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Some seriously good contenders for the top spot this year. Can’t wait to see people’s lists! I personally will be waiting for shows like Fargo, The Curse, and For All Mankind, that have already aired most of their seasons but won’t finish until January, to have aired their finales before I finalise my list.
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Dec 23, 2023 13:24
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 16:18 |
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The One Piece adaptation really does loving rule. I don’t know yet where it will end up on my list, because I haven’t ranked anything yet, but I really appreciated how it wasn’t at all embarrassed about its source material, and how it ended up being extremely funny and ridiculous and wholesome.
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Dec 31, 2023 02:53
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Does this thread have a rule about not criticising other people’s choices?…….it does. poo poo.
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Jan 3, 2024 11:29
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haha but it’s not about hating the show in general! I thought Ted Lasso s1 was great and 2 was superb. But then 3 was maybe the largest nosedive I’ve ever seen from a show I previously enjoyed.
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Jan 4, 2024 02:00
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You may be taking this a little personally
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Jan 4, 2024 02:50
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I think the Beef controversy is mostly about one of the cast members being a huge piece of poo poo? I don’t think it sours the show as a whole. Anyway now Fargo is over I can begin making my list!!!
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Jan 17, 2024 11:46
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I disagree with every part of that post tbh! I’m not gonna be putting it on my 2024 list anyway.
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Jan 17, 2024 15:25
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poo poo!!!!!!
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Jan 17, 2024 17:45
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Welcome, everyone, to TV’s biggest night! No, not that one from the other day with the jerks who hate Better Call Saul, but the night Esco posts his TV GOTY list! I managed to be a tiny bit restrained with the shows I watched this year - by which I mean I only watched around 150 shows instead of closer to 200 - but there were still a lot of great things that I feel lots of feelings about. Starting off, as ever, with 50-26 presented without comment, because I’m not quite mad enough to write that much: 50. Never Have I Ever (Netflix) 49. Copenhagen Cowboy (Netflix) 48. Solar Opposites (Hulu) 47. Summer Camp Island (Cartoon Network) 46. Primo (Amazon Freevee) 45. Ten Year Old Tom (Max) 44. Minx (Starz) 43. The Great (Hulu) 42. Dark Winds (AMC) 41. The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (Netflix) 40. Shrinking (Apple TV+) 39. Abbott Elementary (ABC) 38. Barry (HBO) 37. Hilda (Netflix) 36. Clone High (Max) 35. Dave (FXX) 34. Somebody Somewhere (HBO) 33. Royal Crackers (Adult Swim) 32. Unstable (Netflix) 31. Pantheon (Prime Video, but only in Aus/NZ, for some reason, this show was really done dirty) 30. Jury Duty (Amazon Freevee) 29. Slow Horses (Apple TV+) 28. Pluto (Netflix) 27. One Piece (Netflix) 26. Dead Ringers (Prime Video) Wow! There were some in there I thought would be much closer to the top 10, especially those final two. What a year! Now I’m gonna start writing words because everything from here on deserves to be spoken about : 25. The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix) I spent a lot of September-November this year ignoring most TV in favour of Long rear end Video Games, and when I started catching up with stuff this is one I left until quite near the end, having not really cared about Mike Flanagan stuff since Hill House. However, this ended up being my favourite work of his to date! Very spooky with an excellent set of characters and solid set-pieces and eat the rich thematic material. 24. Blue Eye Samurai (Netflix) I don’t know what I can add to the effusive praise around this show. It’s unbelievably beautiful, gorgeously-animated, well-paced, and has an amazing voice cast. I didn’t love the writing quite as much as many here, but I’m still very much looking forward to season 2. 23. What We Do in the Shadows (FX) I’ve been up and down on WWDITS for a little while, but this was my favourite season in years. Utterly hilarious and ridiculous while having a very strong backbone in Guillmero’s storyline. I’ll be sad when it ends but I think six seasons is the perfect run. 22. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Prime Video) Maisel ended its run with its best season since the first, and a great reminder of why I fell in love with this show to begin with. Effortlessly funny with solid arcs for its leads and flash-forwards that many had issues with but I thought were great! Very pleased this found its footing again and went out on close to a high. 21. Blindspotting (Starz) I didn’t love it quite like I did in its impeccable first season, but this was still a poignant, powerful, and frequently funny as hell look at how imprisonment affects people and a character study of this Oakland family. The cancellation is a freakin crime!!!! 