The best TV of 2006

22. Veronica Mars (season 2, episodes 11-22 and season 3, episodes 1-9) 

After a tightly focused debut season—whose overarching narrative involved a young sleuth’s investigation into her best friend’s death—season two of Veronica Mars broadens its horizons. The results of Veronica (Kristen Bell) looking into a suspicious bus crash that killed six Neptune High students are mixed at first; however, by the time new episodes aired in 2006, the UPN (soon to be CW) whodunit circled back to being equal parts suspenseful and delightful. A huge credit goes to the show finally recognizing its most promising ’ship and clearing the deck so Veronica could (eventually) end up with bad-boy-with-a-heart-of-gold Logan (Jason Dohring). It also helps that the second half of the season spends time fleshing out the show’s main setting: Neptune, Calif. is a town in decline because of crime and a yawning gap between its haves and have-nots, which adds even more emotional weight to what Veronica and Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni) do for a living. By season three, with Veronica off at the fictional Hearst College, Veronica Mars took an even more grown-up route. The change in scenery allowed the writers to experiment with shorter mysteries and to further complicate our heroine’s love life, making Veronica an even more resilient, goofy, likeable, and resonant female protagonist. [Saloni Gajjar] 

21. 24 (season 5)

You can’t go too wrong when you briefly add Jean Smart to the ensemble, right? Before it worked for Fargo, but after it worked for Frasier, the Smart maneuver paid off for 24—earning the Fox thriller its only Outstanding Drama Series Emmy in the process. In its Los Angeles-set fifth season, 24 brought some experimentation to a real-time format that was starting to lose its novelty, dividing its 24 episodes into three “acts,” each one feeding into the next: In one particularly eventful day, counter-terrorist agent Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) tries to stop a plot involving Russian separatists, which leads to multiple nerve-gas attacks and Jack searching for proof to implicate a corrupt and complicit White House. Along the way, Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub perfect their brother-sister-like chemistry as Jack and Chloe—but the standout, as previously alluded to, is Smart, whose portrayal of First Lady Martha Logan losing her grip on reality (while standing up for her beliefs!) elevates season five to its award-worthy status. [SG] 

20. Dexter (season 1) 

When Dexter debuted, viewers couldn’t get enough of cops catching killers: The Nielsen ratings were dominated by network procedurals, the most popular of which, CSI, had already spawned two spin-offs. Enter Michael C. Hall as the Miami Metro Police Department’s Dexter Morgan, a forensic technician specializing in blood spatter analysis who works both sides of the crime scene tape. Given that Hall had only finished Six Feet Under the year before, going from one Emmy-nominated series dealing with death to a role that took a very different stab at these themes was an immediate draw. Hall’s voiceover sets the dark, playful tone that, coupled with bold visuals (including red string doubling as blood and a riddle involving Barbie doll parts), ensures Dexter’s debut season set it apart from those other murder mysteries. Showrunner Clyde Phillips infused the season’s adaptation of the Jeff Lindsay novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter with wit and tension; eventually, it would all go off the rails, but this opening season is all killer, no filler. [Emma Fraser]

19. Grey’s Anatomy (season 2, episodes 13-27 and season 3, episodes 1-10)

By its second and third seasons, Grey’s Anatomy hadn’t just figured out and gone all in on its strengths—messy relationships, heartbreaking doctor-patient storylines, and tragic events. It also laid a solid foundation for a medical drama that could run another 20 seasons (and counting). Let’s take into consideration that Grey’s resumed its second season in January by introducing Denny Duquette (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), whose tearjerker of a death in the finale remains triggering (and set a precedent for all the traumatic Grey’s season-enders to come). The show’s 2006 also introduced Mark Sloan, a.k.a. McSteamy (Eric Dane), and Callie Torres (Sara Ramirez), and homed in on the deteriorating relationship between Cristina (Sandra Oh) and Burke (Isaiah Washington). Creator Shonda Rhimes skillfully dialed up the tension, melodrama, and romance, making Grey’s ideal primetime in 2006—a status the show affirmed by nabbing ABC’s post-Super Bowl XL timeslot, where it kicked off the legendary “bomb-in-the-patient” two-parter featuring Christina Ricci and a just-barely-pre-Friday Night Lights Kyle Chandler. [SG]

