My Top Shows of 2024
Television is in a weird place right now. However, from "Say Nothing" to "The Decameron," there is still boundless creativity and incredible storytelling happening on the small screen.
Television is in a strange place right now. Far from the streaming bubble’s “woke” utopia that initially inspired this newsletter, the industry today finds itself in a contraction and perhaps a bit of a backlash. Since the writers’ and actors’ strikes last year, production is still down 20 percent since 2022, 40 percent in the United States. Far from the days of #Oscarssowhite and #MeToo, shows with white leads seem to be making a comeback, while the progress made in recent years in terms of diverse content, while noteworthy, never really went far enough in shaking up the core of the industry.
In 2024, of 228 script shows, “only 25 had a creator of color (11%), and 57 had a female creator (25%). White men made up more than three-quarters of all show creators (77.3%) and were the least likely to feature underrepresented stories (14.8%),” according to an annual UCLA survey of diversity in television.
Yet people still want diverse stories. The report states that shows featuring lead actors of colors had higher median ratings, continuing a trend from recent years. But there is a long way to go. Some eight of ten of the top streaming dramas and comedies have white leads. Perhaps this trend is evident in my top picks for the year. And according to GLAAD, LGBTQ+ representation on broadcast television decreased significantly between 2023 and 2024. Compared to my last roundup, in 2022, it felt like there were fewer shows to choose from generally, especially those focused on millennials and Gen Z.
As television tries to figure out where to go next, however, there is still boundless creativity and incredible storytelling happening on the small screen. I did not, admittedly, watch every show that came out this year, so this list is non-exhaustive. Several are book adaptations, and take it for what you will, most are not U.S.-based productions. But the shows listed here each taught me something new, left me in awe, or brought me joy, sometimes all of the above. Happy New Year, and happy watching!
“Say Nothing” (Hulu)
Frankly, this show blew me away. Based on New Yorker writer Patrick Raden Keefe’s bestselling book of the same name, it is an epic true story of two Northern Irish women who come of age in The Troubles.
Dolours Price (Lola Petticrew) and her sister Marian (Hazel Doupe) come from a long line of proud Catholic Irish nationalists. Dolours at first believes in non-violent struggle, but after she attends an ostensible peaceful march where she and fellow marchers are brutally attacked by Protestant Loyalists, she changes her tune. She convinces top members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Brendan Hughes (an electric Anthony Boyle) and Gerry Adams (Josh Finan), to let her and her sister join their ranks. From the high of righteous indignation and revolutionary zeal, Dolours and Marian truly believe in the righteousness of their cause– no matter the cost, they have the moral high ground, whether staging a bank robbery while dressed as nuns or planting car bombs in central London. The young women are taught to follow orders from their superiors, ask no questions, and importantly, say nothing to anyone about being in the IRA. The depth of Marian and Dolours’ involvement in some unspeakable heinous acts comes out as the episodes unfold. But these acts committed in the line of duty carry consequences that have a long hangover. While telling the Price’s story, we also learn about the brutal and senseless abduction of Jean McConville, a mother of ten, by the IRA, supposedly for snitching to the British.
The latter half of the show explores the characters’ feelings decades later about their actions during the height of the Troubles, their outcomes, their complicity in crimes against potentially innocent people, the brutality of the fog of war, and the personal consequences it all wrought. The girls go from seeming heroes to villains to somehow, nobodies. Though ultimately, I think, sympathetic to every victim of violence and oppression, it doesn’t let them off the hook either, and raises complicated, difficult questions about what happens when the ends don’t end up justifying the means. The arc of Gerry Adams – who later became the president of the Sinn Féin political party in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and denies ever being in the IRA – is especially slippery.
I learned an immense amount about The Troubles in watching this show, a situation I knew little about, and in listening to the audiobook of Say Nothing afterwards. The book went into more detail than the show, of course, coloring in some moments in the series that could’ve used a bit more context. Ultimately, though not without some flaws, both projects are to me incredible feats of narrative history. And, not to make light of a serious situation, the Northern Irish accents are amazing.
“The Decameron” (Netflix)
This bizarre, dizzying show was a delightful binge – farcical and hilarious, but tinged with melancholy and true pathos. The show, created by Kathleen Jordan, the woman behind the brilliant but short-lived “Teenage Bounty Hunters,” is very loosely based on a medieval book of short stories written in 1353. It centers around a group of ridiculous nobles and their servants who escape Florence during the Bubonic Plague to seek shelter in a countryside villa.
