As we wind down the year and look to the promise that 2024 brings, let’s take a look back at the best 2024 TV shows.
From promising new series to returning shows that build on impressive foundations, 2024 featured a stunning TV slate. Before diving into the cream of the crop, let’s dive into a few honorable mentions.
Here’s a look back at 2023’s best TV shows.
Honorable Mentions
- Cobra Kai: The sixth season loses some steam due to Netflix’s release strategy that beaks the story into unnecessarily short chunks but shines due to creative fight sequences and fun plot twists.
- Cross: The chemistry between Aldis Hodge and Isaiah Mustafa shines in Amazon’s reboot of the Alex Cross character.
- Bad Monkey: Bill Lawrence‘s hot streak on Apple TV Plus with Ted Lasso and Shrinking continues with this Florida-set, irreverent crime drama featuring a top-notch Vince Vaughn performance.
- Nobody Wants This: The chemistry between Kristen Bell and Adam Brody is undeniable in this sweet, fun rom-com Netflix series.
- Skeleton Crew: Jon Watts injecting some Amblin energy into Star Wars leads to the best series set in a Galaxy, Far, Far Away this year.
Top 10 Best 2024 TV Shows
10. Agatha All Along
Agatha All Along is an excellent witchy successor to WandaVision and allows Kathryn Hahn to shine in the title role.
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Agatha Hartness, at the behest of a mysterious teenager, forms an uneasy coven with five other witches to reclaim her powers and avoid death. Together, this coven must travel down the Witches’ Road. To complete the journey, they must tackle different tests.
Adding some much-appreciated menace to the series is Aubrey Plaza as Death. The other witches in the coven know very little about Agatha. Death knows Agatha down to her core, which forces Agatha to confront her feelings for Teen and battle her past.
Teen is the heart of the series. When the series begins, Teen’s past is hidden from him by a hex. Throughout the season, he comes to grips with who his mother is and begins a quest to find his brother. Joe Locke is excellent.
The injection of Death in the series forces Agatha off her game and allows Hahn to bring shades to Agatha.
9. X-Men ’97
X-Men ’97 continues the story where X-Men: The Animated Series left off. Charles Xavier is gone. He’s left the school and the X-men under the leadership of Magneto.
The conflict between Cyclops and Magneto is terrific throughout. Cyclops is trying to lead in the manner Charles would prefer while fearing impending fatherhood. To his credit, Magneto does try to follow his fallen friends example and shows restraint for the most part.
Episode 5: Remember It is one of the best episodes of 2024. Magneto, Rogue, and Gambit travel to Genosha, where sentinels attack them. Gambit makes a brutal final stand to protect the mutant nation.
The animation is also terrific and captures the feel of the ’90s series.
8. Superman and Lois
Superman and Lois closes out its four-season run on the CW with an incredible final season.
This mature take on Superman thrives on the husband-wife partnership between Clark and Lois. Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch are fantastic as Clark and Lois face several health battles. For Lois, it’s fighting cancer; for Clark, it’s a bad heart.
Meanwhile, Michael Cudlitz’s inspired, rageful take on Lex Luthor also shines in the final season.
This series also happens to be the best-looking superhero series ever. Every fight scene feels like a Zack Snyder sequence with the Richard Donner-like focus on saving others.
7. The Bear
Christopher Storer’s incredible dialogue, the best editing on television, and Ritchie (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) being the best character on TV make The Bear Season 3 one of the best 2024 tv shows.
The Bear Season 3 delves into the struggles of running a restaurant on multiple fronts. From exorbitant food costs to the stress of perfect food, The Bear is beautiful chaos. The MVP this season is Abby Elliot as Natalie. While pregnant and near the due date, she can offer a friendly shoulder to Sydney and then flip back into manager mode instantly.
Despite some issues, such as Carmy’s lack of development, the terrific cast, random guest stars, and Storer’s writing allow The Bear to shine.
6. Shogun
Despite a tell instead of a show ending, FX’s adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel is terrific.
This adaptation of Shogun hones in on two men from different worlds, John Blackthorne and Lord Toranaga. Blackthorne is a risk-taking Englishman who ends up in uncharted waters. After losing his ship and crew, Blackthorne becomes Toranaga’s prisoner. Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada) is on the outs with the other regents, who are waiting for Toranaga to resign. He finds an opportunity through Blackthorne’s European connection.
Meanwhile, Toda Mariko is in the middle. Mariko essentially serves as an interpreter between Toranaga and Blackthorne, but the relationship between Blackthorne and Mariko deepens over the first four episodes. Anna Sawai is fantastic at showing a woman in conflict with her Catholic faith and duty to her family, which leads to a shocking decision that turns the series on its head.
Sanada is also brilliant, as Toranaga, who always thinks two steps ahead of his adversaries.
