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INSTRUCTIONS:

It’s simple: for every match-up, pick your favorite. We’re looking for the best show, not necessarily the most faithful adaptation—though that may factor into your thinking. Or not! In short, go with your gut. We’ll tabulate up the results using our best liberal arts major math, and bring you the results tomorrow.

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VOTING SCHEDULE:

Round of 64: Voting open now until tonight at 7:00 PM EST (Results are here)

➤ Round of 32: Voting open now until 7:00 PM EST

Round of 16: Voting open Wednesday, November 11th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST

Round of 8: Voting open Thursday, November 12th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST

The Quarter Finals: Voting open Friday, November 13th from 10:00 AM, until Sunday November 15th at 7:00 PM EST

The Finals: Voting open Monday, November 16th from 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM EST

And the winner will be announced on Tuesday, November 17th!

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HOW TO VOTE:

There are little voting forms at the bottom of each match-up. Simply click and move along, like changing the channel on your TV.

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MATCHUP:

Game of Thrones (1) vs. Sharp Objects (9)

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Game of Thrones (2011)

Emotional manipulation, with dragons

Based on: George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series (1996–…)

Subgenres: Everyone Dies • The Last Stand of Monoculture • Water Cooler Fodder

 

David Benioff and D. B. Weiss changed the game with their adaptation of George R.R. (for Really Really Slow At Finishing the Next Book) Martin’s already popular books, bringing the swords, dragons, morally complex characters, and unrepentant violence to life with big budget visuals and great performances. The books’ soap-opera-dense political intrigue and “kill ‘em all” approach to character development felt remarkably fresh in 2011—you never knew who was going to die, or have sex!—and it’s hard to overstate the show’s popularity: For years of Sundays, everyone you knew was going to a Game of Thrones watch party. Some of the shine came off when the show’s plot outran the books—and the writers couldn’t stick the landing—but when there are real children in the real world named Daenerys, it’s hard to deny the GoT legacy. –JF

Put it on when you want to feel better about your office’s politics.

See also:

How I Built My Own Game of Thrones Iron Throne • The 50 Best Fictional Dragons, Ranked • In Praise of Remixing Shakespeare

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Sharp Objects (2018)

A crime series about how fucked up it is that neither Amy Adams nor Patricia Clarkson have won any Oscars

Based on: Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (2006)

Subgenres: Southern Gothic • Rollerskating Gothic • Amy Adams Whispering Gothic • Mommy Issues Gothic

 

I watched all of Sharp Objects in one day because I’m insane, and now my brain is different. This series is the definition of vibes and atmosphere, the definition of creeping dread and sickening suspense. On the surface this is a story about a struggling crime reporter (Adams) being dispatched to her hometown to report on a murder, and ultimately being sucked back into dark family drama and her mother’s (Clarkson) unstable orbit. But actually, this is a show about beautiful wallpaper and dark corners and oppressive Southern heat. It’s a mother-daughter story told through a cracked mirror. The show itself is a very sharp object. –MC

Put it on when you are looking to get jump-scared by Sydney Sweeney.

See also:

On the Feminine Urge to Murder • Ethical Dilemmas and Moral Quandaries: Women Finding Their Power in Literature

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MATCHUP:

The Handmaid’s Tale (12) vs. Roots (4)

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The Handmaid’s Tale (2017)

Systemic oppression with fun little hats

Based on: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)

Subgenres: Color Coding • It Could Happen Here • The Discourse

 

The first season of The Handmaid’s Tale premiered less than four months into Donald Trump’s first presidency, which made the show—which imagines a totalitarian American in which women are utterly subjugated—even more haunting. It is an effective, moving translation of Atwood’s beloved novel, not least on account of its excellent cast, including Elisabeth Moss, Samira Wiley, Alexis Bledel, Ann Dowd, and Joseph Fiennes.

Unfortunately, in later seasons, after it outruns the book, the show gets stuck in the mud and kind of devolves into torture porn. But hey, we’ll always have the iconography. –ET

Put it on when you have just voted against fascists.

See also:

The Handmaid’s Tale Adapts More Than the Novel: Here is America • Margaret Atwood on How She Came to Write The Handmaid’s Tale • Watching The Handmaid’s Tale While Transitioning • What Makes Somebody a Mother? On the New Season of The Handmaid’s Tale

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Roots (1977)

A very American family saga

Based on: Alex Haley’s Roots (1976)

Subgenres: Classroom Classics • It Did Happen Here • Generational Stories

 

One of the most watched miniseries in American TV history and a seminal dramatic portrayal of America through slavery and the Civil War. The show almost got pulled when ABC executives saw how unflinching Roots was about the brutality of slavers, especially when they were being portrayed by some of TV’s most recognizable white faces. The network insisted on adding a concerned white captain who isn’t in the book. Haley’s novel was known for being the first popular work of fiction to present the horrors of the Middle Passage, which the show maintains. Some of the novel’s nuance is lost in the translation to TV, but Roots is excellent and anchored in great performances, including an early performance by LeVar Burton. –JF

Put it on when you want to remember when network TV executives made serious shows.

