I can’t tell you how many times the past
year I heard that TV was dead. Not broadcast TV, not cable TV, not Peak TV. The
entire industry.
I heard it so many times from so many
critics, writers and former members of the industry that I really wonder if the
studios themselves should have used it as a bargaining tactic during last year’s
labor stoppage. “Don’t you know the industry you’re trying to earn money no
longer has value? David Chase said so. You should all go home, sell your
screens and try to write the Great American Novel instead.”
I have chosen to take these criticism with
a grain of salt the size of the Hollywood sign because I’ve hearing this
obituary written at least three previous times in the last decade and I expect
to keep hearing it, mainly because I’m pretty sure all of those critics have
spent that same period of time detached from the reality of what great
television is. But that’s a story for another day.
All I know is that in a year when I, like
most people, needed more distractions then ever and was starting to have doubts
about the health of the industry after last year’s stoppage that all forms of
television – cable, streaming and even broadcast – were more than willing to
provide it for me the same way that they have always done. The fact that the
majority of so many of what may be the next generation of great television was on hiatus for 2024 gave me a welcome opportunity
to find different and more engaging pleasures as well as to find that at least
certain parts of the industry are still firing on all cylinders.
What follows is a list of the ten series
that I considered the best of 2024 based solely on what saw this year. Certain
shows that I have become fans of – Slow Horses and The Diplomat - are absent because I remain behind on the
current season while other series that might otherwise do so – Day of the
Jackal in particular – I have yet to finish. As always when I am done,
expect a grand jury prize of certain other sources of enjoyment throughout this
year that are excluded for reasons that need not be mentioned here.
Here are shows 10-6 on that list
10. Accused (FOX)
When this show debuted last January I listed
it among the jury prize shows of 2023 saying that it was the kind of show that
gave me hope for network TV and the industry in general. Howard Gordon’s
exception anthology series which used hot-button issues of the day to tell
larger character pieces was a standout in 2023 but I felt that in its thirteen episode
first season there were a few episodes that kept it off the list altogether.
In Season 2 Accused was shortened to
an eight episode run and this trimming of the fan ensured a constant level of
excellence throughout its run while dropping none of things that had made its
best episodes shine. I didn’t see a single episode this season that didn’t have
its own level of brilliance and all of them featured standout performances that
would rank among Emmy contenders next year if the series can figure out where
it stands.
The highpoint of Season 2 – and one of the best
episodes of the series overall was April’s Story, a tour de force for Taylor
Schilling as an overstressed mom who ends up engaged in a battle of road rage
with a hostile driver. Arguably not since Duel has there been a more
stirring directed episode that dealt with the level of rage between two drivers
and Schilling was masterful every step of the way.
Not all episodes were of that mastery but
all of them were engaging and had that same level of brilliance. From Felicity
Huffman’s work as a psychic whose insight into a missing child brings her and
the family she tries to help nothing but pain to Michael Chiklis gut-wrenching
work as a wrestling coach whose desperate attempt to get a teenager from his
dying Pennsylvania town out lead to tragedy to a surprisingly great dramatic
turn by Ken Jeong as a recovering alcoholic whose efforts to be there for his
wife end in him losing everything Accused reached a level of highpoints
in acting that I have not seen in years.
Not since the incredible American Crime debuted
in 2015 has there been a network TV show more determined to redefine the concepts
of the anthology series and use it to its advantage. This series is not yet its
level but if Fox will give it another season I think there is a chance it can
be.
9.
Feud: Capote Vs. The Swans (FX)
I suspect the obsession with Night
Country and the limitations of the number of nominees for Limited Series
that led to the return of this incredible anthology series being excluded from
the nominees this past year. Considering the Emmys were willing to nominate it
for twelve other awards, that remains the only explanation.
After waiting seven year Jon Robert Baitz
took over the mantle of Ryan Murphy’s Feud to tell a different and equally
fascinating story. Truman Capote (played
brilliantly by Tom Hollander) was shown as a member of the society wives of
1960s New York who trusted them with their deepest darkest secrets only for him
to seemingly betray them with an excerpt from Answered Prayers that was
published in 1977 and was supposed to be Capote’s last book. Led by Slim Keith (Diane Lane) they chose to
starve Truman of oxygen from society because of this betrayal which is seen to
be a major factor in the acceleration of his decline and death from alcoholism.
