American Vandal

《美国囧案》

Like an obscene image spray-painted on your car, this docu-parody was an out-of-nowhere surprise, but in this case a welcome one. It began as a raunchy sendup of true-crime documentaries, developed into an astute¹ comedy of teen social-media mores² and ended up a surprisingly moving study of how pigeonholing³ kids can set them onto a life path before they have the chance to learn who they really are.

这部恶搞纪录片的电视剧就像出现在你汽车上的色情涂鸦一样，完全让你出乎意料，不过是惊喜的那种。本剧的开头是一段对真实犯罪纪录片的黄暴恶搞模仿，随后发展为一部关于青少年社交媒体习俗的精彩喜剧，最后出人意料地演变为一个感人的故事，探讨不同背景的孩子在还没有机会了解自己到底是谁的情况下，如何走上人生之路。

Better Things

《更美好的事》

Pamela Adlon elevated the second season of her comedy into a raw and poetic⁴ story of the feverish⁵ love-hate relationship between three generations of mothers and daughters. (That Louis C.K., disgraced for sexual offenses⁶, wrote much of the season should not overshadow Ms. Adlon’s feat⁷ as creator, star, writer and director.) The show is devastating⁸ without being sentimental⁹, and Ms. Adlon’s Sam Fox is one of the best character studies on TV today.

帕梅拉阿德隆在第二季将这部喜剧升华为一个质朴而充满诗意的故事，讲述了三代母女之间的爱恨情仇（本季大部分内容是因性侵而声名狼藉的路易斯CK创作的，但这掩盖不了阿德隆作为主创、主演、编剧和导演的成就）。这部电视剧令人悲痛，却不过于感伤，阿德隆饰演的山姆福克斯是如今荧屏上一个最好的角色研究案例。

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

《疯狂前女友》

The third season, beginning this fall, interrogated¹⁰ the “crazy” in Rachel Bloom’s musical comedy of obsession¹¹ by exploring her character Rebecca’s diagnosis¹² with borderline personality disorder¹³ — while still delivering multiple spot-on song parodies¹⁴ a week.

《疯狂前女友》是一部关于迷恋的音乐喜剧，今年秋季播出的第三季探讨了丽贝卡（蕾切尔布鲁姆饰）的边缘性人格障碍，展现了主角疯狂的一面，而且每周依然能够奉上多首恰到好处的滑稽歌曲模仿。

The Deuce

《堕落街传奇》

“This is my job,” Candy (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a prostitute hoping to become a porn mogul, tells a discount-seeking client in this series’ pilot. A drama about the 1970s sex business, on a channel with a penchant¹⁵ for salacious sex, could have gone wrong in many ways. It went right, very right, because David Simon and his collaborators (including female writers and directors) treated sex work as work: an economic system with dangers, calculations and financial and physical pressures.

“这是我的工作，”希望成为色情业大亨的妓女坎迪（玛吉吉伦哈尔饰）在该剧的试播集中对一个试图砍价的客户说。这部讲述上世纪70年代性交易行业的电视剧在一个偏爱色情题材的频道上播出，在很多方面都可能跑偏。但《堕落街传奇》没有，一点都没有，因为大卫西蒙和他的同事（包括女性编剧和导演）把性工作视为一种工作：一种充满危险、算计、财务压力和生理压力的赚钱方式。

The Good Place

《善地》

The network sitcom¹⁶ with the most insight into life just happens to be full of characters who are dead. This afterlife comedy, about a group of misfits in a troubled paradise, is full of twists I don’t have the room to list or the heart to spoil, but its real appeal is a top-notch cast performing prime time’s most entertaining philosophy lesson.

这部情景喜剧充满深刻的人生洞见，主角是一群已经死去的人。他们死后升入一个麻烦众多的天堂，在那里格格不入。《善地》的剧情充满反转，我在这里没有足够篇幅详述，也不忍心剧透。但这部剧真正的吸引力在于，一群顶级演员在黄金时间段为观众呈上最有趣的哲学课。

Halt and Catch Fire

《奔腾年代》

The final season of this digital-culture origin story, which began in the early ’80s, took us through the popularization of the World Wide Web. But it also brought full circle the troubled partnership¹⁷ of Cameron (Mackenzie Davis) and Donna (Kerry Bishé), their passion for discovery rekindled¹⁸ by four magic words: “I have an idea.”

