To be eligible for this list, a show had to air the majority of its episodes in the 2010s. However, for the rankings and determination, all episodes were taken into account, including ones that may have aired before 2010. I will also preface that there are comedies that have aired this decade that I haven't watched yet so this is the best of what I have watched. To be fair, that preface is more true for dramas. There's not a ton of unwatched comedies sitting in my Netflix or Amazon watchlist.
So here are my Top 10 comedies of the 2010s!
Close Calls:
Master of None (Netflix) - An inconsistent but occasionally fascinating commentary on many life issues done so with innovative storytelling.
The Good Place (NBC) - A show that aims high with a fascinating premise. When it works, it's brilliant but it can be hit and miss.
American Housewife (ABC) - It holds the distinction of being the currently funniest ABC family sitcom but its overall body of work is not quite as strong as the other shows that made the list.
It's telling where this show has gone in recent years that it has tumbled from a potential #1 early in the decade to almost falling off the list for me. But for this to still make the top ten, I had to think about its early years when it was brilliantly sharp and transforming the family comedy before our eyes. While they have all become caricatures in later years, there were some truly brilliant performances by the adult cast. The kids cast, save for Sarah Hyland, has always been a little more iffy. There's a reason this show won the Emmy year after year for awhile. It had really tight stories that were cleverly connected and, along with The Middle, helped give ABC a comedy identity it still has to this day. It will end its 11 year run in the spring. There are glimpses here and there of the show it used to be. I'm hopeful it can end on a note that will reward me for sticking with it through its rough later years.
Mom is not even close to the show it was when it started and that's for the better. When it started, it was about a recovering alcoholic with a recovering alcoholic mom and a pregnant teenage daughter. Even with issues with kids, exes and co-workers, the heart of the show was Allison Janney and Anna Faris as a mother-daughter duo. Smartly, the show realized that and it morphed into a buddy comedy featuring a bunch of recovering alcoholics, all women, with a wide range of ages and income level. The show has never been afraid to tackle serious issues: death, relapses, domestic violence to name a few. But it has never been preachy and never been a "very special episode." It has handled life's hurdles with humor and frankness and Janney and Faris continue to be a delight. Maybe the title doesn't even quite fit anymore, but it's a show that wasn't afraid to play on its strengths even if that meant straying from the original plan.
Oh New Girl, what an interesting run it had. It's a show I want to watch again at some point because I only watched it through once and that was its original run. It was a show with some awfully high highs and awfully low lows. For a time, it was the hip sitcom and as someone who was just a little bit younger than the characters in the show, it resonated with me in a way that probably no other sitcom this decade did. This was the last show that my friends and I made an appointment to watch in its actual timeslot for a short while and that already feels like a relic from a different era. The entire ensemble had times to shine from the "adorkable" Jess, to the Grade A douchebag Schmidt to the lovable loser Nick and the best character of all, the delightfully weird Winston. Like any hip sitcom, it hard a hard time sustaining its hipness. But even when the show's plots meandered, and they did a lot, the fun familiarity with the characters was still enjoyable.
The Goldbergs, like Modern Family, isn't as strong as it once was. But unlike Modern, it is still enjoyable. There was also a time where this was my favorite sitcom on the air. It has a lot of humor but also a heart of gold. In recent seasons, the neat "tie up with a bow" ending of every episode has gotten a little tired but at its best, there were some wonderfully sweet moments. And this show has the bonus of an iconic TV character in Beverly Goldberg played by Wendi McLendon-Covey. The many '80s TV show and movie parodies and a killer soundtrack has made this the definitive love letter to the '80s in the same way That '70s Show does for the '70s. At first, I wanted the show to have a more linear timeline but I think it's worked to set every episode in "1980-something" because they've been able to jump around and hit every cultural milestone at some point. And by virtue of being a long running show, they've been able to spread it out without overdoing the cultural references like they did at first. I don't know how much gas it has left in the tank though.
I have to be consistent about my criteria and that was that a show had to have the majority of its episodes in the 2010s but the whole show would considered for the ranking. Well, How I Met Your Mother seems most in violation of the spirit of the rule. It aired just slightly more episodes in the 2010s than the 2000s (109 to 99) but almost all the best episodes aired in the 2000s. But, the rules are the rules. How I Met Your Mother was a show that spent its early run making every right choice and becoming a latter day Friends. When I started watching this show (which was much later than its 2005 premiere), I was hooked almost instantly. As the seasons dragged on, it started to get repetitive and make bad choices for its characters. But at its best, it was a very ambitious, often hysterical, well acted sitcom with more effective long running gags than most sitcoms can pull off. And that's nothing to scoff at. Some bad later seasons and a terrible series finale does not erase all the good parts.
