The 20 best TV shows of 2023 (so far)
From prestige dramas like Succession and Yellowjackets to comedies like I Think You Should Leave and Cunk On Earth, here's what we've loved this year
TV Lists Philomena
Between the writers’ strike, HBO Max transforming into just Max, and streaming services removing more and more content, it’s been a hectic year for TV—and we’re only halfway through. But even in the middle of all this chaos, several shows shined through. Succession and Barry both nailed their final seasons, Yellowjackets came back strong for its sophomore outing, and there were some newcomers that took us by surprise like Paul T. Goldman and Jury Duty.
As we head into an increasingly uncertain fall TV season, it feels especially important to appreciate all the great series that have aired so far this year. But before we dive into our picks for the best shows of the year, one quick note: To be included on this list, a show must have had at least one new episode in 2023. So even though Abbott Elementary’s second season premiered in 2022, it continued into 2023, which means it counts. Here are our midyear favorites, arranged in alphabetical order.
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Not sure what “Dave” has to do to get some attention. It was already one of the most entertaining shows on TV and this year, they added a ton of big-name cameos that fit right into the lunacy.
Get Vulture to put it in a list first.
Dave may have won the year for me with that Brad Pitt episode
As far as I could tell, the central plot of Yellowjackets season 2 seemed to be, “How many seasons do you think we can milk this for?”
In all seriousness I am thinking they might want to wrap up Yellowjackets next season. I think the premise & the two timeline story structure is starting to show some strain, though on balance I still enjoyed this season, thanks largely to the younger actors & the great work by Melanie Lynskey and Christina Ricci
After absolutely loving S1, I felt disappointed by S2. Agree about the acting, primarily by Ricci, Lynskey, Thatcher, and Hanratty (with the welcome addition of Elijah Wood). But the present day plotline just doesn’t have any steam left. The motivations of the adult characters (particularly Charlotte, Van, & Tai) was confusing and sloppy. They’ve also wrapped up almost all of the mysteries that kept me intrigued in the first season (What happened to Jackie? And the baby? Who survives/dies? Who is blackmailing the adults?), so I don’t know what I’m even looking forward to now, other than how they’re rescued.
The big question I had after the s2 Yellowjackets finale about the present day timeline was, am I just tired, or do I not understand why anyone did what they did in the whole episode?
I didn’t understand any of their motivations at all! While I wasn’t enjoying the majority of S2 near as much as S1, I could still somewhat understand until the last 2 episodes.
Because “Mystery” and “Intrigue”???
Which is a shame, since the present-day timeline was my favorite timeline in the first season.
Yeah, the wilderness timeline is still terrific but present day was a whole lot of wheel-spinning and muddled motivations. Hopefully with the deck-clearing of the finale they can get that straightened out, but either way five seasons feels like a stretch.
I’ll go to bat for the new season of Clone High. While I would say it takes about two episodes to shake off the rust/establish the new status quo and I’m not sure it ever quite reaches the manic energy and joke density of the original, I have been enjoying it quite a bit. That said, there is one conceptual nitpick I have: the original had then-current teen soaps as a point-of-reference for their parody while this seems to have the original season as its point-of-reference. It feels like it would make more sense to base this new season off of more-modern teen soaps (which I guess might be Euphoria and Riverdale?*) , but then again, I suppose no-one would watch it then, since this is probably driven by nostalgia and fan-demand.(*I, an old man, don’t really have a clue what passes for modern teen soaps.)
whatever you do, don’t visit the subreddit on Clone High. It’s a giant flaming smorgasbord of anger towards S2. People hate everything about it because Gandhi isn’t there, there was a voice change with Cleo (because reasons), other background characters aren’t as active, Abe sucks, and that it’s taking some time to evolve.
I’ve actually found it getting better each episode – and i think the fault in the first two can also be placed on the fact that they put everyone we love in the background to bring in new characters and that doesn’t pay off until episode 3 and onward. No show coming back after 20 years is going to be exactly what it was, but it’s certainly coming around and I’m glad it exists.
