2019 has been a huge year for television series and mini-series. While some pop culture giants saw their final season, new contenders have entered the airwaves and show how diverse genre, representation, and storytelling can be in long-form media. From fantasy, Westerns, book adaptations, and history, this season of television was packed to the brim with new stories and returning seasons that took captured our contributors’ hearts. With eight writers submitting their picks here are the top shows of 2019 we’ve done our best to try to cover many of the series that have been taking pop culture by storm and some that are underrated.
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This list includes returning season, mini-series, network, and streaming series that came out this year. Each series finds itself on this list based on our contributors’ opinions and what they think their individual top shows of 2019 to be. Now, on with the show.
15. Good Omens
Platform: Amazon Prime Video
Creators: Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett
Stars: David Tennant, Michael Sheen, Frances McDormand
A tale of the bungling of Armageddon features an angel, a demon, an eleven-year-old Antichrist, and a doom-saying witch.
14. NOS4A2
Platform: Network (AMC)
Creator: Jami O’Brien based on the novel by Joe Hill
Stars: Ashleigh Cummings, Zachary Quinto, Ólafur Darri Ólafsson
Charlie Manx, a seductive immortal who feeds off the souls of children, has his whole world threatened when a young woman in New England discovers she has a dangerous gift.
13. The End of the F***ing World
Platform: Netflix
Creator: Charlie Covell
Stars: Jessica Barden, Alex Lawther, Steve Oram
James is 17 and is pretty sure he is a psychopath. Alyssa, also 17, is the cool and moody new girl at school. The pair make a connection and she persuades him to embark on a road trip in search of her real father.
12. The Boys
Platform: Amazon Prime Video
A group of vigilantes set out to take down corrupt superheroes who abuse their superpowers.
Creators: Eric Kripke, Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen
Stars: Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr
11. The Mandalorian
Platform: Disney+
Creator: Jon Favreau
Stars: Pedro Pascal, Carl Weathers, Werner Herzog
The travels of a lone bounty hunter in the outer reaches of the galaxy, far from the authority of the New Republic.
10. Russian Doll
Platform: Netflix
Creators: Leslye Headland, Natasha Lyonne, Amy Poehler
Stars: Natasha Lyonne, Charlie Barnett, Greta Lee
A cynical young woman in New York City keeps dying and returning to the party that’s being thrown in her honor on that same evening. She tries to find a way out of this strange time loop.
9. Wu Assassins
Platform: Netflix
Creators: Tony Krantz, John Wirth
Stars: Iko Uwais, Byron Mann, Li Jun Li
A warrior chosen as the latest and last Wu Assassin must search for the powers of an ancient triad and restore balance in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
8. Pose
Platform: Network (FX)
Creators: Steven Canals, Brad Falchuk, Ryan Murphy
Stars: Mj Rodriguez, Dominique Jackson, Indya Moore
Pose is set in the world of 1987 and “looks at the juxtaposition of several segments of life and society in New York: the rise of the luxury universe, the downtown social and literary scene and the ball culture world.”
7. Warrior
Platform: Network (Cinemax)
Creator: Jonathan Tropper based on the work of Bruce Lee
Stars: Andrew Koji, Olivia Cheng, Jason Tobin, Rich Ting
Set during the Tong Wars in the late 1800s, Ah Sahm, a martial arts prodigy originating from China to San Francisco, ends up becoming a hatchet man for the most powerful tong in Chinatown
6. The Witcher
Platform: Netflix
Creator: Lauren Schmidt based on the book series by Andrzej Sapkowski
Stars: Henry Cavill, Freya Allan, Anya Chalotra
Geralt of Rivia, a solitary monster hunter, struggles to find his place in a world where people often prove more wicked than beasts.
5. Chernobyl
Platform: Network (HBO)
Creator: Craig Mazin
Stars: Jessie Buckley, Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård
In April 1986, an explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics becomes one of the world’s worst man-made catastrophes.
4. His Dark Materials
Platform: Network (HBO)
Creator: Jack Thorne based on the book series by Philip Pullman
Stars: Dafne Keen, Kit Connor, Amir Wilson
A young girl is destined to liberate her world from the grip of the Magisterium which represses people’s ties to magic and their animal spirits known as daemons.
3. The Good Place
Platform: Network (NBC)
Creator: Michael Schur
Stars: Kristen Bell, William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto
Four people and their otherworldly frienemy struggle in the afterlife to define what it means to be good.
2. The Umbrella Academy
Platform: Netflix
Creator: Jeremy Slater
Stars: Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda
A family of former child heroes, now grown apart, must reunite to continue to protect the world.
1. Watchmen
Platform: Network (HBO)
Creator: Damon Lindelof based on the world of Watchmen created by Allan Moore
Stars: Regina King, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Tom Mison
Set in an alternate history where masked vigilantes are treated as outlaws, Watchmen embraces the nostalgia of the original groundbreaking graphic novel of the same name, while attempting to break new ground of its own.
So that’s our top shows of 2019. Did we miss any that on your top list? Some you would move higher?
