My best fellow binge-watcher Sara Steen and I worked really hard in our tv watching in 2021. It was a sacrifice, but somehow we managed! And from that work we have created a list of the top 21 shows of 2021.* By which we don’t just mean – the best shows – but the shows that we most needed in this roller coaster of a year. We’ve tried to lift up a great variety of shows from the year – some help metabolize our collective trauma, some help make sense of it, and some help us escape from it entirely.
Not every type of show is for everyone – some people prefer to meet reality’s mess with a heartfelt comedy a la Ted Lasso; others will appreciate the solace of it could be worse a la Y: The Last Man. But there should be at least a few here that you haven’t heard of or haven’t yet tried, and we hope that – as they have been for us – they become a source of joy and pleasure. And if we missed one that you would’ve put on our list, please comment! *show of 2021 = a show’s most recent season hit the US market during the year. (I should note that we split up these reviews – so even though they use first person, sometimes that first person is Sara, and sometimes it’s me….so maybe part of the fun is guessing who wrote which?)
- Hacks (HBO, (1 season, 10 episodes, ~30 minutes, comedy-ish): The formidable Jean Smart plays Deborah Vance, a groundbreaking female comic nearing the end of her career, though she doesn’t think so. She’s been playing Vegas for years, so long that she mostly gets by on fans’ nostalgia and loyalty. When it looks like her contract’s going to be pulled, her manager sends one of his other clients, a 25 year old career-troubled comedian, Ava (Hannah Einbeinder), to help freshen up her act as a last-ditch effort. Predictably, Deborah resents Ava and refuses her help, and Ava thinks of Deborah as a has-been, and a sell out. The season is basically the journey from there to a real intergenerational intimacy and mutual mentorship. There are so many reasons I love this show, and especially love this show for 2021. Most of all, I love that it takes an older woman seriously, and gives her a full, complex history that fills out so much of who she has become, but not in a way that ever fully excuses her faults. I love that it does the same for a younger woman. I love that they both get to change through their relationship, or at least they try to. I love that both of the lead characters are trying to figure out just how brave they are willing to be, and how much risk is worth it – both in their relationship, and in their careers. I love that it is honest about what it takes for a woman to succeed at a big level in a career like comedy, and how much it costs them. And I love this show for 2021 because for each 30 minute episode, I didn’t think once about why no one was wearing masks in those crowded shows – because instead I was fully in this world of two powerful comedians each in their own way out to overthrow the patriarchy.
2. Ted Lasso (Apple TV, 2 seasons, 12 episodes per season, 30 minutes, comedy): It’s hard for me to imagine that someone out there hasn’t heard of Ted Lasso by now, but just in case, the quick summary is that a British soccer (football) team owner, Rebecca (played by the stunning Hannah Waddingham), hires an an American football (not soccer) coach – Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis) – to coach her team. She does it as a way to humiliate and punish her cheating ex husband. It’s a joke – except no one told Ted. The first season of Ted Lasso arrived as a wonderful pandemic surprise in 2020, and this year we got season two. Some fans were less enthusiastic with this season than the first – but other than one weird episode focused on Coach Beard, I find this show smart, and funny, and emotionally rich. It continues to explore and celebrate non-toxic masculinity and positive female friendship, and ultimately gives us a world where people are trying to be better by way of community, and loyalty, and play – and sometimes, they succeed. We literally get to see them change – and it’s clearly hard, and vulnerable work. There are a few storylines where boundaries are pretty messy, but going into them here would just spoil them, so for now I’ll just say – these story lines are partially why I’m into season 2. It’s not as simply easy to accept as the first season – but neither is any relationship once you get past that first layer. So, if you are among the few people that haven’t yet tried Ted Lasso, and you need a pick-me-up about humanity, seriously, as Ted would say, Believe! (and subscribe to Apple TV!)
3. For All Mankind (Apple TV, 2 seasons, 10 episodes per season, 50-75 minutes, drama/kind of sci fi): “Imagine if the Russians had gotten to the moon first…”, is the promoted premise of this show, but really it’s more about what would happen if we had continued space exploration with the same fervor we had for our first moon landing, and if that drive was intertwined with questions around gender and racial equity. The result gives you both a compelling imaginative look towards what’s out there beyond the earth, while also still moving through US history as if in a parallel universe. Season two dropped in 2021, and it’s the second season that really pushes this show into the top tier. Because this season we see the first round of astronauts as they deal with the return back to earth, and with their aging bodies, and the impact of their choices on their real lives. It’s what happens after someone grows up to be an astronaut – after that dream has been achieved, then what? This is a well-written, well-acted, innovative drama that doesn’t make you hate all its characters or the world. It pulls you instead into imagination, and hope. Which in 2021 feels like a miracle.
