 Reservation Dogs #6. Never Have I Ever (Netflix) - Season 4 (final) #7. Jury Duty (FreeVee) - Season 1 #8. Poker Face (Peacock) - Season 1 #9. The Other Two (Max) - Season 3 (final) #10. YellowJackets (Showtime) - Season 2 There’s no need to overthink this: The best show of 2023 was the conclusion to the best show of the last half decade. Succession was the shit for 4 amazing seasons but the final season really went out with a bang. The siblings fell apart in all the predictable ways after (spoiler alert) their big bad dad died and the ending was appropriate and perfect. Meanwhile, The Bear - a very solid 4th last year - just impressed this season with a different focus on many of the secondary characters in one-off episodes that mostly soared and then peaked with the family Thanksgiving memory. It would probably be #1 in most years, but the Succession final season was too tough to beat. But I wanted to highlight the #3 show of the year, an almost perfect show throughout its 3 season run, highlighting a group of teenagers on the reservation coming of age and learning from their elders, in hilarious but equally touching and non-sentimental ways. It felted like such a lived-in story, an impressive accomplishment from indigenous creators and I already miss it now that it's gone.
On the other end of the top 10, Season 2 of Yellowjackets was a massive disappointment over last season, where the show ended up as my #1 favorite of the year (it actually came out in 2021 but I didn't watch until 2022). All of the strengths and surprises of Season 1, in particular the modern-day scenes with four of the survivors, got derailed early on by the focus on the repercussions of first season material, like Shawna murdering a dude and the girls in the past turning full cannibal by eating the frozen, deceased Jackie. Shawna (in both past and present) was the strength of the series but this season detached her from the rest of the group (in both past and present) to the detriment of the series. There were highlights - Elijah Wood and Christina Ricci could do no wrong in scenes together - and they seemed to finally dispatch of the Shawna murder subplot so here's hoping Season 3 can recover. Particularly since half of my top 10 are not expected to have additional scenes (final seasons and I assume Jury Duty is a one-off). And even among those renewed, I have no clue whether Yellowjackets, The Last of Us, and the Bear will return in 2024 or later, especially after the strike knocked productions off schedule for 6 months. 2024 could be a dire year in television and movies. One could always read... we weren't on strike. Happy holidays to all! I might post more than 2 end of year posts in 2024 (or, just like 2023, I probably won't sorry). Comments are closed.
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