Never afraid of providing content in a timely manner, we the bros are proud to present our consensus opinion on what was worth watching on TV in 2015.

It’s a new year here at GameTimeBro, and Rank & File is a new feature that more or less replicates (replaces? supplements?) what we did last year in Hall of Fame Time Bro: sharing and comparing our takes on how things compare to other things. Here’s how it works. For the given topic, all the interested bros submit secret hidden ranked lists, in which they’ve meticulously considered the proper position of any number of applicable items. Then, using a secret and proprietary* algorithm on this collection of ballots, we end up with more than just a compilation of opinions; nay, we arrive at a beautiful tapestry of consensus, woven from many individually held takes, and far greater than the sum – well, the weighted average, at least – of its parts.

Then we post the individual submissions and hang everybody out to dry.

Without further ado, here’s our stance on how television measured up in 2015: trakt.tv – gametimebro-ranks-tv-in-2015

In case trakt.tv isn’t working for you – and really, you should go there to get the full effect and see every TV show presented with its own stunning visual thumbnail – here’s the list.

RANK	SHOW	NETWORK
1	Fargo	FX
2	Mad Men	AMC
3	Game of Thrones	HBO
4	The Leftovers	HBO
5	Parks and Recreation	NBC
6	Daredevil	Netflix
7	Better Call Saul	AMC
8	The Americans	FX
9	Homeland	Showtime
10	South Park	Comedy Central
11	Shameless	Showtime
12	Jessica Jones	Netflix
13	Justified	FX
14	The Affair	Showtime
15	Rick and Morty	Adult Swim
16	Orange is the New Black	Netflix
17	The Walking Dead	AMC
18	Bojack Horseman	Netflix
19	Master of None	Netflix
20	Nathan For You	Comedy Central
21	Sense8	Netflix
22	True Detective	HBO
23	The Jinx	HBO
24	Silicon Valley	HBO
25	The Blacklist	NBC
26	Last Week Tonight	HBO
27	Brooklyn Nine-Nine	Fox
28	Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp	Netflix
29	House of Cards	Netflix
30	Review	Comedy Central
31	Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt	Netflix
32	The Muppets	ABC
33	The Last Man on Earth	Fox
34	Downton Abbey	PBS
35	Veep	HBO
36	Girls	HBO
37	You’re the Worst	FXX
38	Scandal	ABC
39	Bob’s Burgers	Fox
40	Orphan Black	BBC America
41	Jane the Virgin	The CW
42	Fear the Walking Dead	AMC
43	Archer	FX
44	It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia	FXX
45	Bloodline	Netflix
46	W/ Bob and David	Netflix
47	The Simpsons	Fox
48	New Girl	Fox
49	Modern Family	ABC
50	The Man in the High Castle	Amazon
51	Humans	AMC
52	Penn & Teller: Fool Us	The CW
53	Community	Yahoo!
54	The Voice	NBC
55	Louie	FX
56	Big Brother	CBS
57	Key & Peele	Comedy Central
58	The League	FXX
59	Broad City	Comedy Central
60	American Horror Story	FX
61	Togetherness	HBO
62	MasterChef	Fox
63	Scream Queens	Fox
64	Married	FX
65	Man Seeking Woman	FXX
66	Moonbeam City	Comedy Central
67	Workaholics	Comedy Central

And here are the seven individual bro ballots in full:

Steve	Show
1	Mad Men
2	Fargo
3	Bojack Horseman
4	Parks and Recreation
5	Better Call Saul
6	The Leftovers
7	Game of Thrones
8	Silicon Valley
9	Master of None
10	The Affair
11	Orange is the New Black
12	The Americans
13	Veep
14	Rick and Morty
15	Other Space
16	Nathan For You
17	Transparent
18	Justified
19	You’re the Worst
20	Homeland
21	The Walking Dead
22	Community
23	Broad City
24	Review
25	Louie
26	Archer
27	Jessica Jones
28	The Last Man on Earth
29	Girls
30	Last Week Tonight
31	Orphan Black
32	Humans
33	It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
34	Bob’s Burgers
35	Brooklyn Nine-Nine
36	South Park
37	Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp
38	Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
39	True Detective
40	New Girl
41	Modern Family
42	Man Seeking Woman
43	Married
44	Togetherness
45	Catastrophe
46	Scream Queens
47	Downton Abbey
48	Sense8
49	Workaholics
50	Trailer Park Boys
51	The Man in the High Castle
52	The League
53	Moonbeam City
54	Big Brother
55	Red Oaks
56	Another Period
57	MasterChef
58	The Comedians
59	Fear the Walking Dead
60	The Bastard Executioner

