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There was a LOT of good television this year, which was nice! There's also a LOT of writing about television shows in my Top 10, so click here to avoid all these words and go straight to JUST the Top Ten! There were a lot of shows that would have easily made my Top 10 most any other year that I've had to leave off the final list - a good problem to have! It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia brought the quality it's somehow managed to consistently keep over its long run, but the shortened season meant the series was over just when I thought it was beginning. Only Murders in the Building was delightful as well as gloriously self-indulgently "New York", but it had perhaps the weakest resolution of the main mystery of the three seasons so far and didn't pay off the wonderful character work that preceded the finale. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was a wonderful surprise, One Piece somehow managed to not only be a good live action adaptation of an anime (a near impossibility) but a drat good show in its own right in addition to capturing the spirit of a comic series that is decidedly way weirder than anything you'd expect to see in live action. Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks both fought hard for the #10 spot before eventually both were edged out, but what a treat it has been to get not just one but TWO great Star Trek shows in a single year, and the episode "Those Old Scientists" where both shows came together was a real treat. There was more too: Last of Us was an uneven affair but episode 3 was spectacularly good: Twisted Metal was dumb fun despite the awful, awful teaser video initially released for it; The Mandalorian had its moments; Harley Quinn got a bit of its groove back; and we got to see Raylon Givens chasing fugitives again in Justified! If Fargo had a complete season in 2023 it would have probably made the list too, and there were a bunch more shows I didn't even get a chance to watch: For All Mankind, The Bear, Foundation, The Crown, The Curse etc have all had runs in 2023 I just couldn't get to because, again, we have the wonderful "problem" of so much great television to watch! https://i.imgur.com/EvKzyqc.mp4 10. Paul T. Goldman (Peacock): I watched this show near the start of the year knowing nothing about it beyond it had a lot of buzz, with people utterly enthralled and going out of their way NOT to say too much and give away what was happening, knowing it would work best for viewers to go in fresh. I'm so glad I got to experience that, the "story" of Paul T. Goldman is an incredible experience to see unfold, expertly put together by Jason Woliner over a lengthy period of years as he struggled to find somebody willing to take a chance on a truly bizarre tale. Best known perhaps for directing the sequel to Borat, Woliner has also worked on a variety of shows such as What We Do in the Shadows, Tim & Eric, Nathan for You, W/ Bob & David, Parks & Recreation and Saturday Night Live. As such, coupled with the bizarre subject matter, you're never really sure exactly what you're watching with this show: is it a straight up documentary? A made-up story? Is Paul T. Goldman a real person or an elaborate creation? And if the latter, then WHOSE creation? Did these events really happen? How much of what we are seeing is accurate and how much is being presented either deliberately or unintentionally through a distorted lens? Goldman's own willingness to produce both his own self-published documentary accounts AND fictional dramatic series of novels, and how elements of each thread themselves into his lives, just continually muddies the waters. And the entire time you're left wondering, why is Woliner telling this story? Why did he listen when everybody else Goldman approached in his scattershot manner (wisely?) avoided him like the plague? How much is Woliner indulging a potentially unhinged man's fantasies and how much is he actually setting the stage for his own investigative documentary work? Goldman plays himself but also actively produces the reenactments and scripted fantasies, dragging Woliner in as a character himself in spite of his objections (the actor originally cast as the fictional version of Woliner and his reaction to realizing Goldman is pushing him out of a job is amazing). And the crazy thing is, everything I've just covered barely touches the surface level of what is going on with this series. The depths of insanity just seem to keep going, and even now almost a year later I'm still not entirely certain if what I watched was pure fiction, or if Paul T. Goldman is a person who really does exist and who really has done all the things - comical, sometimes pitiful, sometimes endearing, sometimes outright despicable and cruel - he claims he has, unaware himself of just how it makes him look. Or perhaps, aware and willing to put up with it all out of a desperate need to be seen, to matter, for people to remember him and his life and to be more than the man who may have felt he had nothing to show for a lifetime of foiled ambition and an inability to find the love he so clearly desperately wants. I'll certainly never forget him, even if I don't think I'll ever truly understand him. https://i.imgur.com/fWgQTkD.mp4 9. Loki (Disney+): Disney's most recent fare Marvel and Star Wars wise have ranged from mixed (The Mandalorian) to disappointing (Ahsoka) to outright awful (Secret Invasion). So season 2 of Loki was a welcome change, immediately picking up from where Season 1 left off and standing out if only for the superb art direction, set design and the welcome inclusion of Ke Huy Quan as a new regular cast member. But the first 4 episodes also felt oddly disconnected, like we weren't getting the full story, or there were gaps in the writing. Each episode was still fine in isolation, but I wasn't entirely sure what the overall thrust of the season was supposed to be, what the big story was. I put some of this down to Jonathan Majors