📺 Dept. Q, Season 1 (2025) was as good as a Netflix show gets. Which is to say, not exactly to the level of Slow Horses (Apple TV+) and certainly not Mare of Easttown (HBO), but with a cast that good I had to give it a pass for the occasional plot hole and choppy pacing.

📺 The Residence (2025) had great acting, a gorgeous set and a satisfying plot so of course Netflix decided to cancel it after just one season. The show was not a good fit for such a trashy distribution channel, so I hope that Cordelia Cupp and friends find a new home on HBO or Apple TV+.

📺 The Perfect Couple (2024) was perfectly shot — Netflix production values seem to have improved — and also too muddled. The White Lotus meets The Afterparty, sure, but did they really need to add Big Little Lies, Knives Out and who knows what else to the mix?

📺 Moonflower Murders (2024) had three and a half murder mysteries in a single series, each of them flawless. Part of me wishes it had the production values of HBO — Leslie Manville’s acting certainly deserves it — but then isn’t part of the charm seeing all those British B-listers hamming it up?

Happy Twin Peaks Day, everyone! To go with your morning coffee and cherry pie, here is an interview with the Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino on how David Lynch’s masterpiece influenced her own show.

📺 Ars Technica’s list of best television in 2024 goes on and on (and on, and on). This is why I barely watched anything this year, and most of what I did see were Modern Family reruns.

Today I learned that Max canceled Scavengers Reign, a show that was in fact the best thing to come out on TV last year. A pox on HBO/Max and a pox on anyone in the TV industry who doesn’t care about good TV. May YouTubers dance on your graves.

📺 Only Murders… Season 4: a better-than-average mystery, now with a movie industry twist that makes it even more self-aware. At this pace I fully expect the show itself to become an independent life form and gain consciousness by Season 6.

📺 The Great British Baking Show had more serious and professional bakers this year than the last, but also more panic attacks, insecurity, large swings in quality and overall lack of composure that kind of reminded me of the NBA. Entertaining nevertheless.

📺 Slow Horses, Season 4 has reached a plateau, in that it is “only” as brilliant as the previous season. Which is to say, it continues to be the best live-action show of the decade. Has there been a better TV character than Jackson Lamb as played by Gary Oldman?