Last year the television shows that I watched were so insanely good that I created a Top 20 list and had 5 special mentions. This year, with the exception of my favourite 3 shows I am not sure anything would jostle last year’s top 10 for position. Which is a shame. Or perhaps I watched the wrong shows? If you think that is the case let me know! There is so much to watch it feels a shame to not be finding the right ones.

Anyway, lets get on with the list where I think my top 3 shows could all move around depending on my mood at any given moment.

1. Slow Horses – Season 1-3 (Apple)

Being late to the party can sometimes pan out. With seasons 1 & 2 released in 2022 and season 3 being released in late 2023 I was able to watch all 18 episodes of the absolutely glorious Slow Horses this year.

The Slow Horses in question are members of MI5 who have managed to screw up their careers enough to be cast aside but not enough to be fired. They are relegated to Slough House where Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman) oversees them performing monotonous and low skilled jobs in the hope they will quit. Lamb is one of the greatest characters I have ever seen and Gary Oldman is having a wail of a time playing him. He would make Colombo look like James Bond. A slovenly, alcoholic shambles of a man. But as sharp as a tack and more than a match for anyone at the top end of intelligence which means that the team often find themselves dealing with tasks that are imperative for the safety of the country. Whilst Jack Lowden plays a young, up and coming agent named River Cartwright who in any other show would be the lead. Young, attractive, intelligent but unfortunately far too impetuous.

Based on a series of novels by Mick Herron the creatives appear to have decided to tackle the novels in order across seasons of six 45 minute episodes. Season One is based on the 2010 novel Slow Horses. Season Two is based on the 2013 novel Dead Lions. Season Three is based on the 2016 novel Real Tigers. So on that basis there are five more novels and three novellas to keep us interested for the foreseeable future.

2. The Bear – Season 2 (Disney+)

The Bear surprised me last year. I had never heard of it and then like a whirlwind I watched the whole season in two sittings and it made my top 20 shows of the year. This year it blew me away with just how fantastic it can be, although this time I took my time and watched it across four sittings (on consecutive evenings of course).

Season 1 encompassed 8 episodes of 20-31 minutes with a 48 minute finale and followed Carm (Jeremy Allen White) as he returned home to Chicago to take on his dead brother’s restaurant. Season 2 increases the episode count to 10 whilst mostly keeping episodes in the 30-35 minute zone with 3 outliers. This season follows Carm and his team refurbishing the restaurant and takes its time to focus in on its characters. In a world where prestige Television usually leans into the longer format it is a joy to watch something so phenomenal in bite size chunks. Although of course for me it just means it is easier to binge watch across a few evenings.

It retains the high intensity pressure and break neck pace of the first season but it deepens the emotional attachment to a number of its characters and delivers some devastating moments. The biggest of which is the feature length episode named “Fishes” which runs at 66 minutes long and is a flashback to five years earlier. And this episode brings in some heavy hitting cameos with Jamie Lee Curtis, Bob Odenkirk, Sarah Paulson, Gillian Jacobs and John Mulaney all making appearances. And the show is clearly a big draw for the acting community because the likes of Will Poulter and Olivia Colman also make appearances this season.

This season also probably has two episodes that would be in the running for single greatest episode of TV this year because after the pressure cooker of Fishes they followed it up with an episode called Forks which focuses on Richie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) trying to find his role in the restaurant and it is amazing television.

Ultimately though it is the relationships between the characters that make this one shine and I really want to see Carm, Richie, Sydney (Ayo Edebiri), Marcus (Lionel Boyce), Tina (Liza Colon-Zayas) and Natalie (Abby Elliott) succeed in their restaurant adventure.

3. The White Lotus – Season 1-2 (Sky/HBO)

Another late for the party entry from me with Season 1 released in 2021 and Season 2 in 2022. The White Lotus are holiday resorts for the super rich and the only thing binding the stories together is that they are set at these resorts and there is an element of whodunnit murder mystery in them both in that you know someone has died. But not who or how.

Season 1 is set in Hawaii with a fairly broad theme of rich people are assholes but like to think they are not. The absolutely genius aspect of this series is how resort manager, Armond (Murray Bartlett) goes from five years sober to total disintegration due to the treatment he receives from his guests.

Season 2 is set in Sicily and is focused on relationships and is even better than the first season. Here it is Aubrey Plaza who is the stand out performance in a sea of brilliant turns.

A real must watch show.

4. The Last Of Us – Season 1 (Sky/HBO)

The Last Of Us had a lot to live up to given that it was based on one of the best video games in the last decade (the game was released in 2013). Thankfully the creatives involved here managed to nail this one and now they just have the even more controversial 2nd game to follow it up with.

The plot follows the disintegration of society when a fungus based spore decimates human kind.

Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey are wonderful as Joel and Ellie. And across the nine episodes the characters build the bond that the game had you build across 20 or 30 hours of controlling those characters. The surrogate father-daughter relationship builds incredibly from two characters defensive and protective of their own feelings to protective of each other.

