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Movies & TV

30th Dec 2021

The 10 best TV shows of 2021

Rory Cashin

If you’ve missed any of these, now is the time to play catch-up…

Goodbye 2021, you absolute dumpster fire of a year.

Despite it being a generally horrid 12 months, it did have some rays of sunshine.

Specifically, very good movies and very good video games and – why you’re all here – very good TV shows.

Your pals at The Big Reviewski have chosen their 10 favourite shows of the year, and you can watch that countdown in full right here:

Or you can read our list right here:

The Chair

Available to watch on Netflix.

It isn’t the sexiest synopsis in the world:

Sandra Oh is hired as the first female chair of the English department of a prestigious American university, right around the same time one of the lecturers finds himself at the centre of an online scandal.

But trust us when we tell you it is very funny, very smart and – at barely 30 minutes per episode – bingeable in a single afternoon.

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson: Season 2

Available to watch on Netflix.

A sketch comedy show that usually clocks in around 15 or 20 minutes per episode (so, again, you could watch both seasons in a single day), this takes some surreal turns with the humour, so you’d better strap in tight.

Also, the roster of guest stars this season is phenomenal.

Invincible

Available to watch on Prime Video.

While there will be plenty of arguments about which Marvel show was the best, the actual best superhero show of 2021 was this violent, rule-breaking animated show with the greatest voice cast imaginable.

What would you do if your dad was basically Superman?

And then what would you do if you found out he was Superman but without a love for humanity?

It’s A Sin

Available to watch on All 4.

Arriving in January of this year, but we still feel like we’ve barely emotionally recovered from it.

Telling the story of three best friends who head to London in the early eighties to live their best LGBTQ+ lives, which happened to be during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Brilliant but heartbreaking.

Mare of Easttown

Available to watch on NOW.

Kate Winslet fronts this murder-mystery set in a small, everybody-knows-everybody-else’s-business town, with the community effectively ripped apart by a series of attacks on young women.

As great a character study as it is a whodunnit, Winslet is superbly supported by Jean Smart, Evan Peters, Guy Pearce and Julianne Nicholson.

Only Murders in the Building

Available to watch on Disney+.

A very funny skewering of the world’s collective love of podcasts that focus on solving crimes, three neighbours – Steve Martin, Martin Short, Selena Gomez – decide to set up their own one when someone is killed in their swanky Manhattan apartment complex.

Arguably the best and funniest thing Steve Martin has been a part of in over 20 years.

Succession: Season 3

Available to watch on NOW.

We thought this show couldn’t get any better.

We were wrong.

Squid Game

Available to watch on Netflix.

Yes, the Parasite comparisons were both (A) lazy and (B) inaccurate, but this tense South Korean thriller had us consistently on the edge of our seats, filled with that giddy feeling of having no idea where it was going to go next.

Believe the hype.

WandaVision

Available to watch on Disney+.

Who would have thought that Marvel would take the very concept of the sitcom and turn it inside out, morphing it into the vessel through which we’d watch an incredible portrayal of grief and denial?

Featuring the best performance by anyone in the MCU to date (Elisabeth Olsen), as well as the best scene-stealer (Katherine Hahn), this turned out to be infinitely better than we would’ve imagined.

The White Lotus

Available to watch on NOW.

Much like its HBO sibling Succession, this focuses on rich people behaving badly, and sometimes (but only sometimes) getting their comeuppance.

While the all-star cast uniformly bring their A-game, we have to give a special shout-out to the iconic Jennifer Coolidge for remaining hilarious, but undercutting it with a level of deep sadness that ensures her character stays with you forever.

Clips via HBO and Prime Video

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