The Best TV of 2023: Jury Prize

 

Those of you who have read these end-of-year pieces know that in recent years I have added ‘Jury Prize’. This term was used by Roger Ebert for his Best of the year list for films that he considered brilliant but not worthy of being in the top ten.

This year, in large part because of the strike, I’ve decided to change the format. I intend to have a section of series that ended in 2023, some by cancellation, others because of the writers decided to end them on their own terms. Some made the list in past years; others might have in future. Call it an ‘In Memoriam’ for shows that were taken from us too soon.

 

Network Comedy I Wish Hadn’t Been Cancelled

The Wonder Years

As you might recall when this reimagining of The Wonder Years debuted in the fall of 2021, I immediately put it on my ten best list. It was one of the major phenomena of ABC’s fall season, was renewed for a second year…and then for reasons utterly inexplicable didn’t debut in the fall of 2022 or even in this winter. Instead, the show’s second season was essentially burnt off during the summer.

This is one of the more baffling decisions any service made in all of 2023 because I still don’t know why they soured on the property so quickly. It certainly had nothing to do with a decline in quality; the second season of the show was, if anything, better the first. It explored more thoroughly some of the deeper issues that were coming to light at the end of the 1960s -  homosexuality, swingers, the process of using African-Americans to lower rent in white neighborhoods, education. And the show remained one of the funniest series on any service, perfectly cast, with sublime references that show not only how far we’ve come but how far we haven’t. The new version of The Wonder Years was targeted by review bombing at the start, proved that it was a masterpiece in its own right, and was cast aside for reasons that none will understand. It’s a sad ending to a series that in just two seasons had proven it was as much a masterpiece as the original.

 

Network Drama I Wish Hadn’t Been Cancelled

The Company You Keep

ABC killed a lot of shows at the end of 2023 that may very well have been victims of the strike. A lot of them were high among the best quality dramas they’d done: Big Sky and Alaska Daily each made my top ten list in past years. But the one I’ll miss the most by far is The Company You Keep. An inspired mix of genres that kept you guessing every step of the way and powered by the incredible chemistry of the two leads Milo Ventimiglia and Catherine Hae Kim, this show was one of the reasons Sundays in the spring of 2023 kept my DVR extremely crowded as I kept trying to choose which series to watch and which to record.

The show featured some incredible performances by superb character actors Polly Draper, Saarah Wayne Callies and the incomparable William Fichtner as the Nicoletti family, a family of con artists who really are Robin Hoods. In a matter of a handful of episodes they were all fully and completely realized, particularly in a struggle with the mysterious Daphne, a character who was by far one of the most intriguing antagonists all year. She spent much of the period a villain, but when you finally learned her backstory you saw she was a victim. The parallel line involving the Hill family had its own moments of power dynamics and had moments of similar intrigue along the way.

The HCA nominated the show for several awards in its only season and I think it could have contender for more in other years. I know the ratings were never great for this show and it was a freshman series, but I think it would have survived had it not been for the strike. I will miss it.

 

Cable Comedy Series I’ll Miss The Most

Breeders (FX)

My only real complaint about the final season of Breeders is that it didn’t seem like a final season – even the last episode seemed to leave room for more stories to be told. But I have confidence that Martin Freeman, the series star and co-creator, knows enough about television that you want to leave your audience wanting more and that life doesn’t have a real ending.

Freeman and his co-star Daisy Haggard were sublime in the final season as they found themselves becoming grandparents and coming to terms with the fact that their children were leaving them, but not necessarily changing. The series flashed forward five years and we saw that Luke and Ava (now played by new actors) were still capable of making bad decisions but now they had no power to fix them. Luke and his girlfriend Maya were having a child, which infuriated Paul and Ally but not Maya’s parents (or his mother to be specific) and Ally found that she was beginning to be pushed back. Ava realized that she was attracted to girls and spent most of the final season attracted to one girl and then seemed to realize at the end of the series, she truly loved her best friend. Meanwhile Paul’s parents reached their eighties, were stealing with the ramifications of Frank’s infidelity and the fact that the mother was dealing with senility.

As I suspected the series did come to a conclusion but not an end, and it would have been too much for a hope that it would be happy. But it was a realistic and completely sympathetic one to a family that every single one of us would recognize  and therefore is probably the most realistic one we’ll ever see on TV.