4. Underground Railroad (Amazon Prime, 1 Season, 10 episodes, 20-75 minutes (drama): In sharp contrast to our previous choices, this show definitely does not make you feel good, though there are plenty of opportunities to be awed by the beauty offered here – the acting, the writing, the gorgeous cinematography. And still, it took each of us multiple attempts throughout the year to get past the first episode, there is that much brutality. It was hard to believe a person would make it through a whole series of this. Which of course is part of the point. To make this list, we both committed to doing so before finalizing this list, and afterwards agreed that it needed to be close to the top. The Underground Railroad is an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel, reimagining history through magical realism to make the slavery escape route an actual railroad running underground. The story follows Cora’s harrowing escape from a Georgia plantation, as she makes stops in each of the Carolinas, Tennessee, and finally Indiana. Part of the intrigue of the series is that the handling of slavery in each state is vastly different, creating space for a deep exploration of the ways that race did and could have played out in the United States. The show is visually stunning in ways that I associate more with blockbuster movies than with television. The Underground Railroad demands that its watchers face head-on (even if sometimes through spread fingers) the atrocities of slavery, and even more, the all-encompassing paradigm of white supremacy that justified not just slavery, but all the different ways that Black Americans were treated and continue to be treated as less than white Americans. The relentless Slave Catcher Arnold Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton) describes it as a pre-determined eco-system, where everyone is required to simply play their part – and what he finds so infuriating about Cora is that no matter what he tries, she, like her mother before her, refuses. The challenge and charge of this show, and of our times is to do the same – to fight with all we have for a world that finally recognizes every person’s full and equal humanity.
5. Succession (HBO, 3 seasons, 9-10 episodes per season, 50-60 minutes, tragi-comedy): Google any list of best shows right now, and Succession will usually show up in the top, but you still might wonder, why this show, especially in 2021, given that it’s filled with horrible insanely-wealthy white guys doing horrible things to each other, and to our world? Generally, that’s a genre my partner and I avoid spending our time on, and yet somehow we eagerly devoured all three seasons of Succession this year together. For me, the answer is that it feels like a modern day Godfather, except instead of being the mob, it’s just media tycoons, and on a global scale. There’s still payoffs. There’s still political corruption. There’s still a constant assessment of loyalty. And there’s still, at the heart, a family that despises each other, viciously goes after each other, and also can’t quit each other. And there’s something about that combination that is just so compelling, like an impossible problem you long to solve. It’s hard not to sympathize with the adult children of Logan (the media tycoon whose retirement is the speculation of the series title), even though they are each selfish and manipulative and willing to overlook abuse in all sorts of ways to maintain their wealth and power. I keep reading how the creators and actors of this show think of it as a comedy (except Jeremy Strong – who brilliantly plays the earnestly sad Kendall) but only a comedy in the way Chekhov wrote comedies – as a dark commentary on the wealthy who farcically believe they don’t have enough power, or money, to fix their own problems. (After the twist at the end of season 3, we’ll see if that changes.) It’s funny in the way early in season one, Gregg gets high before donning a character costume and roaming through the theme park, resulting in ultimately vomiting through the character’s eyeballs – the way that is funny, in the horrible ways he is caught, and also he set himself up for such misery, and now is making such a jerk of himself, but also ruining so many other people’s experiences – that’s Succession.
