The best TV shows of 2022, so far
We’re only partway through the year and 2022 is already absolutely packed with new shows
Unlike the other best-of lists we’ve put out (movies! games! anime!) TV is more of a constant deluge these days, with a fountain of streaming services sharing more shows than a reasonable person could keep up with. In light of that, we’re here to help you suss out some of the best shows of the year so far. That last part is key — this is a list we expect to update several times through the year, as new shows drop, older shows settle into our memories, and we (like everyone else) catch up on the unsung gems of 2022.
What counts as a 2022 show? Glad you asked. Any show where the season in question ended in 2022. And don’t fret if it looks like your favorite show is falling down the list; this list is in “newest first” order, so new additions will be added to the top as they make the cut.
Severance
Severance doesn’t seem like it should work as well as it does. Every bit of the sci-fi thriller — from its tightly tuned performances to the evocatively low-key score, even to the concept of the show itself — feels like a high-wire act, a series of plates spinning atop sticks and staying perfectly balanced. The world where Lumon Industries has allowed (or, more disquietingly, required) workers to sever their work and home identities are trippy and methodic, like an Escher painting come to life.
After all, what do your work and personal self have in common beyond just happening to be the same person? As Severance unpacks just how different those interests are, the result gets more and more chilling as it expertly reminds us of what is actually lost even in the cleanest of work-life balances. —Zosha Millman
Severance is available to watch on Apple TV Plus.
Abbott Elementary
The sitcom mockumentary format has been done to death at this point, but against all odds, Abbott Elementary manages to refresh that formula and breathe new life into it. It just makes sense that a school would be the subject of a documentary.
The best part of Abbott Elementary is
That each of the teachers just feels real, like a teacher you probably had at one point or another in your life. Sheryl Lee Ralph and Janelle James command the cast as wise kindergarten teacher Barbara and work-allergic, self-absorbed principal Ava, but from eager and sometimes naïve Janine (Quinta Brunson, also series creator) to street smart Philadelphia native Melissa (Lisa Ann Walter), all the characters are vivid, messy, and relatable in their own ways. And they all learn from each other, so no one person is the butt of all the jokes and instead they have their own separate strengths and weaknesses — and separate quirks about them that make them hilarious. Also, the added bonus of the kids being absolutely adorable makes Abbot Elementary particularly special. —Petrana Radulovic
Abbott Elementary is available to watch on Hulu.
Pivoting
When best friends Amy (Eliza Coupe)
Jodie (Ginnifer Goodwin), and Sarah (Maggie Q) lose their friend Colleen, the middle-aged trio vow at her funeral to stop wasting their precious time and do the things they’ve been putting off. Sarah quits her career as a surgeon and starts working at a grocery store. Amy stops using her career as an excuse to hide from her family. And Jodie decides to be more impulsive and flirt with her personal trainer.
Despite the unusually dark premise and drastic-seeming pilot, Pivoting is a breezy, sharp comedy that mostly stands out in how grounded its characters are. Not necessarily in their decisions and upper-middle-class lifestyle, but in their warts-and-all friendship, one where they all care about each other but also know making new friends is just too much work to do anything other than support each other, even when one of them is being an idiot. —Joshua Rivera
Pivoting is available to watch on Hulu.
Grand Crew
Stop me if you’ve heard this one:
A sitcom built around a group of friends who hang out, have a good time, and get into wacky hijinks together. Grand Crew, one of NBC’s newest half-hour comedies, certainly follows suit (it follows a group of Black friends in L.A. who hang out together at a wine bar; shenanigans ensue). But it’s more than just a singular entry to the long-list of hangout shows, it’s an incredibly solid one.
The only weakness of the cast is also their strength:
They anchor the show with an incredibly clear handle on who their characters are. It can feel at times like the show is putting the cart before the horse — the cast comes on strong and funny while the show is left to catch up to them. But unlike other returns-to-sitcom that end up feeling like relics, Grand Crew lets its cast feel like they’re really playing. Like wine and all great sitcoms, it starts strong and only gets better with age. Here’s to uncorking another season and letting the characters grow even more. —ZM
Grand Crew is available to watch on Hulu and Peacock.
The Righteous Gemstones
Danny McBride’s raunchy story of American failed children reached new heights and excesses in Season 2, adding Jason Schwartzman and Eric Andre to a cast already stuffed to the brim with comedic talent. As my esteemed colleague Joshua Rivera put it, “a single Danny McBride episode will often say more about America than an entire season of one of your little rich people dramas AND have a great fart joke.”
The second season of Gemstones builds on the foundation of the first season
And continues to hold its place as can’t-miss television (especially if you’re okay with the occasional vomit-based gag). It introduces new context for the upbringing and background of family patriarch Eli (John Goodman), linking the showmanship of pro wrestling directly to the theatricality of evangelical megachurch shows, all while methodically cataloging the repeated failures of his (hilariously inept) children to build their own legacy. McBride and co. highlight the absurdity of our current moment with comedy that is at once astutely observant and uproariously vulgar. —Pete Volk
The Righteous Gemstones is available to watch on HBO Max.
All Creatures Great and Small
In a television world stuffed to the brim with police procedurals and 10-hour movies cut into one-hour increments, All Creatures Great & Small stands apart as a charming veterinary serial set in the lush Yorkshire Dales countryside. The second season of All Creatures retains and builds on the appeal of the first season, with top production design, beautiful cinematography, and complicated characters filled with life.
