TV never really left, per se, but 2021 certainly did its part to bring it back. Disney+ relaunched the Marvel Universe with the captivating WandaVision, prestige TV like Mare of Easttown became appointment viewing, Netflix had the slam dunk of the year with Squid Game, and a new era of book-to-tv adaptations kept coming and did not stop coming.
These are the shows that kept us guessing, got us obsessed, made us cry, cracked the best jokes, and otherwise rose above the rest during TV’s big comeback year. If you haven’t seen any of them, consider this a hard recommend to check them out before 2022.
20. You Season 3
Three seasons in and
You Season 3 didn’t reinvent the formula that made this show work. Instead, it put a finer point on everything it already did well, elevating its universe to a new era of excellence. Coming back after Season 2 could have been a mistake. But the addition of Baby Henry re-centered Joe’s focus just long enough for us to want to take a closer look at this dastardly dad. It’s good thing too, considering that this season the writing is sharper, the acting is more refined, and the reveals are somehow even more jaw-dropping.If there’s a 2021 binge I remember in my bones, it’s You. Joe is expected to return next year. — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter
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19. Shadow and Bone
Credit: COURTESY OF NETFLIX
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18. Sweet Tooth
Sweet Tooth was a surprisingly fantastical addition to the Netflix lineup this year and its big bet on childlike wonder paid off in spades. Even though its setting takes place after a deadly virus has decimated the human population and caused the collapse of civilization (yikes),
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17. WandaVision
There is truly no reason that a sitcom-pastiche-grief-metaphor starring two tertiary Avengers should be a knockout hit and television masterclass, but Jac Shaeffer knew what she was doing with WandaVision. The genre-bending series brought us back to the MCU after more than a year-and-a-half without it, and
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16. Invincible
Credit: Cr: Amazon Prime Video
Robert Kirkman may be best-known as the creator of The Walking Dead, but Amazon is poised to change that with Invincible. For people who have read the comic, the first season of this animated Prime Video adaptation is nothing short of a dream come true for the way it’s nailing and even improving on the source.
For everyone else, Amazon’s first season of
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15. Lupin
Reportedly the
Across ten extraordinarily binge-worthy episodes, series creators George Kay and François Uzan maintain taut suspense at every turn. When you’re not watching an ingenious scheme unfold, you’re getting an intimate portrait of a charismatic antihero whose magnetism rivals the likes of Sherlock Holmes and Robin Hood. More episodes are on the way, but we don’t have a release date quite yet. — AF
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14. We Are Lady Parts
The only problem with Nida Manzoor’s exceptional comedy about an all-female Muslim punk bad is that it’s too short — but the good news is we’re getting Season 2. Anjana Vasan stars as Amina, a spectacularly awkward and endearing guitar player who joins We Are Lady Parts. She’s one of five rock-solid performances in a show that explores and embraces complex Muslim women, with an irreverent pop-punk soundtrack and riotous laughs to boot. Watch it now and put that banger on repeat. —PK
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13. Yellowjackets
Credit: Brendan Meadows/SHOWTIME
Yellowjackets creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson deliver drama as good as gold in their darkly comedic survival thriller. Told across two timelines, this harrowing story of an elite girls’ soccer team fighting to get home after a plane crash, and then struggling to cope with what that took 25 years later, is the sort of TV you don’t want to sleep on.
Week to week, Yellowjackets fans are being yanked down a rabbit hole of maybe supernatural…maybe human…maybe both(!) terror that’s so satisfying you’ll be on constant alert to avoid spoilers.A stellar cast — including Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, Tawny Cypress, Christina Ricci, Sophie Nélisse, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Sophie Thatcher, Sammi Hanratty, and Ella Purnell — and
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12. Mythic Quest Season 2
Mythic Quest rebounded off of an epic first season with a new stretch of episodes in 2021 that demonstrate both how the show has grown, and how its ongoing story will grow from here. This cutting workplace comedy from the creators of It’s Always Sunny tempers the mean streak of the FX series with an inescapably wholesome gooey center. It’s also confidently grounded in the day-to-day work of building a hit video game, capturing all the inherent ridiculousness of a serious-minded job where people can spend a whole day debating the merits of a virtual shovel. Now in its second season with a more intricately detailed and emotionally complex set of lovable characters,
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11. Search Party Season 4
Search Party is the rare show that consistently outdoes itself, season after season. Its fourth outing sees Dory (Alia Shawkat) kidnapped by her stalker (a supremely unhinged Chip Escola) and reckoning with the actions that led her to this point. Shawkat puts in a dynamite performance as Dory submits to Chip’s psychological manipulation; meanwhile, costars Meredith Hagner, John Early, and John Reynolds pack the search for Dory with the show’s signature cocktail of narcissism, pain, humor, and self-discovery. It’s an unbeatable season of television — that is, until Season 5 premieres in January. — PK
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10. Succession Season 3
Credit: Macall B. Polay/HBO
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9. The White Lotus
The coronavirus pandemic required television creators to get extra creative when it came to writing and setting new work. The White Lotus is an example of that creativity paying off in spades. Mike White wrote The White Lotus to take advantage of the empty luxurious hotels in Hawaii and had the production team transform the Four Seasons in Maui into the glittering, gorgeous hotel from hell for The White Lotus‘ hideously sharp first season.
