Yes, we are aware that we are solidly into 2024, but Sara and I are finally ready with our list of our favorite shows from 2023! It’s ok, they are still all great shows 2 months later!
As we said in our Top 21 of 2021, and our Top 22 of 2022, we make no claims other than this being a subjective list of shows that we personally loved, and also believe other people will likely love too. And of course, we could be wrong! Not everything is for everyone.
Here are the guidelines we used for this year.
- The shows must have had at least one season that was at least partially new in 2023 in the US, regardless of when we watched a show. Aka, even though I watched all of Game of Thrones in 2023, none of GoT is eligible. You’re welcome.
- As with prior years, shows that were on our list last year are not eligible this year, even if they had a new season – mostly! We made a pretty big exception which you’ll see below.
- We tried really hard (seriously hard work) but we definitely did not watch everything. If there is something here we missed that you think we should have included, please comment so we can watch it! We do this most of all because we love tv, and we want others to enjoy it as much as we do.
Like last year, we split these reviews/summaries up between us – so when we speak in first person, hopefully it will become clear pretty quickly who is doing the speaking….
- 1. 3-Way-Tie: Succession (Max, 4 Seasons, 10 episodes/season); Reservation Dogs (Hulu, 3 Seasons, 8-10 episodes/season) The Bear (Hulu, 2 Seasons, 8-10 episodes/season)
We’ve been pretty committed to our “no repeats” rule, but this year it felt very dishonest to say that any other non-repeating show was better than Succession or Reservation Dogs in their final seasons, or The Bear in its second season.
Succession – which we reviewed and summarized in our 2021 list – finished its consistently-great run with a surprising, tragic, brilliant season, finally answering the question of who would take over the company. The writing continued to be sharp and original, and the acting was both ferocious and vulnerable – which is perfect for these adult “kids” who really never escaped a childlike desire to be loved and to belong, and yet who keep looking for that love in exactly the wrong ways.
Basically as opposite from Succession as you can imagine, Reservation Dogs – also reviewed in our 2021 list – had its best season in this last season (and the two other seasons were already great!). It figured out its pacing, and its use of the adult characters and their backstories in order to weave a fuller portrait of the community on the whole, and therefore the individual main characters at the heart of this series. Three seasons were not enough for this show, but they finished the story with so much heart, and care for these characters, it was still extremely satisfying, and a real gift to get to watch.
Luckily, The Bear – which made our list in 2022 – was not in its final season! All the themes of the first season – grief and masculinity, family and the struggle to be your own person – get more fully fleshed out in this brilliant second season. The 6th episode, Fishes, with all of the guest stars, has gotten a lot of attention for its build of complex family dynamics, but for me, the 7th episode, Forks, focused on cousin Richie, epitomizes the subtle, authentic character development that this season reveals.
What an incredible pleasure to have discovered the British show Happy Valley late in the year. Ostensibly a police procedural similar to Broadchurch, at its heart this is a show about the complexities of family, loyalty, secrets, and the impossible yet irrepressible desire to attempt to protect our children. I say “discovered” because this show has actually been around for a decade, despite having just three seasons. The first 6 episode season ran in 2014, the second in 2016, and the final season premiered in 2023. This delay was on purpose to allow for the child actor who plays Ryan to for-real grow up. The effect of this delay is that at least to a degree greater than many series, we get to see the answer to the series’ central question – will Ryan end up ok, and can his grandmother who is raising him protect him as she so hopes? – play out. This show makes the list this year for this patient storytelling device, and just as much, for its ferocious acting, especially by the woman at the center, Sarah Lancashire who plays Ryan’s grandmother, and police detective, Catherine Caewood. As with a lot of police dramas, you should know going in that there is violence, especially against women, so if that is not for you, this is one to skip. If you can tolerate this, however, this show gives us a uniquely powerful analysis of the misogyny and sexism that can affect even many of the “nice guys,” as well as the complex ways that trying to respond to this violence steadfastly can impact whole families.
