10 Best Single TV Seasons Ever

1. The Sopranos - Season 2

Bates Motel
HBO

To some, The Sopranos is the greatest show in the history of television. As such, like elsewhere on this list, it's genuinely hard to look through the largely consistent high quality of the series and pick out just one season to give praise to.

While Season Four and Season Three are right up there - particularly S3 with the introduction of uber-prick Ralph Cifaretto, Tony's intense relationship with Gloria Trillo, and the phenomenal Pine Barrens episode - it's the show's second season that gets some time in the sun here.

The Sopranos' debut year did a fantastic job of setting the stage for what the series was about. With characters established, with the tone of the show clear, this second season dives a little deeper under the hood in the most brilliant of ways.

Season Two gave us the arrival of Tony's sister Janice, it had the chaotic release from prison of Richie Aprile, there was Richie's death at the hands of Janice and Tony's subsequent reaction to that, and there's the tension-riddled final boat ride taken as Big Pussy's work as an FBI informant ends in exactly the way we all knew it would.

So much of what is shown across this second season would go onto influence the rest of The Sopranos; not least in how Tony is positioned as a destructive ball of anger rather than the loveable rogue he spent a chunk of Season One depicted as.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.