See also:

How the TV Adaptation of Alex Haley’s Roots Sparked a Cultural Awakening • Nikki Giovanni on Race, Hope, Fatherhood, and Roots

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MATCHUP:

Say Nothing (6) vs. Justified (3)

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Say Nothing (2024)

Revolution retold

Based on: Patrick Radden Keefe’s Say Nothing (2018)

Subgenres: Based on a True Story • Fight for Your Rights • Party Politics

 

Patrick Radden Keefe’s excellent book was my first introduction to both the Troubles and its cast of determined revolutionaries. Keefe’s project, centering on the mysterious disappearance of civilian Jean McConville in 1972, explored a centuries-long occupation through the eyes of a few key players. Josh Zetumer’s adaptation also managed to render the political personal, but this viewer admired how the show’s structure left space for thematic exploration.

Drifting from the tight focus on I.R.A. icon Dolours Price gives the series air to float big questions. So on the one hand, we have Lola Petticrew eating up scenery as moxie incarnate, but on the other, we have meaty arguments on statecraft, paramilitary strategy, and political atonement.

I also felt, watching this show, how alive the conflict is. And how unsettled! Say Nothing framed every single one of its nine episodes with a winky chyron noting Gerry Adams’ denial that he was ever a member of the I.R.A. Maybe the revolution will not be televised because the past isn’t even past. –BKA

Put it on when you want to topple the system in a cool sweater.

See also:

Patrick Radden Keefe on Secrets, Lies, and the Murky Line Between Licit and Illicit

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Justified (2010)

A years-long argument for practicing one’s quick draw

Based on: Elmore Leonard’s short story “Fire in the Hole” (2001)

Subgenres: Digging Coal Together • Big Hats • Shooty Show

 

You might think it would be difficult to hang six seasons of a television show on a single short story. And it is—in the sense that the story in question, which introduces US Marshal Raylan Given, who believes in justice over rules, and who comes back home to Harlan, Kentucky, where he finds himself squaring off against an old coal mining buddy, Boyd Crowder, now on the other side of the law, has little to do with the overall plot of the show beyond the first few episodes. But famously, showrunner Graham Yost gave all the writers bracelets with “WWED” on them, for “What Would Elmore Do?” And you can tell. The writing is great, the acting is great, the tone—a sort of Southern Gothic meets Western meets modern crime drama—is electric, and the whole thing is entertaining as hell from top to tail. –ET

Put it on when you wish you could take matters into your own hands.

See also:

The Search for the Funniest Crime Novel Ever Written • 43 of the Most Iconic Short Stories in the English Language • 40 Writer’s Writers Whomst Readers Should Read

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MATCHUP:

The Night Manager (10) vs. Slow Horses (2)

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The Night Manager (2016)

Falling for the arms dealer’s wife is never a good idea

Based on: John Le Carré’s The Night Manager (1993)

Subgenres: Hidden Identities • Doomed But Sexy Relationships Between Spies • Globe Trotting • Communicating Via Secret Channels

 

Le Carré’s taut novel is his first set outside of the Cold War, and the BBC adaptation is propulsive and tense. Le Carré’s read on the post-9/11 political situation was nearly always spot on, and The Night Manager’s collision between a stretched-thin security apparatus and rapacious war profiteers still feels relevant—strip the charm from Hugh Laurie’s evil gunrunner character and dunk him in lamer, ketamine-dusted clothes and you basically have Elon Musk and Starlink.

The show is gorgeous and has a cast of amazing British actors in nuanced roles: a coy and competent Tom Hiddleston, a pregnant and mad Olivia Colman, a sadly scheming Tom Hollander, and on and on. The second season—an overly complicated reunion trying to do a Y Tu Mama Tambien thing, I guess?—is skippable, but the first season is a lean and exciting thriller that more than makes up for it. –JF

Put it on when you feel nostalgic for your childhood dream of becoming a spy.

See also:

A Writer For Our Time: Why John le Carré’s Work Remains More Essential Than Ever • Spying is Lying: How David Cornwell Became John Le Carré

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Slow Horses (2022)

Gary Oldman zinger vehicle

Based on: Mick Herron’s Slough House novels (2010–2025)

Subgenres: Losers • Our Peerless Leader • Highbrow Fart Jokes • Elevated Espionage

 

It’s a brilliant premise: a group of MI5 agents, all of whom have made career-ruining mistakes of one kind or another, are relegated to a department entitled Slough House, where they are made to do menial labor to avoid being completely left out in the cold. Their fearless leader is the relentlessly disgusting, but equally brilliant Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) who insults, cajoles, and gaslights his foot-dragging staff into feats of daring heroism. It is exciting in all the normal ways that a good spy drama can be, but unlike many of its kind, it is very, very funny, balancing mordant wit, slapstick, and, let’s face it, highly amusing Britishisms. Plus, Kristin Scott Thomas always hits. –ET

Put it on when you are really good at failing.