Baitz is brilliant in his work. In the
first five episodes he goes out of his way to make Capote to seem a traitor and
a manipulator, abusing the Swan’s confidences, manipulated them for his own
benefit. Then in the second half of the series Baitz’s shows us the Swans true
ugliness and argues that Truman did the worst thing possible – he showed the
world who they were really were and they didn’t like it. By balancing the story
between the friendship of Babe Paley (the incredible Naomi Watts) and Truman it
brings a human layer to a tragic story where there were no villains, only
victims.
There was not a single aspect of this
series that was not incredible: from the brilliant performances across the
board (the cast included among others Chloe Sevigny, Calista Flockhart and in
his last performance before his passing Treat Williams) exceptional technical
work (the portrayal of the infamous black and white ball Capote held was another
high point of 2024) and every single attention to detail paid.
And though no one could have known it when
the series was being made, Capote Vs. The Swans showed not only the
divide between classes but the kind of sexism that goes on within it. I can’t
help but think that these women might have been on the surface for Kamala but
would have voted for Trump in private. After all, a woman’s place was behind the scenes not in
front of the camera. In the finale Truman is told he helped destroy the way of
life he tried to show in Answered Prayers. Having seen it I’m not sure that he
truly succeeded in that or if he had it would have been a bad thing.
8. Will Trent (ABC)
Will Trent showed no signs of the sophomore
slump when it returned this February. If anything it seemed more secure in its
mission statement then it was the previous year. It showed Will coming to grips
with the revelations of last year’s finale when he learned the truth about who
his mother was and who he was.
Ramon Rodriguez was masterful throughout
the season showing a man coming to grips with his heritage and his family while
also deal with a trauma that he had spent his adult life burying. The fact that
he faced a reckoning during this season was keeping with the second season
overall, which showed every cast member dealing with their past.
Amanda (the incomparable Sonja Sohn) came
in the form of a man who she’d falsely put in prison twenty years ago that flew
in the face of everything that her colleagues had come to know and respect
about her. Faith was dealing with a new love in her life and a new future but
kept being reminded that her past was never going to go away. Ormewood dealt
with his wife leaving him at the start of the season and rediscovering the bonds
with his children – only for his wife to return and not only demand a divorce
but full custody.
And most wrenching Angie Pulaski, played extraordinarily
by Erika Christensen, spent all of Season 2 recovering from her abduction and
beating last year and coming close to healing not only with her past but with
Will. They seemed to be on the verge of making that final connection – and then
in the season finale the biggest mistake Angie made last year came back to bite
her and all of Atlanta in a way that no one – certainly not Will could ignore.
The final minutes of the episode were excruciating for every fan of the show
and make us wonder what will happen next.
Will Trent has been the clearest sign of the revival
of the broadcast drama the last two years and shows just how exceptional the
formula can be when its done well. I don’t know what will happen in Season 3
(the show has always been a very loose adaptation of Karin Slaughter’s source
material) but I can’t wait to find out.
7. Elsbeth (CBS)
It was never a question at the end of the
2023-2024 season whether or not Elsbeth was going to be on the top ten
list this year. I have been one of the biggest boosters of the work of Robert
and Michelle King ever since The Good Wife debuted fifteen years ago and
the fact that one of my favorite recurring characters – one of whom I’d wanted
to have her own series since at least 2013 – was front and center almost
guaranteed it.
Some might argue that Elsbeth compared
to the King’s other brilliant work such as The Good Fight and the recently
cancelled Evil is pedestrian compared to their earlier work. Much of Season
2 has more than demonstrated that the Kings have decided to use the show to
start to do what they have always done so brilliant and that’s start taking
pokes at the formula they’ve built. Never was this more clear in the winter
finale where Elsbeth and the NYPD found themselves investigating a murder at a
long-running network procedural which in its teaser ripped off exactly what the
season-long conflict of Elsbeth had been if it were done by Dick Wolf. The
show spent the entire episode tearing down every aspect of the foundation it
had built the last year with the writers of this fictional series saying that
their show was too traditional and Elsbeth openly saying she liked shows where
the good guys always won. William Finklestein, a longtime showrunner himself,
was the victim, Laurie Metcalf played the heroine of the series who was an
actress with a high-minded opinion of herself and no real perception and the
plot was modeled after the plan of an obsessive fan who’d been shipping the relationship
between the two leads and wanted fruition. You could see just how much fun the
writers were having with this formula and it made it clear that just as with
all their other work, there is no cow to sacred for them to poke fun at.
