TV Technica 2022: These were our favorite shows and binges of the year

[Karlston]

Streamers dominated original programming in 2022, but the 2023 forecast is cloudy.

Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

 

Warning: Although we’ve done our best to avoid spoiling anything too major, please note this list does include a few specific references to several of the listed shows.

It's been another banner year for television, in which streaming continued to dominate with a vengeance, giving us spy thrillers, science fiction, fantasy, comedy, tormented superheroes, gritty inner-city drama, and feel-good dramedy. In fact, this is the first year without a single major network series on the Ars year-end list.

 

Who knows how long this cornucopia of creative goodness will last? Nearly every major streamer, including Netflix, reported at least some losses in 2022, and the outlook for next year is cloudy at best. Budgets are getting slashed, streamers are consolidating, and promising shows are being canceled left and right as streaming services adapt to the changing market environment. For now, at least, we are still reaping the benefits of past years' investments. Our top TV picks for 2022 are listed below, in no particular order. Be sure to weigh in with your own favorite 2022 shows in the comments.

 

HBO Max

House of the Dragon

Making a prequel to a beloved series is never easy, especially when it's a prequel to one of the most influential blockbuster series of the last decade—one that whiffed its finale so badly that it alienated some of its most devoted fans. HBO's House of the Dragon rose to the challenge, debuting in August with a solid, promising pilot episode. The remainder of the season lived up to that initial promise.

 

The series is set about 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones and chronicles the beginning of the end of House Targaryen's reign. The primary source material is Fire and Blood, a fictional history of the Targaryen kings written by George R.R. Martin. As book readers know, those events culminated in a civil war and the extinction of the dragons—at least until Daenerys Targaryen came along. It's King Viserys I Targaryen's (Paddy Considine) fateful decision to name his fierce dragon-rider daughter Rhaenyra (Milly Alcock) as his heir—passing over his brother and heir presumptive Daemon (Matt Smith)—that sets events in motion. As Rhaenys Velaryon (Eve Best)—aka the "Queen Who Never Was," because she was passed over when Viserys was crowned—knows all too well, "Men would sooner put the realm to the torch than see a woman ascend the Iron Throne."

 

House of the Dragon lacks the sweeping epic scope and multiple storylines of Game of Thrones, focusing instead on exploring the complex core relationships and family dynamics that will ultimately lead to civil war. The first season spans many years and makes some pretty significant time jumps—which in turn required replacing the younger actors as their characters aged. For instance, Emma D'Arcy plays the older version of Rhaenyra. Perhaps it might have been better to simply compress the timeline, or spread out the events over two seasons, but then the pacing might have lagged. And the time jumps aren't especially jarring until the latter episodes, when one is tempted to hit pause and draw up a genealogical chart to keep track of all the incestuous marriages and generations of silver-haired offspring.

 

It's still a compelling, entertaining series, with plenty of personal conflict and political intrigue, plus dragons galore. House has an especially gifted stellar cast, and yet somehow Matt Smith steals every scene as Daemon—even when he's just standing around smirking. And his chemistry with D'Arcy goes a long way toward off-setting the squick factor of their eventual coupling and marriage. The S1 finale brought Westeros to the brink of civil war, and we can't wait for S2 to watch that conflict play out.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

Hulu

Only Murders in the Building S2

The first season of this charming Emmy-nominated comedy series made our "Best of TV" list last year, with Ars Features Editor Emeritus Nathan Matisse calling it "chock full of pitch-perfect parody touches" referencing the world of true crime podcasting. Only Murders in the Building stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez as Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, all residents of the same Manhattan apartment complex. The unlikely trio teamed up to launch their own true crime podcast when someone died in the building under suspicious circumstances.

