In the interest of not adding to the already huge pile of justified praise for terrific shows like Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, The Good Wife, and Veep, I thought I’d just list the best new TV shows of 2013, in case you haven’t decided if they’re worth watching yet. Here, in alphabetical (rather than ranked) order are my picks. (Plus one or two worst of the year, because who can resist.)

Banshee

Between Banshee and Strike Back (and the dearly departed Hunted), Cinemax is building a nice little action-y stable of series. Unlike Strike Back, though, Banshee isn’t chiefly concerned with blowing shit up. Though, yeah, it’s still pretty violent. Set in a small Pennsylvania town controlled by a ruthless lapsed Amish man, Banshee tells the story of a former thief turned ex-con hiding out from the bad guys he stole from years ago. He winds up in Banshee because that’s where his girl is, only she’s now married with kids. Past runs violently into present, and the show has a wicked good time getting our guy into and out of scrapes. Creating a rich world and populating it with interesting characters, Banshee is a step forward for the slowly burgeoning Cinemax. Give it a watch so they’ll make some more, won’t you?

by Joseph Lederer

Bates Motel

There was was no more balls-to-the-wall, batshit insane performance on television this year than Vera Farmiga’s bonkers Norma Bates in A&E’s seriously strange Psycho prequel. Well, it’s not exactly a Psycho prequel. It sort of is, but really it’s a Twin Peaks meets American Horror Story (sans the supernatural stuff) meets Desperate Housewives show about a town where pretty much everyone is up to no good. Drugs, murder, sex trafficking—you name it, the little town of White Pine Bay, Oregon is involved in it. And standing dead center is crazy Norma, who veers from sweet to menacing to doting to haranguing sometimes within a single sentence. Farmiga’s performance is a towering bit of outre pop art—which, sure, may be a bit of a bold statement, but one must speak in bold terms when talking about the bizarre and wildly entertaining thing that Farmiga is doing on this show. She, and a well-crafted ominous mood, made Bates Motel one of the most unexpected delights of the year.