The Best TV Shows Of 2019 (So Far)

After two years of gloomy, doomy (but effective) Halloween-set horror, Stranger Things mixes it up with a sunny, summer-focused storyline that blends poolside antics, subterranean military bases, Russian plans and exploding hormones among its young cast to excellent effect. It's a refreshing evolution for the show, which uses its year-jump wisely. But don't go thinking that it's suddenly ditched the scare-factor for fun times – and the terror levels are soon ratcheted up once again, the forces of darkness still having an effect on the Hawkins locals. And we don't just mean the Hot Dog On A Stick at the new mall.

The final series of Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney's comedy-drama contained just as much pathos and parental truths as the previous three – here dealing with the fallout of (the fictional) Rob's alcoholism. The show remains emotionally honest, often brutally so, still tinged with the sharp, snarky humour that makes the pairing of Horgan and Delaney so endlessly endearing. Beyond that, the final episode closes out on an utterly poetic final few minutes, so equally heartwarming and heartbreaking, so wholly encompassing of everything that came before, and sure to be discussed for decades to come. A truly brilliant farewell.

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Lisa McGee's 1990s Norn Iron-set sitcom followed up its smash debut run with an even more confident second series, securing itself as Britain's favourite new comedy. While The Troubles provide a serious back-drop to events, the foreground remains gut-bustingly funny, its lovable cast – Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Louisa Harland, Nicola Coughlan, Jamie-Lee O'Donnell, Dylan Llewellyn – delivering lightning-fast gags at a rate of knots. The perfect mixture of warmth and wit.

With its American high school-inspired visuals, frank and funny discussions of sex (duh), and scenes of Gillian Anderson masturbating a courgette, Netflix's Sex Education is quite unlike anything else to have hit the small screen this year. Part John Hughes homage, part post-Skins teen drama, Laurie Nunn's show contributes to a long line of teen sex comedies while also bringing the genre into a whole new era – with a loveable cast in Asa Butterfield, Ncuti Gatwa, and Emma Mackey. And did we mention Gillian Anderson masturbates a courgette? We did? OK.

Shane Meadows has long since proved his small screen chops with the This Is England series, but The Virtues sees him take that bar and vault over it, delivering an emotional wallop that surpasses even his own previous work. Stephen Graham crushes the role, and viewers' hearts, as Joseph – a man at a crossroads in life who packs it all in to go travelling and explore his brutal, troubled past. What he finds, what it means and how it affects everyone around him is explored with all the power you expect from Meadows.

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As if the world outside of your TV wasn't enough of a raging bin fire, Russell T. Davies' latest show looked into a (dark) crystal ball to chart the ever-worsening future of one family and the world around them. Digital trends, political ramifications, issues and anger are all key to the changing fortunes of the Lyons. Featuring a standout performance from Emma Thompson as a Farage-alike woman of the people, it's wonderfully observed and superbly realised, even if it might want to make you crawl under the sheets and refuse to emerge again until roughly three days before the heat death of the universe.

But now on Amazon.

Its maiden voyage was entertaining, if occasionally bogged down by the emotional journeys of its crew. But with Season 2, Discovery re-discovered the sense of fun that Trek sometimes journeys to. The addition of Anson Mount as Captain Pike is a particular highlight, while the season arc mystery of the Red Angel drove the show to new heights, allowing plenty of material for the established cast to work with – plus Pike's fellow new arrival/complication, Spock (Ethan Peck). It's no mystery why this show has spawned a fresh take on the Trek universe, and long may it go boldly in new directions.

David Fincher's ice-cool drama returned with more forensic explorations of the profane (probing into the cases of real-life criminals like Son Of Sam and cult leader Charles Manson) and the mundane (the immense bureaucracy faced by its leading trio). Mindhunter remains TV's most unique crime show – totally unflinching about the deeds of its famous murderers, while never showing any of the murders themselves. It's astonishingly detailed and precisely performed, with a stellar leading trio in Holt McCallany, Jonathan Groff and Anna Torv. Killer stuff.

If you're over the age of, say, 30 (even 25 these days) the teen world can seem about as easy to comprehend as an alien civilization. And many TV series on the subject suffer because they were created by people who only dimly remember that time. Euphoria succeeds by being raw and real, and, with a cast led by the fearless and forthright Zendaya, it charted the waters of angst, identity politics, sex and love with an unsparing eye and more penises than you usually expect to see on screen. Unless you… No, we won't judge.

The return of Eve Polastri and Villanelle could never hope to live up to the sizzling first season – but even away from the direct authorship of Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Killing Eve's second run remained obsessively bingeable telly. Incoming showrunner Emerald Fennell kept the previous run's unique tone (outlandish espionage drama meets everyday mundanity, plus filthy gags) largely intact, continuing the budding psychopathy of Eve and all-out murderousness of Villanelle with gravitas and wit – culminating in a finale which leaves plenty hanging in the air for Season 3.

