7) Teen Wolf (Season 5)
The best show you currently aren’t watching (unless you’re a teenage girl or gay, as the show’s relentlessly unapologetic fandom will attest to) is also the best sleeper supernatural mainstay currently on TV. Following the trials and tribulations of lacrosse player-turned-werewolf Scott McCall, MTV’s slickly dark drama Teen Wolf balances Gothic horror and some of the most genuinely moving young adult friendships currently at work on the small screen.
This summer, the first half of the fifth season sent our favorite pack of werewolves and banshees and kitsunes into a tailspin, with a diabolical trio of “Dread Doctors,” who somehow escaped the pages of a steampunk horror novel, reigning terror on the town of Beacon Hills. Far more interesting, however, is creator Jeff Davis’ deceptively understated character arcs, that give each of his creations believably bold reasons to act and speak the way they do, which in this season’s case was a full-on dysfunctional break-down that made season five’s Big Bad less the dreaded Dread Doctors and more, in the end, pretty much every character from the opening credits. It’s this generation’s Buffy, and five seasons in, it’s only getting better.
6) Wayward Pines
Characters stranded in a strange setting, quirky ephemeral townsfolk, mysteries shrouded in questions and hidden in fake cricket noise boxes in the bushes – yep sounds like another post-Lost quasi-sci-fi mystery mess. Wayward Pines is the first thing, but it’s far from the second. Fox’s standout summer “special” presents its audience with tiny inconsequential mysteries instead of one big whodunnit, ala Twin Peaks: What’s with the fence around the town? Why do some citizens disagree on the current date? What’s with all the random Lottery-esque sacrifices in the middle of main street?
Creator Chad Hodge and author of the books the show is based on, Blake Crouch, present all of these mysteries masterfully, stacking in new, delectable characters (Melissa Leo’s Nurse Pam was the best character on TV this summer, I said it) and stranger mysteries (um, wait there are things out in the woods beyond the fence?!). The weird and downright uncommon thing about Wayward Pines – especially in the face of its inspirations – is that it answers every single one of your questions about halfway through the season. Bold, but in the end tenuous, with the final episodes of the season (series?) floundering around for meaning in the face of the audience’s slow dissolve into indifference. Mysteries like this live and die on the show staying two steps ahead of the viewers, not the other way around. Still, it’s on this list for one reason: it’s the best stab at this type of genre fare in years.