Clockwise from top left: Lucie Shorthouse, Faith Omole, Anjana Vasan, Juliette Motamed, and Sarah Kameela Impey in We Are Lady Parts (Photo: Laura Radford/Peacock); William Jackson Harper and Jessica Williams in Love Life (Photo: HBO Max); Ramona Young, Lee Rodriguez, and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan in Never Have I Ever (Photo: Isabella B. Vosmikova/Netflix); Matthew Macfadyen in Succession (Photo: Graeme Hunter/HBO); Krys Marshall in For All Mankind 1 and 2 (Photo: Apple TV Plus); Aaron Pierre and Thuso Mbedu in The Underground Railroad 1 and 2 (Photo: Kyle Kaplan); Lane Factor, Paulina Alexis, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and Devery Jacobs in Reservation Dogs (Photo: Shane Brown/FX)Graphic: Natalie Peeples
After a year of production delays and extended hiatuses, TV did return in 2021 with a vengeance—and a vision, and a mission, and even another look at one of our favorite terrible families. Though series like Grey’s Anatomy acknowledged the COVID-19 pandemic (which has since gotten a sequel), most of this year’s offerings were content to forge their own realities, whether it was the absurdist one of I Think You Should Leave With Tim Robinson, the capitalism-driven mayhem of Squid Game, or the assured, cogent direction of Insecure’s final season.
As the months went on, TV looked more and more like its old self, with a compelling variety of more intimate stories and adaptations that were nothing short of epic. The comfort watch, which dominated viewing in 2020, was still alive and kicking, but had taken on a new dimension. Peak TV even reared its head again, along with the debate over which was preferable: the binge model or the weekly release. Now, as we face another likely surge in COVID cases, it’s hard not to think of TV’s comeback this year as more of a limited series—that format has continued to thrive, as our list shows—than an ongoing one. That won’t prevent us from celebrating all the best that the medium had to offer in 2021, from vibrant historical dramas to giddy sendups to pitch-black satires. As it moved away from more comforting viewing, TV didn’t just challenge us—it challenged itself.
Once again, voting on the best TV series was a great undertaking, as we sorted through reboots, revivals, comic-book tentpoles, inventive new comedies, and one latecomer unlike anything else on TV right now. But 16 A.V. Club staffers and contributors took their duties seriously, submitting ranked ballots of our top 15 shows to bring you the 25 best shows of 2021.
25. Never Have I Ever
Clockwise from top left: Lucie Shorthouse, Faith Omole, Anjana Vasan, Juliette Motamed, and Sarah Kameela Impey in Graphic Natalie Peeples
After a year of production delays and extended hiatuses, TV did return in 2021 with a vengeance—and , and , and even another look at one of . Though series like Grey’s Anatomy acknowledged the COVID-19 pandemic (which has since gotten a sequel), most of this year’s offerings were content to forge their own realities, whether it was the absurdist one of , the capitalism-driven mayhem of , or the assured, cogent direction of ’s final season.As the months went on, TV looked more and more like its old self, with a compelling variety of more intimate stories and adaptations that were nothing short of epic. The comfort watch, which dominated viewing in 2020, was still alive and kicking, but had taken on a new dimension. Peak TV even reared its head again, along with the debate over which was preferable: the binge model or the weekly release. Now, as we face another likely surge in COVID cases, it’s hard not to think of TV’s comeback this year as more of a limited series—that format has continued to thrive, as our list shows—than an ongoing one. That won’t prevent us from celebrating all the best that the medium had to offer in 2021, from vibrant historical dramas to giddy sendups to pitch-black satires. As it moved away from more comforting viewing, TV didn’t just challenge us—it challenged itself. Once again, voting on the best TV series was a great undertaking, as we sorted through reboots, revivals, comic-book tentpoles, inventive new comedies, and one latecomer unlike anything else on TV right now. But 16 A.V. Club staffers and contributors took their duties seriously, submitting ranked ballots of our top 15 shows to bring you the 25 best shows of 2021.
I totally understand. I stopped watching Italian Drag Race simply because they made each episode about 1.5hrs long and made up that bulk with drag queen drama I just don’t care about. Holland’s Drag Race (or was it UK?) was also a bit meh from memory. But I thought normal Drag Race, Canadian Drag Race, Spanish Drag Race (was that this year?) were all worth it.
There’s a strong bias on the list toward new shows. So it goes for a pop culture tabloid site, I guess: whatever new product it coming out is hyped up and celebrated, and anything in its second year or later is niche appeal at best. There’s so much new shit that one can’t keep up with it all.
Not sure that applies to a list that includes two other Apple TV+ series in their second seasons, Mythic Quest and For All Mankind. I’d say the issue is more that those series had really excellent sophomore seasons that built on all the best parts of season 1, whereas Ted Lasso, despite retaining considerable charm, slumped a bit in season 2.
I wasn’t surprised at it not being on the list, but I was confused by the link to it in the Succession review as that sort of unintentionally opens the door to why one got in and the other didn’t when they both followed the same path (seen as meandering and then ending in a powerful finale).
Personally, I think Ted Lasso is only a minor step down. Some ideas work better than others, but for the most part, I was happy to have the show back, and glad to see it challenge itself as much as it did.
Before I start my spiel, I want to preface to say I have no interest in changing your mind or belittling your opinion. In contrast, I’m delighted you enjoyed this season to that degree!I had very, you may say unreasonably, high hopes for this season, to the degree that I started my own season 2 recap series. I watched every episode thrice and spent ten hours a week shooting and editing this series.Watching the season so closely got me very amped about story possibilities: I’d see any inference and implication as a seed for a dramatically fascinating tree. I genuinely think the first three episodes were fantastic.Then the Christmas episode came and the DNA of the show changed substantially. Before it, the show was this sneakily complex treatise about male fragility under the guise of a bona-fide crowd pleaser. After the Christmas special, the show became a crowd pleaser as its top priority.There were magic moments scattered throughout, but some story beats I found to be distractingly forced and unnatural. At the end of it all, I was left with frustration after frustration.Nate’s downward spiral narrative got spurred on from a completely out of character reaction from Ted. The love triangle plot was lazy and totally stepped on the lovely hug between Roy and Jamie. The magic of Rebecca and Sam happened way too quickly. The Rick Roll Funeral felt reverse-engineered from a writer’s room note of “how can we put a meme in a funeral?” The revelation of Ted’s father’s cause of death was a cringeworthy scene, trying to be too cute with its cross-cut editing. The Panic Attack news report was unrealistic, even for a British tabloid. Nothing from the Cerithium Oil CEO?!?!All the pieces were in place for a finale where Sam Richardson’s Casablanca team was being co-owned by Rupert and Cerithium Oil CEO and Sam to be the face of a team owned by the person responsible for Nigeria’s ecological disaster. Instead, Casablanca was a flash in the pan, nothing from Cerithium Oil guy, and Rupert owns West Ham. WHO GIVES A DAMN ABOUT WEST HAM.This season played it so safe that my favourite episode was the one where Beard has a wild night out. TL;DR: it was an okay season, just not for me.
It’s a shame that the ballots are not presented with commentary. I would like to see a full-throated defense of The Challenge or The Real Housewives.Haven’t seen the latest season of Evil, since it moved from CBS to whichever streaming service, but it was my favorite show of the year last year, and I’m sorry to see it on only one ballot.
I’m really glad that For All Mankind is getting such strong props in these end of year lists. It’s been one of my favourite shows since its premier and I can’t wait to see where they take it in Season 3.It deserves to get so much more recognition.
Sad lament for The Expanse: it could never catch a break on these end-of-the-year lists because its seasons largely began in mid-December and ran into February (at its longest). It was always either too early to include, or too old to remember. Don’t know where this final arc will land within the show’s run. I think the Miller/Julie Mao arc was still the best. But the rest were close. In a sense Miller had to get out of the way so Bobbi Draper and Camina Drummer could rise. Hopefully its notoriety will grow and in three or four years, Amazon might greenlight another two seasons to wrap the entire book series.
Totally agree, that show has been consistently great throught it’s run. There has to be more coming if they actually committed to the “Strange Dogs” storyline that’s been kicking off each episode this season (there’s also a 20 year gap between books 6 and 7, so they could pick it up later).