being a significant part of the season and assumed they might have had to shoot around some problems due to his legal issues (he's since been found guilty and immediately dropped by Marvel and will no longer be playing Kang in the future, when he was originally intended as the new major antagonist for the upcoming movies). But then at the end of episode 4, everything changed, with episode 5 recontextualizing aspects of the first four episodes and the final episode bringing everything from the last two seasons AND Loki's character since the start of the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" together into an incredibly beautiful and cathartic ending. There are still problems with those first four episodes, I still feel like there are parts missing, that some things weren't shot or weren't explained well, either lost on the cutting room floor or through gaps in the initial writing. But the series finished SO strongly that it's easy for me to overlook it. After continually trying to find solutions or ways to solve the problems caused by Sylvie's (very justified!) actions at the end of Season 1, Loki finally realizes what he has been doing wrong. His rejection of He Who Remains' structure, ceasing to try and find solutions to problems that have been designed to have only one possible (and horrible) solution, is all perfectly reflected in a line from an earlier episode where Sylvie complains about playing Gods and he reminds her that this is exactly what they are. In Episode 6, Loki realizes what being a God actually means, and he achieves everything his villainous self once dreamed of... but not in the way that version of himself thought he wanted. Being a God is sacrificing yourself for others, using your power FOR them, not using them to make yourself feel better. Loki stops sacrificing others, he stops trying to find a way to have it all, and in doing so he achieves a Godhood/Immortality that is beautiful to see unfold. The realization that putting himself at the center of the flow of time and keeping the dying strands of alternate timelines alive so they can "have a chance" has literally created Yggdrasil is a stunningly beautiful moment: this is where Loki was always going, but it isn't predestination, it isn't part of some grand design. It is a person who came to the TVA a selfish, monstrous killer who thought only about himself realizing that he cares more about letting others have a choice than having power for himself. As the culmination of a character's growth across over a decade, multiple films and television series, it makes Tom Hiddleston's Loki one of the most complete characters the MCU has produced, and while I love his portrayal I would be more than happy for this to be the last we ever see of him. Nothing else could possibly top the ending he got here. https://i.imgur.com/eZBKcng.mp4 8. Scavengers Reign (HBO Max): What? No seriously... WHAT!?! This bizarre, beautiful, stunningly animated series left me continually confused and often horrified, but also utterly fascinated and enthralled. Telling the story of the survivors of a starship disaster whose escape pods crashed on the planet Vesta, the series is 20% a story of survival and 80% a Nature Documentary series... except it's for an alien planet where the ecology is completely unknown and outright inscrutable in parts. I feel like I could watch in amazement endless segments of the various flora and fauna interacting in this bizarre environment. Everything feels like it has been carefully thought out and understood by the writers, all the result of nature and evolution... but a foreign nature and a completely different environment that produced an evolution unlike anything we have seen on Earth. Throwing humans into the mix leads to an endless series of calamities (and, to be fair, some deeply beautiful moments) as they find themselves struggling to fit in with an utterly alien ecosystem that they're simply not designed to exist in. There are interesting examinations of guilt, fear and loneliness as well as what classifies as sentience. Sometimes alien entities appear to be acting with specific, conscious intent but it's never entirely clear if we're simply seeing instinct and survival imperatives and assigning self-awareness, malice or benevolence to them in an effort to understand them. The planet is deadly, but it teems with life, and that life by its nature is often completely inimical to human life. Everything can be reduced to creatures or plants that are simply trying to survive, but the same can be said of humans and life on our own planet, and just like in wildlife documentaries, as a viewer you find yourself rooting for both prey AND predator, understanding that ultimately life requires death to continue to exist. Meanwhile, we get just enough glimpses of the backstory of the various humans to help flesh out characters who we first meet in situations completely outside of their normal scope of understanding. There are heroes and villains, but even the outright villainous characters we get some understanding of why they are what they are. It's an insight we very specifically do not get with the alien creatures (outside of one very unique exception - the human woman who has been infected by a parasite for decades and it isn't entirely clear how much of her is even "her" anymore), a deliberate choice that both leaves us to interpret their behavior for ourselves, but also to really hammer home the sense that these are the "other" as the human survivors must surely think of them. That the series ends with the humans figuring out how to not just survive but blend in with this alien environment is I think a hopeful note, with the one successful escapee seen to have ended up in a far worse situation than she would have been in if she'd accepted that you can't always think only about yourself. There might be a sequel, but there might not, and I'd be happy with that, because this isn't a series I think really needs answers to the many questions it raised. Whether we ever get