Welcome to my last Monday newsletter of 2024. This week, I am looking at my Top 10 Shows of 2024 plus the series finale of What We Do in the Shadows and thoughts on Laid, Accused and Silo. This newsletter will take a week off next week and then return on January 6 with my most anticipated shows of 2025 among other things!
Here it is, my Top 10 Shows of 2024. It was an interesting year for TV. There were some great shows as evidenced by this list, but there was a vacuum with the departure of shows like Succession and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel plus no new seasons of shows like The Last of Us, The White Lotus, Poker Face and more. The after-effects of the strike and general industry contraction meant less scripted shows. That was felt in the summer with slim pickings but the fall ramped back up and there's plenty coming in 2025. Even if the numbers are down from their peak, it's not like we are hurting for content! So, here are my Top 10 Shows of 2024!
Close Calls: Abbott Elementary, Bad Monkey, Elsbeth, Ghosts, Nobody Wants This
I recently wrote about this charming little show when it ended its three season run a couple weeks ago so I won't repeat myself too much here. I just love how little happened in this show. It was such a slice of life. Just dropping in on a quirky little group of individuals in Manhattan, Kansas looking for belonging. It was sort of the opposite of Seinfeld: that was famously a show about nothing but it really leaned into its plots. This show had almost no plot at all but was certainly about something.
9. ENGLISH TEACHER (FX)
I was excited about English Teacher when I saw the trailer in the summer and it mostly lived up to expectations. There were a few up and down moments but this is a show that arrived so fully formed and so aware of the type of show it wanted to be. That's hard to do for a comedy. My only regret was it was only an eight episode season and felt like it was just getting started. The show had hilarious and heartfelt moments and I really hope it gets renewed for a second season.
Baby Reindeer was the phenomenon of the year. It felt like everyone was watching it in the spring and it took on sort of a morbid curiosity usually reserved for exploitative reality shows. The fact that it was based on a true story (I know, it's up in the air how true it was) made it that much more compelling. And a breakout performance from Jessica Gunning really made the show. I'm glad there's not more of this show but I definitely understood the hype.
7. THE BEAR (FX/Hulu)
I really struggled with where to put The Bear on this list, or if to put it on this list at all. The third season was all over the place in terms of quality and definitely a step down from the brilliant second season. But I think it suffered a bit in comparison and because of expectations. When a show has two episodes in my Top 10 ("Ice Chips" and "Napkins"), it deserves to be on the list. Just because it wasn't at its best doesn't mean it wasn't still strong.
6. WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS (FX)
I have a lot more to say about What We Do in the Shadows below since it just ended last week. This show never seemed like it would be for me but the hilarious performances and writing overcame any genre biases I have. I was mixed on the final season overall but this ranking went up a few notches after the spot-on, near-perfect series finale that was so inventive and fitting. I won't say much more so as not to repeat myself below.
Ted Danson is a national treasure and he's at his best these days when working with Mike Schur. Their follow-up to The Good Place was a really fun late entry this year. A Man on the Inside was a slick whodunit that really became a lot more about the relationships and the themes Schur wanted to explore about loss, aging and community. But it never got heavy-handed and it never even wanted to get as deep as The Good Place, it was light on its feet and easy to breeze through. Shows that feel like that but have some meat on the bones is the sweet spot for comedies for me.
4. MR. & MRS. SMITH (Prime Video)
I ranked Mr. & Mrs. Smith #1 on my Most Anticipated New Show and did so with a bit of trepidation. After all, my #1 for 2023 was Dear Edward and for 2022 was The First Lady, which both turned into duds. So I was relieved when Mr. & Mrs. Smith proved to be as great as I hoped it would be. It was a great mix of case of the week (with great guest stars) and some real serious and honest things to say about marriage. It was filled with action, comedy and a surprising amount of pathos. Now just don't look too closely at the rest of my Top 10 Most Anticipated New Shows from 2024 because it was not as prescient.
Talk about a leap forward in the second season. I thought there were some good things in the first season of Shrinking, particularly Harrison Ford's performance, but the show didn't quite work for me overall. Well I am fully on board with the soon-to-conclude second season. The show has built out its ensemble in a very positive way and has morphed into a hangout comedy, albeit one still tinged with sadness and trauma. The series has made each character more likable and interesting and I'm so impressed that any combination of regular characters can work so well together. It's firing on all cylinders.
2. HACKS (Max)
Unlike Shrinking, Hacks is a show I've loved since the beginning. It's the role of a lifetime for Jean Smart and she has been the reason to watch since the first episode. But what made the third season so great is Hannah Einbinder finally elevated her performance from Smart's sidekick to Smart's equal. The two women have always been electric in scenes together but the differences in the third season is the characters were more on equal footing and Einbinder has gotten more consistent in her performances. There was also lots more to do for other supporting performances such as Paul W. Downs and Meg Stalter. The show went from an epic star vehicle to a show that is even more well-rounded.