 

They did manage to solve the murder, but in the cliffhanger S1 finale, the building's board president was murdered, and the three podcasters became the primary suspects. That set up the second season, in which Charles, Oliver, and Mabel must find the real killer to prove their innocence. The hijinks are just as smart and witty as before, and it all culminates with the trio's attempt to stage a killer reveal party. Add in cameos by Nathan Lane, Jane Lynch, Amy Schumer, Shirley MacLaine, and Paul Rudd (who will join the cast in S3)—plus the return of Tina Fey's rival podcaster, Cinda Canning (a parody of Sarah Koenig, the real-life podcast producer behind Serial)—and you've got a winning recipe for a top-notch sophomore outing.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

YouTube/Marvel Studios

Moon Knight

Can anything good ever come of gods interfering in the affairs of men? That's the underlying conundrum posed in Moon Knight, the latest spinoff series in the MCU's Phase Four, and in the case of the series, the answer is a resounding yes. Starring Oscar Isaac as a tormented man with dissociative identity disorder (DID), the series has more in common with the Netflix Defenders series than with recent Marvel fare like WandaVision, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki. But instead of taking place in New York City's Hell's Kitchen, it's telling a unique superhero origin story rich in symbolism drawn from Egyptian mythology.

 

Showrunner Jeremy Slater proves himself to be a gifted storyteller, weaving all the threads of this complicated narrative into a seamless whole while exploring themes of identity and recovery from trauma. Bonus: The entire series is beautifully shot, with terrific set and costume design. It's the classic mythological voyage of the hero in many respects, right down to the journey to the afterworld, but much of that voyage takes place inside the mind(s) of Marc and Steven. That kind of internal psychological journey can be difficult to portray in a consistently engaging way, but Slater successfully pulls it off.

 

Much of the credit for the show's success is also due to Isaac's riveting performance. He seems to effortlessly flit between two distinctive personalities, complete with unique accents and body language, and he handles the action sequences with aplomb. Ethan Hawke is equally compelling as cult leader Harrow, whose zealotry and sincere commitment to a rival deity's cause make him a formidable foe. There's nothing a true believer won't do on behalf of their worshiped deity. And Antonia Salib steals every scene in which she appears as Taweret, the hippopotamus-headed Egyptian goddess of childbirth and fertility. All in all, Moon Knight is an evocative, introspective, thought-provoking take on one of the lesser-known characters in the Marvel Comics pantheon.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

HBO Max

White Lotus S2

The first season of The White Lotus, which aired last year, was originally envisioned as a limited series that followed the exploits of a group of wealthy travelers vacationing at a resort in Hawaii. It was such a hit—it won 10 awards at this year's Emmys—that HBO renewed it for a second (and third) season, with each new season taking place at a different White Lotus resort.

 

In the second season, we jet off to Sicily with a new group of characters; the impressive cast features F. Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli, and Aubrey Plaza. Returning is the great Jennifer Coolidge, whose character bridges the gap between the seasons.

 

The second season follows the murder-mystery motif that anchored the original—we see in episode 1 that someone has been killed at the resort, but we don’t know who or how, and the rest of the season flashes back to fill in the details. But while the murder mystery looms large and provides a deep sense of foreboding throughout the proceedings, it’s the interpersonal dramas between the deeply dysfunctional vacationers that drive the show.

 

The cast does a fantastic job of bringing these self-obsessed characters to life, and the writing from series creator Mike White is as sharp and biting as ever. The tension and drama rises slowly throughout the episodes until it becomes almost unbearable by the explosive finale. The White Lotus is riveting, hilarious, and affecting, and, following in the first season’s footsteps, it has an absolutely bangin’ soundtrack.

 

I can’t wait for season 3.

 

—Aaron Zimmerman

HBO Max

Our Flag Means Death

It's worth watching Our Flag Means Death just for Taika Waititi's hilariously deadpan portrayal of the infamous 18th-century pirate Blackbeard. Even more inspired is the decision to pair Waititi with Rhys Darby as Stede Bonnet, an aristocrat who abandons his comfy life to become a "gentleman pirate." The character is based on a real person who really did sail with Blackbeard for a period. (You can read a bit about the actual pirate here, and/or listen to this episode of the wonderful Footnoting History podcast.) The series follows Bonnet on board the Revenge as he tries to make a name for himself as a different kind of pirate, despite having no real sailing skills. Things get interesting when he runs into Blackbeard—and Blackbeard's right-hand-man Izzy (played to perfection by Con O'Neill).

