And there’s always a legitimate emergency at the hospital. Played by the brilliant Ben Whishaw with the intensity of a tightened guitar string about to snap, Adam has plenty of personal issues to tend to - a longtime partner (Rory Fleck Byrne) who feels neglected and a mother (Harriet Walter) who has no idea her son is gay - but he’s constantly being yanked away from such matters by whatever emergency has arisen at the hospital. Created by British writer Adam Kay (who adapted the series from his own memoir about his years in the medical field), the series follows a fictional doctor of obstetrics and gynecology named Adam, whose emotional well-being teeters literally and figuratively on the edge of a scalpel’s blade. There are roughly a million medical shows, but few are as unsparing, authentic, and urgent as this one. Read Jen Chaney’s review of Abbott Elementary, Ashley Ray Harris’s interview with creator and star Quinta Brunson, and Ile-Ife Okantah’s recaps of season two. At a time when it’s easy to assume that broadcast television doesn’t have much to offer anymore, Abbott completely dispels that notion with weekly episodes that are laugh-out-loud funny and a beacon of light to every weary educator trying to do right by their students. Some of the shows in these categories were very strong (see Andor and The Dropout), but as networks and platforms become wary of green-lighting original series, I decided to focus my top-ten list on shows that reflect the creators’ imaginations and influences.Ībbott Elementary is a series born from the familiar - it’s a network workplace sitcom, one of the oldest forms in the medium, framed in the well-worn mockumentary format - that feels completely fresh thanks to the voice of creator Quinta Brunson, a cast of hilarious veterans and newbies (including Emmy winner Sheryl Lee Ralph), and a sturdy sense of the inequities and absurdities that define work in the public-school system. Martin, and tons of scripted takes on real tales of true crime and high-level con artistry. The constant lure of existing IP gave us more series based in the Marvel and Star Wars universes, extensions of stories told by J.R.R. This was a big year for television inspired by the familiar. As we end 2022 and look toward 2023, we feel a lot like Bear, Elora, Cheese, and Willie Jack standing on the edge of the Pacific - not sure at all where things are headed in the TV world but happy for the moments of wonder and grace it’s still giving us. The second season of Reservation Dogs made it onto all three of our critics’ lists, and that feels appropriate, since it ends on a note of uncertainty tinged with optimism. Long-running shows that took incredibly satisfying final bows - Better Call Saul, Better Things - are represented, as are brand-new entries brimming over with confidence in their characters and storytelling approaches ( The Bear, Severance, Somebody Somewhere). Terrific series based on existing IP and true stories, the industry’s current bread and butter, made the cut in the form of Disney+’s Andor (some of the most satisfying Star Wars storytelling in years) and Hulu’s The Dropout (which miraculously gave us more perspective on the well-known downfall of fraudulent Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes). With a gargantuan mass of television to consider at an incredibly chaotic moment for the medium, TV critics Jen Chaney, Roxana Hadadi, and Kathryn VanArendonk nevertheless went about the traditional task of choosing their ten best shows of the year, and despite everything going on, their lists signal that there’s still hope for the good ol’ idiot box we all love. And yet the purveyors of streaming, broadcast, and cable “content” continued to roll out more new scripted series than ever: During this summer’s Television Critics Association’s press tour, FX chairman John Landgraf said that 2022 would finally mark the peak of Peak TV, given that in the first half of the year alone, 357 original scripted series were ushered into existence. As we close out the final quarter of these 12 tumultuous months, AMC is planning to lay off 20 percent of its workforce, CNN (part of WarnerMedia) is in the midst of layoffs, Netflix is still rebounding from a lousy few months for subscriptions, Disney is reeling from the arrival of new boss Bob (who’s the same as old boss Bob), and every platform and network seems to be thinking about ways to streamline. This was the year Peak TV finally seemed on the verge of toppling. Photo-Illustration: Rowena Lloyd and Susanna Hayward Photos: Courtesy of the Networks
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