23. The Rookie – This is my TV junk food. I know it’s full of artificial ingredients, but it’s also perfectly manufactured, superficial, easy-to-digest entertainment.

22. Under the Banner of Heaven – Having read the Jon Krakauer novel upon which this is based, I knew it was going to be quite Mormony, but I was still a little surprised just how Mormony, often esoterically so, the TV-adaption actually was. This true-life, True Detective-esque story depicts the police investigation of the brutal, seemingly religiously motivated murders of an LDS-affiliated mother and child in Utah in 1984

21. Alaska Daily – Hilary Swank stars as an irascible, uncompromising, big-time New York journalist who’s forced to downgrade her employment status and take a job at a local newspaper in far-away Anchorage. This is network TV done particularly well. It’s got a compelling long-form series-arching narrative, this being Swank’s character’s investigation of missing and murdered Indigenous women, and, at the same time, each episode has one or two interesting self-contained plots lines. I actually thought it was filmed on location, but it turns out the majority of it’s shot in the Lower Mainland.

20. A League of Their Own – Moving and often very funny, this series is far less about baseball than was its source material (the 1992 Geena Davis/Tom Hank movie), and much more about how difficult it was to be a closeted (there really wasn’t any other kind) lesbian in 1940s-era America.

19. The Old Man – For a brief moment near the end of its second episode, it looked as if this series was going to be something really special. Alas, the scene in question is quickly revealed to be a fantasy what-if flash-forward, and instead of following the much bolder and exciting path with which it teases us, the show becomes a more standard, but still compelling, thriller about a spy (played by Jeff Bridges) who’s forced to come out of hiding and face his past.

18. Tokyo Vice – Michael Mann directs the pilot of this Japan-shot series based upon Jake Adelstein’s memoir, which covers his time working as a journalist in Tokyo in the late 90s.

17. MacGruber – Based upon the equally crude and silly Will Forte-starring movie, this series is tuned to a very specific wavelength. If you think someone using the password “69696969” is stupidly hilarious and you delight at hearing someone quote the line “We’re in the pipe. Five by five.” then this may just be your comedy frequency, too.

16. The Bear – This well-written and well-acted, and super stressful, show about a highly lauded chef who returns home to Chicago to run his deceased brother’s sandwich shop probably should have been higher on my list, but, to be honest, it’s so stressful – particularly its penultimate episode – that I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the finale.

15. What We Do in the Shadows – Not content to simply rely upon Matt Berry’s incredible line readings, which it could do and still remain one of the greatest comedy shows ever made, the fourth season of What We Do in the Shadows takes full advantage of its deep bench of wonderfully crazy characters, while also expanding its roster and the scope of its storytelling (the Night Market episode is particularly ambitious).

14. Life & Beth – In this poignant, and very funny, half-hour Amy Schumer vehicle, Schumer’s titular autobiographical character gives up her big city job and life and returns to her hometown of Long Island, where she strikes up a relationship with the delightfully off-kilter John (played by the superbly cast Michael Cera).

13. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – This is a gorgeous spectacle. Every cent of the billion dollars (an admittedly obscene amount of money) it cost to make is right there on the screen. Story-wise, I thought it totally worked. I was invested in all the various plot lines, and, because I’m not an a-hole, I didn’t care one hoot about the skin colour of any of the made-up fantasy characters.

12. Night Sky – I love many things about this show: that its first episode begins in medias res, some 20 years after the discovery of its central mystery (a portal, in the backyard of an elderly couple, to what appears to be another planet); that what was intended to be its season finale (but, because it wasn’t renewed) ends up being the perfect series finale; and, most of all, that it’s centred by two tremendously beautiful and nuanced performances by Sissy Spacek and J.K. Simmons.

11. Stranger Things – Yes, this fourth season was super-sized, with feature-length running times for many episodes, and, yes, the kids are not kids any more, but neither of these things dampened my enjoyment for this epically-staged, incredibly well-shot and production-designed show (one thing I didn’t like, though, was the one-note basketball captain villain).

10. Minx – Jake Johnson has the ability to make you like him no matter what kind of sleazy character he’s playing. Add to the mix a great premise – a feminist writer teams up with a porn producer (played by the aforementioned Johnson) to create a ground-breaking, Playgirl-esque publication – some memorable supporting characters, and a whole lot of dongs (if that’s your thing), and you’ve got the very entertaining Minx.

9. The Good Fight – Sadly, The Good Fight has fought its last battle, as Robert and Michelle King have ended their stellar spin-off series after six seasons. This has long-been one of the most brazenly and audaciously political shows around (one season was based around the search for the fabled pee tape), and this last season is no different, as it depicts an ultra-divided America embroiled in a literal civil war.

8. Barry – This third season was the darkest season yet, and that’s saying a lot. I was actually very hesitant to watch it, after how dark the second season ended. I put it off for a long time, then decided to just sample the first episode, to see if it was worth it. I ended up watching all the rest in quick succession. This is one of the most unexpectedly plotted (you never know where or how the story’s going to go and turn), interestingly staged (the motorcycle chase, NoHo Hank’s final couple scenes) shows I’ve ever seen.

7. Reacher – They finally got the Jack Reacher character exactly right, and I, for one, could not be happier. I watched every pulpy, bone-breaking, machismo-y scene of Reacher with giddy joy.

6. Peacemaker – The Peacemaker might have been my least favourite character from James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad movie, so I was sceptical that I’d enjoy something that was based solely around him. I’m glad I checked out the TV show, though, because it just got better and better as it went along, what with its subversive humour, superb character work, awesome soundtrack, and fearless central performance by John Cena.

5. Evil – There may be better shows out there, but I don’t know that there’s any whose episodes I more look forward to watching than Evil’s (now the only active Michelle and Robert King series). I’m not going to attempt to summarize what happened in the third season, as it’s truly some of the most outlandish, holy-shit storytelling I’ve ever experienced in any medium. If you’re looking for an X-Files-esque show that deals with demons and angels and multi-eyed goat creatures and satanic artificial insemination, then this might just be your jam.

4. Somebody Somewhere – Because of its low-key humour, its beautiful presentation of place and character, and, most of all, Bridget Everett’s grounded, heart-breaking performance, Somebody Somewhere is simply sublime.

3. Better Call Saul – There’s no way that this show should have worked, and yet Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould somehow managed to make a prequel to Breaking Bad, about a peripheral seemingly joke of a character, into one of the greatest shows ever created. This sixth and final season is also one of the best final seasons of any show ever.

2. Station Eleven – I was hesitant to watch this during the pandemic because it’s about a pandemic; specifically, a pandemic that kills off, like, 90 per cent of the world’s population. When I finally did work up the gumption to check out the first episode, I was instantly hooked. There’s a consistent quality to every shot, every moment big or small, that’s just transfixing. It’s a truly special TV show, one that deserves all the superlatives: awesome, chawesome, incredible, outstanding, remarkable, tremendous, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, etc …

2. Andor (Disney+) – This ranks as one of my absolute favourite Star Wars properties. When it’s all said and done, it may well be my favourite one. Every single aspect of it is just so good. And those monologues in the last few episodes …

“Calm. Kindness, kinship. Love. I’ve given up all chance at inner peace, I’ve made my mind a sunless space. I share my dreams with ghosts. I wake up every day to an equation I wrote 15 years ago from which there’s only one conclusion: I’m damned for what I do. My anger, my ego, my unwillingness to yield, my eagerness to fight, they’ve set me on a path from which there is no escape. … I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else’s future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.”

Come on. Seriously. That’s some Bill Shakespeare-level writing.