Best TV shows of the year so far: Adolescence, The Studio, The Pitt, Andor and more

THE STUDIO

It’s rare to get to get a proper laugh-out-loud comedy that doesn’t follow a more traditional sitcom format, but The Studio not only excels in eliciting chortles, guffaws and cackles, it does it through a combination of punchlines, physical comedy and cringe.

At times, The Studio is so uncomfortable and stressful, the only way to achieve catharsis is through an oh-so-rewarding belly-laugh.

Seth Rogen’s series follows a studio boss whose love for the art of movies is in constant conflict with a profit mandate, and that’s how you get the Kool-Aid adaptation.

The Studio a beautifully crafted and keenly observed series that dissects the industry’s near existential crisis, the smartest inside-Hollywood satire since Robert Altman’s The Player.

Watch: Apple TV+

THE PITT

When The Pitt was first announced as a collaboration between actor Noah Wyle and producer John Wells, it sounded like it would be an ER retread. Boy, what an absolute delight to discover the medical drama was not only its own thing, but one of the best new shows this year.

Set in an emergency room in the US city of Pittsburgh, the season is structured as one shift, with each episode accounting for one hour. It seems like chaos as patients roll in and out, but the heart of the show is how it deftly and thoughtfully establishes its characters.

You learn about these people not through exposition dumps but by how they are at work, with each other, with patients.

The signature piece of the season doesn’t come until episode 12 – a mass casualty event – an incredible hour of TV that shouldn’t be missed.

Watch: Max

ANDOR S2

Maybe it’s disrespectful to say that Andor is the Star Wars show for people who aren’t into Star Wars. There’s nothing wrong if you are into Star Wars, but for any casual viewer turned off by the sheer complexity of its existing mythology, you would be remiss to dismiss Andor.

Yes, there’s a little backstory you need to pick up, but it’s worth it. Created by Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, Bourne movies) and with a writers room that includes Beau Willimon (House of Cards), Andor is a searing political drama in conversation with not just our current moment but all the fascistic and dictatorial movements throughout history.

This is a tightly plotted thriller that persuasively tells the story of how rebellions are born from the repressive control of evildoers, and that freedom is not the default, it has to be fought for. One character’s, Mon Mothma, speech decrying disinformation, manipulation and genocide will make your hairs stand up.

Watch: Disney+

SEVERANCE S2

Severance is a puzzle box inside an enigma. If your sole purpose for watching is to discover the truth of what the cult-like company Lumon is up to, then season two provided few answers.

But the show is much more richly rewarding if you focus on that which doesn’t always further the mystery – the question of the wholeness of who we are. If we “sever” our minds between our work selves and our non-work selves, are we ever who we are?

Severance is stylish and compulsive, and the second season had some bonkers moments, some involving Gwendoline Christie and some that didn’t (the excursion, the two Marks fighting, everything with Tramell Tillman).

Watch: Apple TV+

HACKS S3

There’s a pattern to every season of Hacks, which is ageing comic Deborah Vance and Millennial writer Ava Daniels will love and hate each other. They’ll spend a few episodes on opposite sides of their personal war and then realise that they’re better together.

That might sound repetitive but the genius in Hacks is that each of these biffos grow their characters and their relationship, it’s never the same. It might sound ridiculous, but character development is actually not a given in many TV shows, and rarely are they as deep as they are on Hacks.

The series may have started off as another comedy about stand-up but it has evolved to one that is purely character-driven and one that boasts some of the best performances on TV thanks to Jean Smart, Hannah Einbinder, Paul W. Downs and Megan Stalter. A spiky joy to watch.

Watch: Stan

ADOLESCENCE

Perhaps the first thing you heard about Adolescence is that each of its four episodes was filmed in one take, a remarkable technical achievement that will make you exclaim out loud, “Well, how the hell did they pull that off?”.

But then that gives way to how the team behind this superb British series was able to use that to create an unrelenting atmosphere that does not give you any reprieve from the full force of the horrors of its story, that of a 13-year-old boy who is accused of murdering a female schoolmate.

Any parent who watched Adolescence was haunted by what it raised. The spectre of toxic masculinity and online influences are never far from the headlines, but Adolescence was able to distil those anxieties into a gut-punch parable that few will ever forget.

Watch: Netflix

THE LAST OF US S2

The second season of HBO’s elevated zombie dystopia had structural challenges of not being able to tell a bookended, almost complete story, so it was always going to feel like something of a weigh station, something that ails many sophomore and mid-chapter instalments.

Because of the story that’s already been told by the video game the series was based on, most of the season missed the thing that made it so transcendent, the relationship between Pedro Pascal’s Joel and Bella Ramsey’s Ellie. Choices were made, and hopefully the fallout from that will be rewarded in seasons to come.

But this season still makes the list for its elite production values, the performances and an emotionally hefty flashback episode that allowed Pascal and Ramsey to showcase exactly why we love watching them together.