Carrie Preston remains the national
treasure she has been since she took on the role of Elsbeth fourteen years ago
and has clearly not changed that much. To knock her slightly out of complacency
the show has had her past come back to bite her, her trying to fight her
attraction to firefighters who clearly are attracted to her and have her come
face to face with her archnemesis, who as you might expect is portrayed by her
own husband Michael Emerson. Wendell Pierce continues to be delightfully grump
as her boss as well as someone who is trying to be a better boss and Kiara
Patterson is wonderful as Elsbeth’s own bestie whose trying to find a life of
her own but has her own secrets. And the series continues to produce a
wonderful array of guest actors to appear as the killers who are not nearly as
clever as they think and who only Elsbeth seems to be sorry about putting in
prison. (She’s so nice about it that many of the people she sends to jail express
admiration before they go away.)
I love this series. It may not be as heavy
minded as some of their other dramas that get celebrated at Emmys but doggone
it, sometimes you just need to have fun. And like every series the Kings have
made for fifteen years Elsbeth more than provides it. For their follow
up maybe we can get to see what’s happened to Eli during this time?
6. Ripley (Netflix)
In a sense Andrew Scott has been working
towards playing Tom Ripley his entire career: ever since he broke on to the
scene in his extraordinary version of Jim Moriarty in Sherlock you’ve known that there’s always going to be
something beneath the surface of every character he plays. What was fascinating
about this brilliant reimaging of Patricia Highsmith’s novel was that the actor
known for overacting when he needs to spent basically the entire series keeping
a complete poker face and giving nothing away.
That was in large part the brilliance of
Steven Zaillian’s incredible reimaging of the first novel in this series. Shot
in glorious black and white, this may have been the best directed show of 2024.
(Zaillian deservedly won the Emmy for that this past year.) Unlike previous
versions including Anthony Minghella film, both the title character and the
show were always shrouded in shadow with the character saying and doing as
little as possible, keeping to himself. Both of the murders Tom commits in the
series concentrate far less on the act and the part that almost every show ignores
– the cleanup. In both of those episode the camera engaged in stretches that
went on nearly half an hour of no dialogue at all or in some cases as little as
possible. The latter, which involved an elevator that didn’t work properly,
created tension we wouldn’t have thought possible as Tom’s getaway plan was
linked to it. And there were so many cutaway sequences to a cat during that
period that you thought Zaillian was just building up tension – until the last
shot when he made it pay off in spades.
Scott delivered a masterclass unlike
anything he’s done before in a role that has deservedly gotten him his first
Emmy nomination and nominations for every other award in between. Tom’s
sexuality has always been a matter of debate for viewers – in some
interpretations he’s gay, in others heterosexual – but like everything else in
this show it remains open to interpretation. Tom himself may not know or care
that much about his sexuality: whatever interest he has in Dickie is far about
his lifestyle and nothing more.
The other successors to their roles more
than live up to the standards in Minghella’s masterpiece. Johnny Flynn is, if
anything, more loathsome than Jude Law was. Dakote Fanning is somehow more clueless
and more tragic than Gwynneth Paltrow’s version. And in their brief but
memorable turn Eliot Summer demonstrated the capacity for stealing scenes that
the late Philip Seymour Hoffman perfected in his work as Freddie Miles.
The future of Ripley is unclear. It
was intended as a limited series but as anyone who is a fan of the novels knows
Highsmith wrote four other books about this villain. The closing minutes
certainly leave open the possibility for another season. And I would be more than
willing to believe it (sorry) if Netflix chooses to greenlight another season.
I’d certainly watch.
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