By Kylie Northover
TV critic Kylie Northover shares her favourite shows of the year. Credit: Aresna Villanueva
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With so many platforms and only so many waking hours, it’s increasingly tricky to keep up with new TV. Even in a year when the biggest event in the industry was the actors’ and writers’ strikes that saw thousands walk off the job for months, protesting, chiefly, the lack of residual payments on streaming platforms and the encroachment of AI on their work.
The production of dozens of TV series was delayed, among them premium programs The White Lotus, Stranger Things, Euphoria and Yellowjackets, yet, such is the amount of content available, it was still a terrific year for viewers, albeit perhaps a bittersweet victory.
The biggest “event moment” in TV this year was, arguably, the Succession finale, which almost provoked a Dallas “who shot JR?” level of water cooler chat and numerous think pieces. Below might be the only 2023 “best of” list that doesn’t feature Succession; that final season, the finale aside, I would argue, was the series’ most tedious. I’d much rather a zombie-producing fungal infection than men in suits discussing the minutiae of corporate hostile takeovers any day. But this is just my list, we’re asking readers to share their favourite shows of the year as well.
The Last of Us (Binge)
Bella Ramsey (left) and Anna Torv in The Last of Us.Credit: HBO/Binge
A live-action adaptation of a post-apocalyptic zombie video game sounds one-dimensional, but game director Neil Druckmann and Chernobyl showrunner Craig Mazin expand the source material to create a fully realised world, full of surprising humanity. As Joel (Pedro Pascal) travels across the country with teenage orphan Ellie (the incredible Bella Ramsey), who might be this miserable world’s saviour, they encounter video-game levels of violence but also develop a moving, complicated relationship. The year’s best TV episode was the series’ bold detour into a standalone story about Bill (Nick Offerman), a slightly mad survivalist who finds love with an artist, Frank (Murray Bartlett) and their attempt to eke out a happy life in a ruined world.
High Desert (Apple+ TV)
Patricia Arquette in the bonkers comedy High Desert.Credit: Apple TV+
Patricia Arquette is brilliant as a former drug dealer (and dedicated drug user) who lost everything in a bust. Her husband Denny (Matt Dillon) took the 10-year prison stint for her and Peggy moved to Palm Springs to live with her mother (Bernadette Peters, who also stars as a washed-up actress, Ginger; it’s complicated). In a convoluted series of events, after her mother dies, Peggy, the most endearing junkie you could meet, talks her way into a job as private investigator. Also starring Brad Garrett, Rupert Friend and Weruche Opia, the plot is completely bonkers, swerving between dark comedy, farce and piteousness. Fingers crossed for a second season.
Asking For it (SBS on Demand)
Jess Hill with sexual assault survivor Grace Tame in Asking For It.
The follow-up to investigative journalist Jess Hill’s 2021 documentary See What You Made Me Do, this three-part series is just as confronting, but essential viewing. Hill this time talks to sexual assault survivors, consent educators and community groups working to change attitudes around sexual violence and consent, with the aim of examining how Australia can change its current rape culture to a “consent culture”. There’s an optimism here, although her deep dive into the internet’s “manosphere”, the name given to a slew of misogynistic online blogs, websites and forums promoting “anti-feminism” and often violent rhetoric about women, is truly frightening, sobering viewing.
Somebody Somewhere (season 2) – Binge
Bridget Everett and Jeff Hiller in the understated comedy Somebody Somewhere.
The second season of this understated series about the power of human connection was just as moving as the first. Sam’s (Bridget Everett), mother Mary Jo (Jane Brody) is in a nursing home while her father Ed (Mike Hagerty, who died unexpectedly just before filming began) is “away” on a fishing trip and her sister Tricia (Mary Catherine Garrison) is freshly divorced. The joyous friendship between Sam and Joel (the amazing Jeff Hiller) is deepening – until Joel finds love and Sam is, inexplicably even to her, enraged. If that all sounds grim, it is – and it isn’t. Somebody Somewhere is a unique portrayal of pain, acceptance, melancholy and wicked humour.
Who Killed The KLF (SBS on Demand)
The KLF took a more cavalier approach to money than the Bank of England.
