Best TV Shows of 2022 by Network

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CREDIT (Clockwise from Top Left): AMC/Screenshot; ABC/Screenshot; Paramount+/Screenshot; Hulu/Screenshot)

To demonstrate how great TV can be found pretty much everywhere these days, I’ve decided to pick the best show on each network and streaming service on which I regularly watched at least one show that aired in 2022. However you’re getting your fill of TV nowadays, you’re bound to find something enjoyable. If you and your remote ever find yourself hopelessly adrift, I can vouch that the following are all great places to find your way back to safety.

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Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 9/23/22

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Look at this classic moment from Celebrity Jeopardy! (CREDIT: Sami Drasin/ABC)

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
Catherine Called Birdy (September 23 in Theaters, October 7 on Amazon Prime Video)
Don’t Worry Darling (Theaters)
The Munsters (Netflix, Blu-ray, and DVD) – A Rob Zombie Reimagining

TV
Bob’s Burgers Season 13 Premiere (September 25 on FOX)
Celebrity Jeopardy Season Premiere (September 25 on ABC)
Celebrity Wheel of Fortune Season Premiere (September 25 on ABC)
Family Guy Season 21 Premiere (September 25 on FOX)
The Great North Season 3 Premiere (September 25 on FOX)
The Simpsons Season 34 Premiere (September 25 on FOX)
The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers Season 2 Premiere (September 28 on Disney+)
Ghosts Season 2 Premiere (September 29 on CBS)
Young Sheldon Season 6 Premiere (September 29 on CBS)

Sports
-Laver Cup (September 23-25 on Tennis Channel) – Roger Federer’s Last Hurrah

Jmunney’s 2022 Emmy Wish List, Part 1: Comedy

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CREDIT: Netflix

Fun (or Frightening?) Fact: this year’s Emmy ballot includes nearly 3000 performers. We’ve all known for several years now just how overwhelming television has become, but somehow it still had room to launch into another level. So for my personal wish list, I decided not to think too hard. I’ll just include however many or however few selections per category I’d like to. I’ve probably forgotten some worthy contenders, but I won’t stress about that too much. We’ll find out what the TV Academy has to say when the nominations are announced on July 12!

My favorite Comedy of the season was Kyle Mooney’s singular Netflix show, Saturday Morning All Star Hits, but I can’t find it anywhere on the ballot! Not in Comedy, nor in Animation. Oh, well.

Anyway, there are a few other newbies that I’d really love to see all over the ballot, like Abbott Elementary, Girls5eva, Only Murders in the Building, and The Sex Lives of College Girls.

And one important note: Kevin Can F*** Himself is in the Drama field on the ballot, correctly. But I’ve got Eric Petersen (as the titular stereotypical thoughtless sitcom husband) down for Comedy, as the scenes with him function best as parody.

KEY:
Bold=My winner
*=I have placed this nominee in a different category than the Emmy ballot.
**=Not on the Emmy ballot

Comedy Series
Abbott Elementary
The Afterparty
Barry
Dickinson
Girls5eva
Only Murders in the Building
Resident Alien
Saturday Morning All Star Hits**
Search Party
The Sex Lives of College Girls
What We Do in the Shadows
Young Sheldon

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The 77 Best TV Shows of 2021

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CREDIT (Clockwise from Top Left): Screenshot, Netflix, Screenshot, Screenshot

For the Year of Our Screens 2021, my list includes all the shows that I would recommend to my fellow viewers as “worth watching.” So that’s 77 shows! There’s a lot of TV nowadays, and a lot of it’s also pretty good.

I utilized a self-imposed rule in which I had to watch at least 50% of a show’s 2021 output for it to be eligible. However, there were some noteworthy shows that I watched less than 50% of, so I’ve spotlighted those in an honorable mention section:

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Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 10/1/21

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Ghosts (CREDIT: Cliff Lipson/CBS ©2020 CBS Broadcasting, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

Movies
The Addams Family 2 (Theaters and On Demand) – Still snappin’ those fingers.
The Many Saints of Newark (Theaters and HBO Max) – Getting back to waking up this morning.
Titane (Theaters) – From the director of Raw.
Venom: Let There Be Carnage (Theaters) – “Let there be carnage”? I demand it!

TV
LEGO Star Wars Terrifying Tales (October 1 on Disney+)
Saturday Night Live Season 47 Premiere (October 2 on NBC) – Kicking off with Owen Wilson and Kacey Musgraves.
Ghosts Series Premiere (October 7 on CBS)
Young Sheldon Season 4 Premiere (October 7 on CBS)

Music
-The Doobie Brothers, Liberté
-Lady Gaga & Tony Bennett, Love for Sale
-Yes, The Quest

Jmunney’s 2021 Emmy Wish List, Part 1: Comedy

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CREDIT: YouTube Screenshot

It’s that time again! The 2021 Emmy nominations will be announced on July 13, which means I’ve got a Wish List for the nommy noms I’d most like to see! In case you’re wondering, I haven’t held myself to any minimum or maximum number of entrants per category, nor do I strictly adhere to official Emmy rules. (I’ve included explanations for my deviations.) And of course, I must mention that I haven’t seen everything, so there are probably some worthy considerations I may have missed. First up: Comedy and Animation.

