If you haven’t noticed (and judging by our traffic numbers, you haven’t), we’ve just completed our annual exercise of ranking every TV show we watched last year—94 of them, in 2023’s case. This omnibus post is designed as a cheat code for those of you who care about the rankings and not about the writing, though please note that each header includes a link that will take you to the piece with a detailed capsule on the shows in question.
The Top 10 1. The Last of Us (HBO, Season 1) 2. The Bear (FX on Hulu; Season 2) 3. Succession (HBO, Season 4) 4. Fargo (FX, Season 5) 5. Sex Education (Netflix, Season 4) 6. Poker Face (Peacock, Season 1) 7. The Great (Hulu, Season 3) 8. The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix, Season 1) 9. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon, Season 5) 10. Barry (HBO, Season 4) Read More
And at long last, here we are. 2023 may have been a down year for TV overall, but its relative blahness shouldn’t influence perceptions of the year’s best shows, which were uniformly exceptional. Our countdown of every series of the year concludes below, but if you missed the prior episodes, consult the following links:
10. Barry (HBO, Season 4; last year: 12 of 110). Barry was always enjoyable in part for how deftly it blended its madcap comedy with the emptiness eating away at its titular assassin’s soul. So as the show continued to lean harder into its darker impulses, it was fair to question if it was losing that delicate balance. But Bill Hader’s vision for this entrancing, disturbing show has always been personal—with little interest in appealing to fans or playing it safe. The final season hardly skimps on quirky entertainment; there are shootouts and prison breaks and Sian Heder cameos and organized-crime meetings at Dave & Buster’s. But its portrait of all-consuming selfishness—personified not just by Hader but by a wonderful Sarah Goldberg—is awfully bleak, and Barry commits to it with unapologetic zeal as well as formal audacity. Remember, this started out as a one-joke show about a hit man trying to become an actor. By the time it ended, no one was laughing. Read More
Nearly there now. Our rankings of every TV show of 2023 have reached their penultimate episode, with what you might classify as the honorable mentions. For prior installments, featuring series that are rather less excellent than the ensuing 10, check out the following links:
20. Love & Death (Max, Season 1). As a piece of ghastly, ripped-from-the-headlines true-crime fiction, Love & Death is solid but unremarkable. Yet it’s the typicality of the whole thing that makes it so unsettling. The story, about a happy but restless Texas housewife (Elizabeth Olsen) who embarks on a lengthy affair with a friend’s husband (Jesse Plemons), is sad and pitiful, featuring people who scan as ordinary not because of their demographics (white, middle class) but because their lives seem so limited in scope or possibility. Ironically, that sense of bland familiarity lends Love & Death a disturbing resonance; if these folks’ lives can be turned into tabloid mayhem, why can’t yours? Beyond that, the series works because—as was true with A Murder at the End of the World (discussed yesterday)—it doesn’t pin everything on its ultimate verdict, which proves to be weirdly beside the point. Instead, Love & Death operates primarily as a gripping study of marriage and infidelity, exploring—with clarity but without judgment—the ebb and flow of burning desires and cooling passions. Olsen and Plemons are both excellent for how they burrow inside their characters rather than sensationalizing them; Plemons’ performance in the finale is astonishing for how it chokes off any sense of catharsis. This may be a show about an axe murderer, but it’s the dullness that really leaves a mark. Read More
30. Dead Ringers (Amazon, Season 1). The cinema of David Cronenberg isn’t for everyone; sometimes, it isn’t for me. (Much as I adored his mid-aughts one-two punch of A History of Violence and Eastern Promises, I’ve chafed against his more recent films, including Crimes of the Future.) It certainly wouldn’t seem fit for adaptation into a TV series, not least when you’re talking about one of his chilliest and most disturbing works. And yet, this new Dead Ringers is oddly mesmerizing, with moments of haunting beauty alongside all of the predictable blood and pain and venality. Some of that is thanks to the eerie production design; some of it is thanks to the creepy, enigmatic plotting. But most of it is thanks to Rachel Weisz, who plays the role(s) of twin obstetricians with unnerving steel and buried mania. “I can get her for you,” one of Weisz’s brilliant sisters says to the other in the first episode, in a line whose sinister implications will rattle around in your brain for some time. It’s a performance both alluring and upsetting—one that gives new meaning to the concept of double trouble. Read More
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:
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. Read More
