The 25 Best TV Shows of 2023
Photos Courtesy of FX, Prime Video, Hulu, Netflix, and HBO TV Lists list
If 2022’s TV watchword was “more,” then 2023’s was “enough.” Writers in the WGA and actors in SAG-AFTRA had enough of being overworked and underpaid, audiences had enough of cancellations and removals, and at times it seemed like streaming services and major Hollywood studios had enough of being in the business of TV and film. This past year has been a historic one for the industry, pulling back the curtain on the mystifying elements of the streaming machine and allowing those who make the art we love to finally put their foot down and demand fair treatment for keeping this industry going in the midst of the Peak TV grind.
And in a way, our favorite TV reflected that very attitude. We thrived in the misfortune of the wickedly rich in The Fall of the House of Usher or we fell in love with a scrappy sleuth in Poker Face. The tangible hope at the heart of The Bear and Abbott Elementary defined our highs, and the desperation at the center of Barry and Yellowjackets defined our lows. Even amongst the upheaval and unrest, TV is always reflecting, always meeting the moment. Featuring everything from the end of Succession and Ted Lasso to the premieres of Gen V and The Last of Us, the best TV of 2023 reminded us exactly why writers and actors fought so hard this summer, why audiences demand more from streaming services that throw away completed shows and films like they’re trash, and why this medium is worth fighting for.
Because of the overabundance of series that aired, it would be impossible for us to highlight everything we watched and enjoyed for the past 12 months. The ballot for this list (which was sent to Paste editors, staff, writers, and freelancers) contained over 225 shows, and that still barely scratched the surface of all the “content” to hit the airwaves, streaming platforms, and everything in between over the past year. This is why, in addition to this round-up of the best of the best on TV, we will have more genre-focused and niche lists for specific categories (including anime, under-the-radar favorites, animated series, LGBTQ+ series, reality shows, and so much more). But before then, we’re proud to present our picks for the 25 best TV shows of 2023, a list that captures everything we love about television and more.
Note: To be eligible for voting, each show had to air the majority of its episodes between January 1st and November 30th.
25. Somebody Somewhere
Created by: Hannah Bos, Paul Thureen
Network: HBO
In its second season, HBO’s understated gem Somebody Somewhere picks up where it left off, using small moments to ask big questions and solidifying its place as one of modern TV’s best-kept secrets. Sam (the always-breathtaking Bridgett Everett) and Joel (a career-best Jeff Hiller) have committed themselves to getting their 10k steps in, but they every once in a while might cheat on their “designated non-drinking” days. Sam’s uppity sister Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison) has closed down her shop and shipped off her daughter to college. And though their screen time may have lessened, the presence of Sam’s parents still lingers: mother Mary Jo’s (Jane Drake Brody) rehabilitation stint has taken a rebarbative turn, and father Ed (the great Mike Hagerty, who passed away pre-production) has departed on a boating voyage to Corpus Christi, leaving his daughters the duty of cleaning out the family farm. Sam’s roots in her hometown have grown stronger at this point, and Somebody Somewhere continues to deliver laughter and tears with little stylistic or tonal difference from the last time around.
Created by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, the show retains the low-fi, unfussy dramedy vibe in which executive producers Mark and Jay Duplass specialize. Somebody Somewhere may center itself on the minutia of quotidian life, in a place far away filled by people we can recognize but perhaps never know. But its quiet meditations unspool beyond the borders of its frame, letting everybody, everywhere into its beating heart. —Michael Savio
24. Cunk on Earth
Created by: Charlie Brooker
Network: Netflix
Documentary satire is a niche field, but a very satisfying one. If you have watched and loved David Attenborough-hosted series like Planet Earth or, really, any educational investigation of history or the environment, then the “teachings” of Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) in Cunk on Earth are a must. Interviewing experts on a variety of topics from world religions to the dawn of man to the creation of the nuclear bomb, Morgan queries professors and historians in a flat, northern-England accent and deadpan delivery. But her provocative questions are not meant to play out as a prank; she asks with child-like ignorance, is prone to unrelated tangents, and her understanding is filled with misinformation that, she often notes, comes from YouTube videos. Most of the experts are game to the challenge of finding her underlying interests and simplifying their responses, but the unique way Philomena sees the world and describes it is what makes Cunk such a treasure. The short and heavily meta series is full of laugh-out-loud moments, but Philomena’s perspective will occasionally make you reconsider your own understanding and biases of world events. Her casual skewering of America in particular is a highlight, but no one is left unscathed by her surprisingly insightful reading of history. —Allison Keene
23. The Great
Created by: Tony McNamara
Network: Hulu
With its bright, colorful aesthetic, penchant for violence, and occasionally raunchy humor, it’s easy to underestimate Hulu’s The Great, which has quietly emerged as one of the best shows of the streaming era. A delightful blend of traditional period drama tropes and biting satire that somehow manages to be both heartfelt and hilarious, The Great’s candy-coated exterior has always been a colorful gloss on more complex truths—about history and who is allowed to tell it, about female power and accomplishment, and the eternal clash between oppressive institutions and those yearning to be free of them.