6. The Great (Hulu, 2 seasons, 10 episodes per season, 45-55 minutes, comedy): My friend who actually knows a lot about Catherine the Great has a lot of problems watching this show, because it’s so historically inaccurate. Luckily, I have no such problems, and so I just got to thoroughly enjoy it in all my ignorance. Elle Fanning fearlessly plays Catherine, the smart and ambitious young German woman who heads to Russia to marry the Emperor, Peter III, the marvelously doltish Nicholas Hoult. Season one told of their initial courtship, and Catherine’s coup, and season two, which came out in 2021, shows what happens after Catherine has taken the throne from Peter – which is especially complicated because she is pregnant with Peter’s child, and Peter has decided he loves her. I enjoyed the first season, but season two really crossed over to brilliance, and it’s not even entirely because Gillian Anderson in all her genius joins the cast as Catherine’s mother – although I admit, that is a big part. The Great’s capacity to be both hilarious and absurd, but also emotionally honest and tender is surprising, and so much fun. There is a good amount of violence along the way – Peter’s constant disregard for anyone’s life except his own (and suddenly, Catherine’s) is offered by Catherine repeatedly as to why she’ll never love him. But mostly it’s played more like a Shakespearean comedy than tragedy – moving quickly, focusing on the main characters – Peter and Catherine, and a whole host of others that are interesting, and fun, and morally questionable in all the best ways. Even though they are up front about how much they’ve made up, the challenges of leading, and being a woman with ambition, and being a man who might prefer not to lead – all offer plenty of truth. And, did I mention Gillian Anderson??
7. It’s a Sin (HBO, 1 season, 5 episodes, 50 minutes, drama): It’s a Sin follows a group of 20-somethings through the early years of the AIDS epidemic in London. There are so many funny and tender and heartbreaking moments embedded in the show, reminders of how much weight the gay community carried on its shoulders while so much of the world turned a blind eye to AIDS. Each of the characters copes in a different way, reflecting the complexity of being faced with so much uncertainty and shame and death in early adulthood. Watching this show in the middle of a pandemic where there’s so much misinformation and confusion gives the story a heightened sense of tragedy – for the ways that homophobia played into the misinformation and the dearth of medical research, for the shame that kept people from getting the right information, and also for the ways that even without that, we still don’t know how to respond to illness with continuous compassion instead of fear.
8. Mare of Easttown (HBO, 1 season, 7 episodes, 60 minutes, crime/drama): It took me a couple tries to get through the first episode because I couldn’t quite figure out what this show is. Let me save you the time – it’s an elevated crime drama, a little like Broadchurch, or Marcella (although not quite as disturbing/graphic, but still if you avoid all violence, this is likely not for you). Kate Winslet has won and deserves all the praises for her stellar turn as Mare, a detective in Easttown Ohio. Mare is known especially for not finding a teenage girl who went missing, but privately she is even more haunted by the death of her young adult son. As with those other crime shows, the fact that everyone knows everybody is always a help, and a complication – and Mare definitely leans into both of these. What I love about this show is that it doesn’t just give Mare a love interest as a way to address her unresolved pain. And it doesn’t just have her keep burying it with her job. She isn’t let off the hook from doing her own work. And, it also doesn’t give up on the possibility that she will. If you love crime dramas with truly brilliant writing and acting, this is a can’t miss.
9. Insecure (HBO, 5 seasons, 10 episodes per season, 30 minutes, comedy): Although Issa Rae’s show appears at first to be about her love life, it doesn’t take too long to realize that it’s really a story about friendship among millennial Black women, especially the central friendship between Issa (her character is also Issa) and Molly (Yvonne Orji). The first season ran way back in 2016, and in 2021, we got the fifth and final season. Just like the characters, this show develops a lot over those years (I do mean, it gets better), as the writers grow from the originating premise that focused just on Issa into a full cast of characters who are trying really hard to be simply be themselves. As in, learn who they are, what matters to them, and who, and then be ok with that. Personally, I have a special love for Kelly, played by Natasha Rothwell (also amazing in The White Lotus this year), but all of the characters have moments where I appreciate who they are as a real and complex person. I’ve read that the writers – mostly Black women – base the storylines on their actual lives, and it shows. The storylines feel honest, and current, and increasingly unwilling to code switch for its audience – which is also a parallel to Issa’s journey. The show gets its title from Issa’s constant self-doubt moments, but this is the season where she finally starts to believe her own (awkward rap) pep talks. Other shows in their final season this year felt like the wrap up was like one nostalgic look back after another (see Pose), but in its fifth season, Insecure gives us the satisfying sense of characters who are exhaling into their own lives.