I was going to address the Gandhi issue, but I figured doing so would just be an open invitation to the worst kind of fans (I am going to presume that those subreddits are rife with references to the “woke agenda”). I miss the character (and the performance), of course, but they really didn’t have a lot of choice. When the Indian Parliament comes after your show, you need to do more than a course-correction, you need to wildly veer away from an incoming iceberg.Toots’ absense is less of a problem. Donald Faison’s performance aside, I think it was a running joke—pretty much the Wise Blind Sage trope + Mr. Magoo—that has well-exhausted by the end of the original season.It is pretty appropriate that the most recent episode is about nostalgia (and how it blinds you to obvious faults or other more-pressing issues), because some fans can get really nostalgia-blind. Do you really want the same damn jokes repeated over and over? If the old jokes don’t work anymore (for whatever reason), here’s the solution: WRITE NEW JOKES.
The thing about that subreddit is that they’re bitching about it continually (Gandhi) saying it was not even a big deal. When the grandson of Gandhi and thousands of others picket MTV in India and threaten to revoke MTV’s licence, you listen.
And yet somehow all of the people assume he can just come back. It’s just a continued bitch fest and I’m tired of it. There’s also bitching about how bloody / gory it is but they forget that time Abe just basically ate glass.
Are there missing characters? Sure (I love what they did to put Andy Dick and Marilyn Manson in the timeout corner). Are there changes? Absolutely. But is it worth your time to watch? It certainly is. I like what the show is trying to do and that it’s doing something different, because like you said – a nostalgia act can only work for so long.
It’s worth noting that Riverdale is also based in a sort of nostalgia now, with this entire season being set in the 1950s for no apparent reason.
I believe the reason is to reward loyal fans by having their favorite show’s characters spend their last season with no memories of who they are, what they’ve been through or what their relationships are. These are their last moments with these characters, they should be spent negating all story and character development, obviously.
Yay another slide show! But no rankings? No forced upon political saturation? This is not the avclub I have such broadening contempt for! This website makes me sad.
Never heard of Somebody, Somewhere. I’m looking forward to checking it out.
It took a couple of episodes in the first season to grow on me, but it has the ability to squeeze tears through laughter and the reverse. Relatable because everyone is essentially a character actor with scenes of down-to-earth insight and situational dramedy, I came to really crave it as a palate cleanser from the weight of Succession and Barry.
The fact that so many people—even those with HBO—don’t know about Somebody Somewhere is a true sign of the times. Not that you or anyone else needs to watch it, or that’s it the best thing ever (I think it’s really good) but 10 years ago everyone would at least know of it since it ran with Succession and Barry in the Sunday night HBO slot. Now, with so many people streaming HBO, a lot of Succession fans don’t even watch or know Barry, let alone Somebody Somewhere, when you have to find in on Max. I think of how many shows I watched when they premiered without knowing about them just because they were before or after something else on Sunday on HBO or started the week after something else ended in that time slot. Even in the early days of HBO Go, the new shows were very much the focus but now its like good luck finding even notable shows like this or Hacks or Perry Mason.
Hell, just 5 years ago I probably would have been aware of it much sooner. I feel like AV Club would have been doing weekly recaps. With the way things are now, I think if You’re The Worst came out today I wouldn’t find out for years.
See, I think I may have heard of that when it came out but I’ve definitely never watched it and I don’t think seen it a suggestion and I have Hulu!
I started it because there was an in depth analysis on how the second season beautifully tackled depression while still being funny as hell. It’s great if you can get past the main two character starting out as not very good people.
It’s SO good! IMHO, on the night of finales a couple of weeks ago, it was the best one. Thankfully it wasn’t a series finale.
Needs more Mrs. Davis. The reveal of why the AI was created in the first place had me laughing harder than any other show I can remember for a long time.
Not having Ted Lasso on this list is absurd.
Mrs Davis, Ted Lasso, Silo are much better than most shows on this list. Yellowjackets in particular became awful.
I’m really enjoying Silo. And what an amazing cast!
Soaking is not made up. It is very real.
For the most part I don’t go for the confessionals in that show (just who are they supposed to be performing for when the mark isn’t there?), but that brilliant soaking scene made it all worthwhile, and made even better by the fact that it’s lampooning something 100% real.
And it’s spectacular!
The US Ghosts had another great season, starting to compare favorably to the UK version even. Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar great as the livings but all of the ghost actors are just delightful. I really hope none of them get sucked off
I really hope none of them get sucked off I’d advise you don’t watch Ghostbusters then.
