Radio Times Top 40 TV Shows of 2016: 20 to 11

17. Motherland (BBC2)

Is this a sign 2016 wasn’t a great year for comedy? The second highest-ranking sitcom in our list – if you even count Fleabag as a sitcom – was only a one-off pilot episode. But it was a pilot written by a team led by Graham Linehan and Sharon Horgan, so comedy fans came to it with high expectations that, from the first scene, were met. Diane Morgan and previously unheralded comedy genius Anna Maxwell Martin, as harassed middle-class mums whose kids were merely burdens to be hauled around and bargained with, were great characters, already well formed. Roll on the full series. Jack Seale