The top genre TV actress Rose McIver is back and as irresistible as ever. The star of the wildly popular series iZombie is right back in her wheelhouse in CBS’s new series Ghosts: rapid-fire dialogue, outlandish situations where she must lead a crew of characters to decipher and inhabit myriad character types in the craziest of concocted schemes. But unlike iZombie, which had its lighthearted moments, Ghosts is 100% pure comedy. Sure, there are ghosts, but this is a full-on ensemble cast comedy where a brilliantly conceived haunted mansion is only the setting, the framework on which to build a comedy that will hopefully stand up to the even more dreaded ratings wonks.
For fans of Resident Alien, the show smacks of the exact same tone and humor, the latest in the trope mastered by The Munsters and The Addams Family. It’s Beetlejuice, The Sixth Sense, and Tru Calling meets The Money Pit with a splash of Clue, with not a speck of heavy drama (or frights) but heaps of fun and pop culture references (like Sneakers, and if you pay attention you’ll find more than one iZombie reference) stuffed into each half-hour episode.
Ten years! That’s ten years reviewing TV series in the decade that streaming services began to dominate TV viewing– and binge-watching was born as Netflix began releasing entire seasons at once in 2013. How do you pick the best series? As with yesterday’s list of movie recommendations, our theory from the very first day of publishing borg has been reviewing only those things we like, things we think are fun, imaginative, or just plain cool—because if we think they’re cool, maybe you will, too. What makes a great TV series? Great writing—great storytelling. Also we looked to difficulty level and technology innovation—TV productions tend to get a fraction of the budget of big-screen features, so what they do with their time and money is critical, and some television series in the past decade were all-out feats. The third factor we looked to is re-watchability—we’ll be watching the best series for years to come. The big difference between ranking movies and TV is the change between seasons, that force that inevitably causes most shows to decline with each season. So consistency is a factor. Finally, as with movies the most important factor is the fun—why would you devote so many hours of your valuable time if you’re not going to have a great time?
One more thing: Ten years is a long time so we narrowed the series we’re including to those recommendations that fall primarily within the ten-year window. We covered several fantastic, re-watchable series that cemented their status in reruns or syndication, many beginning before borg began publishing and finishing in the years after, including Burn Notice, White Collar, Warehouse 13, Leverage, House, MD, In Plain Sight, and three landmarks among the best pop culture-packed series of all time, Chuck, Psych, and Community. We were disappointed that some of the best series were canceled and left to only a single season, otherwise they may have gone on to fare better against our top recommendations, shows like Jason Isaacs’ psychological police procedural Awake, Sarah Shahi’s all-for-fun Fairly Legal, Lauren Cohan’s action/spy series Whiskey Cavalier, the Doctor Who spin-off Class, the adaptation of Max Allan Collins’ popular noir novel series Quarry, the slick animated series Tron: Uprising, and the cyborg future-world Almost Human starring Karl Urban, to name a few.
So here are the Top 40 series we recommend, spanning 2011 to 2021. These are our favorites. How should you use lists like this? If you like what we talk about at borg, you’re probably going to like these shows. If you’ve missed any, odds are you have some new series to take a look at. Let’s start at #40 and move our way to #1. As with everything borg, we’re stressing genre series. Title links are to one of our previous borg reviews.
Zack Snyder finally did it. Despite taking on a heist movie and a zombie picture in a major action movie, he wrote a script and delivered the type of action blockbuster he has not yet been able to create. Army of the Dead is his first movie to get it right, a load of tropes, a mash-up of genre ideas, a tightly written story with a great cast, and wall-to-wall fun. Not a comedy like Shaun of the Dead or iZombie,Army of the Dead features the right amount of humor for this story, while incorporating all the expectations of any fan of the father of the genre, George A. Romero. Rivaling the incredible action and effects in 6 Underground, it also rises to become one of Netflix’s most promising productions.
The first season of Netflix’s imported series Glitch is so well done, it’s easy to compare it to the first season of TV’s Lost–another genre-bending series that held enough back that viewers never quite knew the secrets behind the strange happenings to an unusual assemblage of characters. That’s the good and bad part about Glitch, because by the end of the second season the story loses its way and ultimately doesn’t deliver the payoff the first season deserved. That said, a great cast of Australian actors, including some familiar faces from the Star Wars franchise, and great mystery and intrigue ultimately make the series worth watching despite its drawbacks. Something wicked this way comes–again–to Australia, co-starring Emma Booth, the lead in the Starz series The Gloaming. When officer James Hayes appears one night at a cemetery in his small town of Yoorana, Victoria, who could know that people would begin pulling themselves out of their graves? Is this a zombie show or something with more to say about humans and the world? It’s not the payoff but the journey that is so much fun in this 2015-2019, three-season, 18-episode tale now streaming on Netflix.
