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Tom's Guide
I've watched 30 shows this year — here's the 5 best and 5 worst
By Malcolm McMillan,
1 day ago
When your job is watching TV shows (and movies), you have to watch a lot of TV shows.
So far this year, I've watched over 30 seasons of new TV. Some of it was good and some of it was even great. But, unfortunately, some of it was pretty bad. The worst show on this list? I couldn't even finish it. I got a few episodes in and just couldn't do it anymore.
The good news for you is that since I've already watched all these TV shows you don't have to suffer through the bad to get to the good. Here are my five best — and five worst — TV shows of 2024 so far. I even included links so you can stream the bad ones in case you're a glutton for punishment.
My 5 favorite shows of 2024 (so far)
5. 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' season 1 (Prime Video)
I was hyped for "Mr. & Mrs. Smith." I love most of what Donald Glover does, and while I was sad to see Phoebe Waller-Bridge leave the project, I was excited for Maya Erskine to co-star in this Prime Video TV show. I even wrote about it for our most anticipated new shows of 2024 preview.
After watching it, I can confirm it lived up to the hype. In my review of the first season, I called it "the most enjoyable show I've watched so far in 2024." And honestly, it still might be. It's not the best show of the year but the mission of the week structure works and has broad appeal. It's honestly as much "Suits" as it is James Bond. Plus, the episode "Couples Therapy (Naked & Afraid)" is one of the best episodes of TV I've seen all year. So go ahead and binge the entire first season now.
Not many shows have held the top spot on my list of the best TV shows this year. But for a brief moment, "3 Body Problem" was the best show of 2024 so far . While it no longer holds that top spot, it clearly still ranks highly for me. Despite its flaws, including several surprisingly weak performances from its cast, this science fiction thriller is riveting. It also has one of the best episodes of TV this year — "Judgement Day" — which earned four Emmy nominations on its own this year.
Plus, while some of the performances are lackluster, others are not. Liam Cunningham's performance as Wade, the mysterious leader of a secret multinational intelligence agency, is worth watching on its own and every time he and Benedict Wong are on screen together you can't help but pay attention.
It's probably fitting that my experience with "Ripley" had its twists and turns. through the first two-and-a-half episodes of this adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's "The Talented Mr. Ripley," I was often bored despite the show's high production value. But for the remaining five-and-a-half episodes it was quite possibly the best TV show of the year.
In fact, it's still the best limited series of the year so far, something the Emmy voters seem to agree with me on. The Steve Zaillian-led Netflix miniseries racked up 13 nominations this year, including Best Limited or Anthology Series and acting nominations for Andrew Scott and Dakota Fanning. It also picked up several other nominations for writing, directing, design, cinematography and more. While not the best show of the year so far, it's probably the most gorgeous to watch.
I had zero interest in this show going into the year. None. But then I ended up on parental leave and a newborn that sleeps multiple times a day. So I finally bit the bullet and queued up "Tokyo Vice." This crime drama set in Japan is based on the real life of journalist Jake Adelstein, an American reporter for a Japanese publication (played by Ansel Elgort in the show). Within probably two weeks I finished the entire two-season run. It was just that good.
Elgort's performance is admittedly simply fine as Adelstein, but a few of the Japanese cast members of "Tokyo Vice" steal the show. Ken Watanabe as Hiroto Katagiri, a veteran detective the organized crime division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department is fantastic, as is Sho Kasamatsu as Akiro Sato, the young enforcer in the Chihara-kai yakuza clan who Jake befriends in season 1.
The star of the show, though, is undoubtedly Ayumi Tanida as Shinzo Tozawa, leader of the Tozawa yakuza. A periphery character in season 1, he is the villain of season 2 and gives a memorable performance from start to finish, hitting his apex in episode 8 — "The Noble Path" — which is the best episode of the series and one of the best episodes I've seen all year.
I laid down my marker for " Shogun " as a potential best show of 2024 all the way back in 2023 when I saw the first trailer. In both our most anticipated new shows of 2024 preview and in my personal list of the most anticipated shows I claimed that FX might have the next "Game of Thrones."
