‘The Great British Baking Show’ Will Help You Through The 2018 Garbage Fire

To borrow a conceit from Community, we’re living in the darkest timeline. Pick a day and chances are there will be another dystopian-sounding news story. From unsettling meetings with North Korea to reports of children being forcibly removed from their families by our government, 2018 has proven to be a horror show… And the best television of the year has captured that. So far this year’s best shows have been about a serial killer (The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story), a dictatorship that imprisons and rapes women (The Handmaid’s Tale), and deeply warped race relations (Atlanta and Dear White People). 2018 has been great for television, and horrible for everyone’s mental health.

‘The Great British Baking Show’ Will Help You Through The 2018 Garbage Fire

6 Underrated TV Shows and Actors Who Deserve Emmys: Pics

Taylor Kitsch

Playing a villain in a way that the audience admires isn’t an easy task. Especially, when it’s based on a horrible person like Branch Davidians leader David Koreshin Waco. While the category – Lead Actor in a Limited Series – will most likely go to Darren Criss’ portrayal of Versace’s killer Andrew Cunanan – Kitsch still deserves the recognition.

6 Underrated TV Shows and Actors Who Deserve Emmys: Pics

The year’s best TV so far includes ‘Atlanta,’ more

7. “The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story” (FX) OK, fine, we can all agree — not as good as “O.J.” But there were many pleasures here, almost all in the craftsmanship. The performances were uniformly good, while lead Darren Criss turned in a superb one — and possibly an Emmy-winning one, too.

The year’s best TV so far includes ‘Atlanta,’ more

10 Best TV Episodes of 2018 (So Far)

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1. ‘The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story’ Episode 4: “House By the Lake”

With its fourth episode, The Assassination of Gianni Versace emerged as the show it had been trying to be. Without the gaudy trappings of the Versace family, producer Ryan Murphy and writer Tom Rob Smith turned their narrative eye towards the unbearably tragic murder of David Madson.

Darren Criss (as Andrew Cunanan) and Cody Fern (as Madson) turn in searing performances as killer and victim, respectively, anchoring the episode even as it takes a few flights of fancy. — Joe Reid

10 Best TV Episodes of 2018 (So Far)

The best TV of 2018 so far

The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)

The Assassination Of Gianni Versace didn’t seize the zeitgeist the way its predecessor did, but it still made for a focused tragedy told in novel fashion a visual flair fit for the late fashion icon of its title. Played with tremendous warmth by Édgar Ramírez, Versace is ultimately a supporting character here, the spotlight falling on Darren Criss, doing the best work of his career as Versace’s murderer, Andrew Cunanan. At turns magnetic and terrifying, Criss plays Andrew as a creature of pathological confidence and need, forged from the pressures of the American dream and an internalized homophobia whose external manifestations allowed his crimes to go overlooked and under-investigated for months. In the mixed-up chronology of Tom Rob Smith’s scripts, The Assassination Of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story shows not how the monster was once a man, but how the man always had some bit of monstrousness impressed upon him, an ugliness that festered in Cunanan and claimed the lives of others, until it snuffed out one of the world’s true champions of beauty. [Erik Adams]

The best TV of 2018 so far

20 Best New TV Shows of 2018 So Far

#16 (tie): The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story: Season 1

Ryan Murphy originally planned for a Hurricane Katrina-themed season of his American Crime Story anthology series to follow 2016’s wildly acclaimed The People v. O.J. Simpson. But with the Katrina season now being retooled (it should air in 2019), the anthology’s second installment instead focuses on a series of murders in the 1990s, culminating in the shocking 1997 killing of fashion designer Gianni Versace (played by Edgar Ramirez) in Miami.

Despite the title, the series mostly focuses on the life of serial killer Andrew Cunanan (Glee’s Darren Criss), and his story (based on Maureen Orth’s book Vulgar Favors) is told in reverse, beginning with Versace’s assassination and then moving backwards to fill in the details.

“Assassination may not be as enjoyable to watch as O.J., but it’s striking to see how thoughtfully all involved approach a very different story in a way that gives it its own tone, its own themes, and its own grandeur. This is a more difficult but more ambitious work, and it stands as a worthy companion.” —Todd VanDerWerff, Vox

20 Best New TV Shows of 2018 So Far