This Year, TV Simply Wasn't Made For You

How having bad taste brought us great entertainment

We are the last generation to remember Prime Time TV.

A massive generational divide between the current crop of Gen Zers (i.e. basically anyone below 26) and their previous generations is that the Zoomers will grow up without the concept of must-watch television. Those coveted 7pm slots, next to Friends, after This Is Us, competing with ER or Ally McBeal or the Big Show That Made Networks Money. Prime Time meant television for the masses. The shows that formed the popular TV landscape.

Yes, OnDemand and TiVo (that was a thing, right?) existed and the streaming services whack away at viewership, but the point is, there is no such thing as a Broad Appeal show anymore meant for every person and their puppy. Even Game of Thrones, the last big Television Sensation, was not supposed to be for everyone. There was nothing easy to grasp or universally appealing about tyranny and dragons.

Now, niche TV is all that exists, sundered and sundered by more voices making more content, until Gen Pop is a bland gesture at which none of us can even point. We don’t have a M*A*S*H that we can all agree on.

And, folks, that’s a good thing. Because water-cooler conversation, the kind that brings us together and says, ‘hey, you get me’— isn’t going away. (In fact, not knowing why all “these gays are trying to murder me” might make you uncool.) It just matters where on the vast spectrum your watering hole might be.

Today, the TV landscape can be overwhelming to anyone who isn’t looking to consume entertainment that aligns perfectly with their identity and values. There isn’t a 7pm slot to connect us all. And there will never be, again.

So here are the things that I saw this year that are definitely worth a cultural investigation, even if it isn’t exactly your cup o’tea.

SUBCULTURE: Gay Pirates!

Show: Our Flag Means Death (HBOMax)

Best Episode: "The Best Revenge Is Dressing Well"

A reimagining of the story of Blackbeard and his friendship with English dandy Stede Bonnet ended up being surprisingly heartfelt and extremely funny. It’s everything we love about What We Do In The Shadows except with a tender underbelly where representation really matters. The concept of a bunch of tough pirates overflowing with machismo being challenged with, just, being respectful is endlessly entertaining.

Subculture: Nervous Existential Dread

Show: The Rehearsal (HBOMax)

Best episode: “Pilot”

Hehehe haha hee hee heee what the fuck man? Why did Nathan Fielder do this? What sort of mind makes such a thing? Is he a psychopath? Are we watching something deeply unethical? Why can’t I stop wheezing and laughing and biting my nails nervously? I don’t know, I think you should watch it simply because it us unbelievable levels of depravity.

Subculture: Toxic Girlbosses

Show: House of the Dragon (HBOMax)

Best episode: “The Lord of the Tides”

The intense relationship I have with Game of Thrones is obsessive, heart-breaking, torturous, and slightly abusive. I hated Season 8. It was abhorrent. But I love Fire & Blood, the prequel this is based on, which pulls back on the entire world of Westeros and tells us a general history, but written through “official” sources with delicious gossip and hearsay additives. So basically, this is Game of Thrones: Messy Bitch Edition. Or, Game of Thrones: If Written By Women. You won’t get political intrigue and swordfights, but you will get a ton of backstabbing and riding away on dragons.

Subculture: Honestly, basically anyone with a heart?

Show: RPDR All-Stars (Paramount+)

Best Episode: “Snatch Game”

For the first time ever, Drag Race brought back a group of all winners to showcase what it might be like to actually conduct the Olympics of drag. Each contestant previously had a crown, which means they had polish, and Good God Girl, it was Great. Each episode unfurled a new layer of drag in a way that continues to prove, more urgently than ever, that drag isn’t just dress up but a full performative (and political) statement. Reality TV where everyone is nice to each other. And the winner? Well, we all saw that one coming.

Subculture: Girls, Gays, and Theys

White Lotus S2 (HBOMax)

Best Episode: “In The Sandbox”

A marked improvement on Season One (in terms of camp and meaning, both), White Lotus is so fun because, in order to enjoy it, you have to be able to know the people who are being torn apart by Mike White’s ferocious lens. And if you know them, well, you might be them. White Lotus gives us just enough eye candy to remind you that candy can be sickening. The high camp of Jennifer Coolidge has caused the coming Jennaisance, and while you kind of feel like everyone deserves to be offed, you absolutely don’t want anyone to leave.

