Oops, I left the TV on
The best of last year and a few other things I can't keep to myself
A newsletter? From me?? Oh wow. I didn’t know I could still do it!
My last newsletter was over a year and a half ago, but I have certainly not stopped watching television, so there’s a lot to catch up on. I’m hoping to send a best of 2024 list by the actual end of this calendar year. Before I get to that, let’s clear the decks.
First up, and oh-so-timely, we have the best of 2023. I made this list of shows in December of 2023 and never wrote it up or sent it out. (Here are my lists from 2022 and 2021 for reference.) When compiling this newsletter, I didn’t change the list at all from what I selected a year ago, but I did add some short commentary.
My Favorite Shows of 2023
Reservation Dogs (Hulu) - Critical consensus pick for best of last year and I agree.
The Bear (Hulu) - This was season 2 of The Bear, so don’t yell at me! I also think backlash to The Bear has been overstated – this show told us who it was from the first episode. Season 2 was great.
Succession (Max) - Remember Succession? I miss Succession.
Poker Face (Peacock) - Natasha Lyonne, Rian Johnson, a case-of-the-week delight.
Mrs. Davis (Peacock) - Smart and weird and narratively tight. I still think about it all the time. From the perspective of me writing now at the end of 2024, maybe the most worth re-watching – or watching for the first time.
Dark Winds (originally AMC, now available on Netflix) - This was a great surprise to me last year. A really nice mystery in a specific time and place. Great performances.
Schmigadoon (Apple) - Has since been canceled, and I’m furious. The second season plot went farther afield but the songs were even better than season 1.
The Righteous Gemstones (Max) - I love these flawed, selfish weirdos so much!!!
Extraordinary (Hulu) - A show about being young and on your own and flailing, in a lightly supernatural world. So it feels like if Pushing Daisies and Girls met somewhere in the middle.
Slow Horses (Apple) - Everyone loves Slow Horses because it’s funny and plotty and they put out 1-2 seasons a year.
Our Flag Means Death (Max) - Cruelly canceled but glorious while it lasted.
Platonic (Apple) - I didn’t hear a lot of people talking about this one, but it made me laugh extremely hard.
Of the 12 shows above, we have 3 from Hulu, 3 Max, 3 Apple, 2 Peacock, and 1 Netflix/AMC. It was another great year for Hulu. I think Netflix is making a comeback, and Max will probably drop in the future. (We actually canceled Max for most of 2024, and have only just re-subscribed.)
I also wanted to mention a couple of the things that I watched recently that won’t be on my best of the year list, either because they didn’t come out in 2024 or they just didn’t quite make it.
The first is a show perfect for fans of Great News and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and Girls5Eva. You aren’t going to believe me, but if you like those shows, you are going to love the 2020-2021 reboot of Saved by the Bell on Peacock. WHERE ARE YOU GOING, SIT DOWN AND LISTEN. They cast the cutest, zippiest cast of kids, they filled it to the BRIM with real jokes, and most importantly they approached the show from the perspective of the 2020s and found new and funny ways to embrace and comment on the 90s world of the original series. Saved by the Bell (2020) was a smart, hilarious show that should’ve gone on forever. If I had gotten over myself to turn it on in 2020-2021, it would’ve been on my best of list for both of those years.
I also wanted to shout out Elsbeth and Matlock, two CBS procedurals. They are basically the same show baked with slightly different flavors: In both, a middle-aged lady lawyer (Carrie Preston and Kathy Bates, respectively) solves mysteries/wins court cases and charms everyone around her. One of them is set and filmed in NY, and the other is set in NY and filmed in LA. (The difference is felt.) They’re not groundbreaking shows, but they’re clever enough to keep a person engaged, and ever-so-slightly quirkier than you might expect. And the Christmas episode of Elsbeth was one of the most unhinged hours of broadcast TV I’ve ever seen, featuring Vanessa Bayer as a Christmas decor mogul/murderer named DeeDee (“It’s pronounced Deh-DAY”)1.
And I wanted to put in a word for Black Doves on Netflix. It’s getting a lot of comparisons to Slow Horses, but to me the real comps are The Americans or Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but in London. It’s not quite at the level of those influences, but it’s very watchable and features Paddington himself (Ben Wishaw) as a charming, twitchy assassin.
I’ll be back soon with my top favorites of 2024, the actual year we are in. In the meantime, here is one of my favorite sketches from this season of SNL so far. There’s not a single wasted line.
I am on Bluesky here if you want to follow for sporadic thoughts. And as always, let me know what you’re watching!
DeeDee trend alert! In addition to Vanessa Bayer’s guest star turn on Elsbeth, we’ve got a DeeDee in The Man on the Inside and in Black Doves. They are all Deh-DAY to me now.
Oh man, on the “coming in 2025” promo they did for MAX it looks like The Righteous Gemstones are going on a boat! And there’s like a split second shot of Tim Robinson in his new show, The Chair Company.
And there should be new Poker Face coming at some point next year, right?