Top 10 Television Shows of 2022
“They always come back when they realize it’s home.”
These shows have no pattern, no throughline, not a single common thread among them. There’s neither a smattering of reference-heavy workplace comedies nor a collection of anti-hero dramas. Television has morphed into such a vast medium that it is as daunting as the amount of podcasts in the world and driven with the levels of quality that marked prestige film fare of the 1990s and 2000s, as well as the blockbusters of the 2010s. It can be all things to all people and its pillars won’t shed a shred of quality in doing so. The final season of a surrealist comedy created by someone who both rapped and wrote for 30 Rock. A documentary about a fairly well-known former pitcher for the Seattle Mariners. A mockumentary about ancient vampires living in modern day Staten Island. An alternate history about what the world would be like if the Russians landed on the moon before the Americans. What do they have in common aside from tackling storytelling we would’ve never seen even five years ago? And those are just in the honorable mentions.
Ultimately, I’m happy with this list. Some of my favorites from previous years didn’t quite make the top ten, but there are plenty that have become perennial entrants and some that even rose in my estimation. Four shows here had their first seasons; the other six enjoy multi-season runs. Six different networks are represented. Five different core genres are represented. It’s well-balanced!
A common motif I saw emerging consistently in critics’ year-end lists for television is that they struggled to narrow down their top tens. Many said that the shows in their #11–20 range could’ve been just as strong a top ten as the #1–10 they came up with. I didn’t necessarily feel the same way. I think 2020 and 2021 were both overall stronger years for television, but the heights of 2022 are as high as the form has ever been — if not higher. Sure, there were a couple shows jockeying for the nine and ten spots on the list, but I feel good about the ones I ultimately landed on. Ms. Marvel was probably the next one up? Either way, I was superbly happy with the way television progressed in 2022; it felt like old friends again! There is always phenomenal storytelling in the world if you know where to look. Hopefully, this list will help someone do just that.
Honorable Mentions: Atlanta, The Bear, Captain Ahab: The Story of Dave Stieb, For All Mankind, Ms. Marvel, Never Have I Ever, The Patient, Players, “The Plight Before Christmas” (Bob’s Burgers), Severance, The Sex Lives of College Girls, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Survivor, What We Do in the Shadows, Winning Time
10. Only Murders in the Building
Only Murders in the Building was just on the outside of last year’s top ten, but a wickedly funny and consistent second season (that was, in some ways, an incremental step up from the already delightful first season) is definitely enough to land the Hulu comedy-mystery series here with aplomb. The wintry New York City vibes remain unimpeachable and we need to truly appreciate how lucky we are to watch Steve Martin and Martin Short deliver these performances as Charles and Oliver, respectively, in the last third of their careers. But what the second season lost with a slightly weaker mystery, it gained with rich, moving character work for smaller figures (like Bunny), new characters (like Shirley MacLaine’s surprising Rose), and one of the series’ main protagonists (Mabel). You come for the mystery, but you stay for the fact that — even with all the murders — the Arconia is television’s coziest and warmest place to hang out with people you care about.
9. House of the Dragon
There is a remarkable amount of artistry and grace at play in House of the Dragon, a series that would have been distinctly artless commerce in lesser hands. Many networks seek the cash grabs on their most popular franchise, focusing on expediency over thoughtful development. HBO, on the other hand, felt no pressure to have a Game of Thrones spin-off ready to go when their latest flagship drama departed in 2019. Instead of relying on the Thrones brand, HBO relied on the HBO brand — and the bet collected. House of the Dragon was carefully brought to air by creators who only wanted to share a series that expanded on the original story with more pointed ruminations on succession, betrayal, lust, and the starkness (even though they’re Targaryens) of wisdom. Thanks to the time taken (another prequel did not receive the Casey Bloys green light), even House of the Dragon’s riskier gambits (time jumps, actor swaps, dead children) felt earned and naturalistic. I’m not a prequel person, but this is among the best I’ve ever seen.
