My Favorite Shows of 2021

If there’s a silver lining to entering year three of a global pandemic, it’s that at no other point in human history has there been so much tv to watch. After long hiatuses and halted productions last year, 2021 was more than just a return to form. In fact, I can’t quite remember a year in which there was so much to choose from. Just narrowing this list down to ten shows proved to be a challenge. So much so, that I must begin with a few series that narrowly missed the cut.

Honorable Mentions

Betty (Season 2) – Crystal Moselle (HBO)
Season 1 of Betty was a blessing. It was cool, funny, and above all, incredibly endearing. The series showed the power of friendship, community, and identity like few things I had seen before. Season 2 stays connected to these same characters and themes, but this installment, like the reality it’s steeped in, is darker. The show is as well-made as ever; it’s just a tougher hang this time around.

9/11: One Day in America – Daniel Bogado (National Geographic)
Look, there’s no way I was going to put a 9/11 documentary in my top ten list. I don’t know how you would even rank this against something like The White Lotus. It’s obviously easy to grow cynical about these events. The world is undoubtedly a worse place for the United States’ response to them. But by focusing specifically on the individual experience of these attacks, this documentary contends with something else. It engages with the humanity of the people who lived and died through this day, the end result being an enormously powerful and moving documentary.

Only Murders in the Building – Steve Martin, John Hoffman (Hulu)
An incredibly funny show starring two comedy geniuses plus Selena Gomez. I loved watching this series and am thrilled it is coming back for a second season. But in an incredibly crowded year for comedy, it just missed out on my top ten.

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Season 11) – Larry David (HBO)
I honestly am not sure how objectively funny Curb Your Enthusiasm is at Season 11. The familiarity and premise of the show are just too much for me to be objective about it. And yet, like every other iteration of this show, I found this season to be absurdly delightful. Pretty, pretty good!

The Top Ten

10. Mare of Easttown -Brad Ingelsby (HBO) 
Mare of Easttown is a perfect embodiment of the current “Post Peak TV” era of television. It’s a series that has studied up on all the Mindhunters, True Detectives, and Night Ofs that came before it. The result is that Mare is not only a new installment in the genre but an update to it. The central characters in Mare are women. The episodes are staged and paced so that it’s impossible not to watch the next one. What’s more, it sounds like it could do the most “Post Peak TV” move of all and come back for a Season 2. I hope it does.

9. It’s a Sin – Russell T. Davies (Channel 4 / HBO Max)
It’s a Sin follows a group of gay young men and their friend Jill as they live in 1980s London amid the growing AIDS crisis. It is incredibly reminiscent of Rebecca Makkai’s The Great Believers, which, if you’ve followed my reading log, you’ll know is my favorite novel of the last few years. That’s to say that this had all the makings of a good show, but through Russell T. Davies’ brilliant execution, it becomes a great one. If there’s a secret strength to the series, it is its ability to capture beautiful and profound moments of characterization in all of a few minutes.

8. Squid Game – Hwang Dong-hyuk (Netflix) 
I don’t know how much I can add to the discourse surrounding Netflix’s most-watched series ever. If you have somehow managed to not watch Squid Game, I will offer this: the magnitude of violence and brutality in this show is decidedly not my cup of tea. And yet, I stuck with Squid Game because of everything else the show does. Its characters are complicated, compelling, and nuanced, the performances are magnificent, and the storytelling is incredibly smart and subversive. In short, Squid Game may be hyped up, but it is the rare show to live up to that attention.

7. What We Do in the Shadows (Season 3) – Jermaine Clement (FX) 
What We Do in the Shadows will remain in these top ten lists until it retires. In all honesty, I thought this was the best season to date. “The Casino” belongs in the pantheon of all-time comedy episodes right alongside Seinfeld’s “Marine Biologist,” and It’s Always Sunny’s “The Nightman Cometh.”

6. How To with John Wilson (Season 2) – John Wilson (HBO) 
There is more quality tv available than any one person could possibly watch (hopefully that’s apparent from this post!). Still, for this enormous boom, most of these shows are largely the same. I don’t mean to suggest that these series are unoriginal or in any way unworthy of attention, but for the most part, they all draw on the same trusted format provided by legacy tv shows like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, or Seinfeld. How To… is different. Certainly, there have been video essays and docuseries before. But I can’t remember a project in which these video essays could seemingly go on forever, nor one in which the thematic basis for the project has more to do with a specific tone than its content. In terms of quality, I don’t think Season 2 necessarily does anything that Season 1 didn’t, but I’m just so impressed that this series proved it can keep going.

