TV Technica 2023: These were our favorite shows and binges of the year

Warning: Although we’ve done our best to avoid spoiling anything major, please note this list does include a few specific references to several of the listed shows that some might consider spoiler-y. The segment for The Great contains major reveals, so skip it if you haven't watched the latest season. (We'll give you a heads-up when we get there.)

Everything was coming up mystery in 2023, judging by our picks for Ars Technica’s annual list of the best TV shows of the year. There’s just something about the basic framework that seems to lend itself to television. Showrunners and studios have clearly concluded that genre mashups with a mystery at the center is a reliable winning formula, whether it’s combined with science fiction (Silo, Bodies, Pluto), horror (Fall of the House of Usher), or comedy (Only Murders in the Building, The Afterparty). And there’s clearly still plenty of room in the market for the classic police procedural (Dark Winds, Poker Face, Justified: City Primeval). Even many shows we loved that were not overt nods to the genre still had some kind of mystery at their core (Yellowjackets, Mrs. Davis), so one could argue it’s almost a universal narrative framework.

Streaming platforms continue to lead, with Netflix, Apple TV+, and FX/Hulu dominating this year’s list. But there are signs that the never-ending feast of new fare we’ve enjoyed for several years now might be leveling off a bit, as the Hollywood strikes took their toll and the inevitable reshuffling and consolidation continues. That would be great news for budgets strained by subscribing to multiple platforms, less so for those who have savored the explosion of sheer creativity during what might be remembered as a Golden Age of narrative storytelling on TV.

As always, we’re opting for an unranked list, with the exception of our “year’s best” vote at the very end, so you might look over the variety of genres and options and possibly add surprises to your eventual watchlist. We invite you to head to the comments and add your own favorite TV shows released in 2023.

The Last Kingdom (Netflix)

I came late to the Netflix series The Last Kingdom, which is based on the historical fiction books by Bernard Cornwell and set amid the Viking invasions of Anglo-Saxon England during the time of King Alfred. The TV series was initially released in 2015 and technically wrapped up in March 2022. However, a movie to cap the series was released in April of this year, so it qualifies for our year-end list. I’m not sure why this television show has not gotten more attention because it is outstanding, both in bringing to life a fictionalized version of the turbulent late 800s and early 900s in proto-England and in its development of characters and friendships. If you liked Game of Thrones and are looking for something to watch before season 2 of House of the Dragon, The Last Kingdom should be your first choice.

—Eric Berger

The Last of Us (HBO)

Pedro Pascal stars as Joel, who befriends Ellie (Bella Ramsey) during a zombie apocalypse. Credit: HBO

Given the hit-and-miss nature of adaptations from video games to the world of TV and film (with misses more plentiful than hits), I was more than a little apprehensive about HBO’s Last of Us series. It was remarkably easy to envision the TV adaptation ruining one of my favorite character-based narratives in all of gaming in order to create some sort of lowest-common-denominator zombie-of-the-week dreck. Instead, we got a loving and authentic take on the game.

HBO’s version of The Last of Us does a great job toeing the line between faithfulness to the source material and deviations that still feel authentic to the world of the game. Many of the key scenes are literally shot-for-shot and music-cue-for-music-cue live-action recreations of original Naughty Dog cut scenes, and it’s a testament to Naughty Dog’s cinematic skill that they’re just as effective in a new “prestige TV” context. But then there are new creations like the third episode, where supporting characters from the game are given surprising and heartwarming depth. Through it all, the surrogate parent-child relationship between Joel and Ellie shines through, driving the narrative and leading to one of the most arresting final scenes in gaming (and now, in a TV season).

There were relative narrative shortcomings in The Last of Us Part II, so I feel the showrunners have a bit of an uphill battle ahead of them in adapting future seasons for TV. But the care they took with season 1 gives me some confidence they’ll be able to thread the needle and make more compelling post-apocalyptic television going forward.

—Kyle Orland

You S4 (Netflix)

One would think that the premise of You—the Netflix psychological thriller based on the novels by Caroline Kepnes—would have run out of steam by now. The first three seasons were utterly addictive, chronicling the romantic (and murderous) exploits of a handsome, charming serial killer named Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) as he moved from obsessive crush to obsessive crush, with predictably deadly results. But the writers keep finding ways to keep things fresh and interesting. In S3, Joe ended up marrying his romantic target, Love (Victoria Pedretti), and moving to a posh suburb—only to discover that Love’s own murderous instincts were not so easily controlled, particularly when her family was at stake. It was an ingenious decision, taking Joe’s character arc in an exciting new direction.

That relationship ended badly, needless to say, and the fourth season finds Joe living in London under an assumed name, working at a university as a professor of literature and trying to keep his violent impulses in check. He came there in pursuit of Marienne (Tati Gabrielle), his S3 obsession, but gradually gets drawn into an elite circle of wealthy socialites who begin dying at the hands of a mysterious serial killer. That killer is trying to frame Joe for the murders—thereby forcing him to dispose of the bodies by necessity—and keeps sending Joe taunting texts. Meanwhile, Joe finds himself drawn to an art gallery manager named Kate (Charlotte Ritchie) and strikes up a friendship with a politically ambitious author named Rhys (Ed Speleers).

Netflix released the fourth season in two parts, which was frankly maddening since the first half ended with one hell of a cliffhanger reveal. But that’s a testament to just how well the S4 writers turned the tables on their antihero to create another delightfully compulsive binge-watch. Netflix has renewed You for a fifth and final season due to air next year. It’s a good call. There’s only so long the show can keep upping the ante, after all, and hopefully, Joe will get the spectacular send-off this fascinating character so richly deserves.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Poker Face (Peacock)

Created by Knives Out! writer-director Rian Johnson and starring Natasha Lyonne, Poker Face took the formula of a 1970s procedural and gave it the benefits of a big, modern streaming TV budget and contemporary cinematography and writing. The creativity made for something that doesn’t have any direct rivals, despite its inspirations. In a TV landscape dominated by big-budget fantasy and sci-fi adaptations and vast sagas that never resolve in any given episode, the once-stale procedural detective format comes across as a breath of fresh air.