Well, even I didn't quite expect how well-received the first season would be. The show was a massive hit for FX, was given a second season despite being a limited series at first and received an astounding 25 Emmy nominations. And it's all deserved. "Shogun" nails the blend of action, violence, verbal jousting and political machinations that made "Game of Thrones" an all-time great.
I could go on and on, but I'll leave you with this: of all the shows that came out this year, "Shogun" will be the one that lives on.
This show really had my attention when I saw the trailer. A TV show based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning book? On HBO? Starring Robert Downey Jr. in multiple roles? Sign me up!
Unfortunately, the show just never found its footing. Some episodes were good, and there were times were it felt like compelling TV with high production value and a talented cast. But for the most part, the show was discordant, confusing and — worst of all — boring. By the end, I wasn't entirely sure what I had even watched. So while I've seen some shows this year that weren't as well made as "The Sympathizer" I've watched very few that I enjoyed less.
This show wasn't nearly as clever as it thought it was. Spoiler alert: I'm going to spoil the show in the next few paragraphs. I'm sorry, but there's a choice made in this show that is critical to understanding why it's one of the worst shows I've watched this year. If you don't want to know, skip on to the next show in the list. Here's a link to the show in case you still want to watch it.
Okay, ready? Here it goes. So, " Sugar " is, presumably, about John Sugar (Colin Farrell), a private eye in Los Angeles who is incredible at his job. He's hired to find the daughter of a Hollywood legend and the twists and turns of the case lead to a bittersweet, tragic ending.
Oh, and he's an alien.
Yes, you read that correctly. Turns out that our private eye is also an alien who is here to observe humanity but finds out that some of his fellow aliens are working with the bad guys.
Now here's the thing: either of these premises could work. The problem is it doesn't work when you do the first premise for most of the show and then the second premise for the final three episodes. The show creators may have thought this was really clever and edgy but ultimately it just wasted Colin Farrell's acting talent.
When Apple announced its 2024 lineup , "Palm Royale" was another show that had me excited. Set in 1960s Plam Beach, it looked like a gorgeous period piece with a talented cast that would artfully balance drama and comedy. But after watching 10 episodes, including a season finale that frustratingly ended on a cliffhanger, I wish I hadn't pressed play on episode 1.
To be fair, it is still a gorgeous period piece. I don't have a problem with many of the show's 11 Emmy nominations, as they're for costumes, makeup, music, etc. However, I don't see how anyone watched all 10 episodes of this show and felt it merited a nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, as well as acting nominations for Kristen Wiig's uneven lead performance and Carol Burnett's supporting performance, especially given Burnett doesn't even talk for a majority of the season. At one point the show literally jumps the shark (okay, it's a CGI whale).
To sum up my thoughts on this show, I'll just leave you with my review of episode 8. "This show has completely lost its mind."
If you read/listen/watch a lot of TV criticism, a complaint that will sometimes come up about a show is that it feels like reading a Wikipedia article. I would have rather read the Wikipedia articles about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and the subsequent manhunt for John Wilkes Booth than watch "Manhunt."
This show has to be the most boring show I've ever seen. There was little engaging about the acting performances of the show, led by Tobias Menzies as U.S. Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. And the show seemed more focused on lionizing Stanton than it did on the titular manhunt for Lincoln's killer. I would not recommend it to anyone, for any reason.
Have you ever asked yourself, "What if "Veep" wasn't funny?" Well, if you watch "The Regime," you'll no longer need to ask that question. Created by "Succession" writer Will Tracy, this HBO show stars Kate Winslet as Elena Vernham, the dictator of a fictional Central European country. Winslet is one of many talented actors on this show, none of whose performances I enjoyed.
I'm not entirely sure why this show didn't work, other than it failed to lean into being a dark comedy or a gripping drama. Instead, it just portrayed the sad reality of life in an authoritarian state with an unqualified leader. Regardless, I watched the first two episodes and as of this writing, have failed to convince myself to watch a third.
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