That’s where we tapped out, the end of the Miller/Julie Mao arc. We…kinda cared about the crew of the Roci? But not enough to keep pushing. And definitely didn’t care at all about the Earth-Mars stuff.
Frankly, one of the stronger years in recent memory on the TV front. Bangers on basically every channel (I’d even toss Star Trek: Lower Decks in as a dark horse candidate).
Does anyone actually like that corny Emily Dickinson show? I guess her story could be told in a historically accurate fashion at some point, but so far, no dice.
Fwiw, I despise taking actual historical figures and marketing them for money and depicting them in ways that had no bearing on who they actually were. I find it gross that a generation who has as a rallying cry authenticity would buy into something that so obviously panders to everything inauthentic. I ask myself, what would Emily Dickinson herself think of it? And so should viewers. Not everything should just be entertainment. The reason it’s being lifted up is because it has “important social messages.” Great, those could be gotten across with more authenticity and dare I say truth, or is that word taboo now? than this.
Station 11 deserves a place on the list. Wandavision’s place. WV was a good show but it was like a sugary stick of gum; we all chewed it and it was spent and we forgot about it. Station 11 is like The Leftovers. It has staying power. We’ll be watching it for years.Loki’s not on the list because of the same reason. Marvel and Disney produce content with intentionally diverse casts for nefarious reasons that ultimately make shareholders money.
My experience with WandaVision was definitely different from yours. Until the disappointing finale (and even that had its moments), it was one of my favorite shows this year. Because of the finish I do consider it a flawed season, but to me, at least, not a forgettable one.
I started Station Eleven on a whim (mostly because I loved Mackenzie Davis in Halt & Catch Fire) and I am so glad I did. I’ve only seen the first three episodes but I am completely engrossed by it. Definitely needs more coverage because this show is so well made. 100% agree on it’s staying power.
In terms of online chatter, ITYSL kind of came and went this year compared to the first season. The attempts at finding sketches to make into deathless memes felt forced, as did the show’s attempts at those types of sketches, but those were a minority for me. There were some strange choices in season two, some that had mixed results but also compelling moments (like the decision to have various other performers just do their own Tim Robinson while he stepped back). I think what elevated the season for me is they allowed more heart and melancholy and didn’t just end at the comic bit. The haunted house sketch revealing that the protagonist did want to stop sexual/profane outbursts but just couldn’t do it. The water-on-steaks sketch ending with a long, yearning flashback to “the good old days.” The last sketch of the season at the ear piercing place. There was still good comedy too (the tables sketch being my favorite), but the heart is probably what I took away.
My favourite performer in the entire calendar year of entertainment is Patti Harrison in her two sketches (speaking to how Tim stepped back and let other performers take the spotlight).
I know Taskmaster wasn’t a big hit in the US, but I’d highly recommend the second series of the New Zealand version of the show (and you don’t need to have seen any of the others to enjoy it). David Correos, Guy Montgomery and Laura Daniels were all superb in it, and it was easily the highlight of my year, all of the episodes are up on DailyMotion, with the first one here:
The most recent series of Taskmaster UK was great as well–good cast chemistry and they managed to iron out most of the filming-during-a-pandemic kinks.
I don’t mean to disrespect New Zealand, but… are there enough top notch comedians in NZ to make this work? Even the UK version (which I love) has some fairly weak contributors.
So far in the NZ versions I’ve really enjoyed the line-ups, and the second series is right up there with my favourite ever UK season (five, with Bob Mortimer and Sally Phillips).
I get where you’re coming from and I’ll be interested to see if it can make it past ten series, but fingers crossed it will.
Sally Phillips is still my all-time favorite TM contestant, despite stiff competition (both David Correos and Morgana Robinson came close to knocking her off the perch recently).
Taskmaster has been a sleeper thing here in the US. I thought our household was the only one watching it, and the more people I talk to, the more I realize that tons of people are catching onto it. We’ve worked our way through the entire 12 series run (with the exception of series 9, which appears to be nowhere online). I didn’t know there was a NZ run of the show, but we’ll definitely be checking that out now that we’re wrapping up series 12 and about to go into withdrawal!
That’s great to hear that it’s becoming more popular in the US, I really wish your version had taken off as it showed a lot of promise, but I think the 22 minute run time made it feel all a bit rushed.
The first series of the NZ show takes a little while to get going, and host Jeremy Wells is no Greg Davies, but surprisingly I now prefer their version of Alex Horne, Paul Williams, and think he’s amazing in it.
As an American, I absolutely love the OG Taskmaster. I wish it were available somewhere else than YouTube, but I’ll take it. I tried watching the American version and didn’t care for it much at all.
I partially liked the US one, but as mentioned above the shorter running time made it feel too rushed, and as much as I love Reggie elsewhere I don’t think he was a great fit for the Taskmaster role.
Taskmaster was an early-pandemic discovery for me, and my intro to/genesis of my considerable crush on Rose Matafeo. The most recent series of both UK and NZ were highest caliber.
David Correos is an amazing contestant. My favorite across the 4 versions I’ve watched so far. Jeremy Wells did a much better job hosting this season, but still needs to come up with some kind of persona for the role.
You know what’s too bad? The premium station that carries Succession in Canada has literally shown every joke in every episode except the first — on ads for the service. These ads run so often that it wasn’t until after I was going line-for-line with each joke. I don’t know how they crammed so much show (a lot of ads for it, apparently), but thanks, Crave, for ruining what’s a creative, well-written show, you jackals.
I really think Arcane deserved a spot. It’s a show which understandably didn’t get a fair shake on this site (it looked dumb and was based on a video game; I kind of assumed it was going to be garbage myself). But over 9 episodes, it proved itself as the most interesting, beautiful fantasy epic on tv this year (Wheel of Time be damned). Plus, my God that animation is something else.
If we were handing out awards based purely on the look of shows, Arcane would win every award from here until the end of time. Holy god, that show is an actual miracle to look at.
But yeah, it deserves a spot on this list. Certainly more than I Think You Should Leave or The White Lotus, two shows whose critical acclaim escapes me entirely.
To be fair, the writing on Arcane isn’t half bad either. The visuals alone wouldn’t have kept me going. It’s not going to blow anyone’s mind, likely, but it made me care and I’d like more.
Also, I really don’t understand I Think You Should Leave. Not that it’s bad, it just totally doesn’t work for me. I don’t find it funny and do find it grating but so many really great critics and viewers love it. I feel like I’m legitimately just not on the right wavelength.
If it makes you feel better, I might be the only one of my friends who likes it. I’ve shown it to probably a dozen people who mostly just stare at the screen like “huh.” I adore it, but it truly seems to be not for everyone. If it paints a better picture, I was also a pretty big fan of the wackier shit Adult Swim used to air (maybe they still do, just haven’t watched much from them in years).
For me, it’s the issue that every each season has about two good sketches, and then seemingly a hundred variations on the same “man doesn’t have the correct level of response to this situation!” joke that got tired very, very quick.
I resisted it for the same reason I have resisted Succession – I don’t want to watch any more shows about rich white people unless they’re getting murdered by a man with a hook for a hand.
At least, as I understand, Succession is funny? The White Lotus did not feel funny. Just a bunch of insufferable monsters being insufferable in the name of “class commentary”.
Loll, my thoughts are the same about watching rich people but Succession does a good job of constantly and unrelentingly punishing every character. It’s quite satisfying, to a certain extent.I really enjoyed Arcane. I know nothing about it’s origin game. I just know it was gorgeous and some of the absolute best voice acting I’ve heard in a looong time. It’s such a love letter to classic voice acting, I swear.
Oooh, good call. I totally forgot that was a possible candidate. For people dismissing it as just being the most beautiful animated series they’d ever seen, I would be the first to say that the writing and plot threads are pretty great too. It might be the single greatest effort any studio has put into an animated series (like 6 years in the making). Its also worth pointing out that everyone I’ve heard gush over that series doesn’t know the first thing about League of Legends, myself included.
How did not a single person pick Dave in their top 15? I get that there’s tons of shows out there, but Dave’s probably one of the best shows to come out in the last decade. I highly recommend it to anyone that hasn’t seen it.And I’m just gonna accept that Squid Game is one those things that’s wildly popular for reasons I’ll never comprehend. I don’t get it, and that’s ok by me.
I strongly disliked the first season and thus avoided the second. But I also loved Squid Game so I think it checks out that you and I just have opposite tastes.
