TV’s Most Worthy and Cringeworthy of 2018

2018

Top Shows, People, Moments And More That We Found Worthy (And Cringeworthy) on TV In 2018.

The WORTHY

19. All the Felt
Oh, the wonders that can be achieved with a hot glue gun! Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman’s lighthearted crafting competition series Making It on NBC was an inspirational summer TV getaway.

18. Deep Cuts
A-lister Amy Adams made an edgy return to TV with her finely pointed portrayal of a troubled reporter in Sharp Objects, HBO’s perfect summer-thriller miniseries about a small town’s big secrets.

17. Let It Beep
Paul McCartney’s “Carpool Karaoke” cruise around Liverpool with The Late Late Show’s James Corden was so epic, CBS expanded it to an hourlong primetime special in August.

16. Zits a Living
For dermatologist Dr. Sandra Lee of TLC’s Dr. Pimple Popper, squeezing cheesy goo from growths, pulling fatty masses from lumpy lipomas and excising stuff from abscesses is all in a day’s work, and it made for some grossly engrossing TV.

15. Gory Daze
TNT’s Gilded Age murder mystery The Alienist took us to deep, dark places. On the bright side, the charming trio of Dr. Laszlo Kreizler (Daniel Brühl), John Moore (Luke Evans) and Sara Howard (Dakota Fanning) will be back on the case in The Angel of Darkness.

14. Last Laugh
After getting unceremoniously dumped by ABC in 2017, Tim Allen’s popular sitcom Last Man Standing got sturdy new legs this fall on FOX.

13. Legend of Stage, Screen & Song
Superstar John Legend added a Creative Arts Emmy to his trophy case for executive producing NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, making him one of the few people to have won an EGOT (an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony).

12. Superus Sicet Inferus
With its The Da Vinci Code meets The Big Lebowski tone, AMC’s Lodge 49 embarked on a quirky quest we can’t wait to continue in Season 2.

11. Full Stream Ahead
There were no sophomore slumps for streaming hits The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu), Ozark (Netflix) and GLOW (Netflix), as they only got better in their second seasons.

10. Fear the Unknown
What you don’t know can scare the pants off you, as we discovered in AMC’s eerie The Terror. The first season imagined the fate of an 1840s Arctic expedition, while Season 2 will center on a specter that haunts a Japanese-American community during World War II.

9. The Woman Who Fell to Earth
Jodie Whittaker made her debut as the Thirteenth Doctor — the first female one in the 55-year-old sci-fi franchise’s history — to rave reviews and big ratings for BBC America’s global premiere event in October.

8. Stones & Sticks
The U.S. Men’s Olympic Curling Team made history by beating Sweden to win America’s first Olympic gold medal in curling, and the U.S. Women’s Olympic Hockey Team triumphed in a tense shootout thriller vs. Canada in the gold medal game.

7. Wild About “Barry”
Who knew that pairing a socially awkward contract killer (Bill Hader) with an eccentric acting coach (Henry Winkler) would make HBO’s Barry the year’s breakout hit comedy?

6. Windsor Wonderland
The royal wedding of England’s Prince Harry and former Suits star Meghan Markle was this spring’s hottest TV ticket. Nielsen says 29 million people tuned into the wedding across 15 different TV networks.

5. Dasvidaniya, Comrades!
FX’s Cold War spy thriller The Americans wasn’t a huge ratings hit, but it received almost universal critical praise during its six seasons. The show went out with a bang in May, then won Emmys for best drama series writing and best actor (Matthew Rhys).

4. Kickin’ Assassin
BBC America’s Killing Eve was a devilishly clever cat-and-mouse match between British bureaucrat Eve (Sandra Oh) and high-class assassin Villanelle (Jodie Comer). Season 2 is expected in the spring.

3. Slow Cooker of Doom
NBC’s This Is Us finally revealed what happened to Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) on one fateful Super Bowl Sunday. Once our tears dried, we all checked on our slow cookers and replaced the batteries in our smoke detectors.

2. It’s You I Like
We remembered the kindness and creativity of Fred Rogers, whose Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood made its national TV debut 50 years ago. PBS presented the touching Mister Rogers: It’s You I Like retrospective in March, and will air the hit documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? next year.

1. Standing O
Oprah Winfrey’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes eloquently summed up how so many feel in the world of entertainment, and in the world as a whole. “In my career, what I’ve always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave, to say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere, and how we overcome,” she said. “I’ve interviewed and portrayed people who have withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights. So I want all the girls watching here now to know that a new day is on the horizon.”

The Cringeworthy

Ye Did What? It shouldn’t have surprised us when Kanye West performed a song in costume as a bottle of sparkling water on the Saturday Night Live season premiere. We’re just relieved he waited until the show was over to go on a nonsensical rant onstage.

Dead Show Walking Now that Carl (Chandler Riggs) and Rick (Andrew Lincoln) are gone, AMC’s The Walking Dead is stiffly stumbling around. After an unsatisfying Season 8 finale and a low-rated Season 9 premiere, it looks like lots of fans stabbed the series through the skull.

Perrette’s Painful Parting It was tough enough to see fan favorite Abby (Pauley Perrette) leave CBS stalwart NCIS, but Perrette’s claim that “multiple physical assaults” influenced her decision to leave the series after 15 seasons is simply heartbreaking.

Fired Weapon Lethal Weapon’s Martin Riggs character was always a loose cannon, but star Clayne Crawford turned out to be even more unhinged. Reports of abusive behavior on the set led to Crawford getting canned from the FOX show.

Barr Gets Booted Roseanne Barr celebrated the Roseanne revival’s renewal by getting some racist stuff off her chest on Twitter. ABC sacked Barr and axed the show without batting an eye, then barred her from any involvement in The Conners spinoff.

Low Opinion TV coverage of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination was plagued by unconvincing performances, unrelatable characters and an implausible premise. If our minds were a DVR, we’d delete it.

About Ryan Berenz 2166 Articles
Member of the Television Critics Association. Charter member of the Ancient and Mystic Society of No Homers. Squire of the Ancient & Benevolent Order of the Lynx, Lodge 49, Long Beach, Calif. Costco Wholesale Gold Star Member since 2011.