The Essentials: Ranking Every Netflix Original Series So Far

15. “Daredevil”
With due respect to their other shows so far, nothing that Netflix have made has come with the weighty expectations of “Daredevil.” Their first comic-book adaptation, of a character who’s often seen as a top-tier Marvel hero, with a series that tied into the behemoth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but took it to a gritty new place, and looked to spawn its own interlocking “Avengers”-style mega-franchise. At times, “Daredevil” has lived up to those expectations, but it’s not hard to wish that we’d gotten something a little more satisfying than the show we have. Created for TV by Drew Goddard (who left to direct a never-made “Sinister Six” movie, leaving the show in the hands of various other former “Buffy” colleagues), it’s told the story of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), blinded but given sensory powers, who dedicates himself to cleaning up his neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, both as an attorney and as a costumed crimefighter, with kingpin Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio), vigilante Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal) and former lover Elektra (Elodie Yung) among those who’ve crossed his path. Seemingly more influenced by the grim-and-realistic Nolan Batman movies than the Marvel films, its seriousness of purpose initially felt welcome, a pleasingly ground-level take on the superhero concept. But it’s become increasingly frustrating as time goes on. For every excellent performance — D’Onofrio and Bernthal being the standouts — there’s a duff one, with Elden Henson’s Foggy and Elodie Yung’s Elektra in particular often halting the show in its tracks. And the duller the plotting’s gotten — we mentally checked out some way into the second seasons’ interchangeable ninjas — the more it feels like it’s a show that’s more interested in its villains than its heroes. Fans of the character are likely delighted, but it’s becoming harder and harder to recommend to the comic book agnostics as time’s gone on.

14. “Bloodline”
With “House Of Cards,” and their model of putting all episodes of a season online at once, Netflix helped to popularize the concept of binge-watching. We’d argue that “Bloodline” did the same for something that we like to call slog-watching: pushing through a season out of a sense of obligation, and in the hope that it might eventually pay off, despite not really enjoying it. The show, soon to air its second season, was among the most promising Netflix prospects on paper so far. It came from the creator of the well-liked “Damages,” one of the shows that helped to pave the way to the current era of starry peak TV, it showcased an atmospheric, well-shot Florida setting, and was stacked with great performers: Kyle Chandler, Linda Cardellini, Sam Shepard, Sissy Spacek, Norbert Leo Butz and, best of all, the great Australian character actor Ben Mendelsohn. The show, which tells the story of the Florida-dwelling Rayburn family and the events following the return of their black sheep son, delivered on many of those fronts. It was often well-written, spun some compelling mysteries, and its cast all lived up to their reputations, particularly Chandler and Mendelsohn (both were rightly Emmy-nominated). But while “Damages” was pretty good at holding your interest throughout, “Bloodline” stretches what feels like a movie’s worth of story — six episodes, tops, over thirteen hours. The payoff arrives eventually, but the show crawls to get there, and while a slower, artful approach can work on TV — think of “Rectify” — “Bloodline”’s bones are pulpier and spends far too long to get to an ending that’s hardly a shocker. Maybe this jumps up the ranking once season two arrives, though with its best character killed off, that’d be a surprise.

13. “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day Of Camp”
Comedy, better than most cinematic styles, is able to weather a relatively low-grossing release and go on to spawn follow-ups. The genre plays particularly well on home video and TV, which helped to explain why films like “Austin Powers” and “Anchorman” spawned sequels that became monster hits (though it’s not a perfect formula, as “Zoolander 2” and “Hot Time Time Machine 2” proved). Even so, it was a little surprising to see “Wet Hot American Summer” get a prequel, and perhaps more surprising to see it as a Netflix limited series. But we’re glad it exists: while it’s as hit and miss as most spoofs, “First Day Of Camp” keeps the silliness consistent and inventive to the point where, if it can’t quite top its predecessor, it does at least deserve to sit alongside it. In a Herculean feat of scheduling, David Wain & co managed to reunite not just every cast member from the original movie (including now megastars like Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Bradley Cooper and Elizabeth Banks), but also new figures including Chris Pine, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig and Lake Bell, to make a show that’s actually set before the original, with four hours of TV displaying the first day at Camp Firewood. It’s even stranger and more surreal than the original, and for every element that doesn’t work (Michael Showalter’s Coop is still a weak link, and the snooty rivals never quite pay off), there’s some absurdist brilliance like the backstory retcon given to Banks’ character, the delve into the tumultous person life of Molly Shannon’s Gail, the killer one-two punch of John Slattery and Michaela Watkins as New York theater types or the fight between Christopher Meloni and Jon Hamm. This could have gone the way of the “Arrested Development” revival and broken our hearts, but despite the variable hit rate, it’s really kind of a joy.