See also:

Slow Horses, Starring Gary Oldman, is Worth the Slow Burn

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MATCHUP:

Friday Night Lights (1) vs. Killing Eve (9)

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Friday Night Lights (2006)

Football is really that serious

Based on: H.G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (1990)

Subgenres: Real Eyes Realize Clear Eyes • Multiple Adaptations • Pep Talks That Make You Tear Up • Hunks Crying

 

Friday Night Lights has a ton of fans who don’t know (or care) a thing about football, a testament to the show’s quality and popularity. But the football, high school, and even Texas of it all was always backdrop for Friday Night Lights, which kept its focus on its characters and their emotional and relational lives. Some of the plot lines got a little goofy and soap opera-y—the second season was shortened due to the 2007 writers strike and got garbled—but you cannot beat the performances. And the show doesn’t get enough credit for being cinematically experimental: the music and shots were genuinely surprising and even anti-realist in places. Plus the production’s embrace of improvisation, empowering the cast to make their own choices about dialogue and blocking, gave FNL an immediacy that escapes other prestige shows. –JF

Put it on when you need a halftime speech to turn a bad day around.

See also:

On the Truth and Lies of Friday Night Football

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Killing Eve (2018)

What’s a little assassination between two consenting adults?

Based on: Luke Jennings’s Codename Villanelle (2017)

Subgenres: The Thrill of the Chase • Recreational Murder • Tension

 

The heart of Killing Eve is of course the mutual obsession between assassin Villanelle and her hunter, Eve Polastri. Comer’s Villanelle is volatile and ruthless, which is to say she’s a lot of fun, and while Eve might appear more grounded on the surface, the two women are (in the most complimentary way possible) perfectly matched freaks. Phoebe Waller-Bridge served as the show’s head writer during the first season of this sharp, sexy cat and mouse game, then Emerald Fennel in season two; fans remained divided over later seasons, particularly the show’s ending, but that’s okay. We’ll always have the kitchen scene. –OS

Put it on when you need to live vicariously through fiction instead of staying at home with your cat.

See also:

Serial Killer As Instagram Influencer? On Killing Eve‘s Cool Girl Assassin • The Visible and Invisible Women of Killing Eve • Subverting the Male Gaze in Killing Eve

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MATCHUP:

Heated Rivalry (5) vs. Interview with the Vampire (12)

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Heated Rivalry (2025)

The sexy hockey show that spawned a thousand fanfics

Based on: Rachel Reid’s Game Changers series (2018–present)

Subgenres: O O O O Canada • Erotica on Ice • SPORTS • Hot Steamy Yearning

 

No one saw the sexy hockey show coming. Originally developed for the Canadian streaming platform Crave, it got a surprise simultaneous release (um, no pun intended) on HBO Max and instantly became a hit—hopefully whoever acquired it has gotten a raise. The show, in which two rival hockey players fall in lust, and then love, over many years, benefits from the charisma and chemistry of its leads, but also from solid writing and an undercurrent of surprisingly unsaccharine hope. It’s a gay fantasia, gloriously optimistic, honestly funny, and yep, pretty damn hot. –ET

Put it on when you are alone.

See also:

How Heated Rivalry Imagines a More Inclusive NHL • Why Heated Rivalry is the Perfect Adaptation of the Romance Novel’s Strict Conventions

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Interview with the Vampire (2022)

Even Anne Rice can’t sue from beyond the grave

Based on: Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1991)

Subgenres: Toxic Yaoi • Tom Cruise Wishes • Does This Count As Romantasy?

 

All of my gayest and most insane friends are obsessed with Interview with the Vampire, which is how you know it’s awesome. The show follows the plot of the book but, since Anne Rice is now dead and can’t get litigious about it, the two central vampires (Louis and Lestat) can finally be openly gay. This is what gives this show its extra sauce: the fact that Louis and Lestat can have hate sex and play evil mind games with each other as they fall in love. It’s an adaptation that dares to ask: Did we make these characters psychotic enough the first time around? Is there anything we can do to bump up the crazy factor? Can we turn that dial to 11? –MC

Put it on when you need to look at hot men in high-waisted pants.