answers or not, this is a show I will be thinking about for a very long time to come. https://i.imgur.com/zwWDNSu.mp4 7. Beef (Netflix): I heard good things about this show so I watched the first couple of episodes and... yeah, it was good. Nothing special, but an interesting enough premise: a stupid road rage incident showcases the differing lives of the two drivers: an angry failure of a man and a frustrated success of a woman. But then I watched the third episode and it was really good so I watched the 4th, and then the 5th, and 6th, and onwards until I'd watched the entire 10 episode run, unable to take my eyes of the utter trainwreck that was both their constantly intersecting lives. Ali Wong gives a great performance, and she more than earns her co-top billing, but for me personally it was Steven Yeun's performance that really blew me away. Probably best known for The Walking Dead (and one of the redeeming features of that honestly quite dreadful show) but also turning in a great performance in Nope, his role as Danny Cho blows them all out of the water. Getting the context behind his attempt to return a grill in the first episode is just the start of seeing the deep well of depression that Danny has ended up in after a life of failure, of getting walked all over, of feeling like if he could JUST get a chance he could make a success of his life but never quite grasping (at least permanently) how much he is to blame for a large amount of the problems in his life. When he breaks down in the Church, as seen in the mp4 above, it's a deeply moving performance and just one example of how Yeun really makes you buy into Danny as a character, as a person, and to feel pity for him even as you understand that he's either the cause of, or makes worse, the problems and setbacks he meets in life. The petty one-up-manship between him and Ali Wong's Amy mostly serve as distractions to the massive problems in their own lives that they're refusing to face up to. Each have more in common than they'd ever want to admit, and the final episode where they literally see things from a different perspective is a fantastic bit of storytelling. But it's not just two great performances from two great actors. It's an entire created world, their families, the side characters, the business, the Church, the motel, the construction business etc all feel part of something real. Where shows like Scavengers' Reign and Loki deal with the fantastical, and Paul T. Goldman plays around with a sense of the unreal, the surreal elements of Beef are given a light touch that makes them feel like a just slightly elevated version of the real world. You can see characters like Danny and Amy existing, and while their lives might not interact as often as they do in the show, you can see similar situations arising, you can see people letting things get out-of-hand because of ego or a need to vent out their anger on a stranger that they can't on family, friends or workmates. If you were to take the events of the last two episodes and apply them to the first, it would seem like the story had gone over-the-top and lost touch with reality. But that's kind of the point, road rage is an over-the-top reaction to the inconsequential and mundane. This is just taken to an extreme in Beef, and it is to the credit of the show that by the time it reaches its most over-the-top point everything has slowly built up to the extent that you can see the twisted logic in Danny and Amy's desperate efforts to exert control over the chaotic forces of a world they feel isn't playing fair with them. https://i.imgur.com/4ogGXYL.mp4 6. What We Do in the Shadows (FX): While I've enjoyed every season of this show so far, the last couple of seasons before this one had felt somewhat "weaker" than the first two, even if they retained a relatively high standard that I'd be pleased to see most shows meet. But this latest season has felt like a real return to the superb form of the first 2 seasons, and perhaps the most "complete" season so far. It is a season that has managed to both keep up the silly vampire hijinks of individual episodes as well as having a running major plot-point. Guillermo's decision at the end of the previous season to shortcut his master's seeming unwillingness to turn him, instead paying another vampire to make the change for him, ends up having wild repercussions he should have seen coming. The entire season is fallout from that decision, and while the stakes are deadly serious for all involved, it is of course pure comedy all the way through, running parallel to a series of subplots for the other characters that turn out to have been orchestrated for a fittingly stupid purpose - Kristen Schwaal's Guide doesn't like that they don't include her as part of the gang and so fucks with them a bit, goes off the deep end and tries to murder them and then is tricked into liking them all again with a hilariously transparent ploy. Each of the main cast gets a chance to shine and for the most part each of their stories are hilarious: a bizarre subplot around Nadja making friends with a lady who likes donuts is confusingly bad, and the exception that otherwise proves the rule. You have Energy Vampire ColinRobinson getting into local politics and finding himself forced to become charismatic and exciting after an amazing encounter with his astonishingly boring superiors; Nadja discovering she has been cursed and reconnecting with her roots; Laszlo conducting mad science experiments on Guillermo and his stalled transformation; Nadja swapping bodies with the doll that holds her soul resulting in ColinRobinson ALSO inside her body and both of them having enthusiastic sex with Laszlo; Nadja taking Guillermo to the Familiar "Vet"; the vampires offering then forgetting to plan a Pride Parade that turns into a massive success; Nandor going to space; ColinRobinson getting run over by John Slattery; the vampires at the mall; Nandor and ColinRobinson teaching history; Nandor becoming friends with then killing then mourning Patton