20. Taskmaster (Channel 4) This has been a comfort food mainstay for many for a long time now, but it near enough topped itself this year. The first season aired was very, very funny, but the second (which I was lucky enough to accept a taping for the premiere of….grammar?) was absolutely incredible, easily one of the all-time great seasons of the show, with such a wonderful eclectic collection of contestants who worked very well together. 19. Carol & The End of The World (Netflix) This was a real last-minute surprise. Netflix wouldn’t stop bothering me about this one before it premiered, and I like Martha Kelly so I thought I’d give it a shot…..and I was treated to an incredibly moving depiction of inertia in the face of apocalypse. A strong mix of one-off episodes and an emotional central arc, mixing sadness and beauty as well as any show this year. 18. Scavengers Reign (Max) Wait, you’re telling me the creepiest show of the year was a bloody cartoon??? This sci-fi show about a group of astronauts stranded on a mysterious and frequently hostile planet was remarkably effective, both due to its excellent Mœbius-inspired visual style and its depiction of a disconcerting world that doesn’t play by any known human rules. 17. Deadloch (Prime Video) I knew nothing of Australian comedy duo The Kates before this show premiered, but I’m now a big fan. Both a humorous sendup of small town crime dramas and also a damned good example of one, this series got over some irritating characters with a lot of great jokes, a genuinely good murder mystery, and a strong feminist bent, perfectly-pitched. The highlight of an otherwise kinda poo poo year for Prime Video. 16. The Last of Us (HBO) I’m a big fan of the two TLOU games and was so excited for whatever Craig Mazin did after Chernobyl, and this show gets a million things right, from the perfect casting to the visual style and insane effects to the gorgeous atmospheric music to knowing when it just needed to take from the game’s script verbatim. However, a couple of underwhelming diversions from the source material and my dislike of how they handled the climactic moments in the finale stopped this from making my too 10. 15. Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (Max) I was sorta wary about the idea of an Adventure Time continuation, especially after it had already had two great endings, but Adam Muto and co proved my worries unfounded with a funny, powerful, meta expansion of the universe. From the strong arcs to the beautiful storyboard work, this came close to the best of the original show, and I legit can’t wait for more. 14. Paul T. Goldman (Peacock) I’ve known Jason Woliner was a genius for a minute (Eagleheart s3 is still probably my favourite Adult Swim thing ever) but this was still a huge surprise for me. A jaw-dropping, gut-busting, heart-rending look at one man’s capacity for delusion that never stopped surprising or delighting me. There are ethical questions one could ask, for sure, but I don’t think the titular subject would give a poo poo about any of them. A wild and awesome way to kick off 2023. 13. Mrs. Davis (Peacock) Babe wake up new Damon Lindelof dropped! One of my favourite creators took on the mentor role for this wild and bizarre look at technology, conspiracy, and theology, starring a never-better Betty Bet-I mean Gilpin, with some truly raucous set-pieces and nutso, intelligent twists and ideas. Very silly, very smart, very good. 12. The Curse (Showtime) My most-anticipated new show of the year did not loving miss, turning out to be a dark and unnerving look at gentrification, narcissism, and reality TV, with an unbelievable lead performance from Emma Stone and equally incredible work from co-creators Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie. A little too much wheel-spinning at times, but the standout moments were exceptional, and the finale is going to be hard to beat for the greatest TV episode of 2024. 11. How To with John Wilson (HBO) I’m very sad we won’t be getting more of John Wilson’s bizarro docudramas, but this was a phenomenal way to go out. Just as funny, strange, willing to go off on random tangents, and skilled at depicting the weirdest poo poo in NYC as before, plus with one episode that calls the whole show into question in hilarious ways and a very beautiful finale. Finally, here we are at the top 10, aka the ones that actually matter for this poll! In a year full of gold, these were the cream of the crop, the crème de la crème, the Besten der Besten, the….good…..telly things. How excited I am to tell you of these! 10. Party Down (Starz)  Over the years, we’ve had a trillion TV revivals. We’ve had ones that were terrible, ones that were admirable but overall tepid, ones that did something totally different, but very rarely if ever do you get one where it feels like no time has passed in between and the show remains the exact same as before. Thankfully, that’s exactly what happened with this unbelievably great revival of Party Down. Partly this is to do with the premise, where the fact that some of the struggling LA caterers still haven’t made it in Hollywood makes it even more tragically hilarious. But even ignoring this, the writing was just so on-point, the cast so able to slip back into their roles, the new characters fitting into the universe so well, the parties/concepts so clever and funny just as in the original show, that…..I feel like this sentence got away from me, but basically this was just as phenomenally funny as the original show and I’m so happy we got these six episodes. Starz, I am begging you for more! 09. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off (Netflix)  While I do like the Scott Pilgrim movie a whole lot, I am an even bigger fan of the graphic novels, and I was really pumped that the entire cast of the movie had been brought back for an animated show that seemed to follow the original story more. And I was very excited when the first episode did a very good job of this! And then….wait….what? What just happened????? Needless to say they took the show in a completely new and unexpected direction that I absolutely adored. The extra focus on Ramona was extremely welcome, and I loved how it remixed the character pairings and created some very funny new material out of people who had never really interacted in the franchise before. And then when it all finally came full circle they not only added in the extra emotional intelligence I felt the movie had nixed but actually surpassed it, creating a layered and emotional tale of regret and denial. An absolute winner of a show, and one that, unexpectedly, I would be really happy to see a continuation of. In a list with way more animation than usual, this still ended up being my favourite. Hooray for drawings what move! 08. The Other Two (Max)  There have been a million examples of the entertainment industry satirising themselves over the years, but I think this has to be one of the best. The Other Two had already been a funny and cutting look at Hollywood and fame in its first two seasons, but in the third and final year it truly cut loose, becoming more ridiculous, and yet also more accurate, than ever. No matter what subject this season tackled - from method acting, to awards bait, to celebrity couples, to “doing good”, to child stars aging, to the perils of being in public when famous, to god knows how many more - it did so in the most brutally hilarious way, taking absolutely no prisoners and never being anything other than stupidly funny. The pre-finale reveal that the creators were exactly the kind of people the show would rag on - egotistical figures who treated their writing staff like absolute poo poo - was very disappointing, but it didn’t affect just how funny and, in the end, surprisingly poignant the finale was. 07. Fargo (FX)  I admit, before this season aired, I had kind of lost faith in Noah Hawley. Legion after season 1 was mixed at best (and frequently quite bad), while Fargo s3 was kinda more fun to think about than to actually watch and s4 often felt like a waste of talent that didn’t go anywhere and where the only truly great episode was almost totally separate from the rest. Thankfully, this was a huge return to form for both Hawley and the show, with great writing and very timely and effective themes. Fargo always has best-in-show casts, but even by that metric this one was phenomenal, with Juno Temple and Jon Hamm leading a stellar cast of performers, from legends like Dave Foley and Jennifer Jason Leigh to newcomers like Richa Moorjani and Joe Keery, all of whom absolutely excelled. But the real greatness of the season was in the fact that it got back-to-basics - just being really funny and entertaining and suspenseful and weird in that classic Fargo way - while also having a lot to say on right-wing religious figures, debt, abuse of women, and family in a way that felt like a perfect reaction to the past several years of Western society. This season ended on an image that was in many ways the polar opposite of the s3 finale, and if we never got any more of this show, would be a wonderfully optimistic note to end on. Hawley I love you again!!!!!! 06. Beef (Netflix)  I talked a bit in my last entry about how Fargo s5 was a reaction to the last few years of living in the Western world. While this show isn’t quite as wide-ranging with its themes, it really digs deep into a core one - people are so fuckin angry these days, right? Whether because of political divides or petty insecurities, we seem to live in a world where our rage is often encouraged and seen as righteous, and where that can lead to it coming out more frequently and in more damaging ways. I can’t think of a piece of media that has dug into this idea better than Beef. A show about a minor road rage incident with wildly over-the-top consequences, Beef is first and foremost an astute look at what causes this kind of anger, with extremely good dual character arcs expertly-performed by Steven Yeun and Ali Wong, both of whom truly deserved their recent Emmys. But what elevates it to greatness is the way it blends a variety of disparate tones - sometimes it’s a serious drama, sometimes it’s a hilarious comedy, sometimes it’s a genuinely tense thriller - while making it all feel absolutely natural. Creator Lee Sung Jin has expressed an interest in continuing the show, and while it did end pretty perfectly, I also really hope Netflix use the stack of Emmys they just got as an excuse to give us more. 05. Poker Face (Peacock)  Heavily serialised storytelling has been the trend for a hot minute now, to mixed results. While long-form storytelling is one of the things that make TV so great, it is hard to argue against the idea that shows that remember the concept of the individual episode - like the top 3 of this list, for example, spoilers!!!! - are