 of “Breaking Bad, and finally the third season might not have satisfied every fan with its multitudes of ambiguities and unlikeable characters, but it had its fair share of moments. The ambition and sheer scope of the series has been nothing short of groundbreaking. Using a blend of genres, even a tad of surreal sci-fi, Hawley created a vision like no other.
5) “The Leftovers”
In a global cataclysm, or as the characters in this magnificent HBO series like to call it, "The Sudden Departure," 140 million people disappear without a trace. Three years later, residents of Mapleton, N.Y., try to maintain equilibrium when the notion of "normal" no longer applies. Intense grief has divided families and turned faith to cynicism, paranoia, and madness, leading some of the traumatized to join the Guilty Remnant, a cult-like group of “survivors” trying to upend the status quo. Kevin Garvey (Justin Theroux), a beleaguered police chief, must keep the peace between townspeople and the cult, a task made tougher with concern about his own kids. His daughter alternates between apathy and rebellion, and his wayward son befriends a charismatic prophet. "The Leftovers,” based on the best-seller by Tom Perrotta, got crazier and crazier as it reached its undescribable series finale. Theroux and Carrie Coon (hypnotic as Nora Durst) made a formidable investigative team in a series that proved you could make something visionary out of the end of days.
6) “The Night of”
A night that begins quite innocently for Pakistani-American college student Nasir "Naz" Khan (Riz Ahmed) turns into a horrific nightmare after he meets a mysterious young woman in the wee-wee hours of the night. Flash forward a few hours later and Naz is brought into custody, as he awaits formal arraignment for a crime he may not have committed. “The Night Of” goes through the rotten core of the American Judicial System. The more it goes along, the more you started to realize that we are not going to be getting any sort of friendly closure to our many questions. We might not even know who actually committed the crime. It won’t even matter. Much like “Breaking Bad” and “The Wire,” HBO’s landmark series was about the justice system turning a law-abiding citizen into a criminal. The show was an exemplary showcase of the justice system failing at every turn. Everyone's a loser at the end of this one, especially us, the American people. I have never seen such a thorough and detailed account of the justice system since “The Wire” and, yet, “The Night Of” begins and ends in the span of just 8 episodes.
7) “Veep”
As America was tearing apart at the seams with the divisive presidencies of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, British political satirist Armando Iannucci decided to show us the chaos that reigned within a fictional oval office he created and, yet, the hijinks felt as relevant as ever. In "Veep" Sen. Selina Meyer, a charismatic leader and rising star in her party, becomes vice president but realizes that the job isn’t all that it was hyped up to be and everything she was warned about. "Veep" follows Meyer as she puts out political fires, juggles her public schedule and private life, and does everything within her limited powers to improve her dysfunctional relationship with the chief executive. Meyer's trusted -- and some not-so-trusted -- sidekicks include chief of staff Amy, one-time spokesperson Mike, and right-hand man Gary. Despite breaking through in cinema and giving us wonderful political satires “The Death of Stalin” and “In the Loop,” Iannucci’s talents for satirical screenwriting and character creation have never been more fully developed than in this wildly entertaining series.
8) “True Detective” (Season 1)
“True Detective” creator Nic Pizzolatto got it right the first time in a TV mini-series which hooked us from beginning to end with its B-movie tropes and dreary southern Gothicism. A 1995 murder case is revisited 17 years later, calling into question the supposed solving of the crime by Louisiana State Police Detectives Rust Cohle (Matthew McConaughey) and Martin Hart (Woody Harrelson). This opens up a whole can of worms as, through immaculately detailed flashbacks, old wounds related to the detectives' volatile partnership and personal lives resurfaces. The inquiry unfolds in the present day through separate interrogations of the now-former co-workers, who narrate the story of both the investigation and their lives, including why Cohle left Louisiana's Criminal Investigation Division in 2002. As the timeline weaves between 1995 and 2012, Cohle and Hart are brought back to a world both thought they had left behind, one filled with black magic, pedophilia, murder, and the almighty political elite. Pizzolatto screwed up the second season so much that many have forgotten just how brilliant the initial season of “True Detective” was.
9a) “Making A Murderer”
Focusing on Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey's efforts to be released from jail, Netflix's “Making a Murderer” was all Americans wanted to talk about in the winter of 2017. It should also be considered one of the most influential shows of the decade as it opened the door for a slew of murder-mystery dramas, which have all but invaded the TV stratosphere and podcast world such as with “Serial.” “Making a Murderer,” a non-fiction docu-series, chronicled the conviction of two men for a crime that they may, or may not, have committed. By the end of the series, audiences were split in their own opinions on who did it. Although "Making a Murderer" has been credited with starting the genre's domination on the airwaves, It was, and remains, a magnificently rendered work of art of the non-fiction genre.
9b) “The Jinx”
It will be very hard for any true crime story to top the ending of “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst.” As director Andrew Jarecki tried to get to the bottom of Robert Durst, long suspected of murdering his ex-wife, Kathie, and friend Susan Berman, the finale managed to include a confession from the man himself in, all of all places, a public urinal. Confesses on a hot mic that he "killed them all," would be borderline inconceivable if it wasn't captured on audio. (Durst was eventually arrested on murder charges hours before the finale aired on HBO). With the insane finale already sealed in the history books, one can’t forget the lead-up to it, an amalgam of tightly-edited episodes investigating the enigma that is Robert Durst, a man that can be both repulsive and endearing in conversation. The true-crime renaissance we're living in wouldn't be what it is without this masterpiece.
10) “Better Call Saul”
As mentioned, “Breaking Bad” was quite possibly the greatest TV drama of all time, or at least right up there with “The Sopranos” and “The Wire.” And so, it was with great hesitation that four years ago I started watching its spin-off “Better Call Saul” when it premiered on AMC. Any doubts that I had quickly evaporated by the first episode. The next four seasons would make for some truly compelling television. “Better Call Saul” has become an indisputably great show and confirms Gilligan as one of the few visionaries who seem to have decided to concentrate the thick of his career on a central world in his storytelling. The series is a significant achievement because of its focus on character and the subtle dilemmas that Gilligan seems to expand on with every season. If ‘Bad’ was showy and epic, this one is restrained and minimalist. Yet, they all take place in the same world that Gilligan created back in 2008.
I can confirm that Joel Coen’s “Jack of Spades” is based on Frances Frederica Montrésor’s 1901 novel “The Alien: A Story of Middle Age.” It’s a ghost story. A gothic mystery.