这部关于数字文化起源的电视剧从上世纪80年代讲起，最后一季带我们回顾万维网的普及。在这一季里，卡梅隆（麦肯齐戴维斯饰）和唐娜（凯莉比什饰）充满麻烦的合作关系恢复如初，他们对发现的热情被那句神奇的话重新点燃：“我有一个想法。”

Lady Dynamite¹⁹

《炸天女郎》

Things got weird²⁰ in 2017. Television seemed at times to be dreaming, serving up ambitious hallucinations like “Legion” and “The Young Pope” as well as surrealistic curiosities like “At Home with Amy Sedaris.” The second season of Maria Bamford’s first-person comedy was the disorienting tops, using fractured storytelling to capture the experience of living and working with bipolar disorder from all angles.

2017年有点诡异，电视机好像有时会做梦一样，播出的作品包括《大群》和《年轻的教宗》等雄心勃勃的虚幻作品，以及《和艾米塞达里斯一起在家》等超现实作品。玛丽亚班福德这部第一人称叙事喜剧在第二季达到了混乱的巅峰，采用断裂的叙事方式，从各个角度展现了和躁郁症患者一起生活和工作的经历。

The Leftovers²¹

《守望尘世》

The last season of this series about faith, loss and mystery was constructed like an octagonal chapel²², each of its eight episodes a stained-glass window lit with emotion and humor. It may or may not have answered its central question — what happened to millions of people who vanished from the earth — but it was a powerful expression of the ways people soldier on through the unknown.

《守望尘世》是一部关于信仰、失去和神秘未知的电视剧。该剧最后一季就像一个八角形的小教堂，每一集就像一扇被情感和幽默照亮的彩色玻璃窗。它可能回答了、也可能没有回答剧中的核心问题——从地球上消失的那数百万人都怎么样了——但它有力诠释了人们应对未知情况时勇敢向前的样子。

One Day at a Time

《活在当下》

You’d have thought they didn’t make them like this anymore. This reimagining of the 1970s comedy revived a staid genre²³ — the socially conscious, three-camera family sitcom — by updating the characters and their problems. Centered on a Cuban-American family in Los Angeles, the new “One Day” also spotlighted²⁴ working-class struggles and veterans’ issues, enlivened by crack performances from Justina Machado and Rita Moreno.

你可能认为不会有人再拍这种电视剧了。《活在当下》翻拍自上世纪70年代的同名喜剧，新版通过塑造新的角色和剧情，让一种过时电视剧类型——关注社会问题的三摄像头家庭情景喜剧——重现生机。新版《活在当下》围绕洛杉矶的一个古巴裔美国家庭展开，同样是关注工薪阶层的艰辛和退伍军人的问题，贾斯蒂娜马查多和丽塔莫雷诺的精彩表演为该剧增添了活力。

Twin Peaks: The Return

双峰：归来》

The reunion of David Lynch and Mark Frost had a nominal²⁵ plot: the odyssey²⁶ of Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) back from the otherworldly waiting room where he’d spent the 25 years since he last tasted cherry pie. But mainly it was a direct download from the subconscious²⁷ of Mr. Lynch, who directed every episode: part horror story, part slapstick, all twisted fantasy. It was a well, to paraphrase²⁸ the mysterious Woodsman, that descended²⁹ deep and retrieved³⁰ strange, intoxicating³¹ water.

大卫林奇和马克弗罗斯特的再度联手，名义上合作创作了一个故事：戴尔库珀（凯尔麦克拉克伦饰）自从最后一次品尝樱桃派之后，在一个超自然的等候室里度过了25年的时光，本剧便是讲述他归来后的冒险之旅。不过，这部剧基本都是按照林奇的想法呈现的，每一集都由他执导：它有点像恐怖故事，也有点像闹剧，充满怪诞的幻想。用剧中那个神秘林中人的话说，它是一口井，下潜到深处，便可以汲取令人陶醉的奇异之水。