I guess I’m still capable of sitting down at the keyboard to carve out one new piece of writing a year because, well, here we are. I felt it was my duty to put one on the board in 2014 and additionally touch on the best in television this year so I’m really happy to put this one together. I wish I could produce more writing, be more active on this site, and I’ll strive to do just that in 2015. But back to television which seemingly each year puts out more quality programming than the previous year; 2014 continued that trend. There’s really too much good television available these days. This year was rough too in that I didn’t have as much free time (and didn’t make as much time) for television as 2013. I still watched over 400 episodes of television and most or all of 36 series. That’s not to brag (how could it possibly be), but to give context. Several sacrifices had to be made. The biggest one was “Rectify,” a top 10 show in 2013, which I simply couldn’t get to this year (it also hurts that I don’t get the Sundance channel in HD). A couple other shows I couldn’t get around to this year that I feel could have cracked the top 10 are “Transparent” and “Orange is the New Black.” I’ve only heard good things. There’s just no way to watch everything and I do have obligations in life, you know. That didn’t make narrowing the list down to 10 much easier. When putting this piece together I always try to throw in a new wrinkle. This year, with time constraints on the mind, I tried to factor in how easy or hard it was for me to sit down and consume an episode of a series. The shows I really wanted to make time for had an edge. Some shows are well put together, but difficult to sit through. Others are easy to put on, but don’t have the quality. That partly comes through in the annual explanation of exactly what “top” means. Instead of doing a “best” list which would take a more objective look at everything or a “favorite” list which would look at things more subjectively I attempt to combine the two and create one list that I refer to as “top.”

And now, my fourth annual top 10 television series of the year.

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