 

Clearly, Our Flag Means Death isn't attempting much in the way of historical accuracy, which is entirely the right decision. Tonally, it evokes something along the lines of Hulu's extraordinary period comedy series The Great, which takes historical characters and facts and embellishes them, complete with the odd deliberate anachronism. So the writers were free to just have fun with the concept. There are plenty of laughs and farcical elements, but the show doesn't shirk from exploring deeper themes, albeit with a refreshingly light touch. The evolving relationship between Bonnet and Blackbeard—each equally intrigued by the other—provides the emotional backbone, as they eventually fall in love and struggle to acknowledge those complicated feelings. The friendship ruptured in the season finale, but S2 is bound to bring these two crazy kids back together for more swashbuckling hijinks on the high seas.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

Steve Wrubel/The Cowboy Channel

100 Days of Rodeo/The Cowboy Channel

Confession: in another timeline/branch of the multiverse, I'm a cowgirl. In this one, I have to settle for being an armchair rodeo fan. I can't feasibly travel all over the country attending all the great rodeos in person, unless Ars Technica decides it needs a full-time rodeo writer. And the regular season isn't usually covered on the major sports channels. (If you're lucky, you might stumble across a random PBR bull riding event while channel surfing at odd hours.) But there is a place to follow one's favorite cowboys and cowgirls throughout the season as they compete to rack up enough wins to qualify for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas at the end of the year. That would be The Cowboy Channel and its signature "100 Days of Rodeo."

 

The rodeo season runs pretty much all year round, with the big Texas rodeos (Fort Worth, San Antonio, Houston, and Austin) taking place in late January through late March. There's bareback riding, steer wrestling, team roping, saddle bronc riding, tie-down roping, barrel racing, bull riding, and sometimes women's breakaway roping, plus crowd-pleasing antics like wild cow milking and mutton busting.

 

Only the top 15 earners in each official category qualify for the NFR, so things kick into high gear around June/July, when The Cowboy Channel's "100 Days" countdown begins. It's pretty much the last chance for cowboys and cowgirls who find themselves "on the bubble" to eke out enough wins to qualify. In the finals, all the qualifiers compete every night over a grueling 10 days to determine the world champions in each category, as well as an All Around champion. (This year's NFR All Around champion was Stetson Wright, one of the youngest members of the legendary Wright family, who also won the bull-riding world championship.)

 

Caveat: there's a good chance your local cable provider doesn't include the Cowboy Channel. That's why I subscribed to the streaming app when we moved from Los Angeles to Baltimore this summer. A standard monthly subscription is $9.99, but if you want to include the NFR finals—and trust me, you definitely want to watch the finals—you should sign up for the annual NFR streaming pass at $99.99. As far as comprehensive pro rodeo coverage goes, right now it's pretty much the only game in town. It's a great way for armchair enthusiasts like me to learn more about the sport and cheer on our faves.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

Disney+

Andor

After slogging through the banality of The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, the expectations for Andor couldn’t have been lower. But Disney+ totally redeemed itself here. Maybe the stunning reversal in quality helped the show stand out that much more, but Star Wars has never felt more timely, nor has its writing and dialogue shined brighter.

 

Although, given the events of Rogue One, we know the fate of the eponymous protagonist, Andor’s highlights and drama extend throughout the ensemble cast. Whether it’s Stellan Skarsgard’s morally dubious firebrand lamenting his loss of humanity while undermining the Empire's efforts or an Imperial administrator outshining her male colleagues in the galaxy’s worst workplace meeting, the dialogue pops throughout the series. George Lucas and subsequent Star Wars writers have never had a war of words like what showrunner Tony Gilroy has delivered here.

 

And the words carry significant weight. Each protagonist questions their own motives and realizes what they’re willing to sacrifice to help loosen the grip of Imperial fascism. The lack of lightsabers and Force powers adds to the tension and stakes as, for these regular folks, there isn’t a deus ex Jedi to save them. All they can do is bet on themselves to bring new hope to an increasingly totalitarian galaxy.

 

—Jacob May

 

HBO Max

We Own This City

David Simon didn’t need to create any fiction for his follow-up to the themes and story beats from The Wire—reality did it for him. Whereas The Wire concerned itself with the intersection of Baltimore’s police, city hall, drug rings, and school system, among other city institutions, HBO’s We Own This City mostly focuses on the previously unchecked power of the Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force.

 

Much of the miniseries is based on investigative reporter Justin Fenton’s book and the legal transcripts of the eight task force members who were charged with racketeering, robbery, extortion, and overtime fraud. While the series’ time jumps and legal proceedings don’t make the story as affecting as The Wire’s Dickensian drama, it remains a fitting epilogue for fans of Simon's most famous series.