In many ways, Fellow Travelers is a romance. The two leads meet cute and quickly connect and surprise themselves at what is obvious if not always named – they are in love. Except, because these two men meet at the heart of the McCarthy era, and both of them are involved in politics, it is mostly never the romance you know it could be. There are so many layers of tragedy here, but not enough to outweigh the beauty of the love that is so compelling, and real. As is the sex, by the way! …if that is something you don’t want included in your tv-watching, this is not the show for you…personally scenes like this just always shock me at how much progress we have made since we worried whether two men could kiss on tv, which was not that long ago. It is especially bittersweet to recognize that the actor who plays Tim – one of the leads, Jonathan Bailey, also played the (straight) lead in season two of Bridgerton – sweet because the same (out) actor is starring in two hot, romantic love stories in the same year – one gay, one straight – without much commentary; and bitter, because whereas the straight love story is guaranteed to work out, the gay one is obviously impossible, and doomed. With that said, part of why I appreciate Fellow Travelers is that you can see clearly that Hawk (Matt Bomer, who is objectively gorgeous, and also out) could choose to be with Tim. It would cost him power, and “normalcy,” sure, but he could. There are examples of others who are making those choices. But he doesn’t. The closet has seduced him more powerfully than Tim ever could.
Barry explores the complex nature of forgiveness more deeply than any other mainstream show I can think of. Barry (Bill Hader) is an army vet turned hitman who after being pulled onstage in an acting class in Los Angeles (where he was on a mission to kill one of the students), realizes that he has deep emotions he wants to get in touch with, forms a deep mentee attachment to the teacher (Henry Winkler) and a romantic attachment to a fellow student (Sarah Goldberg), thus beginning a seasons-long project of extricating himself from the killing business and redeeming himself. The acting in the show is astonishing, including stellar performances from Bill Hader (the show’s creator, writer, and oft-director), Henry Winkler, Stephen Root, Anthony Carrigan, and, our personal favorite, Sarah Goldberg (a fourth season episode of her raging in an elevator is unforgettable). As a show about a hitman, Barry has a number of extremely violent scenes, so it is not a show for everyone. While we have both been watching and enjoying Barry since its first season in 2018, we are so glad we waited for its fourth and final season to place it close to the very top of this year’s list.
Set in a 2023 world peopled by the few survivors of a fungal pandemic that turns people into zombies, The Last of Us follows Joel (Pedro Pascal), a smuggler who lost his teen daughter to the fungus, and teenage Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who is somehow immune to it, on a treacherous journey across the U.S. to synthesize a vaccine using Ellie’s cells. While the show does an amazing job at world-building, creating a visceral sense of what the world might look like 20 years post-apocalypse (with some beautiful scenes of nature taking over), its real strength lies in the characters’ development over the season and the relationships that they form with one another. While Joel and Ellie’s relationship is the most central, and its arc the most dramatic, it would be irresponsible to talk about The Last of Us without mentioning that the third episode, almost a stand-alone telling the backstory of Bill (Nick Offerman) and Frank (Murray Bartlett) as they came together over the twenty years since the pandemic hit, is perhaps the single best episode of TV in 2023. Where there is a fungus that turns humans into killing machines, there is inevitably a great deal of violence; while this is a show that some may not be able to stomach, the depth of love that emerges serves as a counterbalance making it deeply worthy of a watch.
This fresh, engaging, dystopian sci fi series dropped early in 2023, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it all year. Set in an underground city where the last few thousand surviving people are told they must seek refuge from a ruined earth, Silo speaks directly to climate anxiety, late stage capitalism, and anxiety-driven conspiracies, and responds with a hero with the credibility and the vision to insist that more is possible than we yet know. Season two is in the works, which is good news for this series that definitely ends on a game-changing cliffhanger.
It took me through at least the first few episodes to understand that Beef has a lot more to offer beyond its initial rage plot device. Billed initially as about the beef that two strangers have after a road rage incident, this show is ultimately about mental health, class, loneliness, and Asian American identity. Ali Wong and Steven Yeun have been winning a lot of awards, and they are well deserved, for their strange and deeply vulnerable performances as Amy and Danny, the two who have the beef with each other, and whose lives are both turned upside down by this beef, and also were already pretty obviously not in the best shape before.
- 10. Tie: Mrs. Davis (Peacock, 1 Season, 8 episodes) / Deadloch (Prime, 1 Season, 8 episodes) We each had one show that we loved, that the other didn’t totally get. It has happened in other years, but usually its for shows we can safely put into the second half of the list where it can feel like a good compromise. This year, we each fell for a show that we really felt belonged in the top 10….so here we are, with a tie for number 10!
From Gretchen, Mrs. Davis: Nearly every episode in Mrs. Davis at one point or another led to me say, “this show is so weird!” Fundamentally an exploration of faith and technology (or even, technology as faith), this show will not be for everyone, but it was definitely for me. Betty Gilpin (if you know her, it’s from GLOW) continues to be a radiant star waiting for even better parts, and the writing is, as you might infer, intensely original, asking the biggest questions of our time – but all with a vibe of a sitcom. This is a show that requires a high degree of comfort with confusion, and surprise, and a willingness to enjoy the ride rather than hoping for a smooth, logical ending. This show is chaotic, and occasionally brilliant, and if you’re up for hanging on, it’s a great ride.
From Sara: Deadloch: I remember watching the first episode of Deadloch and thinking that the Aussies were having a great deal of fun spoofing the murder mystery genre that I love (think Broadchurch or Shetland); by the end of the season, I was thoroughly enamored of the full cast of characters and impressed by the show’s tackling of issues like gender politics and native rights, while mostly remaining a very, very funny show (note that Gretchen and I differ somewhat in our appreciation of Aussie/Kiwi humor; several of my all-time favorite shows come from down under). Deadloch is set in a tiny blue-collar Tasmanian town that has recently experienced an influx of lesbians and the gourmet restaurants and performance art they inevitably arrive with (I will never get the a capella rendition of “I Touch Myself” performed by the town’s all-female choir out of my head). The town is peopled by an over-the-top cast of characters, headed up by my personal favorites, senior sergeant Dulcie who struggles to maintain professionalism (and control of the multiple-murder case that lands in her lap) in her tiny precinct which typically handles things like the enormous local seal Kevin blocking traffic, and her wife Cath, who shows up at the precinct regularly bearing snacks, airing personal (often very personal) needs, and always referring to Dulcie as “sexy” (which her Aussie accent renders as “sixy,” another Deadloch earworm). While it didn’t rise to the very top of our collective list, Deadloch is the 2023 show that I most looked forward to each week as new episodes dropped (if there is a second season, I am so there; come watch with me!).
Technically a prequel to the Bridgerton series, Queen Charlotte requires no familiarity with the main story lines, and in some ways if you have been someone who has decided Bridgerton is not for you, Queen Charlotte might be. While still technically a romance, this series is more of a real love story than the others, a love story caught in the complications of mental illness, race, and class. In terms of that larger story, you only might want to know that this is the back story of the Queen in present day, and what led the court to becoming racially integrated. Other than that, you just get to enjoy (and grieve) the chemistry and wonder between the two leads – India Amarteifio and Corey Mylchreest, who are both outstanding.
The Diplomat is driven by the enormously entertaining chemistry between Keri Russell (who I will watch in anything) and Rufus Sewell as diplomatic power couple Kate and Hal Wyler who are on the verge of separation when they are forced back together for political reasons. Reassigned from the ambassador post to Kabul, where she was eager to dig into post-war policies and challenges, to the United Kingdom, which she interprets as ceremonial “crumpet duty” (and is actually an audition for the vice presidency), Kate chafes at her immense residence, tea dress uniform, and, especially, the presence of Hal, who, while hamming up his performance as political “wife” is in constant motion, using his extensive network to influence things behind-the-scenes, usually without informing Kate and therefore serving as a constant liability to her success. The show is heavy on dialogue (think The West Wing), and long on acting talent (David Gyasi and Ali Ahn are especially memorable), and while it can feel a bit slow compared to many of our other recommendations, as a full season it was one of our favorite watches of the year.
Because I read, and didn’t love (especially the second half of) the book that The Power is based on, it took me a while to trust that this would be a worthy journey. Luckily I stuck with it, and discovered that the series found some nice complexifying moves in the second half, made possible by the fact that it looks like they intend a second season. The premise of The Power is that women (they mean biologically, and they do address trans identity) suddenly gain the power to channel electricity through their bodies. Many men freak out as now, women have the power to kill them, men are pretty sure they are going to use it, and so the men try to outlaw or regulate this power. The irony of course being that men have this power in most cases over women IRL, and women have to trust that they won’t use it – and this reality shapes so much of women’s lives and society today. As is explored in this series. The Power features a big cast, anchored by Toni Colette who obviously is amazing in anything, although the stars are the young women who – once receiving their powers – begin changing everything.
Extraordinary is an oddball superhero show, set in a world where every person acquires a superpower on their 18th birthday (some of the powers are potentially useful, like turning back time or channeling the dead; many are exceedingly silly, like the character whose butt acts as a 3D printer). At 25, however, Jen (Mairead Tyers) still has no superpower, and the show revolves around her self-obsessive drive to acquire one while making a series of bad personal decisions along the way. The theme that takes the show beyond being very entertaining (which it definitely is) is the way that we get in our own way, dreaming big but settling into routine. We see this not only in Jen, but also her two roommates (who are on-and-off-again involved), in Jen’s mother (the brilliant Siobhan McSweeney from Derry Girls, who can control electronics with her mind but can never figure out how they work), and in my personal nominee for Most Unforgettable TV Character of the Year Jizzlord (played by Luke Rollason), a stray cat adopted by Jen who turns out to be a shapeshifter who, after being stuck as a cat for several years, finally reemerges as a very funny, very stray cat-like human (he laps up his milk) who can’t remember his previous life and thus becomes adopted as a fourth roommate. We encourage you to lean into the ridiculous premise of Extraordinary; it’s well worth a watch.
I don’t know why Somebody Somewhere didn’t take the first time I tried it, but I am so grateful I went back and tried again in order to check out the second season. This is a beautiful, funny, tragic, honest portrayal of both given and chosen family, centered around Sam, starring the incredible Bridget Everett and her friendship with Joel, who is played by perfectly-cast Jeff Hiller. Set in small town Kansas, over the course of its two seasons, this series accomplishes something rare and beautiful: authentically earned character development and growth. In other words, Sam starts the series not in a good place, and spends a lot of the show not in a good place. And also, she’s trying to figure things out, and like Joel, we are all rooting for her. Personal growth in real life is not easy, or linear, or even all that dramatic when it happens. It is hard-earned, and subtle, and often there is regression just as often as there is progress. This show gets all of this, and offers its characters to us in all of their beautiful mess.
Watching Black Cake feels very much like reading a novel (it is indeed based on a novel by Charmaine Wilkerson) that is enormously enhanced by stunning visuals; every time I sat down for an episode (and this is a show I watched one at a time, savoring the experience), I was fully immersed. Set in Jamaica, Scotland, England and California, the show is about trauma and secrecy, the immigrant experience, race, and complicated family relationships. Black Cake follows Byron (Ashley Thomas) and Benny (Adrienne Warren) as they grieve the death of their mother and, in the process, discover that her history was much more complicated than they had been told. While in many ways the show revolves around the unfolding of the life story of their mother Eleanor (Chipo Chung) who pre-motherhood was actually Covey (Mia Isaac), it is at its core about the ways that understanding our ancestors can help us to better understand and come to terms with who we are, and the deeply painful finality that death imposes on reconciliation.
Based loosely on the story of Fleetwood Mac (and largely set in 1970s Los Angeles), Daisy Jones and the Six is a story of sex, drugs, and rock and roll and the ambition, talent, beauty, destruction, and chaos that come along with it. The story is told in retrospect, through interviews with the band members twenty years later. At the core of the show is the tortured relationship between Daisy (Riley Keough, Elvis Presley’s granddaughter) and Billy (Sam Claflin), both of whom believe they belong at the center of the stage. While the story veers into soap opera territory at times (true to its subject matter, addiction, infidelity, and betrayal all make significant appearances), and while Sam Claflin is probably at least ten years too old for his role, we both found Daisy Jones hugely fun to watch.
Imagine if your younger brother suddenly became Justin Bieber. As in, an overnight-viral teen heartthrob singer blowing up everywhere. That’s the premise of this series that finished up its third and final season in 2023, The Other Two. Drew Tarver and Helene Yorke star as the older siblings Cary and Brooke, who each crave and struggle with similar celebrity as they both take advantage of and resent their younger brother Chase’s fame. Despite the title, the show also includes one other star, their mom Pat, played by the consistently great in everything she does these days, Molly Shannon. The first two seasons of this show were solidly enjoyable, but the third really brought the quality up a level, as they took the plot and tone in a slightly different and more satisfying direction. Ultimately this is a story about what you think you want (what your ego needs) vs. what will actually create a meaningful life, as well as the emptiness of fame. It’s also pretty routinely quite funny, and overall really enjoyable.
A Murder at the End of the World is a psychological thriller where the setting (a remote retreat in Iceland that serves as a billionaire’s bunker for the world’s end) play a central character role, and it is the reason I started watching and stuck with this show (it is visually stunning). In the show’s present timeline, a tech billionaire (played by Clive Owen) invites a group of artists, scientists, and tech geniuses to a summit with an opaque agenda; while reputedly oriented around finding solutions to the climate crisis, it quickly becomes clear that the host has a series of hidden agendas. When guests start dying, Darby (a young hacker played by Emma Corrin) sets out to solve their murders. We come to learn that she has relevant experience through the past timeline, where we see her younger self pursuing a serial killer as a citizen detective along with her boyfriend Bill (Harris Dickinson, who also appears at the summit). Artificial intelligence (in the form of “Ray” within the bunker) plays a key role in the story’s plot, and while I will admit that some pieces of the plot went over my head, I did end the season feeling like the show added some interesting questions to my understanding of the complicated ways AI might play out in the coming years.
Drops of God is a visually gorgeous show about family, legacy, ambition, and wine. Set in France and Japan, the story centers around the death of a wine connoisseur with the largest wine cellar in the world and the competition between his estranged daughter Camile and his protege Issei to inherit it. While there are a few awkward glitches in the storyline, the central tension between Camile and Issei, unknown to one another at the start, fierce enemies throughout, and deeply connected by the end, plays out in really interesting ways as the episodes move forward. Running underneath is a beautiful storyline about land and, literally, dirt, and the ways that it comes to be connected to families over time. As someone who loves wine and family stories told in far-off lands, this is a show that, once I started watching it (and got over my general aversion to subtitles), I could not stop.
From the moment we discover in the first episode that Colin from Accounts is actually a scraggly dog, I was all in. This Australian sit-com brings together two single-ish people after they are both involved in a traffic mishap that injures a stray dog. Through eight half hour episodes, we watch their relationship develop from distaste and frequent conflict over the care of Colin to friendship and cohabitation (she moves in with him to help care for the dog) to, inevitably, messy romance. Harriet Dyer and Patrick Brammall wrote, produced, and starred in the show, and their chemistry is likely enhanced by the fact that they are married in real life. Season 2 comes out soon, and I can’t wait (if you love this show, I can hook you up with some other fabulous shows from Down Under).
When he is called for Jury Duty in Los Angeles, Ronald Gladden (played by himself) is told that the cameras around him are part of a documentary. Everyone else in the courthouse, however, is a professional actor, and the case is made up. Elected as jury foreperson, Gladden is expected to keep his fellow jurors (with whom he is sequestered for the three weeks of the trial) in check, a task that becomes increasingly difficult as their scripted eccentricities escalate and the trial itself grows ever more wacky. It is LA, so the fact that famous actor James Marsden is also called doesn’t give away the ruse, and his performance as a satirical version of himself is one of the highlights of the show. The show works because of who Gladden shows himself to be over the course of the season; a thoughtful, light-hearted, and deeply kind human being. In the end, the show is about the power of one person to impact a communal experience, and the final episode is a true delight to watch.
I didn’t watch the other mini-series about this real life 1980s crime (that one called, Candy, starring Jessica Biel, premiered last year) so I can’t offer any particular comparisons between that and this one with the equally straightforward title, Love and Death. This series stayed on my list all year because I couldn’t shake Elizabeth Olson’s stare as she (as Candy) attempts to make sense in her own head of her life getting stranger, and stranger – all a result of her own choices, and all possibly because she is simply bored. First, she starts an affair with her best friend’s husband (starring the equally formidable Jesse Plemons), and second, she ends up murdering his wife (yes, her best friend) with an axe. Obviously if you don’t like true crime dramas (or the portrayal of gruesome murders), this is not for you. But if you are one who loves trying to puzzle out what still more than 40 years later makes no sense, Love and Death offers you a great challenge.
Another Possibility 