 

 Drama I’m Glad We Got A Second Season

Perry Mason (HBO)

Apparently we weren’t even supposed to get another season of Perry Mason. And Matthew Rhys made it very clear that while he might want to do a third season, part of him felt that it would be fine if the story ended here. So in that sense, we shouldn’t mourn the loss of the second season but count ourselves fortunate to get one. And it was just as remarkable as the first.

In a twist that has never happened in a century of the character’s existence Perry Mason was defending two clients who were guilty of the crimes that they were accused of. And in a move that is fitting with this Perry Mason, he immediately tried to wash his hands of it. But the story of the murder of a wealthy socialite by two homeless Latinos in the Depression, the writers told a story that we all can recognize – the xenophobia, the media driving to judgment, the racism and homophobia that today’s LGBTQ+ and African-Americans can’t even begin to fathom, no matter what they read in books.

And at the top of the chain was Hope Davis in one of the great character performances of the year. A wealthy female socialite who Della Street admired at her core, but proved herself to be as ruthless, monstrous as any man then or now. And when the second season ended, there was no more sense of justice served that at the end of the first. One man still went to prison for the rest of his life, and there is no evidence that the people responsible will ever pay for their crimes.

At the center of the show was Matthew Rhys, demonstrating he is one of the greatest actors of the past decade. His Perry Mason is self-destructive, paranoid and dealing with the trauma that the client he got acquitted committed suicide. In the final episode, he is sitting in a prison cell but the look on his face is as close to being at peace that we’ve seen him in the entire series. There’s the slightest chance he might yet be able to move forward.

Given the nature of Peak TV, it is possible that someday we will get another season of Perry Mason regardless. But even if we don’t, I’m still glad I saw this incarnation. It was the version this century needed – and was somehow true to the original while being completely its own beast.

 

Cable Series I Wish Hadn’t Been Cancelled

Lucky Hank (AMC)

Like I said, my Sunday nights were busy and much of them starting in April were from watching the superb dramedy Lucky Hank. The show was as clear a portrait of today’s colleges are like, from the faculty infighting over mediocre stakes, to students needing to be told they were perfect and being bought off by faculty rather than deal with them, to a university president who didn’t want to pay for anything. Bob Odenkirk’s follow-up to Better Call Saul allowed him to play someone funny (and his own age) as well someone emotionally crippled by a father whose success he can never achievement and whose abandonment he can never understand.

The supporting cast led by such talents as Mirelle Enos, Diedrich Bader and Cedric Yarborough were all hysterical as they dealt with all the horrible frustrations of life we just can’t ignore but think we have to. Hank’s wife wanted to leave him but didn’t have the energy. His daughter was too lazy to find a job. Hank cared for his TA enough to get her a new job but not enough to sleep with her. Even his act of rebellion in the final episode was clearly something neither his employer nor his wife really believed was genuine.

The decision to cancel this show is another sign that AMC is moving away from the prestige series that made it great into the world of supernatural franchises that are easy. (Though their support for Dark Winds is encouraging.) Lucky Hank didn’t fit any real category on TV today. That used to be a reason to keep it going.

Enough of what we lost. I’ll wrap this up with some great shows we gained.

 

Network Series That Gives Me Hope for the Future

Accused

Admittedly the brilliant concept – each series following a single character through a crime that ended them in court – did not always pay off every time. But it did so  often enough that it gave life to a genre that has almost disappeared on network TV: the anthology show.

Howard Gordon helped adapt a British TV series that follows each major character dealing with issues that are timely in every way: mass shootings, white supremacy, cancel culture, homophobia, internet conspiracies, relationships between teachers and students. And while not all of them were equal in quality, enough of them resonated and had the actors to back it up. From Michael Chiklis and Jason Ritter to Abagail Breslin and Keith Carradine,  the show featured exceptional performances showing how so many characters could make mistake after mistake and end up in situations they could not get out off. The talent also extending behind the scenes as Marlee Matlin, Mary Lynn Raskjub and Billy Porter took time directing.

Accused received many nominations from the HCA and was renewed for a second season. It is not clear yet when it will debut but it is a breath of fresh air, both for the genre and the source.

 

Streaming Hit More Than Worth The Eyeballs

The Night Agent (Netflix)

I watched this series with some of my closest friends over this past summer. The three of us don’t agree about a lot of TV in any service but all three of us thought it was a masterpiece.

