2024 felt like a hard reset in the world of TV, a changing of the guard. Most of the series we’ve come to love have wrapped up, giving way to the latest wave of prestige-iness. In some cases, that handoff went incredibly smoothly—as, for example, one rapper/actor handing over the keys to a series about the surreality of fame to another—while others were a bit more jarring. After all, do we ever really expect these superhero-universe spinoffs and TV adaptations of middling and mostly forgotten blockbusters from decades past to bear any sort of fruit?
Yet this feels like the first year where the appeal of these forms of entertainment (to say nothing of the long-maligned medium of video game adaptations) commonly became elevated to the status of must-watches. Sure, there were a few familiar titles returning for another victory lap, either with a further-honed ensemble cast or a new generation of talent—but it’s hard to ignore their minority status among this thrilling new moment in programming.
Here are our picks for the 10 most invigorating series of 2024.
10. True Detective: Night Country
I liked True Detective: Night Country because it was a good TV series, but I also liked it because it seemed to really piss off Nic Pizzolatto, who created the original True Detective, and took plenty of issue with the new series using the name of his franchise even though he had nothing to do with the latest season. In since-deleted Instagram comments, he referred to ties to his now-decade-old first season as “so stupid.” He also wrote: “I certainly did not have any input on this story or anything else. Can’t blame me.” You can’t credit him for its success, either. Jodie Foster and Kali Reis starred in the six-episode jaunt, and while it never reaches the heights of Pizzolatto’s first season, very few shows do.
Instead of complaining (he further noted on Instagram that the show was “disrespectful and insulting” and a “hot mess”), Pizzolatto should just admit that he’s cranky because he was labeled an auteur after season one and failed to carry that energy into subpar seasons two and three. There’s a reason why he wasn’t asked to make Night Country, and I don’t think it’s because he’s simply too good for the franchise. Showrunner Issa López does a stellar job with this latest installment of the series, which imbues the show’s prior themes with just enough magical realism to make each supernatural twist and turn not necessarily plausible, but delightfully haunting. — Will Schube
Read our full review of True Detective: Night Country here.
9. The Vince Staples Show
Vince Staples must have known what he was doing when he decided to create and star in a new TV series about the surreality and comic mundanity of rap stardom told from the perspective of a figure still deeply embedded in his local community, utilizing dark, absurdist humor and dimly lit sets to further solidify the overarching emotional tone of the rapper/actor’s vision. After all, Atlanta had just wrapped up its final season, leaving a very Paper Boi–shaped hole in the streaming landscape that its also-now-wrapped-up FX peer Dave never quite filled.
Yet rather than merely accepting its fate as Atlanta: Long Beach, Staples brings his own unique take on deadpanning through certifiable media events ranging from an armed bank robbery to the near-fatal interest accrued on an ages-old beef. Whereas Donald Glover found joy in putting white people in compromising situations, the racist gaslighting, redlining, and gatekeeping in The Vince Staples Show largely feels peripheral to the dysfunction within Black communities, expressed through a recurring bit depicting everyone aside from a dead-eyed Vince as comically agitated at all times, with much of the show’s humor stemming from his (and, by extension, his audience’s) confusion as to why a modicum of fame has soured the amusement park mascot community against him. — Mike LeSuer
8. We Are Lady Parts
British television has a rich history of presenting gorgeous white women as singing stars of their own all-female bands dating at least as far back as the 1970s and Rock Follies. Never, though, have the Brits made a punk band of empowered women musicians such as Lady Parts and its all-Muslim membership. Credit sitcom creator, writer, and director Nida Manzoor (best known for penning episodes of Doctor Who and her Pakistani action-comedy Polite Society) for the Channel 4 sitcom featuring all shades and attitudes of Muslim womanhood: The nerdy PhD student turned lead guitarist, the focused halal butcher and lead vocalist, the ditzy Uber-driving drummer, the young mom who happens to play bass and draw comics, and the last-chance manager with a day job in lingerie.
All of whom fill out the series’ second season’s plotlines, which feature Muslim moms on tour with their kids, the money hustle to record their first album, and the arrival of yet another all-female, all-Muslim band doing covers of Lady Parts originals (and that’s just the first episode). I hate to trade in on the name of other dynamic comic series, but much of Manzoor’s most poignant and awkwardly humorous dialogue and relationships—kissing outside of the Muslim faith, considering modern modes of dress and display—at times is reminiscent of Mindy Kaling’s Indian-American teen dramedy Never Have I Ever laced with the absurdist punk spunk of The Young Ones. Only We Are Lady Parts is better, gutsier, and more vividly of-the-moment. — A.D. Amorosi
7. Fallout
Fallout was already an exceptional video game series, but Graham Wagner and Geneva Robertson-Dworet’s new post-apocalyptic series drops a kiloton bomb on the game adaptation arms race again after HBO’s The Last of Us debut last year. This is a sharply directed piece with witty characters—it’s hilariously self-aware, and full of action and commentary for a modern audience with or without prior knowledge of the Bethesda series.