Oswalt; and in perhaps the best episode of the entire season a disastrous local news interview with Nandor ending in the vampires literally assaulting a news agency while it's in the middle of a broadcast and then continuing the broadcast in their slaughtered victims' place. But through all this continues the story of Guillermo both trying to figure out why he can't complete his transformation and hiding the truth from Nandor. This leads to a surprisingly emotional payoff, as well as moments throughout the season and particularly the final episode where Guillermo starts thinking about the reality of the implications of being a vampire for the first time. A section where he has a realization about a shampoo purchase is shockingly powerful, and it leads to a climax that some might call pat but which I thought was a beautiful way to wrap up the season, as well as set the stage for what would appear to be a final upcoming season that finally ends the show while it is still on top. I never dreamed a television version of a rather obscure New Zealand comedy film would end up being so good, and that it has remained so good for five seasons and in fact just had one of its strongest seasons here is nothing short of a miracle. https://i.imgur.com/6ECsqUe.mp4 5. Barry (HBO): The cliffhanger finale to the previous season of Barry suggested some particular ideas of where the show might go, but probably nobody could have predicted where the show did go... or if they did, could not have guessed how quickly that would change. Because this final season goes some wild places, and even just one of the multiple storylines that unfold could have carried an entire season. One of the major thrusts of the show over the previous season was co-creator Bill Hader's efforts to remind people that Barry is a monstrous, dangerous person, and this last season continues that. But while the mask is off and everybody in the show is now fully aware of what Barry is, it doesn't change that characters still find themselves drawn into his orbit, whether out of love, fascination, need, or a desperate desire to believe something good can come out of the trail of dead bodies left in his wake. Whether it is Sally, Gene, NoHo Hank or the impressively repulsive Fuches, characters can't seem to resist trying to involve themselves with him, usually for very selfish reasons. A recurring theme of the season is that people just can't ever leave well enough alone. Many of the characters triumph. They achieve. They succeed. They win... and then they just can't help themselves, they have to go for just a little bit more, try for just a little bit extra, go just that one extra step. Part of this relates to the LA/Hollywood setting, but you can only blame the environment so much because even those characters who separate (by choice or by force) from that setting find themselves in the same boat. Characters COULD have been happy, they COULD have just let things go, and in many cases they weren't even called back by seeing others go unpunished, they just wanted MORE, they just wanted things on their own terms, and seeking just that little bit more is their undoing. Even Robert Wisdom's Jim Moss, who in the previous season was unique in that he was a character who just did what was the right thing and refused to let himself be roped into trying to game the system for his own benefit, ends up letting himself get caught up in the bullshit to a certain extent. It's both maddening and enthralling to see how everything falls apart for everybody, how people snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, but also to see where everybody eventually ends up: those who find some measure of peace, those who just can't let things go, and how in the end things like the truth or reality become lost in that same enticing artifice that drew Barry into the acting class way back in Season One. Throughout, there are astonishing performances from Sarah Goldberg, Stephen Root and Henry Winkler but it feels wrong to single them out when EVERYBODY involved is bringing their A Game. Hader's Barry is an incredible creation, both in writing and performance, and Anthony Carrigan's NoHo Hank could have so easily been a one-note joke and one-dimensional performance but ends up being so much more. It's fantastic to see a show end so strongly, much like Atlanta did in 2022, and in this case so clearly and definitively. I'll miss the series, I'll miss the characters, but I'm also glad that it's over, because the story feels complete and I am more than satisfied with what I got. https://i.imgur.com/Er91Fw4.mp4 4. Poker Face (Peacock): Rian Johnson did a very clever thing, and tricked NBC into making a new season of Columbo, only instead of the detective being a somewhat rumpled police lieutenant he's now a burned out not-quite-Vegas cocktail waitress who can tell when people are lying. That description sounds awful, and that's because I'm neither Rian Johnson or Natasha Lyonne, both who are far more talented than I can ever dream of being. The show is incredibly entertaining, optimistic without being saccharine, realistic without being cynical, and somehow turns what is essentially a magical super power into an entirely believable thing that Lyonne's Charlie just happens to be capable of. Importantly, Charlie's talent doesn't make her a genius, what helps her solve crimes is how incredibly dogged she is, but she's no mastermind, and is too naturally truthful for her own good, usually giving away more than she should to the criminals who then weaponize her own talent against her, or at least neutralize it. Like Columbo, every episode opens with some background time with characters before the crime occurs. Unlike Columbo, the show will then slip back to the events we've just seen to reveal Charlie was (unknowingly) on the periphery, recontextualizing what we've seen to give us a fuller story even than what Charlie is aware of. Like Columbo, every week is a new crime, new people, a new location. Unlike Columbo, there's also a overarching season