See also:

Leigh Bardugo on 50 Years of Interview with the Vampire and the Immortality of Anne Rice’s Lestat

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MATCHUP:

Outlander (6) vs. Normal People (3)

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Outlander (2014)

Horny across time

Based on: Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series (1991-2021)

Subgenres: Anachronistic Hygiene • Gorgeous Settings • Don’t Mess With Stone Circle Magic

 

This show is a perfectly elevated soap opera. Outlander has lots of depth—shifting allegiances, political machinations, and interpersonal dramas—but it’s also gorgeous and sexy, shot in amazing locations with a dashing cast. The story moves across its more than a hundred episodes—through time, relationships, significant historical events—but never loses track of what the viewer really wants. Showrunner and developer Ronald D. Moore worked on Battlestar Galactica, For All Mankind, and a bunch of the Star Treks, so he knows his high concept, high drama TV. We debated putting this one in the “cozy” category since it’s so good at satisfying your expectations, but Outlander is smarter and more complex than it might appear on the surface. –JF

Put it on when you feel like you were born in the wrong time period(s) and want to be embraced on the moors.

See also:

A Love Letter to Lovers of Outlander • This is the supernatural, time-traveling romance series YOU SHOULD be watching.

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Normal People (2020)

Sex, Angst, Sligo

Based on: Sally Rooney’s Normal People (2018)

Subgenres: What Happens in Sligo • Connell’s Gold Chain • Faithful Adaptations

 

Rare is it that an adaptation is neither better nor worse than its source material, but rather, despite covering the same ground, an ideal companion piece. Lenny Abrahamson’s Normal People is deeply faithful to Rooney’s breakout novel, while also delivering a visual mood that expands on the book. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal are both excellent, bringing a convincing vulnerability to the screen. Also the sex is pretty damn good! –ET

Put it on when you miss having strong emotions.

See also:

Watching Normal People Have Very Good Sex (on the Small Screen) • Lenny Abrahamson on Adapting Sally Rooney’s Normal People for TV • Dispatches from an extra on the set of Hulu’s Normal People. • Read Sally Rooney’s first short story about Marianne and Connell.

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MATCHUP:

True Blood (10) vs. Orange is the New Black (2)

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True Blood (2008)

The Sins of My Yellow Country Teeth

Based on: Charlaine Harris’s “The Southern Vampire Mysteries” (2001-2013)

Subgenres: Very TV-y TV • Dirty Sexy Bloody • An HBO Show

 

If Charlaine Harris’s cozy-ish mystery series would’ve never existed without Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, the recent adaptation of the Rice books wouldn’t be what it is without the campy soapy fun of True Blood lingering in our collective memories. When our story begins, vampires have recently “come out of the coffin” and into society with the invention of synthetic blood, but obviously that’s going to be messy and weird for everybody. And it is! Anna Paquin stars as a maybe-part-fae bartender and Stephen Moyer as her vampire situationship. Showrunner Alan Ball (better known for Six Feet Under) brings a wide streak of black humor to the proceedings. I’m pretty sure the actors all know what kind of show they’re in, which is to say there’s a sense of play, especially in the early running, that makes the whole thing a hoot. A certain kind of person will giggle if you shout “SOOKIE!” at a party and iykyk about the scene where Denis O’Hare rips a news anchor’s spine out on live TV. This show really did have everything, and was far better than 2008’s other notable vampire-related release. –DB

Put it on when you find the honest histrionics of Anne Rice’s vampires a bit too much.

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Orange is the New Black (2013)

A show where they mostly wore khaki

Based on: Piper Kerman’s Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison (2010)

Subgenres: Worst Places to See Your Ex • The Prison Industrial Complex is Evil • Cosplay Ideas for Large Groups

 

Being incarcerated alongside the ex who sent you to prison isn’t just a cruel joke of the universe: It actually happened to Piper Kerman, who transported dirty money on exactly one occasion for her former girlfriend, drug smuggler Alex Vause. Thank goodness she wrote a memoir about it, so it could become this show. Orange Is The New Black’s humor, heart, and earnest examination of the American prison system made it one of the earliest hits of the streaming era, and as its scope expanded from Piper to focus on its sprawling ensemble cast, its saturation only increased. Everyone watched this show. Your mom. Your co-worker. The worst guy you know probably had a (very bad) opinion about one of the most controversial character deaths of the time. –OS

Put it on when you definitely want to laugh (but maybe also cry).

See also:

Kate Mulgrew on the Work of Waiting, in Acting and in Life • Blurring the Lines Between Criminal Justice and Popular Culture

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MATCHUP:

Sherlock (16) vs. The Queen’s Gambit (8)

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Sherlock (2010)

The game is on

Based on: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Sherlock Holmes stories (1887-1927)

Subgenres: Former Tumblr Teen Bait • They Should Have Kissed • Seeing the Mind Palace

 

For those who frequented certain corners of the early 2010s internet, it was entirely possible to know everything about Sherlock without ever having seen it. This take on the character situates Holmes in a contemporary setting and employs superimposition alongside slick editing and undersaturated cinematography to visualize his deductions. But even though memes about Benedict Cumberbatch’s name are long out of style, appreciation of Sherlock endures, demonstrating more than anything why, over 100 years after Conan Doyle published the first Sherlock Holmes stories, we still care about Holmes and Watson. –OS

Put it on when you want to feel smarter than you actually are.

