TV Of The Year 2023 - 20 to 11
We’ve already seen the shows of 2023 that I Gave Up on, couldn’t remember, or thought had Lost It, and 40 to 21. Now from 20 to 11…
20 - Nolly (ITVX)
Russell T Davies’s splendid telling of the true story of Noele Gordon’s last days on Crossroads. A slight story, about characters few people remember, brilliantly told.
19 - Winning Time The Lakers Dynasty (Now TV)
Another true story, this one succeeding in making me interested in the fate of a team of American basketball players, and the unloveable people surrounding them in the murky world of LA sport and celebrity. In truth I have no idea what the coaches and players are talking about half the time, but the skill of the writing is that that doesn’t matter. It weaves their stories into a drama not unlike a Shakespearian history play, all conquering kings and backstabbing princes. With one of the most original visual treatments I’ve seen for many years.
18 - Blue Lights (BBC)
A domestic cop show set in Belfast doesn’t sound like it’s going to score high on my list, especially on a BBC budget with a soap opera approach to its look and feel. But it gripped from the start and felt real throughout.
17 - Black Ops (BBC)
A BBC comedy drama about undercover cops again doesn’t sound like a winner, but the excellent turns by its two leads were what made it work. The fact that co-star Gbemisola Ikumelo is also one of the co writers is almost as impressive as the fact that it’s not her last appearance in this chart, and not in a British film. I am tempted to say we may have a new
Phoebe Waller-Bridge on our hands.
16 - The Change (Channel 4)
Is this Channel 4’s only show to make it onto my list? I think it may be. Bridget Christie’s excellent comedy drama managed to be funny, original, and sympathetic to the plight of the menopausal woman who thinks she’s losing it. And parts of it were filmed in Chepstow, which is a bit of a rarity for our little town, so we revel in it when it happens.
15 - Such Brave Girls (BBC)
A delight for me to stumble across, because its creator and star Kat Sadler was in The Sitcom Trials back in 2016, and I’m sure I predicted big things for her then. From the whole school of BBC Three comedy, which I’m finding largely non-plussing or no intended for me, this stood out as the strongest. Mental health is a hard thing to make funny (as BBC Three has a go at proving at least once in every commissioning round) but this managed to do so with delicacy and originality. I’d go so far as to say we may have a new Miranda or Holly Walsh on our hands.
14 - Painkiller (Netflix)
A true story again, one that I’d not only learned in an excellent podcast this year, but that I’d seen tackled not very well in Dopesick (see my Gave Up, Sorry list), and thought it was just too hard to make into a TV story. This adaptation managed it, telling the story of the Purdue Pharma Oxycontin scandal, through a mix of invented and combined characters, and a well constructed framework. The mix of real life speeches to camera and the immersive drama, some of which even drifted into surreal fantasy and drug induced hazes, made a compelling end result.
13 - Unbelievable (Netflix)
Yet another true story, and one that, thanks to its dreadful one-word title, very nearly had me consign it to the “I See The Title But…” pile. Then I remembered it was the brilliant, and chilling, story of a woman who survived a serial rapist, then had her story gaslit out of her by the police. And it’s only in researching this paragraph that I have discovered that Kaitlyn Dever, star of Unbelievable, is a totally different person from Julia Garner, star of Inventing Anna, who I have been certain was the same actor we’d been watching in both shows. I can only apologise.
12 - Welcome to Chippendales (Disney)
Continuing our run of true stories, this was another I’d managed to not know about. The creation of the Chippendales stripper troupe, and the scandals and indeed deaths that surrounded them. You know, the more I see about the world of show business in Los Angeles (see also Winning Time, Pam & Tommy etc) the less attractive I find it.
11 - A League of Their Own (Amazon)
One of the shows that’s been robbed of its second series by a mixture of the writers strike and other factors. Such a shame, as this was the loveliest ensemble team show, with an almost all female cast, and creative team, and a delight to be enjoying a show with no guns or death, on the whole. And our second appearance by Gbemisola Ikumelo in the list, this time playing such a convincing southern American that much googling was needed to establish she is genuinely an English actor. She studied in Edinburgh, don’t you know. I’ve probably flyered her before now.
And what's my Top Ten TV of 2023? Here it comes...
My Top TV of... 2021 2020 2019 2018 • 2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2011 • 2009
My Books and where to get them:
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