The Shows listed are not Ranked!
1. Castle Rock
Stephen King had a bit of a revival this year, at least on TV, but out of all the adaptations from various streaming services, Hulu’s Castle Rock seemed like the most effective, and the scariest, of the bunch. The film, starring Sissy Spacek, Andre Holland, and Bill Skarsgard, explores the story of Henry (Holland) the death row prosecutor who was called home after a young man was found incarcerated under Shawshank gaol. Henry also has a murky history, one that includes the unexplained murder of his father — an incident he has no recollection of — and the unusual happenings around the city are escalating as The Kid (Skarsgard) is set free and has to find out how he’s related to Henry, his family, and history. It’s just as clever and scary bits, everything you could look for in a King adaptation. The second run of the episode is almost as convincing, with Lizzy Caplan walking into the orthopedic shoes of nurse Annie Wilkes before her Suffering days. She’s also distressed and disturbed the town of Castle Rock while trying to hold her daughter in the darkness of Elsie Fisher’s Eighth Grade.
2. Runaways
It is a show which has been adapted from the comic book by Marvel created by Adrian Alphona and Brian K. Vaughan. Runaways is a slick, fast-moving teen soap about high school teens exploring and coming to grips with their emerging super-powers. Runaways find the happy room between the heaviness of Marvel’s Netflix dramas and the lighter aspect of their network shows (Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter). It’s a strong mix of enticing suspense and age-old plot. The young protagonists here are amazing as they grapple with their own abilities when exploring the troubling past of their community. Runaways is taking a lot of guidance from Schwartz and Savage’s The O.C. And Gossip Girl, respectively, but the series is not half as exciting when it comes to investigating the conspiracy involving the parent characters, who are actually the supervillains of the series. The storytelling shortfall, though, is more than exacerbated by the presence of a dinosaur!
3. Ramy
Ramy Youssef won the Golden Globe Best Actor for his depiction of a clone of himself on this smart sitcom about the first generation of Egyptian Americans on a spiritual quest in his politically polarised New Jersey neighborhood. Caught between a Muslim culture that considers life to be a spiritual examination and a millennial generation who may not believe in results, Ramy’s worldview is complex, troubled, and changing. While he’s searching for some sort of enlightenment, it doesn’t mean he still doesn’t want to be a typical 20-something who dates, goes to parties, and all that. He’s just trying to find some sort of equilibrium.
4. Catch 22
George Clooney, Kyle Chandler, and Christopher Abbott appeared in the retelling of Joseph Heller’s classic book. Abbot is a new recruit, Yossarian, a U.S. Air Force Bomber in World War II. Yossarian wants to stop having to participate in combat after the army has raised the amount of missions needed before one’s service can be deemed complete. He was forced to face off against a truly sadistic officer while fighting for his life on the front line. It’s crazy that Abbott isn’t a bigger star than he is, but he’s heading this farcical troupe with A-list swagger, and Chandler is amazingly wonderful playing against his usual, lovable-dad casting.
5. The Path
Set in upstate New York, The Journey is about the participants of a fictitious mystical moment (or cult) called Meyerism. The series revolves largely around Eddie Lane (Aaron Paul), who has a revelation whilst on a retreat that causes him to doubt his religion. Eddie, though, will not admit his suspicions to his religious wife, Sarah (Michelle Monaghan), who suspects that her husband is keeping an affair from her. Things are more complicated by Cal (Hugh Dancy), the manipulative and dishonest leader of the Meyerist Movement, whose aims are sometimes at odds with the more altruistic objectives of the movement. Though featuring a solid performance from the lead. The Direction is a predictably sluggish burn that doesn’t catch fire until near the end of the first season, only to break out again as the second season begins. There’s an interesting tale being told on The Road, but at the moment it’s not one that merits 10 episodes a season, and the series frequently struggles to stretch its thin plot around a canvas that’s too wide.
6. Future Man
Future Man is actually a mash-up of The Last Starfighter, Back to the Future, and The Terminator. Josh Hutcherson stars as Josh Futterman, a loser-ish science lab janitor who has been the first person ever to complete a virtually impossible-to-beat video game. The game, it turns out, is a training application sent back from the future to locate the savior of mankind. Video game protagonists hire Josh to fly back to the past to destroy the head of the research lab (Keith David) where Josh works in the present to prevent his employer from discovering a cure for herpes that eventually winds up wiping out mankind in the future. There’s a lot to unpack in his premise, but as soon as Future Man falls to his feet and finds his heart, the character transforms into more than just a mouthpiece for quick-fire pop-culture riffs. Eliza Coupe (Happy Ends) is awesome as a fast-talking badass with an arsenal-laced “rathole” and a love of hand-to-hand fighting.
7. The Act
The Act is a seasonal anthology series that focuses on some of the strangest true crime stories that come straight from the headlines. The first season is followed by Gypsy Blanchard (Joey King), a girl who is trying to avoid the abusive relationship she has with her mum, Dee Dee (Patricia Arquette), who suffers from Munchausen by proxy. When Gypsy finds freedom, she opens a Pandora’s box of lies that eventually leads to her mother’s murder. If you like wild, true tales of things that get radically out of control, you’re going to love The Act.