On the run across America from a Vegas mobster, Lyonne’s Charlie has a low-key superpower; she can always tell with 100 percent certainty whether someone is lying. But while that seems like it would make solving crimes trivial, the show demonstrates that that gift can be as much a curse as a blessing. Sure, you know they’re lying, but why? The answer is often a surprise.

While the premise is strong, the show mostly leans on Lyonne’s unimpeachable charisma and her character’s boundless grit. Lyonne is channeling Columbo so hard it’s impossible to deny in any given scene, but her spin is just as unique and likable as Peter Falk’s. There’s nothing groundbreaking about Poker Face, but in a lot of ways, that’s its appeal; it’s just one of the best versions of what it is. I wish there were more shows that revive the comfort TV that is the mystery of the week.

—Samuel Axon

Yellowjackets S2 (Showtime)

Yellowjackets is an all-female re-imagining of William Golding’s classic 1954 novel Lord of the Flies. There was some initial skepticism when the project was announced as to whether young girls could ever descend to the same level of barbarism depicted in Golding’s novel. Series creators Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson set out to explore just how such a descent might occur by meticulously deconstructing the social hierarchy of teenage girls, modeled on the hive dynamics of the titular insects, which are highly dependent on a queen. Thanks to strong writing and a stellar cast, they’ve succeeded in doing just that.

In 1996, members of a female high school soccer team called the Yellowjackets in New Jersey were en route to Seattle for a national tournament when their private plane crashed in the Canadian wilderness. The survivors were stranded for 19 months before being rescued and refused to reveal any details of what happened to them and how they survived. But the S1 opening scene made it clear they resorted to ritualistic cannibalism under the auspices of a mysterious “Antler Queen.” Fast forward 25 years to 2021, those survivors have seemingly moved on with their lives until their respective psychological traumas begin to resurface in disturbing and sometimes violent ways.

The arc of the wilderness storyline—inspired by the Donner Party and a 1972 downed flight in the Andes as well as Lord of the Flies—can’t help but be more interesting, particularly in S1. What happened to drive the girls to hunt down and slaughter one of their own is the heart of the series, after all. The 2021 timeline started off more disjointed but picked up steam in the second season as past and present started to converge. That’s one of the show’s greatest strengths: It takes its time letting characters and interpersonal dynamics develop and devolve into barbarism in a believable manner and reveals plot secrets at a leisurely pace. We finally learned the identity of the Antler Queen in the S2 finale, but many tantalizing questions still remain. Fortunately we’re getting a third season that will hopefully provide more answers.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Silo (Apple TV+)

This was one of the more intriguing shows of the year. It’s set in a self-sustaining underground city inhabited by a community whose recorded history only goes back 140 years, generations after the silo was built by the founders. Outside is a toxic hellscape, visible only on big screens in the silo’s topmost level. Inside, 10,000 people live together under a pact: anyone who says they want to “go out” is immediately granted that wish—cast outside in an environment suit on a one-way trip to clean the cameras.

There are no lifts or pulleys, so the only way to travel the silo’s 144 floors is by foot, and there are no lenses above a certain magnification. And to keep the population stable, every woman has a contraceptive implant that can only be removed with permission. What computers there are are managed by the IT department, run by Bernard Holland (Tim Robbins). Mechanical keeps the power on and life support from collapsing—here, we find mechanical savant Juliette Nichols (Rebecca Ferguson) at one with the giant geothermal generator that spins in the silo’s core. The story begins with Sheriff Holston Becker (David Oyelowo), whose wife left the silo two years ago after realizing all was not as it seems. Oyelowo meets Nichols while investigating a death, and I’ll leave the plot description there to spare any more spoilers.

The 10-episode season offers a fascinating and well-paced look at a fleshed-out society and its power struggles. Here and there, we see hints at what came before—relics like mechanical wristwatches or electronics that are far beyond the technical means of the silo’s current inhabitants, thanks to a rebellion 140 years ago that destroyed the silo’s records in the process. If you like fictional post-apocalyptic dystopias—and really, who doesn’t?—Silo is worth diving into.

—Jonathan Gitlin

Jury Duty (Amazon Freevee)

Jury Duty is, without hyperbole, about the wildest and funniest TV show I’ve ever seen. The show was so successful in its premise that I almost looked forward to my subsequent jury duty service, wondering what kinds of hijinks I’d see in the courtroom (alas, I was not selected).

For those unfamiliar, Jury Duty is what happens when everyone around you is acting, and you’re unknowingly the main character. For regular guy Ronald Gladden, what seems initially like a mundane process soon delves into people testing his limits of credulity within the legal setting. Helping aid the ruse is actor James Marsden, whose meta acting of a pompous Hollywood type heightens the absurdity to the extent that much of the weirdness around Gladden doesn’t make him question his reality.

Just go watch it, and maybe you won’t dread your civic duty.

—Jacob May

Lupin Part 3 (Netflix)

In my 2021 review, I called Lupin Part 1 a “delightful contemporary reimagining of a classic character in French detective fiction, Arsène Lupin—a gentleman thief and master of disguise who was essentially the French equivalent of Sherlock Holmes.” Part 2 was even better, with twists, turns, and surprise reveals galore—all without sacrificing those crucial character-enriching quiet moments that add a bit of depth. And now star Omar Sy is back for another thoroughly enjoyable installment in the adventures of a modern-day gentleman thief.

Sy plays the Senegal-born Assane Diop, whose father was unjustly accused of theft when Assane was still a child and died in prison. Assane grew up reading all the adventures of Arsène Lupin (the creation of Maurice Leblanc) and has reinvented himself as a modern-day Lupin as an adult. Parts 1 and 2 chronicled Assane successfully taking revenge on Hubert Pellegrini (Hervé Pierre), the unscrupulous business tycoon who falsely accused his father. Assane did so with the help of lifelong friend and antiquarian Benjamin Férel (Antoine Gouy) while evading capture by the police, most notably Detective Youssef Guédira (Soufiane Guerrab), a fellow fan of the Lupin books.

