"I probably watched more than 2,000 individual episodes of scripted TV programs this year. Because there was so much tonal and stylistic variation between my favorite shows, and so many different kinds of episodes represented within the context of a particular show's 2018 season, it was even harder than usual to whittle down to a list of ten. I tried to spread the wealth around by not listing more than one episode of a series (something I've done in previous years), and by listing episodes that stood out in my memory even though the series itself might have narrowly missed making my top ten shows list.
While those kinds of episodes are immensely satisfying, we tend to forget why they affect us: because the writers, actors, and filmmakers have laid the narrative foundation in less glamorous, housekeeping-oriented episodes that are doing the show's version of "the usual," but at a very high level of craft."
-Matt Zoller Seitz
