Best TV Shows of 2005
Ranked by our critic's grades, best first.
Avatar: The Last AirbenderA children's cartoon that plotted three seasons in advance and paid off every one of them.Read the review
The Office (US)The mockumentary sitcom that turned cringe into affection without ever going soft on Michael Scott.
The Thick of ItArmando Iannucci built the meanest vocabulary in British television, and Peter Capaldi swings it like an axe.
It's Always Sunny in PhiladelphiaTwo decades of writing about people who deserve nothing, and it has never once softened.
RomeTwo soldiers stumble through the fall of the Republic, and the show is cancelled before it can finish the story.
Prison BreakSeason one is a genuinely great engine. The show then spends four more seasons pretending it can be restarted.
How I Met Your MotherNine years of inventive structural comedy spent building toward a finale that dismantled the premise.
SupernaturalTwo brothers, one car, fifteen seasons, and a fandom that kept it alive long past the story it was built to tell.
Grey's AnatomyA very good five seasons buried under fifteen more that exist because the machine cannot stop.