In many ways Stephen King’s new supernatural crime novel Later is a natural follow-on to his two earlier Hard Case Crime novels, Joyland, which I loved, and The Colorado Kid, which will have me revisiting it for years to identify what I am sure is a hidden story beneath the obvious one. Joyland follows a coming of age vibe for an older character and King pulls from a similar quiver of creepiness in Later as he did for The Colorado Kid. Yes,Laterwill get the obvious comparison to the “I see dead people” kid from The Sixth Sense–a few updates and this could be its sequel, one as good or better than that great M. Night Shyamalan shocker (a character even calls out the comparison, and King doesn’t try to shy away from it). But even more than that, this story is a perfect launch pad for a television series, a series that should be written and directed by Shawn Piller as a natural follow-up to the King-Piller partnership’s successful series Haven and The Dead Zone. The slow-simmering pacing reflects the perfect make-ready four season series centering on a boy burdened with an ability he cannot walk away from. Later easily could be the next Medium, Prodigal Son, orTru Calling—just as dark, with a bit of Fallen thrown in. It’s a highly recommended read, available for pre-order now here at Amazon, scheduled for release March 2.
It had a promising first and third season, twists and turns, clever story arcs, and a contender for the most faithful adaptation of a comic book series from the past decade. The creators of the fourth and final season of Netflix’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina gave 2020 a much-needed batch of two complete seasons, and we already gave the third season kudos in the 2020 Best of TV review here at borg. Kiernan Shipka proved to be one of TV’s best young actors, embodying a character that is next in line after Buffy Summers, Veronica Mars, and Liv Moore as young genre heroines who led series you can count on the first time and after re-watches. Already a contender for one of the best TV series of this century, and one of Netflix’s most creative efforts, how did the final season fare for our heroine Sabrina Spellman?
This year we found one series that could easily sweep most of the categories–a single television series that had everything: compelling story, a full range of emotions, great characters, tremendous action, a sharp use of humor, all kinds of genre elements that were satisfying and left viewers feeling inspired. Richly detailed sets and costumes. An impossible feat to replicate. No drama came close. No other visual effects spectacle could touch it. And its audience is everyone. A truly epic addition to television viewing, that series is The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, the greatest television series to come along in years. If you love genre like we do, this was as good as it gets. And like icing on the cake, along came The Mandalorian at year end.
But we’re not going to ignore the other good things that happened on the small screen this year.
Our borgBest of 2019 list continues today with the best in television. If you missed it, check out our review of the Best Movies of 2019here and the best Kick-Ass Heroines of 2019 here.
Without further ado, this year’s Best in Television:
Best Borg Series – Doom Patrol(DC Universe). With this year’s series Doom Patrol we got a look at two borgs, DC Comics’ Cyborg, an update to Martin Caidin’s original Bionic Man from the 1970s, and an older borg created before the word was even coined in the 1960s, Robotman. Both characters revealed a glimpse at what life might be like with significant cybernetic enhancements (when brought together by a modern Dr. Frankenstein). For 2019, it was the way to get your borg fix on the small screen.
Best TV Series, Best New Limited TV Series, Best TV Fantasy, Best Writing for TV, Best TV Costumes/Makeup, Best TV Soundtrack – The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Netflix). It was worth the wait. Jim Henson’s seemingly impossible to replicate artistic vision was successfully achieved thanks to his daughters and the company he founded. The kindest heroes, the darkest evil, a truly epic, legendary story for the ages. Everybody is cranking out CGI extravaganzas, but how many are creating artistry so fundamentally real, with so many individual artists and artisans contributing and achieving so much? Even that wouldn’t be enough if not for the layered mythology and epic adventure story. Add great humor, high stakes, emotional impact, an all-star voice cast, Daniel Pemberton and Samuel Sim’s imaginative musical score, and those puppets and all that go into them–it adds up to a rare thing–a Henson masterpiece.
Best TV Sci-fi Series, Best TV Drama – The Man in the High Castle (Amazon). Amazon Studios could not have adapted a series more faithfully, making changes for the medium and the times, than its take on Philip K. Dick’s most celebrated novel. The use of science fiction to tell a deep and twisty level of subplots and unique setting all came to a perfect conclusion in the series finale. Exciting, intelligent, frightening, and the most thought-provoking series this year, it was also different from its sci-fi competition. Honorable mention: The Mandalorian (Disney+)–but only if we allow space fantasy since the series is not true science fiction, The Orville (Fox)–for its two-part epic movie-worthy space story, “Identity.”
Best New Ongoing TV Series, Runner-up: Best TV Soundtrack, Runner-up: Best TV Costumes/Makeup – The Mandalorian (Disney+). Not a lot needs explaining with this series, which in only its first two hours we rated it closer to the original Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back than anything with the Star Wars label on it since. The Western motif is still alive, not all that hidden here in space fantasy garb. And we won’t get started on the impact of The Child (aka Baby Yoda) on the genre-loving world and beyond. Credit Jon Favreau’s visible enthusiasm and love for the original movies for the success of this surprisingly awesome arrival–the series is proof Star Wars is far from over.
After its first episode back in 2015, we called it “your next favorite TV series.” This week iZombie saw its last episode.
