Ten Shows I Liked That Came Out This Year

Hey! I'm back with a new blog post for the first time in *checks watch* nine months. Sorry, life got crazy. Anyways, I'm here with a listicle because that's what this here book on "How to Blog circa 2012" told me I should write. It's the end of the year and I apparently watched a lot of shows as well as movies, but for this article I wanted to focus on the shows with a list of my favorite ten shows that came out this year. I wanted to focus it on shows that came out this year, otherwise I'd be boring y'all with how I just discovered Columbo and how you really need to watch it! Anyway, special shout out both to Columbo as well as the 2022 Western show The English, probably my two favorite shows I've been exploring this year that didn't come out this year.

 

10. Scott Pilgrim Takes Off
Genre: Comedy, Animated, Action
Service: Netflix

That's right, Scott. Just keep smiling.

An animated Scott Pilgrim series feels like it's coming out about a decade too late, but, gosh, was it worth the wait. I don't want to spoil it too much, but this isn't what you're expecting and that's what makes it so great. I had more fun than I thought I would and part of that is also how much fun it sounded like the voice actors had reprising their roles from the film. Chris Evans felt like he had to suppress how giddy he was to return to Lucas Lee's disinterested bravado. I will let loose that this is a bit of "storytelling remixing," something I'm generally a fan of and I think this one did a great job subverting expectations and having fun doing it!

 

9. The Righteous Gemstones (Season 3)
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Service: Max

The happiest looking idiots you ever did meet.

The Righteous Gemstones has been a mainstay at our house since season one. It follows the Gemstone family that run a megachurch franchise, rolling in so much cash that King Solomon would blush. The new season had the patriarch, Eli, played by the still flipping phenomenal John Goodman, stepping aside to let the adult children, Jesse, Kelvin, and Judy, played by (respectively) Danny McBride, Adam Devine, and Edi Patterson, to take the reigns. And they are the most chaotic idiots you'll ever see. This entire show's gimmick is making fun of these fools in particular while you still root for them and this season kicks it up a notch. There isn't an episode where I wasn't laughing nonstop.

8. For All Mankind (Season 4)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Historical Fiction, Action
Service: Apple TV

Mars: The New Frontier

I'm a sucker for historical fiction that plays with really big hypotheticals with the history of space. For All Mankind started with the branch from our reality with "what if the Soviets beat us to the moon?" and has kept it going. Four decades, storywise, later and we find a unified humanity working together on a Martian base and I can not get enough of this show. Let's just say there's an episode that has a final line of "want to steal an asteroid with me?" with an "X is Gon Give It to Ya" needle drop. Yes. Please.

7. 1923
Genre: Western, Action
Service: Paramount +

I can get down with cowboy, Harrison Ford.

So, yes, a Tyler Sheridan written show made the list. I've been exploring his writing this year and between this and Hell or High Water (2016) he's exposing a fascinating opinion on imperialism, capitalism, and living during the late stage elements of both. In 1923 and the show that came before it, 1883, Sheridan is exploring these thoughts in the context of the ancestors from the characters from his show Yellowstone. In 1923 in particular there's some great tension when someone set in the old ways of colonialism comes face to face with modern capitalism. You're not really rooting too much for either of them. This show also has a star cross'd romance that made me wish the next season was out already so it's not just guns and grit.

6. Foundation (Season 2)
Genre: Sci-Fi, Action
Service: Apple TV

Why yes, it was Jared Harris and Lee Pace that were the reason we started watching. Why do you ask?

Based off of Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" book series which, itself, is based off of Gibbon's "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," there's a lot of heady thoughts on society, how to preserve it, if it should be preserved at all, and so on. There's also a very scantily clad and angry Lee Pace. Half this season he's rocking some light chain mail piece for his top and if you showed up because you wanted Lee Pace, you got it. This particular season looks deeply into belief and plays a generations spanning chess game that is pretty darn fun to watch. On the other side of the board from Lee Pace playing (one third of) the Emperor (it's way too complicated to explain here, just watch the show) is Jared Harris as Hari Seldon, the historian/mathematician that predicted the decline and fall of this space empire. It's just really fun to see where this show goes.

5. Hilda (Season 3)
Genre: Animated, Adventure
Service: Netflix

Bittersweet to see this lovely show end.

Oh, Hilda. Such a fun show that is a masterclass in just casual world building. This season in particular did a great job in building off of the existing world and expanding in a whole unexpected dimension. It's one of the few shows that made it onto my short list of "shows that really stuck the landing." If you dig weird adventure cartoons, make time for this one.

4. Justified: City Primeval
Genre: Crime, Action
Service: Hulu

Oh, Raylan.

Between this copaganda and Tyler Sheridan sharing this list, I bet I've scared some of you off but there's something about Elmore Leonard's Raylan Givens, brought perfectly to life by Timothy Olyphant, that I just can't enough of. Neither this show nor the show before it attempts to justify (heh) the actions it takes. But, as in City Primeval, throw a cartoonishly villainous psycho in Givens' path and it's an absolute blast to watch.

3. TRIGUN STAMPEDE
Genre: Anime, Western, Action, Sci-Fi
Service: Hulu

Vash, what have you done now?

The original Trigun anime was one of the first shows that I fell hard for for the genre. It's some great story telling. TRIGUN STAMPEDE is a different take but no less special. It hits all the same themes from the original and brought to life wonderfully by studio Orange. You get to explore the weird new western style planet and in only twelve episodes there's no time for monster-of-the-week episodes. You just get into it. It's condensed story telling done beautifully.

2. Scavengers Reign
Genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure, Action
Service: Max

Ugh... I already want to go back.

I loved this show so much. Feeling as if it was ripped out of the fantastic mind of the amazing artist, Mœbius, a handful of survivors have found themselves scattered across this incredibly aggressive planet. It's beautiful but just as likely horrifying. We observe some survivors trying to control their surroundings to survive, some try to understand it to coexist, and some just lie in a corner crying hoping it's just a dream. Every episode had a little wonder in it. Just thinking about it makes me want to revisit it.

1. Fall of the House of Usher
Genre: Horror
Service: Netflix

This bunch of bastards.

Oh boy. This one. So, I should preface that I'm a bit of a nerd for Mike Flanagan. And I think this is up there with some of his finest work to date. It's certainly a love letter to Edgar Allan Poe and makes me want to dive deeper into the source material that Flanagan kind of remixed to make this new series. There's a lot of phenomenal commentary on wealth, greed, "how much is enough," and the cost it has to everyone else. For those with weak stomachs, keep in mind this is certainly living in the "horror" category so might be one you want to skip. For the others, come delve into the ichor festering in the basement of the House of Usher with me.