10 TV Shows That Completely Shifted The Balance Of Power In America

3. Justified (FX: 2010-Present)

US Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens, a character torn from the pages of a short story written by Detroit crime-novelist Elmore Leonard, is the focus of FX's Justified. Now Givens isn't the first character to be adapted from Leonard's writings - films like Jackie Brown, Out of Sight and Get Shorty, as well as the short lived 2003 TV series Karen Sisco, all originated from Leonard's pages before they hit the screen - but despite the plethora of different adaptations, Justified is perhaps the best of them all. The thing that makes the show so good, is also part of why Deadwood was so good - Timothy Olyphant's onscreen chemistry with his rival. On Deadwood, any time Olyphant's Seth Bullock shared a scene with Al Swearengen (played to perfection by Ian McShane), it was always electric. That's the same way it feels here when Givens is across from Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins), and it didn't take the writers long to recognize and cash in on this. Raylan and Boyd, though often at odds, regularly find themselves thrown together, looking down the wrong side of a gun barrel. The Kentucky law man and the over educated hillbilly druglord drive a bulk of the show's action as Harlan County is regularly bombarded by outsiders and violence. From gangsters to meth-heads, Raylan is never at a loss for a reason to draw his weapon, and the writers are never at a loss for some clever for Boyd to say. This is sincerely one of the most entertaining shows on right now.