Always check out the After Party Tag:
The After Party (Apple)
Tiffany Haddish, in a pitch-perfect role, is back in this comedic murder mystery series that copies the innovative style of devoting each episode to a different character’s point of view. This time, however, the show takes on the added challenge of telling each story in a different genre. The always-reliable Ken Jong and Paul Walter Hauser ooze comic potential with their line delivery here, and the supporting cast (particularly the unknown Anna Konkie) can keep up. Zoe Chao and Sam Richardson’s characters have now settled into a comfortable relationship and their interplay is kind of adorable.
Captain Fall (Netflix)
An aspiring captain with a massive inferiority complex is selected by a criminal cartel precisely because he’s at the bottom of his class and would be least likely to notice the wide-scale atrocities they commit daily. Throughout the first season, they trafficking bride for an Arab billionaire, abduct humans for a people zoo, kill endangered animals for a form of Viagara, facilitate arms deals, and sponsor child soldiers. Has there ever been an animated comedy this dark? I’m pretty sure it has Archer beat. With its Truman Show premise, it’s also one of the cleverest comedies on TV.
Florida Man (Netflix)
What might be classified as a sun-drenched noir that plays off the more creative modes of vice people in the Sunshine State are often drawn to. Unlike Killing It, this is more of a dramatic showcase but a gripping one nonetheless. Edgar Ramirez shines as a former detective hired by a peculiarly short mob boss (Emory Cohen) to track down an ex he happens to already be in love with (Abbey Lee). It’s a show that knows how to escalate as necessary.
Hello Tomorrow (Apple)
In this parallel version of the 1950s, we didn’t just land on the moon but were able to quickly subdue it for human colonization to the point that we were selling real estate on it. Although little about the show makes sense historically, there are a lot of deep thematic veins underneath the surface of this façade. This show reflects a 1950s-era sensibility in which men are breadwinners, and there’s no better way to win that bread than to don a suit and sell something. Several heavy hitters — Billy Crudup, Alison Pill (pictured above), Hank Azaria, and Susan Heyward (not the Oscar-winning actress from the 40s and 50s but a relative newcomer) — do some of their best work here.
History of the World Part II (Hulu)
After 22 years, this 1981 Mel Brooks anthology film of world history parodies finally returns. Incredibly, Mel Brooks is still alive at 95 and had a creative hand in the project although most of the legwork for producing, acting, and writing goes to a pretty random trio of collaborators: Ike Barinholtz, Nick Kroll, and Wanda Sykes. The show has a great sense of pacing knowing which stories to focus on and which only need a minute or two to get to their punch lines. Best of all, the show has a playfulness with a genre that would go well in a high-end lit mag, while also not limiting itself to low-brow jokes when the moment feels right.
Krapopolis (Fox)
In this reimagining of ancient Greece, the laughs-per-minute ratio is high, and even higher if you catch all the easter eggs in this satire on democracy and the pantheon of the gods in Ancient Greece. The story takes place at the dawn of civilization as a young king (Richard Ayodaye) tries to initiate very basic ideas for progress but meets resistance at every turn. The breakout character, Deleria (Hannah Waddingham), isn’t the god of anything useful but comes with all the vanity that one would expect a god to have.
Mulligan (Netflix)
From Tina Fey’s 30 Rock co-creator Robert Carlock, this animated series imagines a near-apocalypse in which only a couple thousand survivors remain in DC. The only surviving member of Congress (Dana Carvey) takes the vice presidency behind a dimwitted baseball player (Nat Faxon) as head of state because he accidentally saved the city from an alien attack. The rest of the cabinet is a similarly entertaining pairing of contrasts, and the dialogue is on par with some of the funnier sitcoms of the 2000s. Did I mention Questlove and Weird Al survived the alien invasion too? Sounds like a party!
Night Agent (Netflix)
This isn’t the only series to use the 24 formula of lone moral voice within the DC infrastructure tasked with saving the country. But I can’t think of one with better execution: The casual moral vacancy of the villain, the slowly creeping love story, just the right amount of characterization (humanizing but not too empathetic) of the two assassins, and a very palpable sense of danger.
Poker Face (Peacock)
Fresh off his well-received Agatha Christie homages of Knives Out and its sequel Glass Onion, Riann Johnson makes use of his creative capital with high-end guest stars and prestige writing in this anthology series. Natasha Lyonne channels Culombo’s Peter Falk as a runaway from the mob with a keen ability to determine whether someone is lying. Like most detectives in procedurals, she has the uncanny misfortune of crossing paths with murders waiting to happen and there’s the interesting angle at play of how much of a duty she has to do right by the victims. Some episodes hit and some miss based on the nature of the plot, but the show always has that prestige sheen.
What We Do in the Shadows (FX)
One of TV’s funniest shows has relied on a status quo corollary in which the idiot characters can’t ever achieve their outsized ambitions of conquering Staten Island, finding love, raising a Colin Robinson that isn’t so loathsome. But five seasons in, these miserable characters needed some forward movement, which is why I was thrilled for Guillermo to (spoiler alert!) become a vampire. Or did he? Unfortunately, it didn’t last long which is why this show didn’t make my top 12 this year.
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