The 10 Best TV Shows of 2022

Though we hate goodbyes, 2022 gave us quite a few well-executed exits, most notably Better Call Saul’s suspenseful and bittersweet reckoning for the con-man Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk) we once knew as Jimmy McGill. Who’d have guessed it would take Carol Burnett, in a stunning cameo, to bring this irrepressible crook down, thus concluding the Breaking Bad saga, one for the ages. Honorable mention to these series finales: FX’s deeply personal Better Things, the politically charged and wonderfully surreal The Good Fight on Paramount+, Netflix’s dark parable of greed Ozark, and NBC’s This Is Us, whose departure gave us the best kind of heartbreak.

The metaphors in Season 5 of Netflix’s royal drama were hardly subtle, likening Queen Elizabeth II to a yacht in danger of being decommissioned. But airing a mere two months after the beloved real-life monarch’s death, Peter Morgan’s compassionate treatment of these public figures felt as compelling as ever, though causing more controversy as its fictionalized approach was contested by still-living participants. The recasting, especially Imelda Staunton as the Queen and Elizabeth Debicki as the estranged Princess Diana, was once again superb, reconfirming the series as the jewel in the streamer’s overstuffed crown.

This was a banner year for creatures of the night, none more seductive than AMC’s passionate series adaptation of Anne Rice’s iconic The Vampire Chronicles franchise. Supernatural thrills are charged with extravagant erotic tension and deep philosophical angst in a Gothic romance (between Sam Reid’s mercurial Lestat and Jacob Anderson’s dashingly conflicted Louis de Pointe du Lac) where lust mingles with bloodlust. Honorable mention to FX’s ragtag Staten Island crew of hapless immortals in the rollicking fourth season of What We Do in the Shadows, and to Showtime’s engrossing Let the Right One In, about a father caring—and killing—for his eternally 12-year-old vampire daughter.

Few comedies have as much imaginative spirit as this CBS hit, an endearingly rib-tickling romp about a rural estate haunted by a hilarious assortment of ghosts from eons of history. Where else can you find a gruff Viking crushing on a dippy 1960s hippie for eternity?

Soo Hugh’s gorgeous historical drama on Apple TV+ takes you back to another time. Adapting Min Jin Lee’s acclaimed novel about Koreans displaced during the Japanese occupation of the early 20th century, the series evokes a bygone era when sweeping multigenerational epics were more common on TV. I miss them.

Starz’s colorful Watergate drama is a showcase for Julia Roberts, chewing the scenery as notorious D.C. gossip Martha Mitchell, the bane of husband and Attorney General John (a padded Sean Penn). Among the stellar supporting cast: Shea Whigham as an unhinged G. Gordon Liddy and Dan Stevens as a nakedly ambitious John Dean.

Winner of prestigious Peabody and American Film Institute awards, this deadpan and dead-on comedy from FX/Hulu about a group of Native American teens who scheme and dream of a better future should be much higher-profile.

Writer-director Mike White’s Emmy darling relocates to scenic Sicily for its enthralling second season on HBO, once again dramatizing the pitfalls of privilege with an impeccable cast of emotionally fraught travelers. From the uneasily nouveau riche to the neurotically spoiled—welcome back, Jennifer Coolidge as basket-case heiress Tanya—Lotus inspired the year’s best guessing game as viewers took odds on which hotel guests wouldn’t survive their stay in paradise.

It doesn’t get much more mind-blowing than this. A dark and hypnotically weird workplace satire like no other, this sci-fi thriller from Apple TV+ is like Dilbert on acid, following an office of drones whose work identities are kept surgically separated from who they are on the outside. When the worlds begin to collide, Severance becomes edge-of-your-seat TV.

Jumping to the head of the class is Emmy-winning star and creator Quinta Brunson’s (right) wonderfully funny, tart-sweet ABC mock doc about the underfunded, overworked staff at a Philadelphia public school. Not a weak link in this superb ensemble, and as outrageously inappropriate principal Ava, a comedy star is born in scene-stealer Janelle James.