Watch: Max

POKER FACE S2

Natasha Lyonne has madcap energy and irrepressible charisma, which makes her a delight as a human lie detector who can always tell when someone says they’re not a murderer but actually are. There aren’t that many people you want to go on this journey with.

And it is a trip, one that takes Lyonne’s Charlie Cale across working class communities in America, as she stumbles into one crime after another, each imaginative and wild. An alligator with an Oreo addiction? Sure. A killer quintuplet? Of course. An overachieving primary schooler who’s destined to grow up as a sociopathic corporate titan? Absolutely.

There’s a cavalcade of guest stars including Rhea Perlman, Cynthia Erivo and John Cho, but it’s Lyonne who holds it all together. Her Charlie has an open heart and cares about the people she comes across, so we care about them when they’re killed.

Watch: Stan

THE REHEARSAL S2

Nathan Fielder’s willingness to play with form marks him as one of the most interesting people making TV today. You never really know what to expect, and how many people can you really say that about?

With the second season of The Rehearsal, Fielder turns his mercurial mind to a proposition: that airline disasters could be better averted if pilots were better communicators. So, he set to explore whether a gap between the captain and the co-pilot could be bridged with a series of experiments involving a fake reality singing competition, and recreating moments from hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger’s childhood.

The final episode reveals exactly the lengths Fielder is willing to go to, and that level of commitment is not just eye-popping, but speaks to someone who is not creating inside a box.

Watch: Max

ASURA

With an impressive lineage as a remake of a seminal Japanese show that established the template for its family dramas, and a Cannes-winning filmmaker in Hirokazu Kore-eda, Asura makes a persuasive case for why character-driven TV shows are so compulsive.

You don’t cheap thrills and twists when you have beautifully rendered characters and their relationships to each other.

Here, it’s four sisters in 1979 Tokyo whose discovery of their elderly father’s secret love affair with a long-term mistress triggers questions about their own lives and choices.

Watch: Netflix

PARADISE

At first, Paradise looks like every other conspiracy thriller, albeit one with an impressive cast in Sterling K. Brown, James Marsden and Julianne Nicholson. It certainly starts out that way but then it slowly (sometimes a little too slow) reveals itself.

The “twist” happens early, at the end of the first episode, when you realise that the crime you just witnessed (the murder of a former US president) is happening in an underground bunker city built for 30,000 people handpicked to survive the apocalypse.

There’s a murder mystery framing story, but the real meat of Paradise is about the guilt and aftermath of surviving a calamity. It also has one of the most suspenseful episodes of TV this year with a flashback to the day the world ended. Truly riveting stuff.

Watch: Disney+

NARROW ROAD TO THE DEEP NORTH

If you’re going to adapt Richard Flanagan’s Booker Prize-winning novel, then you better get some top-class talent in the form of director Justin Kurzel and his frequent screenwriting partner Shaun Grant.

Starring Jacob Elordi, Ciaran Hinds, Odessa Young and Thomas Weatherill, the story is set across three timelines and follows Dorrigo Evans, a doctor and soldier turned war hero, as he grapples with the identity imposed on him and the guilt he feels about the people he’s let down.

It’s a lush series with stunning photography, especially the harrowing WWII scenes set during the tortured building of the Burma Death Railway, and performances that penetrate.

Watch it: Prime Video

DYING FOR SEX

How can a show about dying from cancer be so warm, funny and, uh, sexy.

Based on a podcast series that was itself about a true story, Michelle Williams plays Molly, a fortysomething woman whose breast cancer returns, and she’s given a terminal prognosis. The first thing she does is leave her helicopter husband who hasn’t touched her in years.

Dying for Sex is risque, bold and more than a little horny, as Molly sets out to explore her desires and kinks, and on the hunt for the one thing she has yet to achieve, an orgasm with someone else.

There’s also a tender plot involving Molly and her best friend, Nikki (Jenny Slate), who despite a chaotic human, is determined to come through when Molly tells her, “I want to die with you”.

Watch: Disney+

LUDWIG

There are puzzle box mysteries and then there is Ludwig, which takes it literally.

Puzzlemaker Ludwig is recruited by his sister-in-law to impersonate his missing twin brother as a police detective to help their investigation into his disappearance. The overarching story is balanced out by cases of the week, as Ludwig uses the specificity of his skills to see the patterns in each crime and nab the culprit.

If you’re attuned to UK comedian David Mitchell’s vibe – dry, quirky, sardonic, slightly cerebral – then detective show Ludwig is going to be for you. It’s charming and funny, and it will cause you zero anxiety.

Watch: 7plus

MURDERBOT

Murderbot is so not what its name implies, although, technically, there are murderous robots. But it’s not the lead, a droll security unit who has hacked his programming to defy his masters.

What he does with his new sentience is less world-conquering and more consuming thousands of hours of bad TV soap operas. He’s also still committed to protecting a group of hippie scientists on a mission on a supposed uninhabited planet, and despite himself, even comes to care for them.

Starring Alexander Skarsgard and adapted from a series of novels, the show is weird and weirdly tender, a low-key comedy with a wry sense of humour.

Watch: Apple TV+