 

We Own This City also eschews much of the optimism in The Wire’s ending. Instead, we’re given a long look at the trickle-down effect of institutional corruption as some Baltimore police would rather rob than serve their constituents. As series co-writer George Pelecanos puts it, “It's really sort of the end. It's a remarkable coda to what we were arguing in The Wire.”

 

—Jacob May

 

AMC

Better Call Saul S6

Given how Breaking Bad ended, we had some idea how Saul Goodman's descent into the criminal underworld would go—the main question was who he would take down with him. While the AMC prequel series Better Call Saul was a slow burn compared to its predecessor, it was a more relatable character study, and there were still moments to root for Saul despite his increasingly loose ethics (asking when Walter White becomes a villain in Breaking Bad is often my litmus test for people).

 

Although we got an adrenaline-fueled midseason finale, we weren’t expecting the same fireworks as we neared the end of Saul. We didn’t need the same stakes of Breaking Bad’s ending either. Instead, we concerned ourselves with the fate of Kim Wexler, Saul’s partner (in life, in legal practice, and in crime) for much of the series, and whether Saul (or Jimmy McGill) could reconcile his misdeeds with her. Just as Breaking Bad tied up its loose ends, creator Vince Gilligan and his team gave us closure to the arc of our favorite criminal lawyer, who finally resolved the duality between his Saul/McGill personas and let us know which one is worth remembering.

 

—Jacob May

 

Paramount+

Star Trek: Lower Decks S3

We've seen quite the resurgence of Star Trek content in the past few years, no doubt helped along by the launch of the Paramount+ streaming service. Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Picard are all live-action explorations of the Trek universe, set far off in the future, a few years before the original series, and a few years after the conclusions of The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, respectively. There are shows of varying quality—I'm not a fan of the way Discovery stretches out what would be a two-part TNG plot into an entire season, for one thing.

 

In my opinion—and I'm the one writing this—the best new Trek since the end of DS9 has to be the animated series Lower Decks. Also set in the TNG/DS9 era, instead of following the adventures of a famous captain and their starship, or perhaps a famous commander and their space station, the show focuses on the lives of four junior crew on a California-class ship, a workhorse of the fleet that has the perhaps unenviable job of second contact—following up with new alien species after they've already met Captain Picard and the NCC-1701 D and been introduced to the Federation.

 

Now in its third season, some might feel that Lower Decks leans a little too far into fan service. Those people are entitled to that opinion, but it's not one I share. Rather, I delight in a basket of Easter eggs contained within each 22-minute episode, with callbacks to episodes like Conspiracy (the brain parasites that took over some Starfleet officers), the Bajoran occupation, or the hologram of Dr. Leah Brahms. Lower Decks manages to give us a slightly snarky, slightly cynical look at life as a peon in Starfleet, especially as experienced by ensign Beckett Mariner, yet it manages to always return to showing the organization's good side as the crew work together for the common good. But what's the deal with the koalas?

 

—Jonathan Gitlin

Netflix

Stranger Things S4

Stranger Things came back from a pandemic-driven three-year hiatus stronger than ever with an ambitious supersized fourth season—so much so that Netflix released it in two parts. Part 1 had a few minor flaws, particular in the earlier episodes, but quickly gained dramatic momentum as the various separate storylines gradually converged. The cliffhanger ending deftly set the stage for the epic final two episodes released a month later, which featured a visually stunning, nail-biting battle against the denizens of the Upside Down—and some of the most emotionally resonant moments in the series to date.

 

This season's big baddie hails straight from classic Dungeons & Dragons lore: Vecna, a once-powerful wizard who first became undead and then became a lich. The series gives Vecna a different backstory that connects the character to everything that has happened in Hawkins since the first season. He rather resembles Freddy Krueger from the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, except he preys on people's (especially teens') negative thoughts and feelings rather than their dreams.

 

This year's undisputed new breakout character was Eddie Munson (Joseph Quinn), a metal-head who runs the local D&D games and befriends bullied freshmen Mike and Dustin. After witnessing a brutal murder by Vecna, Eddie throws in his lot with our intrepid protagonists. He gets his big hero moment in the Upside Down, standing on top of a trailer with his guitar and shredding to the tune of Metallica's "Master of Puppets." It's simultaneously absurd, funny, scary, and powerful—hands down one of the most iconic scenes in the entire series. (Metallica loved it.)

