The Best TV Shows of 2022
THE STRANGE HARBORS PICKS FOR THE BEST TV SHOWS OF 2022
Netflix and its sagging subscriptions, Warner Bros. Discovery with anti-art tyrant David Zaslav at the helm, Disney’s Bob-for-Bob change in leadership. With cancellations, guttings, and a sprinkling of corporate tumult, 2022 seemed to find the streaming apparatus in dire straits. But even amidst the chaos and fumbles, this year’s television was an embarrassment of riches: from a Game of Thrones revival and Better Call Saul’s final bow to new stunners such as Severance and Pachinko, it seemed like great TV was around every corner. I didn’t get to review as much television as I would have liked in 2022, but here were some of my favorites of the year:
10. House of the Dragon (HBO)
I was more than a little ambivalent about revisiting the world of Game of Thrones, which ended its sprawling ten-year journey leaving a bitter taste in just about everyone’s mouths only three years ago. But House of the Dragon, the new series based on George R.R. Martin’s historical tomes on the Targaryen dynasty, delivers. A surprising return to form with the sanguine palace intrigue and character-centered dynamism that defined its sequel series at its peak, House of the Dragon tells the tale - with signature brutality and unforgiving swerves - of a bond between two childhood friends that curdles into violent enmity. An all-star cast catapults the series to soapy, intimate heights complete with grisly backstabbing and complex political maneuvering. Welcome back, Game of Thrones.
9. Severance (Apple TV)
A workplace thriller cross-pollinated with a surreal, sci-fi puzzler, Apple TV’s Severance is mystery box storytelling at its finest. Centered around the employees of the mysterious Lumon Industries, the series explores the mind-bending implications of the titular procedure, which bifurcates its subjects minds - thoughts and memories from work and home divorced from one another - to preserve the secrecy of their corporate overlords. What is macrodata refinement? What does Lumon actually do? Severance’s uncanny, 70s-tinged conspiracy vibe is its shining veneer, but its the severed employees - Mark (Adam Scott), Helly (Britt Lower), Irving (John Turturro), and Dylan (Zach Cherry) - that will get you to stay. Severance deftly combines brain-itching water cooler fodder with character-driven propulsion.
8. The Bear (FX)
FX’s The Bear is the perfect way to induce stress-eating. Following wayward, award-winning chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) as he inherits his late brother’s flailing hole-in-the-wall sandwich spot, this briskly paced series (its episodes are around 30-minutes long) will enrapture you with its deliciously-shot food, then wreck you with anxiety through its raw, restaurant-service gauntlet. Equipment failure, flaring tempers, and light-the-fuse ticking clocks are just a taste of The Bear’s breakneck drama, which will have you pumping your fists - that is, if you don’t die from a heart attack first. Immensely satisfying with some barbed hooks, there’s nothing more savory than rooting for underdogs snatching defeat from the jaws of dysfunction, chaos, and insolvency.
7. Industry (HBO)
Those drawing HBO’s Industry as a love child of Succession and Euphoria are only looking at its surface. In reality, the series shares much more DNA with Game of Thrones. Lurid and sexy with a heaping of shifting allegiances, power plays, and stock market assassinations, Industry is the cutthroat drama of the year. Centered around young banking upstarts (Myha'la Herrold and Marisa Abela lead the pack) and veterans (Ken Leung) alike navigating their own warped ambitions, the show’s depiction of the increasingly treacherous battleground of the finance world is explosive and arresting. And everything is bigger in the second season - its bigger stakes and bigger betrayals lead to some of the best TV moments of the year. And don’t worry if you can’t tell your iron condors from your credit default swaps, the lingo is just window dressing for its venomous tête-à-têtes.
