Bear ( D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) begins to see visions of a dead warrior from the Battle of Little Bighorn ( Dallas Goldtooth), a figure more comical than heroic, while Cheese ( Lane Factor) strikes up an unexpected alliance with the reservation’s cop, Big ( Zahn McClarnon).

The four work together to amass cash for a move to California, but in this droll, magical meander through rez life, nothing is quite predictable. They’re truants and thieves, but underneath their tough exteriors, they’re haunted by the narrow scope of rez life, the failures of the adults in their lives, and most of all, the rending tragedy of the recent suicide of the fifth of their group. Reservation Dogsįrom creators Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, this offbeat comedy set on an Oklahoma Indian reservation follows a group of four teenagers trying to hustle their way out of the place they grew up. At any rate, here are the shows that rose to the top for me this year. But maybe this is how TV works now that it’s molded by algorithms-the inevitable effect of the “because you liked…” recommendation engine. Even in my top 10 list I see a lot of overlap: shows about the bad behavior of the very rich, characters haunted by past trauma, murder mysteries with unique settings, costume dramas with a flair for retelling history, and-my personal favorite highly niche subcategory-the coming of age of young South Asian femmes. This year, as many of the productions delayed by COVID-19 were dropped on us at once, it became a little easier to think of shows as the categories they fit into. Sometimes it’s less delightful-like when a dozen of our favorite books or old shows are flipped into big adaptations for streaming services, leaving TV littered with big and flawed remakes that aren’t exactly bad but feel harvested of whatever made the source material magical.

My ongoing affection for elderly, cranky comedians takes me from the 15th season of our old standby Curb Your Enthusiasm, from Larry David, to Pretend It’s a City and Only Murders in the Building, both of which take elder statespeople of comedy and put them in fresh formats- Fran Lebowitz as Martin Scorsese’s favorite dinner guest Steve Martin and Martin Short as true-crime podcast hosts.

In 2021, it’s felt especially difficult, because as the streamers vie to outdo each other, they’re creating shows that overlap. It’s always hard to find room for everything I love in my best-shows-of-the-year list.

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