18. Doctor Who (season 2)

Christopher Eccleston’s one season leading BBC’s Doctor Who revival (which made its delayed U.S. debut via Sci Fi Channel in 2006) was solid, proving that the lovingly low-budget sci-fi staple could still work in the early 2000s. But the arrival of David Tennant’s 10th Doctor in the revival’s second season made the show into the kind of global phenomenon that it had never been before. Far from the various grumpy seniors and quirky uncles of the show’s pre-reboot run, Tennant was charming, funny, and very, very cute. It was perfectly understandable that so much of his first season involved Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) being madly in love with him, which culminated in a heartbreaking season finale in which the two were permanently separated (at least for a while). The season also took Doctor Who to surprising new heights, like the clever time-hopping conceit of “The Girl In The Fireplace,” written by future showrunner Steven Moffat, and the “Impossible Planet” and “Satan Pit” two-parter in which The Doctor and Rose literally defeat the self-proclaimed actual devil. Right on the verge of the show becoming truly great (“Blink” is the next season), Doctor Who even called back to its original continuity with a lovely appearance from classic companion Sarah Jane Smith, played by a returning Elisabeth Sladen. [Sam Barsanti]

17. South Park (season 10)

As with any retrospective look at South Park, discussion of the show’s 10th season begins with the headlines: Isaac Hayes quitting over Trey Park and Matt Stone’s repeated jabs at The Church Of Scientology (a resignation now believed to have been tendered on Hayes’ behalf); the climate-change allegory in “ManBearPig” that eventually prompted a two-part, 12-years-later follow-up once it was apparent that Al Gore was right and ManBearPig truly was fucking shit up. Looking at the actual contents of the episodes, however, reveals a series on a hot streak as it rounded the bend toward its second decade of animated provocation. With its experiments in machinima and the unforgettable (though you wish you could forget it) image of Stan, Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny as scraggly, pimply, MMORPG-grinding Jabba The Hutts, the Emmy-winning strengths of “Make Love, Not Warcraft” alone earn South Park’s place in the best-of-2006 conversation. But the season’s enduring legacy is tied up in another two-parter: “Cartoon Wars,” a satirical Swiss Army knife that manages to skewer kneejerk War On Terror panic, general issues of censorship, and one of the show’s long-running competitors. If you’ve been able to watch an episode of Family Guy in the past 20 years without hearing the phrase “You think that’s bad?” echo through your mind—well, then you could probably stand to watch “Cartoon Wars.” [Erik Adams]

16. It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia (season 2) 

Danny DeVito arrived on It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia with all the force of a jump scare, appearing in the first scene of the show’s second season as if summoned by the gods. (That’s not too far off the mark: The show’s stars and creators were reportedly told by FX boss John “Mayor Of TV” Landgraf to add someone with name recognition to their cast or face immediate cancellation.) And while the Frank Reynolds who appears in the sitcom’s second season was not yet the magnificent and deranged bridge troll he would eventually degrade into, Frank still proved to be a deeply necessary energizing force for Sunny, giving its characters consistent reasons to get out of Paddy’s Pub and endanger the wider world. 

Even beyond DeVito, though, Sunny‘s second season finds the four original members of “the gang” shoring up and better defining characters who’d spent the show’s first season clinging to some semblance of recognizable humanity, almost always by making them worse people. That goes double for Kaitlin Olson, who begins seriously plumbing the depths of Sweet Dee’s bitter soul, notably in a standout late-season episode that also introduces David Hornsby’s wonderfully wretched, and eternally victimized, Rickety Cricket. It’s a classic example of why shows like this deserve more time to cook—even if you have to throw an internationally beloved comedic actor into the mix to make it happen. [William Hughes]

15. Top Chef (season 1) 

Like Project Runway, its obvious inspiration, Top Chef debuted with a mission to prioritize talent over drama, and ended up finding a way to showcase both. The 12 contestants in season one were all talented and driven, and represented a wide range of cuisine and expertise. And the early departure of a disruptive contestant signaled a lack of patience with what we might now call main character syndrome, but back then was best summarized as “Hey, it worked for The Real World‘s Puck.” 