6. Evil (Paramount Plus)
A thrilling paranormal procedural at the intersection of faith and science, Evil rarely takes the easy way out. Robert and Michelle King - stewards of ambiguous intrigue in their tackling of politics in The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and BrainDead - bring their brand of wonderful thorniness to the supernatural. Following a psychologist (Katja Herbers), a priest (Mike Colter), and a tech expert (Aasif Mandvi) as they investigate the inexplicable for the Catholic Church, Evil holds a dark mirror to our increasingly warped world while running the gamut of wacky irreverence to bone-chilling profundity; its precise clash of tones - executed with typical aplomb from the Kings - is uniquely impressive. Throw in a love-to-hate scene stealer in Michael Emerson’s slimy villain Leland Townsend, and you’ve got some unmissable appointment viewing.
5. Irma Vep (HBO)
Leave it to Olivier Assayas to have the confidence to recontextualize one of his masterworks - which already featured an impeccable Maggie Cheung - for the modern age. Remixing the original Irma Vep’s rumination on art in an increasingly artless world, this update replaces Cheung with a different mode in Alicia Vikander. Mira, an American movie star in the throes of a breakup, finds the distinctions between herself and the character she plays fading away on the set of another Les Vampires remake. The bare plot elements have largely remained the same but this Irma Vep’s larger commentary has mutated significantly with its awareness of streaming, IP glut, and the shackles market forces place upon art, delivering a prismatic feast for cinephiles and artists.
4. Pachinko (Apple TV)
Pachinko examines - with tenderness and wrenching specificity - the lives of the ethnic Koreans of Japan, who have long been relegated to the margins of history. Breathing cinematic life into Min Jin Lee’s sweeping prose, the series faithfully touches upon the novel’s themes of identity, acceptance, and survival: the story of a family tree shaken by the capricious hands of fate and the wounds of intergenerational trauma. Following Sunja (played as a young woman by a remarkable Kim Min-ha, as an older woman by Youn Yuh-jung) across a decades-spanning journey, Pachinko is a heavy show full of hard-to-stomach racism, shattering goodbyes, and grim twists of fate, but through Kim’s resilient and hopeful performance, it never feels as bleak as it should. It’s a stunning Asian-led production, and one of the very best shows of 2022.
3. Andor (Disney Plus)
“One way out.” Andor is the best Star Wars has been in decades. Substituting heavy, fan-friendly mythologization (see The Mandalorian, Obi-Wan Kenobi), Tony Gilroy’s spin-off of Rogue One’s morally ambiguous rebel is exhilaratingly adult-minded. A refreshing bottom-up approach eschewing retreads and cameos, Andor breaks new ground detailing the everymen of Star Wars, the oppressive rot of The Empire, and the broiling foment of rebellion. Through thrilling setpieces - a hairpin heist, a nail-biting prison break - Andor paints a searing portrait of an uprising, and the fight for a better future you won’t be able to see yourself.
2. The Rehearsal (HBO)
Nathan Fielder returns to television with his indescribably bizarre new series: HBO’s The Rehearsal. Part social experiment, part docuseries, part meta comedy, and all head trip, The Rehearsal uses Fielder's brand of puppet mastery to help people prepare for the big events and confrontations of their lives. It’s the 2022 show that seized the Internet discourse, which dove head first into this uproarious new show and the moral implications of Fielder's unique manipulations. What is performance? What is reality? What happens when the lines start to blur? With hilariously absurd reenactments that eventually escalate into…something else entirely, Fielder has once again puzzled us all, and it’s hard to think of another show that sparked a more fiery audience discussion.
1. Better Call Saul (AMC)
What’s the better show? Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul? This has been the question raging across the Internet ever since Jimmy McGill first spun off in 2015. With its final season and perfect, sublime series finale “Saul Gone,” the debate has finally been settled: Better Call Saul has overtaken its parent series. With all the chickens coming home to roost - for the Cartel, for Saul (Bob Odenkirk), for Kim (Rhea Seehorn), for Nacho (Michael Mando in a barn burner performance) - Better Call Saul pulled back its layers to reveal what’s at the center of many shows in the pantheon of greats: a love story, and an achingly beautiful one at that. Vince Gilligan has pulled off the impossible, crafting a prequel that not only enriches the stories that lie ahead, but establishes itself as another entry in the Peak TV canon.