12. “Narcos”
Arriving at the end of August last year without much in the way of hype, “Narcos” quietly became a word of mouth hit, one that Netflix’s Ted Sarandos claims has drawn more viewers than “Game Of Thrones.” And you can see why: it’s probably the closest the network has come to the kind of Scorsese-ish crime drama that helped to make the prestige cable drama the force it is — a la “The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” “Breaking Bad” et al. The show, created by Chris Brancato, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard, and with “Elite Squad” helmer José Padilha directing early eps, the show promises to be a history of the war of drugs, but has focused in its first season on legendary drug lord Pablo Escobar (Wagner Moura), and on DEA agent Steve Murphy (Boyd Holbrook), the man setting out to bring him down. It’s a familiar setup, but it’s being tackled with a degree of depth and verisimilitude that sets it apart from much of the competition, to the extent that it sometimes feels closer to documentary than drama (not least the frequent voiceover, at least in the early days). And that sort of sums the show up — a show where lots happen, but not all of it qualifies as actual drama. Moura is tremendous, as is “Game Of Thrones” actor Pedro Pascal, but the show moves at such a clip (while still sometimes feeling like it’s repeating itself) that you rarely dig into the characters beyond the surface. Though that’s a pretty good thing when it comes to our DEA hero: Holbrook’s a good character who’s excelled in indie film, but he’s given virtually nothing to play here. So much about “Narcos” is so good, not least its genuinely ambitious scope, and it flies by in a way that many of these dramas don’t. Maybe a good show can become a great one when Season 2 arrives later this year.

11. ”Sense8″
For better and also for worse, the sprawlingly ambitious, occasionally amateurish but oddly winning supernatural drama “Sense8” is unmistakably a Wachowski project. Co-created by Lilly and Lana Wachowski, along with comics writer and Oscar-nominated screenwriter J Michael Straczynski, the 12-part season 1 was as much of a mixed bag as an episodic drama could be, encompassing eight different storylines, in eight different cities, following eight main characters, underneath the umbrella of an overarching sci-fi-inflected paranoia narrative to boot. The eight individuals, who live in Chicago, San Francisco, Seoul, Berlin, Reykjavik, Nairobi, Mumbai and London and comprise men and women (including one transgender woman) of various races, sexual orientations and cultures, discover that they are mysteriously linked, and at crucial times can take over each others’ bodies, so that skills that one may possess can be used by all. It’s complicated and messy and frankly doesn’t make a lot of sense, requiring a lot of pseudo-scientific quasi spiritual mumbo-jumbo to keep the plot trundling forward. And yet, as with almost all Wachowski projects (aside from “Jupiter Ascending,” which is straight-up bad) the would-be steely futurism of the concept is trumped by the show’s completely endearing sincerity, its wonky humanism and ginormous heart. It’s almost as if the filmmakers know that the premise is silly to the point of incomprehensible, but they go with it for the excuse it gives them to deliver surprisingly moving insights about the nature of connection in our atomised world. At the very least, it’s not like anything else on TV — partly because it’s simply not as polished as we would normally expect. But that wonkiness feels like the result of a damburst of emotion and ideas that they are anxious to communicate, and it makes “Sense8” for all its flaws and contrivances, on of the most hopeful and genuine dramas on TV.