Top 12 Shows of 2021
12.What We Do in The Shadows
While there was no Jackie Daytona this year, there was an episode in which the gang heads to Atlantic City where Nandor has an existential crisis and plays a slot machine because it’s themed after The Big Bang Theory. It continues to remain a tremendous way to spend a few hours with the bonus of Kristen Schaal to the best comedic ensemble on TV.
(All episodes are currently streaming on Hulu. Season four will be hitting FX at some point)
11. South Side
South Side should have been the next big Comedy Central hit, a love letter to Chicago with writers and staff members understanding what makes the city so special. Not since 30 Rock has there been a show that consistently features joke after joke in a short amount of time, that it takes a few viewings to collect everything. Even with the move to HBO Max and the extra 5–10 minutes per episode now, the show hasn’t lost its comedic beats (Ambulance is an all timer). Let’s hope the new year begins with a third season renewal of this underrated masterpiece.
10. Reservation Dogs
A group of Indigenous teenagers dream of better days by saving up money and stealing trucks of potato chips to move out to California in the Hulu dramedy. The entire cast, writing staff, and production are all from Indigenous backgrounds with Oklahoma’s 1491 comedy troupe all being involved.
(All episodes are currently streaming on Hulu. A second season is currently in production)
9. Tuca and Bertie
Wrongly canceled by Netflix, Adult Swim swooped in to give the show the second life it deserves examining toxic codependent relationships, insomnia, and gaslighting. A highlight for both the season and series was “Nighttime Friend” in which Tuca travels the city around Bird Town that highlights Lisa Hanawalt tremendous art style with dark blue colors and shades of melancholy atmosphere.
(Season One of Tuca and Bertie is on Netflix. Episodes of Season Two are available on Adult Swim’s website with the entire season hitting HBO Max in January. Season three will air on Adult Swim in 2022)
8. Yellowjackets
One minute it’s a coming-of-age sports drama about a high school women’s soccer league competition for a national title, the next is a full-blown survival horror series. The true terror of the series comes from the spontaneousness of the show’s graphic violence (ex. Someone intentionally breaks another teammate’s leg during soccer practice in the pilot with a bone sticking out of the leg. If that’s an uncomfortable image, it gets worse). If you’re in the market for the next Lost or Hannibal, I can’t recommend this enough.
(All episodes are currently streaming on Showtime with a second season ordered. CW: Contains graphic violence and gore)
7. History of the Atlanta Falcons
The Secret Base video team made another long format documentary series chronicling the events that led to the infamous Super Bowl back in 2017. With testimonials from staff members that either grew up watching the team, playing Michael Vick in Madden football, or someone that witnessed the team’s collapse at the Super Bowl, the History of the Atlanta Falcons is a spectacular tragedy that will leave viewers walking away with a greater appreciation of the team and its players.
(All episodes are streaming on YouTube)
6. Joe Pera Talks With You/How To With John Wilson
Here’s a fun experiment to try, show either of these programs to an audience that has no idea who Joe Pera or John Wilson is and see what their reactions are to either show (I think good entry points are “Sits With You” for Joe Pera and “Remember Your Dreams” for John Wilson). Both shows introduce audiences to their world and ways of life through topics like how to appreciate wine, finding/crafting the perfect chair and how to find a parking spot in a crowded city like New York. They continue to remain some of TV’s best comfort food, with John Wilson’s show highlighting the powers of what fandom can mean for someone when they need to find a sense of community and worth in someone’s life and Joe Pera showing activities on how to combat the cold weather and keeping oneself sane during the shorter days of the year.
(All episodes of How to With John Wilson are streaming on HBO Max. Joe Pera Talks With You can be found on Adult Swim’s website with the entire third season dropping on HBO Max in early January)
5. Succession
Accidental dick pics, fear of drinking toilet wine, and a potential lawsuit threating to bring down the entire Roy family, the third season of the HBO series features some of the darkest comedy this show has produced yet with some truly moving work from Jeremy Strong and Brian Cox. Let’s hope HBO finds a way to wrap the series in a way that much the quality of the past three seasons.
(All episodes are streaming on HBO Max. A fourth season will be airing on HBO at some point)
4. For All Mankind
An alternative history about the United States losing the space race to the USSR, season two tries to push getting astronauts to Mars and establishing life on the moon. Part of the fun is seeing what Matt Wolpert, Ben Nedivi and Battlestar Galactica showrunner, Ronald D. Moore, maintain from the history books and what gets tossed out (i.e. John Lennon lives in this timeline and Nixon gets pardoned, but we’ve never gotten to have life on the moon to begin with) The season finale involves a hostile takeover of the American moon base by the Soviets in what is one of the most batshit crazy episodes of television you’ll find that aired this year.