 

Fans enthusiastically embraced Eddie and his mentorship of Dustin in particular. It made his ultimate fate all that more upsetting. But I think the Duffer brothers made the right creative call. The best stories will absolutely break your heart at times. Eddie's demise helped make the finale a powerful, gut-wrenching, bittersweet setup for the final showdown between Eleven and Vecna/the Upside Down. Prepare yourself for even more heartache.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

Netflix

Wednesday

Tim Burton famously turned down the opportunity to direct the 1991 feature film The Addams Family, inspired by characters created by American cartoonist Charles Addams for The New Yorker in 1938. But Burton and the Addams Family franchise have come together at last with Wednesday. Showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar—best known for Smallville—expected Burton to turn them down as well when they made their pitch. He signed onto the project instead. "The ambition of the show was to make it an eight-hour Tim Burton movie," Millar told Vanity Fair. And it's a good eight-hour Tim Burton movie.

 

This is an older, edgier, and even darker Wednesday (Jenna Ortega) than the dour young girl Christina Ricci made famous in the 1990s. She's going through her teen rebellion phase, trying to find her own path rather than follow in her glamorous mother's (Catherine Zeta-Jones) footsteps. Aloof, sardonic, and resolutely independent, she's very much the problem child, even by Addams standards, having been expelled from eight schools in five years. Hence her enrollment at Nevermore Academy, a haven for so-called "outcasts" and the alma mater of her parents (whose effusive displays of affection Wednesday naturally finds mortifying). Oh, and she's developed nascent psychic powers in the form of disturbing prophetic visions that she can't control.

 

Wednesday struggles at first to fit in, clashing with her cheery werewolf roommate Enid (Emma Myers) and the school queen bee, a siren named Bianca (Joy Sunday). Then she begins investigating a string of brutal murders, leading her to resolve some long-standing family issues and delve into the school's dark history. She's basically a goth girl Nancy Drew, and the show does share a similar feel at times to the CW's supernaturally oriented Nancy Drew series—just a more cheekily irreverent version.

 

The script is smart, the dialogue is razor-sharp, the pacing is brisk, and each episode leaves you wanting more. But it's Burton's glorious design aesthetic and Ortega's delightfully deadpan performance that raise Wednesday above the usual teen sleuth coming-of-age fare. Ortega makes the character her own, rather than doing a Ricci impersonation, even bringing out Wednesday's vulnerable softer side as the season progresses. (Ricci plays Nevermore teacher Marilyn Thornhill). Honestly, the show is worth a watch just for Wednesday's cello rendition of "Paint it Black" and her killer moves at the school dance, performed to The Cramps' “Goo Goo Muck” (Ortega choreographed the scene herself). The Internet went wild, and rightly so: this is exactly how Wednesday would dance.

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

The opening credits sequence for Peacemaker is sheer perfection.

Peacemaker

We had our doubts about Peacemaker, the HBO Max spinoff series based on John Cena's character from 2021's The Suicide Squad. Cena's performance in that film was terrific, but he wasn't exactly a sympathetic character—or a particularly complex one. But I'm happy to report that those doubts were entirely unfounded. Series creator James Gunn has successfully taken a seemingly irredeemable character and sent him on an emotional journey that made us love him—all framed in a blood-soaked, action-packed, cheekily irreverent main story that makes for top-notch entertainment.

 

Cena turns in a truly standout performance; he brings a surprising sweetness and vulnerability to his portrayal of a character Gunn once described as "douchebag Captain America." Chris is wrestling with his guilt over killing Rick Flag in The Suicide Squad, and he's haunted by Flag's last words: "Peacemaker. What a joke." He is also forced to deal with his own tragic backstory over the course of the season, including the loss of his brother, and that backstory is surprisingly poignant.