long story as Charlie continues to be on the run following the events of the first episode. That all wraps up in very satisfying fashion in the season finale and sets up a new reason for Charlie's endless roadtrip to continue for the next season, and more crimes, mysteries (howcatch'em? rather than whodunnit?) and - in pure Columbo fashion - various well-known actors thrilling to the chance to play the villain and chew some scenery. And boy do they! Adrien Brody, Ron Perlman, Chloë Sevigny, Judith Light, S. Epatha Merkerson, Ellen Barkin, Tim Meadows, Jameela Jamil, Tim Blake Nelson, Nick Nolte, Luis Guzmán, Tim Russ, Cherry Jones, Stephanie Hsu, Rhea Perlman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and more all appear as murderers, victims or delightful supporting characters. The show goes to some dark places but never loses its delightful sense of humor. It rarely ventures into the high class, even the rich in this series are for the most part involved on the periphery, and mostly what we see are people on the edge: near bankrupt, ostracized in some way, struggling to survive, feeling poo poo on or overlooked by society. None of it excuses their crimes, but you get to see (mostly) why they find themselves in the position they're in, and why they took the moral shortcut or short-term action they did. Everything after that is an attempt to cover up their crime, all while Lyonne's Charlie - much like Columbo - continues to burrow away at them relentlessly like a tick, asking awkward questions, uncovering holes in their stories, prying open the edges of their alibis and cover stories until they're fully exposed to the light. It's a fantastic creation, exceptionally funny, endlessly entertaining, and somehow Natasha Lyonne of all people is now the closest thing to Peter Falk you can get in the 2020s. https://i.imgur.com/PYpuqj6.mp4 3. Doctor Who (BBC): After two and a half seasons and three specials of sadly bland material that utterly wasted Jodie Whittaker in the lead role, Chris Chibnall wrapped up his time as showrunner of Doctor Who in October of 2022. We already knew his replacement, and it had raised some eyebrows. Russell T. Davies, who had brought the show back from a 16 year (outside a single TV movie blip in 1996) hiatus, was returning to act as showrunner once more... and this time he was bringing Disney? Doctor Who, while still a BBC show, was now being produced by Davies' "Bad Wolf Productions" and was going into a streaming partnership with Disney. People were both excited and nervous about this: RTD's original run on the show was a mixed bag of high stakes, exhilarating nonsense that often carried the viewer (i.e, me!) away in the moment but didn't always stand up to any further scrutiny. Anything had to be better than Chibnall's bland nonsense though, surely? But still... going back to an old showrunner seemed like the BBC was admitting they were out of ideas, that nobody else wanted the job, and this was a hail mary to keep the show relevant. Davies going straight back to old stars David Tennant and Catherine Tate to feature in the three specials to air to mark the show's 60th Anniversary also suggested maybe he was just going to be rehashing prior material. Never doubt that glorious mad Welsh Giant. From the second RTD took over the show to film the back half of the regeneration sequence for Whittaker's final episode, the energy and astonishment was back at full force. Having announced already that Ncuti Gatwa of Sex Education fame would be playing the next Doctor, everybody expected to see Gatwa appear at the end of the episode, and he'd be a part of the three specials with David Tennant along for the ride to help ease the audience into the new actor. Instead, David Tennant appeared, seemingly as confused as everybody else... and then we had to wait over a year to find out what happened next! And what happened next was glorious! Across three specials, David Tennant and Catherine Tate allowed Russell T. Davies to update and revive his own initial revival of the show, to address and fix those things he felt hadn't been properly addressed or handled by himself during his time in charge, but also to pay homage to and incorporate everything that has happened in the show since he left. Remarkably, in only a single line he managed to turn Chibnall's rightfully hated "Timeless Child" nonsense storyline into something intriguing, and to continue to make lemonade from those lemons all the way through to the Christmas Special that marked Ncuti Gatwa's first full episode as the Doctor. Each special allowed RTD to showcase a different style of story and remind the audience just how strong a writer he can be when he's on: a traditional "alien lands on Earth and things get frantic" episode; a frankly terrifying exploration of some Lovecraftian horrors from beyond the universe; and a joyfully self-indulgent deep dive into Doctor Who's own deep history that also served to update and adapt characters from the 1960s that wouldn't (and absolutely shouldn't) work in the 2020s. Tennant and Tate's delightful chemistry from their 2008 run on the show hadn't just survived but deepened, we got to see the wonderful Bernard Cribbins one more time, but the show made certain not to simply just wallow in nostalgia for its own sake. The mp4 above (somewhat comically) showcased just how deeply hosed up a lot of what the Doctor had been through over the last 15 years and used that to strong story effect to create a deeply satisfying "end" to David Tennant's second run as the Doctor, as well as explain (not that it's REALLY needed) why Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor (who absolutely RADIATES energy and charisma) can really be a clean slate and continue his adventures fresh and revitalized and full of new energy. That's what Doctor Who feels like now, after 3 Anniversary Specials for Tennant and a Christmas Special for Gatwa: fresh and revitalized. RTD isn't simply playing his greatest hits (and those are pretty great!) but doing in 2023 