But as that first season rolled on, the competition became more heated, both because the chefs had to step up their game and Tiffani Faison revealed herself to be a much more effective shit-stirrer. Still, it was missing a key ingredient: Padma Lakshmi, who joined the show as host for season two. But the tension was organic, the culinary skill undeniable, and the soundbites juicy, so (we have to say it) the recipe for success was there from the beginning. [DC]

14. Lost (season 2, episodes 10-24 and season 3, episodes 1-6)

The 20 episodes of Lost that aired in 2006 remain some of its most gripping, revelatory, and shocking. Especially the ones from season two: Starting with “The 23rd Psalm,” co-creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof pulled even further away from the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 and closer to those mysterious islanders known as “The Others.” Bolstered by a distinct lack of Kate-on-the-run flashbacks, these episodes reveal the show at the height of its powers and confidence, long before anyone started thinking about an ending. Instead, it dives headfirst into the bottomless pit of mystery and conspiracy, while offering variations on themes. Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), in particular, conjures a more complicated and haunted spirituality than the easily swayed zealot John Locke (Terry O’Quinn), and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) returns by season’s end to introduce the show’s only enduring romance—a title Michael (Harold Perrineau) makes sure Hurley (Jorge Garcia) and Libby (Cynthia Watros) can’t claim. 

Lost gets even more unsparing with who lives, dies, and pulls the trigger in these episodes, which is to be expected when the manipulative sociopath Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) enters the fray and leads the show into its most uneven outing. The opening block of season three hints at the show’s future troubles; not even Locke’s time on the weed farm could drown out the sound of wheels spinning in the writers’ room. But the season premiere and Mr. Eko capper “The Cost Of Living” redeem the shakiness. [MS]

13. 30 Rock (season 1, episodes 1-8)

Sitcom pilots and even entire first seasons of sitcoms can be tough; even the best shows take a bit to find their footing and develop their rhythms. When 30 Rock arrived, it was not yet the dense, surrealist buffet it would evolve into in later seasons. But it knew exactly what it was from its first episode; after all, creator and star Tina Fey was the head writer of a late-night sketch series long before she played one on TV. A more grounded, (slightly) slower 30 Rock still offers some of the show’s all-time bits and jokes, though: The first eight episodes contain “live every week like it’s Shark Week” and “mind grapes,” along with a hallucinatory appearance visit to Late Night With Conan O’Brien for Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and the introduction of Dennis Duffy (Dean Winters). For a new show that had some things to sort out—it didn’t totally know what to do with Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski) yet, for example—30 Rock started with remarkable clarity of vision. [Drew Gillis] 

12. Battlestar Galactica (season 2, episodes 11-20 and season 3, episodes 1-11) 

Constituting the slightly unwieldy “season 2.5” and the first half of season three, the run of episodes that the Battlestar Galactica reboot aired in 2006 don’t quite live up to the title of perfect TV. (No set of offerings including the muddled, noir-wannabe antics of “Black Market” could be said to hit that mark.) But said run does contain the very best of Ronald D. Moore’s blend of sci-fi mysticism and hard-edged space-faring politics, as humans and Cylons alike find themselves pushed to the limits of what survival can demand. To be even more specific, the core run of episodes from the end of the show’s second season, through the first four episodes of its third—in which a weary humanity votes to lie down in the mud and give up, and then finds itself forced to bleed and suffer in its belated efforts to scrabble its way back to the stars—are the platonic ideal of what this frequently frustrating, frequently brilliant series could achieve, giving its extraordinary cast a chance to play tragic monsters, unlikely saints, and everything human in between. [WH]

11. Heroes (season 1, episodes 1-11)

Like two brothers flying into the night sky as one of them goes nuclear, Heroes burned ever so brightly in its first season. The series, from Crossing Jordan creator Tim Kring, was powered by both ambition and novelty upon launch—nothing quite like this NBC drama about humans with superhuman abilities had been attempted on the small screen. The comic book influence was undeniable, but Kring wasn’t trying to adapt any arc or universe. His world was born from a very simple idea, one that’s informed comic books as much as grounded teen dramas: What would you do if you just woke up different one day? 

