The Best TV Shows of 2017 | TV/Streaming

5. “The Leftovers” (HBO)

Writing about the final season of “The Leftovers” hurts a little bit. It hurts because there’s no more coming, and even a near-perfect finale can’t ease that sting. It hurts because yeah, we’ll still see Carrie Coon, Amy Brenneman, Christopher Eccleston, Ann Dowd, Justin Theroux, Regina King, and the rest of the cast, but it won’t ever be quite like this again (that is, until the next time Coon decides to blow the doors off the place.) It hurts because “The Leftovers” is one of a kind, and in a world where everyone’s either looking for the next “Game of Thrones” or trying to figure out the best way to reboot “The Office,” I can already feel its lack. But mostly, it hurts because it’s supposed to. Saying goodbye to a show you love can be difficult, but if “The Leftovers” taught its audience one thing, it’s the power of a painful goodbye.

4. “Twin Peaks: The Return” (SHOWTIME)

Far better critics than I have written about “Part 8,” David Lynch’s journey into the heart of a mushroom cloud. They’ve said a great deal about its brilliance, and a great deal more about what it all means. The most exciting thing about that hour—the single most audacious thing I’ve seen on television in many years—is that months later, I still can’t tell you what I think it means. What I can tell you is how it felt, or rather, how it feels. It feels like a demon space bug crawled inside my mouth and took up residence somewhere in my gut. It feels lodged, like a new permanent resident in my being. It’s like a scab I can’t stop picking at. It’s sour and strange and ugly and utterly unforgettable. For that episode alone, a person could call “Twin Peaks: The Return” the show of the decade and I wouldn’t feel compelled to argue. But there’s so much more to this series than “Gotta light?” Lynch and Mark Frost picked up the pieces of the original “Twin Peaks” and turned them into a meditation on death, not just by the violence of evil, but by the violence of time. A profound look at aging, failing, losing, and being lost, “The Return” shook me, and many, manny others, to the core. Add in a tremendous performance by Kyle Maclachlan, some of the darkest humor of this or any year, and all that daring experimentation in form, and you’ve got an accomplishment on par with … well, on par with the work of David Lynch.

3. “The Good Place” (NBC)

In “The Leftovers” and “Twin Peaks,” we got two of the greatest series finales in history, but neither of them gave us the best finale of the year. In “Michael’s Gambit,” one smile from Ted Danson turned Michael Schur’s delightful series completely on its head; one wolfish laugh, and everything we thought we knew was suddenly transformed. Much has been made of Schur’s conversations with Damon Lindelof about taking a “Lost”-style, twist-heavy approach to a sitcom, but “Holy Motherforking Shirt Balls” beats “Kate, we have to go back!” any day. Not one of the first season’s many twists could have prepared the world for the big one, and it’s so good that even now, almost a year later, I’m loathe to even hint at what happens, lest I spoil it for the one big TV fan who hasn’t yet climbed aboard Schur’s deranged, delightful trolley.