See also:

Not My Sherlock • A Literary Feud is Afoot! • The Real Sherlock Holmes: How an Edinburgh Doctor Inspired Doyle’s Detective

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The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Sex, drugs, and the Sicilian Defense

Based on: Walter Tevis’s The Queen’s Gambit (2003)

Subgenres: Lockdown Hit • Child Prodigy • High Functioning Addicts • Mad Men School of Cool Period Details • Redownloading the Chess App

 

Like Tiger King and that Bo Burnham special, the terrible months of COVID lockdown had some surprising pop culture hits. The Queen’s Gambit was one bright light, a coming of age story about a talented chess player battling addiction and patriarchy. The show was fun and filled with lots of nice 50s and 60s details. The big complaint from fans of the book is that Anya Taylor-Joy is too attractive to play the main character as written; Sarah Miller wrote in The New Yorker that though the “Actors Are Too Hot Hill is a silly place to die,” the adaptation suffers from this radical reimagining of the character. Whether the orphan chess prodigy could moonlight as a model or not, The Queen’s Gambit has gripping writing that makes good use of the tense, cliffhanger-a-minute pacing of a streaming show. And it was kind of nice during COVID lockdown to see a glamorous but tragic version of boozy board game players, when I was also spending a lot of time drinking beer and playing Ticket To Ride online. –JF

Put it on when you want to see the whole board.

See also:

If, like the rest of us, you’re suddenly into chess now, here are some books you should read.

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MATCHUP:

Station Eleven (5) vs.Watchmen (4)

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Station Eleven (2021)

Post-apocalyptic theater kids against the world

Based on: Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven (2015)

Subgenres: COVID Flashbacks • Beauty After the End • Gael García Bernal Siempre

 

A flu pandemic destroys civilization (yikes) and a traveling theater company makes their way through the ruins. This was a high budget adaptation of a beloved novel, and one that sparked a lot of Opinions: The liberties taken with the book tighten up some of the relationships, which mostly works on screen, though some thought they rendered some of the book’s ambiguities a bit too pat. Either way, the show looks great and the acting and pacing are enthralling—it’s hitting all the prestige TV high notes. And the writing grabs for your heart strings—the response from your tear ducts depends on your taste for melodrama.

But the show’s main assertion about the power of art gets me every time. This is a show about why you reach for the same book at a tough moment. The things we turn to when we need escape or solace become part of how we understand and remember our lives, and there are few other shows that gets at this nuanced way that art entwines itself into our being. –JF

Put it on when you need to cry remembering your favorite childhood book.

See also:

Don’t Worry, Station Eleven Isn’t Really a Pandemic Story • Every Coming-of-Age Story is an Apocalypse Story • What Kind of Pandemic Storytelling Do We Actually Need?

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Watchmen (2019)

A sequel? A remix? The best comic book series ever?

Based on:  Alan Moore’s Watchmen (but he doesn’t think so) (1986-87)

Subgenres: A Perfect Season of Television • Edgelord Misunderstandings • Commentary on America • Reznor/Ross Soundtracks • Alternate Universes

 

I was suspicious of this show before it aired. Alan Moore, infamous grump about adaptations of his properties, disavowed the whole thing (although who can blame him for feeling nervy after Zach Snyder’s… questionable film adaptation of the original comic) and I wasn’t sure about how I felt about white creators using the Tulsa Race Massacre to open the whole series. But the first episode alone turned me around, setting off an absolute must-see run of nine episodes that pull the Watchmen story forward and demanded (in 2019!) that we come to better terms with the white sheets in the closets of even those we thought might be good people. What does it mean for cops to wear masks and hide their identities? What else can masks hide? Whatever happened to Dr. Manhattan? What on Earth(…) is going on with Jeremy Irons? If the opening episode’s careful set-up and the spectacular Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross score doesn’t hook you, promise me you’ll stick around at least til Jean Smart pulls out the Dr. Manhattan dildo. –DB

Put it on when you want to be reminded of superhero stories that aren’t totally Marvel-ed out.

See also:

Everything You Need to Know About the World of Watchmen • The Best Reporters in Comic Book History

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MATCHUP:

The Underground Railroad (6) vs. Shogun (3)

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The Underground Railroad (2021)

Speculative American history from an auteur

Based on: Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad (2016)

Subgenres: Barry Jenkins! • American Sins • Magical Realism

 

Whitehead’s book is a difficult act to follow. The novel won every major award and was the kind of critical and commercial success that marked it as an undeniable artistic achievement. It also came out in 2016, when American readers, I think, wanted a reminder of our ancestors’s righteous struggles. We had attempted to redeem ourselves in the past, and had repudiated the ugliness baked into the American experiment. Our current sins, perhaps, wouldn’t be forever.

