Top TV of 2023

Before compiling this list, I made the very silly mistake of reading last year's list. While there are roughly the same number of shows (and in many cases the same shows) on each list, 2022 puts 2023 to absolute shame.  To wit, there's really only one series from this year that would have placed in the top eight of the past two years.  Regardless, there was still plenty of perfectly good work worthy of celebration.

Note: Presumably because of delays related to the strikes, a few shows that debuted recently won't finish their seasons until January.  Per my previous ruling on Counterpart, those series will be included in the 2024 list, should they finish strong enough.

#13 - Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

Yeah sure there's been a marked drop in both intrigue and humor across Only Murders' first three seasons.  Paul Rudd and Merryl Streep were predictably great as this year's big guest stars and their characters were drawn with appropriate depth, but everyone else (main cast included) was given short shrift.  And the whole idea and purpose of centering the story around Broadway seemed unclear (was this light satire? a meta-commentary on the nature of the show?).  And yet, there's still something utterly competent about the way this show is put together that will always command my respect, at least until it doesn't anymore.  Even when the titular podcast is marginalized in the story, the conceit of creating a self-contained episode in each entry of the show is honored week in and week out.  In the era of "ten-hour movies," sometimes even the most basic things can feel borderline revolutionary.

#12 - The Other Two (Max)

These days, essentially every show exists in conversation with the culture of its time.  Of course this has always been true to some degree—that's the nature of art, after all.  But this instinct has rarely felt both as explicit and as compelled as it does today.  I think this approach is generally a net negative, as the urge to precisely address the moment at hand forgoes any hope of pursuing timelessness or larger truths.  But this doesn't mean there aren't series that thrive in this milieu, such as the late great The Other Two.  The reason I believe it succeeds at this is because it is both maximally vicious and tender.  It is both merciless in skewering the foibles of fame-seeking while showing real love and care for its misguided, yet genuine characters.  Few other such commentaries on our culture realize that you have to do both of these things well for your message to resonate.

#11 - What We Do in the Shadows (FX)

Look, when an established group of characters slowly discover one character's secret over the course of a season....you're cooking with gas.  The arc of Guillermo becoming a vampire hit every note of intrigue and drama that I expect from a slow burn of a reveal.  Sometimes that's enough for greatness.

#10 - Party Down (Starz)

I am on record in supporting the idea that Party Down could have run forever with a rotating cast.  Thus I am now forced to put my money where my mouth is and say that the results of Starz' six episode experiment were...pretty good.  The need to reunite (almost) everyone into a coherent and compelling story had its drawbacks, largely sacrificing the show's funhouse mirror version of the "case of the week."  But that main story (of whether or not Henry is still even able to find fulfillment in Hollywood) is well constructed and even surprisingly moving.  Add in some wry commentary on the shifting nature of "stardom" in the age of social media, and you've got yourself something worthwhile, if not quite as special as the series' original run.

#9 - I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix)

#8 - How to with John Wilson (HBO)

Putting these together again like I have in the past.  ITYSL was a little less sharp than in previous years and How To was a little too concerned with its metanarrative, but these are both minor quibbles about two of the best creations of the decade.  Gonna just cherish them and move on.

#7 - Perry Mason (HBO)

I found myself looking forward to Monday nights in the spring much more than I expected.  Was it because the second (and sadly final) season of this reboot became a truly great drama?  Or was it because I'm starved for something approaching greatness in the wake of the Golden Age Of Television?  Upon some reflection, I think it's the former.  Not only did the second season become something more self-assured than the first—new showrunners Jack Amiel and Michael Begler (both of The Knick) inserted enough personal touches to make the show feel distinct—but also it finally felt like it wasn't ashamed to be the courtroom show that it is.  And it also helped that the show managed to explore the titular character's megalomaniacal drive to fight injustice in a way that resonates today.

