14 best TV shows in 2021

It’s hard to find room for everything I love on my list of the best shows of the year. In 2021, it feels especially tough, because streamers compete to outdo each other, they are creating overlapping programs. Sometimes that’s interesting. My constant affection for old, cranky comedians takes me from the 15th season of Our Old Standby Curb your enthusiasm, are from Larry David, come Pretend it’s a city and There are only murders in the building, both take the elders of comedy and put them in new formats—Fran Lebowitz as Martin Scorsesedinner guests’ favorites; Steve Martin and Martin Short as the host of a true crime podcast. Sometimes it’s less enjoyable—like when dozens of our favorite books or old shows are turned into major adaptations for streaming services, leaving TVs flooded with major remakes. and flawed, not necessarily bad but feels harvested from whatever makes the source material magical.

This year, because many productions delayed by COVID-19 were dropped immediately, it’s easier for us to think of shows as the genres they fit into. Even on my top 10 list, I see a lot of overlap: shows about the bad behavior of the very rich, characters haunted by past trauma, murder mysteries. people with unique backgrounds, period dramas with a flair for historical retelling and — my personal favorite highly in the niche subcategory — the maturation of young South Asian women. But maybe this is how TV works today when generated by algorithms — the inevitable effect of the “because you like…” recommendation engine. Either way, these are the shows that have risen to the top for me this year.

From the creators Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi, This unusual comedy is set on a reservation in the Oklahoma Indian after a group of four teenagers are trying to run away from the place where they grew up. They are truants and thieves, but underneath their tough exterior, they are haunted by the narrow scope of rez lives, the failures of the adults in their lives, and most of all. , tragic ending of recent suicide in part five of their group. The four work together to amass cash for a move to California, but in this magical adventure through life rez, nothing is predictable. Suffer (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai) began seeing images of a dead warrior from the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Dallas Goldtooth), a comedic character rather than a hero, while Cheese (Lane coefficient) strikes a surprise alliance with the reserve’s police officer, Big (Zahn McClarnon). The most prominent character is Elora, do Devery Jacobs, who moves from the periphery of the story to the center as her grief becomes a driving force that changes her life forever. This part is almost too small to be a full story, but that part, filmed entirely in Oklahoma, is too compelling to be ignored.

13. Invincible

Below Amazon’s deceptively simple animation Invincible is a vehemently cynical superhero story that at its core features one of the best cast and emotionally tortured family dynamics on television: Steven Yeun as the teenage superhero Invincible, Sandra Oh as his non-superhero mom, and JK Simmons as Omni-Man, his father – the strongest man on Earth, and an obvious Superman analogy – who has decided to destroy everything that stands in his way and complete dominion over the world . The story gathers episodic revelations up until the final few episodes of the first season, when everything piles up on the central trilogy like a ton of bricks. We’ve seen Simmons do superhero work before, but hearing Yeun and Oh go for the range of strong heroism and villains is amazing, and Invincible bring both characters to the brink. In a world saturated with superhero stories, Invincible, like sister program Boys, provides a proper adaptation of the heroic characters in the technical color of the masked men. Additional talents include fixed voice performance Jason Mantzoukas, comedy i love Gillian Jacobs, and Atlanta breakout star Zazie Beetz.