In its ten-episode third season, The Great embraces what is ostensibly its most bonkers premise yet: Rather than leave Catherine the Great (Elle Fanning) and her husband Peter (Nicholas Hoult) at odds with one another, it asks what might happen if they were actually on the same side—and in doing so finds its strongest, most human story yet, one that extends beyond its central royal couple in ways both large and small.
The Great Season 3 is darker and emotionally richer than much of what has come before. It’s still loud and bombastic, full of ridiculous Russian traditions and sly anachronistic jokes. But it’s also sadder and more complicated, with a keener understanding of its own sharp edges, so often hidden by a pretty dress, a well-timed vodka shot, and a rousing “Huzzah!” —Lacy Baugher Milas
22. Schmigadoon!
Created by: Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio
Network: Apple TV+
Picking up the baton from the delightful first season, Apple TV+’s Schmigadoon! Season 2 moves on from lampooning musicals of the ‘40s and ‘50s and takes a stab at the darker and edgier musicals of the ‘60s and ‘70s in the town of Schmicago. Following their escape from Schmigadoon last season, Melissa (Cecily Strong) and Josh (Keegan-Michael Key) find themselves back in the real world, but ultimately become unhappy with their lives there. In an effort to find Schmigadoon once again, they venture back out into the woods, only to stumble upon the seedier Schmicago instead. Many familiar faces return alongside brand new additions to brave this new setting with just as much musical gravitas and campy fun as before. From executive producer Lorne Michaels, Schmigadoon! captures the joy of musical theater while providing the perfect inside joke for Broadway fans and newcomers alike. —Anna Govert
21. Party Down
Created by: John Enbom, Rob Thomas, Dan Etheridge, Paul Rudd
Network: Starz
Set several years after the events of the second season finale, and catching up with most of the main cast, the new Party Down proves that not much has changed about the “haves and have nots” of the entertainment industry or the people who serve it besides the power of the internet (one of the new Party Down employees, played by Brockmire actor Tyrel Jackson Williams, is a rising TikToker with dreams of making “content”). Party Down was always about the fickleness of fame, and the returning of star Adam Scott and most of the original cast to play people who (still) haven’t made it and are (still) working as cater-waiters is (still) a set-up for some dark humor. But though it’s been a long time since we last caught up with the caterers, the show has not missed a beat. Still incredibly funny, irreverent, and an excellent skewering of the Hollywood machine, Party Down remains an underrated treasure. —Whitney Friedlander and Allison Keene
20. Our Flag Means Death
Created by: David Jenkins
Network: Max
Breakups are hard. If we’re all being honest with each other, who hasn’t stranded their ex’s best friends on an island and left them to die? That’s the predicament the sales rack of pirates from last season are continuing to reckon with, as the romantic fallout between Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) and Edward Teach (Taika Waititi) has spared no one in Our Flag Means Death Season 2. In a feat that could have easily become a stumbling block, this second season manages to massively expand this pirate world without sacrificing the intimacy of small “day in the life” moments, or losing sight of the show’s existing identity. This series retains a modern queer dynamic as characters yearn for a safe space to embody their most authentic selves, and connect with each other in satisfying ways. Our Flag Means Death’s second outing brings emotional, romantic, and comedic depth that never would have been possible without the foundation of Season 1, and it uses that advantage to reach heights both die-hard fans and skeptical viewers won’t see coming. —Patches Chance
19. Good Omens
Created by: Neil Gaiman
Network: Prime Video
Good Omens is, at its heart, a love story, and that’s never been more apparent than in its second season, where the unorthodox bond between prim angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) and swaggering demon Crowley (David Tennant) is both the primary narrative driver and emotional linchpin around which the rest of the series turns. As Season 2 begins, the pair have essentially retired from their various professional obligations to both Above and Below in the wake of the aborted Apocalypse they thwarted at the end of Season 1. Aziraphale continues to run his Soho bookshop with the help of his demonic BFF and eternal life partner, while Crowley now lives in his beloved Bentley with an assorted collection of his favorite plants.