what he once did in 2005: saving Doctor Who. Thank God. https://i.imgur.com/R8Zq7Jq.mp4 2. Succession (HBO): The tough thing isn't to catch a tiger by it's tail, it's letting it go. That's how it must feel to be the lead writer/showrunner on a show like Succession. Here you've got an extremely popular show, lauded for its writing, direction, characters, costuming, acting, scoring and themes... and now you've got to wrap it all up in 10 episodes in a way that pays off all that, that wraps up its characters and the major (and minor!) storylines and does it all in a way that is satisfying and hopefully more than just competent. After reaching the end of Season 3 I was starting to think the show was already feeling a little too stretched out and the storylines too thin, the characters just a bit too repetitive. Maybe Jesse Armstrong felt the same way, or maybe this was always the plan, but season 4 changes up the status quo in a major way and leads to one of the most breathlessly confident and self-assured finales to a major prestige drama series I've ever seen. By the time that limo drove away, that drink was poured, that final haunted look out over the river was taken, I was in awe of just how strong a finish the show had managed, how much it had nailed the landing and then strutted confidently off to wait on top scores from all the judges. But perhaps the second most audacious thing the show did was to kill off Brian Cox in only the third episode of the season, with the most audacious being the decision to have that death happen entirely off-screen, leaving us to watch as the Roy children AND Logan's various hangers-on, confidants, employees and cronies tried to figure out what a post-Logan world meant for them. The camerawork in that episode is masterfully handled, turning the viewers into voyeurs, giving us the sense that we're somewhere we're not supposed to be, privy to things that we shouldn't be involved in. But then, EVERYTHING in the show was so meticulously handled, and not just in that episode. Each of the actors gives the performance of their careers throughout this season, most of them getting real chances to shine but none more-so than the main Roy children. Alan Ruck's Connor, the ACTUAL "eldest boy", is deliberately sidelined many times but shines when he has his moments, but it is Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook and Kieran Culkin who steal the show as we watch the combustible mix of their simultaneous love/hatred for their father, the business, each other and in particular themselves. They sabotage each other, they self-sabotage, but they also can't keep away, they long to work together, they crave togetherness... it's just that none of them can stand the idea of one of the others "winning". That's the ultimate result of Logan Roy's manipulations and abuse of them. An early episode and a conversation with his bodyguard gives the clearest indication ever of what every viewer must have suspected but the Roy children themselves never quite seemed to grasp: Logan was NEVER going to name a successor, because he simply doesn't care about what happens to the business after he dies, it can succeed or fail and anybody can run it, but it won't be him and it won't affect him, because he'll be dead. The only thought to a post-death future he gives is buying a mausoleum to hold his mortal remains, and the only nod to thinking of his children's future beyond that is reserving places for their corpses to eventually join his. Which is not to say he doesn't love them, the karaoke episode makes it clear he does, but they're phenomenally rich already, they'll be fine. For Logan, "succession" would mean giving them what he feels he earned himself. If they want to make their own success, they can go ahead and do it themselves (they're all billionaires, remember!), but while he was alive "succession was a handy tool for getting them to do what he wanted them to do. Once he's dead... who cares? Logan Roy is a monster (albeit a beautifully acted one by Brian Cox) and he casts a long, long shadow over his children. They have become so caught up in trying to please him, to best him, to equal him, to destroy him, to be embraced by him that they've seemingly lost the capability to ever be happy. That's ultimately what he gave them, a gnawing sense of doubt and unhappiness that nothing could ever fill because he would never give it to them. "It was so warm in the light" Shiv remarks at one pivotal point in the series, and it's a beautiful line that speaks to how often he left them in the dark, cold and shivering but also thinking about that rare warmth, that almost never seen light. A moment during a late episode shows us a side of Logan we haven't seen, and it's clear the kids have almost never seen it either, as they watch a recording of a casual dinner Logan held at home with colleagues from work and his "eldest boy" Connor, the latter having an ease of place and acceptance that they've all craved, never suspecting that the "failed first experiment" son had it all along. This write-up barely touches on the many fantastic storylines that ran through the season (the election episode in particular is incredible) and that's because they fit SO MUCH into these ten episodes. Whenever a show this good in every aspect comes along you cherish it, and when it's done you wonder if any show could possibly ever again live up to it. Something will come along, certainly, and it'll be great in an entirely different way. So it was for Succession, so different to Mad Men which was so different to The Sopranos or The Wire or Breaking Bad or Deadwood so many of the other "great" television series we've been lucky enough to have. In a pretty great year for television, this was almost the best television show of 2023. Almost. https://i.imgur.com/LaDqjN8.mp4 1. Slow Horses (Apple TV+): I didn't even know this loving show existed, and yet here it is, the best show of 2023! A show seemingly built from the ground up to appeal specifically to me, Jerusalem! Filming two