The best episode of the show though is one that is unrelated to the game. Episode 3 – Long, Long Time stars Nick Offerman and Murray Bartlett and actually sums up the meaning of the title and the game. The Last of Us was always about what it meant to be the last of humanity and what it was that makes us human and this episode achieves that beautifully.

5. Shrinking – Season 1 (Apple)

A comedy show with an undercurrent of sadness that features two really wonderful lead performances.

Jimmy (Jason Segel) is a psychiatrist with a teenage daughter who is grieving the death of his wife. His business partner and mentor Paul (Harrison Ford) is a grumpy and irascible man who is distant from his family and hiding early stage Parkinson’s disease. Whilst the show does feature some “sitcom” like moments its centre is these two damaged men trying to deal with their pain whilst helping others in their day jobs.

Harrison Ford is hilarious leaning into his grumpy persona for big laughs. Whilst Jason Segel’s vulnerability is the key to the shows success.

6. Silo – Season 1 (Apple)

A season of television so good that I immediately went and read the book it was based on and its two follow ups, before hoping that maybe this show does not remain faithful to its source material.

Episodes 1-3 of this 10 episode season are so good at getting you hooked into the deeper mystery of the show that you will want to keep watching as fast as you can in the hope of finding out the answers. Episode 1 focuses on Allison (Rashida Jones), an IT worker in the Silo who has just been selected for the baby lottery for the third time. Due to population control in the limited space people can only try for children in prescribed times. Episode 2 focuses on her husband Sheriff Holston (David Oyelowo) as he tries to dig into the mysteries of the Silo and the reasons why their society is shaped as it is. Episode 3 then introduces us to Juliette (Rebecca Ferguson), daughter of a doctor on the higher levels of the silo who has abandoned it all to become a mechanic in the basement.

Why the Silo exists, why they are there and who is in control are some of the many questions posed as the season unfolds.

7. Loki – Season 2 (Disney+)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe really stumbled this year with only Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 a big success. The other entrant in the universe connected with Loki was Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. The film itself was just fine but its main task was to expand the villainous Kang’s (Jonathan Majors) role as the new Marvel big bad. Loki Season 2 then did two things. Give us more of the humanity and machinations of Kang whilst giving this version of Loki a purpose.

Personally I loved the show and felt the ending was a particularly brilliant piece of writing and spectacle. And given the recent personal issues of Jonathan Majors I suspect this may be the last we will see of Kang the Conqueror.

8. Ahsoka – Season 1 (Disney+)

Ahsoka for me is behind Andor as the best Star Wars TV show made to date.

The plot follows a group of characters I knew very little about having never watched the animated series of Clone Wars or Rebels. But since watching this series I have gone on to watch the first 2 seasons of Rebels just to see what insight it would give me.

The plot follows the good guys of Ahsoka (Rosario Dawson), Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) trying to find their long lost friend Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi) whilst trying to fend off the evil plots of Baylan (Ray Stevenson), Shin (Ivanna Sakhno) and Morgan (Diana Lee Inosanto). There are plenty of lightsabers, Sith and Jedi to keep fans happy as well as two fan favourite appearances.

It looks great, the characters are interesting and there is a level of threat that anything could happen rather than it being “on rails” thanks to it fitting into a wider thread we all know.

9. Black Mirror – Season 6 (Netflix)

For anyone unaware, Black Mirror is a show which tells one off individual stories in each episode. It is to some extent a modern version of The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone with a focus on technology and how it could impact humanity.

This season there were five episodes with the stand out probably being “Beyond The Sea” which has an alternate version of 1969’s space race where the astronauts have a mechanical replacement on Earth which they can push their consciousness into when asleep whilst in space. Starring Aaron Paul, Josh Hartnett and Kate Mara this one goes to some very dark places.

Whilst “Loch Henry” is arguably the darkest of all the episodes as a couple get more than they bargained for when planning a nature documentary.

10. Star Trek Strange New Worlds – Season 1-2 (Paramount)

In the Star Trek universe this series is set six years prior to The Original Series and features Captain Pike (Anson Mount) in charge of the Enterprise. Alongside him are a raft of new characters and fan favourites such as Spock (Ethan Peck) and Uhura (Celia Rose Gooding).

Personally I have a bit of a bumpy time with Star Trek, liking some and not other shows. Most recently I thought the opening season of Discovery was brilliant before the whole thing dropped off a cliff in season 2 and I stopped watching before seasons 3&4. And it is quite possible the same thing may happen here because Season 1 is absolutely brilliant. Top notch trekking is to be had – moral conundrums, life lessons and great characters. Season 2 on the other hand was mostly just fine. But, and this is a huge but. It had two absolutely brilliant episodes. Episode 7 – “Those Old Scientists” was a cross over with the animated series Lower Decks (which is the best Star Trek TV show ever in my humble opinion) and Episode 9 – “Subspace Rhapsody” which was a musical episode.

