Welcome to my weekly newsletter. This week, I am looking at my Top 12 Performances of 2024 and the Somebody Somewhere finale. Plus, thoughts on Black Doves, What We Do in the Shadows, Shrinking, Abbott Elementary, Silo and Landman!
I am kicking off my three week Year in Review posts with my Top 12 Performances of the year. Why 12 instead of 10? Well, because I felt like my #11 and #12 really deserved to be on this list so why not list 12? Next week, I will take a look at my Top 10 Episodes and finish off with my Top 10 Shows of the year.
12. Kathy Bates, Matlock & Carrie Preston, Elsbeth
The two CBS ladies of Thursday nights kick off this list in large part because of how they elevate their shows. These are really just average CBS procedurals but Bates and Preston keep them a cut above the rest with their quirky performances. That's especially true of Bates in her legal drama that is by the books despite the pilot twist. Preston sometimes gets help from great guest stars but also sometimes not if the guest star is bad. Either way, these two performances set the two shows above many other network dramas.
11. Peter Sarsgaard, Presumed Innocent
Presumed Innocent was a real misguided show in many ways and I had many qualms with it. But I didn't have any qualms with Peter Sarsgaard's fascinating performance. He was so interesting and unique in a show that was such a mess. I would have loved to see him return for the second season but he's already said he's not interested. Without Sarsgaard, I can't say I'm interested either.
10. Cristin Milioti, The Penguin
I didn't love The Penguin but I thought Cristin Milioti was absolutely the reason to watch. As a tortured soul but also a true villain, she was absolutely the reason the story kept moving and a very compelling figure. The episode that focused primarily on her backstory was far and away the best episode of The Penguin. Colin Farrell wasn't bad but this was Milioti's show.
9. Kristen Bell & Adam Brody, Nobody Wants This
I feel like Nobody Wants This caught people off guard this fall but it really shouldn't have. This is what happens when you put two extremely likable personalities in a rom-com together. Sure, we can quibble about some of the tropes or the way the show handled Judaism. But we can't quibble about the chemistry between Kristen Bell and Adam Brody or the fun they brought to the show.
The third season of The Bear was very divisive. I thought maybe the internet reaction was a little overblown but there's no denying it was a step down from season two. However, the exception was the charming "Napkins" episode that finally put Liza Colon-Zayas in the spotlight. She rose to the occasion in what was easily the best episode of the season, a sweet and sentimental look at her character's life over several years.
7. Ted Danson, A Man on the Inside
At this point, Ted Danson is a national treasure. He's been giving great performances since Cheers but his last couple decades has been especially prolific from his arc on Damages to his incredible run on The Good Place. Now he is back with The Good Place creator Mike Schur as the headliner of a late year entry that was really delightful. Danson was a huge reason A Man on the Inside worked. His quirky charm was perfect for the role and he has showed no signs of slowing down.
6. Jessica Gunning, Baby Reindeer
Richard Gadd may have been the brains behind Baby Reindeer and the star but the series captured the zeitgeist thanks in large part to Jessica Gunning's performance. It was abrasive, funny and even scary at times. She was absolutely magnetic on screen in what proved to be a major breakout role. It's hard to imagine Gunning in another show, though she certainly deserves one, because she completely embodied her character here.
5. The Cast of Shrinking, Shrinking
Is it cheating to put an entire cast on this list? I don't think so. I was mixed on the first season of Shrinking but it is firing on all cylinders in its second season. A huge reason for that is they built out the ensemble and gave them all meaty material. On top of that, they devote a significant amount of time to the ensemble just hanging with each other. This is one of those times where the entire cast is just clicking and in complete lockstep with each other. It's fun to watch.
Jodie Foster's first major TV role in half a century was well worth the wait. In the new version of True Detective, Foster was captivating. She played a type of role that has often been reserved for men and she did it with a tremendous amount of heart and humor. Being that I mostly watch TV and not movies, I really was not all that familiar with Jodie Foster outside of The Silence of the Lambs. I get now why she has been so acclaimed over the years.
3. Donald Glover & Maya Erskine, Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Mr. & Mrs. Smith was the first really great show of 2024 and a lot of the credit goes to Donald Glover and Maya Erskine. Instead of doing the sexy spy couple trope that's been done so often, including in the Mr. & Mrs. Smith film, Glover and Erskine gave a much more interesting performance of a couple going through the ups and downs of early marriage with the added element that they were spies and didn't know each. Both Glover and Erskine were very adept at mixing hilarity and drama.
2. Andrew Scott, Ripley
If you read my awards posts in the summer, you know I was a big fan of Ripley. There were so many things I loved about the show that perhaps Andrew Scott's performance was not one of the elements I talked about the most. But his performance was brilliant. He was so interesting because he wasn't the suave con man we come to expect in these types of stories. But yet he was so effective as a sociopathic version of the Ripley character. He also did so much in silence, which is not easy to do.
1. Jean Smart & Hannah Einbinder, Hacks
For the first two seasons of Hacks, it was the Jean Smart show. She was the main reason to watch Hacks and everyone else was secondary. But in the third season, Hannah Einbinder really came into her own as a co-lead of the show. She was solid int he first two seasons but really became Smart's equal in terms of acting prowess and in terms of character importance in the third season. The two women are equally fun to watch when their characters are teaming up as when their characters are fighting. It's a match made in heaven and I can't wait to see where the series goes after the dramatic and exciting season finale.