5. Hacks – Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, Jen Statsky (HBO MAX)
Hacks has everything you could want from a show: brilliant performances, an enticing plot, so much comedy, and something meaningful to say. I’m astounded by how well this show was put together. It’s not drastically different from the dozens of other 30-minute serialized comedies out there. Yet, there’s something in this show’s alchemy that sets it apart. I’d be a fool to not start with the two lead performances by Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder. They work exquisitely as partners and foils. What really stands out to me, though, is the writing. Particularly how it gives its main characters the space to have real drama and stakes. Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder could easily carry this series with their comedy, and yet, Hacks is so well-structured, it almost doesn’t need them to. In that place, it offers incredible supporting performances by Kaitlin Olsen, Carl Clemons-Hopkins, Paul Downs, Megan Stalter, and Poppy Liu.

4. Reservation Dogs – Sterlin Harjo, Taika Waititi (FX on Hulu)
Even on just a surface level, there’s a ton to enjoy about this show. Res. Dogs follows a group of indigenous teenagers trying to break out of their reservation hometown in Oklahoma. There are obvious appeals to my taste. I love hangout shows and movies, I love series about young people coming into their own, and I love seeing perspectives that I hadn’t considered before.

What I didn’t expect was how fully-formed this series could be in Season 1. It reminds me of the debut album a band has been perfecting for years and years right until they finally got their shot. From the start, the storytelling is just masterful. The series deals so gracefully with intense and difficult subjects like grief, trauma, mental health, politics, race, and wealth. But what elevates the series into something transcendent is the way it blends mysticism, spirituality, and the supernatural into these hard realities. The end result is a highly-entertaining comedy featuring moments of surreal beauty unlike anything I’ve seen before.

3. The White Lotus – Mike White (HBO) 
From the pilot, it’s clear that The White Lotus would be a worthwhile series. It’s dark, cynical, and wickedly funny. The cast and performances are exceptional. But what I didn’t count on is that it would have so much to say about class. This series touches on something real and maybe even profound by its conclusion, all without sacrificing any of the qualities I mentioned above. It feels like a parable without having to hit you over the head with the lesson. In fact, I think it’s possible one could watch and enjoy this show without engaging in any of the subtext. Of course, that person would miss out on just what elevates this show from being very good to being great.

2. Succession (Season 3) – Jesse Armstrong (HBO) 
There is no better feeling in television than when Succession is airing. For the nine weeks this show was back, it was the highlight of my week. Seriously, if every series in this blog aired its episodes at the same time, Succession is undoubtedly the one I’d watch first. And yet, for all that praise, I will say that Season 3 was (just very slightly) the weakest season to date. For the first time in the series’ run, you could feel the strain as the show hurtled toward its endpoint. On the other hand, this season’s conclusion was as brilliant and daring as anything Jesse Armstrong and his team have done. I would argue it ranks up there with the best season endings in television history (looking at you, Breaking Bad S4). All of which is to say that despite a few flaws here and there, Succession remains the best and most exciting series on TV.

1.  I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Season 2) – Zach Kanin, Tim Robinson (Netflix)
My personal trajectory for ITYSL Season 2 went something like this: I waited and waited for the series to return. I watched the initial trailer for the season at least a dozen times. The season dropped on Netflix, and I consumed it all in one sitting, thinking, “That was good. Definitely not as good as Season 1, but still good. Oh well. Still, that Corncob TV sketch was mighty funny. I may have to go back…”

Since then, I have been unable to escape this show. Each sketch gets funnier and funnier to me the more I watch and think about it. I have now watched “Corncob TV” at least 20 times and have not hit a point of diminishing returns. Seriously, I think it’s safe to say that I have never watched a season of television more than I have watched ITYSL Season 2.

To that point, I would like to include a personal hall of fame for the Season 2 sketches that I find to be absolutely perfect. The fact that this list only continues to grow as I revisit the series says all you need to know. God bless Tim Robinson.

• • Corncob TV
  • Sloppy Steaks
  • Karl Havoc
  • Professor Yurabay
  • Ghost Tour
  • Calico Cut Pants
  • Jaime Taco
  • Parking Lot
  • Insider Trading