seasons of 6 episodes each at a time, Seasons 1 and 2 aired in 2022 before a year long gap before Season 3 started at the end of November of 2023. When I heard there was a British Spy Drama starring Gary Oldman, I leaped on it, assuming I would be getting something like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and that Oldman would be playing a George Smiley type. And I was right! That's EXACTLY what this show is... provided The Circus was a lovely two story office building and Smiley was a slovenly drunk with bad gas relegated to looking after all the British Secret Service's rejects and failures! Revolving around "Slough House", the dumping ground for agents who have hosed up badly enough to disqualify them from actual spy work but not quite bad enough to warrant outright firing, the show's setting makes Le Carre's novels seem like the exciting, glamor-filled excesses of Fleming's Bond novels. It's not an exciting and sexy place to work, and that clearly rankles on the man who clearly thinks of himself as the central character of one of those exciting spy novels, River Cartwright, whose name and physical appearance all seem custom-built by an excitable author to be a super-spy. A disastrous training exercise at Stansted Airport see him dumped at Slough House however, and over three seasons we continually see him unable to quite shake off the idea that he's one daring rescue or successful fieldwork operation away from a triumphant return to "The Park". He's not the only one with delusions of grandeur though, each of his colleagues has some excuse for their gently caress-up, or hope that hard work will get them back to the beating heart of the service. Only Oldman's Jackson Lamb appears content to remain where he is, drinking and farting his way through ignoring the continually piling up meaningless paperwork until he dies. Which, of course, in the best George Smiley tradition leads to the reveal that he's an exceptionally talented Cold War era spy who keeps finding himself begrudgingly tied back into major events as the overly complicated schemes of old enemies, meddling politicians and his own service keep blowing up in their faces and he has to save his people and avoid them, Slough House and himself becoming collateral damage. It's hard to imagine anybody playing Lamb as well as Oldman does. Part of that is because this is the only portrayal of the character we've seen, of course, but there are few actors who could simultaneously pull off a character being simultaneously a fat, slovenly, disgusting old wreck of a man AND a highly competent, sharp-minded and extremely dangerous spy and not have at least one of those roles feel like just that: a role. Oldman, as he almost always does, disappears completely into the role. You don't see Dracula. You don't see Sid Vicious. You don't see Beethoven or Mason Verger or Sirius Black or Commissioner Gordon or Norman Stansfield. Most importantly, you don't see George Smiley. But you don't see Gary Oldman either. You see Jackson Lamb, and you simultaneously believe he's a useless wreck AND a frighteningly competent and dangerous spymaster. Season 3 is perhaps more action oriented than the previous two seasons which were somewhat lower-stakes and more cerebral, but it's also a season where it's clear the actors have settled in well to their roles, the writers are confident, characters have some depth that is allowing them to develop, and there is enough familiarity that you can absolutely see and accept how they adapt to the rather wild situation they find themselves in. More to the point though, the real joy of the series is seeing the competencies (or incompetencies sometimes) of the spies leading them down multiple different paths, how they get to where they're going, the mistakes the make but also the little triumphs they have.... most especially because almost always at the end of that road is Jackson Lamb, who we've also seen walking his own path, waiting for them and grumpily informing them he's already figured out or handled the situation that they're proudly trying to explain to him now. Lamb isn't some superman, he's far from flawless (far, far, FARRRRRRR from flawless) but he's somebody with real talent and skill who - for reasons made clear at the end of Season 1 - has decided he just doesn't want to be active anymore but knows he can't hack it as a civilian. But those old instincts die hard, and one rule he always stands by is that he looks after his "Joes". It doesn't matter if he detests them, or if he's actively trying to get them to quit most of the time, or if he thinks they're useless. They're HIS Joes, and woe betide anybody who harms a hair on their loser heads. In a year of incredible television, Slow Horses blew me away and I devoured all three seasons in a couple of weeks, and I'm desperate for the fourth season hopefully sooner rather than later in 2024. It mixes comedy, drama and intrigue masterfully well, and the episodes just carried me away so the only thing that stopped me from watching another was that I had to wait for the final episode (which came out yesterday!) and now I have to wait for 2024. This was, quite easily, the best television show of the year. Edit: Fixed some typos. Jerusalem fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Dec 30, 2023 |
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Dec 28, 2023 06:04
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A simple version of my Top Ten without all the  10. Paul T. Goldman 9. Loki 8. Scavengers Reign 7. Beef 6. What We Do in the Shadows 5. Barry 4. Poker Face 3. Doctor Who 2. Succession 1. Slow Horses
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Dec 28, 2023 06:05
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Yeah, I was really considering putting it on and decided to hold off both because I'd like to see the whole thing before I land on where it should sit, and because after Season 3 and 4 I'm a little concerned they won't stick the landing of what has been a fantastic season so far.