Somebody Somewhere came to an end last night after three seasons. The series was a real quiet, real simple show where not a whole lot happened but it just felt like we were spending time with this quirky group of friends in Manhattan, Kansas. I was mixed on the first season then it grew on me in the second season and even more in the current season. Although this has only been on the air since January 2022, it felt like a relic from the Peak TV era where these quiet shows from artists with a vision were getting made. Louie was the grandfather of them but it also included shows like Atlanta, Ramy and my personal favorite, Better Things. It feels like these shows, as cheap as they seem to be produce, will struggle to get made in a contracting industry that values IP, franchises and awards bait in streaming and procedurals or broader comedies on networks. These types of shows feel like they're going to be squeezed out, at least for now. What's the closest thing to this shows that's premiered recently? Maybe English Teacher? And even that feels a little different.
One of the things I really appreciated about Somebody Somewhere was it didn't always resolve plots. Sometimes we just dropped in on conversations and it felt like the show was going to make that the theme of the episode or a multi-episode arc and then it just sort of... went away. Sort of like certain things that feel very big in the moment in real life but don't actually mean all that much when you take a step back. The show was about relationships, it was about making your way through the world. And manufactured character arcs were not really in line with what the show was trying to accomplish or the way it was trying to show life.
There's a few series finales of shows I enjoy in December: this one, Blue Bloods this coming Friday and What We Do in the Shadows a week from tonight. This one was probably the least likely to feel like a series finale. Because it felt like the show may be over but life is going on for these characters. They're going to keep doing their thing in Kansas, we just aren't going to have a window into their lives. That being said, I'm glad it ended with Bridget Everett singing because she's very effective at emoting through song and it gave the show a chance to be just a bit sentimental as it came to a close. But I wasn't all that sad because it feels like these characters will just keep going and just keep pushing on as Sam sang at the end and I'm cool with that.
SCRIPTED PREMIERES THIS WEEK
As we get closer to the holidays, there aren't too many shows premiering. On Tuesday, Prime Video has the premiere of Secret Level, an animated anthology series with each episode set within a different video game. The highest profile premiere of the week comes on Thursday with No Good Deed on Netflix. The dark comedy comes from Liz Feldman of Dead to Me and stars Lisa Kudrow, Ray Romano, Linda Cardellini, Luke Wilson, Teyonah Parris, Abbi Jacobson, Poppy Liu, Denis Leary and O-T Fagbenle. Whew, that's quite a cast! Hopefully it lives up to that cast. Also premiering on Thursday is the second season of Bookie on Max. Finally on Friday (linear premiere on Sunday) is Showtime's new prequel series Dexter: Original Sin. Of course Dexter is a well-known IP but was anyone asking for a prequel to this?
ODDS & ENDS
- The highest profile premiere this week was Black Doves on Netflix. The six episode Christmas-set espionage series stars Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw and has already been renewed for a second season. I watched the first three episodes and while there were things I liked, there wasn't enough to get me to commit to three more hours of the show. Knightley and Whishaw were good and the show is stylish but the plot is just not all that interesting to me and the show does too much time-hopping. Robert King (of Evil, The Good Wife, currently Elsbeth and more) tweeted this week "Showrunners should watch more TV so they can experience first hand that sinking feeling whenever "Six months earlier" or "Ten years ago" or "2016" appears on the screen." I don't know if he was specifically inspired to write that from Black Doves but it certainly applies. Just tell a good linear story!!
- With just a couple episodes left, this past week's episode of What We Do in the Shadows felt like it had some higher stakes than your average Shadows episode. I don't think the final season has been the strongest season of the show though it's had plenty of great moments. I just think this need to build to a series finale runs counter to a show as perpetually silly as Shadows. Even with previous season-long arcs, it didn't quite have the weight it has now of having to wrap it all up. I think the writers are doing an admirable job but it's just sometimes hard to create a satisfying ending for a show that seemed like it was built to just run forever.
- I already talked a bit about Shrinking above but I am just loving the second season. The series followed up its series best "Last Drink" with another great episode this past week. I'm impressed that the show can put any combination of its ensemble together at any given time and there's crackling chemistry. It's a great cast for sure but also a great showrunner who is definitely steering the ship in one direction.
- Both the holiday themed episodes of Abbott Elementary were really fun this week and a very festive watch. While I continue to think the show is making Sheryl Lee Ralph's Barbara is being written too broad these days, Lisa Ann Walter's Melissa continues to be better and better. She was exceptionally funny in the "Winter Break" episode. Both episodes also featured Tyler Perez as Jacob's little brother, Caleb, and it was excellent casting.
- Silo continues to have a big time Common problem. A solid episode all the way around (shout out to the great addition of Steve Zahn this season) was spoiled at the end by a really terrible performance, once again, from Common at a pivotal story moment. Might be time to kill that character off.
- Landman is so trashy but so fun. It's one of the most watchable shows on TV right now and I'm not even ashamed to admit that I enjoy it. This must have been how people felt watching Dynasty or Dallas in the 80s.j
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