 

The script is clever, the cast is outstanding, the pacing is brisk, the tone is perfect, and above all, everybody seems to be having a lot of fun—right down to the cheesy opening credits, which feature the cast dancing to Norwegian metal band Wig Wam's "Do Ya Wanna Taste It?" The series has been renewed for a second season, and Gunn has said it will explore the repercussions—both good and bad—of the events of the first season. Here's to seeing more of Christopher Smith, Eagly, and this scrappy crew of likable misfits who bonded and fought for a better world despite their myriad differences. They're role models for us all.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

Prime Video

The Peripheral

Like many a self-respecting geek, I'm a fan of author William Gibson's writing. One of the fathers of cyberpunk, Gibson's work has penetrated into the mainstream consciousness here and there, including the oft-quoted statement that "the future is already here, it's just not very evenly distributed." His current series of novels, the Jackpot Trilogy, begins with the 2014 book The Peripheral, a story about sort-of time travel that involves communicating with (but not actually traveling to) the past. That past then branches off to become a "stub" as its timeline has been changed by the act of communicating with the future (which is now no longer the stub's future).

 

As with many Gibson books, the world building is as inventive as the plot; perhaps more so. The world of the early 2030s looks mostly like ours, with the other timeline being set further in the future in a world recovering from the jackpot—a series of calamities, disasters, and plagues that has reduced the world's population enormously.

 

This year, director Vincenzo Natali and showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy put together a live-action adaptation of the book that mostly successfully translates the story from the page to the screen. Like the book, it's very good at showing not telling, leaving the viewer to figure out how things work in both futures, and seeing 22nd-century London come to life has been a real treat.

 

However, I'm a bit less enamored of the show after watching its eighth and final episode of this season. Like all TV adaptations of books, it's unrealistic to expect the plots to remain identical. The Expanse taught me a lot about how to cope with "canon shock," and I'm fine with most of the changes Natali and his team made to the plot in most of the episodes, but without going into spoilers I still don't understand how the season-ending cliffhanger is at all consistent with the stub mechanism that Gibson designed and Naftali stuck to. While I'm kvetching, I think the show tends towards needlessly gory moments at times. But I'm still going to tune in for season 2, and I do hope they turn their attention to book two (Agency) in time.

 

—Jonathan Gitlin

Netflix

The Sandman

I have long adored Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel series; it was an enormous influence on my younger self. So I was thrilled to hear of Netflix's planned adaptation when it was announced in 2019—but I also experienced some trepidation given the past misguided efforts to bring the story to the screen. That trepidation was unwarranted because The Sandman is an unqualified triumph.

 

The brilliant cast features major names like Charles Dance (Roderick Burgess), David Thewlis (John Dee), Stephen Fry (Gilbert/Fiddler's Green), Patton Oswalt (voicing the raven Matthew), Gwendolyn Christie (Lucifer), Mark Hamill (voicing Mervyn Pumpkinhead), and Derek Jacobi (Erasmus Fry). With his lean build, razor-sharp cheekbones, and deep voice, Tom Sturridge makes a compelling Morpheus, even when Dream is being overly proud or petty or downright cruel early on—flaws that are central to the personal growth of the character over the course of the story. He's not just a pretty emo-boy, and that's very much due to Sturridge's performance. Ditto for Kirby Howell-Baptiste as Death, who captures the warmth, empathy, and compassion that are so central to the character, as well as her genuinely perky good humor and love for her broody sibling.

 

Above all, The Sandman captures the surreal, dream-like feel and tone of its source material. Some have criticized the pacing and its anthology approach to storytelling, but I disagree. The slower pace lets us gradually immerse ourselves in this strange new world, and the looser narrative structure—particularly in the second half of the season—is very much in keeping with what we experience when we dream. In short, Gaiman's classic "unfilmable" graphic novel series finally got the adaptation he always wanted, and the ratings were just good enough (given the high production costs) for Netflix to renew The Sandman for a second season. Here's hoping there's many more to come.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

Apple TV+

Slow Horses

If you've got a hankering for a good old-fashioned British spy thriller, Slow Horses— based on the "Slough House" series of novels by Mick Herron—has got you covered. Slough House is basically a dead-end administrative purgatory for MI5 agents who screw up or otherwise fall short of expectations, mockingly derided as the "slow horses" of the title. That's what happens to River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) after he botches a public training exercise. Slough House is headed by the slovenly, flatulent, and frequently intoxicated Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who routinely heaps verbal abuse on his staff.

