The 20 best TV shows of 2024 (so far)

Gutting romances! Bloody epics! Cinematic feasts! Here are the series that have most wowed The A.V. Club this year.

By Tim Lowery, Saloni Gajjar, Matt Schimkowitz, Emma Keates, Mary Kate Carr, William Hughes, Cindy White | June 20, 2024 | 3:00pm

TV Lists Lucia Aniello

Clockwise from bottom left: Anjana Vasan in We Are Lady Parts (Photo: Saima Khalid/WWTV/Peacock/Channel 4), Julio Torres in Fantasmas (Photo: Monica Lek/HBO), Sarayu Blue in Expats (Photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Prime Video), Jacob Anderson in Interview With The Vampire (Photo: Larry Horricks/AMC), Andrew Scott in Ripley (Photo: Netflix), and X-Men ’97 (Image: Marvel Studios)

The year is almost halfway over, people. Which means that at The A.V. Club, we’re sounding off on the best pop culture 2024 has gifted us to date—and, specifically here, the TV shows that have most impressed, be they bold doses of nostalgia (X-Men ’97), cinematic stunners (Ripley), or sweeping historical epics (Shōgun, the series that, it’s worth noting, received the most points in our staff-wide poll). To be included in this list, a show simply has to have started a new season between January and mid-June (hence the absences of House Of The Dragon and about-to-return AVC favorite The Bear). Here are our 20 favorite series of the year (so far), in alphabetical order.

We Are Lady Parts season 2

We Are Lady Parts | Season 2 | Official Trailer | Peacock Original

We Are Lady Parts is what you get when a creator is given space to veraciously and entertainingly tell a story close to their heart. Nida Manzoor helms this ingenious British comedy about five Muslim women in a punk band with nary a stereotype in sight. Instead, WALP is committed to portraying that no community is a monolith. Season two’s six episodes pack a tight punch with heartfelt humor, performances, and, of course, original songs. (“Glass Ceiling Feeling,” you’re a hit in my book.) The show’s beating heart is an unflinching desire to defy clichés with its LGBTQ romances, South Asian family relationships, female friendships, and characters grappling with their religious identities. We Are Lady Parts’ authenticity stems from various Muslim women in the writing team . While being quite fun and unique, the show is also taking a stand in season two on the importance of art and culture. And what’s more punk than that? [Saloni Gajjar]

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