Welcome to my ninth annual, completely biased, best of list for 2022. As always, I watched some trash TV, some really excellent TV, and a bit of everything in between. And after consuming 65+ series across 20+ channels and streaming services, here’s my top picks for shows, moments, and more.
Best TV Show of 2022: Apple TV+’s Severance
What a breath of fresh air it is to find a series that’s both original and completely unpredictable. The first season of Severance offered up just enough information to feel satisfying without completely selling out and leaving nothing for subsequent seasons. And as someone who’s worked a desk job and been placated with pizza Fridays, the idea of the “Waffle party” being a top-tier reward really struck a chord with me.
Best (Favorite) Show: Netflix’s Wednesday
I promise this pick is not based on recency bias. I had this slot on my list vacant until late November when this series dropped on Netflix and I subsequently binge watched it about three times in a row. I loved a lot of things about Wednesday including the cast, the cinematography, the wardrobe, the humor, the relationships, and the score. The show reminded me a lot of Veronica Mars season one, which is a very good thing. After all, who doesn’t love a caustic teen girl who’s more interested in catching a killer than finding a boyfriend. I hope we get a second season of this series because we could all use more Wednesday, Enid, and Thing in our lives. [Update: A season two has been officially announced!]
Best New Show: ABC’s Abbott Elementary
Only the pilot aired in 2021, and December at that, so I’m rounding up and counting the first season as a 2022 series. Qualifying information aside, Abbott Elementary has been consistently great since its debut. Quinta Brunson, Sheryl Lee Ralph, and co are all so excellent. The currently airing second season is perhaps even better than the first, which is high praise for a show that was so sure of itself since the pilot. Bonus points for getting Gritty to guest star!
Best Series Finale: Netflix’s Derry Girls
As always a lot of shows ended this year. And while some shows like This is Us went on a long goodbye tour of emotional manipulation (which even I fell prey to), the series finale that really hit me in all the feels, in an earned way, was Derry Girls. After waiting a couple of years for the last batch of episodes expectations were high, but the third season still offered up plenty of laughs and heartfelt moments along the way. All of which culminated in a beautifully fitting ending that contained not only closure but also a message of hope. Not gonna lie, I got a bit misty eyed. I also got a kick out of the post credit cameo scene.
Worst: BBC America’s Killing Eve – This was so bad and unsatisfying on so many levels, see also: the “Bury Your Gays” trope. To add insult to injury, the ending was even spoiled in advance thanks to a dumb release schedule agreement with AMC+. What a bummer for a series that was once so fresh and well-written.
Best Show More People Should Be Watching: FX on Hulu’s Reservation Dogs
Reservation Dogs, which has been renewed for a third season, is an exceptional slice-of-life coming-of-age series about a group of Indigenous teens living on a reservation in Oklahoma. What makes it so special is that while it touches on many universal truths, it’s also doing so from a perspective that is wildly underrepresented in our media. What’s also working for this series is that the characters and setting are well developed and episodes routinely strike the right balance between jokes and drama. And at just thirty mins each, you can easily catch up on the first two seasons.
Best Docuseries: Peacock’s Meddling
Medding is an excellently crafted docuseries that dives into the 2002 Winter Olympics’ pairs figure skating scandal between Canada and Russia. Executive Produced by Tara Lipinski and her husband Todd Kapostasy, who also directed, it’s evident that this story is in the hands of people who both understand the world of figure skating and know how to visually tell a compelling sports story. And to its credit, with all the major players agreeing to participate, it’s anything but a one-sided tale.
Best True Crime Series: Lifetime’s #TextMeWhenYouGetHome
One of the best things this Lifetime series has going for it, is that every case has been solved. And one of the worst things #TextMeWhenYouGetHome has going for it, is that almost every episode will either confirm your worst fears or unlock new ones. Nightmare fuel aside, this true crime series stood out to me because of the variety of cases covered and for the inclusion of first hand interviews when possible.
Best Show That Was Canceled: Freeform’s Motherland Fort Salem
This show just really had my whole heart. And while the third and final season of Motherland: Fort Salem wasn’t exactly all I hoped it would be, not all of which was the fault of the creative team, I still eagerly tuned into each episode and loved the heck out of all the characters. “With storm and fury!” I would 100% watch more.
Runner Up: Every other female led series including: Batwomen, Stargirl, Legends of Tomorrow, The Wilds, Warrior Nun, etc. And also HBO Max’s reversal on Minx’s renewal. Fingers crossed it’ll find a new home considering the second season has already finished filming.
Best Binge Watch: Prime’s A League of Their Own
It was literally years from the first time I heard news about a possible A League of their Own TV series starring Abbi Jacobson and D’Arcy Carden to August 12, 2022 when it would finally drop on Amazon Prime. And oh my, was it worth the wait. I’ve since rewatched the series a few more times from start to finish. It’s just so damn delightful, to be able to dive deeper into the lives of these women both on and off the field. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a second season renewal.