A cheerleader, an office worker, a hospice nurse, and more wrestled with that question over the course of one engrossing season. Perhaps the most impressive thing about Heroes‘ first outing in retrospect is the sense of urgency, of real stakes, even as Kring and writers like Bryan Fuller and Michael Green added more characters with abilities. Later seasons could (and would) be accused of stalling and embellishing for embellishing’s sake, but the early stages of the build-up to 2007’s “How To Stop An Exploding Man” were expertly developed, and would put to shame some of the biggest crossovers in the cinematic universes to come. [DC]

10. When The Levees Broke: A Requiem In Four Parts

Spike Lee began filming this documentary only three months after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. What was meant to be a two-hour feature more than doubled in length, incorporating first-hand accounts, news clips, photographs, and amateur recordings that would lead to three Emmys and a Peabody Award. Twenty years after its release, When The Levees Broke hasn’t lost any power, and the light it shines on the racial and class disparities amid the U.S. government’s mishandled response to the hurricane remains illuminating. Letting survivors do the talking adds immediacy and authenticity; still-raw anger and grief overlap. From the opening montage of archival footage that crisscrosses decades of New Orleans history, Lee sets the scene of a city accustomed to being caught in the eye of the storm. The 1927 flood and Hurricane Betsy in 1965—which devastated the Lower Ninth Ward, just as Katrina did—illustrate generations-long trauma experienced by this community. Lee weaves these narratives, including what happened in the Superdome, delayed rescue efforts (the Coast Guard is singled out as the only agency that acted with urgency), and red tape hampering efforts to rebuild. It is unflinching in its presentation and a reminder of the vitality and impact of the best HBO Documentary Films. [EF]

9. How I Met Your Mother (season 1, episodes 12-22 and season 2, episodes 1-11)

How I Met Your Mother kicked off its 2006 with a strong introduction: Victoria (Ashley Williams), the first woman with a real shot at answering the declarative statement in the show’s title. But it was during HIMYM‘s return in the fall of 2006 that the series really started to cook, owning a format that still feels fairly unique. As much as this series is tonally a classic multicam sitcom, it’s also full of time jumps, cutaways, and running visual gags that were planted in its second season. That’s best epitomized in “Slap Bet,” which not only ushers in the long-running, face-smacking wager between Marshall (Jason Segel) and Barney (Neil Patrick Harris), but also gives Cobie Smulders a pop-star alter ego in the form  of Robin Sparkles. The episode unfolds like the best of HIMYM, with layers of information revealed and recounted as if it actually were a digressive yarn Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor onscreen, and Bob Saget in voiceover) is telling his kids about his misadventures as a twentysomething in mid-’00s New York. “Slap Bet” and others in this season-two stretch—like “Brunch,” “Ted Mosby, Architect,” and “Aldrin Justice”—feel like How I Met Your Mother becoming fluent in its own language. [DG]

8. Slings & Arrows (season 3)

The nifty gimmick of this tender dramedy about a fictional Canadian Shakespeare festival—aside from the odd-couple, Hamlet-inspired relationship between the New Burnage Festival’s artistic director, Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross) and the ghost of his predecessor, Oliver Welles (Stephen Ouimette)—is the way each new season was built around a different one of the Bard’s works (and the mostly new cast that came with it). For its swan song, Slings & Arrows naturally went with King Lear, whose title character’s attempts to hold on to something that’s clearly slipping away are channeled into Charles Kingman (William Hutt), the fading, obstinate, aptly named lion of the stage Geoffrey chooses for his Lear.

Charles’ arc is a tear-jerking “the show must go on” situation, while the “all the world’s a stage” mood creators Susan Coyle, Bob Martin, and Mark McKinney so marvelously fostered throughout Slings & Arrows’ run comes through in the bittersweet vibrancy of their setting circa season three. When Geoffrey started, the festival was in the midbrow doldrums; now he has to deal with company members so passionate, there’s a war for New Burbage supremacy brewing between his Lear cast and their perceived rivals in a Rent-like musical. Making such internecine backstage drama between characters we’ve only just met is one thing; it’s all the more impressive that Slings & Arrows makes us miss them and their world when they’re gone. [EA]

7. The Shield (season 5)

We couldn’t survey the best TV of 2006 without a trip into antihero territory—the way our ranking shook out means we start with The Shield, which boasted one of the finest examples of the archetype in Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis). Vic and the Strike Team were more than halfway through their run, yet showed no signs of flagging when season five premiered. They gained a new adversary in Jon Kavanaugh (Forest Whitaker), an overzealous internal affairs lieutenant determined to bring them down. Whitaker has a distinct, almost unhinged energy on the show, a contrast to Glenn Close’s composure as Monica Rawling—he’s like a grenade rolling around without a pin. He knew there was no beating Vic by the book, so it was only a matter of time before he blew up.

