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Feb 01, 2017 By Mark Redfern

2016 was a fairly brutal year, what with the highly contentious and divisive election, the Brexit vote, and the deaths of various important musical and acting icons, among many other trying things. So it’s little surprise that many of the year’s best TV shows offered either immersive escapism or true laughs. A dive into Under the Radar‘s Top 10 TV shows of 2016 list illustrates this. Stranger Things offered a journey to a 1980s sci-fi/horror world, with a darker take on The Goonies, E.T., and other childhood classics of the era. Westworld presented the ultimate theme park, a video game come to life but with much more complex characters and a topnotch cast. Perhaps befitting the times, The Walking Dead shared its most unforgiving episode to date, with a shocking and powerful season premiere that challenged even the most gore-loving viewer. For those looking for laughs, there was the absurdity of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and The Last Man on Earth, whereas Love and You’re the Worst presented the two most realistic and modern TV portrayals of love and romance in recent memory. 2016 had it all: superheroes galore, lots of time travel, pointed political commentary, a highly compelling drama based on the real life O.J. Simpson murder trial (The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story), and some highly silly parodies of real life documentaries (Documentary Now!). Once again, those who proclaimed, “I don’t watch TV,” were missing another year in the golden age. This list may be way past-due, but that’s only because there are so many shows on so many channels (and streaming services) that it took us awhile to digest it all and poll our writers for the below Top 50 TV Shows of 2016 (plus honorable mentions).

Click through to the list section to check out our Top 50 TV Shows of 2016.