Despite repeated hints about the potentially cosmic stakes associated with Gabriel’s (John Hamm) disappearance from the heavenly realm (he turned up at the door of the bookshop with no idea who he is or how he got there), Season 2 is surprisingly sweet and gentle, trading in Crowley and Aziraphale’s search for the Antichrist for domestic squabbles, trips to the pub, meetings of the local shopkeeper’s association, and a coordinated effort to romantically matchmake Maggie (Maggie Service) and Nina (Nina Sosanya) with the help of sudden rainstorms and Jane Austen. After basking in its soft, warm joy—a true rarity in our current bleak television landscape—I cannot deny that Good Omens Season 2 feels like nothing so much as divine providence. —Lacy Baugher Milas
18. Gen V
Developed by: Craig Rosenberg, Evan Goldberg, Eric Kripke
Network: Prime Video
From the dark, gory, cynical world of The Boys comes Gen V, a spinoff of the superhero send-up keen to continue to make fun of the superhero genre, capitalism, and influencer culture. Ostensibly about the first generation of superheroes who had their powers injected into them—whose parents chose to dose them with Compound V and weren’t born with their special abilities—Gen V is a coming-of-age tale on literal steroids, as students are not only asked to compete against one another for prestige and opportunity, but forced to confront ethical questions about what kind of hero they want to grow up to become. (A darker question than one might initially assume, as anyone who has ever watched The Boys knows.) Throw in some standard college-age debauchery and the sort of youthful idealism the original series only ever allowed Starlight to represent, and it makes for an entertaining ride, even if the show never manages to stray too far from the original The Boys blueprint. —Lacy Baugher Milas
17. Shrinking
Created by: Bill Lawrence, Jason Segel, Brett Goldstein
Network: Apple TV+
For avid fans of the sitcoms Scrubs, Cougar Town, and most recently, Ted Lasso, Bill Lawrence’s name will be familiar. And his latest series, the 10-part Apple TV+ comedy Shrinking (co-created with Ted Lasso fan-favorite Brett Goldstein and comedy veteran Jason Segel), has every chance of blossoming into another crowd-pleasing success: it’s unapologetically witty, charmingly heartfelt, and features a set of quirky characters that are irresistibly likable. The plot follows Jimmy (Jason Segel), a therapist and a single father who’s been grieving his late wife for over a year. His apathetic mood has leaked into his professional life, turning him into a passive counselor without much progression to show for when it comes to his patients. Then one day, Jimmy snaps and loses his cool in an unprofessional outburst, but… it works. From that moment, he tells each one of his patients what he thinks their problems are and what they should do to get out of their own way, to varied success.
What Shrinking does right from the start is be upfront about every character’s emotional baggage. Jimmy grieves, Gaby (Jessica Williams) has marital issues, and Paul (Harrison Ford) struggles to open up about his Parkinson’s diagnosis. They might be shrinks, but they’re also human beings dealing with the same personal problems as any of us (which they often ignore just like their patients do). Shrinking revels in the type of humor that’s uncomfortably honest and filled to the brim with sarcasm. But it never goes too far to feel insensitive or insulting. That’s a fine line, incredibly hard to walk, but the show does it with inherent confidence—even if the downside of that approach is that some jokes become cringey in various situations. But if you grow fond of these characters as fast as I did, you can easily pardon their occasionally embarrassing behavior. And undoubtedly, the cast does a tremendous job of making us fall in love with these flawed goofballs. The well-balanced dose of sarcastic and contagious humor (rooted in pain and heartache) is the kind of prescribed laughter we need to heal our souls after a long and hard day. —Akos Peterbencze
16. I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson
Created by: Zach Kanin, Tim Robinson
Original Network: Netflix
By now you know what to expect from I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson. The sketch show’s third season bears all the hallmarks of its beloved first two, with awkward, oblivious people causing uncomfortable situations: A Tim Robinson character takes something too literally, or runs a bad joke that got him a few laughs into the ground, or misreads a situation and doubles down until he ruins everything.