Kavanaugh has a great foe in Vic—Chiklis gave an all-time performance from the pilot on—but maybe even more than that team leader, season five belongs to Lem (Kenny Johnson). Poor, doomed Lem, who didn’t see that his allies posed as much danger as his enemies. His fate deepened the fissures in the Strike Team, and made for one of the biggest cliffhangers of the year. [DC]

6. The Sopranos (season 6, episodes 1-12)

The beginning of the end for New Jersey’s most infamous fictional crime family. The first half of their final hurrah sees Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) survive an accidental attempt on his life by one of his own, the end of regulars like Vito (Joseph R. Gannascoli), the haunting void left behind by Adriana’s murder, and Tony losing his grip over his operation. While some of these experiences cause Tony to soften his brutal nature and be there for his struggling son, A.J., darker parts of The Sopranos’ antihero remain that threaten his growth and grip on reality. These episodes set the stage for when the wheels really came off in spectacular fashion the following year, with the series showing the crime family’s bonds deepening and fracturing, and power fluctuating between bosses, new affairs, and old rivalries. Despite Tony’s best efforts to change his stripes and make improvements in his life, there was only so much he could do as a mob boss. [MC]

5. The Colbert Report

As the first spin-off from The Daily Show, The Colbert Report made a central break from its predecessor. Its riff on the day’s headlines would be built around a distinct, fictionalized personality: the foolhardy correspondent Stephen Colbert had previously played on Comedy Central’s flagship late-night show. Inspired by blustering cable news pundits who argued their made-up conclusions with more conviction than facts, The Colbert Report’s creators built their star into the ultimate conservative blowhard. It was a chance to poke fun at the right-wing disdain for liberals during the George W. Bush years while also holding up a mirror to their hypocrisy.

Though it took a while after its October 2005 premiere for The Colbert Report to completely step out of The Daily Show’s shadow, by 2006, the show was quickly catching on. Merriam-Webster gave its Word Of The Year honors to the Report’s signature coinage, “truthiness”; speaking out of character with The A.V. Club in January 2006, Colbert defined the term as “What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true.” Back in character that April, he headlined the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, infamously mocking the administration in front of President George W. Bush and his guests. It’s the most famous WHCD roast of all time, and cemented Colbert as a fearless performer who wasn’t afraid of going right up to the bear and poke it if it means getting a laugh. Though, if you were part of Colbert Nation in 2006, you already knew that. [MC]

4. Friday Night Lights (season 1, episodes 1-10)

Watching the Friday Night Lights pilot today is just as much of a heartwarming experience as it was in October 2006. In hindsight, that premiere alone establishes the show’s sincere tone, hazily bouncing between various Dillon Panthers, new Dillon coach Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler), his wife Tami (Connie Britton), and the townsfolk who put too much pressure on Coach Taylor to win the damn thing. Its heartland values are present in the writing, weaving a rich tapestry with threads of a compelling sports drama, a melodramatic coming-of-age tale, and a beautiful exploration of marriage. Beneath the occasional sudsiness is an earnest attempt to capture the day-to-day life of ordinary people in a way that remains all too rare on TV. It also stood out in a wave of new shows on network TV that year, carving a distinct space for itself amid the superpowered capering of Heroes, the heightened telenovela dramedy of Ugly Betty, and the writers’-room sanctimony of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip. There were ups and downs to come, but there’s no denying the sentimental appeal of Friday Night Lights’ initial run. [SG] 

3. Deadwood (season 3) 

It was inevitable—civilization would have to come to Deadwood. But not without the residents of the camp putting up a good goddamn fight. With the full-on, long-threatened arrival of California tycoon George Hearst (Gerald McRaney), David Milch’s floridly written, baroquely profane Western gained an antagonist who, unlike grimy fan-favorite Al Swearengen (Ian McShane), camouflaged his villainy in neither charisma nor a code. Which is to say: He was someone worth rooting against, and someone all of Deadwood could oppose—forming order out of chaos to protect their own.

