Television felt big in 2022—not just in the number of shows that débuted (a staggering legion, no doubt) but in the spectacle on display. This was especially apparent in the I.P.-amped fantasy realm. “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” on Amazon Prime Video, earned the dubious distinction of becoming the most expensive series ever made, with a production budget reportedly topping a billion dollars. Its closest rival, HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” featured too many flying lizards to count, and threatened to resuscitate the monoculture that was eulogized alongside “Game of Thrones.” Meanwhile, the “Star Wars” series “Andor,” on Disney+, made planet-hopping akin to boarding a rocket-propelled Greyhound bus.
It’s unclear how much longer TV will stay bulky and bloated; Wall Street’s souring on streaming in the past several months portends a contraction in the entertainment industry that’s already begun, with the shelving of some films and the whittling down of on-demand catalogues. But the grandeur was never necessary to make great television. The most notable—or, if we must, “best”—series of the year reinforced the maxim that TV is a writer’s medium: there were characters and relationships that inspired conversation and reconsideration; settings, tensions, and tone mixtures that we haven’t seen a thousand times before; shows that reimagined worlds that could be, or should never be.
Every Top Ten list is a reflection of a critic’s biases, and this one is shaped, I think, by distinctiveness: the shows that felt, if not always new, then at least like chimeras striving to be nothing more or less than themselves. The traditional knock against TV is that it’s made to be derivative—programs bleeding into one another, and episodes, too—but the following series, arranged in alphabetical order, kept the medium kicking and fresh, and kept me watching.
Christine Baranski, in “The Good Fight.”Photograph by Elizabeth Fisher / Courtesy Paramount+“The Good Fight”(Paramount+)
Arguably the most ambitious series on the list, this spinoff of “The Good Wife” spent most of its mordantly larkish run outdoing the absurdities of the (first?) Trump Administration, then concluded with a political dystopia that exceeds even our own. The final season’s backdrop of a twenty-first-century version of civil war was chillingly convincing, as was the speed with which the characters, to their own alarm, got used to the thrum of violent unrest. Satire has rarely felt as vital as “The Good Fight”—a show that understands that, in order to depict our reality, it must embrace the ridiculous.
Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder, in “Hacks.”Photograph courtesy HBO Max“Hacks”(HBO Max)
There’s perhaps no romance on television more seductive than the platonic one between Jean Smart’s unsentimental mentor Deborah and Hannah Einbinder’s skeptical protégé Ava, in “Hacks.” Set in the unforgiving world of standup comedy, the tart, push-pull series—about two female comics across a generational divide—delivered a nearly flawless second season in 2022. The show continues to surprise its main characters with aspects of themselves they had yet to uncover; the emergence of Deborah’s long-dormant nurturing instincts, after a lifetime of blinkered survival, is as much of a revelation to us as it is to her.
Mo Amer and Teresa Ruiz, in “Mo.”Photograph by Rebecca Brenneman / Courtesy Netflix “Mo”(Netflix)
The semi-autobiographical portrait “Mo” would be accused of doing too many things if it didn’t do them all so well. Created by Mo Amer and Ramy Youssef (the creator and star of “Ramy”), the existential, surrealism-tinged dramedy chronicles the legal limbo of a Palestinian American refugee family while shading in the trilingual, titular protagonist’s multicultural Houston. But the series is strongest as an unflinching interrogation of Mo’s people-pleasing affability—the cheerful self-denial that allows him to fit into a country that won’t let him belong.
Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace, in “My Brilliant Friend.”Photograph by Eduardo Castaldo / Courtesy HBO “My Brilliant Friend”(HBO)
The Italian-language TV adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels may well be the best series routinely ignored even by many critics. The decades-spanning drama—unfalteringly gorgeous in its production, direction, and performances—follows two childhood female friends in postwar Naples, who grow apart in adulthood and yet remain in primal need of each other’s approval. In the most recent season, the series’ third, the pair grapple with their gnarled attempts at liberation while the women’s movement takes root in nineteen-seventies Italy. Few shows achieve the biographical or sociopolitical scope of “My Brilliant Friend”; fewer still are so aching.
Domhnall Gleeson and Steve Carell, in “The Patient.”Photograph by Suzanne Tenner / Courtesy FX“The Patient”(FX on Hulu)
The fine line between intimacy and claustrophobia is where “The Patient” digs in. An emotional naturalism and a dry wit ground the sometimes unbearably tense drama, created by Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg (the duo behind “The Americans”), in which a serial killer (Domhnall Gleeson) kidnaps his therapist (Steve Carell). Oh, and sometimes the killer’s mom (Linda Emond) drops by.