Familiarity can breed.. something, I’ve been told, and I’m sure some who have liked the show to this point will really dislike the new season. And honestly, I will admit to feeling a little underwhelmed the first time through, before having little jokes and moments cut through my consciousness in the days to follow; a full rewatch saw me laughing much harder than I did the first time. But our culture presents an almost endless buffet of ways to embarrass one’s self, and Robinson, Zach Kanin, and their fellow writers have no problem needling new threads of social impropriety throughout this season’s six episodes, while also adding enough unexpected wrinkles to keep it interesting. You might see some saying that it’s time for I Think You Should Leave to follow its own instructions and beat it, but don’t listen to ‘em: three seasons in Robinson and Kanin are still growing the show’s language in small but notable ways. —Garrett Martin
15. The Other Two
Created by: Chriss Kelly and Sarah Schneider
Network: Max
Few TV shows skewer the entertainment industry so brightly and bombastically as The Other Two. The series started out by tracking the fates of the two older, less successful siblings—Brooke (Heléne York) and Cary (Drew Tarver)—of teen superstar ChaseDreams (Case Walker). Since then, the show has morphed in bizarre and always hysterically entertaining ways, from their mother (Molly Shannon) landing her own daytime talk show to Brooke and Drew finding some semblance of stardom themselves, although never quite how they might hope. Happiness, for all, remains somewhat elusive. Creators Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider understand the surreal, cynical, and fleeting nature of celebrity and modern “success” in entertainment, and expertly convey it here with biting accuracy through the wonderful performances of their talented cast. And yet, the show is never dark; it’s comedically augmented reality, and a whip-smart portrayal of the highs and lows of, well, chasing your dreams. —Allison Keene
14. Ted Lasso
Created by: Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence, Brendan Hunt, Joe Kelly
Network: Apple TV+
Ted Lasso’s third and final season aimed to recapture that same glory that made it such a fan favorite over its first two years, while also introducing something Lasso has never really had up until this point: a rival. An enemy. A true, straight-up antagonist on the other side of the pitch. It’s a tried and true piece of the sports story formula, and if anything, it’s wild to think they haven’t really done it up until this point. That rival is, of course, West Ham United. Rebecca’s (Hannah Waddingham) ex-husband Rupert (Anthony Head) purchased the club to compete against Richmond at the end of Season 2, and poached “wonder kid” assistant coach Nate (Nick Mohammed) to serve as team manager.
Though it could be a cliched sports story with less nuanced execution, setting up Richmond and West Ham as rivals—with Nate and Ted in the spotlight on both sides—makes for a fascinating dynamic as the season continued to unravel. Despite the bar napkin pitch on the logline of “American football coach moves to England to coach soccer,” this has never been a simple show. It’s a story about broken people doing their best, and it all just happens to revolve around a football club. In Season 3, these relationships and bonds are stronger and more nuanced than ever. It’s been compelling as hell to see the creative team playing in the world they’ve built a little longer, and hopefully there is more to come. We love these characters, we love this team, and that hasn’t changed. —Trent Moore
13. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
Created by: Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, Jenny Lumet
Network: Paramount+
When Star Trek: Strange New Worlds debuted, it felt like a welcome return to form for a franchise caught in a bit of an identity crisis. In a prestige TV landscape defined by serialized storytelling and an affinity for the macabre, the one-off adventures found in the earlier incarnations of this endlessly optimistic sci-fi yarn were sorely missed. While both Star Trek: Discovery and Picard eventually leaned into some of these elements, Strange New Worlds embodied the spirit of classic Trek from the jump, and between its episodic format, unbridled belief in the possibility for a better future, and lovable cast of do-gooder space dorks, it not only channeled what came before but blazed new trails by delivering pulpy escapades alongside overarching character growth.