The fallout of those schemes forced Assane into exile and further estranged him from his ex-wife, Claire (Ludivine Sagnier), and son, Raoul (Etan Simon). Part 3 finds Assane attempting to steal a priceless black pearl while mending fences with Claire and Raoul and dealing with a threat from shadowy figures from his past. Assane has always managed to outwit his various antagonists, but this time, his formidable ingenuity might not be enough. Part 3’s finale set up a possible fourth season, and I for one would love to see what Assane gets up to next.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds S2 (Paramount+)

live action actors for Mariner and Boimler — Credit: YouTube/Paramount+

I loved the first season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds because it was the first of the new live-action Treks to accurately capture the tonal range of the various ’90s shows; you could get dramatic allegory or space battles one week and a silly body-swapping farce the next. A return to episodic storytelling (with some serialized character arcs) also brought the franchise’s storytelling back to its home turf after years of intensely serialized melodrama on Star Trek: Discovery and Picard (although credit where it’s due—the last season of Picard was much better than I expected it to be).

Season 2 of Strange New Worlds is simultaneously more of the same, and an escalation. You’re still getting mostly episodic stories from a crew that continues to gel, and this year, the show tackled even more classic Trek story archetypes (the talky courtroom thriller; going back to the viewer’s present to save the show’s future). But you also get some big, ambitious, occasionally goofy swings, like the crossover episode with the animated Lower Decks or the musical episode (my assessment: surprisingly solid, too many ballads), plus a kinetic season-ending cliffhanger that continues SNW‘s terrifying reimagining of the formerly goofy Gorn.

The show is confident and good enough to get away with just about all of these experiments. Even if doing an episodic Trek show centered on the adventures of the original Enterprise still feels a little safe, the storytelling is ambitious enough to keep you entertained. I can’t wait for season 3.

—Andrew Cunningham

Star Trek: Lower Decks S4 (Paramount+)

Star Trek: Lower Decks is, without a doubt, my favorite Star Trek now. Forget any ideas you might have that it’s a parody or that it’s Rick and Morty in space, because the adventures of the USS Cerritos (NCC-75567) are as Starfleet as they come. The Cerritos and the other ships of the California Class might be relegated to less flashy missions like second contact, but someone has to do the grunt work.

Season 4 begins with “Twovix,” an homage to Star Trek: Voyager, as the Cerritos escorts it to its new life as a museum ship on Earth. The name probably gives away some of what happens, calling back to one of Voyager‘s most notorious episodes, but yes, it involves transporter accidents with those delta quadrant flowers. There are plenty more deep cuts throughout the season, including the return of Rom (Max Grodenchik) and Leeta (Chase Masterson) from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

But Lower Decks isn’t just about references to past shows; there’s also an overarching mystery to solve—just who is responsible for a string of attacks conducted by a mysterious ship? And throughout the season, we see the five main characters grow as young officers. Not everyone loved season 4 quite as much as the one that preceded it. But it gave us the moopsy, a cute but bone-drinking alien, and probably more importantly, it included an emotional link back to a pair of episodes from Star Trek: The Next Generation, “The First Duty” and “Lower Decks.” Bring on season 5!

—Jonathan Gitlin

Justified: City Primeval (FX/Hulu)

Ever since Justified concluded in 2015 after six fantastic seasons, I’ve missed Timothy Olyphant’s languidly lanky Raylan Givens. Givens was a Deputy US Marshall whose trigger-happy tendencies got him re-assigned to Harlan County in eastern Kentucky where he grew up—and thought he had left behind for good. Raylon’s longstanding rivalry with local criminal (and former childhood friend) Boyd Crowder (Walton Goggins) was the backbone that tied those six seasons together. So I was curious about how Justified: City Primeval would fare without that central dynamic, set in a new city to boot. Answer: pretty darn well.

The original series was based on an Elmore Leonard short story, “Fire in the Hole.” This latest miniseries is loosely adapted from Leonard’s City Primeval: High Noon in Detroit, reworked so that Givens is the protagonist. Givens has been working in Miami but gets stuck extraditing a pair of criminals to Detroit and finds himself helping solve the murder of a local judge. He’s also got a new local criminal to deal with named Clement Mansell (Boyd Holbrook), aka the Oklahoma Wildman. He must juggle all of that with keeping his teenage daughter Willa (Vivian Olyphant), who tagged along to Detroit, out of trouble. Sure, Mansell isn’t as complex a character as Boyd Crowder, but he’s still plenty menacing. And the characters, setting, and central mystery are every bit as intriguing as anything in Justified‘s six seasons, which is no small feat.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Loki S2 (Disney+)

Two men in early 1900s walking and walking while holding popcorn — Credit: YouTube/Marvel Studios

In the Disney+ TV series Loki, Tom Hiddleston’s titular character is just one of many Lokis in the universe, each existing in different timelines. The series is basically a love story between one particular version of Loki and the universe itself, which unfolds satisfyingly in season 2. Loki’s character arc is one of the most dramatic I’ve yet seen; he evolves from a selfish, devious villain into an antihero attempting to hold time itself together. And it’s delightful to see the strong buddy-cop relationship between Mobius (Owen Wilson) and Loki, who have transitioned from adversaries into old friends.

Hiddleston’s performance is phenomenal, especially in a standout sequence where he and the cast re-create previous scenes from the show with varying speed due to the need for re-tries on the timeline. It was so expertly played that it left me stunned. But the breakout star of season 2 may be Ouroboros, the technical wizard of the TVA played expertly by Ke Huy Quan. The character brings a wide-eyed naive earnestness that feels refreshing in a show full of characters with purposefully furrowed brows. In the previous season, Morbius carried the more lighthearted elements of the show alone. And speaking of Mobius (still excellent here), exploring his role on the sacred timeline adds a bittersweet and touching layer to the story.