Best TV Magic – FX on Hulu’s The Bear
The penultimate episode of the first season of The Bear, “Review”, is a fast-paced anxiety-inducing 20 minutes. But it isn’t just good acting or a tight script that makes this episode so viscerally chaotic, it’s also the episode format itself – it’s literally one-take. Learn how the production team pulled off the feat.
Best Holiday Episode or Special: SyFy’s Bring It On: Cheer or Die
The Bring It On franchise has long been in the made-for-tv game, but its seventh installment is its first foray into the macabre. And if campy horror is your jam, then Bring It On: Cheer or Die more than delivers. It’s a slasher movie with bad puns and cheesy kill sequences, but that’s what makes it so much fun.
Best TV Show For a Good Cry: Apple TV+’s Five Days at Memorial
Despite being just eighth episodes, and highly captivating, I strongly recommend resisting the urge to binge watch this miniseries in one-go. It’s heavy. The fact that it’s based on true events that occurred during Hurricane Katrina makes it that much more difficult to watch. The characters are complex, the stakes are life and death, and there are no good choices to be had. It’s a morally complex story that deserves to be told, and I’m glad I watched it, hence the reason I’m recommending it to you now, but it’s also one I don’t plan to revisit. Bottom line: Five Days at Memorial is heart wrenching.
Best Joke / Sight Gag: FX’s Atlanta (Van and the Baguette)
In the season three finale of Atlanta, “Tarrare”, the series catches up with Van in Paris. Like the rest of the season, it’s all a little odd. She appears to be having an Amélie moment, complete with a French accent, but she’s also carrying around a comically large baguette. But of course because it’s Atlanta, it isn’t just a simple sight gag, it becomes a much more complex carb.
Best TV Show For a Good Laugh: HBO Max’s Hacks
I was a bit late to the party for the first season of Hacks, but better late than never because the second season was a real treat. Since typing out all of the best one-liners and comebacks between Deborah and Ava would not actually do the show justice, I’ll just say that all the Emmys, Writers Guild of America, Television Critics, and SAG awards are well deserved for the entire cast and writers room. A third and final season has been announced.
Runner Up: Starz’s Shining Vale offers up dark humor in spades.
Best Soundtrack: Showtime’s Yellowjackets
Perhaps it’s the millennial in me, but the Yellowjackets 90s heavy soundtrack just really hits. Please enjoy this throwback playlist courtesy of Showtime.
Best Musical Moment: Netflix’s Stranger Things “Running Up That Hill”
What can I say, I’m not immune to the power of Kate Bush and “Running Up That Hill”. I was already a fan of the song thanks to a Placebo cover featured on The O.C., but there’s something about the original that just seems so much more raw and powerful. It was the perfect song for the scene and I was more than happy to hear Stranger Things play it on repeat.
Runner up: Disney +’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law “Body”
Marvel is notorious for post-credit scenes, but the team behind She-Hulk: Attorney at Law really outdid themselves in the third episode when a business meeting between guest star Megan Thee Stallion and She-Hulk herself turned into a dance party.
Worst: Hulu’s Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders “For Good”
This Kristin Chenoweth narrated true-crime docuseries had a lot of promise. The actual crime was innocence-shattering and the following hunt for the suspect and subsequent legal battle was prime for exploration. However, the series squandered away any interesting avenues by repeatedly cutting to Kristin Chenoweth talking about very tangentially related things or just going on about her own experience growing up in Oklahoma. All of which culminated in her singing “For Good” from Wicked over a montage of pictures and videos of the victims and the girl scout camp. It felt incredibly self serving and tone-deaf. Here’s a reddit thread full of people that agree with me.
Best Reboot / Revival / Return: CBS’s CSI: Vegas
Season one of the CSI: Vegas reboot was good, but with the central Hodges mystery out of the way and Sarah and Grissom back out in the wild the real test was always going to be what comes next. And thankfully the series has done enough work to make us care about the new cast, plus reward long-time viewers with the addition of Marg Helgenberger aka Catherine Willows. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t also give a shoutout to Paula Newsome’s Maxine Roby. I really like her as the new crime lab head honcho. Even better yet, the mixing of the old and new looks to continue with Eric Szmanda set to reprise his role as Greg Sanders later this season.
Best Renewal: Girls5Eva
Girls5Eva, which currently has two seasons on Peacock is coming back for a third season, and moving to Netflix to boot! I’m of course jazzed that this series got renewed in the first place, but I’m also hoping it benefits from the Netflix bump because it deserves a larger audience.
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What were your favorite shows and TV-related moments of 2022? Share them in the comments section below.
*Sorry not sorry for the television blind spots, I can’t watch everything. And yes, The White Lotus is on my to-watch list.