I’m sad that Lockwood & Co didn’t catch on when the utterly bland and antiseptic Wednesday did. It was such a fun show and I’d have loved to see more of the characters. Silo has been a real pleasure so far. Watching it reminds me of watching Babylon 5 back in the day. BTW, whatever you’ve done to this website that makes it constantly crash when viewing these “slideshows” on mobile is making it really hard for me to view these slideshows.
I really liked Lockwood & Co and as soon as I finished it, I said it would get cancelled. Sad that I was right.
Mrs. Davis
No Picard Season 3? Seriously?
I’ll go out on a limb and argue Picard S3 should be on this list.
Mine are obvious: Succession, Barry, The Last of Us, Somebody Somewhere. Cunk on Earth is a gem. The Renai-sauce segment is probably the hardest I’ve laughed at TV this year. I would also mention History of the World: Part 2. You have to like Brooks and Kroll and it’s still sometimes tedious to get through (mostly the repetition of the Kroll storyline) but it definitely had its moments with the crazy cast of comedic actors. I’m waiting for Party Down to hit one of my streamers.
The interview segment on Cunk on Earth where she interviews the intimidating military historian about the danger of nuclear war might be the best thing I have seen all year, hilarious but strangely poignant too
I’m pretty sure that guy doesn’t really like Abba, and that Dancing Queen is the first song name to come to mind; he just wanted to say anything to get her to stop crying. Cunk on Earth does this better than any other show since Ali G.
I could believe the guy faked the answer about liking ABBA and his favorite song of theirs, because that is what I would have done to get her to stop crying. But he answered so immediately and sincere-sounding it didn’t seem fake to me. Props to him either way really
Cunk on Earth is hilarious. The way she wanders aimlessly through historic sites always gets me, along with all the other random documentary tropes she makes fun of. Plus the call backs to “Pump up the Jam”… It doesn’t get any better than that for me.
Cunk on Britain’s continual callbacks were to an old BBC 80s sitcom called Brushstrokes. Its not going to work if a/ you were born later than 1988, or b/ didn’t live in a place that showed BBC comedies, but if you DID ,it was hysterical
We went full Cunk after the series, digging up the UK originals and the audiobook. She’s so good. We knew her from “After Life” with Gervais but she’s so fantastic here.
Motherland, she’s fantastic in that , plus it has the bonus of not having Gervais (yeah?) in it.
Diane Morgan is such a good actress, if you want more of her work watch her in After Life also on Netflix.
Motherland!! I can’t stress how great she is in that. ( the BBC comedy ,not the US show about american civil war witches)
Oh jesus christ shut the fuck up about David Choe. No one cares. No one.
I don’t think I can get drunk enough to leave with that Robinson guy.
Co-sign Cunk on Earth. The segment where she “finds out” that there are still nuclear weapons and we are, in fact, not at all free from their terrible shadow and convincingly breaks down, only to be touchingly comforted by the 0h-so-British expert who allows himself graciously to be drawn into a distracting discussion of his favourite ABBA songs, is one of the most wonderful things I’ve seen on TV in a long time. (Word count: 69-word sentence.)
I love that bit. It doesn’t really matter but I wonder if they somehow knew that he was an ABBA fan, it is just such a random thing to ask him & he answers so immediately & confidently
I got the vibe that he’s just an extremely nice dude with a beginner-at-best appreciation of Abba and just named the first song that came to mind
If anyone’s on the fence about Cunk on Earth it’s well worth a try, you won’t regret it!
I’m hard on this side of the fence. The trailers make it look like a total cringe-fest, with her just making outlandishly stupid and embarrassing statements to unsuspecting experts. If that’s all it is I can do without it.
Although I did like Diane Morgan’s character in After Life.
I think the experts are very suspecting.
high school soccer team whose plane crashes in the Canadian wildernessI am really enjoying Yellowjackets and am happy to suspend disbelief for the sake of enjoying the series. But I feel compelled to point out, as a Canadian, that a plane like that could hardly crash in British Columbia and go undiscovered for weeks, let alone months, let alone years. It’s not quite the barren wilderness the show depicts, lol. One other thing… presumably their cabin in the woods was built by the suicidal dude who crashed the older plane there, yes? I have a hard time accepting that A) he would build a giant, two-story cabin big enough to comfortably house the entire team with room to spare rather than a small cabin for himself, and B) that somehow he managed to amass all those tools and machined lumber for building the cabin in the first place!Anyway, I try not to let my razor-keen intellect ruin all the shows I like.
