16./15. The Equalizer and The Rookie – Prestige television, with its gritty realism, graphic material, cuss words, and complex narratives, is all well and good, but there’s also something very satisfying about a good ol’ network procedural that knows how to tell (i.e., set up AND resolve) one or two (or three) stories in a single, 45-minute episode. I look forward to watching The Rookie and The Equalizer each week, both of which have a solid ensemble cast and are set in a partially realistic/partially fantastical world. The Rookie’s fantasy is an LAPD made up of overwhelmingly sensitive cops who almost always do the right thing, while The Equalizer’s fantasy is Queen Latifah essentially playing an un-costumed Batman.

14. Yellowjackets – This great Vancouver-shot series – whose pilot is one of the best I’ve ever seen – is about a championship female high school soccer team that (mostly) survives a plane crash in The Rockies. The show bounces between two post-crash timelines: one immediately after, where the teens eventually resort to extreme measures to stay alive, and one 25 years later, where those that made it out (played by the likes of Melanie Lynskey, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci) try to protect the real story of what happened to them in the unforgiving wilderness so many years earlier.

13. Sex Education – I don’t know what happened in the writer’s room of Sex Education before the start of season three, but I salute whatever it was, because they somehow managed to completely re-invent this largely mediocre show (albeit, one that’s always been filled with wonderful supporting characters) and turn it into a truly resonant one. Or, maybe it was that they simply allowed Asa Butterfield’s Otis character to grow up and finally stop being such an irritating, emotionally unstable little prick.

12. & 11. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Curb Your Enthusiasm – Both Larry David and the Sunny Gang know exactly who their characters are, and both of these long-running shows (Curb’s in its 11th season and Sunny’s in its 15th) still know how to bring the funny in a big way.

10. Painting with John – If the entirety of each 20-minute-or-so episode of Painting with John only consisted of John Lurie painting it would still be one of my favourites. There’s just something so compelling and meditative about watching him brush and twirl his strange water colored shapes and figures into existence. Thankfully, it also contains equally compelling, and no less odd, segments of him crashing a drone into the tops of trees, or rolling a tire down a hill, or pretending a branch is an elephant’s trunk. I know, it doesn’t sound like much of anything, but somehow it was one of the most fascinating and captivating shows I watched all year.

9. The Chair – This perfectly plotted and paced series (with six, half hour episodes; i.e., there’s no narrative fat) about the internecine politics within a university’s English department is a total treat. Sandra Oh heads a stellar cast that includes Jay Duplass, Bob Balaban, and Holland Taylor (along with a surprise guest star whose appearance I wouldn’t dream of spoiling).

8. Mare of Easttown – I held off exposing myself to Mare of Eastown during its initial release because I thought it was going to be another one of those dark and grim crime series about women being brutalized. When I did finally check it out I discovered that while it was pretty grim, and while, yes, many women were brutalized in it, it was also a lot more than that, too. Kate Winslet as the titular Mare is tremendous.

7. Only Murders in the Building – Finally, someone figured out what to do with Martin Short. This show about a trio of amateur detectives (the others are played by Steven Martin and Selena Gomez) who start their own true crime podcast is funny, touching, cleverly directed, and, most importantly (given it’s a mystery), delightfully plotted.

6. What We Do in the Shadows – This mockumentary about a bunch of vampires living in Staten Island somehow gets better with each season. I love that FX has decided to let them curse at will, especially because it gives Matt Berry many more colourful words to play with.

5. Succession – All of the characters in this superb, hilariously profane exploration of a ruthless Murdoch-like media family are reprehensible in their own unique ways, and yet somehow I still also like them. Well, sort of. … Not really. But that’s what makes the show brilliant, that even though everyone’s terrible, you still empathize with them and understand why they’re terrible. Plus, I could listen to Brian Cox’s Logan Roy telling people to fuck off all day long.

4. & 3. Detroiters and One Mississippi – Neither Detroiters or One Mississippi debuted, or aired any new episodes, in 2021, as they were both inexplicably cancelled several years ago after only two seasons each. They were, however, both completely new to me, and were definitely two of the best shows I watched all year, hence their inclusion on this list. Both are hilarious, often quite sweet, location-specific half hour comedies. Detroiters, which stars on- and off-screen best friends Sam Richardson and Tim Robinson, is the broader of the two (it often finds its humour in the absurd). One Mississippi, on the other hand, like comedian extraordinaire Tig Notaro (the lead whose life the show is largely based on), has a more grounded and dead-pan, yet no less funny, delivery system for laughs.

2. I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix) – Look, you either think sketches about a guy ranting about shirts with super complicated patterns, or a service that helps out guys with embarrassing pee stains on the pants, or a guy who used to be a piece of shit and ate sloppy steaks, is laugh-out-loud funny, or you suck.

1. How To with John Wilson (Crave/HBO Max) – The only series I can think of to compare How To with John Wilson to is Mr. Show, simply because the latter was famous for the way it connected its unrelated sketches with strange and clever segues. But that’s where the comparison ends, because, really, John Wilson’s single-camera docu-series is a one-of-a-kind wonder that manages to present a bunch of seemingly disparate bits and pieces (like a guy who lost his leg in an accident and who then petitioned the hospital to get it back, or a guy who collects – and eats – expired military rations, or a group of Avatar aficionados who get together to, among other things, climb trees and practice their Na’vi) that somehow all add up to an incredibly interesting, often profoundly moving, whole.