I’m not entirely thrilled with Shawn Ryan’s attitude during the WGA strike, considering he was one of the loudest voices about not getting a fair shake from streaming. That may have been one factor for my not putting it in the top ten. But as both an action series, a political thriller and a straight drama, The Night Agent managed to fire on all cylinders on every scene I watched it. Newcomer Gabriel Basso was superb as a man who is given a job where nothing happens and whose life changes when the phone that never rings actually does. He then finds himself drawn to a conspiracy that reaches very high in the corridors of powers and leads to dozens of people dying before it is over.

The show also had some of my favorite character actors of the past twenty years in critical roles that Ryan seemed to cast as much for their abilities as performers as winks to prior roles. Hong Chau, Bruce Greenwood, DB Woodside and Kari Matchett were all perfect in every scene and you never knew who to trust or how many angles they were playing. Throw in two of the most frightening killers I’ve seen since the days of Vince Gilligan and you have the making of one of the most brilliant thrillers.

I understand completely why the show was renewed for a second season so quickly; it is the masterpiece so many think it is. And while Ryan will be leaving the novel the story is adapted from, I have complete faith in both him and the talent he assembles for another great story.

 

 

 

Series That Almost Made Me Change My Mind on Reality TV

Jury Duty (Freevee)

While the rest of the world was falling in love with Jury Duty this year, my prejudice towards reality television – which I thought it was – led to be ignore it no matter how many awards it got nominated for. Even the Emmy nomination for Best Comedy was not enough. Were it not for the strike, I would not have even bother to watch it. But I did – and I get it now.

To be clear Jury Duty isn’t reality TV in the traditional term so much as it is experimental. There’s only one person in the entire series who isn’t in on the fact that this is scripted – and its Ronald Gladden. Everyone else is an actor, and the only reason Gladden didn’t cop to it is because one of the people called for jury duty is James Marsden in one of the more sublime works of self-parody in history. For seven episodes everything that possibly can go wrong for Ronald seems to and he has to keep reacting to all of the ridiculously absurd things that are going on around him. In the finale, when he is told what is happening, the cast and creators admitted as to how shocked they were not only that he handled it so well, but that there were times he actually seemed to be ahead of what they had planned in the next episode. Credit to Gladden that he seems to be as much a good sport about this when the truth came out. (Though the $100,000 he was paid must have helped.)

I think it’s going to be impossible for the creators of this show to ever do this exact thing again. Now that Jury Duty has become a phenomena, if they even try to have a camera in a courtroom or if say, Evan Rachel Wood shows up for jury duty, everyone’s going to be suspicious. Still, we should be grateful for what we got.

 

Jeopardy Masters

Even if I were not the die-hard Jeopardy fan I was this show has made an impact almost entirely separate from the original. Several consider among the best new shows of 2023, it averaged more than 10 million viewers an episode and it has been nominated for Emmys for both the show and Ken Jennings as its host. And it was one of the anticipated shows well worth the wait.

James Holzhauer, Amy Schneider, Mattea Roach and Matt Amodio have all more than earned the title Master and during the 2022 Tournament of Champions both Andrew He and Sam Buttrey proved their skill as Jeopardy champions. In their interactions with Ken Jennings, who officially found his perfect balance as host this year, the banter was at a level I don’t think would have been possible with Trebek, particularly between him and Holzhauer given their history. All of them were brilliant to watch play, hysterical in their interviews and clearly having a huge amount of fun in so many places: Holzhauer took the mantle of ‘game show villain’  and somehow managed to make everybody who had hated him in the past love him now.

There was a huge amount of respect and banter between all six players, surprises in every game and some twists along the way. James Holzhauer’s win was well earned: he was dominant throughout the quarterfinals, but with each round it got tougher and only a last minute twist in Final Jeopardy allowed him to win the inaugural prize.

Jeopardy has been going through some tough times this past year. Mayim Bialik’s departure, the problems with recycled clues in the new season and the ‘Tournament Hell’ that the fan is beginning to lose patience with. But as long as Masters exist, I have great hope for the show’s future in the post-Trebek era – and I look forward to seeing the second edition this spring.

 

All in all, there was still a lot of great TV in 2023. And now that the strike is over, I expect there will be more in the year to come. But before that in the next few weeks, I will be dealing with my predictions for the various awards shows that will be airing in the opening weeks of 2023. (Not the Emmys, I spent the last few weeks covering them.)