High Desert
(Apple TV+) With all the deserved plaudits for the Columbo-esque Poker Face, it’s been all too easy to miss the fact that it was not 2023’s only excellent series revolving around an unlikely female private investigator – and helmed by acting royalty. Patricia Arquette’s joyously dishevelled turn as a drug-raddled ex-dealer who decides to go into crime-fighting is a surreal, raucous treat. If anything, the outrageous twists and turns of this wryly comic series were even more out there than Natasha Lyonne’s series.
Bargain
(Paramount+) The pressure to find “the next Squid Game” is unfair, but there’s no denying that this disturbingly dark and totally bananas Korean drama is the best contender. It followed people caught up in an organ-trafficking organisation, and what happened after an earthquake brought the whole building down. The way it was shot meant you quickly felt immersed in the whole horror show – which somehow becomes even bleaker after watching an organ auction with a squealing, blindfolded man in the opener. While it would perhaps work best as a miniseries, the ending promised a followup season. Hopefully enough people will catch on to avoid it being canned.
Platonic
(Apple TV+) Its setup might have sounded like the bedrock of an uninspired romcom, but this tale of a midlife male/female friendship being rekindled after a divorce is a liberating slice of unadulterated daftness. There are lizard thefts, drugs, shouting matches, pursuit by dobermann and, in Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne’s rapid-fire backchat, possibly the best comic banter on any TV show this year, bar none. It’s a crime that this smart, hilarious buddy com wasn’t one of the year’s most talked-about series. Hopefully its upcoming second season will fix that.
Wes Anderson: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
(Netflix) Roald Dahl’s quirky, mannered short story collection proved an unsurprisingly perfect match with Wes Anderson’s quirky, mannered directorial style in this four-part anthology series. A stellar cast of heavyweights including Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley and Benedict Cumberbatch brought their chops to these inviting yet odd tales of rich philanthropists, disembodied swans, poisoned colonial soldiers and baleful ratcatchers.
Swarm
(Prime Video) It was almost unbearable to watch Dominique Fishback as a murderous über-fan in Donald Glover’s swipe at Beyoncé obsessives – which is also what made it impossible to look away from. As her character Dre set off to track down her favourite pop star Ni’Jah, she killed anyone in her way, including Billie Eilish who put in a fantastic performance as a cult leader. Malia Ann Obama (Barack Obama’s daughter) was on writing duties for an episode, too. Horribly violent, deeply disturbing and darkly funny, it was a cutting take on the state of toxic fandom today.
Reservation Dogs
(Disney+) Sterlin Harjo’s hilarious, poignant, surreal tale of want-away youngsters growing up on a Native American reservation has long been TV’s most underrated comedy. But at points, this year’s final season was borderline horror, and a vital historical eye-opener, as it plunged into the appalling real-life history of residential boarding schools, as well as chronicling generation after generation of frustration among the community’s youngsters. It was weirder, deeper, smarter – and every bit as funny.
Funny Woman
(Sky Max/Now) Nick Hornby’s swinging 60s story about a Blackpool beauty queen who moves to London and breaks into comedy was a total joy. Gemma Arterton charmed our socks off as Barbara, the bottle-blonde who takes on the name Sophie Straw when she joins Britain’s next big sitcom and becomes a star. It was a gorgeous period piece with plenty of warmth, wit and wisecracks about what it was to be a woman at that time. Think Mrs Maisel, but with added northern grit.
Smothered
(Sky Comedy/Now) With Starstruck ending earlier this year, we romantics needed a new modern romcom to swoon over. Created by Schitt’s Creek writer Monica Heisey, Smothered followed party girl Sammy and single dad Tom who met at a karaoke night, had a whirlwind romance and decided to give a relationship a proper go. Heisey nailed the dire London dating scene, Jon Pointing and Danielle Vitalis brought all the charisma as our couple worth rooting for, and a cast boasting Aisling Bea, Harry Trevaldwyn and Self Esteem’s Rebecca Lucy Taylor ensured seriously funny moments. It was impossible not to fall head over heels.
Fellow Travelers
(Paramount+) Two men meet in Washington DC in 1953 and have an immediate frisson after one of them orders milk instead of whisky at a bar. From there starts an illicit love affair that lasts a lifetime. Covering everything from the McCarthy witch-hunts for “sexual perverts” through to the HIV crisis, it’s a beautiful and heartbreaking story written by Ron Nyswaner (who also wrote Philadelphia) that’s now up for loads of awards. An enormously affecting look at guilt and fidelity, which also had jaw-droppingly graphic gay sex scenes.
