Annual Best TV of 2022 List: Honorable Mentions

Adventure Beast (Netflix)-I tuned into this show expecting edu-tainment in the vein of Magic School Bus or Carmen Sandiego, but did not expect such an absurdist R-rated delight. One way that animation can surpass live action comedically is that blood and gore can be used without the squick factor. This is Adventure Beast's bread and butter. The show centers around a kooky zoologist (based autobiographically on star voice over actor Bradley Trevor Greive) who's such an enthusiastic nature lover, that he repeatedly lets himself be mauled in all sorts of entertaining ways just to protect them. Joining him are two sidekicks who couldn't be any more different: Hypochondriac Dietrich and foolhardy Bonnie. Each episode is a different part of the world, a different biome to learn about, and a different close brush with death. 

Cobra Kai (Netflix)-Season 4 was a master class in story logistics and character plotting. Considering this is all based on 80s cheesiness, I was blindsided by how well the show developed so many character arcs and collided them in such ass-kicking combinations. With the richness of Tori and even Hawk, there’s now enough space  in our empathy to root for entirely new and unexpected people to champion in the sport of karate (except Robby: He’s a snooze-fest). Of course, the trauma that define our favorite characters arcs is largely at the expense of different characters who happen to also be our favorite, so it’s a bit of a circular cluster-f*ck at this point. Season 5 showed some pretty strong signs of how the momentum is slowing down with characters so archetypically evil as to be cartoonish. Season 4 was perfect, but factoring in the disappointment of the 5^th season, this falls into honorable mention territory.

Derry Girls (BBC4 -> Netflix)-The seven-episode arc of the show’s final season sees our central quintet continue to work themselves over various minor crises while displaying significant growth in spite of that teenage shallowness. In one of the best episodes of the series, the older generation shows they can be just as prone to Murphy’s law and handle their dilemnas with equal pettiness at a class reunion. Also, newsflash: Two characters kiss (one of them is James and considering the group consists of his cousin, a girl who might be mentally disabled, and a Lesbian, you can guess who)! But, no matter, Michelle wisely intercedes that it would be horrific to have to deal with a short-lived romance, so they wait. Well-played, Michelle! And well-played Lisa McGee and crew for such a wonderful regionally specific show (you almost need subtitles to understand their Irish brogues).

Dicktown (FX)-John Hodgeman and David Rees pitched this show with the concept "What if Encyclopedia Brown never adulted as he grew up?" As the two central characters, John and David are a pair of 40ish detectives who aren't taken seriously by anyone except high schoolers. It would be sad if David weren't self-deluded into thinking his life is going well, and John wasn't so good at what he does. The second season offers some upward progress for the pair, so that's a plus.

Dropout (Hulu)-The limited series docudrama covers the true story of Stanford dropout Elizabeth Holmes who invented a way to diagnose multiple diseases through blood or something like that, and then cut corner after corner to the point where she went from wide-eyed dreamer to over-stressed manager to someone who could unequivocally be classified as the bad guy. Played by Amanda Seyfried in a new career high water mark, Holmes is a figure we can never quite seem to pick apart as she’s not even honest with herself about her transforming personality. The show also has an excellent co-villain in Naveen Andrews as Elizabeth’s subtly threatening lover, and a wonderful All the Presidents’ Men angle with two sleuthing interns  (Dylan Minnette and Camryn Mi-young Kim) coming from contrasting ends of privilege.

 

Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon)-Perhaps, “Marvelous” should be replaced with “Plucky” because Miriam continues to get sidelined but she never stays down for very long. Still, with only one season left, it’s a pretty long road to comic immortality. I’m getting the feel that career advancement in comedy for women or anyone in the 1950s was not a linear progression, which is a pretty good recipe for future tension. This season had two of the show’s best scenes: Miriam breaking the news to her family that she got fired on a Coney Island ferris wheel ride, and the congregation ganging up on Abe during a bar-mitzvah.

 

Reboot (Hulu)-Shows about show business are a tired trope from unimaginative writers, but occasionally something pops through that’s worth fighting against that bias. Created by Steve Levitan (Just Shoot Me, and more recently Modern Family), this show contains some of the more wholesome relics of old-school sitcoms while still maintaining a sharp subversiveness. Three has-been actors (Johnny Knoxville, Judy Greer, and Callum Worthy) and one classically-trained has-been in denial (Keegan Michael-Key) are recruited to revive a multi-camera (AKA old-school, laugh-track) sitcom in a comedic landscape of more advanced comedy. To make matters more complicated, the new executive producer is an avant-garde (Rachel Bloom) who’s only doing the show to get back at her father (Paul Riser) who sorta kinda abandoned her as a child and he refuses to relinquish the rights without getting involved in the day-to-day trappings. Like Levitan’s previous hit, Just Shoot Me, this is a sharp comedy centered around a (forgive me for using such a gooey word) beautiful father-daughter relation.

Resort (Peacock)-Sit in the Mexican tropics, a married couple (Christine Milioti and William Jackson Harper) attempts to cure their rut by taking on a 15-year-old mystery of two teenagers who disappeared on a dark and stormy night (cliché as that sounds). The pair join forces with a kooky local heir who fancies himself a film noir detective. With one of TV’s best sidekicks in tow, the journey of this jaded couple is intercut with the pair of love-drunk teenagers (Skyler Gismodo and Nina Bloomgarten). Filled with needle drops and time jumps upon time jumps, the show is ambitious and even effortlessly shifts genres into the supernatural as it picks up steam.

Shantaram (Apple TV)-Charlie Hunnam stars as an escaped Australian convict who gets caught up in the criminal underworld of Bombay. Only he can’t make a very good criminal because he seems too morally upright. In fact, he got in prison in the first place because he stopped mid-robbery to attempt triage on a cop trying to stop him. Lin’s story to find of finding redemption and do good in a lawless society echoes the narrative arcs of Buddha and Jesus. The symbolism is a bit more obvious when you consider that the title of the series takes its name from what the Hindu villagers give him: "Man of God's peace." But if this is an elaborate religious allegory, it’s a very gritty and sexy one.  Although it was shot in Thailand during COVID, the film is at the production level of a David Lean epic. 

True Story with Ed and Randall (Peacock)-Ed Helms and Randall Park host people with cool stories. They range from the kind of anecdotes that would get picked up by a local paper (One person crashes the Super Bowl locker room), to the personally meaningful (a guy wins a high school state championship in a sport he never tried before to impress his crush), to the bizarre (a man getting caught stopped by the same traffic cop three times in one night in a mad dash effort to satisfy his pregnant wife’s craving). Each story is acted out by known talents like Terry Crews, Marc Evan Jackson, Sharon Woodard, and Lauren Ash that intercut with the storytelling. In addition, Ed and Randall compliment the ordinary Joe storytellers perfectly as enrapt listeners who share in their delight and probe with the right questions. When it comes to unscripted TV, the art is in how you present the material, and this show is a master course.