Sam Woolf’s Top 10 TV Shows Of 2015

4) The Leftovers

It’s more than a little amusing that TV’s most fully envisioned science fiction world is the one where God is real, and a capricious jerk. After sleeping on HBO’s The Leftovers last year, a season one marathon (which proved to be the television equivalent of Speed Grieving) left me asking one all-important question: could creators Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta continue making a series that operated with such powerful emotional logic that the vagaries of its storytelling would keep supporting the show’s guiding philosophy, instead of curdling into an overall liability?

Lo and behold, a change of scenery and structure didn’t just give The Leftovers a new lease on life, but also further deepened its characters, mysteries, and spiritual identity. Whether in individual moments as poignant as Kevin Garvey singing “Homeward Bound,” or entire episodes as harrowing as “No Room at the Inn,” The Leftovers asked more of viewers than maybe any other series this year, but rewarded faith in its unique vision like few other shows could.