The last couple of years have forced us to reacquaint ourselves with our old friend television. The pandemic didn’t create the war for our small screen attention, but it certainly turned it from a cold war between a few giants to an active series of battles between many players.
As Disney+ consolidated its vast holdings and added a flood of content, new platform Paramount+ got in on the ‘plus’ market by replacing the CBS All Access service in the US and ultimately around the world. Of course, that meant pulling Star Trek: Discovery from Netflix globally only two days before the Season 4 premiere, adding salt in to the wound by saying it then wouldn’t arrive until 2022 for global fans. (They relented a week later, ‘fast-tracking’ it to the local Paramount+ — but the damage was done to the fanbase).
Still, there’s some hope for global viewing equality, and there’s commitment to the long haul as well. Apple has spent a small fortune developing Isaac Asimov’s FOUNDATION for its own streaming platform, reportedly planning on an eight-year run to tell the mammoth story. Next year, we’re getting Prime’s The Lord of the Rings, another multi-year commitment to a fan-favourite franchise.
Which brings us back to this year, where the best TV spanned intimate stories and epic cinema-worthy content in equal measures. Here’s a few we enjoyed in 2021. If it’s not on the list, I didn’t get around to it (or didn’t like it as much as these).
Hacks
If the barrel of awards didn’t tell you already, then HACKS is hands down one of the wittiest, funniest and heartfelt new comedy/drama series of the year. In a TV year owned by Jean Smart (see also: Mare of Easttown), here she effortlessly proves why she is the ruling monarch of our screens. The acerbic wit, the razor sharp delivery of Lucia Aniello’s (and fellow writers) dialogue, and chemistry with Hannah Einbinder make this most addictive show of the season. Already greenlit for a second season, and we can’t wait.
Pretend It’s a City
The American remake of The Trip is on point. No, seriously: this much-watched and variously parodied meeting of minds between Martin Scorsese and writer/humourist Fran Lebowitz is exactly as New York as you want it to be — and maybe a little more. Following their previous collaboration of Public Speaking (2010), and intercut with footage from other public appearances, it’s getting to hear your favourite humourist tell jokes while your favourite director laughs maniacally at them.
Starstruck
While this wasn’t New Zealand comedian Rose Matafeo’s first foray into television, this is show is 100% pure Matafeo. As the writer, creator and star of this unconventional rom-com — about the screwball mishaps following ex-pat Jessie (Matafeo) hooking up with movie star Tom Kapoor (Nikesh Patel) for a one-night stand — this BBC/HBO Max collaboration is everything. Disarmingly charming, it always feels authentic, even when the misadventures get comedically complicated.
Kevin Can F**k Himself
If WandaVision hadn’t also come out this year, creator Valerie Armstrong’s series may have been labelled revolutionary. Fresh off Schitt’s Creek, actor Annie Murphy plays Allison, a woman who tries to find a new approach to life while in an unhappy marriage with the titular Kevin (Eric Petersen). The show’s conceit is that whenever Allison and Kevin are together, the format shifts to a typical multiple-camera sitcom complete with canned laughter. Yet the rest of the show takes on the single camera model of a drama, as Allison and neighbour Patty (Mary Hollis Inboden) go deeper down a dark rabbit hole. Like WandaVision, it uses the sitcom form as horror, highlighting the everyday terror that men cause when following selfish pursuits for ‘comedic’ effect. Will make you look at every sitcom lead (and especially The King of Queens) in a different light.
Mare of Easttown
There was a time this year when you couldn’t swing a cursor on social media without hearing someone rave about this HBO series created by Brad Ingelsby (The Way Back). It wasn’t just the amazing ensemble either — although Kate Winslet, Julianne Nicholson, Jean Smart, Angourie Rice, Guy Pearce and Evan Peters counts as a ‘stacked cast.’ Each episode drew us in, kept us there with amazing characters and wanting more with a series of cliffhangers. You can rarely go wrong with murder in a small town, and this is just excellent proof of that.
Cooking With Paris
Arriving when we needed her the most, Paris Hilton’s cooking show is everything you want it to be. Despite the fancy clothes, the even fancier gloves and the string of guests who ‘casually’ drop around for dinner — bestie Kim Kardashian West, Saweetie, Nikki Glaser, Demi Lovato, Lele Pons, Kathy Hilton and sister Nicky Hilton Rothschild — Paris is every one of us trying to add glitter to our French toast. It’s the metaphor for the whole lockdown. #sliving
Only Murders in the Building
From the opening scenes of this wonderful series, we were hooked. The only thing stranger than the unlikely combination of Selena Gomez, Martin Short and Steve Martin is just how much that continues to work for us. A Manhattan murder mystery that plays into podcast culture in equal measure, the world followed the leads’ obsession with episodic storytelling as Disney/Hulu made this appointment television.