10. Sex Education (3 seasons, 8 episodes per season, 50 minutes, comedy): This has been one of my very favorite shows each of the last three years. It is definitely a comedy, and at times a very lighthearted one, but it is also a deeply touching and sometimes heart wrenching portrayal of the complex world of teenage sexuality. The show shies away from nothing (my 20-year-old daughter, who is extremely difficult to embarrass, stopped watching with me about 15 minutes into an episode), and there have even been a couple of moments that were a little too explicit even for me. But that’s part of the beauty of the show–sex is portrayed as messy and awkward, as it often is in real life. The show revolves around the teenage Otis (Asa Butterfield) and his sex therapist mother (Gillian Anderson), a relationship that I can identify with, having been subjected to a liberal sex education course at my church taught by my parents. Anderson plays her part brilliantly, trying earnestly to engage her son in conversation about why he thinks he can’t masturbate (and Butterfield makes us feel the deep cringiness, retreating hastily to his room repeatedly throughout all three seasons–how do I get away from this woman?). The cast of characters surrounding them is fabulous, ranging from Lily, whose sex fantasies revolve around outer space (and involve elaborate costumes and fabulous hairdos), to Headmaster Groff, whose rigid worldview finally begins to crack in the third season, as we spot him happily dancing about his kitchen, all aproned up. There is just so much to love about this show.
11. Dopesick (Hulu, 1 Season, 8 episodes, 60 minutes, docu-drama): We have several shows on our list that are about hard subjects and at times challenging to watch; for me (as someone with a personal relationship to opioids and extremely complicated feelings about them), this was the hardest. Dopesick is about opioids, and pain and profit, and part of the brilliance of the show is that it effectively demonstrates how inextricable they have become in the U.S. in recent decades (it is based largely on established facts). The show toggles between a small Appalachian town that sees the brunt of the epidemic, a handful of lawyers and government officials trying and generally failing to draw attention to the problem, a drug sales company incentivizing reps to sell as much product as possible, and the detached world of the Sackler family running Purdue Pharma. Dopesick does a good job of illustrating the challenges of balancing pain relief with the devastating harms of powerful opioids, and makes a strong case that the profit motive hopelessly contaminates the equation. While Michael Keaton has rightly received critical acclaim for his role as a country doctor who first prescribes and eventually becomes addicted to Oxycontin, my vote for the most memorable performance comes from Michael Stuhlbarg as Richard Sackler. It is extremely uncomfortable to watch him, largely because it is never entirely clear whether he is brilliant or entirely unhinged. Long before the devastation of COVID, there was the devastation of the opioid epidemic that hit some of our nation’s most vulnerable communities the hardest – an epidemic that has only intensified in the last two years. This show manages to center the human struggle both around chronic pain, of poverty, and of addiction – while placing the responsibility squarely on those who have for years ruthlessly profited from this combination. It’s a really hard show to watch, but it’s so needed.
12. Maid (Netflix, 1 season, 10 episodes, 50-60 minutes, drama): Despite being one of the shows that has stuck with me the most, and that I am most grateful to have seen this past year, it is one of the hardest to figure out how to convince others to watch. Perhaps because describing the story–about a young mother living in poverty with her very young child and abusive husband, who decides to leave her husband and struggles to make it on her own–is depressing and sadly predictable. But the story is deeply captivating (I binge watched it in two days), and it’s hard for me to imagine that anyone without personal or professional experience in this area could watch this show and not come away from it with a deeper appreciation for the ways that domestic violence, especially when coupled with poverty, so often plays out. Margaret Qualley plays Alex, the central character, in a way that makes the show feel more like a documentary (in a good way–her performance is stunning). I was surprised to learn after watching the show that Andie MacDowell, who plays her eccentric, mentally ill mother, is actually Qualley’s mother (this makes me want to go back and rewatch a few of their scenes together). The show is set in the Seattle area, bringing regular ferry rides into the plotline, which is always a major bonus in my book.