The show’s creators truly capture the feeling of the game it’s based on as it opens in 1950s America, at the peak of the Cold War. We meet former TV star Cooper Howard (Walton Goggins) slumming at a kid’s birthday party as he gets hit with a mushroom cloud and turned into the mutant wanderer The Ghoul. He meets a vault dweller and so many other wild creatures and inhabitants of both worlds on a madcap journey through the apocalypse. We eventually cut to Vault 33 two centuries later, where a seemingly perfect society only has to worry about avoiding marrying their closest cousins. The world above is full of danger—as one irradiated resident of Filly says, “Clean hair, good teeth, all 10 fingers. Must be nice.” Fallout balances the comedy and tragedy of this hair-trigger world with poise. War never changes, but the state of video game adaptations certainly has. — Kim March
6. The Bear
The Bear has garnered as much vitriol as it has accolades for its tendency to bombard the viewer with fragmented scenes of trauma and disproportionate amounts of establishing footage that couldn’t possibly not be funded by the City of Chicago’s tourist board. And at this point, the show’s creators are clearly aware of this—if they were worried about securing the vote of anyone soured by the show’s unabashed reverence for Malick-like wisps of narrative, stressful Mamet-speak, Departed-esque Van Morrison live recordings on the soundtrack, and abundance of Faks, why would they have opened the show’s third season with what is effectively an epic, 40-minute montage comprised of almost nothing else?
With the new restaurant opening at the end of season two, viewers could be forgiven for bracing for the downhill slide that inevitably occurs when, figuratively speaking, Jim and Pam finally get together. Yet in addition to the powerful single-episode vignettes The Bear has always excelled at, this season explores an overarching theme familiar to creative individuals across mediums about the shrinking middle class of artists in an era when it’s no longer enough to just be good at something to pursue it as a living—assuming you even have the excess of funding behind you to prove it. As we continue to imagine what Jeremy Allen White looks like not stressed out of his mind, the show hones in on the added pressure of financial responsibility for an endeavor that can only turn a profit if you’re at the absolute top of your class. It’s as white-knuckle as the show has been since the first episode, while leaving plenty of space for elucidating from an informed creative’s POV on why we no longer seem to be able to have nice things. — Mike LeSuer
5. Landman
In a year where the lion’s share of Taylor Sheridan attention went to the anti-heroic finale of Yellowstone and its weighty Western cliches and Tulsa King’s Hopalong Cassidiy throughline, the Chapel Hill–born horse-soap-opera auteur’s best, funniest work nearly slipped past viewers: Landman. Based on Texas Monthly journalist Christian Wallace’s clever, earthen Boomtown podcast about the discovery of real-life big oil in West Texas’ Permian Basin and the “Highway to Hell” created by lust, greed, and speed, the writer in Sheridan has had little time to mythologize that which is still moving forward, furiously.
And with that comes the starkly authentic black humor of pragmatic roughneck fixers such as Billy Bob Thornton’s Tommy Norris (in his cattiest, meatiest role since Bad Santa), smiling wildcat billionaires like Monty Miller (after The Morning Show, is Jon Hamm destined to forever play calculating money men?), and the women who love them in varying stages of undress. Still moving sadly and violently (there’s a lot of death—accidental and perhaps not-so-accidental) at a quick yet ruminative clip through its harsh first season, Landman could prove to be Sheridan’s true defining work if he could move away from the offshoots of Yellowstone as quickly as its family inhabitants have by that story’s close. — A.D. Amorosi
4. English Teacher
A delightful combination of Schitt’s Creek and Difficult People, English Teacher is the latest TV project from Brian Jordan Alvarez, whom you’ve probably seen on TikTok but who really broke through nearly a decade ago with his poignant and off-beat web series The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo. He plays the titular English teacher, doing his best to lead a halfway decent life in Austin (which hasn’t been kept quite Weird enough) as he deals with conservative parents, apathetic administrators, and too-woke-for-their-own-good students, including those played by indie darling Ivy Wolk (who also appeared in Anora this year) and nepo princess Romy Mars (who tried to charter a helicopter to visit her friend last year).
