What TVLine Is Thankful For This Year (2016)

Michael Ausiello Is Thankful for...

The series' feature-film quality background music (from composer Ramin Djawadi, a veteran of Game of Thrones and Prison Break) not only compliments the narrative, it elevates it. The one drawback: You can't really do the robot to it. I tried.

Matt Webb Mitovich Is Thankful for...

Between Stranger Things, Black Mirror's trip to "San Junipero," Dead of Summer and the Legends of Tomorrow's visit to Reagan's White House, this year served up a cruel, cruel summer in the danger zone — and my teenage self was savoring every retro bit of it, from the "wooden" cassette tape drawers and acid-washed jeans to the crimped hair and bleep-blooping arcade rooms. Mick Rory may hate the '80s, but I was loving the callbacks.

Kimberly Roots Is Thankful for...

Justin Hartley, where have you been all our lives? Yes, we know about Passions and Smallville and Revenge and The Young and the Restless and such, but never before has the daytime vet's talents — dramatic and comedic — been put to such fruitful use. In This Is Us, Hartley plays Kevin at turns silly (those ski caps!) and profound (that monologue about the painting!), and the combination is sublime.

Andy Swift Is Thankful for...

Saying goodbye is never easy, but knowing in advance that a long-running show is ending — in this case, the teen TV trinity of Pretty Little Liars, Teen Wolf and The Vampire Diaries, all of which will end in 2017 — makes it much easier for the fans to cope, and for the Powers That Be to effectively wrap up their stories.

Dave Nemetz Is Thankful for...

Sometimes racy — "Heavy Boobs," anyone? — but always catchy, the musical numbers on The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend are three-minute slices of comedy heaven. Expressing Rebecca Bunch's deepest emotions and insecurities in song, Crazy's tunes are fiendishly clever and lavishly produced, and help make the show like nothing else on TV.

Vlada Gelman Is Thankful for...

While many shows tend to lose their way the longer they've been on the air, the sublime FX drama somehow manages to only get better with each passing year. With the stakes rising for the Jennings clan as the endgame nears, I can't wait to see how the series will top itself in its final seasons – and I have no doubt that it will.

Michael Ausiello Is Thankful for...

As a TV scoopster whose job it is to report on these things ahead of time it feels counterintuitive to say this, but here it goes: I was happily blindsided by Lisa Kudrow's stealth casting as Ellie Kemper's TV mom in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Season 2 finale. I love a good surprise just as much as anyone!

Matt Webb Mitovich Is Thankful for...

Given how hit-or-miss any given SNL can be, it is no small wonder that this season has already served up two near-perfect outings, courtesy of Tom Hanks/Lady Gaga and Dave Chappelle/A Tribe Called Quest. Hanks' hosting alone made David S. Pumpkins a household name and skewered streaming services' oh-so-sullen "comedies," while Kate McKinnon's post-election "Hallelujah" hit all the right notes.

Kimberly Roots Is Thankful for...

Adalind and Sean's daughter may be spoiled. She may be dangerous. But you know what else she is? Getting it done. I'm sorry, did anyone else use an enchanted doll to make Renard skewer Bonaparte just as he was about to kill Nick? Was anyone else able to act as supernatural conduit so Adalind could send a very important message? Is anyone else so simultaneously cute-yet-terrifying? Yeah, that's what I thought. Go on with your (really, really, frighteningly) bad self, girl!

Andy Swift Is Thankful for...

It's reason enough to be thankful that Sutton Foster, one of the most enchanting performers of our time, is available to us on a weekly basis. The fact that her platform just happens to be a fun, addictive show like Younger is merely the cherry on top. (Bonus thanks to TV Land for giving it a fourth season!)

Dave Nemetz Is Thankful for...

We got a double shot of The Juice on TV this year. FX's miniseries The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story dramatized the three-ring circus of O.J. Simpson's infamous murder trial, and made us see Marcia Clark in a newly sympathetic light. And ESPN's documentary O.J.: Made in America painstakingly wove together decades of history — personal and political — to put the trial in context. Combined, they gave us a fresh (and endlessly fascinating) perspective on the Trial of the Century.

Vlada Gelman Is Thankful for...

No longer just the home of cheesy disaster movies, the network deserves credit for taking on ambitious, entertaining and challenging shows like 12 Monkeys, The Magicians and Killjoys. (Extra thanks are due for the Season 3 pickup of the superb, but ratings-challenged 12 Monkeys.) While not all of Syfy's new endeavors have been successful, it's nice to see the network putting the "sci-fi" back in its name.

