The tastemakers at the American Film Institute have issued their list of outstanding TV programs for the upcoming AFI Awards — deemed “culturally and artistically representative of the year’s most significant achievements in the art of the moving image.
The list was a mix of established and new shows on cable television; only two network shows were represented. And while Netflix didn’t get much love at last September’s Emmy Awards, the streaming network was well-represented here.
In alphabetical order, the series are:
- “The Americans.” FX’s smart spy drama about two Russian agents (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) infiltrating a suburban community in the America of Ronald Reagan.
- “Breaking Bad.” The explosive final season which ended memorably with Walter White dying to the sounds of Badfinger’s “Baby Blue.”
- “Game of Thrones.” The fabulous HBO crowd-pleaser about all things Stark.
- “The Good Wife.” A deserving nod for the CBS drama that shook itself out of the doldrums by pitting the show’s lawyers against each other when two of them (Julianna Margulies, Matt Czuchry) struck out on their own.
- “House of Cards.” The brilliant, blistering Netflix series about an extremely vicious politician (Kevin Spacey) who would literally kill to advance his own ambitions.
- “Mad Men.” The drunken, dissipated final days of Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his alcoholic cronies.
- “Masters of Sex.” The Showtime series has the best acting on TV this season. Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan lead an exceptionally talented cast in this surprising tale of desire, sex and science.
- “Orange is the New Black.” Another hit from Netflix about a pampered Park Slope mom who learns about life the hard way when she gets sent to prison.
- “Scandal.” The Shonda Rhimes shock-a-thon has TV’s most passionate fans and one of its most glamorous stars in Kerry Washington. It’s “House of Cards” on crack.
- “Veep.” The Julia Louis-Dreyfus satire has a slender though loyal following on HBO.
Noticeably absent from this year’s list was “Homeland,” whose decline has been widely reported, and ABC’s “Modern Family.”
AFI will honor the shows at a luncheon in LA on Jan. 10, 2014.