The second season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is an excellent follow-up to an already great show that continues to carve a space for this episodic series in a contemporary TV landscape where this format is far from the norm. It successfully embodies Trek’s core thematic tenets: its spirit of curiosity and scientific discovery, its belief in the possibility of building a better future, and its emphasis on diversity, all while working through the affecting backstories of its cast. And it does this all while being unafraid of being deeply sincere and even somewhat cheesy or silly at times. All things considered, Strange New Worlds continues to give us the best of what Starfleet has to offer. —Elijah Gonzalez
12. Beef
Created by: Lee Sung Jin
Network: Netflix
In Beef, the brilliant Ali Wong—playing the well-off boutique entrepreneur Amy Lau—has become engaged in a feud with the suicidal contractor Danny Cho, played by the equally excellent Steven Yeun. It started with an instance of road rage, in which Lau almost kills Cho, and escalates from there. One is rich, and one is poor, but fundamentally they’re both prisoners who feel no sense of control of their lives. What this violence against one another shows is that, briefly, they are resuscitated; they need this. It’s not healthy, it’s going to harm them both, but you know beyond any doubt that they are going to chase this high as long as they can. A raw thrill brought them both back to life, from a chance encounter in a parking lot, and through it they’ll even come to depend on each other.
As far as premise-setting, you just can’t do it any better, and there’s very little that you need to know about the show beyond that. They fight, and fight, and fight, and as the stifling atmosphere of modern lives continues to let them down, to leave them unhappy and confused, they’ll seek solace in each other, but that solace will come in the form of violence, because what they both require is the thrumming, hot conflict that can be waged between two people without the restrictions that society and the dual strictures of wealth and poverty have put in place. —Shane Ryan
11. Reservation Dogs
Created by: Sterlin Harjo, Taika Waititi
Network: FX (streaming on Hulu)
The Rez Dogs have learned the truth the hard way: the magical, faraway land of California will not solve all their problems and make all their dreams come true. A stolen car, a visit with White Jesus, and one very cathartic swim in the ocean later, the teens are broke and stranded in California when the third and final season of FX’s Reservation Dogs begins.
Throughout the first two seasons, Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Elora (Devery Jacobs), Cheese (Lane Factor), and Willie Jack (Paulina Alexis) are pushing their boundaries and trying to walk away from all the things keeping them in Oklahoma. But their family ties are like bungee cords, stretching and stretching until they inevitably snap back into place. The history of their hometown overwhelms each of the teens, and by the time they leave for California, the only thing they can imagine is running away from it all. Despite the series being billed as a comedy, it’s impossible to explore the richness of this—or any—Native American community without addressing the underlying pain and violence that white Americans have inflicted. Reservation Dogs has always balanced humor and heartbreak with stunning clarity. The legacy of this series is multifaceted, reflecting its impact on the Native American community and TV at large, bowing out both powerful and poignant; Reservation Dogs will be dearly missed. —Kristen Reid
10. The Fall of the House of Usher
Created by: Mike Flanagan
Original Network: Netflix
No one else in this space is doing what Mike Flanagan does, mining our deepest emotional fears and unspoken desires for the sort of real-life nightmare fuel that’s much, much scarier than any monster under the bed. Through stories that wrestle with everything from questions of faith and belief to falling in love and what it means to truly die, Flanagan’s deeply human horror universe is truly something beautiful to behold.
