Apple Tree Yard
Disquieting drama full of hairpin turns. Emily Watson is exceptional as illustrious scientist Yvonne Carmichael, mastering each scene as the action plummets from steamy mid-life trysts with the mysterious Mark Costley (Ben Chaplin) to “the first honest depiction of rape on television” – and on to a court case that threatens not just her reputation but her entire existence.
What we said: There is a strong message here that – contrary to what you might be led to believe from every other drama on television – female sexuality doesn’t suddenly end at 35, but can become more powerful and more profound. Certainly for Yvonne it does, even if it somehow leads her to court.
Big Little Lies
A sexy, witty murder mystery set among California’s moneyed elementary school moms. And it comes with an A-list cast – Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Alexander Skarsgård – giving excellent performances across the board. It may start out soapy, but it deepens into a pitch-dark exposition of married life and the disturbing truths that can lurk behind closed doors.
What we said: Let me ask you a question. Would you like a series that has everything? Good. Because it is, emphatically, HERE.
Broadchurch
Back to the notorious crime hotspot that is Dorset as DS Miller (Olivia Colman) and DI Hardy (David Tennant) tackle one last case. A fine return to form, after the notorious mess made of the second series.
What we said: If this is the end, then Chris Chibnall has left viewers happy, if that word is appropriate for a show that started with an investigation of the death of a child and finished with a serial rape case.
Broken
Jimmy McGovern and Sean Bean have bruised, battered and broken our hearts a hundred times over, and the series hasn’t even finished yet. Bean is mesmerising as Father Michael Kerrigan, a small-town priest trying to spare his flock from the horrors of gambling addiction, sexual abuse and police brutality. A tender, almost tangible exploration of poverty in the UK today.
What we said: No one does anger, pain and misery quite like McGovern, and with Broken he has plumbed new depths of social despair. What makes it not just bearable but utterly gripping is his dark, dry humour and the magnificent performance of his leading man.
Catastrophe
Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney’s sitcom is still scabrous and hilarious. But its third series is also more sad, serious and poignant – in large part down to the very last screen appearance of Carrie Fisher.
What we said: That the comedy – like many comedies right now, it frequently leans towards tragedy – has sustained itself way beyond its original premise is a credit to the acidity and frankness of the writing. Rob and Sharon were thrown together by an accidental pregnancy, but, in among the gags about erections and vomit, it has become a show about how a long-term relationship survives.
Chewing Gum
The second outing of Michaela Coel’s outrageous Bafta-winning comedy. Back on the Pensbourne estate, Tracey is getting into scrapes as usual, shouting about her propensity for thrush in a sex club, getting embroiled in a zoophilia ring after becoming the dog walker to Oral-ando, a pornographic dachshund – and almost losing her virginity in a disabled toilet, only to end up covered in vomit. More awards for her, please.
What we said: With some notable exceptions – Fleabag, for example – British comedy has been lagging behind its dramatic siblings in terms of inventiveness and originality. In Chewing Gum, there’s a vision of a new future.
Dear White People
Expanded from his 2014 film of the same name, Julian Simien’s refreshingly on-point satire about the racism implicit in US college life has sharpened its bite.
What we said: A show that’s clearly not pulling its punches when it comes to race and its role in society.
Doctor Who
Showrunner Steven Moffat and Peter Capaldi have stepped up their game for their last trip in the Tardis. From the ballsy new companion Bill Potts (Pearl Mackie) to the return of Missy and the most iconic 60s monsters, the Mondasian Cybermen, it’s been barnstorming. But by Rassilon, who will be the 13th Doctor?
What we said: A series I’ve managed to find little fault in.
Girls
Hannah, Jessa, Marnie and Shosh’s farewell tour – and it ended so far from where it began: with the pain, panic and double breast pumps of motherhood. Whatever else you may think about it, Lena Dunham’s show has given many millennial women a mirror.
What we said: The Girls audience may not be inspired to dress like Hannah Horvath, live in her neighbourhood or drink her favourite cocktails, but they’ve more than likely made the same bad decisions she’s made, fallen into the same terrible relationships, and, finally, grown up with her.
The Handmaid’s Tale
Elisabeth Moss proves herself the actor of her generation with her performance as Offred in the captivating, terrifying adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel about an alternative America. Blessed be the fruit. May the Lord open.
What we said: It’s brilliant television – I doubt there will be anything better this year. Resonant now, yes, but it will go on being so, ringing in your ears.
King Charles III
The BBC drama that outraged royalists long before they even saw it. There’s a new king; Prince William and Kate “Lady Macbeth” Middleton are plotting his downfall; Prince Harry gets a plebeian, republican girlfriend – and Princess Diana’s ghost stalks the halls of the Palace.
