From metaphysical quandaries to white nationalism, religion to romance, awkward adolescences to fraught marriages, the year’s best series covered all the bases
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The best television shows of 2019 drew their power from moments both tiny (a sad woman waving goodbye as she walked down an empty street) and enormous (a nuclear meltdown that nearly wiped out all of Eastern Europe). They traveled through time (for flashbacks to decades past, and for Natasha Lyonne to live the same day over and over) and space (in one case, regular visits to a moon of Jupiter). They dealt with subjects absurd (adolescent sexual awakening) and profound (racism, spirituality, sexual assault).