Moving right along, our rankings of every TV show of 2024 continue below. If you’d like to check out prior episodes, you can access them at the following links:
#s 88-76
#s 75-61
#s 60-51
#s 50-41
#s 40-31
30. Nobody Wants This (Netflix, Season 1). Kristen Bell and Adam Brody are cute together. That’s basically the entire appeal of this show, and if that sounds like faint praise, remember that the whole point of a romantic comedy is for the leads to be cute together. (Also cute together: Justine Lupe and Timothy Simons, who ably fulfill their “quirky sibling” roles while also evincing some angular chemistry of their own.) As a show with an aggressively simple premise—what if a rabbi fell in love with a gentile? could it work? what would his mother think???—Nobody Wants This is somewhat padded, and the dreaded “This could have been a movie!” critique arguably applies. But given the sparky energy between its leads, allowing us to spend extra time in its universe feels less like a curse than a mitzvah.
29. Shrinking (Apple, Season 1; last year: 34 of 94). There’s a self-satisfied quality to this show that can be grating, especially when it comes to its banter-y dialogue, which often feels engineered. (There’s also a deplorable fake-out in the finale that probably dropped it 10 spots down this list.) But Shrinking is so sincere, so big-hearted, that it’s ultimately irresistible. It also wisely tones down its dopey “therapist gone rogue” premise in Season 2, allowing it to focus on its characters, all of whom it imbues with depth and warmth. In turn, that sense of dimension prevents the series from being too sappy; it may tug at your heartstrings, but its emotional beats feel earned, and they’re given texture by the talented cast. Shrinking promises a goofy therapy session, but its real achievement comes when it pulls you in for a hug. And now, “Cheater Bitch”!
28. What We Do in the Shadows (FX, Season 6; last year: 48). We would appear to be in midst of the “Beloved comedies that I like a lot but not quite as much as everyone else” stretch. Yet while What We Do in the Shadows never reached Hall-of-Fame status for me, I always admired its confidence and its imagination. That holds true in its final season, which deploys a serialized arc—Harvey Guillén landing a job at a seedy venture-capital shop, only to be constantly undermined by his vampiric housemates—that doesn’t fully work, but which consistently delivers laughs on a micro level. (I still find myself randomly imitating Natasia Demetriou’s line reading, “Do you like trains? ’Cause I know your mom does.”) It also supplies one instant-classic episode, a Warriors homage that captures the show’s cheeky sensibility and versatile intelligence. What We Do in the Shadows won’t live forever, but it leaves behind a cheerful legacy.
27. The Agency (Showtime, Season 1). Spies! Dead drops! Bug sweeps! GPS trackers! Code names and handlers! Faux torturous interrogations! Briefcases with false compartments! Grainy surveillance footage and wiped disk drives! Intelligence briefings and threat assessments! Burner phones and polygraph tests! Jeffrey Wright’s voice and Michael Fassbender’s face! Katherine Waterston’s professionalism and Saura Lightfoot-Leon’s passion! Losing tails by suddenly darting through an alley! Having sex with someone who might be plotting to kill you! Turning an asset by telling them, “Either you work for us, or we send these compromising photos to your sociopathic Russian boss”!!!
26. Life and Beth (Hulu, Season 2). It’s been a rough few months for Amy Schumer, but let’s just ignore that. In fact, what’s nice about Life and Beth is that it doesn’t feel too Schumer-y, too antic or forced; it isn’t trying to be transgressive or Of The Moment. Instead, it’s just a smart and tender dramedy about a handful of people trying to get on with their lives, despite their failings and neuroses. A reveal about an autism diagnosis is sensitively handled, while the show’s depiction of pregnancy and all its complications feels realistic and thoughtful, without ladling on contrived obstacles. I’m not especially interested in what’s inside Amy Schumer’s head, but from the outside looking in, her creative gifts are serving her just fine.
25. Fantasmas (HBO, Season 1). This show defies description. Or maybe it demands as much description as possible. Julio Torres is a weird dude, and with Fantasmas, he seems to have flung his brain up on the screen, resulting in a bizarre, dissociative head trip that brims with restless invention. That doesn’t mean everything about it works; I’m not sure the series is even supposed to work in traditional terms. But it’s certainly unique, whether it’s trafficking in hamsters running a miniature CVS or petulant robots who want to become actors or letters of the alphabet lamenting their marginalized status. “My therapist says I need to stop drinking,” says a mermaid (yes, a mermaid) voiced by Princess Nokia, to which her fellow nautical being (Kim Petras) responds, “My therapist says you need to stop drinking too.” Hard to argue with illogic like that.
24. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (Amazon, Season 1). My reflexive reaction to this series’ existence was the same as with most others of theatrical origin: Why on earth would you turn a movie into a TV show? But given that Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a pretty lousy feature, reshaping it makes certain sense, and—surprise!—this small-screen adaptation hums with style and ingenuity. The casting helps—Maya Erskine and Donald Glover are independently appealing and collectively electric—but even more valuable is the show’s confident storytelling; each new episode focuses on its own mission, all while continually deepening the central marriage, which starts out fake and then turns real and ultimately becomes all kinds of complicated. Brangelina could never.
23. Baby Reindeer (Netflix, Season 1). It’s best to watch this show without knowing anything about it. That isn’t because it traffics in especially devious twists (though there are a few big reveals) or because it involves some sort of revolutionary premise. It’s because it feels new. Thematically, Baby Reindeer touches on all sorts of topics du jour: online dating, transphobia, male privilege, sexual abuse, the fear of being a shitty comedian who’ll never make it. But the way it arranges these elements distinguishes it from just another show about life in the technological age. It keeps you off balance, and then it knocks you to the ground.
22. The Sympathizer (HBO, Season 1). Robert Downey Jr. playing four roles may be a cute hook, but it’s ultimately incidental to The Sympathizer, which succeeds for a more basic reason: its immersive sense of style. The great Park Chan-wook directed a handful of episodes, and his exquisite craftsmanship infuses the entire series, which unfolds with both visual panache and narrative momentum. That’s never more true than in a making-of hour which contemplates the labor of helming a Vietnam War epic, and all of the clichés and stereotypes that entails. The main storyline of The Sympathizer—about a North Vietnamese double agent (Hoa Xuande) who infiltrates the American encampment and flees to California, where he inevitably experiences conflicting loyalties—isn’t all that interesting. But on a scene-to-scene basis, it’s invigorating with a vibrant sense of color, framing, and flair. Typical propaganda, seducing us with pure flash.
21. My Brilliant Friend (HBO, Season 4; 2022 rank: 35 of 110). When I say that this show overwhelms me, I mean that in multiple ways. In terms of plot, I find it incomprehensible, with far too many secondary characters and putatively explosive revelations that leave me merely perplexed. But that doesn’t really matter, because on an emotional level, My Brilliant Friend is overpowering. Part of that is thanks to its central pairing, which is one of the richest and most rewarding relationships I’ve seen depicted on screen—a medley of affection, jealousy, confusion, and admiration. And part of it stems from the force of the execution: the sweeping score, the hypnotic images, the sheer sense of history. I don’t always understand this show. I doubt I’ll ever forget it.
Coming tomorrow: curses, killings, plagues, and teenagers.
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.