Sweeney	Show
1	Fargo
2	The Leftovers
3	Nathan For You
4	The Americans
5	Review
6	Mad Men
7	Game of Thrones
8	Orange is the New Black
9	You’re the Worst
10	Better Call Saul
11	The Knick
12	Veep
13	South Park
14	Rick and Morty
15	W/ Bob and David
16	Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp
17	Orphan Black
18	Bob’s Burgers
19	Silicon Valley
20	Bojack Horseman
21	Justified
22	Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
23	Parks and Recreation
24	Louie
25	The Mindy Project
26	Togetherness
27	Homeland
28	Documentary Now!
29	Archer
30	Looking
31	Big Brother
32	It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
33	The Walking Dead
34	The Last Man on Earth
35	American Ninja Warrior
36	Girls
37	Last Week Tonight
38	Saturday Night Live
39	Moonbeam City
40	Shark Tank
41	Married
42	Brooklyn Nine-Nine
43	Man Seeking Woman
44	Broad City
45	Newsreaders
46	Maron
47	The Simpsons
48	The Brink
49	Little People, Big World
50	Downton Abbey
51	Hell on Wheels
52	Key & Peele
53	Ballers
54	Workaholics
55	True Detective
56	Modern Family
57	Teen Mom 2
58	Fear the Walking Dead
59	Whose Line Is It Anyway?
60	The League
61	Sleepy Hollow
62	American Horror Story
63	19 Kids and Counting

Keith	Show
1	Fargo
2	Better Call Saul
3	Shameless
4	Justified
5	South Park
6	Game of Thrones
7	Homeland
8	Mad Men
9	The Leftovers
10	Parks and Recreation
11	The Muppets
12	House of Cards
13	The Jinx
14	The Affair
15	The Walking Dead
16	The Simpsons
17	American Horror Story
18	Bloodline
19	The Last Man on Earth
20	Penn & Teller: Fool Us
21	WWE NXT
22	WWE Raw
23	True Detective
24	Downton Abbey
25	Orange is the New Black
26	WWE Breaking Ground
27	The Voice

Marissa	Show
1	Fargo
2	The Leftovers
3	The Americans
4	Sense8
5	Hart of Dixie
6	Game of Thrones
7	Justified
8	Mad Men
9	Jane the Virgin
10	Parks and Recreation
11	Homeland
12	Grey’s Anatomy
13	Revenge
14	Better Call Saul
15	The Walking Dead
16	Humans
17	True Detective
18	The Great British Baking Show
19	Orange is the New Black
20	Master of None
21	Orphan Black
22	MasterChef
23	Brooklyn Nine-Nine
24	Girls
25	New Girl
26	Downton Abbey
27	Fear the Walking Dead
28	Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp
29	Scandal
30	Big Brother
31	The Amazing Race
32	Scream Queens

Trevor	Show
1	Daredevil
2	Last Week Tonight
3	Rick and Morty
4	Master of None
5	Jessica Jones
6	Ash vs Evil Dead
7	Game of Thrones
8	Sense8
9	South Park
10	The Blacklist
11	Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp
12	Bojack Horseman
13	Silicon Valley
14	Key & Peele
15	It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
16	Bob’s Burgers
17	Parks and Recreation
18	Archer
19	Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
20	W/ Bob and David
21	Drunk History
22	Brooklyn Nine-Nine
23	Family Guy
24	Community
25	Tosh.0
26	The Muppets
27	The Grinder
28	The Simpsons
29	The League
30	Deadbeat

