As our rankings of every TV show of 2023 march on, we begin to approach high-quality television. If you missed earlier installments in this annual series, you can find them at the following links:
#s 94-81
#s 80-66
#s 65-51
#s 50-41
40. Abbott Elementary (ABC, Season 2.0; last year: 64 of 110)
39. Never Have I Ever (Netflix, Season 4; last year: 14)
Two shows set in school, albeit from opposing perspectives (i.e., teachers versus students). Abbott Elementary has grown into itself and is now thoroughly assured. The writing is steady, the performances are on point, and the messages are meaningful without being didactic. And yet, the whole thing feels a little… easy, maybe? I’m not suggesting that the series should manufacture conflict (the social-media calls for a school-shooting episode are ridiculous) or radically experiment with its formula. But its comfortable rhythms can feel safe as well as polished. Despite the tedious will-they-won’t-they flirtation between Quinta Brunson and Tyler James Williams, Abbott Elementary is a consistently enjoyable show, and I’m happy to spend time in its distinctive universe every week. But it’s more honor student than valedictorian.
Then again, there are worse things than a school-based series that’s simply confident in its own skin. Never Have I Ever hardly broke the mold for coming-of-age shows, but over the course of its four seasons, it evolved with its characters, transforming from a jumpy, eager-to-please sex comedy to a more thoughtful study of girls just growing up and readying themselves to enter the world. Its final season isn’t exactly uproarious, but it has few canned sitcom beats or contrivances, instead simply allowing its young women to exist. And if it still manages to deliver some belly laughs and adolescent mortifications and earnest life lessons, well, more’s the better.
38. Full Circle (Max, Season 1). Remember when Steven Soderbergh retired? That was roughly 10 movies and four TV series ago. The man is addicted to his work, and age hasn’t sapped him of his energy; Full Circle moves with a robust and magnetic momentum, drawing you into its world of vice and desperation. The density of that world is difficult to penetrate, and the vaguely supernatural elements of this series don’t fit tidily alongside its grittier aspects. But as a pure crime thriller, Full Circle is absorbing, with double crosses, tenuous alliance, and buried secrets. You may not always understand what’s going on, but you’ll always want to know more.
37. Somebody Somewhere (HBO, Season 2; last year: 90). The way that Somebody Somewhere vaulted up these rankings from its first to second season would suggest a dramatic improvement or reinvention. But really, this gentle, spiky series was fully formed from the get-go; I just couldn’t vibe with it last year for whatever reason. Even now, I’m somewhat resistant to its Midwestern charm, but I’m more receptive to its delicate mix of emotions—the way it blends anger and resentment with decency and warmth. It’s the kind of show where a minor spat between close friends feels like the rending of the universe, and that sense of giant smallness is what makes it work.
36. Party Down (Starz, Season 3). Ages ago, in what feels like another life, I included this show in my column, “The top 10 series on Netflix streaming” (back when the commercial giant was simply a clearinghouse and wasn’t producing its own #content). Suffice it to say that television has changed since then. (Case in point: Only two of those 10 shows are still available on Netflix.) The cleverness of this revival lies in how it updates its characters’ desires and expectations—they are, if nothing else, quite a bit older than when we last saw them—without really tweaking the formula that made the series work in the first place. Party Down was always about anxiety disguised as superiority, and the passage of time has lent some poignancy to the crew’s sense of restlessness. Beyond that, this is still a very funny show, with strong banter and great comic timing. (Lizzy Caplan is obviously missed, though Zoë Chao is an excellent addition.) There’s something comforting in knowing that these goofballs are still around—still hustling, still complaining, still waiting in perpetuity for that one big break.
35. One Piece (Netflix, Season 1). Critics are hard-wired to dislike a series such as One Piece, given that Netflix is appropriating a beloved Japanese manga and turning it into further grist for their content mill. And yet, this show is delightful. Sure, its world-building is a little silly, and its dialogue isn’t always sharp. But there’s a wholesomeness to One Piece that’s irresistible, along with a surprising suitability for television, as the wacky individual adventures make for an inherently episodic integrity. The little-known cast meet their challenges splendidly, rounding out what would seem to be two-dimensional characters with genuine feeling. And even the action scenes are pretty good, with swordfights and sea battles and restaurant brawls that unfold with unusual coherence. This is a show about pirates, and if Netflix is shamelessly raiding the coffers of existing IP, it at least has the decency to do so with some style.
34. Shrinking (Apple, Season 1). As a show about therapists, Shrinking is sort of awful, with some bizarre ideas about the process behind the talking cure. The good news is that Shrinking *isn’t* a show about therapists, not really. It’s more just a soulful workplace dramedy about a single father (Jason Segel) doing the best he can as his daughter (Lukita Maxwell) struggles to come of age. As the irritating contrivances melt away, the humor and tenderness are revealed, and the cast (including a perfectly growly Harrison Ford) mesh together to create a warm and winning ensemble. Some might call that the easy way out, but there’s courage in simply letting good actors play off one another and allowing them to continuously shape their characters. Sometimes, the best breakthroughs are invisible.
33. Winning Time (HBO, Season 2; last year: 38). I generally do my best to remain oblivious to behind-the-scenes drama, but with Winning Time, the problems are hard to miss. What HBO once envisioned as its new flagship drama is instead rushed along to a hilariously abrupt conclusion, complete with a final scene that may as well have been scribbled in crayon. It’s annoying, because the first five episodes of this abbreviated season are terrific, most notably for their gripping portrait of the internal tug of war between two coaches (Adrian Brody and, again, Jason Segel) whose relationship—an uneasy pull between respect and rivalry, collaboration and subordination—defies typical characterization. The challenge for Winning Time was always how to mold the vagaries of sports history—a fickle creature that rarely conforms to tidy dramatic narratives —into a coherent story. For the most part, it managed quite well, which only lends greater irony to its ultimate kneecapping—a slapdash ending that rendered this short-lived, thoroughly enjoyable series the very opposite of a dynasty.
32. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Netflix, Season 1). Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim vs. the World was among my favorite movies of the 2010s—an exhilarating cocktail of zany humor, punchy action, and exquisite tenderness. So when the first episode of this animated series played like a virtual repetition of that film’s first half-hour, I was fairly aghast. What’s the point of just redoing a modern classic? Turns out, it’s largely a feint; the remainder of this zippy show explores entirely new territory (at least, new on screen; it’s adapting the graphic novels by Bryan Lee O’Malley). And for the most part, it’s charming. Bringing back the movie’s original cast for the voiceovers was a risky proposition, but the echo of familiarity quickly recedes, and what replaces it is a suitably bonkers story that honors the spirit of the movie without replicating its singular narrative. Scott Pilgrim once memorably complained, “But it’s hard!”; after an early stumble, this quirky, engaging show makes it look easy.
31. Lessons in Chemistry (Apple, Season 1). Surely, in another era, Bonnie Garmus’ best-selling novel would have been turned into a prestige movie rather than an eight-episode series. But this is the world we live in now, and if this show suffers from a bit of bloat—along with a gratingly sentimental finale—it’s still a compelling journey. Brie Larson, with her natural combination of intelligence and prickliness, is ideally cast as the lead, providing a sturdy center for a series that proves surprisingly ambitious in scope and scale. Not everything works, but even if Lessons in Chemistry’s themes can be blunt, it delivers them with an admirable degree of style and force. Pinballing from laboratories to churches to television studios, it’s an energetic experiment, one whose bursts of passion are reflective of a decidedly combustible DNA.
Coming later today: musicians, billionaires, warriors, and twins.
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.