The 20 Best New TV Shows of 2019

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – December 29, 2019

Above are the highest-scoring first-year TV series debuting in the United States between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019. Shows are ranked by Metascore (an average of grades from top professional critics on a 0-100 scale) prior to rounding, and any programs with fewer than 7 reviews are excluded.

(Note that limited series, as well as TV movies and specials, are ranked in a separate list.)

11 of 21 photo by Beth Dubber/Netflix

82 Unbelievable (Netflix)

(#11) If there is a better TV cop duo than Merritt Wever and Toni Collette (pictured), we haven't seen it. And they don't even show up until the second episode of this eight-episode adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning article "An Unbelievable Story of Rape" (and subsequent This American Life story "Anatomy of Doubt") by a team that includes Erin Brockovich screenwriter Susannah Grant and The Kids Are All Right director Lisa Cholodenko. Kaitlyn Dever stars as a teenager who is charged with lying about being raped during a home invasion—only for two detectives in another city to stumble across what seems like a series of related cases that match her allegedly false details. While her story is wrapped up, there's no reason the series couldn't continue as an anthology with Wever and Collette working another case—and many fans are hoping for such an outcome.

“Thanks to the strong writing and the finely calibrated performances by Wever and Collette, there’s nothing stale about the execution of the timeworn buddy-cop formula. ... This is a smart and knowing investigative procedural, a stylish but never exploitative true-crime story, an insightful character study — and one of the best series of the year.” —Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times

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