Our central characters branch out from their established molds from the first season
James (Nicholas Ralph) is prioritizing what he wants in life and where “home” is, Siegfried (Samuel West) is figuring out how to show his brother he cares about him, Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) is (mostly) growing up and becoming an adult, and Mrs. Hall (Anna Madeley) is recapturing her identity as her own person. All of the actors are phenomenal, led by Woodhouse and Madeley, who are each given significantly richer material to work with this season.
With World War II looming on the horizon, the second season of All Creatures brings into focus one of the main themes of the show: The little but significant ways we can make a difference in the lives of those around us, animals and humans alike (as the characters often remind us, being a good veterinarian is not just about the animals – it’s the people that’s the difficult part). A loving ode to the original series and books with one of the most charming opening credits sequences on TV, All Creatures is about the difficult, worthwhile pursuit of caring for all living things around us, as best we can. —PV
All Creatures Great & Small is available to watch on PBS Masterpiece.
Peacemaker
If Guardians of the Galaxy showed how James Gunn could paint within the lines to form one of the better MCU scripts, then Peacemaker shows what he can accomplish when given relatively free rein. The C-string hero Peacemaker was best known for inspiring Watchmen’s Comedian or being the consummate asshole of The Suicide Squad.
Post-Peacemaker, Gunn showed him in all his human glory:
Flawed, intense, wounded, caring, an impeccable dancer, bisexual, Vigilante’s best friend. Throughout it all, John Cena as Peacemaker manages to fine-tune some genuine pathos, while also anchoring a rock-solid cast adept at Gunn’s tonal swings. At this point, it’s one of the few superhero projects that feels easy to root for the next chapter of. Here are too many more eagle hugs. —ZM
Peacemaker is available to watch on HBO Max.
The Marshawn Lynch episode of Murderville
No one is more game than Marshawn Lynch when they come to Murderville.
The former NFL running back may get high marks just because his seamless transition into comedy king is something of a surprise, but he earns this episode’s place on this list with every fired-off quip. What’s great about Lynch’s performance is that he is totally down to clown around when it comes to the scenarios (who knew he’d make such a good mirror to Rob Huebel?), but also makes the whole thing feel like a buddy cop comedy. Whether he’s backing up Seattle’s doll DNA suggestions or defending the time-honored procedural cross-talk — “Then act like you can’t!” he yells at the witness who says he can hear everything they’re saying — Lynch puts the team on his back and just runs with it. —ZM
The Marshawn Lynch episode and the rest of Murderville are available to watch on Netflix.
The Orbital Children
After nearly 15 years since his last original anime
Dennou Coil director Mitsuo Iso returns with The Orbital Children, a six-episode anime (released in Japan as two feature-length films) following the story of five children stranded aboard a commercial space station on the brink of a cataclysmic disaster. Through a dizzying tapestry of rich worldbuilding brought to life through beautiful animation, Iso and co. weave a coming-of-age story that takes the lives of five unsuspecting children and places them at the precipice of humanity’s expansion into the vast unknown of space. It’s a brilliant anime with dense, beautiful visuals that rewards both attentive first-time viewers and repeat watches alike. —TE
The Orbital Children is available to watch on Netflix.
Yellowjackets
No show arrived with as much pizzazz in late 2021 as Yellowjackets did.
With a pilot directed by Karyn Kusama, the show jumps between a group of teen girls in the 1990s, stranded in the wilderness after their plane crashed en route to a soccer tournament, and their older counterparts, each still coping with the traumatic experience — and also being mysteriously blackmailed by someone about their time in the woods.
Yellowjackets are creatively confident from the jump, deftly balancing its highwire act and slowly unfurling its grand designs, even when you have no idea what to make of them. Even with a slightly mellow (by their standards) finale, Yellowjackets season 2 will have my full attention. Whether it’s handling messy characters, woodsy abortions, or supernatural cultism, Yellowjackets is clearly top of the class. —ZM
Yellowjackets are available to watch on Showtime Anytime.
Station Eleven
There is perhaps no show easier and harder to recommend to people this year. Station Eleven, based on the novel of the same name, traces a handful of characters as they live through a deadly pandemic and figure out what life “after” looks like. Its pilot is immediately gripping, thanks to careful writing and images that sear themselves into your mind; it is also, of course, horribly timed, given the ongoing pandemic and the waves of unresolved grief that wash around our ankles every minute of the day.
And yet Station Eleven is one of the most beautiful things, start to finish
TV has gotten this year. As Nicole Clark put it in her look-back at the season:
Station Eleven is that rare piece of pandemic media that dwells less on the heroism of a solution, or the thrill of a core cause, and more on the idea of the persistence of community and the creation of art. Even as the show forges numerous circuitous connections between its characters, much of its plot is left open-ended. The show’s vignettes work out more like a collage that convey emotional tones. “Survival is insufficient” is more than a mantra painted on the side of the troupe’s wagon. It’s a thread that binds episodes together; it’s a reason to stay alive at all.
It might not always be the easiest of watches, but it’s among the most rewarding. —ZM
Station Eleven is available to watch on HBO Max.