The spiritual successor to The Office and one of the consistently funniest shows on TV, Superstore continues to be underrated as far as I'm concerned. In another, less snobby era of TV sitcoms, this would be a regular Emmy contender. Honestly, you could even argue that it descended from Cheers with its focus on a large ensemble in mostly one location. The show has a killer ensemble cast and a setting (big box store) with endless story opportunities. They've even jumped into some more controversial stories involving immigration and unions and have managed to nail them with humor and heart. A little thing that has been a fun element since the beginning is the short 3-5 second scenes of customers doing something bizarre in the store. We've all seen things like that so it's instantly relateable and funny, and they're still managing to have funny new ideas for those scenes five seasons in. Whenever I hear of a friend who loves The Office, I tell them "You've gotta watch Superstore."
It's interesting to note that three shows on this list premiered in the Fall of 2013, which was dubbed the Year of the Comedy. While many failed, so many new comedies meant we have three that have had great runs both with popularity and quality. Brooklyn Nine-Nine is the best of that strong bunch though. A sitcom that has elements of a throwback show, the police station-set comedy has had a few dips in quality here and there but has always pulled out of them with some stellar arcs and individual episodes. At the heart of a great ensemble is the relationship between Andy Samberg's Detective Peralta and Andre Braugher's Captain Holt. Their opposite personalities have been a source of so much humor during the show's run on both FOX and NBC. By virtue of being a cop comedy, it has also managed to build a fair number of suspenseful moments, but it never forgets that it is a sitcom first and foremost.
I wasn't sure what I was going to think of Mrs. Maisel because I've only ever been lukewarm on Gilmore Girls from the same creators. But Amazon's critical darling knocked it out of the park and I'm so excited to watch Season 3 (which premieres today!) Without a doubt the most visually stunning sitcom I've watched ever, the production design is impeccable and it's a love letter to an idealized Manhattan (and the Catskills and Paris) of the 1950s. But if it was all glitz and no substance, it would not be worthy of being on this list. The performances are brilliant, the stories are meticulous and surprising and the rapid fire dialogue makes each episode feel like a sprint that leaves you almost breathless (in a good way) at the end. It's amazing how much plot they pack into each episode and how much story they've been able to tell in just 18 episodes. With roles of a lifetime for Rachel Brosnahan, Alex Borstein and maybe even Monk himself, Tony Shalhoub, this show could easily vault to the top of the list by the time all is said and done. But it's only done it twice, let's see if it can avoid the meltdown so many shows have in later years.
When The Middle premiered, it was that "other family sitcom" airing on the same night as breakout hit Modern Family. During its nine year run on ABC, it saw shows catch fire or land in the zeitgeist for awhile only to fade just as fast. And all the while, the Hecks in Orson, Indiana just kept trudging along. Looking back, it's hard to pick out individual episodes I loved the way I can with so many other sitcoms. I haven't really had much of a desire to re-watch the series. But it was the ultimate comfort food of the 2010s. Comfort food shows can sometimes be junky but enjoyable like a bag of chips. This was like a warm hot chocolate. It just felt great to check in with the Hecks once a week for much of the decade. The stories were small, the stakes didn't seem high and that was just perfect. It was perfectly emblematic of the world it was trying to create: a blue collar family struggling to get by and deal with life's little nuisances in the middle of our country. Because it flew under the radar, it never got the acclaim it deserved but perhaps most impressively, it never managed to lose its way. It was as self assured and consistently good in season nine as it was in season one and that's a strength that should be rewarded. Other comedies can reach higher highs but almost always have lower lows. How fitting that a show called The Middle never wavered from its beautifully simple objectives.
The 2010s on TV were notable for darkness. Anti-heroes ruled the airwaves on dramas. Dark comedies that had almost as much drama as humor became the new critical darlings. Cynicism reigned supreme. And yet, a show that seems to be at or near the top of many end of decade lists is the show was perhaps the sunniest and most optimistic one of them all. Parks and Recreation could have been a very cynical show. After all, it was centered on small town government and everyone knows how that could be. But its protagonist Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) was a true believer and as a result, Parks and Rec was to small town government what The West Wing was to the US Presidency. It created a world we want to believe exists and never lost its strong viewpoint that public service can be the noblest profession of them all. Besides its worldview, the other thing that makes Parks and Recreation my top sitcom of the decade is the performances not only from the main cast, who were absolutely delightful, but from a wildly wacky cast of supporting characters who populated Pawnee, Indiana. How interesting that the top two comedies shows of the decade for me were both set in Indiana (and I can't even name any other show ever set in the state). They were both very different, but they both had a heart of gold and a million laughs. I still miss these shows.
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