It was a good year for television! Or for my clearing the backlog, as some of these came out years ago:
- The Last of Us, which I have to thank for making my wife interested in something video game-related. Because Pedro Pascal is in it, to be clear, but I’ll take it.
- Severance would have been even better if played at 1.25x. The office party scene was masterful, though, and at the right speed.
- Slow Horses, Season 2 and Season 3 were the best 12 hours of live-action TV this year.
- Ted Lasso, Season 3 was a disappointment the more I think about it, so I try to think about it less.
- The Bear, Season 2 was the opposite of Lasso and I look forward to Season 3.
- Guy’s Grocery Games was a bad habit which we broke shortly after I wrote about it.
- The Afterparty, Season 2, which was… fine, but a bit too West coast for my taste. Unlike…
- Only Murders in the Building, Season 3, which hit just the right spot. The soundtrack is still a hit with the family on our rides to school.
- Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake was the perfect sequel to the original.
- Bodies were a nice surprise, although Primer (2004) is still the only one with time travel that makes sense.
- The Great British Baking Show, Season who-knows-which had some of the “worst” contestants to date — quotation marks here because they were all good both in personality and baking skills — but some of the best moments, so one of the better seasons overall.
- Scavengers Reign were the best 6 hours of any TV this year. Not for everyone, to be sure, but I hope it will be for enough people for their flaky Warner/Discovery corporate overlords to order another season.
Last year’s list is here.