Before that can happen, however, Deadwood receives a few more historical figures who fit the “end of the Wild West” milieu (gunslingers Wyatt and Morgan Earp), and at least one more celebrated actor who feels like he could’ve been walking the thoroughfare this whole time (scenery chewer Brian Cox). Despite the most valiant lawful efforts of Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant) and some unlawful ones by Trixie (Paula Malcolmson), it all ends in tragedy—achingly rendered, stirringly spoken tragedy. The only thing not to like about season three is that it was Deadwood’s last; it’d be another 13 years before we could learn if Al ever got that bloodstain out of the floorboards. [EA]

2. The Office (season 2, episodes 11-22 and season 3, episodes 1-11)

Remember what we said about sitcoms and first seasons? The U.S. adaptation of The Office got off to an even rougher start than 30 Rock, flailing through an impression of its source material’s wry British humor for six episodes. But halfway through season two, the NBC mockumentary gained a refreshing personality of its own. Whether it’s the Dunder Mifflin crew going on a booze cruise, Dwight (Rainn Wilson) unknowingly quoting Mussolini while accepting a sales award, or all the lingering looks between Jim and Pam before the big emotional coda of “Casino Night,” The Office gave its characters enough unique qualities to distinguish them from their U.K. counterparts. Not only did the sitcom find its footing, but it became one of 2006’s genuinely funniest TV shows, thanks to episodes like “The Injury” (the one with that darn George Foreman grill), as well as “Gay Witch Hunt,” “Diwali,” and the two-parter of “A Benihana Christmas.” All the while, an exciting form of creative muscle stretching was taking place in front of and behind the camera, whether it was writers like Mindy Kaling, B.J. Novak, and Paul Lieberstein coming into their own as supporting cast members or star Steve Carell trying his hand at scripting the season-two finale. By the end of 2006, it was clear that American audiences were getting comfortable with more uncomfortable forms of humor, and The Office was and remains one of that style’s greatest proponents. [SG]

1. The Wire (season 4)

The Wire was nothing if not perceptive. At the height of macro policy failures like the Iraq War and No Child Left Behind, it was able to zero in on and make compelling and complex drama out of the microscopic ills gnawing away at the American soul. And in its fourth season, having been pulled back from the brink of cancellation for the final time, the show saw where TV was headed. With their show’s reputation burnished by DVD sets of its first three seasons, David Simon, Ed Burns, and company successfully lobbied HBO to send the complete season four to the press ahead of its premiere—an unprecedented move at the time, as was the option for the channel’s subscribers to access each new episode one week early on demand. However they watched it, those who got an advance look at season four  knew they were witnessing not just the best TV 2006 had to offer, but one of the best seasons of any show ever made.

In 2026, we know not every show is built to watch this way. But the narrative density and the volume of new faces in season four was. At its creative peak, The Wire was without Idris Elba or Wood Harris and mostly without Dominic West, instead staking its latest story to four unknowns—Jermaine Crawford, Maestro Harrell, Julito McCullum, and Tristan Wilds—depicting the realities of West Baltimore middle schoolers in the mid-’00s. Every season of The Wire pries up the institutional floorboards to point out the rot underneath—this one shows the cracks in the whole foundation, and the kids getting lost in them. (And the bodies hidden there, too—this is the season that begins with Felicia “Snoop” Pearson’s chillingly matter-of-fact purchase of a cordless nail gun.) Crawford, Harrell, McCullum, and Wilds each get to play a full arc that’s satisfyingly folded into The Wire’s ongoing municipal saga, which at this point is turning its attention to the younger, more calculating generation coming up behind the likes of stick-up man Omar Little (Michael K. Williams) and Mayor Clarence Royce (Glynn Turman). This is primetime for Snoop and her accomplice, Chris Partlow (Gbenga Akinnagbe); upstart drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector); and slick mayoral candidate Tommy Carcetti (Aidan Gillen). Taken an episode at a time or all at once, it’s masterful TV storytelling guided as much by Simon’s characteristically pragmatic thesis statement (“kids don’t vote”) as it is the hope and heartbreak Burns’ years as a public school teacher bring to the proceedings. [EA]