Michael Ausiello Is Thankful for...

It's not the Emmys they both deserve, but I would like to present the Bates Motel mother-son duo with the award for the Most Underrated Acting Team of 2016. Their nuanced, fearless work in the A&E drama's penultimate season would've made Alfred Hitchcock's spine tingle.

Matt Webb Mitovich Is Thankful for...

A time-travel craze is upon us (and there is more to come), and I for one think that is the bee's knees and/or groovy. Maybe I'm just fascinated with "The Butterfly Effect" (and the degrees to which any given show chooses to honor it), but shows such as Timeless and Legends of Tomorrow are entertainingly mining the past for present-day entertainment.

Kimberly Roots Is Thankful for...

Am I an aging actress in Hollywood trying to keep a career afloat while mothering three girls — and keeping an eye on my own elderly mum — in the wake of a divorce? Nope, but it doesn't matter: I'm a daughter, and a mother, and Sam's achingly tough and tender relationship with the women in her household feels familiar, funny and fraught — just like real life. Pamela Adlon mined her own experiences for the series, and it shows. I'm looking forward (and dreading-but-not-really) the feelings Season 2 will stir up.

Andy Swift Is Thankful for...

One of the darkest, funniest shows on Netflix — perhaps on all of television, for that matter — BoJack Horseman's only flaw is that, for some reason, it remains criminally underappreciated. (Here's hoping I can add "BoJack Horseman's Emmy win" to my list of things I'm thankful for in 2017!)

Dave Nemetz Is Thankful for...

Like their mentor Jon Stewart before them, Samantha Bee (on TBS's Full Frontal) and John Oliver (on HBO's Last Week Tonight) have guided us through this crazy political year with equal parts scathing satire and righteous anger. And though a Donald Trump presidency was clearly not what either of them wanted, at least they'll have plenty of things to rail against for the next four years.

Vlada Gelman Is Thankful for...

Did you know there's a comedian hiding underneath all of Robert Buckley's muscles? (Proof of laughs and pecs here.) That revelation is just one of the many reasons why I'm grateful that The CW's criminally underrated iZombie came into my life. Other things about the undead dramedy that bring me joy: the witty chapter titles ("One Tree Kill") and punny names (Fillmore Graves); star Rose McIver's chameleon-like charms; the excellent love triangles; and David Anders singing at a piano in his underwear.

Michael Ausiello Is Thankful for...

Without it, the Gilmore Girls revival would've been 20 percent less magical.

Matt Webb Mitovich Is Thankful for...

Sure, its premiere date has been pushed back. And yes, auteur Bryan Fuller is no longer steering the ship as showrunner. But Star Trek: Discovery nonetheless holds great promise for longtime franchise fans such as myself, based on the casting hints and storyline teases parsed out over the summer, along with its title and first visuals. Consider me primed to "boldly go" wherever the CBS All Access series (eventually!) takes me.

Kimberly Roots Is Thankful for...

Few television shows make me want to pause each frame and rake it for clues, nods and Easter eggs, but that's the feeling I get with every new episode of HBO's Westworld. Series co-creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy (with the help of Michael Crichton) have built an intricately detailed world that invites you in at the same time it stymies your attempts to figure it out. And if you're the kind of fan given to extracurricular obsession, Westworld rewards you with a rabbit hole of a website and a creative team that knows how and when to play along. "Violent delights," indeed.

Andy Swift Is Thankful for...

We all figured that Supergirl would be a better fit on The CW than on CBS, but our collective belief wasn't officially proven until the drama made its long-awaited leap this fall. Despite relocating from Los Angeles to Vancouver, the show has become infinitely more fun — Chris Wood's Mon-El has a lot to do with that — while still managing to tug at our heartstrings. (We just want Alex to be happy!)

Dave Nemetz Is Thankful for...

Just three years after launching its first original series, Amazon has established itself as a home for quirky, insightful comedies about seriously messed-up people. From the brutal family dynamics of Transparent to the small-town grief therapy of Tig Notaro's One Mississippi, from the manic black humor of Fleabag to the foul-mouthed marital strife of Catastrophe, 2016 was a great year to laugh (and cringe), thanks to Amazon.

Vlada Gelman Is Thankful for...

As funny as Superstore and The Good Place are – and they're hysterical – what's really impressive about the NBC comedies is how skillfully they weave ideas about society, politics, healthcare, religion, ethics, etc. into their jokes. Both shows are good for laughs and good for the brain.