This group of oddballs, including familiar faces like Tanya Reynolds from “Sex Education,” who plays a servant who impersonates her master; Saoirse Monica-Jackson of “Derry Girls” as a devoted and grieving servant to the narcissistic Pampinea, played with typical deranged ditziness by Zosia Mamet of “Girls” fame, as well as a number of other recent shows. There’s comedy greats like Tony Hale of “Arrested Development” and “Veep,” playing the desperate groundskeeper with a secret, along with relative newcomers like Lou Gala, the French actress who plays hyper-religious but hyper-horny Neifile. It took me a moment to recognize her character’s husband, Karan Gill, as Panfile, who played a villain redeemed in “I May Destroy You.” His character here is much more earnest and frankly sweet in his devotion to his wife’s sometimes absurd requests. I am a fan. This group creates a wacky and queer ensemble of misfits, mixing screwball comedy with the grotesque, under the ever-present threat of death. Be prepared to see a lot of corpses.
Following the common recent trend of purposely asynchronous historical fiction, this show has vibes of “The Great,” “My Lady Jane,” and yes, the famous Plague tale, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” but it is also a thing of its own. I think it was special, dark, and different.
“Industry” (HBO Max)
This show had an absolute stranglehold on me, despite my best intentions. After my seven year relationship ended, my friends told me to watch comforting shows like “Gilmore Girls” and “Sex and the City” to get over my heartbreak. But the earnest adorableness of these shows was not what I needed to distract me. What I actually needed was a show like “Industry,” which the Washington Post aptly described as “feel bad TV.” Many reviewers have marveled at the show’s “Succession”-like third season, while admitting the first two are a mixed bag. So naturally I had to sit through the first two to get to the good stuff. Reader, this show is wild.
The first season kind of feels like “Skins” at the office, featuring the young, ambitious, and morally bankrupt young fellows at Pierrepont, a top London finance firm, who are competing against each other for permanent positions. The HBO is HBO-ing here, with the first few seasons featuring so many hookups and so much nudity I could hardly keep track of which clients and which coworkers were sleeping together. It made me roll my eyes. The financial jargon was also infuriating. I understood about 10% of the financial terms thrown out there with the utmost intensity between sellers and traders, and it made me feel very stupid. Each commit about a thousand fireable offenses per day, but in a work environment where your boss is cutting his toenails on the trading floor as a power move and your coworker just died from an energy-drink and Adderall related heart attack, I guess that’s just how business works?
The first season does raise some interesting dynamics between the characters – Harper (Myha'la) went to a state school and is American, half-Black, and has some secrets, while her coworker, Yasmin (Marisa Abela, who I’m now in love with), is an Iranian heiress who I guess is doing this job just for kicks? Girl, why? Then there’s Rob (Henry Lawtey), a working-class womanizing party boy in the first season, who, through his character’s arc, becomes downright lovable by season 3, and is always having the worst day of his life. The relationships between the characters shift throughout the show, from love interests to enemies, to co-conspirators to friends, and I found myself actually invested.
Harper is constantly making bold financial plays, to the ire and amazement of her boss and mentor Eric (Kevin Leung), with whom she has a codependent love/hate relationship. In a number of scenes, in my confused haze I gleaned, “well, seems like from those angry numbers words she in trouble” and then watched, mouth agape, as her play paid off and everyone applauded her. I still don’t understand what shorting is. But these characters certainly do a lot of snorting.
I wanted to throw my remote across the room. Then I wanted to get up and get the remote and watch the next episode. This is not my type of show. And yet, it was the distraction I needed.
So after an infuriating but still kind of fascinating first two seasons, the rumors were true. The third season dusted itself off, cleaned up, and figured out what it wanted to be – well, after a random surprise death. With less gratuitous sex and a more focused central arc surrounding the hopes and follows of so called “green energy,” somehow everything just gels. Everyone’s reputation gets completely trashed, as the characters themselves constantly get completely trashed. The absolute depravity of the British upper class. It’s nuts. I can’t describe it. You just have to see it to believe it.