Though The Fall of the House of Usher is primarily grounded in Edgar Allan Poe’s titular short story of the Usher siblings, Flanagan deftly mixes in elements from many of the author’s other famous works, including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Raven,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Black Cat,” and more. Episodes are freely littered with Poe references large and small, from character names to full-on poetry recitations, and the series’ larger story reflects the author’s lifelong fascination with themes of guilt, death, paranoia, obsession, and delusion. One part horror-tinged Succession knockoff and one part modern day morality play, The Fall of the House of Usher is both a darkly comedic excoriation of the uber-rich and a slow-moving emotional car crash that explores the dysfunction at the heart of a family that’s losing its members one by one. —Lacy Baugher Milas
9. Yellowjackets
Created by: Ashley Lyle, Bart Nickerson
Network: Showtime
Watch on Paramount+ with Showtime
Yellowjackets Season 2 was darker, more disturbing, and more confident than ever—utterly fearless in its storytelling and unflinching in its vision. Unlike so many shows before it, Yellowjacket’s critical and popular success hasn’t changed or compromised its quality in any way, and its second season felt like nothing so much as a natural expansion and extension of its first. In many ways, it was that first season, turned up to eleven—more uncomfortable, more transgressive, and full of even more rage (both sublimated and directly expressed) than its predecessor. If Yellowjackets has taught us, as viewers, anything, it’s that this is a show that knows where it’s going, and we’re just here to enjoy the ride. I’m happy to see where it takes me. Buzz, buzz, buzz. —Lacy Baugher-Milas
8. What We Do in the Shadows
Created by: Jemaine Clement
Network: FX (streaming on Hulu)
On paper, FX’s What We Do in the Shadows is the sort of series that shouldn’t work at all. Based on the film of the same name written by Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement, the series has become one of TV’s best comedies by taking the admittedly ridiculous conceit of the original and running with it to even greater heights. Following a group of vampire roommates who live together in Staten Island, New York, the series fully embraces the ridiculousness of its premise, indulging in humor that ranges from complex absurdism to jokes about bodily fluids. But the specifically delightful alchemy of this show can be found in the ways it uses the story of its often idiotic undead leads to find sharp, heartfelt, and, yes, hilarious, observations about what it means to be human. In its fifth season, the show remains, first and foremost, dry, biting, and deeply, often painfully funny. Almost none of it makes any sense if you look at it too closely, but if you’re predisposed to love the adventures of this band of self-absorbed undead weirdos, you’ll find a lot to enjoy here. With a shift to re-focus on Guillermo and its immortal commitment to its vampiric gags, we can only hope this show lives forever. —Lacy Baugher Milas
7. Only Murders in the Building
Created by: Steve Martin, John Hoffman
Network: Hulu
You would think that after three seasons of murders in the same building, the concept would get tired. Only Murders in the Building’s third season proves that idea dead wrong. Season 3 follows our favorite trio, Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Short), and Mabel (Selena Gomez), as they get caught up in yet another murder in their New York apartment building. This time, the victim is Paul Rudd’s fading star Ben Glenroy, who drops dead the night of his big Broadway debut in Oliver’s play. Oliver, Charles, and Mabel attempt to solve this mystery, all while wrapped in the whirlwind world of musical theater as Oliver decides to rework his doomed play into an admittedly unhinged musical. Only Murders’ third season is just as charming as its previous outings, allowing the series to push and pull at its central dynamics before solving this perplexing case. It’s hilarious, it’s heartfelt, and it’s coming back for a fourth season, thank goodness. I don’t care how unrealistic it is, people can and should keep dying in this building so that this show can go on forever. —Anna Govert
6. Barry
Created by: Bill Hader
Network: HBO
It’s been a long road (thanks to a 3-year pandemic break), but Bill Hader and Alec Berg’s Barry has finally reached its conclusion. The hitman-turned-actor has executed more people than failed auditions by this point, and with him locked up at the start of the season thanks to his former acting coach, it’s been terrifying to see what Barry might be capable of with his back pushed this much against the wall. The series took a sharp stylistic shift between seasons 2 and 3, and the characters feel as stripped-back as the visual style. Hader, directing all eight episodes, is clearly in his wheelhouse, and confidently pulls heart-wrenching, blackly comic performances out of all the remaining cast. After a few early wrong-notes, Barry sets off on a final mission that risks no one from the ensemble getting their happy ending—not that we’re complaining. —Rory Doherty
5. Poker Face
Created by: Rian Johnson
Network: Peacock
The deck is heavily stacked in the audience’s favor with Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne’s Poker Face, a case-of-the-week “howcatchem” that feels less like an ode to Columbo and more like a gleeful, excited squeal of adoration. Johnson writes and directs the pilot, giving us a welcome return to the darker, restrained type of genre filmmaking he showed in Brick and Looper, which provides an impeccable introduction to the world of Charlie (Lyonne), a nobody who can sniff out when anyone is ever lying. Our perceptive idol still has to slum it across America’s backroads, seemingly drawn to impractical, impossible murders being staged in regional theaters, crummy punk bars, and a militant old folks home. There’s a great deal of texture to the world that a team of capable writers and directors explore, and despite some repetitive structure issues, Poker Face makes us wonder why procedurals like these aren’t on TV year-round. —Rory Doherty
4. Abbott Elementary
Created by: Quinta Brunson
Network: ABC
Sometimes there’s that magical moment when you realize you are watching something truly exceptional. From the moment I watched the pilot of ABC’s Abbott Elementary, I knew the show was much more than typical network sitcom drudgery (lame punchline, tinny laugh track, repeat). There was a grounded sweetness to the show. It was neither saccharine nor sardonic. We were introduced to the teachers of Philadelphia public school: the earnest Janine (series creator Quinta Brunson), veteran teachers Melissa (Lisa Ann Water) and Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph), as well as reluctant substitute Gregory (Tyler James Williams), the socially inept Jacob (Chris Perfetti), and the self-centered and clueless principal Ava (Janelle James). As a group, they immediately clicked; their combined comedic beats were perfect. The pilot was hilarious but also moving, all while shedding light on the underfunded public school system without being patronizing or exploitative, and the rest of the first season continued in kind.
