Andrew Scott starred within the Netflix sequence Ripley, which was probably the most stunningly shot present TV critic David Bianculli noticed in 2024.
Stefano Cristiano Montesi/Netflix
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Stefano Cristiano Montesi/Netflix
I watch extra tv than anybody I do know — and even I am unable to fake to have seen sufficient to compile a complete end-of-year high 10 listing. What I can do is run via a listing of the perfect issues I’ve seen, and why I like them a lot. And additionally, to notice a development or two that appear distinctive to the present 12 months. If you are on the lookout for nice TV to binge over the vacations, think about this a fast information.
One present that won’t make many 2024 high 10 lists, due to its last-second arrival, is the return of Squid Game. Season 1 of this South Korean drama sequence premiered on Netflix three years in the past, and was a shock however well-deserved hit. Season 2 would not drop till the day after Christmas — however I’ve previewed it, and it is a worthy successor. It expands the main target, the views, even the variety of video games, and is as brutal, but as superbly photographed and intensely acted, as the unique. And talking of superbly photographed, let’s give a nod to a different Netflix sequence, Ripley, probably the most stunningly shot TV sequence I noticed in 2024.
The finest nonfiction reveals I noticed all 12 months? Beatles ’64 on Disney+, and Leonardo Da Vinci on PBS. The finest discuss reveals? HBO’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Netflix’s John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A. The finest scripted drama and comedy reveals? Many had been returning sequence with robust outings in 2024. The newest season of FX’s Fargo, with Juno Temple and Jon Hamm, was gorgeous, shocking and inconceivable to overlook — my favourite sequence of the 12 months.
Season 2 of Netflix’s The Diplomat, starring Keri Russell because the U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, constructed to a degree the place it was nearly too tense to observe, and ended with a cliffhanger assured to make Season 3 much more of a thrill journey. The newest season of Hulu’s The Bear, about employees in and round a newly launched high-end Chicago restaurant, dissatisfied some, however not me — I ate all of it up, particularly the ultimate episode.
On the lighter aspect, the 2024 season of one other Hulu sequence, Only Murders within the Building, was a comedy triumph, giving Meryl Streep an unexpectedly wealthy position to play, and play with, on TV. And the most recent season of Max’s Hacks gave Jean Smart the identical factor. She’s great — and that present’s cliffhanger ending guarantees one other nice season to come back there, too.
Two sequence resulted in 2024, with noteworthy finales. HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, the long-running Larry David comedy, went out with a lot consideration and fanfare. The Paramount+ sequence Evil went out with little or no. Both had been very clever, entertaining reveals that I watched, and seemed ahead to, each week till they ended. So farewell and due to Curb and Evil.
And hiya to a variety of new reveals that actually made robust first impressions. If you want dramas about intrigue involving politicians or spies, 2024 was a banner 12 months. Black Doves, on Netflix, had Keira Knightley as a really clandestine spy, and she or he and it had been actually good. The Madness, starring Colman Domingo as a TV pundit accused of homicide, and on the run — a kind of up to date model of The Fugitive — is also on Netflix, and is even higher than Black Doves. And better of all is The Agency, a brand new spy sequence on Showtime and Paramount+ that stars Michael Fassbender, Jeffrey Wright and Richard Gere. It’s rolling out weekly in the meanwhile, and is one other of the nice reveals I’ve seen this 12 months.
HBO’s The Penguin shocked me, very pleasantly, with its plot and depth, and with its spectacular main performances by Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti. Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, a kind of Twenty first-century Bridget Loves Bernie, was shocking too — humorous and tender and romantic in all the correct measures. Also deserving of point out, and undoubtedly price watching: FX’s remake of the miniseries Shōgun; Netflix’s A Man on the Inside, starring Ted Danson in one more glorious TV sequence; and Agatha All Along, the imaginative, very musical Disney+ sequel to WandaVision.
Watch sufficient of those nice reveals — as I did — and you may discover some recurring patterns. Some of the identical actors popped up in very totally different locations. Jamie Lee Curtis returned because the unstable mom on The Bear — however she additionally performed a ruthless hit girl in Prime Video’s The Sticky. Jodie Turner-Smith, whom I singled out for her nice performing in Bad Monkey because the Dragon Queen, reveals up as the feminine lead in The Agency — and is superb once more, in a totally totally different sort of position. And Tracey Ullman, who was so humorous as Larry David’s undesirable live-in girlfriend on Curb Your Enthusiasm, additionally confirmed up on the finish of Black Doves, enjoying a really severe, probably deadly adversary to Knightley’s undercover spy — and, for Ullman, a drastically, impressively totally different sort of position.
Another development I observed was what number of reveals in 2024 featured actors of a sure age — not simply in toss-away or clownish roles, however in meaty components that these veteran performers elevate even greater. I’ve talked about some already, from Gere to Streep, however I noticed extra on TV in 2024 than in any 12 months in a long time. These embrace among the finest performances in among the 12 months’s finest reveals: Martin Short and Steve Martin in Only Murders; Helen Hunt and Christopher Lloyd in Hacks; Sally Struthers in A Man on the Inside; and Margo Martindale in The Sticky.
I’m completely happy to see all of them working, and thriving, even in a 12 months when the TV terrain has been more durable to navigate — not just for these working within the medium, however these of us watching it. I’m additionally completely happy to have seen so many good and nice reveals in 2024, even when I do know I’ve missed many extra.
To sum up, I need to discuss a scene that comes up close to the top of my favourite present of the 12 months. It comes close to the top of my favourite present of the 12 months, Noah Hawley’s Fargo. A mysterious and deadly killer visits a suburban house, desiring to kill the household inside, however is greeted as an alternative with disarming kindness. The father fingers him a chilly bottle of orange soda, then clicks it in opposition to his personal. The killer replies with a brief and easy phrase — however it’s a phrase that captures completely my general angle in the direction of tv within the 12 months 2024.
“A person,’ he says, slowly however appreciatively, “is grateful.”
