We watch a lot of TV (I prefer to see the world from my couch while eating bon-bons) but it was a funny year. There were some other shows we watched that I just didn’t have much to say about. So this isn’t everything but it’s a sampler of what we watched.
10. The Crown. We’re not finished this season yet, but yikes, it’s been iffy so far. I did like the sense of claustrophobia and doom in the episode just before Diana’s death where she and Dodi realized they were never going to be able to do anything close to normal under the increased scrutiny of the paparazzi. (Boy, Dodi was a piece of work, wasn’t he? He was weeks away from marrying another woman and broke up with her to pursue Diana and propose to her because daddy wanted him to.) The ghosts of Diana and Dodi appearing was dumb and didn’t fit with the show’s aesthetic. While I might believe Charles and Mohammed would see these ghosts (really just projections of their consciences), I think the Queen would just be too practical to be troubled. It didn’t help that Imelda Staunton just isn’t very good—Queen Elizabeth II was by all accounts a dull woman, but Claire Foy and Olivia Colman breathed life into her. Not so for Staunton. I hear there’s a good episode coming up when Margaret dies, so there’s that.
9. What We Do in the Shadows. Points to this show for finally giving Guillermo his dream of becoming a vampire, and for doing it in an amusing fashion—the consummation was from some rando vampire rather than his beloved Nandor, and Guillermo’s vampirism was incomplete and came with weird side effects. Points taken away for the renewed focus on the Guide. I don’t know why but I can’t stand this actress.
8. The Morning Show. What a glorious mess this was, and of course, that’s the point of the show. Bradley’s brother turning out to be a January 6 insurrectionist at the Capitol was insane. I did like seeing Alex turn Marks’s corporate takeover around on him, even if I saw the twist regarding the network’s data hack coming miles away.
7. The Fall of the House of Usher. Even for horror, this setup was completely unrealistic (six dead kids from one family in separate incidents in one week) but I loved how stylized and moody it was and all its Poe references. Most of Mike Flanagan’s shows aren’t scary-scary for me—except for the Jonestown-esque Easter vigil in Midnight Mass, nothing has much disturbed me—but when the Usher sister started screaming at the very end, that did the trick.
6. For All Mankind. This show is ongoing and while it isn’t the best season (that’s season 2), I’ve been loving For All Mankind. We binged it all this year and I’m fascinated at this look at an alternate Cold War after the Soviets got to the moon first and Americans got their backs up and had to compete more in the space race, rather than making it a lower priority. In the latest episode we saw, I was thrilled to see Danielle finally scream “Fuck you!” to Ed for the tension that’s been building between them for decades, dating back to their time on the moon in the ‘70s. Ed (in horrible old-age makeup) has been a complete ass this season, sulking over the return of that cosmonaut/possible love interest to Earth, ignoring his health problems to continue flying, and never leaving Mars to meet his grandchild. I’m happy the show is seeing Danielle as the competent leader she is. We’re also entertained to see how many Russian cast members from The Americans turn up in this show.
5. The Diplomat. Speaking of The Americans, it’s been a treat seeing Keri Russell on TV again, this time as US ambassador to the UK. The Diplomat is lighter than her former TV series, although when Russell starts getting that severe tone of voice with someone, I half-expect her to go full Elizabeth Jennings and drop a car on them. Still, the twist with the prime minister was deliciously intriguing. Russell’s husband was an ass and I’m glad the show dealt with him, but that cliffhanger was brutal and left us yelling in our living room when the credits rolled.
4. Fargo. The show is also ongoing but season 5 has been great so far, a huge improvement over season 3 (completely unmemorable) and season 4 (pretentiously Saying Something Important About America). Juno Temple is deceptively wily and resourceful as a woman who started over in a second marriage to get away from an abusive first husband. One exchange between that husband (Jon Hamm) and her mother-in-law (Jennifer Jason Leigh) was gold: Hamm tells her he’s a libertarian. “So you want freedom without any responsibility?” she asks. He says yes. “You’re fighting for the right to be a baby,” she concludes. Even the woman who runs a predatory debt collection agency gets it.
3. The Last of Us. I don’t have much productive to say here but it was just really well-written and well-acted, particularly with Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. The Last of Us is great at developing smaller characters, like the Indonesian scientist who quietly freaks out at the start of the Cordyceps outbreak, the self-sufficient Native couple who barely notice it, and of course, the one-off characters in “Long, Long Time.” This show found a beautiful way to present the love story of two people who managed to live reasonably full lives as the world crumbled around them. In a world destroyed by plague, you should be happy for anybody who can piece together a life.
2. Poker Face. For a show about murder and other awful crimes, Poker Face is surprisingly lighthearted and a ton of fun. It’s a delightful throwback to detective shows like Columbo in the ‘70s, where you didn’t have to worry much about continuity, but just enjoy the current hour and savor the twists of the script. Natasha Lyonne’s character—blessed or cursed with the ability to tell when someone is lying—goes around the country running away from her murderous former employer and solving crimes, with a murderer’s row of guest stars (Judith Light!). It helps that I always really like Lyonne in whatever she does. I feel like if I were at a party with any of her characters, I would talk to her and we would become friends.
1. Succession. It’s not even close. This show had a visceral effect on me at a few points, bringing me close to a panic attack about the death of an amoral fictional character and about a fictional disputed election. This was due to the acting cavalcade put on by the entire cast, but particularly by Kieran Culkin (his slow-motion breakdown and final, visible snap) and Sarah Snook (every subtle decision she makes playing out on her face). Succession stuck the landing for me, with the saga of Waystar Royco ending in a boardroom in tears. Shiv finally sees that Ken would be a terrible CEO successor to their father and changes her vote to sell the company, while Ken bellows “I am the eldest boy!” (he’s not) while trying to claw out the eyes of Roman. I love purgatorial endings so I loved the idea that Tom ended up as CEO and while Shiv can continue to have company influence as his wife, it’s a very shaky marriage and she has nowhere near the power she would have on the board of the old company. I will miss this show’s dark humor.
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