And ever since, the show has remained everything you would want and expect it to be. Warm, hilarious, relatable… and damn if it doesn’t sometimes make me cry. —Amy Amatangelo
3. The Last of Us
Created by: Craig Mazin, Neil Druckmann
Network: HBO
You wouldn’t think puns would work as connective tissue between characters in any television series, yet alone a brutal post-apocalyptic drama, but it does just that whenever 14-year-old Ellie (Bella Ramsey) throws them at 50-something Joel (Pedro Pascal) throughout the first season of The Last of Us. In a world as dark and dangerous as the one viewers see onscreen, measured humor goes a long way.
Humor is one of the many tools that series creators/writers Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and Neil Druckmann (designer of the videogame the series is based on) use to build layered characters to tell a heartbreaking, yet inspiring story filled with loss, hope, determination, and redemption. And it all revolves around Ellie and Joel.
Pascal positively shines as Joel, perfectly balancing the physical aspects of the role with an emotional heft that’s hard to pull off in a character who is a man of action and few words. But the breakout star of The Last of Us is Ramsey. The actor, who was a scene stealer as Lady Mormont in Game of Thrones, is a wisecracking badass and certain to be a fan favorite. Together, the duo make a team that’s easy to root for and more importantly, care about. Complex characters combined with stellar acting, a wonderfully paced story, and an emotionally engaging plot make The Last of Us a brilliant series that is now the template all other videogame-to-TV adaptations should follow. —Terry Terrones
2. Succession
Created by: Jesse Armstrong
Network: HBO
Loyalty and betrayal once again form the backbone of HBO’s drama in its fourth and final season, but it’s all on a continuum; the Roy siblings have been infected with the push-and-pull rhythms of their father, and each time they come together, it’s only a prelude to screwing each other over, and each time they screw each other over, it’s only to tighten again. On the surface, they are selfish, unsympathetic human beings; deep down, as creatures who have been molded by caprice and limited by cruelty, who could be more sympathetic?
The brilliance of Succession is that you ache each time the worm turns; this is not repetitive, it never feels inevitable, and it’s only afterward that you see the insidious pattern. A show that can often look like a comedy, since it has the funniest writing on TV, is at its heart one of the darkest dramas imaginable, because it slowly reveals the constraints at the heart of our existence; everything we dream, but can never do… every way we’ve been permanently stunted before we ever had a choice in the matter.
On that note, while we’ll mourn the show’s end, there’s something to be said for getting out before the patterns become more explicit and less surprising. They could write funny dialogue and convincing plot twists for ages, but to quit now is to ensure that the shocking freshness never wears off. —Shane Ryan
1. The Bear
Created by: Christopher Storer
Network: FX (streaming on Hulu)
Second seasons are often cursed; especially when it comes to shows that knocked it out of the park with their debut seasons. Christopher Storer’s dramedy on Hulu (via FX), The Bear, fits that bill perfectly. The biggest hit of the summer last year—exceeding the expectations of its writers, cast members, and creator, too—The Bear Season 2 had an awful lot to live up to—and it mostly does. Season 2 works quite differently than its predecessor. Since we now get 10 episodes with varying runtimes, the script is a little looser, taking the time to flesh out each character’s arc. Picking up where Season 1 left off, we join Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his work (and real) family as they attempt to build and open a brand new restaurant from scratch. The relationships are still the centerfold of this series, and remain the most potent part of The Bear, which elevates it into among the best dramas currently on television. Overall, The Bear remains one of the best original shows on TV, even if the performances often outmatch and rise above the writing this time around. With such a talented cast—and many emerging young actors—it’s not that surprising that Season 2 lets it rip once again. —Akos Peterbencze
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