the strongest and make for the best television. But there’s still so, so many shows, especially on streaming, that ignore this and try and stick to the “ten-hour movie” bullshit. Which is all to say that there was an audience crying out for high-quality episodic television, and hey! Rian Johnson and Natasha Lyonne were here to deliver in spades. The stated aim of this show was to bring the Columbo style to a modern audience, and it’s absurd just how well it succeeded. Every week, Lyonne’s character - Charlie Cale, a former cocktail waitress on the run with an uncanny ability to tell when people are talking poo poo but, importantly, not why - runs into a murder as part of the odd job she’s taken on, one where we have seen the culprit committing the deed from the beginning and are waiting to see how she figures it out. While as with all episodic series the quality can vary, the unbelievable guest stars, hilarious character work, satisfying denouements, and sheer electric charisma from Lyonne made this a joy to watch every single episode. This show’s just a loving blast, mixing retro sensibilities with a modern tone so perfectly, and I really hope we don’t have to wait too long for more. 04. I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix)  Comedy, and especially sketch comedy, can be a very subjective thing. What people find funny can vary so drastically from person to person, and I know plenty of people who don’t find this show funny, don’t understand it at all, and find it incredibly off-putting and annoying. I understand this, and respect this, but it’s also very important to note that this opinion is completely wrong and that they are idiots. When I watched the first season of this show, I was already sure it was my favourite sketch show of all time. Two seasons later, when they’ve managed to capture that same lightning in a bottle three times now? There’s no doubt about it. Tim Robinson’s style of humour gels so well with mine it’s almost shocking. When a sketch hits - which is far, far more often than not - it is like he has dug inside my brain, found the funniest possible way I would think of to play something, and put it on screen. It’s so impressive that even on the third season they are still coming up with ideas that work this well. The Driving Crooner! The suits and ties feed me lies!! The eggs!!! 55 burgers 55 fries 55 tacos!!!! I actually want to go to Haunted House more than Aqua!!!!! The wall is his ground!!!!!! Sketch comedy is one of the hardest things to write, and that this show keeps knocking it out of the park over and over and over again - complimented by the best guest stars in the business - is almost unbelievable. I hope this show runs for 55 seasons. 03. Reservation Dogs (FX on Hulu)  I’ve already talked a whole bunch about episodic vs serialised storytelling in this post, but the really great thing about the medium is when you can have episodes that work as individual units but together end up as more than the sum of their parts and tell a powerful story. Mad Men and The Leftovers are two examples of shows that have excelled at this concept, and after this third and final season I think Reservation Dogs can be added to that list without any complaint. What an incredible bunch of episodes, all of which built on each other to give viewers a powerful narrative about the history of oppression, how traditions can be passed on, and generational transitions. I started off mildly skeptical of the adoration this show was getting at the beginning, but over its run it has proved itself over and over again as not just a milestone in indigenous representation but one of the greatest shows of the last decade. In the last two seasons I thought the show was often inconsistent, mixing classic episodes with more tepid ones, but this time around every instalment was a winner. The Deer Lady episode was a compelling and disturbing look at abusive American Indian boarding schools, the flashback episode was not only a hysterical Dazed and Confused homage but the Rosetta stone for the entire season, the Elora’s dad episode was both an amazing look at parental figures who can’t live up to anything and the best thing Ethan Hawke has done since First Reformed or maybe even Before Midnight, and the finale was a beautiful and stirring look at the community this show had built up over three remarkable years. What a beautiful and special piece of television. Kinda hosed up to think there’s two shows above it on this list. 02. The Bear (Hulu)  There’s a thing that happens with truly great TV where the first season is really good but then the second season, after they’ve had some time to learn what works and what they want to focus on, absolutely shoots off into the goddamn stratosphere, operating with ultimate confidence and earning their acclaim several times over. It’s one of the main ways you can tell if a show is really worth the time, but even then, it rarely goes as well as it did here. The Bear season 1 was already in my top 5 for 2022, but season 2 did such a superb job of continuing and elevating the story that I knew as soon as I saw it there was no way it wasn’t going to be in second place on this list. The ingredients were already all there - a fantastic concept, the perfect cast, excellent character dynamics - and the second season knew how to blend and simmer them perfectly for maximum effect. Not only was the overall storyline of the team trying to make the perfect new restaurant