Almost every single one of my Comedy Series preferences from last year is not eligible this year, whether because of series finales or longer-than-average breaks in between successive seasons. Luckily we have a plethora of streaming services to fill the gaps, and plenty of them are represented here. We’ve got Hulu! We’ve got Peacock! We’ve got Apple TV+! We’ve even got that dang HBO Max. There’s also some room for basic cable in the form of Syfy’s Resident Alien. And it looks like for the first time since I’ve been making Emmy Wish Lists, there is no broadcast network series making my cut (although one of my choices began as an NBC show and another is a reboot of an NBC show).

In the acting categories, it’s an absolute embarrassment of riches in the Lead Actress category, with every one of the ladies I’ve selected giving the performances they were born to play. That’s also true of Alan Tudyk, who’s my easy winner in the Lead Actor field. (He’s an alien … pretending to be a human! Can you imagine?!) Over in Supporting, it’s a mix of newbies and usual suspects, with plenty of sitcoms really making full use of their deep ensembles these days.

KEY:
Bold=My winner
*=I have placed this nominee in a different category than the Emmy ballot.

Comedy Series
A.P. Bio
Dickinson
Pen15
Resident Alien
Saved by the Bell
Search Party

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The 67 Best TV Shows of 2020

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Clockwise from Top Left: What We Do in the Shadows, Never Have I Ever, Better Call Saul, How To with John Wilson (CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots)

Last year, I decided to rank as many TV shows as I felt like recognizing in my year-end list, and that worked out so well that I decided to do it again for 2020. So welcome to my ranking of the 67 Best TV Shows of 2020! Not every show is accompanied by a blurb, just the ones that I felt like I really needed to say something about.

I worked with a self-imposed rule that I had to have watched at least 50% of a show’s 2020 output for it to be eligible, but there were some shows that I’ve only just begun to watch that I wanted to recognize as well, so they’ve got their own Honorable Mention section. And there were also some shows that aired relatively few episodes in 2020 to the point that I didn’t think they should be eligible either, so they’ve also got an Honorable Mention section. And then there’s one more show that’s managed to establish its very own Honorable Mention section, and that’s where we start.

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Entertainment To-Do List: Week of 10/30/20

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The Mandalorian (CREDIT: Star Wars/YouTube Screenshot)

Every week, I list all the upcoming (or recently released) movies, TV shows, albums, podcasts, etc. that I believe are worth checking out.

TV
The Mandalorian Season 2 Premiere (October 30 on Disney+) – Baby Yoda is on this show.
Young Sheldon Season 4 Premiere (November 5 on CBS)

Music
-Elvis Costello, Hey Clockface – The 31st studio album from Mr. Declan MacManus!

Jmunney’s 2020 Emmy Wish List, Part 2: Comedy

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CREDIT: YouTube Screenshots

The 2020 Emmy nominations will be announced on July 28. As per annual tradition, I have assembled a Wish List for as many categories as I have something to say about. There is no minimum or maximum number per category, nor is there any strict adherence to official Emmy rules. And of course, there is the necessary caveat that I have not seen everything. Even with much of the country shut down for the past few months, that’s impossible.

Yesterday I kicked off my Emmy Wish List coverage with plenty of Drama. Today it’s time to laugh along with the Comedies, and boy, what a year for laughter it was! At the top of my list are those wacky vampires (Vacky vampires? Wacky wampires? Vacky wampires?) of What We Do in the Shadows, which in its second season staked itself permanently in my heart. It’s my winner for Comedy Series and all but one of the acting categories. Too bad it doesn’t have a Supporting Actress, otherwise it would’ve been a clean sweep.

Matt Berry is at the top of the Lead Actor heap thanks almost entirely to the Jackie Dayton episode (which ought to also earn Mark Hamill a Guest Actor trophy). Meanwhile, Mark Proksch slays the Supporting Actor Field thanks to Colin Robinson taking full advantage of his promotion. And Natasia Demetriou is the #1 Lead Actress because Nadja is awesome in every episode.

As for the Supporting ladies, I’ve got a little bit of everything, and ultimately it just felt right to go with the representative of the oldest show on my ballot as the winner.

Some other notables: Never Have I Ever and mixed-ish make the strongest showings of freshman series, Sex Education switches its category placement from Drama to Comedy (and remains worthy of praise), and I’m currently only on Season 2 of Schitt’s Creek, but I’m sure it’s just as good in its final season.

KEY:
Bold=My winner
!( )!=I haven’t caught up to the current season of this show, but I still wanted to recognize it.

Comedy Series
Atypical
Baskets
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Mixed-ish
Never Have I Ever
Sex Education
!(Schitt’s Creek)!
What We Do in the Shadows

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The 53 Best TV Shows of 2019

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CREDIT (Clockwise from Top Left): Amazon; Disney; Pamela Littky/FOX; Rhys Thomas/IFC

Under the known laws of physics, it is currently impossible to watch every TV show (or even just every good show) airing new episodes in a given year. But for those of us who treat televisual consumption as a transcendent pursuit, we do our best to fit in as many programs as possible, which means that there are more than ten or even twenty shows worth recognizing in an annual best-of list. So this year, I decided to rank as many shows as I thought were worthy of recognition and provide blurbs for the ones where I really needed to say something.

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