13. The Morning Show (Apple TV, 2 seasons, 10 episodes per season, 50-60 minutes, Drama): I’ve read all the reviews about why this show isn’t working, and I still come back to a few key things for why it’s worth sticking with it. First, the basic background: Jennifer Aniston plays Alex Levy, a morning show host with Steve Carrell’s Mitch Kessler – until Kessler’s sexual misconduct is revealed and he is fired in a scandal a la Matt Lauer. Levy announces the unpredictable journalist Bradley Jackson (Reese Witherspoon) as her co-anchor as a an attempt to claim power in the transition, but in a way that is just as objectifying of her as anything Kessler has done over the years. Actually, it becomes clear that Levy and Kessler are both pretty awful, selfish people who have been helping America feel good about their news for years. Levy doesn’t seem to have done anything as overtly horrible as Kessler, but she has been complicit – whether she totally realizes it or not. That’s part of what I think this show gets right – her complicity, and the whole system’s complicity in creating the way Mitch Kessler acted for years. The way they almost admired, and loved him for it in a way. We have underexplored the ways that systems create misconduct – and this is a rare show that is trying to explore that reality and our collective responsibility. Season two dropped in 2021, and with it, a re-living of the early days of the pandemic. It’s pretty painful to watch their cluelessness, knowing it was our own as well. Season two also brings with it Julianna Marguiles – and I admit, her guest star bid and what I heard would be a romance with Bradley Jackson is what finally got me to dive into this show. But what actually ended up hooking me in the second season was the questions around Kessler – has he learned, has he changed, and does it matter? How a person who has said and done all he’s done becomes redeemed (rather than, as they all describe, “cancelled”) is also under-explored in our wider conversations about misconduct. I’m not sure they hit this as well as the stories of complicity, but they are still asking really good questions. For all of this shows flaws, and there are many (eg for as much as I love Julianna Marguiles, why didn’t they find a woman of color for the guest anchor this season?!?), there’s enough ground here that we all need to deal with that this show is definitely worth spending time with.
14. Y: The Last Man (FX on Hulu, 1 Season, 10 episodes, 50 minutes, SciFi): This is essentially an apocalypse show, with the central twist being that only the men die (all at once, except for one, who I’ll get to later). So the show is a thought experiment, and it’s an interesting (and entertaining) one for several reasons. First, it’s not a feminist utopia; when half of a population dies, everyone is experiencing deep trauma, systems have to be reworked instantaneously (and most fail), and everyone is scrambling to get their basic needs met. Second, because it is the Y chromosome that mysteriously caused the mass fatalities, trans men remain among the living, allowing the show to explore issues about gender essentialism that usually don’t get much screen time. For me, the one man (and, weirdly, his male monkey) who do survive primarily provide comic relief in an otherwise dark show. It is extremely funny to me that it is this particular man who survives, because he is immature and self-centered and generally not the man that anyone would choose to be The Last Man (because the show was cancelled abruptly after its first season, we end with the somewhat dissatisfying experience of never knowing why it was that this man and his monkey survived). For me, it is the show’s cast (Dr Alison Mann, the geneticist who shows up in episode 3, is my personal favorite – note from GH: for me it was Ashley Romans!!! so good!) and the writing (the dialogue is more real and current than most of what I see on TV) that make it an enjoyable watch. When the show finished with so much unresolved, I was a bit disappointed, but perhaps this is fitting given the times we live in.
15. Ghosts (HBO, 3 Seasons, 6-7 episodes per season, 30 minutes, comedy): The premise of this very silly show from the BBC is that, shortly after a young couple inherits a mansion in the British countryside, the wife discovers that she can see and hear the entire cast of ghosts who reside there. The ghosts have died on the property over the centuries, representing a range of residents from an early Viking, to a witch burned at the stake, a lovelorn Edwardian poet, and a sketchy Thatcher-era politician who died with his pants off (and thus appears in the afterlife… with no pants). A great deal of the humor of the show comes from the writers’ considerations of what a bunch of people who die in the same place across time might do with their days (for example, the “speaker’s club” is a diversion where one ghost is the assigned speaker each week, often telling their own story over and over again), and what kinds of challenges might arise when people from very different points in history wind up living together for hundreds of years. The addition of a living person to commune with adds an extra layer of possibility, as the ghosts try to make sense of television (and argue amongst themselves about which show to watch next), man landing on the moon, and other modern occurrences. There is an American remake of the show that has gotten good reviews, but I strongly recommend (especially for fans of Monty Python humor) starting with the original.