As Evan Marquez, Alvarez pines for another teacher (Langston Kerman) while being unable to escape the charms of his ex (Jordan Firstman)—but the true love of his life just might be his best friend and fellow teacher Gwen, played by Stephanie Koenig, Alvarez’s real-life pal (and her real-life husband plays her on-screen boyfriend, and it’s simply always cute when that happens), their obvious affection for one another elevating every scene they share. With AP Bio hopefully finding a new audience now that it’s on Netflix, and Abbott Elementary still the little network show that could, it may be hard to convince viewers to make another teacher show part of their regular viewing schedule, but it’s among the strongest first seasons of the year, bolstered by Enrico Colantoni as the dry principal and the incongruous but always fun ’80s soundtrack. — Lizzie Logan
3. The Penguin
HBO’s The Penguin miniseries was one of TV’s biggest surprises in 2024—no one expected a show about a DC villain beneath Joker, Two-Face, Bane, Catwoman, Harley Quinn, and the Scarecrow on the call sheet to be this good. Somewhere under all the prosthetics caked onto the title character is Oscar nominee Colin Farrell, whose performance is just the start of the acting brilliance on display in this story that unfolds after the flooding that devastated Gotham City during Matt Reeves’ 2022 grunge blockbuster The Batman. Ferrell’s Oswald Cobb is as personable and charming as he is sadistic, aided and abetted by his driver and enforcer, Vic (Rhenzy Feliz). He’s also done dirty by the casting’s other highlight, Cristin Milioti, whose Sofia Falcone is an all-time great TV villain as she and Oswald circle each other like two rats fighting in the sewer. The scenes with Deirdre O'Connell as Oz’s mentally ailing mother Francis are heart-rending, as well.
Ultimately, The Penguin is a crime drama more than a comic book series as its writers are more likely to introduce Gotham’s organized crimelords (such as Rupert Thorne, The Black Glove leader Doctor Simon Hurt, or Roman Sionis/Black Mask) in future seasons than dropping Batman and Robin through the skylight to save the day. The climactic ending of this season kept the tensions taut between The Gentleman of Crime and any surviving gangsters vying for control of Gotham’s criminal underbelly. We’re ready to watch the Penguin unleash his vengeance on any adversary in season two. — Kyle Lemmon
2. Shōgun
Co-writers Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks created a truly impressive series adapted from James Clavell’s historical fiction novel, Shōgun, with their hit series of the same name. Both are based on actual events and eminent figures in early 17th century Japan, a period of early European contact while the Spanish and Portuguese sought to establish trade relations. While the well-worn comparisons to Game of Thrones aren’t unfounded, Shōgun is so much more. Stunning visual compositions are provided by British cinematographer Christopher Ross that immerse audiences into an epic of silver-screen quality. The battles are bloody, the sex scenes are tastefully steamy, and the struggles for power are never-ending.
Lord Toranaga (played to perfection by Hiroyuki Sanada) is a daimyo (or feudal lord), one of the five members of the Council of Regents that ruled Japan after the passing of their unified leader. Sanada’s career includes legions of action blockbusters and art-house dramas, but he does some especially powerful heavy lifting here. As the daimyos plot to overthrow Toranaga, he makes an unexpected ally in the shipwrecked English Protestant John Blackthorne (Cosmo Jarvis), who just so happens to have brought some cannons. Blackthorne is caught in an unfamiliar world with significant political and religious turmoil but manages to traverse the territory with charm, charisma, and a deep-seated abhorrence of Catholics. His translator and later love interest Lady Mariko (powerfully portrayed by Anna Sawai) is subtle and mesmerizing. The show premiered via FX in February and was met with an unending stream of praise, notably winning an astounding 18 Emmys, making it one of the most-awarded shows in a single year. — Melanie Robinson
1. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
I thought I’d never have to think about the last scenes of Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s first season again as long as I live, and yet…here I am. There’s so much about love and loss and marriage and collaboration and pain and joy and hate that it became a little much for me. Much of the initial season of Donald Glover’s latest television foray (though his co-star Maya Erskine steals the show again and again) is extremely funny, but like Glover’s previous show, Atlanta, these concepts revolving around levity are generally introduced alongside stabs of painful moments. The show succeeds not because of any ingenuous plot or brilliant character arcs—in this way, it separates itself from Atlanta’s legacy.
This show is the year’s best because Glover and Erskine make Mr. & Mrs. Smith hum on vibes (or lack thereof). They’re so damn good together, whether fighting, loving, or doing both, as they do during the final moments of episode eight, which I am now thinking about again, making me squirmy and anxious and invigorated, as prestige TV is wont to do. Glover spoke about how they had to make the show different from Doug Liman’s 2005 movie the show is based on, because the film is essentially built around the premise that everyone will watch Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie do sexual tension for two hours. Their show had to reckon with a different premise within this same universe. “I’m shirtless in this shit, and I’m not fucking Brad Pitt.” Glover said. “People are always like, ‘Man, your arms are long,’ or, ‘Your knees are ugly.’” Added Erskine: “When there’s an expectation to be wanted or attractive—that pressure that I’m putting on myself—is a very vulnerable place to be.”
A different vulnerability—facing death, confronting the love you’ve tried to skirt around, the reasons for being alive, etc.—animates the show’s finale, recontextualizing the associations we’ve had with the title Mr. & Mrs. Smith for nearly two decades. It’s a moment of desperation, of the nerves that come with decisions that can change everything. It’s a haunting and haunted moment, an elegy for the show and relationship that was. It’s not only the idea that brings together the entire show, but stands out as a singular moment in 2024. — Will Schube