So much to say, only a director like Barry Jenkins could do justice to both the real history and stakes of Whitehead’s novel, while also beautifully translating the magical realism. Along with a stellar cast, Jenkins crafted an artful, difficult miniseries that pays homage to the original text while also pushing at its borders. Unfortunately, it debuted in spring 2021, early in the Biden years, when many people seemed ready to “get back to brunch.” A show this profoundly heavy and provocative didn’t seem to fit the cultural moment, and was unfairly ignored by many viewers. If you missed it, trust me when I say it’s well worth your time. –JF

Put it on when you want to watch something that feels like cinema.

See also:

Barry Jenkins’ Underground Railroad is Even More Challenging Than the Novel • What I Learned from a Close Read of All of Colson Whitehead’s Work • Read an Excerpt From The Underground Railroad

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Shogun (2024)

A stranger fumbling in a strange land, with swords

Based on: James Clavell’s Shogun (1975)

Subgenres: Memed • Subtitles • Epic Battles * Chaotic White Boys • Studying the Blade

 

Just when you thought there was no juice left in “epic prestige historical dramas,” Shogun arrived. The show is huge, with something for everyone: political turmoil, grand battles, and even lighter, fish out of water humor. The story is big too, following the chaotic fallout after the Dutch arrive in a Japan on the verge of the Shogunate Restoration. It’s hard to find a weak link: Shogun is gorgeous, well written, and superbly acted, particularly Anna Sawai, and Hiroyuki Sanada, who plays Lord Toranaga with a quiet, self-assured power. Full of rich texture and detail, the adaptation remains true to the 1975 Clavell novel, especially its gritty and grounded humanity. In every way it exceeds the 1980s adaptation.

Why then isn’t Shogun even higher in our seeding? There’s a way in which the show hews too close to the prestige formula, perhaps, instead of chancing any riskier innovation. But with two more seasons starting production soon, there’s plenty of time for the already excellent Shogun to transcend the expected TV rhythms. –JF

Put it on when you miss studying abroad.

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MATCHUP:

Mindhunter (7) vs. Wolf Hall (2)

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Mindhunter (2017)

 Brief interviews with hideous men

Based on: John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker’s Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit (2017)

Subgenres: Serialized Serial Killers Stories • Washed-Out Color Palettes • Grotesques and Their Wicked Ways • The Male Loneliness Epidemic

 

Ah, Mindhunter, the show that dared to ask the question: “What if Zodiac was 20 hours long and somehow even creepier?” David Fincher’s grimly compelling, uncommonly restrained murder show—based on the FBI profilers who pioneered the study of psychopathic killers in the 70s and 80s—was taken from us too soon, but it was fun (I use the term “fun” incredibly loosely) while it lasted. Holden Ford (Groff) is the hotshot loner savant who burrows into the heads of America’s most prolific murderers. Bill Tench (McCallany) is his gruff but bighearted family man partner. Wendy Carr (Torv) is the unflappable closeted lesbian psychologist who completes the basement-dwelling trio. Every Monster of the Week encounter is hold-your-breath stuff, with a particularly memorable performance by Cameron Brittan as the gargantuan “Co-ed Killer” Ed Kemper. –DS

Put it on when you wish your spouse would stop trying to initiate sex while you’re busy staring at your conspiracy board.

See also:

Meet the Forensic Expert Behind Mindhunter

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Wolf Hall (2015)

The King and I

Based on: Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2009)

Subgenres: Milord and Milady Drama • Ye Olde Case Law • Divorced Guy Problems • Stiff Upper Lip

 

Cards on the table: Hilary Mantel is one of my favorite writers of all time, so Wolf Hall occupies a weird space for me. On the one hand, there is no way a television show can exceed the experience of reading the books, and on the other hand, I’m thrilled any time I get to revisit Mantel’s stories.

Luckily, the first season of Wolf Hall is exquisite: patient, cinematic, and subtly acted. Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis, and Claire Foy are all different flavors of calculating, and the conniving dance they’re locked into is mesmerizing. So much is communicated in looks, many hard to discern in the low lighting or obscured by the distance of court and class. It’s an unsettled, quietly tense show that steadily heightens the arcs of each main character, who get what they want but at tremendous cost. Just incredible writing in the first season, which lands an emotionally satisfying ending even if you know where these real historical events are headed.

The second season, alas, loses its footing. The next two books in Mantel’s trilogy are excellent and I applaud the impulse to adapt them, but returning ten years later with the same cast is more than a little dissonant. Still, the first season is good enough to put this show almost at the top of the pack all by itself. –JF

Put it on when you are thinking of going back to school to get your law degree.