All of the guests staying at the White Lotus hotel are horrible. Most of the staff aren’t any better, but they don’t have the money to hurt people the way rich folk do. When this particularly difficult crop of guests starts to put a strain on the emotionally volatile hotel manager Armond (Murray Bartlett, whose performance is an achievement), that horribleness begins to show through the beauty and luxury of their surroundings. Who said vacations are always relaxing?— AN
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8. Heels
Wrestling might not be a sport, but
Heels has the family-driven heart of Friday Night Lights, the action of WWE Raw, the romantic drama of One Tree Hill, and some of this year’s most arresting television performances. Definitely the best television performances in spandex, that’s for sure. — AN
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7. Reservation Dogs
Credit: Shane Brown/FX
Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi’s comedy debuted with the confidence and charisma every show wishes it had. Reservation Dogs follows four Oklahoma teens on daily adventures, small and large — from loitering outside a local clinic to stealing a chip truck and delivering it to local criminals. The show is created almost entirely by Native talent behind and in front of the camera; young stars D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, Paulina Alexis, and Lane Factor never miss a beat. The friends and their world are so authentic and inviting that it’s impossible not to get sucked in, to feel acutely for their victories, laughter, and heartache. — PK
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6. The Other Two Season 2
Thank the entertainment gods for the return of
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5. The Underground Railroad
Barry Jenkins’ directorial prowess and Colson Whitehead’s history-making excellence in fiction came together in the
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4. Hacks
Credit: Anne Marie Fox/HBO Max
Hacks is many things: an incredible vehicle for Jean Smart; a provocative piece about the business of comedy; an odd-couple two-hander about work relationships that become all-consuming.
The show, about a falling star older comedian (Smart) and the once-hot, now-blacklisted writer (Hannah Einbinder) that begins to work with her on her Las Vegas standup act, is snappy and smart, with plenty to say about women who never got their due. It could easily have turned into a screed against Gen Z or Boomers, but instead, Hacks (which was co-created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky) is a thoughtful exploration of change and comedy, engaging to both those who know a lot about the inside of Hollywood as well as those who look on from afar. The show is engrossing and funny — a weekend binge you’ll be thinking about far after the surprising and stirring final moments. — Erin Strecker, Entertainment Editor
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3. Mare of Easttown
HBO’s drama became a rare case of must-see viewing and appointment TV — a dying breed that the Home Box Office is one of the last networks to dominate. Where Disney’s Marvel shows were endlessly discussed yet easily spoiled, Mare’s Sunday primetime slot gave us much-needed structure as we dissected a murder investigation in Pennsylvnia. Kate Winslet and her Pennsylvania accent lead this cast which
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2. Squid Game
Do we really have to recap? Netflix’s South Korean superhit Squid Game landed on the service in mid-September and exploded like none other, shattering the record for the most watched Netflix show of all time (the record has since been beaten by Arcane). Its dystopian premise, in which indebted civilians compete with each other in death-match versions of schoolyard games for money — is as dark as it comes, but
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1. Only Murders in the Building
Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/Hulu
Some television shows excel because of spectacular writing. Others float by with prestigious casts. There are shows with a strong, confident aesthetic and shows that dazzle with its twisty, wonderful plots. It’s incredibly rare to find a television show that has all of those things at once. When we do,
Only Murders in the Building is the remarkable product of showbiz royalty (Steve Martin, Martin Short, Nathan Lane, Tina Fey) coming together with a new generation of talent (Selena Gomez, Aaron Dominguez) to tackle the endlessly entertaining subject of true crime with a fictional spin on a great premise: true crime fans stumbling on a podcast-worthy murder in their Upper West Side apartment building and deciding todo a Serial-style investigation of their own. — AN
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