📺 Not one but two new AppleTV shows feature middle-aged men whose lives — and own selves — disintegrate after their spouse dies. Adam Scott gets a brain implant. Jason Segel spends nights partying with prostitutes. What happened to Nora Durst’s family may have been more outlandish, but her reaction was that much more believable.

Which is to say: Severance and Shrinking are overrated; The Leftovers remains grossly underrated.

📺 The Americans are to the 2010s what The Wire was to the 2000s: a masterfully crafted epic overshadowed during its original run by more critically acclaimed and more popular shows (Game of Thrones and The Sopranos, respectively). But I’ll take D.C. over Westeros any time.

📺 I was 10 when The X-Files came out and watched it week by week through hyperinflation, school closures and bombings. Now that we have a 10-year-old at home I thought it would be a good time to revisit the series, and it has aged very well indeed. This will be fun!

Craig Hockenberry:

A lot of folks appreciated the visual design of our Twitter app. And we are proud of that.

We’re equally proud of the things you don’t see.

Which reminds me of why Frasier was so good: for all the jokes they didn’t make.

Not much time for TV this year — which is a good thing! — but here is what we ⊕ Yes, “we”. Watching TV is for me a communal thing and the last time I watched any show by myself was finishing up Veep in mid-2014 during my last few night shifts as a fellow. watched, in no particular order:

1. Station Eleven (HBO)
2. Magpie Murders (PBS, Britbox)
3. Slow Horses (Apple TV+)
4. The Mysterious Benedict Society (Disney+)
5. Wednesday (Netflix)
6. Only Murders in the Building (Hulu), which I didn’t write about but Season 2 was even better than the first and I have every reason to believe Season 3 will be even better. There is nothing with Steve Martin and Martin Short in it that I haven’t loved, and Selena Gomez was a wonderful surprise, Only Murders… being the only live action thing of hers I saw.
7. The Afterparty (Apple TV+), which between the murder mystery plot, the cast, the jokes, and the production values should really take the number one spot as my favorite show of the year overall.
8. Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+), which is, let’s all agree, the best Star Trek show since the original series.
9. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount+), which is the second best Star Trek since TOS.
10. The Great British Baking Show (Netflix), which continues being the perennial favorite, despite the humor, the baking, and the charm all slipping away year by year ever since the pandemic.

And yes, looking back at the list I have to wonder what it would have looked like if we did have time for TV. Geez.

📺 Season 2 of The Mysterious Benedict Society: bright colors, quirky characters, upbeat music, and all that in sunny Europe instead of Season 1’s dreary Northwestern US. What is there not to like?

📺 Wednesday started off strong but quickly devolved into 90210 with a high body count: enjoyable, but not quite living up to the atmosphere of the first episode. It was still worth sticking it out until the end to see Fred Armisen’s Uncle Fester.

If you have seen and enjoyed Bodyguard, make sure to watch Slow Horses. How good is it? First time I stayed up until 4am for a TV show since the early 2000s good. 📺

Magpie Murders were an absolute delight, even if the modern-day mystery was somewhat predictable. Looking forward to the Moonflower Murders, whenever they come out. 📺

📺 Station Eleven 👍