Danielle	Show
1	Parenthood
2	Mad Men
3	Fargo
4	The Affair
5	Homeland
6	Game of Thrones
7	Scandal
8	Shameless
9	House of Cards
10	Better Call Saul
11	Parks and Recreation
12	South Park
13	Orange is the New Black
14	Modern Family
15	The Middle
16	Bloodline
17	Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
18	Girls
19	Downton Abbey
20	The Last Man on Earth
21	The Muppets
22	The Voice
23	New Girl
24	True Detective
25	Jane the Virgin
26	Penn & Teller: Fool Us
27	WWE Tough Enough

Stevie	Show
1	Parks and Recreation
2	Game of Thrones
3	Jessica Jones
4	The Walking Dead
5	The Jinx
6	Daredevil
7	The Blacklist
8	Brooklyn Nine-Nine
9	True Detective
10	The Man in the High Castle
11	Fear the Walking Dead
12	Gotham

So there you have it. Lastly, some parting notes.

• These ballots were completed at the end of 2015, and are already out of date. For instance, six out of seven of us have seen Netflix’s Making a Murderer already in 2016, though it’s technically part of “television in 2015.” Our reactions varied between “liked it” and “loved it,” and  I can’t imagine it would land outside of our collective top ten had the year lasted another two weeks. Oh well! Blame the calendar.
• In a similar vein, Trevor has caught up with Fargo and “agrees with the podcast – this show is riveting.” Steve and Marissa are both in the middle of Daredevil and agree that it’s “better than Jessica Jones so far.” Sweeney is about to begin the second season of Transparent, and said of the first one, “it’s good!” The binge never ends, folks.
• Our ballots were limited to what aired (or streamed) in these United States in 2015. So when we say Downton Abbey, for instance, we mean the fifth season, which aired on PBS a year ago, and not the sixth and final season, which aired in the UK a few months ago. And when we say Brooklyn Nine-Nine, for instance, we mean roughly the latter half of the second season and the first half of the third – whatever stretch of episodes had a 2015 airdate.
• The bros are, of course, not professional critics. That said, our collective rakings line up fairly well with the critical consensus, best exemplified by HitFix’s annual television critics’ poll, which I will freely admit serves as the inspiration for this whole feature. Comparing the two, our biggest omission was the aforementioned Transparent. Our biggest exhaustive omission – the critics’ highest-ranked show that not one of us even watched this year – was Mr. Robot. Our highest-ranked show omitted by the critics entirely was South Park.
• Only two shows – Parks and Recreation and Game of Thrones – appeared on all seven ballots. Forty-three shows appeared on just one ballot, and each ballot contained at least one such show.
• The network represented the most on our collective ranked list wasn’t a network in the traditional sense at all. It was Netflix, with eleven shows. In second place was HBO, with nine. Tied for third were Comedy Central, FX, and Fox, with seven each.
• The network with the highest average position on our list was Showtime, which boasted our 9th, 11th, and 14th-best shows. Among networks represented by more than one show, the lowest average quality belonged to FXX, owners of our 37th, 44th, 58th, and 65th-ranked shows.
• There’s no denying that streaming-based “networks” are on the rise, but for now that success seems limited largely to Netflix. Only two other non-televised shows wound up on our shared list: Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle and Yahoo’s resurrection of Community.
• On the other hand, broadcast networks have been fading for years now, and our list reflects that much; their shows averaged a ranking of 41st on our list, and the only one to crack the top twenty – Parks and Recreation, in the fifth spot overall – is no longer with us.

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*The algorithm is neither proprietary nor secret; it just isn’t worth explaining in detail. Suffice it to say, it takes into consideration both the popularity of each item – ie, how many lists included it – and also the geometric mean of the item’s ranking across all lists – ie, a weighted average, with a stronger emphasis on higher rankings than lower ones. Boring, right? Like I said – not worth explaining in detail.