5. House of the Dragon
House of the Dragon Season 2 features terrific dialogue and the best drama performances in 2024. So why is it sitting at No. 5 instead of near the top? Unfortunately, stranding Daemon to Harrenhal saps the series of combative energy, and ending the season on a pair of setup episodes weakens the series’ impact.
Emma D’Arcy is fantastic as Rhaenyra. The queen of Dragonstone starts the season mourning a son and trying to prevent the inevitable war while battling a small council and a husband trying to undermine her orders. Back in King’s Landing, Alicent is facing a similar battle. Her son has the Iron Throne but refuses her counsel and Otto Hightower.
The scenes featuring Alicent and Rhaenyra are the season’s highlights as they grapple with their past choice and try to chart a path forward that will spare their families.
4. Fallout
Amazon spares no expense in bringing this post-apocalyptic world to life. From the underground vaults to bringing the wasteland to life, the production design matches the quality of The Last of Us.
The world can feel overwhelming, but Fallout makes a wise choice by funneling this world through three main characters. Lucy MacLean goes from the closeted world of Vault 33 to the grizzled wasteland of bombed-out Los Angeles. Maximus has lived his whole life in the wasteland and joins a cult of sorts in his youth, but once he crosses paths with Lucy, his world is opened up too. Then, there’s The Ghoul, a gunslinger and bounty hunter with a mission that goes back more than 200 years.
Walton Goggins and Ella Purnell are phenomenal. Lucy’s naivete could be annoying at the beginning of the series, but it’s endearing in Fallout and contrasts nicely with the gruff outside world. Watching Goggins play a loquacious bounty hunter in The Ghoul is a treat.
Overall, the terrific action sequences, timeless music choices, excellent production design, and a pair of compelling lead performances, not to mention the wonderful guest actors, all lead up to a superb television season on Amazon Prime.
3. Arcane
Season 2 of Arcane doesn’t pull any punch after its long hiatus.
The music, sound design, voice performances, directing and hard-hitting action sequences are incredible. Similar to last season’s early episodes, the Jayce, Ekko, and Heimerdinger subplots don’t feel as powerful as the other storylines but do set up an interesting dynamic concerning the environmental impact of magic.
Episodes 4-6 are astounding television. Jinx goes through an incredible arc. Depending on whether you’re a citizen of Piltover or Zaun, Jinx is a terrorist or a renegade hero. Jinx winds up caring for a little girl. Her outlook on what matters changes. When a monster with a familiar vibe appears, Jinx decides it’s time to find her sister, Vi.
The first three episodes show the burgeoning Vi and Caitlyn’s relationship before tearing it all down in episode three. When episode five begins, Vi is at her all-time low, but with Jinx, she has an opportunity to bring her family together and can succeed temporarily. Episode five is my 2nd favorite episode of TV this year.
The only reason Arcane is at No. 3 instead of one or two in the 2024 Best TV shows list is the pacing is off throughout the series, and when the show ventures away from Jinx and VI, it sometimes struggles to match the emotional stakes.
2. The Penguin
The Penguin features the two best drama performances of the year by Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti.
Showrunner Lauren LeFranc takes a similar approach to Agatha All Along in centering a story about a villain character. There’s never a moment when Oswald Cobb isn’t charismatic. However, when you start to feel like rooting for Oz, the series reminds you he’s a monster.
Milioti is a revelation as Sofia Gigante. After being betrayed by Oz and her father, Sofia is sentenced to Arkham and emerges quite scathed from the experience. Sofia is determined to set a new path for her crime family but must match her wits with Oz and other families to blaze her new trail.
If you miss the series repeatedly telling you not to trust Oz, the predictable yet appropriately tragic events in the season finale spell out who is the most despicable being in Gotham.
1. Shrinking
Shrinking is the best 2024 TV show.
The series isn’t just the most consistent show airing. It’s also the only one of the best 2024 TV shows that somehow tops itself week after week. The season 2 finale of Shrinking is my favorite episode of 2024, featuring two exceptional monologues that should earn Emmy wins for Jason Segel and Harrison Ford.
The enduring theme of this season is forgiveness. Since this is a Bill Lawrence show with the best writers’ room on TV, the path towards reaching that goal is full of landmines. No landmine is bigger than introducing Louis, played by Brett Goldstein. Louis is the man who killed Jimmy’s wife and Alice’s Mom. His arrival forces Jimmy and Alice to make bad decisions but finally address the issues holding them back.
Meanwhile, Jimmy’s best friend, Brian, is trying to adopt with his husband Charlie. Ted McGinley and Christa Miller are given more to work with and shine.
In addition to the dramatic moments that pay off so well, Shrinking is the funniest show on TV. Jessica Williams is sensational this year and gets a terrific comedic partner in Damon Wayons Jr.
Whether it’s anger, laughter, tears or a Ford-inspired grunt, there isn’t a show on TV that makes you feel like Shrinking.