British electro band the KLF (former music manager Bill Drummond and artist/musician Jimmy Cauty), had global hits including 3am Eternal and, as the Time Lords, Doctorin’ the Tardis, and were for a time the biggest-selling singles act in the world. But really they were guerilla pranksters undermining the art world (long before Banksy) the media and the music industry. And if you haven’t heard about them burning one million pounds in cash, strap in. This doco is by British director Chris Atkins reportedly using archive material and some mysterious “found” tapes of the band, but I suspect Drummond and Cauty themselves were also involved. Genius.
Rain Dogs (Binge)
Daisy May Cooper as working-class single mum Costello Jones in Rain Dogs.Credit: HBO/Binge
I’d watch Daisy May Cooper (This Country) in anything, but she’s stunning in this loose adaptation of Cash Carraway’s 2019 memoir. Cooper is Costello Jones, a recovering alcoholic, single mother (Fleur Tashjian plays her daughter, Iris) and aspiring writer who pays the bills by working in a peep show. Costello, who remains upbeat even as she’s evicted from her council flat, has a sometime saviour in best friend Selby (Jack Farthing), a self-destructive trust-fund gay man who is devoted to her (and Iris), despite the pair’s dysfunctional, toxic love for each other. A painfully bleak portrait of poverty, love and trauma, it’s also darkly funny and compelling.
Happy Valley (season 3) (Stan/Binge/BritBox)
Sarah Lancashire in the final chapter of Happy Valley.
Seven years (!) after the second season of this gritty Yorkshire-set police drama, this final chapter is also set seven years after Sergeant Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire) put Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton, even more creepy than ever) in prison. Now a teenager, her grandson Ryan (Rhys Connah) has grown inquisitive about his father, and wants to meet him. Then an obsessive fan of Royce’s starts working at Ryan’s school, and Catherine, who has been planning her retirement, is suddenly back to dealing with her nemesis. No spoilers, but as a final chapter, this season was a cracker, and worth the wait.
The Bear (Disney+)
Yes, chef! Jeremy Allen White as Carmy and Ayo Edebiri as Sydney return for season two of The Bear.
In the world of glacial pacing favoured by many streaming series, The Bear stands out for its hectic pace; it’s almost exhausting to watch. The second series, in which Carmy (Jeremy Allen White) and his team transform the sandwich shop into a hip restaurant, is much more of an ensemble piece. Sydney (Ayo Edebiri ), Ritchie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and Marcus (Lionel Boyce) are given their own, almost standalone episodes. Some of these are almost meditative, such as Marcus travelling to Denmark to work with a famed chef, but the change of pace doesn’t detract from the strong performance and the oddly absorbing storyline.
Cunk on Earth (Netflix)
Unlike in many historical documentaries, Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) is given permission to be clueless, rude, naive and supremely confident in her mockumentary Cunk on Earth.Credit: Jonathan Browning
Ostensibly a silly spoof of David Attenborough-style documentaries, this insane series is fronted by comedian and writer Diane Morgan as her alter-ego Philomena Cunk, a clueless, seemingly bored interviewer who asks absurd questions of the real academics she interviews, in note-perfect BBC presenter cadence. Patient interviewees – I’m still not sure if they are in on the joke – correct her hilarious errors and seem very understanding when she asks questions such as “Why did Nelson always have one hand up his jumper? What was he doing up there?” Sometimes, her questions prompt genuinely interesting answers from the experts and best of all, Cunk occasionally sneaks in some sly social commentary, without ever breaking character. Brilliant.
Deadloch (Amazon)
Nina Oyama as Abby and Kate Box as Dulcie in Deadloch.Credit: Patrick Bradley/Prime Video
Kate McLennan and Kate McCartney flipped the true crime drama genre with their “feminist noir” whodunit. Turning the small-town-big-secrets trope into a dark comedy, the discovery of a dead body on a beach kicks off an investigation by Sergeant Dulcie Collins (Kate Box), whose usual policing in the small Tasmanian town is much more low stakes. When more bodies turn up, Dulcie is teamed with an out-of-town detective, the brash Eddie Redcliffe (Madeleine Sam) to track down the killer. With a largely female-led cast – Nina Oyama, Pamela Rabe, Alicia Gardiner among them – Deadloch blends satire with serious issues around feminism and toxic masculinity.
Honourable mentions
Barry (Binge); Beef (Netflix); Time (Binge)
Find out the next TV, streaming series and movies to add to your must-sees. Get The Watchlist delivered every Thursday.
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