Season 2 excels in every aspect—acting, directing, music, casting, costume design, and writing—and it left me wanting more, even though the ending seemed pretty final. Hiddleston is too powerful in this role to let it end here. Happily, there are an infinite number of Lokis he could play in the future, which may be the true genius of this series. Let’s see Loki in space—the captain of an Asgardian starship, maybe?

—Benj Edwards

Succession S4 (HBO)

I’d say Succession was a slow burn, but in truth, every season since the first has been outrageous, uproarious, dramatic, and shocking. Things sure seemed to reach a crescendo with the show’s finale season this year, though. For three years, we’d seen these horrible people squabble within their gilded cages, like starving lions trapped behind the glass at a zoo. How curious their exotic lives seemed to us, even as we judged them for their abuses of power and money.

But more than ever before, season 4 showed the havoc and suffering that the characters’ flaws, insecurities, and family squabbles could wreak not just on the people in their immediate vicinity but entire nations of human beings. That was always implied, of course, but Succession deftly peeled away those walls throughout its final season. It concluded with a shocking scene that left the viewer somehow experiencing both heartbreak and schadenfreude simultaneously for one of its key characters. In the end, no one was really happy—us non-billionaires in our not-so-gilded cages, least of all. But that was, of course, the point.

In telling its parable about the problems of wealth concentration so well, Succession was hilarious yet horrifying, small yet large, and relatable yet detestable. The show was explicitly a product of its time, but its themes, unfortunately, remain timeless.

—Samuel Axon

Zero In (The Cowboy Channel)

two young guys in cowboy hats with laptops against a studio backdrop — Credit: The Cowboy Channel+

The Cowboy Channel has only been around since 2017, but it has already made a significant impact on boosting the visibility of professional rodeo—as well as attendance at live rodeos—just by being the only channel where you can follow your favorite cowboys and cowgirls throughout the season as they compete to rack up enough wins to qualify for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas at the end of the year. Only the top 15 earners in each official category qualify, so things kick into high gear in July when The Cowboy Channel’s “100 Rodeos in 100 Days” countdown begins—the last chance for athletes “on the bubble” to eke out enough wins to get to the NFR.

The channel’s extensive rodeo coverage is supplemented by news and commentary programming like Western Sports Roundup and ProRodeo Tonight. The latest addition is Zero In, devoted to presenting in-depth statistical analysis and interviews with top athletes, usually on a weekly basis, although for the intense 10 days of this year’s NFR, hosts Mike Snow and Brett Nierengarten gave must-watch daily updates.

The basic format is just two talking heads—with the hosts only interacting via Zoom in the earliest low-budget days—but Snow and Nierengarten are so engaging, knowledgeable, and clearly passionate about the sport of rodeo that it doesn’t feel like a talking heads show. They play off each other well and have developed neatly packaged short segments—Five Fast Facts and Makin’ 8—to bookend the show, enabling them to pack a ton of useful information into a tight 30 minutes. Zero In has quickly become my favorite go-to source for whip-smart rodeo analysis.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Reservation Dogs S3 (FX/Hulu)

On its surface, Reservation Dogs is a show about a bunch of punk kids tempted to buck tradition while growing up on a Native American reservation in Oklahoma. But at its core, it’s a show about saying goodbye, so, naturally, its final season was its most poignant. After only three seasons, co-creator Sterlin Harjo chose to end the series by burying the community’s medicine man and showing how a community’s deepest pain—generational trauma—is slowly healed without any herbal remedies or witchcraft.

Jumping through time, its episodes depicted another group of teenage “shit-asses” navigating reservation life in the 1970s, as well as young kids cruelly subjected to the real-life horrors of a barbaric Native boarding school in likely the early 1900s. Illustrating how elders sacrifice for kids, then kids using that advantage to help their elders heal, the key takeaway is summed up by a drug-fueled line uttered in the fifth episode: “Our societies are stronger when there are elders and children.” It’s not a coming-of-age story—it’s about the power of coming together.

—Ashley Belanger

(Warning: the blurb below for The Great contains major spoilers.)

The Great S3 (Hulu)

Hulu has abruptly ended The Great‘s delightfully absurd portrayal of Catherine the Great’s (Elle Fanning) rise in Russia. The streamer’s decision came after a season that killed off Peter III (Nicholas Hoult) by dropping him into a frozen lake—tantalizingly before he even gets a chance to taste the lemon-flavored salt of his dreams. Perhaps Hulu expected that the series just would not have been the same without Peter’s daring appetite for all things decadent and brutal.

Although the series doesn’t have a perfect conclusion, its final season fabulously teased Catherine’s legacy ahead—enlightening Russia—while mocking her fierce naïvete at every turn through a bloody peasant rebellion orchestrated by a Peter III lookalike with the help of some scheming nobles in Catherine’s court. Concluding with a comet sailing overhead that illuminated Catherine’s path to win back the peasants and seal her fate as Russia’s destined ruler, the laughs may be over, but anyone rooting for Catherine all series long can join her in one last burst of revelry, watching her victory dance at the end.

—Ashley Belanger

Good Omens S2 (Prime Video)

Based on the original 1990 novel by Neil Gaiman and the late Terry Pratchett, Good Omens is the story of an angel, Aziraphale (Michael Sheen), and a demon, Crowley (David Tennant), who gradually become friends over the millennia and team up to avert Armageddon. Gaiman’s obvious deep-down, fierce love for this project—and the powerful chemistry between its stars—made the first season a sheer joy to watch. Apart from a few minor quibbles, it was pretty much everything book fans could have hoped for in a TV adaptation of Good Omens.

I was initially skeptical when rumors swirled that a second season was in the works. Why mess with near-perfection? In June 2021, Gaiman explained on his blog that, in fact, he and Pratchett had already mapped out a sequel for Good Omens way back in 1989. Pratchett died in 2015 and never got to see their combined vision brought to life on television. But “he wanted the story told, and if that worked, he wanted the rest of the story told,” Gaiman wrote.

