I am wholly convinced we have been living in the one true Golden Age of television.

Think about what’s come out since the turn of the century. Gone are the days of the boob tube; TV now presents some of the most engaging, thoughtful, and poignant forms of entertainment across all media.

There are also a lot of Look At These Sexy People Be Sexy reality shows. I know, I know… but you need BALANCE. After I’m done watching the glorious character development of Breaking Bad, sometimes I need to check out Temptation Island to see who gon’ fuck.

There’s something for everyone.

This month, we decided to narrow down the TV greatness to just the 2010’s with our draft topic. What have been the best shows to debut since 2010 started?

Joining me on my quest this time are A Podcast About Something, Take A Knee For Marvel Vs DC, and The Nerdy Bitches podcast! They are all fantastic, and I STRONGLY encourage you to check out their sites (and I have their Twitter accounts linked below)!

As always, the draft chat is color coded. You will find my remarks in boring old black, A Podcast About Something in red, Take A Knee in blue, and Nerdy Bitches in green. If you lose track, we will have a handy dandy summary at the bottom of the article!

Now… let’s get into the draft!

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Okay, here is the Draft Order: 1) Me, 2) @APASomething, 3) @knee4marvelvsdc 4) @NerdyBitchesPod I was VERY EXCITED RNG pulled my number for first overall until I saw Breaking Bad debuted in 2008. Guess I need to put together a draft board!

Breaking Bad is easily the number 1 pick if it was post 2005 shows.

Yeah, I wasn’t sure when it debuted. Nuts! I have no idea if there is a lock #1 here. Actually, there probably is, but it’s a show I don’t like, haha.

This is why I am going to lose and lose badly. My finger is as far away from the modern TV pulse as is humanly possible. With the first overall pick in the draft, I can only choose my favorite show of the 2010’s: THE GOOD PLACE. Easily one of the greatest sitcoms ever. It had a short, purposeful run, one of the best finales ever, and it was so damn funny and heartfelt and positive throughout. I loved this show so much.

That’s a great pick, but a rough number 1 overall! It’s gonna be awhile before I can make my first pick.

Take your time! And yeah, I left you guys Game of Thrones (hated it) and Stranger Things (never watched it), among others like The Americans and what-have-you. My list is going to be honest about what I liked, and I’ll take my 3% of the vote!

For my first round selection I am picking a show with one of the best villains of all time (listen to A Podcast About Something – Episode 130) and that show is Fargo! I slept on Fargo for way too long and when I finally caught up, I was stunned with how great it is. Every episode is dripping in tension and mystery. Fargo is great because it’s presented as an anthology series, but it’s really not because there are subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) connections between each season even though they take place in different decades and part of the fun of this show is finding those connections while trying to solve the central mystery of each season. The anthology set up also let’s a new set of elite actors spin their wheels in each new season of this intense show.

My first pick I’m going to go with one of my favorite shows going right now and one I think will be looked back on as a classic. That show is This is Us. As a biracial person I can relate to the color barrier with his family and I think they do a really good job just portraying real family problems and outcomes. Just a fantastic cast and show and one I think will stand the test of time.

That’s a good pick, it’s spawned so many copy cat shows with the shifting timelines too.

Like @SWOProductions I am planning to stick to shows I actually know and love. When I thought about my picks, I realized how much tv I apparently haven’t watched over the past decade, when we cut off cable and relied on streaming only. So the first pick for me is one that I just freaking love every time, and even the shit characters are great – Brooklyn 99! It is SO well cast and the writing is great and the bad puns are spectacularly bad and awesome. I love dry humor so the Captain is amazing.

Oh nuts, I really thought that would be available later!

I really need to get in on Brooklyn 99, but I feel like I’m too far behind now and don’t want to put in 7 years of catch up on it.

It takes about two weeks to watch it all. That’s pretty much what we did lol.

I just started watching it less than two years ago. I think it was mid season 6 when I started. It’s a breeze.

Damn! It took me like 3 months to do all of Good Place when it was only three seasons, but that was also in “the before times”^TM.

For my second pick, I finally hit play on one I had seen on Netflix for YEARS, but I just wasn’t sure I wanted to watch. But Schitt’s Creek is maybe the greatest thing I have seen in a long time. Humor, compassion, snark, troubling times, trying to fit in…it’s every socially awkward’s person’s dream.

I keep meaning to watch that! My wife has watched it twice and said she will sit through it again if I want to watch it.

Yeah my binging is a lot different than most people since I rarely sleep a full night. I have to calculate my hours to human hours.

From what I gather, it’s a more uplifting Arrested Development?

Schitts Creek is another one of need to get in on, but I do love Arrested Development so anything that gets a comp to AD is probably pretty good. Now I don’t know what to watch next!!! AHHHHHHHHHH

I couldn’t get past season one of Arrested Development, but it’s definitely a rich people are down on their luck and Catherine O’Hara is a national treasure (even if she is Canadian). Dan Levy is my favorite, and I am pretty sure I am Stevie.

That’s a shame; I love AD. At least the three original seasons.