extremely well-done (or rare/medium rare, if that’s what you prefer [it should be]), but there were plenty of incredible individual dishes that ended up as some of the best episodes of the year. How many shows can do a flashback episode with a trillion high-profile guest stars and have it not only feel completely natural but be a highlight of 2023? And that’s without even getting into the other specialties, like some heartwarming progression for this set of characters (especially the main trio, who are all icons and correctly won Emmys for their superlative performances [and those were for the first season! not even this legendary poo poo!], the most sumptuous needledrops on TV, and a whole bunch of delectable filmmaking that led to one of the most satisfying and delicious experiences of the year that even the somewhat coriander-tinged romantic interest couldn’t take away from. Cooking metaphors! Lasagne!! Pizza!!! 01. Succession (HBO)  I mean, what the gently caress else could it have been? Jesse Armstrong’s satire about an ultra-rich family in control of a media dynasty has been a clear all-timer since the second it premiered, and I was super excited when it was announced it would end with this fourth season, knowing it was exactly the kind of show that knew when not to outstay its welcome. But even that couldn’t have prepared me for what an exceptional season this was, how a show that had already catapulted itself into the upper echelons of TV history managed to top itself once again and go out on an absurd high, how it managed to bring its central storyline and several character arcs to immensely satisfying conclusions, and how it managed to be funnier and more devastating than ever in the process. I’ve avoided spoilers in the rest of the list but this one is impossible to talk about without mentioning the biggest surprise of the season, so here is da warning! After a couple of episodes of the core three Roy siblings trying to thrive away from their domineering father, the death of Logan in episode 3 was an absolute work of genius, sending the arcs spinning off in new and exhilarating ways and bringing the show back to the promise of the title. Seeing the sibs drawn back into Waystar’s orbit with the promise of more power was intoxicating, and it cannot be overstated how much Jeremy Strong, Kieran Culkin, and Sarah Snook were up to the task, and how frequently the writing did their dedication justice. But even beyond these electrifying storylines the show managed to do right by every other member of the cast, from major players like Matthew Macfadyen’s Tom Wambsgans and Alexander Skarsgård’s Lukas Matsson (sorry I just love both those names so much) to someone as minor as Logan’s assistant/final lover Kerry who has some amazingly sad and wickedly funny moments. And I don’t know that any show has ever done as good a job at mixing the personal and political, with major world events being shaped and manipulated by the characters’ grudges and whims in a way that is both infuriating and totally fathomable. Gonna get a little personal here at the end - I am someone who both had an abusive father figure and also understands and detests the impact the 1% of the 1% have on the world, so this is almost the ideal show to appeal to me. But even ignoring my personal bias towards the concept, it is still amazing just how well this show played its hand at every possible moment, how it could make it obvious that the lead characters are despicable people while still making you feel sympathy for the fact they clearly never had a chance, and how it could mix the savage scorn and wicked parody with genuine pathos and empathy. This show spent a lot of time walking on a million tightropes without ever stumbling, and ended with an all-timer finale, and a climactic moment that felt like the entire show had been leading up to it. No matter how many paragraphs I wrote, I don’t think I could express how impressive and moving I found the final season of Succession. What the gently caress else could have topped this list? That’s all I can do for now, but before I stop and probably fall over, I want to thank you all for reading and Looten for keeping it going these past few years. This remains my favourite medium, and I am so grateful to have this space to talk about all the shows I loved. I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store! Escobarbarian fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jan 17, 2024 |
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Jan 17, 2024 23:25
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Hooray! I will be very asleep for that but I look forward to reading it when I wake up!
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Feb 15, 2024 15:24
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| # ¿ May 9, 2024 16:18 |
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Hey sorry I only just saw all this!! Fantastic work and some really great results. I certainly can’t argue with the top two being the same as in my list  I personally thought a lot of the second half of Barry s4 was a letdown but I can’t blame people for thinking otherwise. And it’s extremely cool to see something as weird as Scavengers Reign place so high!! Thank you so much for doing this again Looten, and to everyone else who submitted a list. It is so much fun
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Feb 24, 2024 00:59
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