Squid Game is the Kdrama that Korean producers think Americans would like: Violent, dark, grimy. It also happens to be a higher-production value but less good version of an older Kdrama, Liar Game. Which is much more subtle and smart.
In addition to Liar Game, I’ve watched two Japanese shows with pretty similar premises, and I’m not someone who seeks out television from either country. Assuming the ones I’ve stumbled in my general indifference represent a fraction of those produced, it seems like“evil game-show death match” must a full-blown genre in East Asia.
It’s more of a thing in Japan as far as I can tell. You might actually have watched the Japanese Liar Game (which was a manga and then a show). the Kdrama was based on the Japanese one. I don’t think it did that well in Korea while the Japanese one was kind of a sensation. I’m surprised there aren’t more evil-game-show shows in Korea, if only because their actual game shows are pretty intense, not unlike Japan.
Honestly, the like gestalt impression I get from the totality of their pop culture I’ve consumed is that the Japanese secretly long for some reason, any reason, to just start murdering everyone goddamn person they know.
Sex Lives of College Girls is amazing, I’d bump off Mare of Easttown which was only carried by some great acting.Also season three of Stath Lets Flats is belly hurt from laughing.
Yeah, Sex Lives of College Girls was one of my favorite things I watched all year. Very funny, surprising depth, and just fantastic performances from the cast, both main and supporting. However, I did like Mare of Easttown enough to have it on a top 25 list, although maybe not as high. Yeah, the plot was not all that compelling, but I think of it as a character/family/town drama that just happens to also involve a murder mystery—similar in fact to Succession being a family drama that just happens to have a corporate takeover element.
This is a pretty reasonable list, even if I would change some of the ordering of it. I will say though that I hated “It’s a Sin.” As is unfortunately common with historical dramas about gay rights and the AIDS epidemic, too many of the performances felt like the actors were imagining their award acceptance speeches in every scene and just doing everything at a 10. The extreme melodrama and lack of nuance in the performances left me unable to get into the story or be emotionally affected by what was happening, which is a shame because it is genuinely an important story to tell.
I thought it was terrific but I admit I’ve been an RTD fanboy since Queer as Folk. But I wouldn’t call it “extreme melodrama” (especially in the early episodes, so I dunno how the original poster was unable to get into the series due to melodrama). In term of works about the early days of AIDS in fact I thought the melodrama was pretty restrained. The only negative comments I’d heard before were from some people who thought the show was blaming the characters for what happened, which just made me think they didn’t watch the show.
At least it’s way down the list here – The Guardian, the UK’s only left leaning quality paper, had it as their number one, a prime example of virtue signalling. Succession is a worthy number one but look out for Landscapers with Olivia Colman, an HBO mini series that should be in the top 3 but maybe came out too late to be voted on here
If I had to pick an MCU series for this list it wouldn’t be WandaVision. It was fine, don’t get me wrong, but its intriguing aspects were overwhelmed by that generic battle-royale-with-skybeams finale. Plus, there’s the whole deal with Wanda psychically and physically tormenting an entire town of people for months and suffering zero consequences because she had a sad. Assuming Hawkeye doesn’t botch its own finale it’s shaping up to be the strongest MCU show of the year—the writing is sharper and more economical, it effectively tones down Renner’s douchiness and he and Steinfeld have great chemistry. Most importantly it genuinely feels like a self-contained miniseries and doesn’t try to beat you over the head with its attempts to set up Phase 4 like the other series.
I would have WandaVision ahead of Hawkeye prior to the finale, but I agree with you that Hawkeye could pull ahead for me if it finishes better.Which I REALLY did not expect.
You can’t handwave away 8 excellent episodes by saying “the ending battle sucked” (which is another discussion altogether). And Wanda will get her comeuppance at some point in time (although probably not in Multiverse of Madness). But, you are right about Hawkeye: it has been far, far better than anyone imagined it would be, and this is coming from someone who loves My Life as a Weapon. And, it by and large stuck the landing, which easily makes it the second best Marvel show this year.
I still really need to watch Hawkeye. I was not expecting much when it was initially announced, but everyone seems to really be enjoying it. I would say that the weakest has been the Falcon series (not that I disliked it, but it was sort of all over the place), and personally I greatly preferred Loki to Wanda from an overall show perspective, and would have it on this list in Wanda’s place.
I definitely thought FTWS was the weakest of the live action series. It had some moments, but it was not nearly as exciting to me as WV or Loki, nor as consistently good as Hawkeye. I thought it was particularly weak in the ending, which WV and Loki also had issues with. But in their cases they had earned much more good will from me before then, and I agree the endings can ultimately be transcended as those stories continue.In contrast, I am much less confident in where Captain America is heading after the series.
With the exception of one role, I thought the acting on FWTS was uniformly excellent, much better than I had expected compared to some MCU material, and often lifted some spotty writing. So that makes me a bit more interested in where they will go…but tighter writing would be a benefit.
Agree on that Loki take. I found Loki much more satisfying over the other MCU series. It was a fairly consistent and interesting experience, building to something larger in the end. Whereas I have a few issues with WandaVision (the slow first two episodes, skybeam finale, Ralph Boner). Hawkeye was fun, although the finale was a bit bloated and rushed. Still, I’m not taking for granted the fact I live in an age where I can rank 4 different Marvel series in a calendar year.
Winter Falcon got nailed HARD by Covid; allegedly the Flagsmashers subplot was supposed to revolve around them releasing a virus, which had to be retconned in a real quick manner.
Agree. Hawkeye felt like the most complete series to date. I’d put Loki way ahead of WandaVision too. Frankly I don’t think we needed two whole episodes to set up the 40s/50s sitcom world Wanda created. And then it all came down to a boss fight? I expected something a little more clever than that.
The Great is, dare I say, more interesting that Succession in terms of stories about power. It’s also a romp, wheras a lot of the shows on this list are kind of a bummer. (I tend to agree more with Jeremy Strong than Kieran Culkin. Succession is funny but it’s a tragedy as much as it’s a comedy).
Sadly, season two of The Great really flew under the radar.
The critical love for Never Have I Ever has convinced me that a large number of adults would watch sitcoms on the Disney Channel were it socially acceptable.
Did you actually watch it? It was great. Signed, a late Gen Xer from Canada who never watched Nickelodeon (or its Canadian equivalent — sort of — YTV) let alone the Disney Channel. I guess it depends on how much you like Kaling, but it was really funny, well-paced, and well-acted.
I did. I thought it was fine–the above comment wasn’t even meant to be insulting, really. There just seemed to be some overlap with what I know (admittedly, not much) about Disney Channel shows. The colors are bright, the stakes are pretty low, all of the adults play their parts pretty big, and every kid is smarter than every grown-up.
I admittedly know little about Disney shows myself, but NHIE seems much sharper, darker, and more explicit than anything you’d get from Disney. Devi’s character is allowed to go places that teenage girls aren’t usually allowed to go (the rage! the horniness! the unapologetic ambition!) and the writing (goofily) explores a lot of themes Disney probably wouldn’t touch. (I also didn’t think every kid was smarter than every grownup. I thought the adults were handled pretty sensitively.)
Not that shocking. After the big vampire bat reveal it completely shit the bed. The only people who really liked it were people that were raised Catholic.
Here’s my top 15 (will probably change once I finish Station Eleven)1) Midnight Mass2) I Think You Should Leave3) Succession4) The Underground Railroad5) How To with John Wilson6) Ted Lasso7) What We Do in the Shadows8) Only Murders in the Building9) Loki10) The White Lotus11) Sweet Tooth12) Master of None Presents: Moments in Love13) Ultra City Smiths14) Joe Pera Talks with You15) Rick and Morty
Yellowjackets has been wildly overpraised. I watch it and it’s compelling but there’s nothing special about it. The writing isn’t distinctive. Some plot lines need work. Currently ( I haven’t seen the latest ep) it’s top heavy with mysteries and a (spoiler) supernatural element isn’t well integrated in the show. It is refreshing to have this genre focus on teenage girls and middle-aged women, but I kind of suspect if the cast were men, the show wouldn’t be hyped as much. Not to sound sexist; I’m just a little baffled why a series that emulates a bunch of other programs in its writing, structure, mysteries, pedestrian qualities, has gotten so much love.I should add that if the show explored the ways teenage girls and middle-aged women live and interact with each other and the world, that would be a good peek into a corner of the human experience that maybe isn’t explored enough on TV. But in my humble opinion, that’s not what the show has done, so far, so there is room for depth.
