TV Of The Year 2023 - Part 1: Sorry Gave Up, I See The Title, & Lost It
I officially watch too much TV, and I think it’s getting worse as I get older. This chart was chosen from a list of 64 shows, jotted down on the phone and laptop as the year’s gone by. It doesn’t include the staples like Only Connect, University Challenge, Richard Osman’s House Of Games, Have I Got News, Strictly and others which we simply never miss. But somehow other new staples, like Taskmaster and The Traitors merit a mention. They’ll soon get taken for granted, don’t you worry (like The Apprentice, which I forgot to include and now it’s too late to add).
If each show were an average of 6 episodes long and each episode an average of 45 minutes, that means I’ve watched 288 hours of television, plus the ones I just mentioned. That’s eleven solid days spent just watching telly. Actually, put that way, it does’t sound all that bad. As you were, moral panic over.
A lot has been said about Peak TV, or some sort of Golden Age of big budget drama, which may have just come to an end, 2023 having seen a writers strike, an actors strike, and a few financial reckonings for streaming services, who’ve had a decade of explosive expansion without actually turning a profit. I agree that may well be the case, and I’m glad to say I’ve enjoyed it. Will this be the last chart full of big budget drama?
Sorry, Gave Up - Shows we started but only lasted 1 or 2 eps
Managed only one episode of:
Dopesick
Rain Dogs
Secret Invasion
The Gallows Pole
The Last Of Us
+ Party Down (though this is slightly unfair, as it’s a fave show from years ago, but only one ep was free to view)
Managed a few more, but not all, of:
I Am A Virgo
Marie Antoinette
I Hate Suzie Too
Welcome to Wrexham
Good Omens series 2
History of the world part 2
The Rig
Catastrophe
I Clavdivs
I see the title, I can't remember the show
Candy
Pembrokeshire murders
Better
Treason
Lost It - Shows that were Once Great, now not so much
Taskmaster - Just had a bad series, that’s all. Very interesting to see how much chemistry between contestants is part of the game. Let’s just say the unpredictability of one mad Australian and the concerted efforts of a sterling presenter and a trained actor were not enough to compensate for a grumpy old man, and a simpleton.
Ghosts US series 2 - I allowed the first series of this into last year’s Top 10, though clearly it’s not a patch on the British original. However the second series really has lost it, even by their standards. Though a couple of episodes have been good - and given that they produce 22 a year, you’d hope some were - their tendency to “if in doubt create another new ghost” just dilutes the concept too far, and shows lack of imagination. While the original keeps it tight, rarely straying from the 6 central ghosts, the US show now has a car ghost, the captain’s boyfriend, and his boyfriend’s colleague, and the girl in the loft, and the lead character’s mum, and the viking’s son, and a ghost who bullies the viking’s son, and the first nation guy’s girlfriend and… there’s at least 20 spare ghosts rattling about. This doesn’t improve the show.
Guilt 3 - This is only in here as a contrast with the other series that this writer, Neil Forsyth, did this year. Guilt series 1 was excellent, and its follow ups have never matched that. Don’t worry Neil, you’re redeemed further up the table.
Staged series 3 - This was a vital show for the pandemic years, and kept its reason to live going for a second series. But the third series was pointless and knew it.
The Goodies - These have been re-run on a channel called That’s TV and, in most cases, we were seeing them for the first time in fifty years. Suffice it to say that the favourite comedy show of my childhood hasn’t aged well. Parts of it remain excellent, and I laughed out loud at such things as Ecky Thump and Kitten Kong. And it’s not overwhelmed by sexism and racism, but there’s a bit too much of it to remain comfortable (the ‘humorous’ name suggested for a black racehorse was a particularly noticeable bleeped line, and the full frontal nudity in another episode was eye-opening for something you’d remembered as a kids’ show). But, on balance, the pun-heavy music-hall knockabout comedy and contemporary references have not stood the test of time as well as other sitcoms of that era. I’m still glad I re-watched them, it’s been an education.
Loki 2 - The biggest drop in writing quality of the year, by far. I’m told it’s because the show runner of season 1 went off to write the next Avengers movie. All I can say is that that movie had better be good. Because this show had the biggest chasm between size of budget (it was big, and all up there on the screen) and quality of writing to merit it. Returning to the Peak TV subject, it’s significant that this is the only Marvel show in my list, compared to the three that made the chart in 2022.
So, what were my Top 40 TV Shows of 2023? Here are numbers 40 to 21...
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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