In 1996, the premium cable channel Home Box Office launched a major advertising campaign promoting the idea that you were getting something special when you signed up for the service: The slogan:
“It’s not TV, it’s HBO.”
Call that fake news — after all, it WAS TV — but it was a great ad campaign and it’s a tagline that resonates to this day. Cut to 2024, and we’re living in an era where we can say, it’s not TV, it’s Netflix and Apple TV+ and Peacock and Prime Video and Disney+ and Max and AMC+ and YouTube and Tubi and Starz and FX on Hulu and Paramount+ with Showtime — and of course we still have HBO and CBS and NBC and ABC and Fox et al.
We have never had so many choices, to the point where it can be overwhelming and create Menu Anxiety. What do I watch! Where do I watch it! How do I watch it! This is one of the reasons why series such as “Friends” and “The Office” and “Seinfeld” continue to perform so well in the perpetual rerun afterlife; while some of the storylines might be dated or even problematic, the humor is still consistent — and when we’re unable to choose something new to watch because it feels like there too many options, we can always default to 22 minutes of comfort viewing.
It’s impossible to come close to watching every single new series in any given year, but I try to gobble up as many as I can. Here’s my Top 10 for 2024.
10. ‘How to Die Alone’ (Hulu)
Creator, executive producer and headliner Natasha Rothwell leaves an indelible impression with her funny, empathic and grounded work as Mel, a JFK airport employee who has an accidental brush with death and takes that as a sign it’s time to live her life to the fullest. That might sound like the setup of a sugary romcom from the early 2000s, but this is darkly hilarious, sharply written and at times deeply moving character study, with Rothwell meshing seamlessly with the ensemble cast.
9. ‘Masters of the Air’ (Apple TV+)
Two series in a row set against the backdrop of flights taking off and landing — and they couldn’t possibly be more different. This World War II drama is a companion to “Band of Brothers” (land) and “The Pacific” (sea), as we take to the skies for an old-fashioned, at times unabashedly corny yet powerful and visually stunning epic about the 100th Bomb Group. Directed by some of the best filmmakers in TV and in movies today, and featuring a star-studded cast including Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan and Callum Turner, this is a rousing and heroic story, with the some of the most impressive VFX ever seen in a series.
8. ‘Black Doves’ (Netflix)
Keira Knightley does some of the best work of her career as a London mother and wife married to the U.K. Defence Secretary, who hasn’t the foggiest inkling his spouse is also a high-level operative for a secret espionage agency known as the Black Doves. Hardly a week goes by without the release of another slick and well-filmed spy series (there’s another one on this list), but “Black Doves” stands out from the crowd, thanks to the great chemistry between Knightley and Ben Whishaw as her best friend who happens to be an assassin, the consistently clever dialogue, and a plot worthy of top-tier Guy Ritchie.
7. ‘A Man on the Inside’ (Netflix)
Few actors in the history of television have appeared more comfortable on TV than Ted Danson, who for five decades has been headlining series ranging from great to pretty darn good. In this warmly funny gem from the prolific and gifted Michael Schur (a major contributor to some of the best sitcoms of the century), Danson does Emmy-level work as a widower who infiltrates a retirement community to investigate a possible burglary. It’s an admittedly gimmicky premise that consistently delights in unexpected ways. You want to wrap your arms around every character in this show.
6. ‘The Day of the Jackal” (Peacock)
It’s cliché by now to say a TV series looks like a movie but I’ll embrace that cliché when it comes to this latest adaptation of the Frederick Forsyth novel. Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne is chillingly good as the legendary assassin known as the Jackal, with Lashana Lynch doing equally impressive work as the weapons-expert British intelligence officer who becomes obsessed with taking him down.
5. ‘Bad Monkey’ (Apple TV+)
I’m not sure I had more fun watching any series this year than I did with “Bad Monkey,” with Vince Vaughn in prime Vince Vaughn form as a suspended cop turned restaurant inspector who gets mixed up in all sorts of dangerous hijinks involving a severed body part, an Obeah-practicing woman known as the Dragon Queen (a terrific Jodie Turner-Smith), an ex-girlfriend (Michelle Monaghan) with criminal tendencies, and a capuchin monkey named Driggs who really isn’t such a bad monkey after all. Set in the Florida Keys and the Bahamas, this is escapist TV at its finest.
4. ‘Shogun’ (Hulu, Disney+)
More than four decades after James Clavell’s 1975 blockbuster novel was adapted in 1980 and became one of the most popular and acclaimed television series of its time, Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks created a gorgeous, visceral, sweeping, next-level masterwork (first seen on FX and Hulu) featuring a mostly Japanese cast, with the dialogue primarily in the Japanese language. This is one of the great historical drama series of our times — a brilliant, stunningly staged epic that immerses us in the culture and politics of 1600 Japan. Winner of 18 Emmys, including outstanding drama series.
3. ‘The Perfect Couple’ (Netflix)
Nicole Kidman starred in my No. 4 movie of 2024 with “Babygirl,” and with “The Perfect Couple,” she continues her string of playing women who seem to have it all but are stressed to the limit and are often embroiled in dark or even tragic circumstances. (See also “Big Little Lies,” “The Undoing” and “Expats.”) Kidman is in prime icy form as the matriarch of a wealthy family on Nantucket that is hosting a lavish wedding celebration derailed by an untimely death. One of the many things I loved about this perfectly cast, great-looking, addictively bingeable gem is that it goes through all the lurid paces in a relatively zippy six episodes instead of dragging things out, as is the case with so many limited series dramas. This is a near-perfect slice of glossy entertainment about some wildly imperfect people, most of whom deserve each other.
2. ‘Landman’ (Paramount+)
The prolific Tyler Sheridan (“Yellowstone,” “Mayor of Kingstown,” “Tulsa King”) hits another home run, teaming with journalist-screenwriter Christian Wallace to create a hits-the-ground-running sensation that grabs you from the opening scene and keeps you in its thrall through every turn, even when things get soapy and melodramatic (as they often did on “Yellowstone”). Billy Bob Thornton owns the role of Tommy Norris, a crisis manager for a fictional oil company, while Ali Larter does career-best work as Tommy’s ex-wife Angela, with Jon Hamm and Demi Moore among the top names in the supporting cast. “Landman” is one of those shows where the only time you steal a glance at the time is because you hope there’s another 20 minutes left in this episode, but darn it, 55 minutes have just flown by.
1. ‘The Penguin’ (HBO)
As much as I admired Lauren LeFranc’s fantastically grimy, gritty and punishingly effective TV spinoff sequel to the feature film “The Batman” when I reviewed it a few months back, I’m not sure I fully appreciated the full brilliance of this work until I rewatched much of the series and was blown away by its dark, rich, powerful grip. Much of has been made of Michael Marino’s award-worthy makeup work that transformed Colin Farrell into the startling presence that is Oz Cobb, but it’s Farrell’s performance that turned Cobb into one of the most memorably psychotic underworld figure characterss of the 21st century. Cristin Milioti is equally great as Sofia Gigante, the presumed serial killer who takes revenge on her enemies in a shocking set-piece and becomes Cobb’s archrival, as each schemes to take control of Gotham’s rotting underbelly. “The Penguin” springs from the DC Comic Universe, but it felt more like a descendant of “The Sopranos” and DePalma’s “Scarface.” A worthy descendant.
It’s not TV, it’s HBO.