The chick stuff is just a bonus. I’m not saying you’re sexist, but I think your focus on this aspect feels like the you’ve been distracted by the fact that it’s girl-centric. Forget about that.The characters are all so fleshed out almost immediately, you just don’t see that very often. And the mystery, or backstory – it’s pretty detailed and you get the sense there are no accidental continuity errors – everything you see seems to have been shown to you for a reason. I guess I’m biased because I’m in love with the show. Also, I just rewatched episode 1 and was impressed with the clues and foreshadowing.
Actually I like that it’s “girl-centric.” We usually don’t see a Lord of The Flies/Lost genre show about women. It’s an entertaining show but for me not doing anything special to merit it on a best of year list. But it’s still early in its development so we’ll see.
yes, it’s well acted and I love they cast some of the 90s best actresses, and I also love the girl centric narrative. But aside from the pilot the show has been struggling to figure itself out. just give me some really quietly fucked up people dealing with the trauma of not only being a teenage girl, but also the trauma of a plane crash. That’s what I think is interesting, the layers of trauma. I don’t need one to be a literal psychopath and one to live in a tree.
“Why is this thing that’s not explicitly pandering to me not living up to my expectations?”- person who has never had to feel this way before.I’m this show’s demographic and I think it’s fucking amazing. It feels very specific and real to my life experiences in a way that is extremely rare. Sorry not everything can be for you.
Nope, art doesn’t have to be about my experiences to be great. That’s what empathy is for. Which good art inculcates. Like I am not a KGB spy forced into a sham marriage but I still loved The Americans. Add a billion other examples of reading/watching characters who are completely unlike me and yet I love their stories. Glad to hear you see your experience reflected in the show. I’m not even talking about the characters here so much as the plotting and writing of the premise. The lives of the teenagers feel true (except the melodramatic aspects like young Natalie’s home life and what she did). The middle-aged women’s stories are fine. I guess my complaint is not seeing anything new that would make this a best of the year show. But that’s me.
Agreed. As I read the original comment, I was thinking how different stories play out in different ways and find their niches. Fairytales, magic, horror all have their tropes we keep seeing again and again in new ways. I think the writing is doing fabulous, to keep going back and forth through time like this successfully while juggling narratives for each character. What makes the series zing most for me, is the way it’s like we’re watching an old horror movie and the sequel simultaneously. We know who is alive in the present, so there is an entire twist on the “final girl” trope. There has been a good balance of suspense and action. As a Gen Xer I love this show completely, possibly even more than Stranger Things now. I also find this show is more like David Lynch and Jane Campion had a child who grew up to write this show.
Why do all my comments always go into “pending” and never see the light of day? Is it because I have “butt” in the title of my name? A reference to one of my favorite Bob’s Burgers episodes or am I just somehow violating community standards in general?
No, it’s nothing personal. Years back, some of the old Gawker sites had a problem with trolls spamming obscene and gory images in the comments, so they decided to banish all commenters into “the greys” unless they had been approved by a mod. Not a bad solution, except that in practice mods only approve commenters very occasionally when the mood strikes them, so you can be a regular commenter in good standing for years and still be in the greys. The only reason most of us are un-greyed is that all the old avclub commenters from the old site got grandfathered in.
If you’re thinking “wow, that sounds like a great way to kill off the community” you’re 100% correct, all these comment sections are MUCH less lively than they used to be.
Yup. I’ve been in the greys for years with apparently no way out. Its why I almost never comment around here.there is a great AVClub splinter community here: https://the-avocado.org/
As I suggested in another post, I would probably start with Sex Lives of College Girls as the biggest omission on this list. That was incredibly well done, right up there with Hacks for me, and definitely ahead of The Other Two.I also really liked the second season of The Great.In terms of action shows, I think Hawkeye and Loki would be on my list somewhere (Hawkeye maybe quite high, depending on the finish). Finally, I understand the timing issue, but The Expanse is the show from this era I will miss the most when it is gone.I don’t have a problem with it being somewhere on this list, but to me Only Murders in the Building was fun, but not as outstanding as some people seem to think.
I didn’t get the fuss about Only Murders in the Building. It’s fun but it’s just not substantial.
I can’t agree about The Other Two though. It is hilarious. The episode with the married couple pretending to be father and son? I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.
Love Life. Sigh. I bailed out after a few episodes. I think I’ve officially had my fill of shows about intellectual Millennial New Yorkers who come from upper middle class homes in the suburbs, and their problems. From what I hear, New York has a lot of people living there, but they all seem to be book editors.
Every other show these days is about rich/posh white people and their problems. It’s good that they’re being represented, you know? I’m not, like, prejudiced, but this wokery has gone too far.
I thought It’s a Sin was pretty bad—I understand the importance of Russell T. Davies but I find the work of his that I’ve seen sometimes interesting but not good. I just got Apple+ and only watched Ted Lasso this week so I haven’t been tracking the sentiment around S2 vs. S1 but for something I had heard about so incessantly over the last two years, I’m surprised not to see it. Also surprised Pen15 didn’t rank given the praise on this site and I thought it landed just fine. Tracy Ullman alone would probably rank Curb Your Enthusiasm for me but my only true gripe would probably be the Master of None reboot thing—I thought that the co-stars (Naomi Ackie and the house) were both incredible and Ep4 was one of the best episodes of TV that I’ve seen in years.
I know Schitt’s Creek ended in 2020 but I just discovered it in 2021 and it was delightful. And if you actually knew me, you’d know how difficult it is for me to say the word “delightful” without any snark whatsoever.
Always disappointing when these lists don’t include Joe Pera Talks With You (Adult Swim). Recommending that show to someone is like giving them a gift. And Season 3 moved it into a different direction without disappointing. How To With John Wilson (HBO Max) is also terrific. That said, this is a pretty good list.
Re no 25, my partner, friends and I all feel Never Have I Ever failed to keep viewers’ sympathies with Devi. She DID seem like an outright villain, craven and unbearably thoughtless towards the people around her.
It starts to late in the year – I’d be surprised if more than one episode had aired before they put together their ballots. It’s a reason I hate seeing year end stuff before the year is actually over.
I mean, look…Only murders in the building was indeed one of the very best shows of the year, and I can’t wait for next season, when it will, afterall, be Tina Fey’s show. But saying Selena Gomez “held her own” against Steve Martin and Martin Short is like we’re in opposite worlds. It was like she was barely even there in the way she never EVER changed her same catatonic tone of voice, and it almost pained me every time Mabel was supposed to show any kind of emotion because she never did. I don’t know whose idea was it to cast her opposite two veteran comedic geniuses, but that was the ONE mistake this show made. I don’t have any other actress in mind who I think would do a better job, she just…NO. Man, we were rooting for you, Selena, we were all rooting for you! Alas…
Regarding the ballots, I appreciate the shout-out for Ranking of Kings from Eric. Just wonderfully animated, morally complex, and genuinely heartwarming.
Glad to see It’s a Sin here (though I’d place it higher) since this site basically ignored it (and the Emmys completely did…) I can’t really fault this list, though I’d quibble about the rankings (Girls5Eva so high?) and would place Doom Patrol… somewhere. Well except, I really don’t get people who consider this past season of Pose particularly good–I thought it was often pretty awful, prone to Pose’s worst tendencies from its first two seasons.
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Arcane not being on this list is practically an invalidation. The animation alone deserves recognition, let alone being an extremely rare adaptation of a video game that’s actually good, but I guess it’s not an HBO prestige drama or a quirky comedy. These writers certainly have a “type”.
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Should be a special prize for all the various Drag Race shows, of which there was at least one episode each week all year.
Also The Barbarian and the Troll deserves an honorable mention, as it had arguably the finest sock puppet musical number in history.
This was the year Drag Race broke me. I haven’t watched any of them. It was just too much.
I totally understand. I stopped watching Italian Drag Race simply because they made each episode about 1.5hrs long and made up that bulk with drag queen drama I just don’t care about. Holland’s Drag Race (or was it UK?) was also a bit meh from memory.
But I thought normal Drag Race, Canadian Drag Race, Spanish Drag Race (was that this year?) were all worth it.
