My 20 Favorite Television Shows of 2023

For the uninitiated, it's a yearly tradition for me to start this list by breaking down my relationship to television, counting how many TV shows I watched in full during the calendar year.  In 2023, I had a healthy amount of 87, so the days of watching over 100 shows in a year are long in the rearview now.  One difference here is I got so behind on TV that there were some shows I really wanted to get in under the wire that I didn't have time for.  There are always things that I miss out on, but they're usually more of a "I'm mildly intrigued to check this out" case.  This time, there are some heavy hitters that I just didn't get around to.  Hell, there was a new season of Black Mirror in 2023 and I still haven't watched it.

So now more than ever, this top 20 you're about to see is not necessarily definitive, just my favorites of what I managed to cross off my watch list.

The rules: Shows are considered for this list based on their episodes that aired between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023.  This used to be a big thing when people watched more network shows where the seasons bled into the new year, but it doesn't factor in as much.  Although this year some shows like The Curse, For All Mankind, and Fargo are doing this annoying thing where almost all of the season aired this year but then the last two episodes are going to bleed into 2024.  That's stupid!  I hate it!

My 20 Favorite Television Shows of 2022

 

Alexa, play "3 Peat" by Lil Wayne.

That's right, for the third year in a row, I've accomplished the arbitrary goal I started to shoot for a few years ago of trying to watch less than 100 shows in full this year.  Although I did cut it close with 98 series, compared to 87 in 2021 and 93 in 2020, a win is a win.  I initially gave this mission to myself in order to watch less TV and focus on other interests, but even though I watched 98 shows, my relationship to television feels pretty healthy these days.  Sure, I watch alot of shows, but I waste far less time on things that are mediocre than I used to.

There wasn't much of an overarching trend to explain the TV landscape in 2022.  It was more about the continuation of narratives we've been living through for a while now, most notably the persistent dominance of a few streaming services when it comes to the content that takes up space in the market.  Although I do wonder whether that bubble is on the verge of bursting, particularly with the outrage that sparked from HBO Max's decision to remove some of their original content from the service in the past few months.

For me the theme of 2022, like all years, is that there's alot of good TV.  Let's take a look at some of those shows.

The rules: In recent years I started this thing where I had separate eligibility windows for streaming shows that dropped the whole season at once and shows whose episodes premiered weekly, but I'm dropping that because it was too confusing and most streaming services have switched to weekly releases.  Nobody reads this part anyway.  Shows are considered for this list based on their episodes that aired between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022.

My 20 Favorite Television Shows of 2021

Another year, another pandemic-assisted successful attempt to watch less than 100 shows.  Last year I watched 93 TV shows, and in 2021 I shaved that number down 87 shows watched in full (meaning I saw every episode the show aired in the calendar year).  Most people found themselves watching more TV while staying indoors, and here I am passing by in the opposite direction.  I might not even be able to consider myself a television freak anymore.  Have I developed any sort of personality in place of that identity?  My lawyers have advised me to not answer that question.

Maybe part of the reason I watched less was because for a while I thought the television landscape was...pretty lackluster this year, at least until a few bangers came in and saved the day in the 11th hour.  Then after some consideration, I realized that my love of the TV drama was skewing my perception, since really it was only a weak year for dramas.  Comedy had a good 2021 and it was a great year for anime, so you'll be seeing a larger proportion of both of those groups than usual in this list.

Another trend I noticed is a recession of shows that aired on actual, you know, television.  13 of the 20 shows on my final list were available exclusively on streaming services, a count that I think is higher than ever.  FX, which used to be my favorite network, only has a place on this list in the form of its FXX sister channel.  This would usually spell bad news, as I've gone on at length about the rise of Netflix and its proliferation of soulless, formless storytelling thanks to its binge-above-all mentality, but thankfully the other streaming services have embraced the weekly release strategy.  And believe it or not, their shows benefit from it.  Who would've thought that the model that worked for decades is still effective?  So the dominance of streaming isn't necessarily a negative trend anymore, just an interesting one.

Okay, you've read enough of me trying to be like John Landgraf at the TCAs.  Let's get to the list.

The rules: A couple of years ago I implemented a new rule to help account for streaming seasons that got dropped at the end of the year, and I'll be continuing that this year.  So for any show whose entire season drops at once, the eligibility window for this list is if that season dropped between December 11, 2020 and December 10, 2021.   This is just so I don't go insane trying to catch up on any shows whose whole seasons dropped at the end of the year, even though there weren't any examples that come to mind this year.  Thankfully the rules are simpler for shows that air weekly.  For those cases, any episode that aired between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021 are considered for this ranking.