The Top 5 Returning Miniseries I Watched in 2019

Closing out my lists of the best shows I watched in 2019, here are the Top 5 Miniseries, Returning, that I watched in 2019, listed alphabetically:

Call My Agent (Season 3): In this rarity, a series that gets better with each season, we end up caring about each of the characters in this high-end Paris talent agency, despite their double-dealings and infidelities, and we appreciate getting what feels like a true inside look at this complicated profession - what agents have to do to get, retain, mollify, appease, and coddle the talent and how they manage to earn their 10 percent.

The Crown (Season 3): Moving along with a new cast (notably, Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth and Helena Bonham Carter as Princess Margaret) to the reign of Elizabeth II in the 1960s and beyond, this series gives us the best of British acting, writing, and directing, with all 10 episodes clear and crisp, thoughtful and provocative; as with the first two seasons, the producers held back nothing on design and milieu - perfectly recreating all the lavish environments where the royals ruled and sported, down to the last detail. 

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Season 3): Although Season 2 sagged a little, the pace picked up in Season 3 in which we see the eponymous Maisel, played flawlessly by Rachel Brosnahan, on the cusp of fame as she takes her act on the road - along with her manager, Alex Borstein, as Susie Myerson, who's getting better and funnier as the series develops. 

Mindhunter (Season 2): In the first season, loosely based on facts, Agents Ford and Tench developed the concept of identifying serial killers via psychological profiling - a new and controversial methodology in the FBI at the time - and Season 2 is even better, as it moves away from a series of profiles to dramatize the use of those new technique in one particularly sensitive and troubling case, the series of abductions of black children in Atlanta in the 1980s.

Veep (Final Season): Julia Louis-Dreyfus is perfect once again as the egotistical, tempestuous presidential candidate Selena Meyer, and we see her maneuver her way through minefields on her way to the nomination, supported by her loyal staff members whom she rebukes and abuses and on whom she depends completely; all of the supporting players are credible and rich - a true ensemble production - and most of the secondary characters are as well, most notably Timothy Simons as the odious candidate Jonah Ryan.