Rude to Ted Lasso. The other shows are cool, though.
There’s a strong bias on the list toward new shows. So it goes for a pop culture tabloid site, I guess: whatever new product it coming out is hyped up and celebrated, and anything in its second year or later is niche appeal at best. There’s so much new shit that one can’t keep up with it all.
Not sure that applies to a list that includes two other Apple TV+ series in their second seasons, Mythic Quest and For All Mankind. I’d say the issue is more that those series had really excellent sophomore seasons that built on all the best parts of season 1, whereas Ted Lasso, despite retaining considerable charm, slumped a bit in season 2.
Alas, there goes my scorching hot take.
True but YellowJackets is newer than Ted Lasso and that made the list.
I wasn’t surprised at it not being on the list, but I was confused by the link to it in the Succession review as that sort of unintentionally opens the door to why one got in and the other didn’t when they both followed the same path (seen as meandering and then ending in a powerful finale).
On the other hand, season 2 of Ted Lasso was rude to us for not being all that great.
Personally, I think Ted Lasso is only a minor step down. Some ideas work better than others, but for the most part, I was happy to have the show back, and glad to see it challenge itself as much as it did.
Before I start my spiel, I want to preface to say I have no interest in changing your mind or belittling your opinion. In contrast, I’m delighted you enjoyed this season to that degree!I had very, you may say unreasonably, high hopes for this season, to the degree that I started my own season 2 recap series. I watched every episode thrice and spent ten hours a week shooting and editing this series.Watching the season so closely got me very amped about story possibilities: I’d see any inference and implication as a seed for a dramatically fascinating tree. I genuinely think the first three episodes were fantastic.Then the Christmas episode came and the DNA of the show changed substantially. Before it, the show was this sneakily complex treatise about male fragility under the guise of a bona-fide crowd pleaser. After the Christmas special, the show became a crowd pleaser as its top priority.There were magic moments scattered throughout, but some story beats I found to be distractingly forced and unnatural. At the end of it all, I was left with frustration after frustration.Nate’s downward spiral narrative got spurred on from a completely out of character reaction from Ted. The love triangle plot was lazy and totally stepped on the lovely hug between Roy and Jamie. The magic of Rebecca and Sam happened way too quickly. The Rick Roll Funeral felt reverse-engineered from a writer’s room note of “how can we put a meme in a funeral?” The revelation of Ted’s father’s cause of death was a cringeworthy scene, trying to be too cute with its cross-cut editing. The Panic Attack news report was unrealistic, even for a British tabloid. Nothing from the Cerithium Oil CEO?!?!All the pieces were in place for a finale where Sam Richardson’s Casablanca team was being co-owned by Rupert and Cerithium Oil CEO and Sam to be the face of a team owned by the person responsible for Nigeria’s ecological disaster. Instead, Casablanca was a flash in the pan, nothing from Cerithium Oil guy, and Rupert owns West Ham. WHO GIVES A DAMN ABOUT WEST HAM.This season played it so safe that my favourite episode was the one where Beard has a wild night out. TL;DR: it was an okay season, just not for me.
It’s a shame that the ballots are not presented with commentary. I would like to see a full-throated defense of The Challenge or The Real Housewives.Haven’t seen the latest season of Evil, since it moved from CBS to whichever streaming service, but it was my favorite show of the year last year, and I’m sorry to see it on only one ballot.
Evil had a really strange and excellent season, Katja Herbers and Michael Emerson both just fantastic. Oh and Christine Lahti and Andrea Martin too
Kind of weird that comments are closed on the ballots, too.
Evil had a really strong second season. Has a bit of a Hannibal vibe, in that it’s just strange with no real explanation. And I like that.
I’m really glad that For All Mankind is getting such strong props in these end of year lists. It’s been one of my favourite shows since its premier and I can’t wait to see where they take it in Season 3.It deserves to get so much more recognition.
Totally. I would claim it’s best show that’s been made during last 10 years. Barry as close second and Chernobyl as third.
I was glad to see For All Mankind on the list myself. People do not talk about that show enough, dammit.
Sad lament for The Expanse: it could never catch a break on these end-of-the-year lists because its seasons largely began in mid-December and ran into February (at its longest). It was always either too early to include, or too old to remember. Don’t know where this final arc will land within the show’s run. I think the Miller/Julie Mao arc was still the best. But the rest were close. In a sense Miller had to get out of the way so Bobbi Draper and Camina Drummer could rise. Hopefully its notoriety will grow and in three or four years, Amazon might greenlight another two seasons to wrap the entire book series.
Totally agree, that show has been consistently great throught it’s run. There has to be more coming if they actually committed to the “Strange Dogs” storyline that’s been kicking off each episode this season (there’s also a 20 year gap between books 6 and 7, so they could pick it up later).
That’s where we tapped out, the end of the Miller/Julie Mao arc. We…kinda cared about the crew of the Roci? But not enough to keep pushing. And definitely didn’t care at all about the Earth-Mars stuff.
Not knowing how far you got into the show, I guess I should mark this as a SPOILER, but…Miller just might pop back up when you least expect him.
Frankly, one of the stronger years in recent memory on the TV front. Bangers on basically every channel (I’d even toss Star Trek: Lower Decks in as a dark horse candidate).
Wandavision but no LOKI?
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Does anyone actually like that corny Emily Dickinson show? I guess her story could be told in a historically accurate fashion at some point, but so far, no dice.
I really like it.
I like it.
Dickinson is bonkers and excellent.
Bonkers in the best way. The episode with Sylvia Plath? 10/10 would watch forever. & I’m not even a former English major.
I love it, and I really have never read it as “corny.” It’s a delight through-and-through.
It’s my favorite show on TV.
Fwiw, I despise taking actual historical figures and marketing them for money and depicting them in ways that had no bearing on who they actually were. I find it gross that a generation who has as a rallying cry authenticity would buy into something that so obviously panders to everything inauthentic. I ask myself, what would Emily Dickinson herself think of it? And so should viewers. Not everything should just be entertainment. The reason it’s being lifted up is because it has “important social messages.” Great, those could be gotten across with more authenticity and dare I say truth, or is that word taboo now? than this.
Station 11 deserves a place on the list. Wandavision’s place. WV was a good show but it was like a sugary stick of gum; we all chewed it and it was spent and we forgot about it. Station 11 is like The Leftovers. It has staying power. We’ll be watching it for years.Loki’s not on the list because of the same reason. Marvel and Disney produce content with intentionally diverse casts for nefarious reasons that ultimately make shareholders money.
My experience with WandaVision was definitely different from yours. Until the disappointing finale (and even that had its moments), it was one of my favorite shows this year. Because of the finish I do consider it a flawed season, but to me, at least, not a forgettable one.
I started Station Eleven on a whim (mostly because I loved Mackenzie Davis in Halt & Catch Fire) and I am so glad I did. I’ve only seen the first three episodes but I am completely engrossed by it. Definitely needs more coverage because this show is so well made. 100% agree on it’s staying power.
In terms of online chatter, ITYSL kind of came and went this year compared to the first season. The attempts at finding sketches to make into deathless memes felt forced, as did the show’s attempts at those types of sketches, but those were a minority for me. There were some strange choices in season two, some that had mixed results but also compelling moments (like the decision to have various other performers just do their own Tim Robinson while he stepped back). I think what elevated the season for me is they allowed more heart and melancholy and didn’t just end at the comic bit. The haunted house sketch revealing that the protagonist did want to stop sexual/profane outbursts but just couldn’t do it. The water-on-steaks sketch ending with a long, yearning flashback to “the good old days.” The last sketch of the season at the ear piercing place. There was still good comedy too (the tables sketch being my favorite), but the heart is probably what I took away.
TABLES
My favourite performer in the entire calendar year of entertainment is Patti Harrison in her two sketches (speaking to how Tim stepped back and let other performers take the spotlight).
I know Taskmaster wasn’t a big hit in the US, but I’d highly recommend the second series of the New Zealand version of the show (and you don’t need to have seen any of the others to enjoy it). David Correos, Guy Montgomery and Laura Daniels were all superb in it, and it was easily the highlight of my year, all of the episodes are up on DailyMotion, with the first one here:
The most recent series of Taskmaster UK was great as well–good cast chemistry and they managed to iron out most of the filming-during-a-pandemic kinks.
