So, this isn't really a television blog. But we did watch a lot of TV this last year.
I can't really remember everything we watched in 2023, and certainly Jamie will immediately identify some gaps, but I wanted to give it a go and list out shows we watched a full season, to the best of my recollection.
Now, in general I don't hate-watch television, so if I watched the thing, it means I enjoyed it. Probably. There's a notable exception here. And one thing I was ready to quit on, but Jamie seemed into it, so I stayed with it.
- Abbott Elementary
- Poker Face
- Righteous Gemstones
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
- Star Trek: Picard
- Star Trek: Lower Decks
- Wednesday
- Mrs. Davis
- What We Do In the Shadows
- Reservation Dogs
- Stars on Mars
- Telemarketers
- Only Murders in the Building
- Shrinking
- History of the World Part II
- Ted Lasso
- Winning Time
- Tom Jones (PBS)
- Lessons in Chemistry
- Welcome to Wrexham
- Eva Longoria: Searching for Mexico
- Monarch
- My Adventures With Superman
- Superman and Lois
- Fargo
- Loki
- Secret Invasion
- The Mandalorian
- Disney's Behind the Attraction
- Eurovision 2023
Late additions as I remembered them
I did not include shows we or I stopped watching. And there's a few of those. Some of these programs haven't quite finished or they have spanned over into 2024, and I know we'll finish them (ex: Fargo).
My favorite two things this year were probably, weirdly, on Peacock. Those shows were Mrs. Davis and Poker Face.
One was entirely novel, kept me on my toes, and made me care deeply about some wild characters that should have been cartoons. The other felt like a familiar formula done right - and then it just got better every episode. And kept doing that every episode. It was incredible to watch.
But I was also shockingly moved by Reservation Dogs, a show I thought was going to be a goofy comedy in Season 1. It never quite lost that vibe entirely, but in other ways became something much bigger and absolutely worth your time, exploring the life of generations of folks on a Reservation in Oklahoma, mixing mundane reality with hard truth and occasional bouts with deeper truths.
Some things I was just going to watch - and that included Superman and Lois, which was terrific all season (Elizabeth Tulloch is so good, y'all). And the My Adventures with Superman cartoon was infinitely better than it needed to be, but you knew if there was a Superman cartoon, I'd give it a whirl
The biggest disappoint was Secret Invasion, which had an uneven but maybe okay start, and then just fell apart completely. And I'll be posting on Monarch, which is a popular show people seem to like, but it's a complete mess, and I'm just watching to see how they try to end this dumb thing (the aforementioned hate-watch). I was also just not into Loki, unfortunately. I'd liked the first season a lot, but Season 2 made me feel trapped in time as a viewer.
I was always going to stick with Ted Lasso through it's third - and maybe final - season, which I found uneven but many folks enjoyed thoroughly.
Flying solo, I tuned into PBS's Tom Jones series to (a) find out what the story of Tom Jones is, because it gets referenced a lot, and (b) it was one of multiple places to catch Hannah Waddingham this year (Frankly, she kind of out-classed the rest of production in ways that sometimes made her hiring awkward).
I enjoyed all the Star Trek I watched in 2023, and I'm just waiting to hear they're filming again for Season 3 of Strange New Worlds. I may even watch the final season of Discovery to see what's going on in the deep future.
But, yeah, I think it's tough not to want to recommend everything on the list, really. Righteous Gemstones once again put something special on the air, and Only Murders in the Building always manages to work very, very well for me. What We Do in the Shadows is still, minute-by-minute, the funniest thing on TV. Abbott Elementary sticks the landing every episode and deserves the accolades.
For reality TV, we watched Stars on Mars, the conceit of which was putting semi-famous people into habitats like you might find on Mars and sending them on missions. I was done after the fourth episode, but stuck it out. We also watched Eurovision 2023, which I highly recommend you do in 2024.
Anyway, I am sure I missed something obvious. And I am sure I didn't follow or like something you followed or liked.
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