Subculture: Nerds Who Take Pride In Being Nerds

Show: Stranger Things 4 (Netflix)

Best Episode: “The Massacre at Hawkins Lab"

Yeah, okay, Dear Billy made everyone suddenly discover the sea witch who is Kate Bush, but there is nothing better than the moment in Stranger Things where the entire gang gets back together and the march towards the showdown is clear. After a fairly lackluster Season 3 (I don’t know what happened. Soviets? A mayor?), ST4 captured that Spielbergian nostalgia and Lovecraftian horror almost…better than ever? This season of Stranger Things gives us the signature of a great ensemble show: Take any two characters, put them together, and watch their chemistry crackle.

Sub-Culture: The Extremely Online

Show: She-Hulk (D+)

Best Episode: “Whose Show Is This?”

Before Deadpool, Jennifer Walters would turn the the audience mid-panel and deliver fourth wall-breaking bon mots, often calling into question the efficacy of her male super humans. For comic book readers, She-Hulk has always been a challenge: She’s horny, she’s extremely smart, and she’s stronger than 95% of the Avengers. In other words, she’s exactly what the bottom half of the internet hates. In She-Hulk, a show that is incredibly enjoyable even if you have no idea about anything in the Marvel Universe, ‎Tatiana Maslany firmly, adeptly takes aim at fanboys and their expectations—so much so that the show would actually predict what haters would be hating on before they could even drink their haterade. It’s a delightful excoriation of both streaming and superheroes (and the industries that are all in on both), and is frankly smarter than it has any right being.

Sub-Culture: Black Twitter

Show: Atlanta (Hulu)

Best Episode: Work Ethic!

With the series firmly wrapped and behind us, now is a great time to google “Best Atlanta episodes” and give yourself a treat of some of the most digestible but thought-provoking television, well, ever made. In this episode, showrunner Donald Glover turns the terrifyingly successful Tyler Perry machine into some sort of Willy Wonka-style horrorshow. Glover and team ask an important question: Is representation at all costs worth it, even when the representation sucks? Fortunately, Atlanta creators will never have to answer this question, as its legacy is firmly cemented as a surrealist masterpiece.

Sub-Culture: People Who Don’t Like Anime

Show: Chainsaw Man (Hulu)

Best Episode: “Gunfire”

I’m not a huge anime person, for the most part. There’s simply too much of it. So when I was convinced by literally everyone I knew to give it a try, I was hesitant, especially because, well, it sounds dumb. But Studio Mappa has created one of the most breathtaking examples of animation on TV I have ever seen, week after week. This show, about a boy who turns into a chainsaw (yup, that’s the premise), whose main goal is to touch a boob (yup, that’s his motivation) actually made me think/feel more than any other show this year (yup, that’s loss and alienation).

Subculture: Anyone Who Wants ‘00s Political Drama In Their Space Opera

Show: Andor (D+)

Best Episode: “The Eye”

The first two episodes of Andor are a slog—such a slog, in fact, that I turned it off. But I kept hearing that, after 1.02, things got better, and I’m glad that bullying works. Andor was exactly what could breathe fresh life into the Star Wars saga: A story that has literally nothing to do with Star Wars. Jedi? No one cares. Skywalkers? Never heard of them. Instead, it’s the story of the Stormtrooper who goes home at night or the Rebel Leader who wonders, hey, is blowing up the Death Star and all of the people who work on it a good idea? Also, it has great heists. You sonofabitch, I’m in.

Runners Up: Peaky Blinders (brilliant but uneven, Netflix), A League of Their Own (superficial but delightful, Amazon), Station Eleven (not technically 2022, HBOMax)

I did not care for: Severance (never hooked me, Apple+), Euphoria (cannot bring myself to care, HBOMax), Kenobi (written by someone who had their eyes closed, Apple+)