It’s a strange time to be covering television. If a new deal isn’t reached between studios and the Writers Guild of America in the coming months, the ongoing strike could begin affecting TV lineups this fall and beyond. (Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Writers Guild of America, East.) At the same time, I wouldn’t blame the average viewer if such concerns aren’t at the top of their mind: For all the industry turmoil, there’s been no shortage of good shows that have come out in the first half of 2023. It’s been so overwhelming, in fact, that I have an ever-growing list of acclaimed series that I still need to catch up on—apologies to Dead Ringers, Somebody Somewhere, Jury Duty, The Other Two, and Perry Mason, which I promise I’ll get to at some point. With those exceptions in mind, these are the best shows of the year so far.
10. Copenhagen Cowboy
For fans and detractors alike, it’s become something of a running joke that Wes Anderson has such a recognizable (and somewhat unchangeable) aesthetic that you could identify one of his movies from a single frame. The same sentiment applies to the recent works of Nicolas Winding Refn, the polarizing Danish auteur who has migrated from the big screen to streaming services without compromising his unique sensibilities. Refn’s latest project, the six-episode Netflix series Copenhagen Cowboy, amounts to a greatest-hits compilation from the filmmaker. A seedy underworld that’s brought to life with neon-lit compositions and leering 360-degree camera pans? Check. A synth-heavy Cliff Martinez score? Check. Scenes suddenly interrupted by borderline fetishistic bouts of ultraviolence? You know it. The bare-bones plot concerns Miu (Angela Bundalovic), a soft-spoken loner who passes through various criminal organizations using her supposedly supernatural gifts until she acquires a taste for vengeance. If that sounds high energy, I should note that the pacing is so slow you’d think someone released quaaludes into the local water supply. Copenhagen Cowboy won’t be for everyone, but if you can get on the show’s self-indulgent wavelength, it’s a mesmerizing experience that could be delivered only by Refn.
9. The Diplomat
While Prime Video remains the go-to streamer for Dad Television, Netflix finally got in on the game this year, and the results have been encouraging. The Night Agent is already one of Netflix’s most-watched original series to date, but while the show is tremendously fun, the company’s real crown jewel in the Dad TV space is a bit more elevated: a high-stakes political thriller in which snappy dialogue feels as charged as a fight scene. In The Diplomat, created by West Wing alum Debora Cahn, an international crisis that involves an attack on a British aircraft carrier in the Middle East leads to no-nonsense foreign services officer Kate Wyler’s (Keri Russell) appointment as the United States’ new ambassador to the United Kingdom. It’s the kind of position that would typically appeal to Kate’s shifty husband, Hal (Rufus Sewell), a former ambassador who must contend with the spotlight that’s being pointed in his wife’s direction for once. The Diplomat toggles between the pressure-cooker environment of international diplomacy and a combative marriage with real verve; imagine Aaron Sorkin–esque banter without the outdated political idealism. Above all, The Diplomat rests on the power of its star, and Russell doesn’t disappoint: The actress delivers the same intensity she did in The Americans without racking up a body count. To the dads of the world: Add The Diplomat to your Netflix queue ASAP.
The Ringer’s Streaming Guide
There’s a lot of TV out there. We want to help: Every week, we’ll tell you the best and most urgent shows to stream so you can stay on top of the ever-expanding heap of Peak TV.
8. The Last of Us
The notion of Hollywood’s video game curse was always a tad exaggerated—thankfully, HBO’s The Last of Us should mark the end of that discourse for good. An adaptation of Neil Druckmann’s bestselling video game of the same name—Druckmann also serves as series cocreator alongside Craig Mazin—The Last of Us takes place in a postapocalyptic future where most of humanity has been wiped out by a fungal infection that turns its hosts into, effectively, zombies. (You’ll never look at Cordyceps the same way again, much less want to ingest it.) The show follows Joel (Pedro Pascal), a hardened smuggler who is assigned to take a teenage girl, Ellie (Bella Ramsey), across the United States in the hopes of discovering why she’s immune to the infection. It’s a juicy premise, but what makes The Last of Us such gripping television is that it understands the real monsters Joel and Ellie must face aren’t zombies: It’s other people willing to do whatever it takes to live another day. A second season that will adapt the game’s equally acclaimed sequel is on the way, by which point Pascal will hopefully gain some immunity of his own from the internet’s endless parade of daddy memes.
