'Game Of Thrones' Was Peak TV But Here Are A Few Shows You Might Have Missed This Decade

Before he was praised and then vilified for co-creating the epic TV series Game Of Thrones, David Benioff wrote something we used to call books – these days, you may know them as ‘content’ or ‘IP’.

And one of the things he put on the page was a short story called When The Nines Roll Over, in which a family make much hullabaloo over their old car’s odometer making the transition from 999,999 back to zeroes across the board – an optimistic celebration of a possible reset, even as it is acknowledged that plenty of distance has been travelled to reach this point.

Such sentiment is naturally relevant to this time of the year, and indeed the decade, as we all share in that feeling of the nines rolling over.

And when it comes to people who frequently go to the movies, listen to music, read books and watch television, that sentiment tends to express itself in lists. So many lists.

I’m sure I’m not alone in casting an eye over the various titles, trends, scenes, performances and whatnot that have popped up over the last month or so – I know I’ve been eager to see if my taste corresponds with that of the cultural commentators I admire, just as I’ve been eager to poke fun at any basic or boneheaded picks made by those I don’t. (Resolution for the 2020s: be less petty, Davis.)

Read enough of these lists, and you’ll, of course, see patterns forming. Yes, we’re all individuals with our own penchants and preferences, but we can recognise and respond to quality when we encounter it, so there’s gonna be some degree of overlap in what’s viewed as the best art and entertainment of the 2010s.

When it comes to TV, a cursory glance of most best-of lists will reveal the likes of The Americans, Twin Peaks: The Return, Atlanta, Fleabag, Black Mirror and the final few seasons of ‘00s holdovers such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and justifiably so – they’re all good programs, and some are even legitimately great programs. (Justified could be higher on a few of these lists, however, if you ask me.)

However, because TV Guy’d is (1) the place where we champion the unsung, the underrated, the outlier, and (2) desperate to differentiate itself from the crowd, we’re gonna take it as a given that you, the reader, know those shows are worthwhile and instead give a little love to some stuff that may have faded slightly from the memory or even given you the slip in the first place, an occurrence all too easy in the era of peak TV. And because we’re in the age of AI, let’s do it algorithm style!

If you liked Game Of Thrones, you may also like Spartacus (2010-2013) 

Nothing like leading with a bold choice, huh? And pretty much everything about this series, a luridly, insanely gory and sexy take on the tale of the Roman gladiator who led his fellow slaves in a violent uprising against their wealthy oppressors, was bold – the bloodletting was graphic, as was the nudity from both genders, and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a cartoonish wank for fans of the sword-and-sandal genre. (Hey, that’s me!)

But as Spartacus progressed – overcoming tragic adversities like the untimely death of its charismatic leading man Andy Whitfield, who was subsequently replaced by the extremely able Liam McIntyre – it not only provided prurient thrills and compelling melodrama par excellence but brought an unexpected and incredibly stirring degree of heart, soul, humanity and even moral complexity to its story of enslaved and exploited people fighting tooth and nail for their rights. If you’d told me at the very beginning of Spartacus I’d be a weeping mess by the final episode as characters I’d come to care for met their fates, I would have laughed in your face. And I would have been so very wrong.

If you liked Hannibal (and YOU SHOULD HAVE, it was one of the decade’s best), you may also like Penny Dreadful (2014-2016) 

Horror had quite the decade on the small screen, from the engaging Spielberg-King pastiche of Stranger Things to the enthusiastic genre-hopping of American Horror Story. And my personal favourites had a real lushness to them – Hannibal, of course, as it pushed the envelope of what commercial television had displayed in terms of blood, guts and gruesomeness but also in its beautiful, bizarre and baroque artistic flourishes, but also Penny Dreadful, a Victorian-era assembly of classic horror-fiction characters (conveniently in the public domain) battling both personal and literal demons.

Showrunner John Logan clearly had a ball playing fast and loose with his gallery of witches, vampires, shapeshifters and creatures and their creators, reinterpreting characters and reimagining relationships and scenarios – it provided the creative team on both sides of the camera a magnificent playground. But Logan and his exemplary cast – including the great Eva Green, often invoking the unhinged, uninhibited passion of Isabelle Adjani as a woman who could literally growl the devil into submission – did more than play dress-ups; they breathed new and potent life into the history of horror. And even though the series seemed to end far too early and abruptly for many viewers, fear not (or fear plenty): a revamped version titled Penny Dreadful: City Of Angels premieres in 2020.

If you liked The Americans, you may also like Rubicon (2010) 

Uh, the 2010s was kind of a crazy decade, right? Even the most passive bystander could grasp that in a social, political and economic sense, the world seemed to be slipping off its traditional axis and a bunch of people who at best were deluded or nonchalant about the dangers they posed (and at worst straight-up evil) were taking the wheel. In such times, it can provide some small comfort to believe it’s all the work of some sinister, secretive cabal rather than an overall system failure. So the conspiracy thriller, a long-time staple of the entertainment industry, enjoyed a bit of a resurgence, and one of the best was the one-season wonder Rubicon.

Focusing on a brilliant intelligent analyst (James Badge Dale, whose low-key presence and versatility across a range of roles and projects made him one of my favourite actors of the decade) who discovers the information gathered and deciphered by his think-tank team is being used by a shadowy organisation to manipulate world events, often with catastrophic results, Rubicon was a chilly, elegant throwback to ‘70s thrillers like The Parallax View and Three Days Of The Condor, one that was almost too clinical and detached in its approach – an effective change in creative direction and tone came a little too late in its run, and it was cancelled after a single season. Still, it’s well worth watching…if you can track it down, that is, because even with a wealth of outlets out there Rubicon is still hard to find. It’s enough to make one think there’s some kind of conspiracy going on.

If you liked Please Like Me, you probably WON’T like Eastbound & Down (2009-2013) 

But, hey, maybe you will! As we stated earlier, taste is a highly individual and subjective thing! But on every conceivable level, Please Like Me and Eastbound & Down would appear to be poles apart. And the pole where I plant my flag is Kenny Powers territory. The team of Danny McBride, Jody Hill and David Gordon Green expertly explored 21st century American white-male entitlement in their series Vice Principals and The Righteous Gemstones, but Eastbound & Down’s four-season run chronicling the rude, rowdy exploits of washed-up pro sportsman Kenny (played perfectly by McBride) set the tone.

The particular genius of the McBride-Hill-Green trio is their ability to both revel in and be revolted by the would-be alpha-male behaviour of a douchebag like Kenny, who frequently fumbles and stumbles towards some level of self-awareness only to sabotage any chance at growth, enlightenment or happiness through ego or fear. It’s a beautiful time capsule of a certain type of modern masculinity, and Eastbound & Down made it both hilarious and heartbreaking.