The rest of the story involves the archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm, reprising his S1 role) inexplicably showing up at Aziraphale’s bookshop with no memory of who he is or how he got there. And he’s carrying a mysterious box, empty save for a buzzing fly. Aziraphale and Crowley must hide Gabriel from Heaven and Hell while they figure out what is going on, which might involve another pending Armageddon.

I’m happy to report that this second season is every bit as amusing and engaging as its predecessor, but it does end rather abruptly with Crowley and Aziraphale’s relationship at a crossroads. Fortunately, Prime Video has renewed the series for a third and final season, so Gaiman will get to finish the story he and Pratchett came up with all those years ago.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Dark Winds S2 (AMC+)

There have been a couple of prior attempts to adapt Tony Hillerman‘s bestselling Navajo-centric murder mysteries for film and TV: 1991’s The Dark Wind and three PBS TV films from 2002–2004 adapting Skinwalkers, Coyote Waits, and A Thief of Time. I quite liked the PBS films, but AMC’s TV series, Dark Winds, is by far the best.

Much of that is due to the amazing cast, especially Zahn McClarnon’s soulfully nuanced portrayal of tribal police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn. He oozes gravitas, all lean, weathered intensity, with a bit of darkness lurking beneath the surface that he works hard to keep in check. And Kiowa Gordon—who got his big break with the Twilight Saga franchise—shows real acting chops as Jim Chee, who comes to the reservation as an undercover FBI agent and stays on as Leaphorn’s new deputy. As with the novels, the often testy Leaphorn/Chee relationship is the heart and soul of the series.

The writers (all Native American), led by series creator Graham Roland, deserve a lot of credit for how well they’ve adapted the source material: Listening Woman (1978) and some elements of People of Darkness (1980) for the first season, with the rest of the latter adapted for season 2. It’s a complicated plot involving a 30-year-old oil field explosion, the wealthy white man who now owns said oil field, mysterious deaths, a cult-like Navajo church, and the post-World War II demand for uranium. But all the threads come together in the end. When The Navajo Times criticized the show for inaccuracies in its S1 depiction of Navajo language and culture, rather than getting defensive and doubling down, the series brought on a Navajo culture adviser to ensure the richly textured reservation setting—so crucial to the series—was more accurate. Dark Winds hasn’t received near the attention and kudos it deserves. Here’s hoping we get a third season.

—Jennifer Ouellette

For All Mankind (Apple TV+)

Where to start with For All Mankind, or Apple’s Unrealistic Space Show, as I prefer to call it. I think I’m in a diminishing population—most of the people I know who watched For All Mankind in the past finally reached the limits of their suspension of disbelief during season 3. The show’s conceit is that the USSR won the race to the moon, and by season 4, we’re in an alternate 2003.

Astronaut Ed Baldwin (Joel Kinnaman) is still in space, essentially hiding on Mars following the death of his ex-wife eight years ago. He’s XO of the Happy Valley Mars base, run by a group of seven countries plus the private company Helios. It has recovered from the disaster in season 3, but the toll of that catastrophe, and the bombing of NASA HQ in Houston, continues to affect various characters. There’s a new and super-annoying one for this season, an oil rig worker called Miles Dale (Toby Kebbell). Miles doesn’t have much of the right stuff, but through his eyes, we see how Helios workers get the short end of the stick at Happy Valley, particularly once an accident puts a lot of bonuses at risk.

I’ll be honest: I mostly watch For All Mankind because it’s a space soap opera with pretty decent CGI. There’s a relatively good subplot about a coup in the USSR, and there are still hints of the Ronald D. Moore magic that made late-era Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Battlestar: Galactica so great. But mostly it’s to see what bad decisions Ed will make, how Danielle Poole (Krys Marshall) has to fix them, and now what dumbassery Miles is about to get up to.

—Jonathan Gitlin

The Bear (Hulu/FX)

The second season of FX’s The Bear delivered for those who needed more pathos behind the PTSD-inducing restaurant scenes. Rather than focusing almost solely on head chef Carmy Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), the show’s storytelling expands to the rest of the cast, giving further context for why people choose a profession that keeps them in a near-constant state of stress.

While there are touching single character-driven episodes that focus on the zen of pastry-making in Denmark, a foodie’s tour of Chicago, and the art of customer service in high-end dining, the Christmas episode is the season’s highlight, and it delivers one of the most anxiety-inducing (and star-packed) stretches of television of the year. Ever had an awkward family gathering where there’s at least one meltdown? Prepare to relive that moment again, or at least have Jamie Lee Curtis’ portrayal as the Berzatto matriarch live in your head rent-free, making your family squabbles seem exceedingly tame by comparison.

—Jacob May

Only Murders in the Building S3 (Hulu)

This charming Emmy-nominated comedy series has made our “Best of TV” list every season, with Ars Features Editor Emeritus Nathan Matisse calling S1 “chock full of pitch-perfect parody touches” referencing the world of true crime podcasting. Only Murders in the Building stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez as Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, all residents of the same Manhattan apartment complex. The unlikely trio teamed up to launch their own true crime podcast when someone died in the building under suspicious circumstances, chronicling their independent investigation to solve the murder.

In S3, the premiere of Oliver’s Broadway murder mystery thriller, Death Rattle, is marred by the on-stage collapse of its star, Ben Glenroy (Paul Rudd). Somehow he revives, just long enough to be pushed down the elevator shaft of our trio’s building. Mabel is keen to investigate for another installment of the podcast (the murder technically took place “in the building”), but Oliver is more concerned with salvaging his show by turning it into a musical (Death Rattle Dazzle!) and his budding romance with co-star Loretta (Meryl Streep). And Charles is too busy struggling to master the “patter song” his character performs in the musical.

The same basic formula is at work, and it’s just as clever and entertaining as the prior two seasons. How could you go wrong with that cast? Plus, now I actually want to see that absurd in-world musical, because both the patter song (“Which of the Pickwick triplets did it”) and Streep’s pre-intermission lullaby are actually really good. The show has already been renewed for a fourth season, further adding to the body count in the building.

