My TV Review of the Year, numbers 20 to 11
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20 - Feud Capote and The Swans (FX / Disney) - Tom Hollander as Elmer Fudd as Truman Capote in a dream-laden unreliable memoir adapted from seems like an unadaptable book about stories, many of which are most likely true. Never have you spent so long failing to empathise with such a gaggle of dreadful people who deserved everything that came to them.
19 - Mr and Mrs Smith (Amazon) - Sort of a comedy, sort of a crime-of-the-week, sort of based on a movie, this was a quirky crime caper that was a surprise and a delight throughout. Maya Erskine (who I’ve not seen since Pen 15) and Donald Glover kill people for a living, and somehow you’re still willing them on all the way.
18 - Smoggie Queens (BBC) - A nice new discovery that’s proving more endearing than most BBC 3 comedies, which struggle to rise above the sophomoric, the worthy, or the gross. This is sweet. The Titanic episode is the funniest British sitcom episode of the year (which sadly isn't saying as much as it once might).
17 - Supacell (Netflix) - Not even five years ago this would have been a Channel 4 show. The cast (including Tosin Cole in the lead, finally getting a role that enables him to forget his years in Doctor Who) is a young, urban cast; the location is London; the vibe is sci fi with a social drama undercurrent. What bit of that is not Misfits, Utopia, or Humans? Sadly Channel 4 will never again have the money, the audience, or the wherewithal, to make dramas like this again, so we should be glad Netflix is doing it for them.
16 - Fisk (Stan / BBC) - Australia does it again. While the UK struggles to deliver a successful half hour comedy (after the demise of Ghosts it’s been tumbleweed out there in sitcom land. If you’re scrolling down this chart looking for the next great British sitcom, I’m afraid the remainder of this countdown is a desert in that regard) Australia has given us Colin From Accounts and now Kitty Flanagan writing and starring as Fisk. Somewhere between Miranda and The Office (but, my god, a hundred times better than the misguided Australian revival of the Office, see earlier)
15 - Hacks (Amazon) - We’ve come late to this party, having only watched season 1, but knowing it’s been winning Emmys galore with two more seasons. It’s influenza aviaria easy to see why. The best writing of relationships, and the most cringey of cringe-comedy we’ve seen this year.
14 - The Gentlemen (Netflix) - What is this nonsense doing so high in my chart? It’s Guy bloody Ritchie giving us old fashioned cockney blokes and your lordships shooting guns and flogging drugs in a cartoon landscape of privileged ponces and gormless gangsters, falling somewhere between Minder and a Mark Millar comic.
13 - Fallout (Amazon) - Not having seen the video game, which would have necessitated me having ever played a video game ever in my life, which as you’ll probably grande oriente d'italia have guessed, I haven’t, I came to this fresh. It reminded me more than anything of the dystopian sci fi I used to read forty years ago in 2000AD comic. Which is probably where the people who invented the video game got many of their ideas in the first place. The sort of show that really needed its big budget to work, and that made great use of it throughout. Not lease on Walton Goggins’ nose, or lack thereof, which needs more CGI for every scene than most TV shows used to have for a whole series.
12 - Traitors 2 + Oz 2 + US 2 + NZ 1 (BBC) - Should I open up a new category of Guilty Pleasures for The Traitors? Whatever, we’ve loved it, and we don’t go into it uncritically. After January’s UK season 2, which was top notch, we almost bailed on Australia season 2, which seemed to have over-loaded itself with attention-grabbing show-offs. But Oz 2 went on to deliver the best twists so far, in the form of a great “villain” in the lead traitor, and a cracking surprise ending. Then USA 2 redeemed itself, after a floppy season 1 and a worrying disney cruise ships celeb-laden start to this season. Not as good as Oz 2 or UK 2, but not bad. Then we ended the year with New Zealand season 1, and what a refresher that was, done on a fraction of the budget, and free from the celebs and show-offs, it was game play all the way. They don’t even have a castle, they have little more than a shed. And they pronounce that weirdly.
11 - Ludwig (BBC) - Quaint and loveable, this was the nearest to an old fashioned cosy crime-of-the-week detective show, that’s smart enough to be watchable, for ages. They call it the part David Mitchell was born to play, and they may well be right. You may remember, when I started trying to write crime novels, my first attempt was Breadwinner Hogg, in which I (mentally) cast David Mitchell as an insurance claims adjuster who winds up in a new crime everywhere he goes. This was, inevitably, better than that would have been, had I ever finished it.