See also:

How My Friend Hilary Mantel Got Inside People’s Minds • Diplomacy Noir • How Much Actual History Do You Need for a Historical Novel?

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MATCHUP:

Brideshead Revisited (1) vs. My Brilliant Friend (8)

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Brideshead Revisited (1981)

We have always remembered when we lived in the castle

Based on: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945)

Subgenres: Teddy Bears • Stiff Upper Lip • Everything Changed During the War • Drugs, Booze & Generational Privilege • Debating Catholicism

 

Evelyn Waugh’s observant humanism was always in interesting tension with his sublimated (then blatant) conservatism. His best book, Brideshead Revisited, is nostalgic for aristocracy but clear eyed about its sins, mining the tensions between class values and personal connection. So much to say, this eleven episode miniseries succeeds by faithfully and reverently adapting the novel to the screen—this is about as much of a one-to-one translation from the page as you can imagine, with most of the dialogue coming directly from Waugh. The friendship that unfolds over a few decades before WWII between Charles Ryder and the rich Lord Sebastian Flyte of Brideshead Castle is subtly acted by Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. The rest of the cast is great too, and they’re allowed to mope and emote around beautiful location shoots. Laurence Olivier makes an appearance, as one might expect, and of course actor Peter Bull’s teddy bear named Delicatessen stuns as Aloysius. It’s a wonderful TV classic. –JF

Put it on when you are wondering if you should reach out to an old friend.

See also:

How Campus Novels Reveal the Power—and Danger—of Pure Ideas • Not Far From Brideshead: On the Sad Glitter of Oxford Between the Wars

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My Brilliant Friend (2018)

Female friendship, the Italian way

Based on: Elena Ferrante’s The Neapolitan quartet (2012-15)

Subgenres: Gorgeously Shot • • Nino Sarratore Sucks In Every Medium • Do We Think Ferrante Had a Secret Cameo?

 

If you’re reading this, I probably don’t have to remind you of the phenomenon that was Ferrante Fever. There was a brief span when it seemed like everyone was reading them—I was simultaneously texting my mom and my guy friends about Lenù and Lila. So it was a bit surprising to me that this visually striking adaptation didn’t make a bigger splash. Maybe it was the subtitles. A lot of people seemed to feel like that the show was almost too beautiful—the colors and shots are frequently arresting, putting Naples front and center in the story—and worse, too slow. But like the source text, this is an adaptation that rewards patience. –JF

Put it on when you can’t afford a ticket to Europe.

See also:

My Brilliant Friend is the Kind of TV We Need Right Now: Slow • “Wade Into the Muck With Me.” On Reading and Re-Reading Elena Ferrante • Language is the True Protagonist of My Brilliant Friend’s Third Season • Before the Neapolitan Quartet, There Was Sula

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MATCHUP:

Agatha Christie’s Poirot (12) vs. Lonesome Dove (4)

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Agatha Christie’s Poirot (1989)

Belgian stereotyping with a side of murder

Based on: Agatha Christie’s “Poirot” novels (1920-75)

Subgenres: Murder Follows the Protagonist • Really Good Tea Sets • Mid-Series Genre Shift

 

Agatha Christie’s Poirot ran for almost 25 years, went through at least two major shifts in tone and format, and appears to have guest starred every notable actor in the UK at least once. But there was only ever one Poirot: David Suchet, in what remains the most iconic take yet on Christie’s Belgian investigator. In Suchet’s hands, Poirot’s fussy neuroses go from comic to pathetic from moment to moment, while Poirot’s intelligence becomes a warm, empathetic curiosity about the people around him. However much Suchet’s Poirot preens and waxes his elaborate mustache, we can always see his little gray cells working away. –CG

Put it on when you are prepared to Google at least one murder suspect per episode to confirm that the actor really did become a movie star ten years later.

See also:

Agatha Christie is the best-selling novelist in history.

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Lonesome Dove (1989)

 A story as big as that Montana sky

Based on: Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (1985)

Subgenres: Horses • Someday I’ll Leave This Town • Yeehaw • Walking Off Into The Sunset • Tears Falling on a Dusty Trail

 

There have been a lot of think pieces over the last year about the Lonesome Dove-aissance. It’s a great book, the kind of lengthy classic that reads as fast as a beachy thriller, and has been a sensation since it was published—it only took four years after publication to make it to the screen. The four episode, made for TV miniseries was an instant hit too, breaking all kinds of viewership records and raking in the awards, thanks in part to its top-tier cast: Tommy Lee Jones, Diane Lane, Robert Duvall, Danny Glover, Anjelica Huston, and many more. The only person who didn’t like it was Larry McMurtry himself; after the adaptation aired, he famously began to regret how the book had landed as “a kind of Gone with the Wind of the West.”

