The 20 Best New TV Shows of 2019 (So Far)
Which newcomers on the small screen have impressed reviewers the most during the first half of the year? Above, find the highest-scoring first-year TV shows (and miniseries) debuting between January 1, 2019 and June 30, 2019. Only shows with at least 7 reviews from professional critics are included.
We might be in a golden age of coming-of-age comedies on both the big and small screen. But this 10-episode Hulu original managed to shake up the usual formula with a unique twist: Two of the 7th graders in this middle school comedy are played by fully grown adults—the show's creators, Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine, who star as versions of their real (awkward) selves in the year 2000. Their classmates? They are played by actual 13-year-olds. What could have ben gimmicky (or, worse, creepy) in the wrong hands is instead hilarious, insightful, and endlessly charming.
“The big innovation in PEN15 is that Anna and Maya’s peers are all played by actual kids, and it’s remarkable to see how Erskine and Konkle blend so easily among them, without the show becoming a prolonged stunt. ... PEN15 is not a sendup so much as a deeply felt and utterly convincing homage to the girls they used to be.” —Hank Stuever, The Washington Post
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