I don’t mean to disrespect New Zealand, but… are there enough top notch comedians in NZ to make this work? Even the UK version (which I love) has some fairly weak contributors.
*cough*Alice Levine*cough*
I think even Paul Williams (TM NZ’s Alex Horne) has admitted the small pool of New Zealand comedians will limit the run of their series.
So far in the NZ versions I’ve really enjoyed the line-ups, and the second series is right up there with my favourite ever UK season (five, with Bob Mortimer and Sally Phillips).
I get where you’re coming from and I’ll be interested to see if it can make it past ten series, but fingers crossed it will.
Sally Phillips is still my all-time favorite TM contestant, despite stiff competition (both David Correos and Morgana Robinson came close to knocking her off the perch recently).
Taskmaster has been a sleeper thing here in the US. I thought our household was the only one watching it, and the more people I talk to, the more I realize that tons of people are catching onto it. We’ve worked our way through the entire 12 series run (with the exception of series 9, which appears to be nowhere online). I didn’t know there was a NZ run of the show, but we’ll definitely be checking that out now that we’re wrapping up series 12 and about to go into withdrawal!
I got you fam: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-LlTywAruJXwH5xxzZrU8pqxzmdyVn5c
MY HERO!
That’s great to hear that it’s becoming more popular in the US, I really wish your version had taken off as it showed a lot of promise, but I think the 22 minute run time made it feel all a bit rushed.
The first series of the NZ show takes a little while to get going, and host Jeremy Wells is no Greg Davies, but surprisingly I now prefer their version of Alex Horne, Paul Williams, and think he’s amazing in it.
As an American, I absolutely love the OG Taskmaster. I wish it were available somewhere else than YouTube, but I’ll take it. I tried watching the American version and didn’t care for it much at all.
I partially liked the US one, but as mentioned above the shorter running time made it feel too rushed, and as much as I love Reggie elsewhere I don’t think he was a great fit for the Taskmaster role.
My thoughts exactly.
Taskmaster was an early-pandemic discovery for me, and my intro to/genesis of my considerable crush on Rose Matafeo. The most recent series of both UK and NZ were highest caliber.
David Correos is an amazing contestant. My favorite across the 4 versions I’ve watched so far. Jeremy Wells did a much better job hosting this season, but still needs to come up with some kind of persona for the role.
You know what’s too bad? The premium station that carries Succession in Canada has literally shown every joke in every episode except the first — on ads for the service. These ads run so often that it wasn’t until after I was going line-for-line with each joke. I don’t know how they crammed so much show (a lot of ads for it, apparently), but thanks, Crave, for ruining what’s a creative, well-written show, you jackals.
I really think Arcane deserved a spot. It’s a show which understandably didn’t get a fair shake on this site (it looked dumb and was based on a video game; I kind of assumed it was going to be garbage myself).
But over 9 episodes, it proved itself as the most interesting, beautiful fantasy epic on tv this year (Wheel of Time be damned). Plus, my God that animation is something else.
If we were handing out awards based purely on the look of shows, Arcane would win every award from here until the end of time. Holy god, that show is an actual miracle to look at.
But yeah, it deserves a spot on this list. Certainly more than I Think You Should Leave or The White Lotus, two shows whose critical acclaim escapes me entirely.
To be fair, the writing on Arcane isn’t half bad either. The visuals alone wouldn’t have kept me going. It’s not going to blow anyone’s mind, likely, but it made me care and I’d like more.
Also, I really don’t understand I Think You Should Leave. Not that it’s bad, it just totally doesn’t work for me. I don’t find it funny and do find it grating but so many really great critics and viewers love it. I feel like I’m legitimately just not on the right wavelength.
If it makes you feel better, I might be the only one of my friends who likes it. I’ve shown it to probably a dozen people who mostly just stare at the screen like “huh.” I adore it, but it truly seems to be not for everyone. If it paints a better picture, I was also a pretty big fan of the wackier shit Adult Swim used to air (maybe they still do, just haven’t watched much from them in years).
For me, it’s the issue that every each season has about two good sketches, and then seemingly a hundred variations on the same “man doesn’t have the correct level of response to this situation!” joke that got tired very, very quick.
I thought The White Lotus was fun and well-done. It was probably a top 25 show for me, not sure top 15, definitely not top 10.
I resisted it for the same reason I have resisted Succession – I don’t want to watch any more shows about rich white people unless they’re getting murdered by a man with a hook for a hand.
At least, as I understand, Succession is funny? The White Lotus did not feel funny. Just a bunch of insufferable monsters being insufferable in the name of “class commentary”.
Loll, my thoughts are the same about watching rich people but Succession does a good job of constantly and unrelentingly punishing every character. It’s quite satisfying, to a certain extent.I really enjoyed Arcane. I know nothing about it’s origin game. I just know it was gorgeous and some of the absolute best voice acting I’ve heard in a looong time. It’s such a love letter to classic voice acting, I swear.
Oooh, good call. I totally forgot that was a possible candidate. For people dismissing it as just being the most beautiful animated series they’d ever seen, I would be the first to say that the writing and plot threads are pretty great too. It might be the single greatest effort any studio has put into an animated series (like 6 years in the making). Its also worth pointing out that everyone I’ve heard gush over that series doesn’t know the first thing about League of Legends, myself included.
How did not a single person pick Dave in their top 15? I get that there’s tons of shows out there, but Dave’s probably one of the best shows to come out in the last decade. I highly recommend it to anyone that hasn’t seen it.And I’m just gonna accept that Squid Game is one those things that’s wildly popular for reasons I’ll never comprehend. I don’t get it, and that’s ok by me.
that harry anderson show? that ended in 1997.
Think that was Dave’s World.
I strongly disliked the first season and thus avoided the second. But I also loved Squid Game so I think it checks out that you and I just have opposite tastes.
Squid Game is the Kdrama that Korean producers think Americans would like: Violent, dark, grimy. It also happens to be a higher-production value but less good version of an older Kdrama, Liar Game. Which is much more subtle and smart.
In addition to Liar Game, I’ve watched two Japanese shows with pretty similar premises, and I’m not someone who seeks out television from either country. Assuming the ones I’ve stumbled in my general indifference represent a fraction of those produced, it seems like“evil game-show death match” must a full-blown genre in East Asia.
It’s more of a thing in Japan as far as I can tell. You might actually have watched the Japanese Liar Game (which was a manga and then a show). the Kdrama was based on the Japanese one. I don’t think it did that well in Korea while the Japanese one was kind of a sensation. I’m surprised there aren’t more evil-game-show shows in Korea, if only because their actual game shows are pretty intense, not unlike Japan.
Honestly, the like gestalt impression I get from the totality of their pop culture I’ve consumed is that the Japanese secretly long for some reason, any reason, to just start murdering everyone goddamn person they know.
*scoff* You don’t understand. It’s a game show where people really get killed. It’s a wickedly scathing satire on stuff.
It’s okay to not like it without dickishly tossing around half-assed strawmen.
Sex Lives of College Girls is amazing, I’d bump off Mare of Easttown which was only carried by some great acting.Also season three of Stath Lets Flats is belly hurt from laughing.
Yeah, Sex Lives of College Girls was one of my favorite things I watched all year. Very funny, surprising depth, and just fantastic performances from the cast, both main and supporting. However, I did like Mare of Easttown enough to have it on a top 25 list, although maybe not as high. Yeah, the plot was not all that compelling, but I think of it as a character/family/town drama that just happens to also involve a murder mystery—similar in fact to Succession being a family drama that just happens to have a corporate takeover element.
This is a pretty reasonable list, even if I would change some of the ordering of it. I will say though that I hated “It’s a Sin.” As is unfortunately common with historical dramas about gay rights and the AIDS epidemic, too many of the performances felt like the actors were imagining their award acceptance speeches in every scene and just doing everything at a 10. The extreme melodrama and lack of nuance in the performances left me unable to get into the story or be emotionally affected by what was happening, which is a shame because it is genuinely an important story to tell.
Interesting. I found It’s a Sin to be very emotionally affecting, but maybe I am just an easy mark.
I thought it was terrific but I admit I’ve been an RTD fanboy since Queer as Folk. But I wouldn’t call it “extreme melodrama” (especially in the early episodes, so I dunno how the original poster was unable to get into the series due to melodrama). In term of works about the early days of AIDS in fact I thought the melodrama was pretty restrained.