Nathan Fielder, in “The Rehearsal.”Photograph courtesy HBO“The Rehearsal”(HBO)
Of the series on this list, Nathan Fielder’s categorization-defying docu-comedy is the show I enjoyed the least as a viewing experience, but probably the one I’ve thought about the most. Fielder set fire to seemingly millions of HBO dollars to provide his unfortunate participants with elaborate simulacra of difficult conversations or decisions—coming clean to a longtime friend about a secret, for instance, or practicing being a parent. I’m still not sure what’s scripted or not, and what real purpose rehearsing for adversity serves, but there’s a fumbling toward profundity in Fielder’s extravagant trials to test whether self-performance can lead to genuine connection.
Jerrod Carmichael, in “Rothaniel.”Photograph courtesy HBO“Rothaniel”(HBO)
“I didn’t think I’d ever, ever, ever come out,” Jerrod Carmichael says in “Rothaniel,” easily the most innovative comedy special of the year. A fearless departure from the slick, smart-alecky persona that the comedian previously cultivated, the blue-lit set finds Carmichael—not unlike Hannah Gadsby, in “Nanette”—reëxamining the role of catharsis in confessional comedy. Folding in on himself with his gaze often averted from the audience, Carmichael turns his exit from the closet into a high-wire experiment in collaboration and vulnerability.
Bridget Everett, in “Somebody Somewhere.”Photograph courtesy HBO“Somebody Somewhere”(HBO)
An indelible sense of place—the “Little Apple” that is Manhattan, Kansas—gives this modest but confident Bridget Everett vehicle its precise, finely observed core. A generous tale of rediscovering home and possibility in middle age, the dramedy offers few surprises in the way of plot but many reasons to stay and hang, as the local queer community, embodied by the scene-stealers Jeff Hiller and Murray Hill, gradually reveals its warmth and creativity to Everett’s grieving protagonist. It’s a show that invites you to settle in—and will zip by much too fast.
Fred Armisen, Eliza Coupe, Michael Imperioli, Chris Estrada, and Frankie Quiñones, in “This Fool.”Photograph by Gilles Mingasson / Courtesy Hulu“This Fool”(Hulu)
If “Somebody Somewhere” is about finding home in the last place you thought you’d find it, then “This Fool” channels the unease of never feeling quite at peace in the neighborhood—or multigenerational house—where you’ve lived all your life. Set in a gang-rehab nonprofit in a Mexican American community in South Los Angeles, the broad yet incisive comedy is goofy enough to hang an entire episode on Austin Powers and sufficiently precise to dissect how the savior complex that plagues Chris Estrada’s benevolent narcissist, Julio, distracts him from getting his life together. A small ensemble that includes an uncorked Michael Imperioli and an irrepressible Frankie Quiñones adds to the escalating chaos.
Ben Whishaw, in “This Is Going to Hurt.”Photograph by Anika Molnar / Sister Pictures / BBC Studios / AMC“This Is Going to Hurt”(AMC+)
The ob-gyn turned TV writer Adam Kay adapted his own memoir about his hospital years with “This Is Going to Hurt,” a medical drama in which the villains are an overburdened bureaucracy and the casual arrogance of doctors, especially when they believe their good intentions and self-sacrifice buy them the occasional trespass. Ben Whishaw is reliably tremendous as the fictionalized Adam, whom burnout has turned into a sloppier physician, a nastier colleague, and a shabbier boyfriend than he’d care to admit. An unstinting character study and a clear-eyed indictment of a system that ill serves patients and medical professionals alike, the miniseries overachieves by boasting a biting wit and a knee-buckling romance.
Zazie Beetz, Donald Glover, LaKeith Stanfield, and Brian Tyree Henry, in “Atlanta.”Photograph courtesy FX / Everett
Honorable Mentions
- “Abbott Elementary” (ABC)
- “Atlanta” (FX)
- “The Bear” (FX on Hulu)
- “Evil” (Paramount+)
- The January 6th hearings (various networks)
- “Julia” (HBO Max)
- “P-Valley” (Starz)
- “Ramy” (Hulu)
- “Reservation Dogs” (FX on Hulu)
- “Single Drunk Female” (Freeform)
- “We Own This City” (HBO)
Bonus: Documentaries
The unchecked proliferation of docuseries in recent years, especially on streaming services, has tended to underscore the slapdash construction and the unjustifiably long run times so endemic to the genre. But these are the ones I couldn’t tear myself away from:
- “The Murdochs: Empire of Influence” (CNN), a glossy yet substantive family history modelled on “Succession.”
- “We Need to Talk About Cosby” (Showtime), W. Kamau Bell’s tidiness-eschewing reappraisal of the comedian’s legacy.
- “Menudo: Forever Young” (HBO Max), a charisma-laden exploration of the dark side of the influential Puerto Rican boy band.
- “Children of the Underground” (FX), a snapshot of an era when family court regularly failed child victims of sexual abuse, and of a woman who devised a tragically flawed way to fight back.
- “The Big Conn” (Apple TV+), a twist-filled yarn about the showy scammer behind the largest Social Security fraud in history, the disabled casualties he left behind, and the heroic whistle-blowers who dedicated years of their lives trying to get a complicit system to care.
Sourse: newyorker.com