Rob Thomas hasn’t directed the blockbuster movies or gained the same fame, but he’s filled in the gaps on television for genre fans where Joss Whedon left off. Along with giving us Veronica Mars (and refusing to let the world of Neptune, California, fade into TV history), Thomas brought Liv Moore and the post-apocalyptic zombie world of iZombie to life, a bigger and better heroine than the one found in the original Chris Roberson and Michael Allred comics. That was thanks to New Zealand actor Rose McIver, whose versatility and charm took her from roles in Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Legend of the Seeker to create one of our newest favorite superheroes. And with Thursday night’s fifth season and series finale episode it’s all over now, yet still leaving plenty of opportunity for future episodes, series, a film, or novels, just as Thomas has provided for his sleuth Veronica Mars.
Can the middle–the place of reason our heroes are striving to fight for–survive the extremism from both sides of the ongoing struggle? In the finale, “All’s Well that Ends Well,” Thomas brings everything full circle, wrapping up every last plot thread for Liv, Major, Clive, Ravi, Peyton, Dale, Blaine, and Don E. But he throws an eleventh hour wrench into the plot–the cure for zombies won’t help the kids with Fröhlich’s syndrome. Are they doomed either way? As always, Thomas leaves plenty of room for fun–the actors and characters, the banter, and that chemistry, that made iZombie so good for five seasons. Along with McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, Robert Buckley, Rahul Kohli, David Anders, Aly Michalka, Bryce Hodgson, and Jessica Harmon formed probably the best ensemble cast on network genre TV.
A perfect series finale is a reminder of how iZombiematched the success of Grimm in so many ways, and filled the void left by that show so well. iZombie also improved with each of its five seasons, and exponentially improved in its final season–as Grimm did–once the end of production was in sight, complete with the year’s best hour of TV, the noir send-up episode “Night and the Zombie City.” Series like these prove that when ratings aren’t the only driving force and creators have freedom to take characters in new directions, audiences are in store for a real treat.
Just as iZombie has aired its first episodes of its final season, showrunner Rob Thomas is readying Season 4 of the series that made him famous, Veronica Mars. Eight new episodes of Veronica Mars are coming to streaming service Hulu this summer. The new series finds the snarky private investigator five years after the events of the 2014 crowdfunded movie with more detective stories of So-Cal noir. Original actors returning include Kristen Bell (Veronica), Enrico Colantoni (Keith), Jason Dohring (Logan), Percy Daggs III (Wallace), Francis Capra (Weevil), Max Greenfield (Leo), Ryan Hansen (Dick), Ken Marino (Vinnie), Daran Norris (Cliff), and Adam Rose (Max).
Rob Thomas is back as script writer, so expect the same quirky dialogue and pop culture references he’s written for iZombie and the first three seasons of Veronica Mars. Don’t forget, Thomas’s two Veronica tie-in mystery novels are part of Veronica Mars canon. If you missed them, catch our reviews of The Thousand Dollar Tan Line here, and Mr. Kiss and Tellhere. Based on Thomas’s use of actors from Veronica Mars in his five seasons of iZombie, we wouldn’t be surprised to see some cameos from a few members of his iZombie cast to make an appearance.
Sorry, Thomas has not yet announced a few key actors from Veronica’s past for the next eight episodes, including best pal Tina Majorino (Mac), or boyfriends Chris Lowell as Piz, or Teddy Dunn as Duncan, or a lost twin sister of murdered friend Lily (Amanda Seyfried).
Hulu has released a trailer for the series. Check it out:
After a painfully long wait for fans, the CW Network renewed the hit horror comedy/drama iZombie for a fifth season last May. A year later and that final season is here, beginning with its season opener next Thursday. What began as a successful comic book series by writer Chris Roberson and artist Michael Allred for DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint about a gravedigger zombie gal who eats brains to survive, took on its own life under the deft management of showrunner Rob Thomas, who had already dazzled his target audience with Veronica Mars. Powerhouse star Rose McIver′s Liv Moore has become every bit the ace detective that Veronica was, but she also bridged the audience back to the pop culture references and off-the-wall fun Joss Whedon brought to TV audiences with the original badass heroine in his groundbreaking series Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
McIver had the added bonus of playing a character that had to change up her performance every single episode while also appearing in nearly every scene, like Quantum Leap’s Sam Beckett and more recently Tatiana Maslany’s several sisters in Orphan Black. And she has met the challenge with high energy along the way.
The first teaser for next week’s season opener, “Thug Death,” doesn’t give away much about the 13-episode series arc ahead. But it’s something new: Liv and Malcolm Goodwin′s Clive Babineaux must solve a murder with no body and no brain. And of course it’s clear there’s no skipping the craziness of the characters as we know them, except Robert Buckley′s Major, who probably needs to lighten up a little bit. The excellent villainy of the past four seasons has smartly balanced out the heroes’ story: first with the brilliant Steven Weber’s Vaughn Du Clark and his daughter Gilda (Leanne Lapp), then with Eddie Jemison’s mobster Stacey Boss, followed by the return of Veronica Mars lead Jason Dohring as the questionable zombie law enforcer Chase Graves, and meanwhile the writers built the character arc of Robert Knepper’s Angus into compelling new territory. Who will be the villain this year?
Check out a peek here with this preview to Season 5’s season opener for iZombie:
