Your Weekly Watchlist

Dear Wags,

Honestly, the minds of our TV squad are not on the past, but on what lies ahead. Setting aside distractions for a moment, what will we be thinking about in December of 2024? What if the dread percolating in our stomachs becomes reality? There’s a looming hazard, which has a name, an address, and a dreadful hairdo. It’s time to accept that a divine lightning bolt won’t strike it down.

We put ourselves in this pickle. Have you noticed that context has become a dirty word lately? It’s the new both-sidesing — a cudgel used to pound anybody who tries to acknowledge that our problems are complicated. We no longer seek to understand so that we may be understood; We want to obliterate to get our own way. That’s been corrosive to our mediating institutions, and especially toxic to journalism. Play the game by a bully’s rules, and demagogues come out on top.

It turns out that context is pretty consequential. Abandon it, and you concede that pluralism is a farce, consensus is impossible, and that only domination matters. How many ways are there to say the bad guys win?

If we want things be better in 2024, we should consider why we keep falling into the same traps. If diversity is our strength and not a fatal weakness, it requires us to see past polarizing issues and recall our higher values. It shouldn’t take a cataclysm to do that, only a measure of courage. Here’s hoping more of us find it in the year ahead.

Meantime, let’s celebrate the best of what we watched. We’re still capable of making great things on a small canvas. Time to go big.

Yours Ever,

CultureWag

The Bear

Christopher Storer’s sweaty little show about the restaurant trade got even better in its second season. How could we forget Fishes, a spectacularly bleak Christmas dinner episode showcasing Jamie Lee Curtis as an unhinged matriarch? For all the pyrotechnics, The Bear slowed down and humanized its characters this year—sweetness is its secret sauce. Not only has the series made Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy Allen White stars, it gave us Ebon Moss-Bachrach singing Taylor Swift’s Love Story. Now, that was sweet. — Babette Hersant

Beef

Two strangers meet ugly, and a venomous feud spirals from there. Creator Lee Sung Jin seemed to bottle all the pain and bitterness of 2023 in this magnificent two-hander. Ali Wong and Steven Yeun were terrific as thwarted people trying to work through their issues by working one another over. This War of the Roses was twisty, hilarious, and one of the best Netflix shows, ever. —Gavin D’Amato

Somebody Somewhere

Bridget Everett’s valentine to Manhattan, Kansas is a low-key charmer. Its characters flail around, trying to find happiness in a hard world, lean on one another, and then flail around some more. They do it all in a most understated Midwestern way—except when Everett belts out a showstopper. Jeff Hiller, as her buddy, and Mary Catherine Garrison as her firecracker sister, are a delight. — Francesca Johnson

Endeavour

All good things come to an end, and Endeavour, the prequel to the 1987-2000 detective series Inspector Morse, went out magnificently. In nine seasons, creator Russell Lewis rendered an acutely observed homage to an eternal character. As the brainy title sleuth, Shaun Evans portrayed a man often at war with himself. The finale episode, Exuent, gave each member of an engaging ensemble (Roger Allam, Anton Lesser, Sean Rigby, Abigail Thaw, and Sara Vickers, among others) their moment in the sun. Consider all mysteries solved — and available for binging on Prime. —Kay Buchan

Shrinking

Amiable Television, as opposed to Important Television, or Idiotic Television, is thin on the ground. Jason Segel, Brett Goldstein, and Bill Lawrence got the mix right with Shrinking, about a therapist and a widower (Segel) trying to pull himself out of depression and repair his relationship with his kid (Lukita Maxwell). An assured variation on familiar themes, it was powered by worthies Jessica Williams, Harrison Ford, Christa Miller, Michael Urie, Lily Rabe and Luke Tennie. Welcome to the golden age of grief comedy. — Brooke Taylor

Beckham

Amid a surfeit of sports docs, this series about the world’s most photogenic footballer scored. David Beckham—humble, compulsive (his closet organizing skills would shame Marie Kondo) and devoted to family—is hugely likable. Fisher Stevens chronicled a brilliant career, but the warmth of the Beckhams won over many who couldn’t care less about the beautiful game. —Jesminder K. Bhamra

Reservation Dogs

Critics have been banging on about Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi’s gem of a series for three seasons—mostly to crickets. It was worth listening to them, because what began as a wry comedy about teens on an Oklahoma reservation concluded its three-season run as a soulful meditation on finding your place in the world. May its young leads — Paulina Alexis, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Devery Jacobs, and Lane Factor — never want for work. — Reagan Wells

Poker Face

Rian Johnson knows his Columbo. In Poker Face, he created an homage to the greatest mystery series of the 1970s, with Natasha Lyonne as a schlubby sleuth, solving murders thanks to her ability to detect lies. The killers were all Very Special Guest Stars, while Benjamin Bratt chased her across the country as a mob enforcer. Like its inspiration, the show framed its first act around the murderer, so you couldn’t help but root for the crook to get away with it. Not a chance! — Beth Davenport

Dead Ringers

Confession: We found the original 1988 David Cronenberg thriller, which starred Jeremy Irons as twins based on real-life gynecologists Stewart and Cyril Marcus, too creepy to bear. Alice Birch’s reinvention changed the gender of the doctors, giving Rachel Weisz the roles of a lifetime as Beverly and Elliot Mantle. No pale reboot, it’s a perfectly twisted addition to the evil twin canon. —Frieda Gellhorn

Succession

What did we all guess from the start? That deluded Kendall Roy (Jeremy Strong) would never inherit the empire created by his despotic dad, Logan (Brian Cox). That his kid brother Roman (Kieran Culkin) was a terminal screw-up. That sharp, self-defeating Shiv (Sarah Snook) would be hoisted by her own petard. And, if you really thought about it, that unctuous suit Tom Wambsgans (Matthew MacFadyen) actually earned his cursed American dream. Jesse Armstrong’s satire of media, media dynasties, and the poisonous way we live now is a masterpiece. — Meyer Wolfsheim