“My Lady Jane” (Amazon)
I already wrote about this one in depth in a newsletter post this summer, so I won’t go into great length, but I think this show was one of the things that brought me the most joy all year. Also based on a not-so-historical history, it follows the story of Lady Jane Grey, who in real life was surprisingly named a successor to Henry VIII but then beheaded in 14 days. In this version, she’s a feminist, doesn’t die quite so quickly, oh and some people in society turn into animals! Stay with me here. It’s such a fun, weird, original, and wild ride featuring the best ‘ship to ship of the year.
After its cancellation announcement this summer, loyal fans are still campaigning to get the show a second season, with a website dedicated to their cause, and a Change.org petition with over 100,000 signatures. Honestly, I loved the ending to this twisted fairytale fantasy romance. Just bring us more Edward Bluemel and Emily Bader in more things soon, please, preferably together.
“Queenie” (Hulu)
I wanted to feature this tender, funny, and authentic coming of age story that somehow fell completely under the radar for most viewers, at least in the states. Based on the novel by Candice Carty Williams, Queenie is about a 25-year old Jamaican-British woman, played with hard-edged vulnerability by newcomer Dionne Brown. With vibes of “Fleabag” and “I May Destroy You,” the show is based in South London, and tackles themes of generational trauma, abuse, and forgiveness, as well as the challenges of facing the modern dating scene as a Black woman in a large body. It opens with Queenie at the OB/GYN, where we learn she’s had a miscarriage. Queenie tells no one. Her white ex-partner, Tom, has just left her, telling her she’s “too much” after an outburst at his mother’s birthday party prompted by Tom’s grandmother’s racist comments.
After the breakup, she falls into a downward spiral, though she gets support from her friends, Kyazike (pronounced Chess-keh, not Chesca like Franchesca, she corrects a white acquaintance), played by Bellah, and Darcy (Tilly Keeper), and sometimes, Cassandra (Elisha Applebaum). The show explores her problematic relationships with men, how her family history and trauma has led her there, and the politics of moving through a mostly white world full of aggressions both micro and macro in a Black body. After hitting several levels of rock bottom, Queenie’s arc towards forgiveness – of herself and her family – is touching and hopeful.
The author of the book, Candice Carty Williams, was an executive producer on the show and actually improved some elements from the book, I would say, which is a rare feat. I especially loved seeing the family dynamics come to life, with more humor and warmth that they did on the page, though I wasn’t a fan of a new love interest created for the show only. Interestingly, when writing the script, Carty Williams did not read the book again, but recreated it from memory.
This show wasn’t perfect – it was messy like its main character – but as Bellah, who plays Kyazike, said in an interview with Buzzfeed, “it's humanizing Black women. We don't do that often in art. We're expected to be strong and put-together. It's nice to see somebody fall apart on screen and be like, "Oh yeah, I've done that once," and not feel so much shame around it. I'm glad that Queenie can be the poster child for messiness.”
Honorable Mentions:
“America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” (Netflix)
A deeper-than-you’d-think look at the athletes who make up the most famous cheer squad in the world. This documentary series treats these women with respect while still shining a light on the low pay and poor conditions they face, and the sacrifices they make to look– and be– flawless.
“Fantasmas” (HBO Max)
A journey into Julio Torres’ bizarre but brilliant mind, this surreal six episode jaunt on HBO Max goes to some incredibly strange places in a thread of loosely connected sketches involving everything from a miniature Smurf-like creature PR specialist named “Pipipiri” to Alexa Demie as a sadistic customer service rep. Somehow blending social commentary with absurdist magical realism, watching this show was an out-of-body experience.
“A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder” (Netflix)
This was a taut, perfectly structured YA murder mystery based on the hit British book of the same title. The writing was excellent, never meandering, and didn’t miss a beat, with winning lead performances. It was full of thrills and unexpected twists, and just very well done.
“Hacks” Season 3 (HBO Max)
This season of “Hacks” was its best yet. As usual, the relationship between Ava (Hannah Einbeinder) and Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) is the heart and propeller of the series, and this season is no exception. I worried the writers wouldn’t be able to keep it up, but somehow they just raised the stakes. I hope it ends on a high.
“Conan O’Brien Must Go” (HBO Max)
“I’m looking at the fjord!” This one was a real surprise, but probably made me laugh harder than anything else I’ve watched this year. In the following clip, Conan decides to contribute a verse to a song by Norweigian band EDA. (Spoiler alert).
Until next year! Thank you for reading!
Just came across your recommendation, cant wait to binge one of the shows :)!