“I thought I had written about a harsh time and some pretty harsh people,” he said, “but to the public at large, I had produced something nearer to an idealization.” That’s TV for you! –JF

Put it on when you think you’d look good in a cowboy hat.

See also:

The Book That Changed My Life • What If I’m Actually a Character in a Larry McMurtry Novel? • Orphans, Institutions, and Adventures Out West: Five Books Featuring Unconventional Families

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MATCHUP:

Big Little Lies (11) vs. M*A*S*H (3)

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Big Little Lies (2017)

The Witherspoon book-to-TV machine’s biggest hit

Based on: Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies (2014)

Subgenres: Murder-Mystery • Wealthy California Moms • Scary Men • Scarier Kids

 

Whether you’re the targeted consumer of a Liane Moriarty novel or not is irrelevant when it comes to Big Little Lies. The show was a sacred union of Reese Witherspoon, Nicole Kidman, Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, and Laura Dern, all in the roles they were destined to play. That is: over-the-top-wealthy helicopter mothers who intermittently spend their time having anguished conversations with their husbands, their children, each other, and then gazing off into the ocean while drinking chilled wine. Each actress is so compelling and addictive to watch, with their domestic and social lives in such complicated and realistic turmoil, we almost don’t need the show to also be a murder-mystery of the highest caliber, and yet it is that too. We watched with bated breath to find out each and every detail of the murder, for this mystery takes the medium one step further: not only do we not know who the murderer is, we don’t even know who was killed. Even once you know those details, the show begs for a rewatch. The actors, the music, the money, the minutia, the Monterey Bay setting: all of it adds up to a soothingly impeccable version of an hour long drama. –JH

Put it on when you need to remember wealth ≠ happiness.

See also:

Women Can Lead Lives of Quiet Desperation Too

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M*A*S*H (1972)

Antics among atrocities

Based on: Richard Hooker’s MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors (1968)

Subgenres: War is Bad • Wisecracking is Fun

 

Iconic anti-war sitcom *M*A*S*H* challenged what a television comedy was supposed to look like, layering drama and genuine commentary with its humor. A spinoff of the 1970 Robert Altman film, which was adapted from the Hooker novel, it ran for 11 seasons and its finale was, at the time of airing, the most watched television episode in American broadcast history. Set during the Korean War, it more obviously paralleled and criticized American involvement in Vietnam. Now considered classic TV, there’s a reason appreciation for *M*A*S*H* endures over 50 years after its premiere. –OS

Put it on when you need a history lesson with personality.

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MATCHUP:

Olive Kitteridge (10) vs. Pride & Prejudice (2)

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Olive Kitteridge (2014)

A family saga slowly told

Based on: Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge (2008)

Subgenres: Fictional Maine • Family Sagas • Ann Dowd Can Do Anything

 

Olive Kitteridge does right by its Pulitzer-winning source material: the interlinked stories of the book become a coherent, patient miniseries. I imagine the simplest choice would have been to divide the narrative into distinct episodes, like the book does, but the adaptation cleverly weaves everything together. Though she’s not the main character per se, Olive is the most prominent and recurring resident of Crosby, Maine. She’s played expertly by Frances McDormand, who is able to sell the glimmers of love and hope behind Olive’s crabby exterior. There are some deeply tragic moments in this story but the humor sticks out most in my mind: I love the bizarre set piece of Olive and her husband fighting while they’re being held hostage. It takes talented actors to ground a scene like that. –JF

Put it on when you want to feel like you’re watching a novel.

See also:

Six of the Best Bad Women in Fiction • Writing “Women of a Certain Age.” A Roundtable on Crafting Older Female Characters in Fiction • Romance Finely Aged: On the Unique Dynamic of Older Couples

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Pride and Prejudice (1995)

Thee Pride and Prejudice

Based on: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813)

Subgenres: Bonnets • Yearning • Water Cooler Fodder When There Were Still Water Coolers • Every Scene of the Novel

 

Has there ever been a TV mini series as beloved as this BBC charmer? Adapting one of Austen’s most beloved novels with scrupulous fidelity, Pride and Prejudice was an immediate sensation on both sides of the Atlantic when it premiered in 1995. Bright-eyed Jennifer Ehle rode her performance as Elizabeth Bennet straight into an acclaimed theater career, while Colin Firth’s turn as the saturnine Mr. Darcy was so magnetic it transformed him into a Hollywood leading man almost overnight. In the years since, there’s been more than one Pride and Prejudice on screens both big and little. But for purists, there’s never been anything to touch the classic. –CG

Put it on when you have a hankering for charged flirting in a drawing room.

See also:

Martin Amis on the Genius of Jane Austen (and What the Adaptations Get Wrong) • Every Mr. Darcy* Ranked • Why We Still Love Mr. Darcy, 200 Years Later

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 We’re really moving along now! See you tomorrow for the round of 16.