So if they can keep that level of originality and harness the brilliant characters and use the talents of the actors involved this show has potential to give us a few more good seasons of television before it catches up with the timeline it is prequel to!

And What About..?

Last year I used my “What About..?” section as a way to just keep talking about more great shows beyond my top 20 of great shows. This year it is much more of a mixed bag with shows that I normally love not quite hitting the mark to shows that should have been great but were just awful.

• Barry – Season 4 (Sky/HBO)

I love this show. Barry Season 3 was number 6 in my shows of the year last year and I was hoping this finale was going to figure in my best of the year. And perhaps this would be my number 11 this year if I had enough shows to actually keep discussing great TV. This season managed to go even darker than anything that has gone before which frankly was a huge feat. Barry at this point feels like an existential impressionistic horror movie and frankly feels a little too dark for TV. The one thing I was sure of was that the ending they settled on fitted everything that went before and featured a great cameo from Jim Cummings.

• Generation V – Season 1 (Amazon)

Generation V is the teen hero spin off show of The Boys. It is an addictive show and creates a feeling of, “shall we watch one more?” But it is also hugely generic and less than ground breaking. But given that it seems to be semi essential to keep in line with the overarching storyline in The Boys and to be bringing an X-Men esque storyline to the show it is worth a watch.

• Ghosts – Season 5 & Christmas Special (BBC)

Ghosts has been a wonderful show since episode 1. But as with many shows, finding an ending can be difficult and this was no exception. Some of the individual episodes touched on the genius of what had gone before but it always felt like they were leaving it late to set the foundations for an ending. The result was an ending of sorts in the final episode of the season and then a different one for the Christmas Special. And neither were particularly satisfying.

• Inside Number 9 – Season 8 (BBC)

Given the number of seasons it is hardly surprising that this anthology horror show is starting to run out of ideas. Every single episode is its own self contained spooky/eerie/crime story. There was some interesting stuff this season but it was not until the final episode, “The Last Weekend” that things took a particularly satisfying and brutal turn.

• Jack Ryan – Seasons 3-4 (Amazon)

How did this show manage to be one of the dullest and most predictable things on television? Amazon have thrown a huge budget at a well known character with plenty of scope for stories and then brought in John Krazinski and Wendell Pierce to play the lead roles. Season 1 was fine but since then its entertainment value dropped off a cliff. Season 3 was absolutely dire and then Season 4 chose to bring back Jack’s girlfriend (Abbie Cornish), a character who disappeared from Seasons 2&3 with barely an explanation just to give him something to be worried about. At least the final season was given a shorter 6 episode run just to wind it up.

• The Legend of Vox Machina – Season 2 (Amazon)

Season 1 of this show featured at number 14 last year and this was another show that was mildly disappointing this year. This season started slowly but did manage to find its feet eventually. The key issues for me though was that the dragon villains seemed impossibly strong whilst the group of heroes were just keeping all of their issues to themselves to save up for peril later. There are moments of humour and action that managed to cut through these faults though.

• Mythic Quest – Season 3 (Apple)

Darn it this makes me sad. Mythic Quest Season 1 took 5th spot in 2020 and Season 2 took 6th spot in 2021. This season however was a huge let down and it seemed as though the writers had painted themselves into a corner by the end of Season 2 that they had no answer for. Ian (Rob McElhenney) took a back seat for most of the season, whilst C.W. (F. Murray Abraham) was written out. They still kept up their tradition of a particularly special episode that seemed unrelated initially (Episode 7 – Sarian) but overall the quality was never as high.

• Secret Invasion – Season 1 (Disney+)

Oh dear! This is the worst Marvel TV/Film product ever to be released. I was concerned in the opening two episodes when the editing seemed incredibly choppy and characters seemed to be saying things that were dubbed in post production rather than on set but as the mercifully short 6 episode season unfolded it just got worse and worse. Ben Mendelsohn was wasted, Emilia Clarke made no impact, Samuel L. Jackson looked bored and only Olivia Colman seemed to come through unscathed! I suspect this one will be brushed under the carpet.

• Ted Lasso – Season 3 (Apple)

Another crushing disappointment for me. After the soaring brilliance of Season 1 & 2 Ted Lasso like many other shows before it struggled with the idea of a conclusion. At this point in the show it had morphed from a 30 min comedy to a 45-75 min per episode drama series and personally for me this took all the fun and enjoyment out of what the show was all about. There were occasional highs but in the main it was just a satisfactory end to a superb start.

• Yellowjackets – Season 1

This show was close to brilliance. The story of a high school soccer team getting stranded in the wilderness is intriguing and as we are told the story in flashback and know only four women survived it makes it an agonisingly wonderful watch as information is drip fed to you. There are brilliant performances from Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis and the casting matches to their teen versions are brilliant. The big issue though is that I remain unconvinced the finer details of the story are known in advance and we are not just being strung along for as long as the show is interesting. The finale of this season both wraps some threads up and opens more for another season but I could not find the strength to carry on just yet.

Let me know what should go on my watch list for 2024.