The only negative comments I’d heard before were from some people who thought the show was blaming the characters for what happened, which just made me think they didn’t watch the show.
At least it’s way down the list here – The Guardian, the UK’s only left leaning quality paper, had it as their number one, a prime example of virtue signalling. Succession is a worthy number one but look out for Landscapers with Olivia Colman, an HBO mini series that should be in the top 3 but maybe came out too late to be voted on here
If I had to pick an MCU series for this list it wouldn’t be WandaVision. It was fine, don’t get me wrong, but its intriguing aspects were overwhelmed by that generic battle-royale-with-skybeams finale. Plus, there’s the whole deal with Wanda psychically and physically tormenting an entire town of people for months and suffering zero consequences because she had a sad. Assuming Hawkeye doesn’t botch its own finale it’s shaping up to be the strongest MCU show of the year—the writing is sharper and more economical, it effectively tones down Renner’s douchiness and he and Steinfeld have great chemistry. Most importantly it genuinely feels like a self-contained miniseries and doesn’t try to beat you over the head with its attempts to set up Phase 4 like the other series.
I would have WandaVision ahead of Hawkeye prior to the finale, but I agree with you that Hawkeye could pull ahead for me if it finishes better.Which I REALLY did not expect.
You can’t handwave away 8 excellent episodes by saying “the ending battle sucked” (which is another discussion altogether). And Wanda will get her comeuppance at some point in time (although probably not in Multiverse of Madness). But, you are right about Hawkeye: it has been far, far better than anyone imagined it would be, and this is coming from someone who loves My Life as a Weapon. And, it by and large stuck the landing, which easily makes it the second best Marvel show this year.
I still really need to watch Hawkeye. I was not expecting much when it was initially announced, but everyone seems to really be enjoying it. I would say that the weakest has been the Falcon series (not that I disliked it, but it was sort of all over the place), and personally I greatly preferred Loki to Wanda from an overall show perspective, and would have it on this list in Wanda’s place.
I definitely thought FTWS was the weakest of the live action series. It had some moments, but it was not nearly as exciting to me as WV or Loki, nor as consistently good as Hawkeye. I thought it was particularly weak in the ending, which WV and Loki also had issues with. But in their cases they had earned much more good will from me before then, and I agree the endings can ultimately be transcended as those stories continue.In contrast, I am much less confident in where Captain America is heading after the series.
With the exception of one role, I thought the acting on FWTS was uniformly excellent, much better than I had expected compared to some MCU material, and often lifted some spotty writing. So that makes me a bit more interested in where they will go…but tighter writing would be a benefit.
Agree on that Loki take. I found Loki much more satisfying over the other MCU series. It was a fairly consistent and interesting experience, building to something larger in the end. Whereas I have a few issues with WandaVision (the slow first two episodes, skybeam finale, Ralph Boner). Hawkeye was fun, although the finale was a bit bloated and rushed. Still, I’m not taking for granted the fact I live in an age where I can rank 4 different Marvel series in a calendar year.
Winter Falcon got nailed HARD by Covid; allegedly the Flagsmashers subplot was supposed to revolve around them releasing a virus, which had to be retconned in a real quick manner.
It’d love to see a ‘Covid cut’ of that show with all the pandemic stuff back in.
Agree. Hawkeye felt like the most complete series to date. I’d put Loki way ahead of WandaVision too. Frankly I don’t think we needed two whole episodes to set up the 40s/50s sitcom world Wanda created. And then it all came down to a boss fight? I expected something a little more clever than that.
Gotta say, I was surprised to see The Great miss the list.
Yeah, I thought it built really well on the first season, and it was definitely one of my top 10 or so shows this year.
The Great, and Kevin Can * Himself, were by far my faves this year. But I like shows with a bit of a surpising, unusual element.
The Great is, dare I say, more interesting that Succession in terms of stories about power. It’s also a romp, wheras a lot of the shows on this list are kind of a bummer. (I tend to agree more with Jeremy Strong than Kieran Culkin. Succession is funny but it’s a tragedy as much as it’s a comedy).
Sadly, season two of The Great really flew under the radar.
The critical love for Never Have I Ever has convinced me that a large number of adults would watch sitcoms on the Disney Channel were it socially acceptable.
Did you actually watch it? It was great. Signed, a late Gen Xer from Canada who never watched Nickelodeon (or its Canadian equivalent — sort of — YTV) let alone the Disney Channel. I guess it depends on how much you like Kaling, but it was really funny, well-paced, and well-acted.
I did. I thought it was fine–the above comment wasn’t even meant to be insulting, really. There just seemed to be some overlap with what I know (admittedly, not much) about Disney Channel shows. The colors are bright, the stakes are pretty low, all of the adults play their parts pretty big, and every kid is smarter than every grown-up.
I admittedly know little about Disney shows myself, but NHIE seems much sharper, darker, and more explicit than anything you’d get from Disney. Devi’s character is allowed to go places that teenage girls aren’t usually allowed to go (the rage! the horniness! the unapologetic ambition!) and the writing (goofily) explores a lot of themes Disney probably wouldn’t touch. (I also didn’t think every kid was smarter than every grownup. I thought the adults were handled pretty sensitively.)
I agree. I have wound up watching some Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows with my kids, and they’re nowhere near as good as NHIE.
Why shouldn’t they? Disney channel sitcoms are fun and silly.
Game of Thrones is just as ridiculous as the average Disney channel sitcom but it’s considered prestige viewing for smart people.
I gave up on GOT after the second season.
Seeing that Midnight Mass is a candidate for the best show of the year, not having it on the Top 25 is a shocking omission.
Looks like one of the critics picked it as their #1, but it didn’t show up any other list.
Not that shocking. After the big vampire bat reveal it completely shit the bed. The only people who really liked it were people that were raised Catholic.
I would have liked it much more if it were much shorter. A little too much Netflix padding.
Here’s my top 15 (will probably change once I finish Station Eleven)1) Midnight Mass2) I Think You Should Leave3) Succession4) The Underground Railroad5) How To with John Wilson6) Ted Lasso7) What We Do in the Shadows8) Only Murders in the Building9) Loki10) The White Lotus11) Sweet Tooth12) Master of None Presents: Moments in Love13) Ultra City Smiths14) Joe Pera Talks with You15) Rick and Morty
I’m just going to assume that no one at AV Club watched Arcane.
Yellowjackets has been wildly overpraised. I watch it and it’s compelling but there’s nothing special about it. The writing isn’t distinctive. Some plot lines need work. Currently ( I haven’t seen the latest ep) it’s top heavy with mysteries and a (spoiler) supernatural element isn’t well integrated in the show. It is refreshing to have this genre focus on teenage girls and middle-aged women, but I kind of suspect if the cast were men, the show wouldn’t be hyped as much. Not to sound sexist; I’m just a little baffled why a series that emulates a bunch of other programs in its writing, structure, mysteries, pedestrian qualities, has gotten so much love.I should add that if the show explored the ways teenage girls and middle-aged women live and interact with each other and the world, that would be a good peek into a corner of the human experience that maybe isn’t explored enough on TV. But in my humble opinion, that’s not what the show has done, so far, so there is room for depth.
The chick stuff is just a bonus. I’m not saying you’re sexist, but I think your focus on this aspect feels like the you’ve been distracted by the fact that it’s girl-centric. Forget about that.The characters are all so fleshed out almost immediately, you just don’t see that very often. And the mystery, or backstory – it’s pretty detailed and you get the sense there are no accidental continuity errors – everything you see seems to have been shown to you for a reason. I guess I’m biased because I’m in love with the show. Also, I just rewatched episode 1 and was impressed with the clues and foreshadowing.
Actually I like that it’s “girl-centric.” We usually don’t see a Lord of The Flies/Lost genre show about women. It’s an entertaining show but for me not doing anything special to merit it on a best of year list. But it’s still early in its development so we’ll see.
yes, it’s well acted and I love they cast some of the 90s best actresses, and I also love the girl centric narrative. But aside from the pilot the show has been struggling to figure itself out. just give me some really quietly fucked up people dealing with the trauma of not only being a teenage girl, but also the trauma of a plane crash. That’s what I think is interesting, the layers of trauma. I don’t need one to be a literal psychopath and one to live in a tree.