(All episodes are streaming on Apple TV+. A third season is currently in production)
3. Invincible
Invincible feels like the next step for western animation to finally make it the coveted hour-long drama. With incredible performances by JK Simmons Sandra Oh and Steven Yeun, Invincible shows the side of superheroes that rarely gets seen; how painful it can be to call oneself a hero. As Mark develops his powers and struggles to maintain being a superhero while wrapping up his high school experience, he slowly learns who is on his side and who is causing for chaos to be unleashed. The season finale highlights a pivotal moment from the comics, one that could only be done in an animated setting. I look forward to seeing where the show goes next, and the weekly format did wonders for the show’s popularity something that Prime Video should have considered for the next show.
(All episodes are currently streaming on Prime Video. Two additional seasons will be airing at some point)
2. The Underground Railroad
It’s straight up bullshit Amazon dropped an entire 10-hour Barry Jenkins series with little promotion or fanfare (it was dropped two weeks before the 2021 Emmy’s due date, and after that Amazon washed their hands of it). Jenkins continues to be one of the best filmmakers in the business right now. This should have been the next “Twin Peaks: The Return” or “Watchmen” levels of engagement as people gathered around week to week to watch a new chapter of this excellent miniseries. The series follows Cora Randall (Thuso Mbedu) as she tries to escape slavery through a literal underground railroad that takes her across America. With some of the best-looking set pieces and cinematography television offered this year with a robust sound design (watch this one with headphones there’s a heartbreaking dream sequence in episode eight that really highlights the show’s strengths), this show deserved better.
(All episodes are currently streaming on Prime Video. CW: Contains graphic violence)
- Hacks
It’s a week after my birthday. I just spent the past 16 days working nonstop through my various day jobs and freelancing work clocking in at roughly 12 to 15-hour workdays. I finally have a free minute and an opportunity to sleep in. I wake up and immediately checked Instagram, the first photo of which is Samantha Berkman performing at the comedy show she co-created with her friend Tessa Orzech that they ran for nearly five years every Monday night.
I was devastated when Sam died, how can someone so funny be gone soon? During this hell storm, HBO Max started releasing episodes of Hacks, a show that features Jean Smart and a rising comedian in Hannah Einbinder butting heads with each other trying to write new material. It was a welcome light in a dark tunnel.
Throughout the ten episodes Ava and Deborah do their best to try new stand-up material for themselves, some of it bombs and other times it hits. Jean Smart remains to be one of the funniest people working in Hollywood (and she’s been battling the same chronic illness as me for 57 years). The show masterfully walks a fine line between its dark comedy and dramatic tensions.
More importantly what really stuck with me since the conclusion of the show’s first season is it’s a show about loss. Everyone in the main cast loses something important to them, the pilot opens with Ava dealing with losing everything, her job, her relationship and then two people pass away. Deborah loses her stand-up residency at the club she performs at in Vegas. Marcus, Deborah’s assistant, loses himself to the work as he feels he’s responsible for keeping the lights on for Deborah’s career.
The eighth episode and the best one yet focuses on women in comedy being heckled out of the industry or assaulted through shitty comedy promoters. There’s a moment when Deborah gets up on stage talking about how she wanted to do new material that night, but she couldn’t because she was “exhausted from beating everyone else to the punch” and “didn’t want to be the butt of the joke” due to a comedy promoter bullying every woman comic that was performing. The scene ends with a powerful F bomb and my favorite line of the year:
After Hacks wrapped up in the summer, Tessa brought back Camp for a limited run at the Lincoln Lodge. I went to the first show, and for 90 minutes it was some of Chicago’s best comedians telling jokes and sharing stories about Sam or what they experienced during COVID. No one in the audience heckled or gave the comedians that were performing problems. For a brief period that most normal experience I got to have since the pandemic first started back in March of 2020 when I last got to see Sam do stand up.
Sam may be gone from this Earth, but the work that her and Tessa did with Camp gets to live on. Sarah Squirm got cast for Saturday Night Live this past summer, Ashley-Ray Harris got a mini special with HBO Max as a part of Pride Month, Megan Stalter who plays Kayla on Hacks got to be featured in a recurring role, previously being a Chicago staple in the stand-up comedy scene. These were all tremendously funny people. I hope I get to see more people that performed at CAMP in the next season.
(All episodes are currently streaming on HBO Max, a second season will be airing at some point)
More so than ever (especially with these streaming services coming out), there were a hand full of shows that I enjoyed or looked interesting that I just didn’t have the time to watch. Rather than get mad, here’s a list of shows that I will be keeping an eye throughout the next year to try and catch up on before their new seasons start. Honorable mentions are for shows that I started but didn’t finish in time before this list gets published.
Honorable Mentions: Blindspotting, Only Murders in the Buildings, Squid Game
Shows I Wanted To Check Out But Didn’t Have The Time To Do So: Dickinson, Evil, The Expanse, Foundation, Get Back, The Great, MacGruber, Mare of Easttown, Ted Lasso, Voir, We are Lady Parts, The White Lotus
