1. BETTER THINGS, FX
There’s something elemental about Better Things. Its protagonist Sam—played by Pamela Adlon, the show’s co-creator, who directed every episode of the second season—is exhausted by being a single mother, a woman trying to keep an acting career going after 40, a person. Sometimes she lashes out; sometimes she just sits and thinks, but she is mesmerizingly alive throughout. The organizing events of contemporary American life—parenting, finding love, settling into a career—have for Sam, as for so many, come with no small share of angst. That Adlon illuminates this story, somehow makes it funny and shoots it through with hope and love makes Better Things TV’s very best show in, and for, a challenging year.
2. BIG LITTLE LIES, HBO
This miniseries came into focus as a…
