The Best and Worst New TV Shows for 2013

Plenty of new shows stole our attention away in 2013 including the sleeper hit of the fall, but not everything was shiny as another series expected to be a runaway success ended up careening off the tracks like a train with no direction…

By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer

There were quite a few surprising series that debuted in 2013 and even a few letdowns if we’re being completely honest.

We saw Joss Whedon’s (sort of) return to television for the first time since Dollhouse went off the air as he debuted Agents of SHIELD on ABC while Ryan Murphy returned with a stellar cast for the latest installment of American Horror Story — this time around called Coven. We saw the debut of some old favorites brought back to life for television with Bates Motel and Hannibal. Of course we can’t forget about series like Under the Dome that debuted after being adapted from Stephen King’s novel plus shows like Orphan Black on the BBC and The Returned brought to us by way of France from the Sundance Channel.

So which show stood above the crowd as the best new show of 2013? And let’s not forget our criticism can be both good and bad so somebody has to get voted as the worst new show as well. Let’s see who came out on top — and the bottom.

Best New Show on Television for 2013: Sleepy Hollow

This might have been the toughest call of all the categories you’ll see in our Best of 2013 series of articles because there were a myriad of great shows that debuted this year. But maybe the reason Sleepy Hollow is getting the nod as the best new show of 2013 is because no one expected it to do much of anything outside of being a laughable series with a ridiculous premise.

Ichabod Crane — a former Revolutionary War soldier — has been frozen in time and wakes up in 2013 just outside of Sleepy Hollow where he is soon joined by a machine gun wielding Headless Horseman, who is actually one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Now reading all of that (if you haven’t seen the show) probably made your eyes roll in the back of your head as it spun around like you were in the Exorcist. The truth is, however, Sleepy Hollow’s premise is the perfect mix of history, science fiction and adventure all rolled into one.

Think National Treasure meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And if you’ve picked up on some Whedon-esque elements of this show you’re not wrong. Ichabod may be our lead character, but there are some powerfully strong women on this show as well with ‘Leftenant’ Abbie Mills scoring the co-lead plus when you add a great supporting cast including Orlando Jones and John Noble, this series is primed for a long run on FOX. There hasn’t been a weak episode yet and this is definitely a show you can binge on, watching multiple episodes in a row and when they are over all you want is more.

Sleepy Hollow was the show I pegged from day one as one of the worst concepts I’d ever heard of for television and now it’s become must see TV on Monday nights. If you haven’t watched, I recommend starting now before the final few episodes of season one pick up in mid-January. More good news — the show has already been given a second season order from FOX as well!

Honorable Mention: American Horror Story: Coven

When the Best New Show of 2013 was being decided it really came down to Sleepy Hollow and the latest installment of the American Horror Story franchise on FX. Now you might argue technically this is season three of the horror anthology series, but in reality each year stands alone as its own separate story so it should easily be classified as a new show ever time Ryan Murphy re-invents his cast.

This season has been the absolute best since the first year American Horror Story came on the air and honestly depending on how the show finishes out in January, it may even surpass the original. When you have a cast that includes Kathy Bates and Angela Bassett, it’s a safe bet the performances are going to be off the charts. Add in Jessica Lange in yet another Emmy worth performance plus newcomers like Emma Roberts, who adds a splash of sexuality and spice to every episode and this is a winner on every level.

Unlike its predecessor Asylum, Coven is a much easier story to follow that doesn’t get pulled in 20 different directions with too many characters to keep track of by the end of an episode. Coven is a witches’ brew of outstanding acting, dialogue and script work for the story. If there was one complaint that could be made? Give Lilly Rabe more screen time because she’s a scene stealer every minute she’s on camera.

Honorable Mention: The Returned

This is another series that could easily take home the crown for best new show if not for the fact that it actually debuted in France in 2012 but didn’t make it to American TV screens until 2013 courtesy of the Sundance channel.

The Returned is cerebral horror at its very best. If you’ve ever seen the film ‘Them’ which was eventually turned into the American movie ‘The Strangers’, this is the companion to that in terms of dread and eerie feelings brooding over the entire show. In a small mountain village in France, one day several people dead for years just start showing up and looking to re-enter their old lives as if nothing happened. None of them have any memory of where they’ve been or how they got there, just that they are back. For one girl who finds her family after dying in a tragic school bus accident, she returns four years later to see her parents divorced and twin sister now noticeably older than her (since she never aged) and a mess from when they split apart at the time of her death.

Others return after more than a decade away from their friends and loved ones including a serial killer who picks up his old craft the moment he reappears in the town.

The Returned is psychological drama that doesn’t depend on a series of cheap jumps and frights to scare you. The things that frighten you about this show are the deep-affecting kind that haunt your dreams and keep you up at night. It’s the kind of horror that isn’t washed away after the lights come on. The Returned is horror done right and if you haven’t seen this show yet, I highly recommend getting the Sundance channel or picking up the episodes on iTunes. Well worth the purchase price.

Other notable shows worth checking out in 2013:

— Orphan Black – BBC
— The Americans – FX
— Bates Motel – A&E
— Defiance – SyFy

Worst New Show on Television for 2013: Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD

Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD ended up as my least favorite show starting in 2013 the same way that Sleepy Hollow landed as the best — an unexpected surprise.

The problem with SHIELD is my hopes were impossibly high for this series and outside of a few key episodes it’s been a colossal letdown. First off, Joss Whedon isn’t running the show, it’s his brother Jed. Joss wrote and directed the debut episode (which was one of the best of the season) but after that he got back back to bigger and better duties like The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron.

In his absence, SHIELD has struggled to find its footing all year long. The episodes have rarely found any kind of connectivity to one another outside of a couple minor mentions here and there. Unlike past Whedon shows, there was never a ‘big bad’ to keep an underlying tension that built us towards a finale. Lately they’ve tried to introduce a villainous group to peak our collective interests but it’s not working very well.

I will give credit that after a very weak and tumultuous start to the show as they focused way too much on the character Skye, the executives and writers behind SHIELD obviously got the message and flipped the curriculum in the last few episodes. As they found a way to develop the other characters (like the lovable Fits and Simmons), the show started to catch my interest again. The problem has been inconsistency — for every one stand out episode there are two more that make me want to change the channel.

Listen, I’m not giving up on Agents of SHIELD and neither should you. This ‘worst of’ selection is just my way of saying it’s not been the show I hoped it would be and actually far, far less than what I thought it would be. There’s still time to turn things around in 2014 and I’m hoping as Marvel’s film schedule heats up with Captain America: The Winter Soldier bearing down on us in May that SHIELD will start connecting the dots and becoming one of the top shows next year.

Honorable Mentions for Worst New Show of 2013:

— Under the Dome – CBS
— Dracula – NBC