16. Reservation Dogs (FX on Hulu, 1 Season, 8 episodes, 30 minutes, dramedy): Anyone who grew up in a small town, longing to just get out, will get the dreams Elora (Devery Jacobs) and her crew have for California. But this is more than just a small town story. It’s the story of a group of Native American teenagers trying to save up enough money to leave their Oklahoma reservation. Their sense of displacement, betrayal, and despair-driven dreaming is generational. And, it’s also specific. The friends are grieving the loss of their friend, Daniel (Dalton Cramer), whose recent death ripples across every episode, even when the plot is more focused on their feud with another local group of teens, or on Elora’s fourth attempt to get her driver’s license. It was Daniel’s dream to go to California first, and Elora picks it up as a way to make sense from the senselessness, like finishing what he didn’t could settle the pervasive restlessness. In case it’s not clear, this show is a comedy, sly and biting, and often random, but in just the way life feels random. Like, of course the spirit that visits Bear (D’Pharoah Woon-A-Tai) was in the batttle with Custer, but didn’t get to kill him because his horse hit a gopher hole. Reservation Dogs – written by Native Americans with all Native American actors – reminds me of the first time I went to the Native American Contemporary Art Museum in Santa Fe. It hits you suddenly how often Native Americans are portrayed historically, like an artifact from the past. As if their lives now don’t have depth, and urgency, and silliness, and boredom. As if they are not alive, now. In that way, Reservation Dogs in all its regular, dryly funny, struggling and striving humanity is an act of resistance, and a declaration of survival against all odds.
17. Shetland (Britbox, 6 Seasons, 6 episodes a season, 60 minutes, crime/drama): I find that there is something oddly soothing about the British crime series genre. For me, stories about horrific crimes that are painstakingly solved by soft-spoken, nerdily dressed detectives without the aid of high-speed car chases or super-fancy DNA tests are much more satisfying than the Hollywood alternative. The show is set in–wait for it–Shetland (a sparsely populated set of islands off the coast of Scotland), and the setting is half the joy of the show. The characters are hardy, independent types, with strong brogue (you might want the subtitles on, at least to start), and it’s hard to imagine watching your way through the show without adding this to your travel bucket list. While there are multiple crimes being solved in the first and second seasons, by the third season the writers settled into a single murder each season, leaving plenty of time for solving the crime while also delving deeply into character development. One of the central relationships in the show, between the lead detective and his stepdaughter’s biological father, is among my favorite relationships on TV, replete with tension and tenderness, scarred by a complicated shared history, and, for lack of a better descriptor, deeply male. Finally, the actress who plays the Detective Sergeant Alison ‘Tosh’ McIntosh (Alison O’Donnell) is my personal choice for the TV actress I’d most like to have a pint with. You’ll have to get a BritBox subscription to watch it (you can do it as an add on in Amazon Prime), but if this sounds like your kind of show it’s well worth it, as there are so many other great shows here as well (Vera and Broadchurch are two of our other favorites).
18. Squid Game (Netflix, 1 season, 9 episodes, 30-60 minutes, scifi/horror): When the players in the game at the center of this show realize the consequences built into their game, they take a vote and the majority decides that the game will end. But it isn’t too long before they all come back, ready to go again. That’s basically the push-pull you feel watching this horrible, addictive and problematically entertaining show. Set in South Korea, Squid Game invites its money-desperate players to compete in a series of children’s games for a massive cash prize that would make them uber wealthy; the only catch is, there is only one winner, and when you are eliminated, you are literally eliminated. You win, or you die. It is similar to (the must see movie!) Parasite in both message and tone, although Squid Game is both darker, and less clever. Behind the coldly depicted violence, there is the desperation and shame of poverty, and the narcissism required to survive in today’s global economy. This show was hugely successful for Netflix, so I know they are talking season 2, but I have to say I hope they leave it at just the one. Despite the commentary, and the interesting questions about how the Game started, and where it goes from here, and the strong acting and interesting game development…none of this feels enough to justify this much featured brutality. But, like the spectators we learn exist for the game, I’m guessing the “market” will be too good. And, that’s maybe the point. One tip: I watched it dubbed, but then came back and listened to the actors voices with subtitles, and I wish I would’ve done that the whole time.
19. Kim’s Convenience (Netflix, 5 Seasons, 13 episodes per season, 30 minutes, comedy): In the fourth season of this show about Korean Canadians, there’s an episode where Shannon (Nicole Power) tries to share in the telling of a funny story with her Korean boyfriend Jung (Simu Liu) and his best friend Kimchee (Andrew Phung). It’s a story that relies heavily on the imitation of Chinese accents, which Jung has been managing without any comment from Kimchee. But when Shannon takes over, there’s an uncomfortable silence, as everyone comes to recognize that it’s different for a white woman to do the accent than it is for someone who is Asian Canadian.