Silo should be on this list.
I wholeheartedly co-sign for Poker Face. I just watched it recently and good grief, I absolutely love that show. I’m so happy that it’s been renewed for a second season and I hope we get many, many more.
A lot of these are on my list. A few I’ve never even heard of.I would have put the new season of ‘I Think You Should Leave’ on a list without even seeing it yet.Of the shows I actually started this year, I am very much digging ‘Beef.’ I haven’t seen anyone anywhere discussing Genndy Tartakovsky’s ‘Unicorn: Warriors Eternal’ on HBO, but it is a blast. It gets a tad bit derivative at times, but the visuals are phenomenal.
Dave? The Diplomat? Shrinking? Daisy Jones & The Six?
Just one person’s opinion here, but I only got through two episodes of The Diplomat. Intelligent, understated, slow-burn political thrillers are one of my favourite things, and I love Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell. The problem with The Diplomat is it *fakes* the intelligence, thinking that having characters speak only tangentially is great dialogue while ignoring glaring stupidities like the obvious, premise-destroying fact that a flamboyant, rampaging egomaniac who loves drawing attention to himself while routinely disobeying direct instructions from the Secretary of State would ever have risen to senior ambassadorial level. And then, having found this lunatic unemployable, the service’s response is to appoint his wife with only junior experience to one of the most important positions in the service.Even if you can live with that setup, there’s no justifying the resolution of the kidnap scene in ep 2. Pure unadulterated moron-level plotting by writers* who don’t know how to create suspense, and so go for an unbelievable fake-out.*to be fair, there may be great writers on the show hobbled by the showrunners; but somewhere in the production there is a bubbling vat of toxic idiocy boiling over onto the script.
Slideshow? Too bad, I kind of wanted to read this, but I’m not helping you artificially inflate your impressions when you could have put this on a scrollable page.
Just had to make sure Somebody Somewhere was on the list. Kudos for including 100 Foot Wave too.
Somebody Somewhere just blew me away. We flew through both seasons and I just thought, “This is dead on ***MAX***” and somehow we get more. So glad.
Mrs Davis continually surprised me in the most delightful ways more than any show has in years! Hilarious, creative and still deeply moving. It’s a travesty how overlooked it has been. You want something new vital and fresh? Well this show is what you want.
I’m trying to think of a live action list but :Royal Crackers : ( which is sort of King of the hill meets Succession meets Disenchantment ). I 100% love this show , so it’s obviously going to be cancelled.Digman : (Andy Samberg IS Nicholas Cage IN Indiana Jones AND the Davinci code! , it’s absurd , but most of the cast of B99 crops up).Fired on Mars ( Luke Wilson works for Amazon on Mars , gets fired , , starts a revolution! ).
Silo’s omission from this list – and for that matter from any coverage whatsoever on AV Club besides a perfunctory ‘review’ of an early trailer – is why the site is becoming less and less relevant to many of us, especially considering that if you believe Apple’s crowing about the metrics the thing is a runaway hit.Then again, this is the site that put Season 2 of For All Mankind on its Best Of list but hadn’t written about it since the Season 1 screeners, so it fits.
Silo is amazing
Beef got surprisingly profound, and I’m still thinking about it after all this time. And I was really impressed with how Vox Machina was able to level up, so to speak. It’s a lot better than it was.
This already needs to be updated to include Deadloch on Amazon Prime.Though if you didn’t like The Katering Show or Get Krackin’ you probably won’t like The Kate’s doing a noir series that happens to be hilarious.
Deadloch was legit amazing. I can’t even decide if the mystery or the comedy worked better, and somehow they complimented each other, which could easily not be the case. Things being funny did not make it less tense
Beef had a great set up only to piss it away just as quickly with a deeply uninteresting and unlikeable cast of characters.“Yellowjackets” continues to be a half-baked, insipid, and illogical mash-up of Lost, Lord of the Flies, and Alive.
Heartstopper on Netflix is a glaring omission. The second season maintained the magic, inclusiveness, and love of the first season, while advancing the story and covering some darker elements that were only hinted at in S1. That we could have a teen romance as hopeful and sweet as Nick and Charlie without it verging into cloying or losing its earnestness is testimony of the craftmanship and skill of the show’s creators and cast. Also good sophomore season showings for Paramount’s Strange New Worlds and Apple TV’s Foundation.