2012’s best TV shows | Robert Lloyd
The intersection of David Milch and Michael Mann creates a kind of baroque naturalism in this densely populated racetrack drama canceled either for low numbers or animal fatalities (you choose). Like the Altman movies it sometimes resembled, plot ran second to milieu -- which, in TV, is as it should be. (Gusmano Cesaretti / AP)
(The original U.K. stream, not the compromised NBC broadcast). Danny Boyle’s huge and daffy pop-historical pony ride through the (relatively recent) history and culture of the United Kingdom showed the nation in its greater and littler aspects, its glory and its ignominy. Plus the Queen as Bond girl. (Olivier Morin / AFP / Getty Images)
Not new, but I cannot leave 2012 without saluting these exercises in joyousness, each of which expresses a different meaning of “animated” and both of which make life on Earth more than a little better. (Theo Wargo / Getty Images)