Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
More On:
GLOW
-
Stream It Or Skip It: 'Physical' Season 3 on Apple TV+, A Fittingly Dark End To The Stressful Series
-
Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Heels’ Season 2 on Starz, The Return Of The Drama About A Family Of Professional Wrestlers
-
Stream It Or Skip It: 'Minx' Season 2 On Starz, Where Joyce And Doug Deal With The Good And Bad Sides Of Their Magazine's Success
-
Stream It Or Skip It: 'The American Gladiators Documentary' on ESPN+, a Loving Look Back at the Groundbreaking Reality TV Competition Series
GLOW is Decider’s pick for show of the year. It narrowly beat out The Good Place, surged past critical darling Killing Eve, and walloped the likes of Westworld and The Handmaid’s Tale (neither of which even made our top 20). Yes, everyone at Decider filled out a ballot and GLOW came out on top. That’s because, quite simply, GLOW was the best show of 2018.
(To see the full list of Best TV Shows of 2018, click here.)
Back when GLOW Season 2 premiered in June, I wrote a review touting it as the best single season of television Netflix has ever produced. I stand by that. From its giddy start to bittersweet ending, GLOW’s second season is something of a masterpiece. This is a show that juggles a massive ensemble cast while still zeroing in on small moments of devastation. It manages to be funny, heart-wrenching, exciting, and kooky all at the same time.
And GLOW somehow avoids the pitfalls of other Netflix favorites. The streaming service’s shows tend to suffer from overlong seasons that slow down right when the story ought to speed up. GLOW is a neat, tidy, well-paced series where no moments are wasted. GLOW is brightly-lit and adorned with neon sparkles where other Netflix shows are hellishly dark. GLOW doesn’t treat its episodes as chapters in a ponderous novel, but as singular entities worthy of their own respect. GLOW is the best show on Netflix — and the best show of 2018
That’s just my opinion, but it should be noted that Team Decider came to a consensus about GLOW‘s excellence. And that speaks to the show’s strengths as well. The current television landscape is littered with all sorts of niche shows that speak to a narrow audience. But GLOW manages to enchant people from all different kinds of groups. There’s something for comedy nerds, something for wrestling fans, something for drama geeks, something for Muppet heads, and, of course, something for fans of that “strong female lead” genre Netflix made up. GLOW is strangely universal in its specificity. Its commitment to its own world — an ’80s wonderland where mall cops want to help lady wrestlers film an opening credits sequence — is what draws us in.
GLOW pulled off a spellbinding season of television that was as wonderfully entertaining as it was technically perfect. There’s a richness to its humor, a kindness in its approach to character, and a courage in its kookiness. It is a lovely show about a wacky time in pop culture history, and it deserves all the honorifics a bunch of TV nerds who write about streaming shows can bestow.
