Our Favorite TV Shows, Episodes, and Performances of 2024

This week:

• Our attempt at a “Best TV of the Year” post

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

The problem with setting out to write a “Best TV Shows of the Year” list is that it is fundamentally impossible to watch all of the offerings that come out each year. Even for me, whose “job” it is to do that, and whose couch has developed a personalized groove in the cushion where I sit for endless hours to watch things.

It’s at a point where it’s not even feasible to keep up with the series that critics and friends insist are good.

So this is not going to be a Best TV Shows of the Year list because, quite simply, I haven’t seen all the best TV shows. I also no longer have the fortitude to weather countless, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T WATCH [insert your favorite show here]!” messages. I watched what I watched! That’s all there is to it.

This is instead a list of my favorite things that I saw on TV this year. Some of them are entire series, some are the performances that stunned me, and some are just random scenes or episodes. It’s a scattershot of greatness, which is just about the only coherence I can even attempt at the end of another dizzying, exhausting year.

To begin with, my two favorite shows on TV this past year I think, general consensus would agree, were also the best shows.

Shōgun was a stunning triumph, an ambitious epic on a scale that I found invigorating in the ways that Game of Thrones was when it was at its highest quality. Yet that scope was grounded by emotional, delicate, and, alternately, forceful performances by its ace cast.

On the flip side of that grandeur is Somebody Somewhere, perhaps one of the most intimate and specific series to air on HBO Sunday nights. Its explosiveness came from the huge, complicated, and relatable feelings that Bridget Everett and her co-stars acted out so sensitively. I belly-laughed through every episode, and cried just as often.

It’s thrilling when a show that’s already excellent gets even better. This was the best season of Hacks yet. I loved Paul W. Downs and Kaitlin Olson this season, and Jean Smart is inimitable. But Hannah Einbinder in the last stretch of episodes, particularly, left me with my jaw on the floor. I rewatched that final scene more than anything else on TV this year.

I found my way, after years of resisting them, to embracing broadcast procedurals this year. It helps that the crop airing now are really clever in the way they twist the format. Kathy Bates in Matlock and Carrie Preston in Elsbeth are my go-to comfort watches each week. Found is one of the most intense, but satisfying takes on the procedural in a while. And Doctor Odyssey is just plain bonkers in a way I find irresistible.

This was the year that everyone couldn’t stop talking about Baby Reindeer and Monsters: The Erik and Lyle Menendez Story on Netflix. I’m still not sure how I feel about Baby Reindeer, only that I’m still haunted by several sequences and Jessica Gunning’s unbelievable performance—and can’t imagine that I’ll stop thinking about it soon. I was aghast throughout much of Monsters, especially the incest subplot, but can’t deny that Cooper Koch was phenomenal in the splashy one-take episode.

I will not soon stop thinking about Adam Brody and Kristen Bell’s first kiss in Nobody Wants This. After suffering through a slog of Marvel TV series in past years, I never would have imagined an episode or performance as electric and unusual as Patti LuPone’s big showcase in Agatha All Along.

Whatever problems there were with The Bear this season—and hoo-boy were there a lot of them—Liza Colón-Zayas’ standalone episode was undeniable, and I’m the part of the audience who was left in shell-shocked tears watching Abby Elliott and Jamie Lee Curtis in the birthing episode. And watching Shrinking, which I thought really leveled up this season, I change my mind each week over whose performance in the cast I’m most obsessed with. (Usually it’s Michael Urie or Christa Miller’s.)

No matter how much there is to watch on TV, I will never—never—abandon my beloved Real Housewives. This was the Year of Shannon Beador, the Real Housewives of Orange County star who arrived on set admitting her life was in shambles after a breakup and DUI, and served a raw, broken honesty about her attempts to build back again. It was spellbinding television. Equally spectacular has been this season of The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, which took the cannon blast given it by the “Receipts! Proof! Timelines! Screenshots!” viral moment at the end of last season and continued that soaring momentum.

What were some other highlights? I was mesmerized by the gorgeous, sumptuous black-and-white cinematography in Ripley, featuring an incredible Andrew Scott performance. (His co-star Dakota Fanning has been getting awards attention for her role, but I much preferred her catty, spoiled gold-digger in Perfect Couple.) I haven’t watched all of The Penguin, but I did screen the big episode for Cristin Milioti, whom I adore, and holy hell, did she knock my socks off.

My little treat to myself when I need a pick me up is to go on YouTube and binge all the latest “Kellyoke” performances from The Kelly Clarkson Show and Seth Meyers’ interviews on Late Night With Seth Meyers. I’m not sure how many times I watched the “Jumanji” sketch on Saturday Night Live, but it was a lot. I don’t think I giggled more this year than when I watched the new season of Girls5eva—I immediately pressed play on Episode 1 again after watching the finale, I enjoyed it so much—and look forward to so many rewatches of the hilarious final season of What We Do in the Shadows in the future.

Even though I haven’t seen everything, there are a lot of other shows I’ve really enjoyed this season: Anne Rice’s Interview With the Vampire, The Diplomat, Industry, St. Denis Medical, Ghosts, Black Doves, Palm Royale, and English Teacher—though celebrating that latter one now feels a lot more complicated.

But if I’m being honest, this year, more than exhausting myself trying to keep up with new series, I’ve been really holding space and feeling power in the old series that I can watch countless times and can always count on making me happy. So to Carrie Bradshaw, Will Truman, Penny Hartz, Sofia Petrillo, Jenna Maroney, Julia Sugarbaker, Niles Crane, Fran Fine, and all my old friends, thanks for being there for me this year.

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What to watch this week:

The Brutalist: A three-and-a-half-hour running time sounds, well, brutal. But it’s worth it. (Now in theaters)

Laid: Everyone this woman had sex with is dying. Yikes! (Now on Peacock)

Babygirl: Nicole Kidman delivering an audacious, outstanding performance? Real original. (Now in theaters)

What to skip this week:

Mufasa: The Lion King: It doesn’t even have good songs! (Now in theaters)

Sonic the Hedgehog 3: The worst kids’ movie in years. And the previous ones were good! (Now in theaters)