The Best TV of 2024: From a SterlingShōgunto the Tear-TuggingOne Day

Mar. 15, 2025

Emmy-winner Hiroyuki Sanada starred in the landmark drama ‘Shogun.'.Photo:Katie Yu /FX / Courtesy of FX via Everett Collection

Katie Yu /FX / Courtesy of FX via Everett Collection

If that makes these shows sound like a slog or a chore, then I need to clarify and point out that they are all, in one way or the other,excitingviewing experiences.

You may also wonder whyThe Bear,after two seasons in the top 10, is missing this year. That’s because season 3 spent too much time letting chefs, real and fictional, discuss the nirvana a chef experiences running a restaurant kitchen. A lovely indulgence, I guess, but not especially relevant in 2024. Here we go.

In an early episode, an impulsive vassal, after making a display of temper and defiance at court, is expected not only to commit ritual suicide but to allow his infant son to be executed, as well—to extinguish his now-disgraced bloodline. And he submits, willingly, leaving behind a distraught widow who wishes she could follow her husband and child into death. This is worse than a dragon, wouldn’t you say? This is worse than green fire.

Andrew Scott starred as one of literature’s most famous (and dangerous) sociopaths.Netflix

Netflix

Jodie Foster won an Emmy for a comeback season of ‘True Detective.'.Michele K. Short/HBO

Michele K. Short/HBO

4.True Detective: Night Country(HBO)This crime series has shown signs of rigor mortis since its superb first season, starringWoody HarrelsonandMatthew McConaughey, butJodie Fosterrekindles it as an Alaskan cop trying to solve a case involving a group of scientists found frozen outside in the endless night—their icy, intertwined bodies look like a Jeff Koons sculpture commemorating the victims of some unspecified but annihilating natural disaster. The season preserves some of the show’s discombobulating philosophical approach to murder, as if it were on some level the manifestation of a morally wobbly universe spinning into darkness. Whatever.

Kathy Bates as a cagey attorney.Brooke Palmer/CBS

Brooke Palmer/CBS

5.Matlock(CBS)This is not your grandfather’s Matlock, no siree—which isn’t to say that your grandfather ever hadanyinclination to watch the old CBS legal series starring Andy Griffiths. (Maybe he likedThe Jewel in the Crownover on PBS.) Anyway, this is a clever, comfortably plush reboot.Kathy Bates, that great, endlessly resourceful actress, is Madeline Matlock, an attorney with a secret mission—of revenge! To pull it off, though, she puts on a rather humbling routine at the firm that just took her on. She pretends that she’s earnest, willing, folksy and sweet—an ideal colleague, really. (In a bit of meta humor, she also keeps reminding people that her surname is, yes, the same as the one on that earlier CBS series. Ha ha.) Bates knows exactly how to let us savor the duality of the role—the wolf both in sheep’s clothing and out.

Nicole Kidman and Liev Schreiber in ‘The Perfect Couple.'.Seacia Pavao/Netflix

Seacia Pavao/Netflix

Donald Glover and Maya Erskine as newbie spies.Amazon Studios

Amazon Studios

7.Mr. & Mrs. Smith(Prime Video)Brad PittandAngelina Jolie’s slinkily sexyspy movie(2005) gets glammed down into a clever series withDonald GloverandMaya Erskineas agents awkwardly forging a relationship. This is a fresh and ingenious angle, especially now that the gorgeous partnership that wasBrangelinaisn’t much more than a faded, tattered image on a Sunset Boulevard billboard. Good to meet you, new Smiths!

Richard Gadd and Jessica Gunning star in the series based on Gadd’s autobiographical play.Ed Miller/Netflix

Ed Miller/Netflix

Brian Jordan Alvarez may not be cool enough for school.Richard Ducree/FX

Richard Ducree/FX

9.English Teacher(FX). Brian Jordan Alvarez is the creator and star of this quietly provocative (or, to settle on another adjective, subversive) sitcom about Evan, a gay teacher who can’t always make sense of what’s politically correct based on the enlightened perspective of his students, their parents and his colleagues. Example: When Evan begins a lesson on the novelLove in the Time of Cholera,Kayla (Roma Mars), a student seated at the front of the class, nervously objects that any discussion of illness is triggering for her. She suffers from what she callsself-diagnosed, asymptomatic Tourette’s syndrome(eventually the condition is renamed KS, or Kayla Syndrome).

Ambika Mod and Leo Woodall in a slow-burn romance.Netflix

10.One Day(Netflix)This fine, sob-inducing British series follows two friends (Ambika Mod andLeo Woodall)who feel romance tugging at their hearts for years and years and years.Years.It’s very much in the British tradition of sustained, frustrated erotic tension—1993’sRemains of the Day, for instance, or the revered 1945 filmBrief Encounter.Maybe that’s why the show feels like such a soothingly nostalgic ride. No one onBridgerton,despite it being set in the 19th century, would be as patient as these two.

Also: one bonus honoree that premiered too late for my print deadline …

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Knightley plays a British spy spending too much time under the covers.Netflix © 2024

Netflix © 2024

source: people.com