It’s been a while since I wrote about a TV topic for this column and the reasons for that are complex. For one there was a lot of movie-related news and lists that felt more pressing, but since I did a list of the best movies of the year, you might expect a corresponding list of the best TV shows. I don’t have that for you because I didn’t watch many of the new shows last year for a variety of reasons I’ll get to shortly.
There were a few shows worth mentioning, of course. Showtime’s Yellowjackets was amazing, though only the last couple of episodes aired in 2022. AppleTV+’s Severance was excellent, too. I really liked The Boys season 3 (Amazon Prime), and the new wave of Rick and Morty episodes was a surprising return to form. Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal (HBO Max) was an incredible work of artistic performance achievement, and also deeply unsettling. Only Murders in the Building season 2 was probably the best season of the year from what I saw. And I liked the first episodes of Our Flag Means Death (HBO Max), The Patient (Hulu), and The Reboot (Hulu) though I haven’t seen much of those yet.
But there was even more TV from 2022 that misfired for me so spectacularly that I had almost an existential crisis about the state of TV. This is barely hyperbole; my doctoral dissertation concerns several shows from the 2010s making me something like a TV scholar, but the crop 2022 shows unsettled me so much that I actually altered my post-graduation career aims and plans. Euphoria season 2 was such a poorly written mess and such an egregious betrayal of its queer characters that it took until Severance a few weeks later to restore my faith in television. Atlanta season 3, similarly, has plenty of fans, but I couldn’t get through more than a couple of episodes, even with gritted teeth. And Stranger Things season 4 had episodes so unruly and laden with unnecessary stuff that I hesitate to even call it “television.”
Is this an overly critical spoilsport attitude? Yes, but it’s an honest one.
There’s a South Park episode from a lot of seasons ago where Stan has a birthday and suddenly everything he used to like in the way of movies or TV seems like shit like other people hear the pop song and he hears the sound of farting/shitting. That’s how I felt toward TV for much of 2022 as shows came out over and over that seemed to be a hit with absolutely everyone except me (House of the Dragon is a good example, and I watched almost the whole season for that one).
So at the start of this new year, I want to take a moment to consider TV, why it played such a small role in my life last year, and why I’m hopeful that 2023 can stir my love for the medium again.
Why is this year such a miss for me?
1. There were a lot of previously great shows that misfired. Topping the list is Euphoria. I loved the first season of Euphoria with its sharp characters, tight plotting, and an amazing portrait of queer youth especially present with the character Jules (Hunter Schaffer). She was pretty much why I liked the show in the first place…and she was almost nowhere to be found in season 2, which also suffered from extensive delays, rewrites, and off-screen drama. Atlanta missed for me too (so much that I haven’t gotten to season 4 yet, which I heard was a lot more like seasons 1 and 2). Moving the action to Europe was always a major risk, but what was really lacking was the dynamics between the characters. It’s my opinion that interesting character dynamics + location/tonal atmosphere = good television. Atlanta messed with the formula a lot and lost me, and many other viewers, too.
2. I approached shows with fear and anxiety and not hopeful expectations. A story. The first season of Severance is 9 episodes. I watched the first two one day, the next four the next day, and the last three on the third day. I watched episode 6 and went to bed, and I struggled to sleep that night. Was this because I was hanging on the cliff, wondering what would come next? Not really. It’s because Severance shares some similarities to Squid Game, and I remembered how the last half of Squid Game was horrible. I didn’t sleep well because I was terrified that it would end poorly. This fear never plagued me back in 2015 as I plowed through another mediocre season of American Horror Story (which almost always ended badly). As I mentioned above, the trainwreck that was Euphoria was fresh in my mind and it made me nervous that most shows I watched would implode on me. And even if I found a good new show I liked, it would either suck or get canceled, because…
3. In 2022, capitalism made the streaming wars vicious. HBO Max axed and removed lots of programs on a whim. AMC made some painful cuts, too. Netflix, as usual, did little to promote second seasons and then canned shows after disappointing viewership numbers for minimally promoted second seasons. Or if all that fails, you can be The Owl House, which was just too queer and perfect for Disney to let it live. One of the best things about TV is attachment. I rewatch New Girl and Arrested Development almost every year because I’m deeply attached to the characters (similarly, I rewatch The Office and some other sitcoms like it every few years). If a show is 6-8 episodes with little realistic hope of a second season, attachment is minimal and that hurts my casual enjoyment of a thing. There’s a reason a lot of the most discussed shows of 2022—like Andor (Disney+) or The White Lotus (HBO)—are miniseries. It wasn’t easy to get attached to TV in 2022, and that really caused a justified wariness.
4. There weren’t a lot of good second and third seasons. Many shows have good or great first seasons, but a lot of shows tend to be at their best in the second and third seasons. And because of the atmosphere of point 3, there just weren’t as many of those. The idea of shows being “long-running” or putting out a new season every year seems practically extinct because shows aren’t being given as long a leash to figure things out. There’s a logic to this, but it means a lot of good TV is not even being made.
But I have hope for 2023
However, with all this being said, I still have hope for 2023, even as the ruthlessness of streaming cuts will likely get worse before it gets better. And here’s why.
1. Succession, and probably The Boys, will be back for 4th season. Succession is easily my favorite show of the past several years, and I’m incredibly excited to see where the story will go from here. Season 3 was arguably the best yet. The Boys also had a solid season 3 last year, and indications are season 4 is coming on schedule this summer (most likely). It sounds like we’re even getting a Boys universe spin-off Gen V, which I am here for.
2. Severance and Yellowjackets will be back for the second season. My fingers are crossed that things stay good, but I’m hopeful that they will. These new shows have so much going for them in terms of world-building and ideas that an even stronger second season seems likely. Yellowjackets are confirmed to start back up in March, and Severance seems likely for the fall (they started shooting in November, I think).
3. Peacock is still making comedies worth watching. Rutherford Falls and Girls5Eva have ended (sadly), but hope is not lost as the Rian Johnson helmed Natasha Lyonne vehicle Poker Face lands in just a few weeks. And there will probably be several others that they haven’t announced as of now. Streaming services like to be sneaky like that.
4. There are interesting book adaptations on the way. Amazon has set a date for Daisy Jones and the Six for this March. There’s no date for Interior Chinatown or The Plot, but both are apparently in production at Netflix. I loved both of those books and have my fingers crossed for their adaptations. Again, there will be a lot of exciting things on this front that no one knows about yet. 2023 TV preview articles pretty much stop in March.
It will be interesting to see how TV unfolds this year as we watch the fallout of Netflix’s declining stranglehold on the streaming world and whatever the hell David Zaslav is up to with WB Discovery. I do think it will be better than last year as there are a few shows that I expect strong seasons from. As I wait for those, I can keep watching Bob’s Burgers and 30 Rock and chipping away at the stuff I missed from last year. Hopefully, I’ll have something really exciting to write about on the TV front soon!
