Best of 2024 — TV
Ripley
It's always fun to see a creative person take a very well known story and retell it in a completely new way. Where 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley is colorful, sexy, and fun, Ripley is brooding, anxious, and ugly. Adam Scott's Ripley has none of the 'aw shucks' charm of Matt Damon's character. Instead, he's a parasite of a person, skittering from host to host in search of the easy life. The world isn’t the lush, lively Mediterranean from the film, either. Shot in black & white, the series has this cold, empty quality that makes Ripley feel much more like a predator cornering a calf that’s been separated from the herd. This show transcended mere television; it’s a work of unnerving art.
English Teacher
This is the funniest goddamned show. It comes out of the starting blocks so self-assured in its point-of-view, tone, and sense of humor.
Most sitcoms take the first season to flesh out the characters, starting with broad archetypes — in this case, The Gay Teacher, The Republican Gym Teacher, The Worry-Wort Principal — and slowly figuring out what works and what doesn’t (remember when Andy and Anne were a couple on the first season of Parks & Recreation?). Here, each character feels like they’ve existed for years, and we just happen to be joining them. I was genuinely devastated when I learned the first season was only 8 episodes.
Since this aired, there have been sexual harassment allegations against the creator, which fucking sucks. So maybe find an illegal stream of this show instead of paying for it.
Kyle Kinane - Dirt Nap
Aside from a few minutes of warm up material, this entire special is about one story: moving to rural Oregon in the middle of the pandemic and adopting a stray cat. Kyle Kinane is one of my favorite comedians, able to hilariously undersell the absurdities of life without coming off as cynical or aloof. It builds and builds and builds and when the “long story short…” hit I was on the floor.
Shogun
I forgot what it was like to anticipate the next episode of a show. The week-long wait between episodes of Shogun, though filled with memes, seemed like an eternity. A fish out of water story, a tender romance, a swashbuckling adventure, and a political thriller all rolled into one, this show earned its status as “Event Television.”
Conan O’Brien - Hot Ones
Considering I have a Conan O’Brien quote tattooed on my arm, I’m biased towards whatever madness he gets caught up in. By now, Hot Ones has had the edges sanded down enough that there’s little distinguishing it from late night talk shows. But true to form, Conan turned his appearance into an unforgettable piece of performance art. Frankly, this should have been the last episode of this show; nothing will top this.
Conner O’Malley - Standup Solutions
Picture the worst Ted Talk possible, and that’s the basis for this stand up special. Playing a sweaty, desperate tech bro in search of VC funding for his AI stand up technology, Conner O’Malley takes the audience down a dark rabbit hole of our near future. This is a weird one, but if you recognize Conner from I Think You Should Leave, you should enjoy this one.