What we said: Surely the boldest BBC show of the year.
Legion
Noah Hawley’s psychedelic superhero show set in a psychiatric hospital.
What we said: As superhero TV reaches critical mass, Hawley has helped the genre take a necessary evolutionary leap, mutating it into something refreshingly sophisticated and artful.
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
After a disappointing film version in the 00s, Lemony Snicket’s comic novels finally get the all-singing, all-pratfalling adaptation they deserve, with a star turn from Neil Patrick Harris as the wonderfully wicked Count Olaf.
What we said: Fabulous steampunk fun.
Little Boy Blue
Distressing dramatisation of the death of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, who was shot in the back in a pub car park in Liverpool as he walked home from football practice. A staggering portrait of a grieving mother, and a city in mourning.
What we said: Incredibly moving. I was in bits pretty much from the off.
Line of Duty
Jed Mercurio’s twisty thriller returns with more corrupt cops, cliffhangers and of course Balaclava Man. Our heroes from AC-12 finally meet their match in DCI Roz Huntley (Thandie Newton).
What we said: This is less like watching TV, and more like being abducted by it, cuffed, then dragged along.
Master of None
Aziz Ansari’s loose, lovelorn sitcom expanded its remit in season two, offering up a black-and-white episode inspired by Bicycle Thieves, and an Altman-esque series of vignettes about life in New York. What has remained the same is his willingness to tackle issues both big – race, religion, gender – and small – his failure to get the girl.
What we said: More confident and bold than it was last time out.
Pls Like
BBC3’s brilliant bitesize mockumentary on a subject just ripe for satire: the Zoella and Joe Wicks-dominated world of superstar vlogging. Cynical standup Liam Williams gets drunk and goes viral, winning a competition to be the next YouTube sensation under the moniker Vloggy McVlogface. But he can’t access the £10,000 cash prize until he gets “schooled” by some peppy industry insiders.
What we said: Hopefully, Pls Like will stage a Fleabag-style breakthrough … it deserves to be watched by as many people as possible. It may just go down as the Spinal Tap of vlogging.
Silicon Valley
Still the best comedy on TV that far too few people are talking about. We love you Jared.
What we said: I’ve spent the last couple of months watching the internet froth itself dry over a succession of lesser comedies – your Kimmy Schmidts, your Car Shares, your Masters of None – while Silicon Valley has quietly scaled ever more peerlessly majestic heights. And now I’m here to say stop. Enough is enough. Silicon Valley is astonishing. The fact that you’re not watching it is ridiculous.
Taboo
From the incest and exorcism scenes to the gunpowder plots, Tom Hardy’s grubby, grimy, Georgian period drama is bonkers to the last.
What we said: Hardy’s passion piece (or vanity project if you’re feeling cruel) is big, bold and brash. It’s a heady stew of gothic revenge tale and colonial critique that draws on everything from Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins to H Rider Haggard and Joseph Conrad … As a viewer you can either submit to the madness swirling all round or sigh and give up in disgust.
Three Girls
Essential if desperately hard to watch dramatisation of the Rochdale child sexual abuse scandal.
What we said: The strength of the drama is that it does what everyone and everything – including the investigation – failed to do: it focuses on the abused rather than the abusers. The story is told from the girls’ – particularly Holly’s – point of view, which is the perspective that really matters here.
Twin Peaks
“This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within.” The TV event of the year, some would say the quarter-century. David Lynch’s mind-expanding masterwork returns for the first time since 1991 – and it’s somehow even trippier.
What we said: I love Twin Peaks because it represents David Lynch at his most gleefully ornery. The man can do whatever he likes. I’m in deep.
Unforgotten
A corpse is dredged from a river in a suitcase, with only a waterlogged pager in his pocket to identify him by. How will our sleuths DCI Cassie Stuart (Nicola Walker) and DS Sunny Khan (Sanjeev Bhaskar) solve the crime? The second series of ITV’s acclaimed drama started out as standard procedural, then morphed into something far more brave and devastating.
What we said: Unforgotten is so much more than a satisfying murder mystery. It is such a human show. This one has been a thoughtful and timely examination of how sexual abuse affects children. Of the physical and irreparable mental damage it does, how it changes that person for ever.
In our critics’ opinions, these are the best shows of the first half of 2017. Are we right? Should we have included The Americans, American Gods, The Trip to Spain, Isis: The Origins of Violence, The Keepers, The Moorside,Crazy Ex-Girlfriend or Better Call Saul?