8. The Rehearsal
On The Office, Erin once projected her own insecurity that the staff of Dunder Mifflin Scranton wanted to kill her for insurance money to a hypothetical scenario about hiring a new guy. Most of the office is speechless, but Michael relays exasperatedly, “Well, I don’t know what the fuck that was.” That specific soundbite from Michael Scott basically summarizes how I felt about The Rehearsal. The initial conceit of the show (Nathan for You’s Nathan Fielder works with real people to rehearse a social situation they’re anxious about in painstaking detail) is so far from where it ends up by episode six (I wouldn’t dare spoil it beyond reflections on exploitation, religion, reality television, abuse, loneliness, and greed) that it’s hard to even know what to say about HBO’s pseudo-reality dice-roll. We knew by the time the first episode ended with “Pure Imagination” playing over the credits, but we should have known by the time HBO gave Fielder a blank check. He’s not just a comedy savant; he’s one of our finest humanist artists.
7. Reservation Dogs
FX’s Reservation Dogs, if you haven’t heard of it, is an award-winning comedy drama about a group of Indigenous American teenagers who, in the wake of their friend’s death, strive to leave their home in Oklahoma in favor of California. Season one maintained this thematic throughline throughout most of the episodes, but 2022’s second season pitted these dynamic characters [Devery Jacobs’ splintered Elora (she’s the standout), D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai’s aching Bear, Lane Factor’s genial Cheese, and Paulina Alexis’ impulsive Willie Jack] with the consequences of their goals. It took the shape of some of those great “Can our dreams be real?” novels, like Of Mice and Men and The Great Gatsby, in season two, while also extending the show’s penchant for surreality and strength for episodes that zero in on one character at a time. At times, Reservation Dogs felt like television’s most profound sorcery.
6. The White Lotus
2021’s third place show, for me, was back in an anthology format (carrying over Jennifer Coolidge, however) in 2022. This time Mike White’s acerbic, lilting thesis on class, social power, and the questioning of one’s life decisions (all in the microcosm of one week at a hotel) took its collection of characters to a luxury White Lotus resort in Italy. Among these archetypes were Mia and Lucia (Beatrice Granno and Simona Tabasco), sex workers attempting increasingly complicated cons on the tourists, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), an aimless assistant hoping to satisfy a need she doesn’t understand, and Daphne (Meghann Fahy), a master of manipulation who might be the only person ever at ease in Italy — until the very end. That’s all without even mentioning a career redefining turn for Aubrey Plaza and an HBO revival for Michael Imperioli! On top of the magnetic cast and White’s sharp-as-ever writing, The White Lotus lathered on innumerable cinematic reference points (from L’avventura to Laverne & Shirley to The Godfather to Survivor) for a story that was as revelatory as it was relaxing.
5. Barry
After a three-year hiatus, you couldn’t have blamed people if they didn’t even remember what happened in Barry’s first two seasons. The story of a hitman desperately swimming against the current his life was swept up in as he tries to remake himself as a dutiful acting student and boyfriend was left on a massive question mark when we last saw it on HBO in 2019. Could Bill Hader, Alec Berg, and company even manage to reignite interest? Just because many other series filled the interim while Hader patiently waited until it was unequivocally safe to film, though, it doesn’t mean that any of them are capable of doing what Barry can do. It can be a rollicking fish-out-of-water comedy at an acting school, a condemning commentary on the evils of the entertainment industry, and an action thriller so riveting that many clamored for Hader to helm a feature film after “710N” aired. With some of television’s best direction and curvaceous character journeys, season three left Barry in an entirely different (but still uncertain) place at the end. Because every choice in the show was considered and earned, season three was Barry’s best yet.
4. The Afterparty
Obviously, I loved the second season of Only Murders in the Building and you’ll see soon that I loved the sequel to Knives Out. But I did also hear many people say this year that the first mystery a creative team comes up with is always their best mystery. If that’s true, then The Afterparty should be Exhibit A. Not in the sense that the second season was weaker (we haven’t seen it yet), but rather in the sense that the first season’s mystery was engaging, surprising, and well-crafted. (What else should one expect from Christopher Miller and Phil Lord at this point?) However, it wasn’t just the murder mystery at a high school reunion that made The Afterparty one of the best shows of 2022. It was the fact that the Apple anthology series toyed with the form so expertly; every episode revolved around a different character and was rooted in a different genre. Zoë Chao’s episode was animated, Ben Schwartz’s episode was a musical, Sam Richardson’s was a rom-com, Ilana Glazer’s was a psychological thriller. It was such a fun way to tell this story and they stuck the landing, too.
