2012: The Year in Television

10. Doctor Who / Sherlock (BBC)
Steven Moffat's Sherlock, much like its source, is more concerned with blowing the audience's mind than creating emotional resonance, but it is no less exciting television for that. Meanwhile, what has been a slow start to his third season on Doctor Who nonetheless manages to put an exciting new spin on the Daleks, deliever a romp that lives up to its title in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship," and bid an emotional farewell to two of the Doctor's most memorable companions.

9. Veep (HBO)
Armando Iannucci brings his brand of political satire to US television, and, by providing Julia Louis-Dreyfus the role of her career (not to mention assembling a strong supporting cast), creates what is, laugh for laugh, the funniest comedy to grace television screens in 2012.

8. Community (NBC)
Season Three of Community got off to a shaky start, but the string of episodes that aired in 2012 are among the best the show has ever done, particularly "Introduction to Finality," a bold affirmation of the shows themes that serves as a suitable makeshift series finale in the wake of Dan Harmon's departure.

7. Luck (HBO)
Overshadowed by the unfortunate horse deaths that led to its cancellation, David Milch's deliberate drama presents an engrossing world of aged white men and their horses that serves as a poignant metaphor for an America that has given itself over to the unforgiving Gods of capitalism.

6. Girls (HBO)
Lena Dunham's new HBO comedy is the first to bear the unmistakable influence of Louis C.K.'s show-du-jour, but its frank and undeniably feminist perspective on female sexuality announces Dunham as a unique and welcome presence in the TV comedy landscape.

5. Breaking Bad (AMC)
The first half of Breaking Bad's Final Season has a few questionable scenes that keep it from reaching the heights of Seasons Two through Four (notably the dubstep-scored car commercial that opened the fourth episode), but it remains the tensest hour on television, featuring moments that rival any entry into the genre of psychological horror since The Shining.

4. Game of Thrones (HBO)
With the endings of perennial favorites like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Treme closing in, Game of Thrones stepped onto the stage it set in its first season and declared itself king of the up and coming dramas, as war breaks out in its increasingly engaging world of political machinations and moral complexities.

3. Treme (HBO)
David Simon's examination into the ways art, culture, and community can if not abate at least assuage the ills that result from collective trauma and institutional dysfunction continues to reward its audiences patience in its third season while expanding its exquisitely crafted vision of New Orleans.

2. Louie (FX)
Much has been made of Louie's unpredictability, but perhaps more notable is the rate at which its experiments succeed–particularly successful this year were the two-parter co-starring Parker Posey and the Late Show triple-header featuring a typically enigmatic performance from David Lynch. C.K.'s presence will be missed on television screens in 2013.

1. Mad Men (AMC)
The run of episodes in Mad Men's Fifth Season stretching from "Mystery Date" to "Dark Shadows"–each possessing the depth, scope, richness, and poignancy of feature films–could be the strongest in television history. "Christmas Waltz" provides a brief respite before plunging the audience into the depths of despair via "The Other Woman" and "Commissions and Fees." Following a seventeen month hiatus, Matt Weiner and company are still aeons ahead of their peers, finding new ways to improve on perfection with each successive season, crafting what may well be the greatest show of all time.