RANKED: The 10 best TV shows of 2015

With a finite number of hours in the day to watch television, one can feel there will never be enough time to watch everything the critics, social media, our co-workers, friends, and family say we need to see.

It's not just a feeling. We now know it for a fact: There were 409 scripted TV programs in 2015, a new record. And you just can't see them all.

To sit down and name the 10 best shows of the hundreds that aired and streamed this year is a herculean task. So for this list of 2015's best shows, we reflected on all the well-written, superbly acted, and beautifully shot shows of the year (that we were able to check out) and added one more criterion to mix up the selections just a bit: Was it not only good, but surprisingly so?

With that in mind, here are 2015's 10 best TV shows: