For me, has to be a show that wasn’t even shown on TV – just BBC Iplayer – Adam Curtis’s David Kynaston-like mélange of the dying years of the twentieth century Shifty. Beginning with Jimmy Savile and ending with David Bowie and taking in everything you could imagine in between and flinging it at the screen Jackson Pollock-style, it’s as good as TV gets.
Other worthwhile documentaries include Live Aid at 40 and the decidedly odd Paul Reubens two-parter Pee Wee Herman by Himself
Best new show for me is Friends and Neighbours. John Hamm gives it full Dan Draper duality as the successful Big Swinging Dick financial whizz who starts burglarizing the homes of his rich entitled neighbours when his career gets flushed down the toilet.
Other new shows worth mentioning include Liverpool-set mob drama, This City Is Our (a million times better than the similar woeful Mobland. The latter is only worth watching to hear actual Irish person, Pierce Brosnan, deliver an even worse cod-Oirish accent than the one sported by Helen Mirren), Millie Brown and the second – heavily fictionalized – series of The Gold.
Other returning shows worth catching include season 4 of the consistently excellent Hacks and the second series of Kat Sadler’s Such Brave Girls – a deliciously jet black comedy reminiscent of Julia Davis’ Nighty Night and Camping.
Shows that returned but in which I’d lost interest due to either lengthy between-season delays or implausibly poor scripting, plotting and acting include Silo and The Last of Us. Honorable mention for Gangs of London whose substitution of relentless violent set pieces for meaningful drama rendered it near unwatchable.
Worthwhile one-off series – in the case of the former show one certainly hopes so – Adolescence and American Primeval.
Best foreign language shows of the year include an excellent first outing for Italian political drama Mussolini: Son of the Century and the Vietnamese horror anthology, Devil’s Diner.
Other ratings/recommendations are, of course, welcome
2nd season of Shrinking was the best US comedy I’ve seen this century – right up there with Mash, Cheers, Frasier etc.
The Leopard was great and, finally, made us take a long-promised trip to Sicily (amazing place – history, scenery, erupting volcano, fab food, herds of cats).
And this is why I never reply to “what you did last month” – we watch probably 3-4 hours of TV each day, usually series gulped down in one go with the odd movie thrown in. Someone says “Have you seen X?” and I go “The one in Finland where they are hunting a serial killer or is it thingie who starred in bongie and he can jump through time or is it her what was in Series 1 of whateveryoucallit and is now a nurse in Liverpool?”
Shrinking series 2 was surprisingly better than series 1, which was pretty good itself.
Shrinking 2 is pretty much perfect.
We watched season 3 of The Traitors. Got into it after slow start then it was crack cocaine, amazingly addictive. It’s just reality tv at the end of the day. People lying and being mean to win despite seeming to be good people. We then tried another season but decided we didn’t need to sit through this more than once.
Still happy with Last Of Us, it has enough going for it and we are sticking with it.
Yellowjackets is kind of ridiculous and infuriating but also worth sticking with anyway. The characters and acting are great.
The Pitt is back to ER for Noah Wyle. It’s like real time, each episode is one shift. Really gripping. A liberal, caring approach reminds me of 70s US series, in a nostalgic way.
Dept. Q is very good. A bit of a wild ride.
I enjoyed Dept. Q and was very impressed with I Addict on Disney. I came late to Poker Face as I do with quite a lot of tv and I’ve dug that a whole lot. Series two of Severence was excellent and Euphoria which is new to me had it’s moments. The Four Seasons was ok. I’m a bit bored with rich yanks being rich yanks tbh but it whiled away a few hours harmlessly. The Bear continues to not meet it’s early promise although the latest series is markedly more focused than the previous outing so maybe it will get there given a little more time. Yet another new to me offering is My Brilliant Friend on Now, I’m halfway through the first series of four. I assume each series is based on one of the four novels. I read the books a few years ago and enjoyed them so I was curious to see the screen adaptation and so far it’s been very good. Yesterday evening I thought I’d watch the first episode of Bookish starring Mark Gatiss. It’s got a decidedly afternoon telly vibe so much so I kept wondering why they had replaced Doctors with it. In short it’s harmless fluff.
My Brilliant Friend is one of the best things I’ve seen in the last 10 years. Absolutely riveting stuff.
Also set in Naples, Gomorrah is a top notch gangster series
Yes Gomorrah is excellent. I’m planning on watching it again.
MBF is without doubt the best series I’ve seen this century. I have My Brilliant Friend mug
Thanks all – I have been recommended MBF but I didn’t realise it was on Now.
I’ve enjoyed all the ones that others were disappointed with – The Bear, The Last Of Us, and especially Squid Game – Ep 2 of Season 3 is unreal. Enjoying Severance and Servant.
Shrinking series 2 is fabulous.
Dept. Q is excellent. Great acting, slightly odd (in a good way – I love how he cant’t or won’t park properly).
I am enjoying Mobland. I want my gangster stuff to tick all of the stereotypical boxes.
This City Is Ours is excellent. Ticks all the gangster boxes and still manages to be original.
Poker face is good.
Race Around The World is the best reality show ever. Traitors is a close second.
The Netflix Tour De France documentary is simply jawdroppingly good about the toughest sport in the world.
The Sky Sports Leeds games were pretty much all great this year.
We’re enjoying Outrageous, a series about The Mitfords.
The final part is still to be seen.
On Amazon Prime, the excellent Bosch evolve into Bosch:Legacy which has now taken a further evolutionary step into Ballard. It’s pretty good too.
Episode 1 of Human which began on Monday was excellent. I look forward to the rest of the series (I know it’s available on iPlayer, but I prefer to wait as if it was being broadcast twenty years ago). I’m very pleased that it is being fronted by an expert (the very telegenic Ella al-Shamahi) rather than a celebrity taking us on “their personal journey” to discover the descent of man.
The latest discoveries in paleoanthropology are as challenging to established theories of evolution as the latest discoveries via the James Webb Space Telescope are to cosmological theory.
We watched 2 films yesterday, via Netflix and/or Prime, and neither new. But I have the same problem as Lodey, in that we hoover up so much, by the time of the first Friday of the month, the individual names are often hard to capture. So I will mention here. Strange Darling was the first, followed, deliberately, having searched out the writer/director, Outlaws and Angels. Both very violent and gory, but with good scripts and clever expectation bunking. Very Tarantino esque, if a little less knowing. A little like George Romero too, with better cinematography. They are the work of one JT Milner. If you like some noirish blood n guts, they may be for you.
He is the director of a forthcoming adaptation of a Stephen King, sadly seldom a recommendation, due in September, The Long Walk. Let’s hope it’s a Shining or a Shawshank, rather than a Cujo or Thinner.
The Long Walk? I remember reading that as a teenager at school and being absolutely enthralled by it. I think it was my first King story actually. I re read it a few years ago and it’s still brilliant. Hoping that the Milner adaptation lives up to expectations
I note 2 “l”s in Millner, one removed by spellcheck.
This City is Ours is one of the few series of that type that I watched and just couldn’t finish. I barely cared for any character, let lone 2 or 3. And if the gaffer gets murdered, they’d actually found out who did it pretty sharpish, I bet.
Even Julie Graham couldn’t rescue it.
Whilst I did very much enjoy Dept Q, how on earth can anyone keep an 80s Ford Sierra on the road these days, especially when they drive it like a dodgem?
I think the only new TV I’ve watched this year was Black Mirror season 7 and Toxic Town, both very good. BM is always watchable: the USS Callister sequel was fun if unnecessary, Common People was as bleak as they get, and Bete Noire was shown in two versions where a name changed either from “Bernie’s” to “Barnie’s” or vice versa.
Forgot about Toxic Town and Black Mirror – both of them were very, very good.
Having enjoyed S1 greatly,, watched the first 10 minutes of S2 of Sandman last night. They should have called the first episode Precipitous Decline
They funniest show I’ve seen for a long time is “Last one Laughing”. Certainly my pick of the year so far.
Take away the funniest man in the universe, Mr Mortimer, and was it really funny?
I know comedy is subjective but I’m in agreement with you Lodey, I found very little to laugh at in it.
The long haired fella with a scruffy beard was quite droll.
Aside from HIGNFY, I’ve never watched any of those panel-type shows for more than a couple of minutes while waiting for news to start.
As this seems to be a bastard love child of one of those shows, it is unlikely I will ever watch it.
Any other fans of Such Brave Girls here?
They Very, very funny black comedy about an abandoned mum and her two daughters.
We love Such Brave Girls. Yet to embark on series 2 though.
It’s very, very good.
S3 has been commissioned.
If you’ve not already seen them, you might also like Julia Davis Nighty Night and Camping
I’ve just seen an interview with someone who was in Last One Laughing who made me laugh that was Danny Dyer, though I suppose he wasn’t a contestant.
Yes. We just binged on it. I’m sure it helps if you generally like all the participants, which i do.
Not a big fan of “cosy crime”, but shot through with his usually dark writing and waspish delivery, Mark Gatiss’ Bookish is terrific fun
Andor!