TV Rankings

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:

#s 94-81
#s 80-66
#s 65-51
#s 50-41
#s 40-31
#s 30-21

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

We’re continuing to rank every TV show we watched in 2023. For prior pieces in this exhaustive, exhausting series, check out the following links:

#s 94-81
#s 80-66
#s 65-51
#s 50-41
#s 40-31

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:

#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. Read More

Our rankings of every TV show we watched in 2023 continue apace. For the prior episodes, check out the following links:

#s 94-81
#s 80-66
#s 65-51

50. Yellowjackets (Showtime, Season 2; 2021 rank: 21 of 108). A comedown was inevitable; the concept of “girls’ soccer team crashes in the wilderness and they eat each other and also the survivors remain haunted decades later” just wasn’t built to sustain multiple seasons of continuously shocking developments. But even if Yellowjackets’ second go-round carries more than a whiff of creative desperation, it remains furiously watchable, thanks to the terrific cast, some killer set pieces, and a juicy atmosphere (those ’90s needle drops!). That its manufactured plot twists feel artificial, as though the writers are sweatily retconning their original story, is no surprise, but it’s also beside the point; this show has always been less about what happens than how it happens. Forget plausibility—so long as Yellowjackets keeps serving up scenes of explosive violence and catty betrayals, my appetite will be satisfied. Read More