3. Bluey
Sesame Street. Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Blue’s Clues. Bluey. This is the Mount Rushmore of children’s educational television, for me. They don’t solely focus on identifying shapes or learning new words, though. What those four have in common is that they zero in on emotional learning, too. Perhaps Bluey does more than any have since Fred Rogers donned his first cardigan. Each episode of Bluey is short and usually focuses on some important life perspective one or more of the characters in the family (Bluey, Bingo, Chili, Bandit) needs to learn. The brilliance of Bluey, though, is not only is it funny and not only is it more concerned with “Why should we accept the love given to us?” than “What does the cow say?” It’s that it embraces play — all sides of the play. The unfairness of play, the frustration of play, the heartbreak of play. But also the beauty of it, the joy of it, the fleeting nature of it. Whether it’s pretending to be a whale for your children or finding a way to stop a steady stream of rainwater, Bluey’s mastery comes in that it finds every moment of childhood uniquely and utterly fascinating. What it can achieve through seven-minute animated episodes is unlike anything television has accomplished before. Every installment that drops on Disney Plooos from Australia is a singular gift.
2. Pachinko
As I wrote in my list of books, Pachinko is as sweeping, moving, and wrenching as they come. The Apple television adaptation of the Min Jin Lee novel only covers roughly the first fifth/quarter-ish of the book, but its transition to the screen, courtesy of Soo Hugh, is so authentically rich and earnestly crafted. After the first episode, I was riveted and immediately sought the original novel. Even though I now know the whole plot, that’s not what hooks me into the television version of the Pachinko story. It’s the sumptuous, soaring direction by Kogonada and Justin Chon; it’s the melancholic performances that bring the main character, Kim Sunja, to life across generations (Yu-na, Kim Min-ha, Youn Yuh-jung); it’s the sense that there is something life-affirming in every part of our lives if we take the time to appreciate them — even if the world’s hardships can blot that light. There will always be tears to go with the light, too. Pachinko accepts the truth of our humanity and it never shies from its occasional ugliness. Because as each episode’s opening dance number indicates, we live for today.
1. Better Call Saul
House of the Dragon is a pretty great prequel and, as I’ve already written, I’m not a prequel guy. But Better Call Saul is the best prequel I’ve ever had the honor of experiencing. Peter Gould’s new direction from Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad about Jimmy McGill, who’d eventually become Saul Goodman, and his girlfriend, Kim Wexler, came to an end after six impeccable seasons this year. I’ve already written plenty about Better Call Saul’s series finale, “Saul Gone,” but this entire sixth and final season was a complete and utter masterstroke. It is an artistic achievement that towers alongside very few other shows in the history of television and the pop culture world, writ large. From its first half of the season that developed one last con for Jimmy and Kim to play (this time against Howard) alongside the continued push towards overlapping the Gus/Mike/superlab/Salamancas arc with where it would arrive at the point of Breaking Bad to its second half chronicling the denouement of the “bad choice road” to direct Breaking Bad ties to going past that predecessor’s “Felina” episode, Better Call Saul reached for eternity in ways I’ve never seen a show strive before. It’s not the point of the work, but I still think there is no question about which show was better: Better Call Saul, by way of its masterful final season (that second half was seriously flawless), has vaulted itself into the position of one of the best television dramas ever made. In terms of drama series (not miniseries), Saul is firmly on the Rushmore now, if it wasn’t already. The character arcs at play (especially Jimmy and Kim’s, brought to life with magnificent empathy by Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn), the best cinematography in television history, the cameos that were brought in for thematic reasons, rather than Entertainment Weekly headlines. All of that was spellbounding of the highest degree. Better Call Saul is superlative in the annals of TV dramas, AMC, lawyer shows. Whatever attempt to categorize it, however misguided, sees Saul at the top all the same. I’m sad it’s over, but not sad that we were able to witness some of the best long-form storytelling of all-time before it went out.
More from the Best of 2022:
See also:
My 25 Favorite Television Shows of 2017
My 15 Favorite Television Shows of 2018
My 20 Favorite Television Shows of 2019