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The gang at AC-12 returned with yet another complicated case as allegiances shift and acronyms get thrown around like their own language. Any worries that creator Jed Mercurio had used up all his best material on Bodyguard were quickly hauled off to a mental holding cell as the police drama kicked up into a whole new gear. The death of three officers during the hijacking of a seized drug shipment is just the surface of a conspiracy that has everyone second-guessing allegiances while Hastings, Arnott and Fleming smell more rodents than a Roland Rat cosplay convention.

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Dominic Savage's trio of one-off films exploring the lives of three women in difficult situations makes for tough viewing – but it's so expertly conceived, empathetically performed, and arrestingly told that it's hard to look away. The Vicky McClure-starring 'I Am Nicola' features an astonishingly naturalistic exploration of a toxic relationship, followed by Samantha Morton's 'I Am Vicky', about a working class woman driven to desperate measures when she finds herself in debt. Finally, Gemma Chan leads 'I Am Hannah', tackling the societal pressure felt by women to act on their 'biological clock' in their mid-30s. All three actors put in incredible work – and Savage's claustrophobic camera catches their every emotion in constant close-up.

What could have been a cheap, crass crack at superhero overload is in fact a witty, mad exploration of monsters among men and the people who try to keep them in line. Based on Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson's comic book run, The Boys finds Karl Urban's Billy Butcher leading an unruly gang of vigilantes who have beef with superhero team The Seven, revered by the public as heroes. There are laugh-out-loud moments (hello, dolphin), explorations of morality and ethics, and a storming, dead-eyed-on-demand commitment from Anthony Starr as Superman-style role model, icon and closet psycho Homelander.

Stream now on Amazon Prime Video.

While the first season was touted as a limited run, the characters and world crafted from Liane Moriarty's novel were compelling enough, and the response healthy enough, that we got to catch up with the Monterey Five for a new story partly written by Moriarty herself. Season 2 builds out the lives of the central players in a way that deepens the story – and if the likes of Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern and Zoë Kravitz wrapped up in the continuing cover-up of a murder weren't enough, this run added Meryl motherflippin' Streep on top form.

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Sweet birthday baby! Natasha Lyonne's existential comedy-drama finds fresh life in the Groundhog Day trope of a deeply flawed character stuck in a time loop. Here it's New York 30-something Nadia, celebrating her birthday and finding that she's gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the morning comes – and try to avoid an untimely death along the way, lest she wake up back at her birthday bash. Brash and bleakly funny, emotionally tender, narratively surprising – Russian Doll is, appropriately, a deeply layered show with a never-better Lyonne leading the way.

Ava DuVernay is rarely better than when she's shining a light on social ills, and particularly when she has a real-life story to anchor the narrative. Here, she follows what happened to five men who were unfairly convicted of rape in New York's Central Park, following the events of the case with her typically clear-eyed sense of drama and justice. In doing so, she crafts not just one of the most watchable dramas on Netflix's servers, but also launches a raft of relative newcomers, including Jharrel Jerome, while showcasing established actors such as Michael Kenneth Williams and Vera Farmiga.

not have been higher, or its task more unenviable – to wrap up seven seasons of character development and intricate politicking, and deliver an ending that would feel earned and satisfying but still surprising, in a show that's been anything but predictable. It didn't work for everyone, but the final shortened run still featured some of Thrones' most narratively ambitious work, with an epic scale hitherto unseen on the small screen. The level of craftsmanship remained nothing less than astonishing, and whether the characters ended up where fans imagined or not, the end of TV's biggest ever show was event telly like no other.

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If the catastrophic nuclear disaster at Chernobyl has been diluted in popular culture through the years, Sky Atlantic and HBO's miniseries proved a stark reminder of the horrifying historic tragedy. Often harrowing, unflinching in its depictions of the initial incident and its appalling aftermath, told with complete humanity and astonishingly accurate period detail, Craig Mazin's show not only does justice to the awful legacy of a completely avoidable man-made calamity, but draws unsettling relevance in its depiction of scientists' dire warnings being ignored, and a government staunchly attempting to save face at the expense of innocent lives.

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Phoebe Waller-Bridge once said she didn't think she'd make a Fleabag follow-up, but thank goodness she did. Finding new layers and levels in her complex titular character, she also hit upon the perfect counterpoint in Andrew Scott's religious type (known only in the show as "The Priest", but quickly handed the moniker of "Hot Priest" by the internet and beyond). As if Killing Eve wasn't enough, this series saw Waller-Bridge once again prove that she's as far from a one-hit wonder as you can be without leaving the known universe, and Fleabag continued to enjoy some of the best writing on TV.

Buy now on Amazon.

It's easy to list the myriad ways in which The OA is a weird show, from the internet of trees to the psychic talking octopus. But what makes the series so extraordinarily engaging is that it all makes some kind of sense while you're watching it. Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij's uncategorisable saga of an angelic being who moves between dimensions has an endlessly beguiling, expansive tone, where anything seems possible. Of course, Netflix has cancelled the show after only two seasons when there were supposed to be five, so we'll probably never get a definitive sense of where the whole thing was going. But at least we'll always have these beautiful chapters in the story, full of spine-tingling moments, and a climax to season two which will remain one of the most thrilling narrative leaps in TV history.