I will say I am apparently much more likely to watch documentaries, competition shows, and all sorts of things that I just don’t think would be interesting in a Top 10 of a decade kind of list.

I honestly mostly watch pro wrestling, haha

Arrested Development is tough at first but once you get tolling it’s amazing. You can’t watch it the first time passively though, you’ve gotta be locked in or you’ll miss so much, but it’s all worth the payoffs.

I have never been much of a documentary person. I do like the occasional competition show. My wife watched the first 18 seasons of Hell’s Kitchen in a few months and I watched some of it with her.

My next pick is Netflix Daredevil. Reasoning coming soon…

You guys are KILLING ME. You are all on my wavelength. I never in a million years thought Brooklyn 99 and Daredevil would both be gone before my next pick. I had This Is Us relatively high in my board, too!

What can we say we all seem to have pretty good taste.

Daredevil for me is one of those shows that really seems to bring a character to life in the way you would imagine it. The show has in my opinion some of the best fight scenes with both hallway scenes, punishers prison scene, the one shot Matt Murdock prison escape scene, all of that and I haven’t even mention the bullseye fights. The cast is strong and Vincent D’ Onofrio was perfectly cast as Kingpin.

And as side note schitts creek is just a fantastic show I’m mad is off the board. Some of the best character arcs in all tv.

With my second pick I’m going with…Atlanta! A very Donald Glover creation if there ever was one. Atlanta mixes real life situations with humor and drama and adds in a dash of fantasy just for shits and goggles to make sure you’re really following along (shout out invisible car). It also introduced Brian Tyree Henry, Lakeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beats to a wider audience that they incredibly deserve. Donald Glover is amazing as Ern but he’s also the fourth best main character in the show. An endlessly fun show that always keeps you guessing on what’s happening and what may come next.

I really liked what I watched of Daredevil. It was right behind Luke Cage as my favorite of the Marvel series. We didn’t finish watching, but what we saw was badass.

Daredevil was great. Seasons 1 and 3 and borderline perfection.

Okay, let’s see what I can still scrape together. For the last pick in the second round, I am going to take HBO’s WATCHMEN. I never would have believed it if you told me a sequel show to Watchmen would be worthwhile, but this series was pretty darn good. It managed a perfect blend of keeping established characters relevant and introducing new ones. And it felt as timely in the 2010’s as Watchmen did in the 1980’s.

And to kick off the third round, I’m going to grab Nextflix’ GLOW. This was such a strong show with a REMARKABLE cast. I’m upset it isn’t getting another season, which makes the ending really sad, but it was funny and poignant and emotional.

I’m going with a personal favorite that I don’t see too many people talking about but whenever people do talk about it, it’s about how great it is and that’s Mr. Robot. Rami Malek is superb as the gray hat hacker with something more going on that you can never quite put your finger on. Mr. Robot is another show that makes you question everything that may or may not be happening and second guessing what and who is real. It’s a mystery wrapped in a riddle with a dose of enigma.

We loved Mr. Robot before we got rid of cable. I think we only got through the first season. I’ve seen it available on streaming, so I’m definitely adding it to my list.

It’s in Amazon now I think, it gets more and more intense and absurd as the series goes on.

So for my next pick I’m gonna let me nerd side come out a little bit more. This is an anime I’m just now finding out about and it already is one of if not my favorite of all time. Hunter x Hunter. This anime is the perfect blend of fighting, humor, coming of age, and just a lot of fun. The Gon and Killua friendship is one of the best over ever seen. Gon is also one of the more likable and easier character to root for then a lot main protagonists. Every episode matters and there is very litter fluff. This is just a great anime and show.

I’m a huge Star Wars nerd and I would have chosen The Clone Wars if it hadn’t started before 2010. But I have really been impressed with The Mandalorian, so that’s my 3rd pick. The whole show has a very spaghetti western/samurai feel to it while maintaining the Star Wars-ness of it all. The cool part is that you can pretty much pick up the show even if you aren’t a fan or if you have never heard of/seen the movies. Plus, BABY YODA!!!

Somehow The Mandalorian was not even on my draft board!!!! What am I doing with my life?!?!?!?

I’m going a completely different route and picking a sitcom. I haven’t had cable in years and that includes network TV that doesn’t show up on Hulu or Netflix. But thankfully, my pick was on Hulu! I’m going with The Goldbergs. I’m a Gen Xer, and we LOVE our childhood nostalgia and this show hits all the notes. I remember my own experiences back in 1980-something, and they were very similar to Adam’s in a lot of ways. All of the characters are just perfect and loveably weird, as all 80s families were.

I love The Goldberg, its perfect!

I had The Mando on my list, but relatively far down because I’ve only seen, like, a few scattered episodes. It’s good, but including it would strictly have been fan service.

That’s how I feel about Game of Thrones. I hate it. I know I’m in the minority there.

I got a season and a half info GoT and tapped out. The lady gave birth to the smoke monster from Lost, and I was like “I’m out”.

Yeah I have watched Season 1 twice and I just can’t do it. Everything about it is just… ick. Heather and I do fandom swaps from time to time (I had her watch Battlestar Galactica and she had me watch Doctor Who), and this was one we agreed on… I made her watch 7 seasons of Gilmore Girls plus the reboot…and so far I have totally punked out on GOT. It gives me so much anxiety.