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Dec 31, 2023 00:31
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Up until the final preview for it I was expecting it to be dogshit awful, then I felt a terrible and loathsome sliver of hope, and then it turned out to be shockingly good and I can't wait for season 2.
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Dec 31, 2023 03:05
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Sorry Looten, I forgot to add my list to the Google Form, then it yelled at me for being too long  so I hope it has gone through now!
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Jan 1, 2024 05:33
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Big Bad Voodoo Lou posted:Think of The Righteous Gemstones as the sitcom version of Succession So... Arrested Development?  I keep meaning to watch Righteous Gemstones, I just never seem to have the time, but it looks right up my alley (in that it has Walt Goggins in it).
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Jan 2, 2024 02:38
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I'm so disappointed they're not going to make another season of Willow. It had plenty of flaws, but it felt like everybody was having an absolute blast making it.
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Jan 16, 2024 11:48
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Shneak posted:Man do I have a list for you! Love those gifs! Shneak posted:We even saw Ash’s dad (in a silhouette). Why was Professor Oak standing in the shadows? When CNN literally put up a breaking news story I saw it on my phone and said out loud,"Holy poo poo, Ash won a Pokemon league" without thinking, and the people in the room I was with actually cheered to hear the news. That's how you know something has REALLY permeated the pop culture consciousness I guess! Shneak posted:1. BEEF I'm probably going to regret asking, but what is the controversy? 
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Jan 17, 2024 03:36
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Fargo ended so goddamn strong, it's gonna have to be an incredible year of television for it not to make my 2024 list.
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Jan 17, 2024 11:58
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Hell of a list, and just to reiterate the often-made point that it's remarkable how confidently and strongly Succession landed their finale. For a show that I felt was already stretching a bit thin in season 3, to deliver such a strong final season and such an incredible finale episode was nothing short of remarkable. Every year I meant to start Reservation Dogs and just never got around to it, but it's done now so there's no excuse not to catch up on the whole thing. Also I really have to watch the second season of The Bear, but I gotta be in the right headspace for it. Season 1 was fantastic but incredibly tense/anxiety-inducing and my understanding is that Season 2 just ramps that up even further.
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Jan 18, 2024 00:17
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Beef absolutely rules and Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was a delightful surprise, definitely worth catching both, particularly Beef.
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Jan 18, 2024 02:03
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Ive never even heard of Fired on Mars before now!
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Jan 29, 2024 17:16
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Great list Rarity, I really liked your explanation for your top pick. However, my main takeaway is...Rarity posted:next season ... we’re also getting ... Shohreh fricking Aghdashloo! Season 1 of Wheel of Time was kinda generic and I never really felt the need to bother with season 2 as a result, but I've heard it was better and the above news makes me keen to catch up! 
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Jan 31, 2024 01:00
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Come on, I have to get angry about Slow Horses not winning! 
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Feb 5, 2024 14:36
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Looking forward to it as always, thanks Looten 
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Feb 6, 2024 14:06
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Awww yeaaah 
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Feb 14, 2024 13:27
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drat, was hoping to catch this live, looks like it is still going though! 
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Feb 22, 2024 04:23
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There's a 6 next to the #1 ranking for Slow Horses, that's a wild typo!  Legit surprised that WWDitS was outside of the top 20!
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Feb 22, 2024 05:10
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Thanks Looten, some drat good shows in that Top Ten. Good work, goons!
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Feb 22, 2024 05:43
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Yeah, I'm delighted at how high Scavengers Reign ranked, it was so loving good (and weird!)
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Feb 24, 2024 04:49
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