Gregg Wallace: The British Miracle Meat
(Channel 4) Upon seeing a programme called Gregg Wallace: The British Miracle Meat in the Channel 4 schedules, viewers could have been forgiven for assuming that Wallace had made another of his over-excited documentaries about the food industry and swiftly done something else with their evening. How wrong they’d have been. Instead, this was a wickedly near-the-knuckle provocation; a Swiftian satire about the cost-of-living crisis. It informed us that science had been developed enabling the growth of meat from a few human cells. It went on to claim that poor people were selling their own flesh (and undergoing a “pain subjective” procedure) to pay for fuel bills. We never guessed Wallace had it in him.
Culprits
(Disney+) One for fans of Ocean’s Eleven-style capers, this superfun thriller starred Gemma Arterton as Dianne Harewood, a criminal mastermind who got a crack team together to perform a heist on one of the world’s most uncrackable safes. The show opens years later, when the gang – now scattered in remote spots around the globe – are being picked off one at a time by a masked killer. This was a classic crime romp, full of action sequences that left you almost fainting. And it had Niamh Algar playing Specialist, quite possibly the most convincing killer ever seen on screen.
Nolly
(ITVX) It dropped without much fanfare on ITVX and missed out on the garlands it deserved at the time. But Russell T Davies’s drama about the sacking of Noele Gordon from ITV’s shonky but incredibly popular daytime 70s soap Crossroads was a characterful and melancholy treat. Starring a brilliant Helena Bonham Carter as the titular “Nolly”, it became way more than the sum of its parts, turning from a comical romp into a deceptively profound meditation on ageing, belonging and maintaining a sense of purpose in later life. For Davies, it was a labour of love; he subsequently said he’d been thinking about Gordon’s brutal canning for 30 years. It showed.
Tiny Beautiful Things
(Disney+) Based on Cheryl Strayed’s collection of brutal but brilliant agony aunt letters, this dramatisation isn’t for anyone who easily gets the ick at sentimentality. But for those who love a sob-fest, it told the story of a fortysomething woman who starts to write an advice column, while also trying (and often failing) to tackle her own demons. And with Kathryn Hahn as the lead, it was of course a brilliantly frantic, funny and at times devastating performance.
Atlanta
(Disney+) Donald Glover’s masterpiece ended with an astonishing final outing that was an absolute must-see to make sense of the idiosyncratically brilliant preceding three seasons. But, for some reason, Disney chose to dump it on their site three days before the end of 2022, meaning that most viewers only discovered its excellence in the early days of 2023 – if at all. If you haven’t yet watched it, get stuck in!
Minx
The first season of this joyous (and often penis-filled) 70s-set comedy about a feminist porn magazine was all about whether or not they could get away with their risque publication. Second time around, it’s all about what to do now they have. It’s a party-packed ride that’s dripping with 70s excess – from the cocaine-fuelled revelry to introducing the likes of Annie Leibovitz, Linda Ronstadt and Carl Sagan as characters. The delicious chemistry between Ophelia Lovibond’s uptight editor Joyce and Jake Johnson’s wildcard publisher Doug continues to be the show’s beating heart, and there’s plenty of exquisitely-styled shenanigans to boot.
A Whole Lifetime With Jamie Demetriou
(Netflix) Awkwardness is the key emotion throughout this frequently excruciating sketch showcase in which the Stath Lets Flats creator takes his gift for physical comedy to the next level. As he tracks a life through childhood, adolescence, middle age, retirement and finally a hospital bed surrounded by barely interested medical orderlies, Demetriou pinpoints the tiny insecurities that riddle us all and amplifies them to absurdity.
The Other Black Girl
(Disney+) Based on Zakiya Dalila Harris’s 2020 novel of the same name, The Other Black Girl was a deliciously soapy drama and one big eye roll at the predominantly white publishing industry. It followed Nella (Sinclair Daniel), an editorial assistant and the only Black employee at Wagner – until an enigmatic woman called Hazel (Ashleigh Murray) starts and befriends her. What unravels is satirical, silly … and highly addictive to watch.
The Big Door Prize
(Apple TV+) What would you do if a machine turned up in your town and told you your true potential? This comedy’s premise might sound more fitting for a weighty existential drama than a light Chris O’Dowd-starring comedy, but this novel adaptation was a lovely slice of breezy fun. Until, that is, things started getting weird, questions started being asked and a moody, dark cliffhanger finale saw a rural town about to crack open a Pandora’s box of troubles. No wonder a second season’s on the way.