Gilmore Girls > Game of Thrones ALL DAY.

So I guess it’s back on me and I also will take things a differnt direction. I went with the uplifting, fun, and lighthearted Hunter x Hunter for my last pick this time I’m going dark and going with a show I think in 10 years will be look back on as a classic. HBO The Leftovers. It tells the story of a rapture like event and most of the world population is just gone and the aftermath of it. It’s a great show that you have to watch a couple times. It’s dark, and can be a bit much but it always leaves you wanting to see what happens next.

With my 4th pick I’m going with someone that I could watch painting a fence as long as he’s quipping the whole time and that’s Jason Bateman in Ozark. I think we were all a little bummed that we couldn’t pick Breaking Bad, and Ozark is honestly the next best thing. It delves into the money laundering side of the drug trade more so than BB ever did but still keep all of the suspense and intrigue and danger. Once you get past the deep Missouri accents, it’s very enjoyable to watch and wants you start, you won’t stop.

All right, so I have two picks here. In the RARE INSTANCES where I have any success in these drafts, it’s because I lean towards recency bias. Shows that are very fresh in peoples’ memories that they know they’ve enjoyed. So I’ll go with everyone’s current obsession: WANDAVISION. When everyone was curious if A) The MCU could keep at it after the Infinity Saga and B) how the MCU would look as TV shows on Disney+, WandaVision has to have exceeded all expectations. And it’s really going against the MCU formula grain!

And to kick off the 5th round, I’m going to draft the show that proved Fox still had a golden touch in terms of animation: BOB’S BURGERS. Way funnier than Family Guy or American Dad ever was, BB is a hilarious show. Great characters, fitting animation, and perfect voice actors.

For round 5 I’m going with a refreshing comedy my wife and I stumbled on: Upload on Amazon Prime. My wife is not a huge fan of scripted comedies (she prefers to watch shows about how easy it is for everyday people to get away with murder), but we tried this out together and were both completely entranced by it. Robbie Amell is fantastic as the kind dolfy lead that gets his consciousness uploaded to heaven and has to deal with the fallout from that. Humor, drama, mystery, and hope are all wrapped up into this wonderful show.

So for my next pick and I’m shocked this show is still here, I’m going with Stranger Things. I was about 4 years late on this show and really checked it out because one of the main kids is in the IT remake and was good in it. Millie is fantastic is this and David Harbour gives a star making performance throughout. The letter he wrote for 11 at the end of season 3 especially now that I’m a father still gets me all chocked up.

Now we come to the part where I struggle and realize that I haven’t watched much on tv in the last decade that wasn’t a competition show, someone cooking something, or Sharks.

My 5th pick is another nerdy one because, well, it’s me. I’m more Marvel than DC in general, but DC did such a tremendous job with its Arrowverse shows and The Flash is my favorite of them. I just love Barry Allen so much and I wish he could get a break. But the casting is great, the storylines generally move along, and you want him to win.

Grant Gustin is great and really the casting in the Flash is great all around, but the speed monster of the week format is really starting to wear on me.

I’m behind several seasons, so it may not hold over time, but it’s a show that we watched a lot until we had to start waiting until May for them to come out on Netflix.

And my 6th pick is utterly ridiculous and I can’t help but watch – Swamp People. There is something weirdly endearing with this band of weirdo hunters in the swamp shooting each other and nearly getting bitten by alligators that makes me happy.

The Flash is really good; the first 2 seasons are top notch. Grant is a great flash. Joe west might be my favorite character. Just a great cast.

Ok so for my last pick it’s one that I have to admit I have seen every episode multiple times and still laugh the same amount. Impractical Jokers is my pick. Though the last few seasons have suffered from the guys just being to big and a lot braver, but those first few seasons are still fantastic watches. The permanent punishment is still to this day my favorite punishment and episode.

For my final pick, I’m coming back with another show from the great Noah Hawley and that’s Legion. Set in an alternate-ish x-men universe tells and interesting and mind bending story that you have to watch until the very end to make sure you know what’s really going on. I still don’t fully understand everything that happened but I loved every second of it, because it’s beautiful and mind boggling. The best way to describe Legion is 4 seasons of mind fuck.

All right and to finish off the draft, I will take the next best thing to Breaking Bad: Better Call Saul. It’s not AS good as BrBa, but it maintains a lot of the intensity and brilliant acting.

Shout out to a bunch of shows I love that finished outside the draft: Doom Patrol, Harley Quinn, Crazy Ex Girlfriend, and Last Week Tonight (which I wasn’t sure even should count anyway).

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Catch all that? No? Well, luckily, we have summaries:

STEW:

A PODCAST ABOUT SOMETHING:

TAKE A KNEE:

NERDY BITCHES:

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And congratulations after our blind draft this month go out to… ME!

Hey, I finally won one of these! I thought for sure Nerdy Bitches had this on lock down, but the people saw it differently.

What do you want to see us draft next? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time… take care!