—Jennifer Ouellette

The Afterparty S2 (Apple TV+)

Those who love Only Murders in the Building should also enjoy Apple TV’s take on the comedic whodunnit genre, The Afterparty. Series creator Christopher Miller loved both classic murder mysteries and Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon and wanted the assembled suspects in his series to tell their stories from unique perspectives—each recounted in the style of a specific genre (e.g., action movie, musical, kid’s show, and teen drama).

The first season focused on a murder at a high school reunion afterparty. Tiffany Haddish stars as Detective Danner, who had to crack the case in the next few hours before a hot-shot rival detective came to take over. Her first witness was the awkwardly sweet escape room designer, Aniq (Sam Richardson), who told his story in the style of a romantic comedy. He attended the reunion and afterparty in hopes of igniting a spark with his now-divorced high school crush Zoë (Zoë Chao), but the murder of one of their former classmates (Dave Franco) got in the way.

This time around, Aniq and Zoë are now a couple and attend the wedding of her sister, Grace (Poppy Liu). But the wealthy groom, Edgar (Zach Woods), is poisoned sometime during the reception and afterparty. Suspicion naturally falls on Grace, and Aniq calls in his old friend Danner, now a private detective, to help unmask the killer and exonerate her. Aniq’s genre is still romcom (technically a sequel), with the other guests/suspects telling their side of things in the manner of a regency period piece, noir crime drama, a caper movie, an erotic thriller, a Hitchcockian melodramatic thriller (with a nod to the 1944 film Gaslight), an Asian soap opera, and a coming-of-age story in the style of Wes Anderson, among others.

Granted, the premise is a wee bit strained, but Miller’s deft comic touches, witty dialogue, clever plotting, and the all-star cast more than compensate. Both seasons are hugely entertaining candy-coated confections, perfect for a weekend binge-watch. Apple TV sadly canceled The Afterparty in October—a casualty, perhaps, of this summer’s Hollywood strikes—so we won’t be getting any more seasons. That’s a genuine shame. I was looking forward to seeing whatever murder transpired at the next afterparty Aniq and Zoë attended.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Foundation S2 (Apple TV+)

The Cleons with their robot servant — Credit: YouTube/Apple TV+

Out of the gate, I’m the wrong person to write about Foundation—which is why I signed up to do it. In my life, I’ve tried three separate times to get into Asimov’s original 1951 novel, but each time, I bounced off of it hard—it just felt like a bunch of silly space wizards in Jetsons-style floaty-ringed hats, dryly arguing nonsense with each other. I started watching the show primarily because the trailers looked cool and Lee Pace is in it, and I’d watch Lee Pace do pretty much anything, including just reading a phone book for two hours.

But unlike the Asimov novels, Foundation the TV show hooked me completely. From the incredible visuals that bring to life a galaxy-spanning civilization in decadent-but-stagnant decline to the performances of stars like Jared Harris and Laura Birn (and, of course, Lee Pace) to the Bear McCreary score—it just works for me, presenting ideas from the books in new ways I actually connected with this time around. Season 1 was enthralling, but season 2 blew the doors off with a compelling intertwined narrative that terminated in some monstrous explosions (and a bit of fun body-swapping for the coup de grâce).

Here’s the thing, though—and the reason why I’m probably the wrong person to be writing this, to the consternation of book-Foundation fans: My favorite parts of the show in general, and this season in particular, are the bits that revolve around the triumvirate Emperor Cleon (played variously by Cooper Carter, Cassian Bilton, Lee Pace, and Terrence Mann) and his custodian/caregiver/clerk/concubine/co-conspirator Demerzel (Laura Birn), an 18,000-year-old robot whose true origins seem mostly lost to time. The relationship between the Cleons and Demerzel is as fascinating as it is complex, and this season gives us a glimpse into the first meeting between the two characters—and also more formally establishes the central role that Demerzel plays in sustaining the momentum of the Cleonic dynasty.

Some other stuff happens this season, too. There are some psychic crazy people; Hari Seldon makes fun of people who can’t do hypermath; some monks show up—the cool kind of Friar Tuck-esque “LET’S GET PISSED!” monks, not the annoying fuddy-duddy oath-of-silence kind; and there are some excellent bits with recalled fleet admiral Bel Rios (Ben Daniels) that show what it means to be a leader with both commitment and compassion. Honestly, though, the story I was really here for was the Cleon/Demerzel bits—and that’s what I’m most looking forward to with season 3. It’s also a storyline that didn’t appear at all in the books. Maybe that’s why I like it best.

In any case, the show is absolutely worth watching, and if you’re a science fiction fan, you’re doing yourself a disservice if you don’t give it a go. Foundation seasons 1 and 2 are available to watch now on Apple TV+. The show was just renewed for its third season, and I’ll be there for it.

—Lee Hutchinson

A Murder at the End of the World (FX/Hulu)

Fans of the strange supernatural mystery Netflix series The OA, which wrapped in 2019, will be delighted to hear that co-creators Brit Marling and Zal Batmanglij are back with another intriguingly offbeat offering. A Murder at the End of the World stars Emma Corrin as a young hacker and amateur detective named Darby Hart. Darby has just published her first true-crime book, detailing her investigation of a serial killer undertaken with a fellow amateur named Bill (Harris Dickinson), from whom she is estranged. That gets her invited to an exclusive gathering at a secluded retreat organized by billionaire Andy Robson (Clive Owen). She’s shocked to discover that Bill (now an urban artist) is one of the guests, and even more shocked when Bill ends up dead.