1. RIPLEY (Netflix)
If you followed this blog this year or my summer awards, my #1 show should not surprise you at all. Ripley was a cinematic achievement that would rival any great movie. It is the most beautiful show I've ever seen on TV with stunning black and white cinematography. But that alone wouldn't be enough to put it at #1. The show had a very compelling story that was dark and twisted but also very thought provoking. The series loved to live in the silence. It took forever to reach a plot point that other shows might hastily reach in a quarter of the time. That's because it was so meticulous in every aspect of the show. Great performances and a notably incredible sound design just added to the brilliance of this show. I hope there would be more Ripley in perhaps an anthology format, but it doesn't appear that will happen. I'm content for this to be a great piece of art that I look forward to revisiting some day.
What We Do in the Shadows came to an end after six seasons this past week with a banger of a final episode that I just absolutely loved. As noted above, I was mixed on the final season of What We Do in the Shadows overall but everything about the finale worked for me. There were so many nods to series finales of episodes: from meta moments to outright parodies to throwaway lines. But the show also figured out how to incorporate the mockumentary format the best. Some mockumentaries awkwardly weave in the camera crew (The Office, famously). Some basically ignore them entirely all the way to the end (Parks and Recreation, Modern Family). What We Do in the Shadows used them brilliantly throughout the final episode. It really guided everything that happened. The idea of a previous documentary was also inspired.
And of course the hypnosis from Nadja leading to the "perfect ending" was great. I watched on Hulu so I saw the Newhart parody. I'm glad I saw that one since I've never seen The Usual Suspects or Rosemary's Baby. But all three parodies were well done and fully committed to the bit. Kayvan Novak's delivery in the Newhart parody really captured the vibe of Bob Newhart without being an imitation. I love that what people saw live on FX or what they saw the next day was different. I wish they had the time or money to do even more end of movie/TV show parodies. Also a shoutout to one last great Colin Robinson moment when he spoke completely in cliches to Guillermo earlier in the episode.
What We Do in the Shadows has had fun production values, good writing and directing and much more. But at its heart was the incredible cast. The core five cast members (Kayvan Novak, Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, Mark Proksch and Harvey Guillen) should be an ensemble remembered with the best of TV ensembles. They were great individually but even better as a group. This felt like a show that could go for a lot longer but maybe the up and down nature of the final season proved otherwise. Maybe this was the exact time to go out.
SCRIPTED PREMIERES OVER THE NEXT TWO WEEKS
Obviously with the holidays coming up, there are not too many premieres on tap. Before the blog returns on January 6, there are a few premieres at the beginning of January. Netflix usually has a big premiere around Christmas time and this year is no exception with the heavily hyped second season premiere of Squid Game the day after Christmas. It'll be interesting to see if lightning can strike twice with that show. Also coming to Netflix on New Year's Day is Missing You, another series based on a Harlan Coben novel. On January 2, FOX has the premiere of a new Thursday comedy block with the third season premiere of Animal Control and the new military comedy Going Dutch starring Denis Leary. Also premiering on Thursday is the limited series Lockerbie: A Search for Truth on Peacock, a series about the 1988 Pan Am crash in Scotland. On Friday, January 3, Hallmark has the new season premiere of The Way Home, which was originally slated to move to Hallmark+ before backlash from viewers. Finally on Sunday, January 5, AMC has the second season premiere of Mayfair Witches, which didn't get the critical love of its AMC Anne Rice counterpart Interview with the Vampire.
ODDS & ENDS
- I was planning to watch and review the new Peacock comedy Laid, but I only watched one episode. I didn't dislike it but I wasn't into it enough to keep watching. With some time off, I debated whether to devote my time to watching eight episodes of Laid or catch up on other shows and chose the latter. But I thought there were some funny elements to it, particularly with Stephanie Hsu and Zosia Mamet.
- I want to give a shoutout to FOX's Accused after finally finishing the second season this week. I'm doubtful it'll get a third season but I thought the second season was really strong. The first season went through the problem most episodic anthologies go through: some great episodes, some clunkers. But the second season (which, to be fair, was much shorter than the first season) was really strong from start to finish. There were no terrible episodes and a slew of guest stars really made each episode work. Felicity Huffman in the second season premiere was probably my favorite but Taylor Schilling, Debra Winger, Michael Chiklis and even Ken Jeong delivered solid episodes. I hope it gets a third season.
- A week after saying I would give Silo the rest of the season to win me back over, I've decided I'm out. The series was renewed for two more seasons last week and will come to an end after the fourth season. I thought to myself "do I really care enough to watch 2 1/2 more seasons of this?" and the answer was no. So I'm out despite liking some elements of the show a lot in the first season. The second season has just not been that interesting to me.
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