The Pitt
This won’t actually hit UK screens until March, which means it will be one of the best shows of next year too. Noah Wyle of ER fame returns to a different, yet-more-harrowing emergency room for this series that charts each gruelling hour of a long shift at a Pittsburgh hospital. It is probably the most gripping medical drama I’ve ever seen, and completely unrelenting in its portrayal of the savage working conditions in modern trauma centres. So stressful I had to do breathing exercises to go to sleep after watching it at night, and it was absolutely worth it.
The Rehearsal, season two
Insane genius Nathan Fielder does it again with this second season of The Rehearsal, a show so bonkers the first time round that it was difficult to imagine where another season could even go. Into the stratosphere, apparently. Fielder conducts absurdly detailed “rehearsals” for social situations that airline pilots find themselves in that might be contributing to plane crashes. But it’s a comedy? Sort of? It really defies explanation, and veers off on tangents as varied as dog cloning and talent show judging, but I promise you won’t regret checking it out for yourself.
Dying for Sex
In Dying for Sex, Michelle Williams plays Molly, a woman who has been given a terminal cancer diagnosis, and whose reaction to this is to finally explore her sexuality to the full in the time she has left. She leaves her dull husband of ten years, Steve, and embarks on sexual adventures while also confronting her nearing death. It’s a moving portrayal of what end-of-life care actually looks like, and how, ultimately, it is the support of friendship, rather than a romantic partner, that Molly wants in her final days. And somehow it’s funny and sexy, too.
Severance, season two
Apple TV’s stylish, surreal dystopian drama continued this year, and continued to be equal parts confusing and engrossing. What, precisely, is going on at the sinister offices of Lumon, where employees have severed their consciousnesses into their outies (who they are outside of office hours) and their innies (their work selves) is still deliciously unclear. Season three will have to deliver on all the mystery and vague sense of evil that seasons one and two have set up, but if it does, this will be a sci-fi series for the ages.
Adolescence
The smash-hit Netflix series that sparked a public conversation about toxic masculinity and the influence of social media on young people. Several lives are torn apart by the shock murder of a schoolgirl by one of her classmates, Jamie. In four one-shot episodes, Jamie is arrested, then we learn more about how the crime has affected his fellow students, then Jamie has a psychiatric assessment in a juvenile detention centre, and the final episode follows his family one year after the murder, on the 50th birthday of Jamie’s father, played to perfection by Stephen Graham. It’s difficult viewing, but gripping in the extreme.
The Studio
Seth Rogan’s Hollywood satire in which we follow a team of variously contemptible studio executives as they try to wring as much money and prestige out of their projects as possible. It’s an anarchic, fast-paced comedy full of celebrity cameos and knowing commentary on the grubby business these stars know only too well. Highlights included an episode satirising the cult that surrounds “oners”—no-cut set-pieces—that is itself shot in one glorious, high-wire take. The Studio also gave us Zoë Kravitz having a psilocybin-induced meltdown, one of the year’s best comedy scenes.
Pluribus
Vince Gilligan, showrunner of Breaking Bad, is back with a brand new nightmare of New Mexico. In this one, Carol Sturka, played by Better Call Saul’s Rhea Seehorn, is one of 12 people on Earth who has not succumbed to an alien virus that has fused the consciousnesses of everyone else. And for everyone other than her, this state of affairs seems to be pretty good. No war, no conflict of any kind, just perfect unity and happiness. A dystopian show that asks the unsettling question: what if the aliens made things better, we just didn’t like how they did it?
Andor, season two
Yes, Andor is a prequel to the Star Wars film Rogue One, itself a prequel to the first Star Wars film of 1977. But you don’t need to like Star Wars, or even know anything about Star Wars, to enjoy Andor. In fact, better to just forget it’s a Star Wars story altogether and consider it a sci-fi drama in its own right. We rejoin Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), who spent the first season undergoing a transformation from a self-interested lone wolf to a rebel dedicated to the destruction of the evil Empire. This second and final season charts how the rebellion grows in strength, and how Andor attempts to steal the all-important plans to the Death Star.
Mr Scorsese
A stylishly made “film portrait” by Rebecca Miller, in five parts, charting the life and career of Martin Scorsese, it will have you running to rewatch some of the most compelling movies ever made. Five delicious hours of behind-the-scenes magic, featuring talking heads as starry as Leonardo DiCaprio, Spike Lee and Steven Spielberg, as well as archival footage of Scorsese’s parents discussing his early life. Scorsese’s upbringing, cheek by jowl with the mafia, and his subsequent, unlikely rise to the top of the pantheon of modern directors is itself the stuff of a Scorsese film.
Celebrity Traitors
It was just good, wasn’t it? The first celebrity season of the much-beloved game show format went so well that surely we’re in for several more. Jonathan Ross’s loud outfits, Celia Imrie’s stress fart and Alan Carr’s antiheroic journey were something to behold. The challenges remain somewhat dull, but the maddening drama of the roundtables more than makes up for it, as ever.