Naturally Darby is convinced Bill has been murdered and sets out to investigate. Then a second guest dies and a blizzard traps the remaining guests inside. One of them must be the killer. But something bigger seems to be going on as well. There are secrets coiled within secrets—including what exactly happened in the past to estrange Darby and Bill, told in flashbacks—plenty of surprise turns, and the finale mostly sticks the landing as the killer is unmasked. Marling and Batmanglij have created a terrific character in Darby, bolstered by Corrin’s powerful performance, and while A Murder at the End of the World retains their offbeat, atmospheric trademark, it’s also the most mainstream story they’ve yet told.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Bodies (Netflix)

Netflix continues its winning streak when it comes to adapting other media, in this case a 2015 DC Vertigo graphic novel by Paul Tomalin. Bodies is an eight-episode limited series in which detectives in four very different timelines—1890, 1941, 2023, and 2053—discover the same dead body that mysteriously appears in London’s Longharvest Lane. The naked man has been shot through the eye, but there is no bullet at any of the crime scenes.

Each detective tries to solve the murder, and each encounters unexpected resistance even from their own superiors, as well as a recurring phrase: “Know you are loved.” The mystery for the viewer is finding out what ties them all together. Juggling all those timelines makes for quite the narrative high-wire act, but the show pulls it off splendidly, creating a multi-layered, twisty sci-fi mystery with finely drawn characters, where the stakes are nothing less than safeguarding a seemingly utopian future. To say more would merely spoil the fun.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Mrs. Davis (Peacock)

Let’s get something out of the way: Mrs. Davis is absolutely nuts. It’s like the writers mainlined a heady mixture of the indifference to preposterousness that animated Buckaroo Banzai, Umberto Eco’s love of hidden Christian sects, and a whole bunch of hallucinogens. One of the characters introduced in the first few scenes doesn’t become important until the fifth episode; another early scene isn’t what it seems, but it’s only explained in the fourth episode. Did I mention that the series is only eight episodes long?

That sort of deeply interwoven structure makes it extremely challenging to describe the details without veering heavily into spoiler territory. The main plot revolves around a conflict between the series protagonist, a nun called Sister Simone, and an AI that, in the US, goes by the titular Mrs. Davis (equally wholesome names are used in other cultures). Mrs. Davis has seemingly reordered life on Earth for the better by essentially gamifying it, getting people to do good deeds for virtual rewards.

But there are hints of something sinister going on with the AI, and it’s not afraid of overturning people’s entire existence to get what it wants. What it wants is to send Sister Simone off on the religious quest that drives the plot forward. I ended up liking it. Early on, I was sucked in by waiting to see which bit of insanity it would swerve into next. As the plot developed, I found myself wanting to see how all the loose ends that the first half of the series introduced could possibly be brought back into the main thread. Some of the acting was also compelling, both from Betty Gilpin as Simone and various supporting characters (Simone’s “fake mom,” on for just a fraction of an episode, felt achingly real).

If absurdist humor falls flat for you or you’d be offended by a treatment of Christian faith that seems simultaneously sincere and heretical, it’s probably not something you’ll want to spend time on. But I found it rewarding beyond the show itself. It got me thinking about interesting questions. We’re worried about AI taking our jobs, but what’s the role of religion when an AI takes on two aspects of God: omnipresence and benevolence? And I ended up admiring both the creativity of the writers and their willingness to wrap up a complicated, conspiracy-driven storyline in just eight episodes without holding stuff out in the hope it will get people calling for a second season. Mrs. Davis is like nothing I’ve ever seen, and things like that don’t come around often.

—John Timmer

Pluto (Netflix)

Chances are you missed this gem of an animated miniseries when it dropped on Netflix in October with almost no marketing. The streaming platform’s live-action One Piece and Blue-Eyed Samurai dominated online discussions, both of which are eminently watchable in their own right. But Pluto easily surpasses both. The friend who recommended it to me aptly described the series as “Blade Runner meets Se7en, with an Iraq War allegory woven in” for good measure. Pluto is an adaptation of the Japanese manga series of the same name that was itself inspired by a key storyline in Osamu Tezuka’s Astro-Boy manga (1952–1968) called “The Greatest Robot on Earth”—essentially reinvented as a sci-fi political thriller/murder mystery. The end result is simply glorious and more than a little heartbreaking.

A robot detective named Gesicht is tasked with solving the murder of a Swiss mountain guide robot named Mont Blanc as well as a human murder that turns out to be connected. Then another robot and another human are killed. Gesicht realizes that someone (or something) is targeting the seven most advanced robots in the world and key humans involved with establishing the International Robot Laws granting robots equal rights. Gesicht and Mont Blanc are two of them; another is a boy robot named Atom (clearly inspired by Astro-Boy). One by one, the great robots take on the mysterious “Pluto” and fail. Can Gesicht uncover who is behind the killings and why they harbor such animosity toward robots—and perhaps break the ugly cycle of hate in the process?

This all takes place against the backdrop of a brutal 39th Central Asian War, in which five of the seven greatest robots were called upon to massacre their fellow robots. (In keeping with Asimov’s laws, robots are not programmed to be able to kill humans.) There is a somber poignancy to the unfolding narrative, which includes delving into Gesicht’s mysterious past as he struggles to recover memories that were inexplicably wiped. I defy anyone to watch the pilot episode without tearing up a little at the tale of a traumatized war robot who takes a job as a butler to a blind composer so that he can learn to play the piano and never have to fight in a war again.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix)

mysterious female figure in red cape and skull mask staring directly into the camera while revelers dance behind her — Credit: Netflix

To say The Fall of the House of Usher is an adaption of the famous short story by Edgar Allan Poe wouldn’t be doing the miniseries justice. What Mike Flanagan has done here is more an inventive remix of the best of Poe’s oeuvre, creating something that’s entirely Flanagan’s own while still channeling the very essence of Poe. Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) and his twin sister Madeline (Mary McDonnell) are the CEO and COO, respectively, of Fortunato Pharmaceuticals. The keystone of their corporate empire is a wildly popular pain-killing drug called Ligadone, which they claim is safe and non-addictive despite many, many deaths over the years resulting from abuse of the drug.