There’s something about this moment that gets at my current feelings about this sweet, smart, engaging, and extremely well-acted show that finished its fifth and final season in 2021. Because one of the reasons I have loved this show is its portrayal of the Korean immigrant experience – for the endearing, often awkward love offered by Soon-Yil aka Appa (Paul Soon-Hyung Lee) to his family, for the centrality of the Korean Christian church in their lives (something I have never seen but know is often the case), and for the particular pressures and expectations set on Jung and Janet (Andrea Bang) as first generation Canadians. And especially for fierce love that Soon-Yi aka Umma (Jean Yoon) keeps just under the surface of every interaction she has with her family and surrounding community.
I have admired Yoon’s work so much I’ve googled her many times to try to better understand her body of work and what brought her to this show. It was this googling that led to my “Shannon” moment, as I have been deeply disappointed to read both Yoon’s and Liu’s criticism of Kim’s writer’s room – which by season four no longer had any regular Korean writers (the creator was less regularly involved), which led to what she describes as racist storylines and overly broad and inaccurate portrayals of the Korean immigrant experience. Reading that, I had to go back to the particular episodes that she references, and think through my own reactions, and my willingness to overlook the lack of growth in the characters, and to go along with some jokes because they were said by Korean actors. This season brings the last season, which I felt was pretty uneven, and left many plot lines just hanging (I mean, is Janet gay?!). Before I read that article, I assumed it was all casualty of COVID messing with shooting schedules, and the rising stardom of Liu via Marvel. But now, like Shannon, I feel like I’m caught in the middle of a feel good joke, realizing that maybe we all need to take a breath and check ourselves. The story is still funny, and this show is still often really good – definitely among my top shows of all time – but just because something feels good doesn’t excuse away its problems, and just because I love this show doesn’t mean that now I won’t also often feel a tinge of sadness knowing that these brilliant actors felt diminished while making it.
20. The Big Leap (Fox on Hulu, 1 season, 11 episodes, 45 minutes, dramedy): The one truly old school network-tv show on the list, this dramedy from Fox is here because I think sometimes, you just want a charming show with charming actors making you feel entertained. Let’s call it the Gilmore Girls entry. The random premise is there’s a reality tv show where people who need a second chance at life will all train to perform in a performance of Swan Lake, choreographed by two former dancers with big (and bitter) personalities. But instead of an actual reality show, it’s a show about a reality show. I confess I’d watch Scott Foley (who plays the producer) in just about anything, but especially in one of his morally questionable bad-guy-trying-to-turn-good roles a la Scandal. It’s not quite that much of a bad guy here, but it’s still really fun. The star of the show is also the star of the reality show, Simone Recasner who plays Gabby. She steals every scene, and her chemistry with Ser’Darius Blain (you’ll know him as Fridge from the Jumanji movies) is so sweet. Even though a lot of it is predictable, and sometimes cheesy, that sweetness feels pretty good right about now. The actors are really compelling, and there is enough new here that it keeps you engaged, and feeling good pretty much the whole run. I think sometimes people call this sort of show a guilty pleasure, but I don’t believe that any show that brings you pleasure need come with guilt! So, just enjoy!
21. Special (Netflix, 2 Seasons, 8 episodes per season, 15-30 minutes, dramedy): Ryan – both the creator of Special, and the character he plays, is a gay man living with mild cerebral palsy. For most of his life, he has depended on his mother to do most everything for him, but in season one, he decides it’s time for him to assert his independence. He moves out, and comes out, and faces all the usual challenges of early adulthood, with the bonus of his physical disability. The first season was a barely-funded 15 minute episodes trial run proof-of-concept that offered a specific voice and story that was pretty compelling, but it felt pretty workshoppy. The second season comes on with the full force of a well-considered writer’s room able to flesh out Ryan’s friends, and co-workers, and ask more from the series. It’s such a disappointment that it wasn’t picked up for a third season, because Ryan O’Connell obviously has so much more to offer of this story so under-represented in pop culture today. Special goes beyond the coming out story of being gay, and beyond the stereotypical story of inspiration where he’d be overcoming obstacles, into the story of a young man with his friends trying to find his place, and his voice. It’s funny and awkward, sweet and hopeful, and simply fun.
Another Possibility 