#6 - I'm A Virgo (Amazon)

There were times where Boots Riley's incredibly didactic depiction of budding revolutionary consciousness didn't work for me.  The whimsy of characters who are too large, too small, or who simply move through time differently is fun, but doesn't necessarily lend itself to coherent, human storytelling.  Still, Riley connects on enough of his swings (the cartoon within the show, The Hero's moving skyscraper, a lengthy Wes Anderson-esque depiction of capital accumulation) to make this something memorable and worthy of your time.  And at the very least, there are stories being told and angles to modern life being explored that you won't get anywhere else.

#5 - Reservation Dogs (Hulu)

On one hand, this is one of the most miraculous shows in the history of the medium, so I cannot and should not have any complaints.  On the other hand, I feel that the abruptness of ending with its third season will hurt its legacy to some small degree.  The idea of linking the Rez Dogs' journey to that of their forbears is rich and, per the precepts of Native American culture, necessary.  But despite some sublime moments, there's just not enough meat on the bone to make it work as well as it should.  Critics often complain when half-hour streaming shows push to 35 or even 40 minutes, but this is the rare example where such an indulgence would have actually been desirable.  Oh well, still great, you should watch.

#4 - Swarm (Amazon)

I am on the record with my opinion that fandom is, generally speaking, toxic.  So you would think that my main angle for recommending a show where a serial killer is born out of her own obsession with a lightly-fictionalized version of Beyonce would be its thematic resonance.  While I think Donald Glover and crew handle the subject matter with aplomb (eg. how they depict Dre as having nothing else to turn to), what really drew me in was the show's approach to telling what is fundamentally a horror story.  The banality, the plainness, and the occasional surreality of her victims' real-time realization that they are going to die by her hand for no good reason—that's what makes it work, what makes it actually creepy, for someone with as much antipathy towards horror as me.

#3 - Righteous Gemstones (HBO)

I've been more ambivalent on Gemstones ever since I placed its debut season at #1 way back in 2019.  It's funny but sometimes too calculated, satirical but sometimes too obvious, and hyper-specific but sometimes at the expense of telling a cohesive story.  But the stretch run of this season brought me fully back on board for reasons I'll let Donna Bowman of Episodic Medium explain, in her thoughts regarding the season's happy ending:

"Did they earn it? Of course not. These are terrible people whom we’ve watched do terrible things. But at least for this moment, they can take the right lesson from the crises that nearly ended them and take undiluted pleasure in each other. They can take that grace and put it to work. That’s beautiful."

Any story that can simultaneously make me laugh and pull that off is going to be at the top of my list...easy call.   

#2 - Barry (HBO)

I will likely never be convinced that all the hints Barry made towards some sort of overarching thematic resonance actually added up to anything real—at best there's a sly, occasionally explicit critique of Hollywood that's been done better elsewhere on this list.  But as I've said before, who cares?  Some series are just well-made, well-acted, compelling stories that are fun to watch.  Imagine a less kitschy version of Tarantino tasked with making a TV show and ask yourself if the output wouldn't look exactly like Barry.

#1 - The Bear (Hulu)

Last year I described the debut season of this series as "Whiplash...but more explicitly about trauma."  While that is still absolutely true in the second season (see the Christmas episode lol), there needed to be something more for it to rise to this spot on the list.  That something, made clear in almost every episode, is its diagnosis of the need to accomplish something as a direct product of that trauma.  While this thought was certainly present last year, it was subsumed by the sheer necessity of keeping a struggling business afloat.  But now, armed with money from the finale's deus ex marinara, the staff is free to create something more in line with their ultimate desires.  This setup allows us to ruminate upon every possible angle of this idea: Does trauma actually produce this need to strive?  Is that a healthy way of coping?  Does the nature of the thing we're striving for actually matter?  When is striving appropriate and when is it not?  Do we need both strivers and layabouts?  Or does each person need to master both of those impulses, simultaneously?  And most importantly, how do we manage these individual impulses within the structure of some coherent and meaningful whole?  All this adds up to a truly beautiful and rich collection of episodes that I will not soon forget.