 

But Lamb is still shrewd and sharp and his many years of experience as an intelligence officer serves the team well when MI5's deputy director-general (Kristin Scott Thomas) sets them up to take the fall in a elaborate false-flag operation involving the attempted assassination of a far-right journalist and a kidnapped Pakistani student. The twists, betrayals, and strategic counter-moves all play out like vintage Le Carre, only with bumbling second-rate agents who somehow manage to pull back from the brink of defeat and emerge victorious. Oldman's masterful performance as Jackson Lamb is worthy of all the Emmys, and the second season (now airing weekly episodes) is in some ways even better than the first. And there will be more Slow Horses to come; Apple TV+ renewed the series for third and fourth seasons in July.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

Apple TV+

Severance

Back in May, we wrote about the awesomeness of Severance, an AppleTV+ show that brings out the latent horror of fluorescent lights, baby goats, cubicles, waffles, middle managers, finger traps, and "work/life balance." Also cults. And vending machines. Plus corporate training manuals. And talk therapy. Oh, and "kind eyes."

 

In the world of Severance, people can completely disconnect their work and personal lives. Thanks to a new procedure developed by Lumon Industries, workers can bifurcate themselves into "innies" (work selves) and "outies" (personal selves)—with no sharing of memories between them. This appeals to people like Mark, who lost his wife in a car crash and has struggled to work through the grief. Why not forget all that pain for eight hours a day?

 

It's no spoiler to say that things go... badly as a result of this process, but the show isn't just bonkers—though it is that, too. It's also about the lengths to which we will go to dull or avoid emotional pain, and the ways in which humans will reach out to connect with others even under the most unpromising of circumstances.

 

The first season accelerates from "creeping dread" to "propulsive menace," and the season finale is a masterclass in making must-see TV. An Ars reader perfectly summed up our own thoughts on season one, writing: "Severance is quite possibly the best dystopia ever done on television, notable because the premise on the surface is so simple and maybe even attractive (if you're not an innie). Fantastic stuff; put me in severance until the second season drops.”

 

—Nate Anderson

Netflix

Extraordinary Attorney Woo

Netflix continues to crush the competition when it comes to bringing top-notch international fare to wider attention—especially if those shows hail from South Korea. Last year brought us the addictive and brutally heartbreaking Squid Game. This year, the standout is Extraordinary Attorney Woo, a charming dramedy about a young autistic attorney on her first job at Hanbada, a major corporate law firm in Seoul. It's a classic case-of-the-week format, with a central subplot woven through the full season to link the episodes, but the show is truly unique in its thoughtful and sensitive depiction of autism.

 

Park Eun-Bin stars as Woo Young-Woo, who finished law school at the top of her class, but with zero job offers because of her autism. She is hired at Hanbada as a favor to her father, where her photographic memory, intelligence, and rare moments of keen emotional insight help the firm resolve their cases in some unexpected ways. Young-Woo must learn to communicate with her neurotypical peers, navigate jealous scheming rivals (a major challenge, since deception is a foreign concept to her), a budding romance with hunky litigator Jun-Ho (Kang Tae-oh), and her changing relationship with her single father, Woo Gwang-ho (Jeon Bae-soo), who must learn to accept his daughter's growing independence.

 

Despite some inevitable backlash, the show has mostly been praised for its depiction of people with autism spectrum disorder. Young-woo exhibits all the classic behaviors: finger and hand stims, wearing headphones in noisy environments to avoid getting overstimulated, the odd bit of echolalia, and so forth. She only eats gimbap (because she can see all the ingredients) and is obsessed with whales. It's a credit to the writers and Park's nuanced performance that Young-woo never feels like a caricature; she's a fully rounded character, flaws and all. Sometimes she loses, more often than not, she wins, with a little help from her friends—this isn't the dystopian world of Squid Game, after all. Win or lose, you'll want to follow her adventures.

 

—Jennifer Ouellette

 

 

TV Technica 2022: These were our favorite shows and binges of the year

[MI6-UK]

Do read and where possible view on screen these best in class espionage thrillers:
Fiction - Mick Herron - Slow Horses in The Slough House series - an anti-Bond masterpiece laced with sardonic humour
Fiction - Len Deighton - Funeral in Berlin - shame they chose The Ipcress File for a remake rather than this
Non-fiction - Bill Fairclough - Beyond Enkription in The Burlington Files series - a raw noir sui generis novel
Non-fiction - Ben Macintyre - The Spy and The Traitor + A Spy Among Friends - must reads for all espionage cognoscenti