Squid Game
It would be impossible to talk about TV in 2021 without at least mentioning this Korean thriller. It helps that it was also very, very good. A crossover hit if ever that term could apply, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk crafted a show that is simultaneously horrifying to watch and impossible to turn away from. The set-pieces are obviously the highlights that make this semi-bingeable (although I needed a break after each episode), but it’s the character-driven elements that are compelling from beginning to end. The recognisable cast of faces, not least of which is Lee Jung-jae, disappear into these roles as each game is played. In the end, you the viewer are torn between wanting to see someone survive but ponder just how bloody it can get. That’s when you know the show has you hook, line and sinker.
Allen v. Farrow
If you’re still struggling with reconciling Woody Allen as a filmmaker and the crimes he’s been accused of, stop for a moment and consider how hard it has been for Dylan Farrow. She had to tell her story repeatedly and consistently for decades, only to be met with armchair critics offering opinions. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s docuseries makes its case and makes it well. Not that it has to. Through some heart-wrenching interviews, an analysis of Allen’s films, and a review of the events, the Farrows of the title give voice to a case that was dismissed not due to lack of evidence, but evidently due to procedural decisions. This is Dylan Farrow having her voice heard, and goddammit you should listen.
The Chair
There needs to be more love for this series, created by Amanda Peet and Annie Julia Wyman. It follow’s Sandra Oh as a professor appointed as the first female chair of a prestigious university’s English department. Yet her role as a single parent and relationship with friend and colleague Bill Dobson (Jay Duplass) is tested when a scandal rears its head. Anybody who has spent any amount of time around academia will instantly recognise the archetypes on display here — and know how much worse the real world can be. Plus: David Duchovny guest starring as himself is the best version of David Duchovny.
The Moth Effect
This disarmingly clever sketch comedy show seemed to come out of nowhere and work its way straight into our hearts and various other organs. Probably the only Australian sketch comedy show to feature a time traveller who has to sleep with his own mother to save the world, the ridiculously sharp scripts tackle contemporary issues and the esoteric with equal gusto. The Amazon Prime money allows for a mammoth cast as well: Bryan Brown, Vincent D’Onofrio, David Wenham, Jack Thompson, Miranda Otto, Ben Lawson, Peter O’Brien, Kate Box, Zoe Terakes, Miranda Tapsell, Jake Ryan, Mark Humphries, Nazeem Hussain, Zoe Coombs Marr, Jonny Brugh, Lucinda Price, Dave Woodhead, Louis Hanson, Steen Raskopoulos, Tim Franklin, Sam Cotton, Christiaan Van Vuuren, Sarah Bishop, Sam Campbell, Megan Wilding and Brooke Boney. (Plus, it also features at least two original cast members of Fangirls, so that’s a win-win in our books).
Superman & Lois
Following the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, the network has done very little to capitalise on their world-building. In fact, since bringing together all of the shows onto a united Earth, Arrow, Supergirl and Black Lightning have ended and the first season star of Batwoman left. Yet we did get this: a series that draws directly from the comics while combining the best of Smallville and marching to the beat of its own drum. Tyler Hoechlin is as perfect a Clark Kent as he is in the suit, and the back half of this season was compulsory viewing for comic book fans.
Marvel’s WandaVision, Loki, What If, Hawkeye
It’s kind of hard to separate these four, as they ushered in a new era for Disney (or more specifically Disney+) in rapid succession. As MCU fans, it became impossible to separate them from the theatrical output — and not just in terms of scale either. Each provided vital clues to future films, from Black Widow to the upcoming Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Is it too much Marvel at once? Maybe. Does it make it hard to casually tune into the MCU? Definitely. Do we want more? Absolutely. (For the record, my personally favourite was the Matt Fraction/David Aja-inspired HAWKEYE for the street-level, low-stakes, Christmas action). The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was also a show, but let’s just gloss over that for a moment.
The Beatles: Get Back
Despite being almost nine hours — or perhaps because of it — new gems and discoveries emerge every few minutes in Peter Jackson’s restoration of the Let It Be sessions. Process junkies will love seeing germs of classic songs emerge from fragments of thoughts. Somehow, hearing ‘Don’t Let Me Down’ for the umpteenth time does nothing to take away its impact. Watching George casually walk in with an early version of ‘Something’ (in Part 3) is gold. There’s drama, of course, but perhaps not as much as you’d think. Could this have been half the length? Probably, but then you’d miss some of the more subtle moments that emerge. One of my favourite is actually early in the piece, as a camera catches an unguarded McCartney on the morning after George has walked out and John has failed to show up. The tears in his eyes speak to someone in their late 20s watching the tightest group he’s ever known falling apart.
Hellbound
If there’s a constant in Yeon Sang-ho’s career, then it’s change. After beginning his career with the animated King of Pigs, he has since crossed over into the global mainstream with Train to Busan. Since then, he’s kept adapting with Psychokinesis and Busan sequel Peninsula. With HELLBOUND (지옥), Yeon’s second foray into television, he brings the blockbuster sensibilities of his features to serial storytelling. Read our season review.
