11. “Mama” (SNL) – Saturday Night Live misses a lot more than it hits. Other than the Please Don’t Destroy pre-filmed segments and Weekend Update, both of which are dependably funny (the recent Christmas Update, where Colin Jost and Michael Che each read, for the first time live on air, jokes that the other person had written for them, was a standout, as was PDD’s Jenna Ortega roadtrip bit from earlier in the season). However, every now and then they do manage to hit a sketch out of the park. This one from early in December, which starred Emma Stone as a music producer describing to Mama Cass all the different ways her song “Make Your Own Kind of Music” is going to be used in the future, was easily one of 2023’s TV highlights. The rest of this particular Stone-hosted episode was also unusually great.

10. Alaska Daily (ABC) – Hilary Swank stars in this well-written, (unfortunately) one-season series about a no-nonsense journalist who, after losing her prestigious job in New York, movies to Anchorage to work for a local daily newspaper.

9. Justified: City Primeval (FX) – I definitely missed the backwoods, southern setting (particularly the constant red tail hawk calls) and the colourfully psychotic hillbillies from this show’s original run, but I’d watch Timothy Olyphant’s Rayland Givens swagger his way around whatever locale they want to put him in.

8. The Diplomat (Netflix) – Keri Russell is always compelling to watch (whether her hair is short OR long), and she commands every scene she’s in in this smart, twisty tale of political intrigue that sees her become the American ambassador to the UK during an international crisis.

7. Poker Face (CITYTV+, in Canada) – Rian Johnson’s Columbo-like throwback series features Natasha Lyon as a woman on the run who also has the uncanny ability to always know when someone’s lying. What’s particularly nice about this show is that, while there is a series-wide story arc, each episode consists of a self-contained murder mystery.

6. Barry (HBO) – It took me a long time to start watching this series. I just wasn’t in to the idea of a comedic hit man story, where the violence had no consequence. At least, that’s what I thought the show was going to be. Then I checked it out, and I quickly realized I’d pegged it all wrong. The fourth and final season is a fitting end to a show that always featured bravura direction, remarkably wide-ranging performances (i.e., performances that run the gamut of tone and emotion), and consistently unconventional storytelling.

5. Reacher (Amazon) – This season’s only halfway done, and I still feel confident in putting it this high up on my list. Of course, I’ve already read the book on which it’s based, so I know where it’s going. Regardless of my foreknowledge of the plot, I unabashedly love this show. Sure, other shows may be better written, are more original, are more subtle and/or more profound, but nothing else satisfies my atavistic need for sweet, brutal comeuppance than this TV adaptation of Lee Child’s book series. Every episode is like a kick-ass Canon film from the 80s, only way better.

4. Somebody Somewhere (HBO) – From the dual, Minnesota Sushi-caused toilet bowl symphonies to the chills-inducing wedding performance during the season finale, this hilarious, heart-felt, character-focused, Bridget Everett vehicle is a sublime wonder.

3. How To with John Wilson (HBO) – Each episode of John Wilson’s quasi-stream-of-consciousness documentary/personal essay show is a delightful, sui generis marvel. I will forever lament that, due to rights issues, we’ll never get to see his take on Burning Man (he went and recorded what he says is some of the best stuff he’s ever recorded, only he couldn’t broadcast any of it because someone else – another HBO doc, ironically – had been given the exclusive rights to that year’s Burning Man). But we DID get to see his episode on a cryogenics company, and the never-in-a-million-years-could-you-ever-see-it-coming backstory of the man whose job it is to monitor the tanks of frozen people/body parts.

2. Succession (HBO) – What always strikes me about this show is that even though I don’t care about any of the characters – they’re all horrible and deserve to suffer for their horribleness – even though I don’t care at all about what happens to their Waystar company, it’s always riveting. The acting and writing and directing is just that good. And, of course, it’s often very funny. This is its secret ingredient, its humour; if it didn’t’ have this, it would just be a relentlessly dour exercise in shitty rich people doing shitty things to each other in order to hold onto power (which is exactly what I envision Yellowstone to be). I’m so glad I watched series’ highlight episode “Connor’s Wedding” live, so I could experience its real-time brilliance unspoiled.

1. I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson (Netflix) – No show packs as much brilliant hilarity into each frame/minute/line reading as Tim Robinson’s genius sketch show. Every single one of the bits in each 15-or-so minute episode is great upon first watch, when you don’t know what’s coming next, and then somehow, through what I can only assume is dark comedic magic, they just get better and better and more funny the more times you watch them.

Some of my favourite moments from this third season include: “The Driving Crooner,” “For 50 seconds I thought there were monsters on the world,” Tim Meadows and the purple feather, “I want to go to Haunted House more than I want to go to Aqua,” the ponytailed guy mistakenly putting his hand in dog shit, the guitar solo that accompanies the Summer Loving zip line montage, shirt brothers, Jellybean, and, of course, “55 burgers, 55 fries, 55 tacos, 55 pies, 55 cokes, 100 tater tots, 100 pizzas, 100 tenders, 100 meatballs, 100 coffees, 55 wings, 55 shakes, 55 pancakes, 55 pastas, 55 peppers and 155 taters.”