A police investigator named C. Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly) has spent decades trying to nail the siblings on the company’s various shady business practices and has finally managed to bring the Ushers to trial. But then Roderick’s six grown children (by five different mothers) start mysteriously dying. It’s not a spoiler to say that all of them are doomed; we learn that much in the first five minutes. As we watch them march inevitably toward their respective gruesome fates—each manner of death inspired by one of Poe’s short stories—the mystery lies in who, ultimately, is to blame as family secrets unfold through a series of flashbacks.

Half the fun for diehard Poe fans is ferreting all the hidden Easter eggs and savoring the ingenious ways Flanagan has riffed on the source material. Poe’s original Fall of the House of Usher obviously provides the overarching framework, but Flanagan has woven in elements of several other classic short stories and poems, most notably “The Masque of the Red Death,” “Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Black Cat,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Gold-Bug,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “William Wilson,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and of course, “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee.” Plus, there are nods to Poe’s lesser-known oeuvre sprinkled throughout.

There are very distinct recurrent themes that run through Poe’s work: madness, guilt, disease, opium, family, omens, doppelgängers, fear of being buried alive, and of course, the tragic death of a beautiful young woman. Flanagan taps into all of them. Anyone familiar with Poe’s collected works will likely see many of the plot developments coming well before the final reveals, and it’s to Flanagan’s credit that such prior knowledge enhances rather than detracts from the pleasure of watching it all unfold. He again demonstrates that he is the reigning master of reinventing classic horror stories for a modern audience.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Slow Horses S3 (Apple TV+)

The third season of this always riveting British spy thriller, based on the “Slough House” series of novels by Mick Herron, is the best one yet—an impressive achievement, given how incredibly good the first two seasons were. Slough House is basically a dead-end administrative purgatory for MI5 agents who screw up or otherwise fall short of expectations, mockingly derided as the “slow horses” of the title. That’s what happens to River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) after he botches a public training exercise. Slough House is headed by the slovenly, flatulent, and frequently intoxicated Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman), who routinely heaps verbal abuse on his staff.

But Lamb is also a brilliant strategist when it comes to navigating the devious double-crossing world of spycraft, which is a good thing since his bumbling “slow horses” somehow keep finding themselves drawn into elaborately planned and dangerous schemes threatening the stability of Great Britain. This season opened with the kidnapping of Slough House administrator Catherine Standish (Saskia Reeves). The ransom: Cartwright must steal a top-secret file from MI5 headquarters. Then the twists and turns kick in, and trust me, you won’t see many of them coming. The character development is top-notch, and the show isn’t squeamish about occasionally knocking one of those characters off. I can’t think of any recent TV show in this genre that builds genuine tension and nail-biting suspense as well as Slow Horses. May there be many more seasons to come.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Deadloch (Prime Video)

Deadloch is an unapologetically ribald Australian comedy crime drama featuring two mismatched female detectives in a sleepy coastal town in Tasmania, who find themselves investigating a series of murders that just might be connected. Aussie co-creators Kate McCartney and Kate McLennan (the “McKates”) wanted to make a comedic version of the British crime drama Broadchurch (their working title was “Funny Broadchurch”) and pitched the idea to Prime Video. The pair got the green light, although they had to fight to use a certain term for female genitalia that is considered a curse word in the US but is largely innocuous Down Under. (The McKates even created a document they dubbed “The C**t Manifesto” to explain the cultural context of Australian swearing.)

Dulcie (Kate Box) gave up her career as a detective to become a sergeant in the tiny town of Deadloch for the sake of her high-strung veterinarian wife, Cath (Alicia Gardiner). Gentrification has transformed this former backwater into a favorite artsy getaway for wealthy folks from the mainland—particularly lesbians—fostering more than a little resentment among the original townsfolk. Dulcie’s job usually involves dealing with the antics of a local seal named Kevin (à la Neil the Seal) until a man’s dead body washes up on the beach with the tongue cut out during the town’s winter festival. Her boss brings in a second detective to oversee the case: a loud unorthodox woman named Eddie (Madeleine Sami) whose behavior is in stark contrast to Dulcie’s disciplined, restrained, by-the-book approach. Eddie wants to close the case as soon as possible; Dulcie suspects the murder might be connected to a similar death five years before. As the bodies start to pile up, they realize the town is home to a serial killer.

The first episode is admittedly a bit clunky: the writers are trying too hard to be funny; the playful skewering of lesbian culture falls a bit flat; and Eddie comes off as obnoxiously shrill, overbearing, and incompetent rather than the good-hearted, deeply damaged eccentric with a sharp nose for BS that emerges in later episodes. But give it time. Deadloch is a series that handsomely rewards viewers’ patience, hitting its stride by the third episode and never missing a beat after that. It’s a time-honored cliché by now, but this really is a mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Drops of God (Apple TV+)

red-haired woman and Japanese man on steps, looking dejected. — Credit: Apple TV+

Here’s another hidden gem that seems to have flown under a lot people’s radar: Drops of God, a limited miniseries that debuted on Apple TV+ in April, based on the popular and influential manga of the same name. A French wine critic named Alexandre Leger (Stanley Weber) has long been estranged from his daughter Camille (Fleur Geffrier). Camille flies to Tokyo upon hearing he is terminally ill but arrives too late: her father has died. And his will pits her against Alexandre’s top oenology student and “spiritual son” Issei Tomine (Tomohisa Yamashita) for his multimillion-dollar legacy, the bulk of which consists of a world-class wine collection. The two compete in a series of tests, culminating with a challenge to identify the meaning of the titular “drops of god.”

French-Vietnamese screenwriter Quoc Dang Tran’s decision to make this an international series—it was shot in French, English, and Japanese (with a bit of Italian for good measure)—weaves a few more threads into an already intricate, richly textured tapestry. Wine is a global phenomenon, but there are nonetheless regional rivalries. Pitting a Japanese oenologist against the French daughter of a world-famous French wine critic brings a human face to the tension between classic French expertise in viticulture and Japan’s burgeoning passion for wine over the last several decades. It also enabled Tran to expand his visual canvas to shoot on location in three countries (Japan, France, and Italy), all gloriously rendered.