“Why is this thing that’s not explicitly pandering to me not living up to my expectations?”- person who has never had to feel this way before.I’m this show’s demographic and I think it’s fucking amazing. It feels very specific and real to my life experiences in a way that is extremely rare. Sorry not everything can be for you.
Nope, art doesn’t have to be about my experiences to be great. That’s what empathy is for. Which good art inculcates. Like I am not a KGB spy forced into a sham marriage but I still loved The Americans. Add a billion other examples of reading/watching characters who are completely unlike me and yet I love their stories. Glad to hear you see your experience reflected in the show. I’m not even talking about the characters here so much as the plotting and writing of the premise. The lives of the teenagers feel true (except the melodramatic aspects like young Natalie’s home life and what she did). The middle-aged women’s stories are fine. I guess my complaint is not seeing anything new that would make this a best of the year show. But that’s me.
That’s just what a KGB spy forced into a sham marriage would say
Agreed. As I read the original comment, I was thinking how different stories play out in different ways and find their niches. Fairytales, magic, horror all have their tropes we keep seeing again and again in new ways. I think the writing is doing fabulous, to keep going back and forth through time like this successfully while juggling narratives for each character. What makes the series zing most for me, is the way it’s like we’re watching an old horror movie and the sequel simultaneously. We know who is alive in the present, so there is an entire twist on the “final girl” trope. There has been a good balance of suspense and action. As a Gen Xer I love this show completely, possibly even more than Stranger Things now. I also find this show is more like David Lynch and Jane Campion had a child who grew up to write this show.
No Arcane? A plague on your houses.
Why do all my comments always go into “pending” and never see the light of day? Is it because I have “butt” in the title of my name? A reference to one of my favorite Bob’s Burgers episodes or am I just somehow violating community standards in general?
No, it’s nothing personal. Years back, some of the old Gawker sites had a problem with trolls spamming obscene and gory images in the comments, so they decided to banish all commenters into “the greys” unless they had been approved by a mod. Not a bad solution, except that in practice mods only approve commenters very occasionally when the mood strikes them, so you can be a regular commenter in good standing for years and still be in the greys. The only reason most of us are un-greyed is that all the old avclub commenters from the old site got grandfathered in.
If you’re thinking “wow, that sounds like a great way to kill off the community” you’re 100% correct, all these comment sections are MUCH less lively than they used to be.
Yup. I’ve been in the greys for years with apparently no way out. Its why I almost never comment around here.there is a great AVClub splinter community here:
https://the-avocado.org/
Yeah, the migration to Kinja really killed the community here. You used to see thousands of comments on some bigger shows.
As I suggested in another post, I would probably start with Sex Lives of College Girls as the biggest omission on this list. That was incredibly well done, right up there with Hacks for me, and definitely ahead of The Other Two.I also really liked the second season of The Great.In terms of action shows, I think Hawkeye and Loki would be on my list somewhere (Hawkeye maybe quite high, depending on the finish). Finally, I understand the timing issue, but The Expanse is the show from this era I will miss the most when it is gone.I don’t have a problem with it being somewhere on this list, but to me Only Murders in the Building was fun, but not as outstanding as some people seem to think.
I didn’t get the fuss about Only Murders in the Building. It’s fun but it’s just not substantial.
I can’t agree about The Other Two though. It is hilarious. The episode with the married couple pretending to be father and son? I can’t remember the last time I laughed that hard.
Agree. I think The Other Two’s humor is fairly lame. And Only Murders was good, but hardly list-worthy. Especially on a Dave and Ted Lasso free list.
Love Life. Sigh. I bailed out after a few episodes. I think I’ve officially had my fill of shows about intellectual Millennial New Yorkers who come from upper middle class homes in the suburbs, and their problems. From what I hear, New York has a lot of people living there, but they all seem to be book editors.
Every other show these days is about rich/posh white people and their problems. It’s good that they’re being represented, you know? I’m not, like, prejudiced, but this wokery has gone too far.
I thought It’s a Sin was pretty bad—I understand the importance of Russell T. Davies but I find the work of his that I’ve seen sometimes interesting but not good. I just got Apple+ and only watched Ted Lasso this week so I haven’t been tracking the sentiment around S2 vs. S1 but for something I had heard about so incessantly over the last two years, I’m surprised not to see it. Also surprised Pen15 didn’t rank given the praise on this site and I thought it landed just fine. Tracy Ullman alone would probably rank Curb Your Enthusiasm for me but my only true gripe would probably be the Master of None reboot thing—I thought that the co-stars (Naomi Ackie and the house) were both incredible and Ep4 was one of the best episodes of TV that I’ve seen in years.
The CW’s Nancy Drew keeps getting crazier and better. It is the show that Riverdale should have been
Thank you for doing the honourable thing and not including season 2 of Ted Lasso.
Happy to see the only show I watched this year so high on the list lol. OMITB was so good!!
I know Schitt’s Creek ended in 2020 but I just discovered it in 2021 and it was delightful. And if you actually knew me, you’d know how difficult it is for me to say the word “delightful” without any snark whatsoever.
Any excuse to mention Schitt’s Creek is a good one. Very funny and yet also at root very humane.
No Midnight Mass? Sad.
For me, the top slot goes to PAINTING WITH JOHN. So soothing.
Always disappointing when these lists don’t include Joe Pera Talks With You (Adult Swim). Recommending that show to someone is like giving them a gift. And Season 3 moved it into a different direction without disappointing.
How To With John Wilson (HBO Max) is also terrific.
That said, this is a pretty good list.
It’s because it’s hard to pirate.
Re no 25, my partner, friends and I all feel Never Have I Ever failed to keep viewers’ sympathies with Devi. She DID seem like an outright villain, craven and unbearably thoughtless towards the people around her.
My top five if I could vote —1. Joe Perra talks to you. 2. Reservation dogs 3. Succession 4. What we do in the shadows 5. How to with John Wilson
Why doesn’t The Expanse get more love? It’s so, so great
The first few episodes didn’t draw people in, so they stopped watching.
It starts to late in the year – I’d be surprised if more than one episode had aired before they put together their ballots. It’s a reason I hate seeing year end stuff before the year is actually over.
I mean, look…Only murders in the building was indeed one of the very best shows of the year, and I can’t wait for next season, when it will, afterall, be Tina Fey’s show. But saying Selena Gomez “held her own” against Steve Martin and Martin Short is like we’re in opposite worlds. It was like she was barely even there in the way she never EVER changed her same catatonic tone of voice, and it almost pained me every time Mabel was supposed to show any kind of emotion because she never did. I don’t know whose idea was it to cast her opposite two veteran comedic geniuses, but that was the ONE mistake this show made. I don’t have any other actress in mind who I think would do a better job, she just…NO. Man, we were rooting for you, Selena, we were all rooting for you! Alas…
I watch a lot of these shows and most are a good call. But how Dopesick isn’t one of the Top 10 shows of 2021, let alone Top 25, is beyond me here.
Regarding the ballots, I appreciate the shout-out for Ranking of Kings from Eric. Just wonderfully animated, morally complex, and genuinely heartwarming.
Glad to see It’s a Sin here (though I’d place it higher) since this site basically ignored it (and the Emmys completely did…) I can’t really fault this list, though I’d quibble about the rankings (Girls5Eva so high?) and would place Doom Patrol… somewhere. Well except, I really don’t get people who consider this past season of Pose particularly good–I thought it was often pretty awful, prone to Pose’s worst tendencies from its first two seasons.
wow. i love the list of movies. they are all amazing
if you could spare a minute to visit my website at https://www.clevernero.com/ it would be much appreciated
One British show, one Korean show.
Well done! I can see you really spread your net wide.
The COVID joke in The Other Two’s finale was the hardest I’ve laughed at anything in a good while.
Unrelated but… Wow! Who is this in, The Book of Boba Fett? What an interesting look for a character in the Star Wars universe. Cosplay incoming…
Arcane not being on this list is practically an invalidation. The animation alone deserves recognition, let alone being an extremely rare adaptation of a video game that’s actually good, but I guess it’s not an HBO prestige drama or a quirky comedy. These writers certainly have a “type”.
Personally I thought WandaVision was the worst of the Marvel shows. Or it’s at least on par with Loki, which isn’t on the list.
Hey AV Club. Hate white people much?