7. Dave
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but: Is the Lil Dicky TV show slept on? It’s easy to write off the FXX comedy Dave as a lesser (and whiter) version of its network counterpart Atlanta, one of the best series of the past decade. But what I’ve always found so compelling about Dave is how its cocreator and star, Dave Burd, portrays a fictionalized version of himself with real contempt. Time and again, Dave’s neuroses get in the way of friendships and romantic partnerships, even as his rap career as Lil Dicky gains steam. By the start of Dave’s third season, Dave is going on the Looking for Love tour, performing across America while hoping to find someone who loves him for who he is, rather than for his self-deprecating rap persona. The tragic irony of Dave is that the title character must learn to love himself before he can let others in: a predicament that only gets worse the more famous he becomes. (It doesn’t help that Dave goes along with a scheme to fake his own death for clout, which gnaws away at his conscience.) This is shrewd, self-assured television, but most important: Dave remains unbelievably funny. The Season 3 finale, featuring none other than Brad Pitt, is one of the best things you’ll see all year, as the episode descends into absolute chaos when a stalker holds Dave and the A-list guest star hostage. Dave might still be looking for love, but there’s a lot to love about Dave.
6. Barry
Remember when Barry was a comedy? Joking aside, it’s hard to deny that the HBO series has undergone a dramatic evolution since its first season, which began when mopey hit man Barry Berkman (cocreator Bill Hader) started to believe that acting might be his true calling. By its fourth and final season, Barry had long proved he was irredeemable; Hader, meanwhile, used the show as a launchpad for his own ambitions as a filmmaker, directing every episode. While this approach means there are few traces of the series Barry once was, the upside is that what Hader accomplished in front of and behind the camera is nothing short of extraordinary: He made a bleak, surreal, and occasionally hilarious odyssey of a man in denial about his own monstrous nature. (The same goes for secondary characters like NoHo Hank, played by Anthony Carrigan, who commits an unforgivable betrayal.) Best of all, Barry’s series finale stuck the landing, skewering the entertainment industry’s penchant for giving Hollywood endings to those who don’t deserve them. Speaking of Hollywood: With Barry in the can, I can’t wait to see what Hader cooks up next—a horror movie, perhaps?—and where his career will go from here.
5. Beef
In the opening sequence of Netflix’s Beef, created by Lee Sung Jin, down-on-his-luck contractor Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) is pulling out of his spot in a hardware store parking lot when he nearly hits a white SUV. The driver in the other car, self-made entrepreneur Amy Lau (Ali Wong), doesn’t just honk back at Danny: She flips him off. From there, things spiral out of control. Danny pursues Amy through the streets of Los Angeles, wreaking enough havoc in an affluent neighborhood that the chase goes viral. The road-rage incident isn’t just the initial setup of Beef: It perfectly encapsulates the rest of the series, which builds on needless escalations from characters so dismayed by the sad state of their lives that they’re looking for any excuse to channel that pain elsewhere. (Danny’s financial woes mean he can’t earn enough to move his parents back from Korea; Amy worries that her career is coming at the expense of building a relationship with her young daughter.) The brilliance of Beef lies in how alike Danny and Amy are: What they hate about each other is a reflection of what they don’t like about themselves, which culminates in a moving finale that finds the two protagonists stuck together in the middle of nowhere. From start to finish, Beef truly sizzles.
4. Poker Face
The streaming era has yielded plenty of experimental television, both good and bad, but the real pleasure of Peacock’s breakout series Poker Face is that it feels like a throwback. Creator Rian Johnson revives the “howcatchem” style of Columbo with the story of Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne), a cocktail waitress at a casino with the uncanny ability to tell when somebody is lying. Naturally, being a human lie detector is both a blessing and a curse: After Charlie is implicated in the death of a powerful casino boss’s failson, she goes on the run, at which point Poker Face turns into a case-of-the-week procedural. With an astonishing collection of guest stars joining the ever-charismatic Lyonne—Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Hong Chau, Chloë Sevigny, Nick Nolte, and Lil Rel Howery, just to name a few—there’s something to love about every episodic mystery on Poker Face. What’s also thrilling is that the show’s formula proves to be flexible: Charlie might know when someone is bullshitting her, but that doesn’t mean justice is always served. Poker Face is coming back for a second season, and I sure hope the series will be around for the long haul, in the spirit of Columbo.
3. The Bear
It’s a testament to The Bear that, shortly after the FX series premiered last year, it led to a wellspring of memes and the phrase “Yes, chef!” entering the lexicon. As befits a show that captures the constant anxiety of working in a fast-paced kitchen, the challenge for The Bear’s second season was avoiding the sort of sophomore slump that affected the likes of Ted Lasso and Yellowjackets. Thankfully, The Bear didn’t just deliver a satisfying second course: It leveled up to become one of the best shows on television. While Season 1 was largely centered on Carmen “Carmy” Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White), the award-winning chef who takes over his late brother’s sandwich shop, The Bear returned with a desire to flesh out all the cooks in the kitchen. In fact, some of the strongest episodes of the second season—particularly the ones about pastry chef Marcus’s (Lionel Boyce) apprenticeship in Copenhagen and Carmy’s short-tempered play-cousin Richie’s (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) working front of house for a Chicago restaurant with three Michelin stars—underline that The Bear functions best as an ensemble piece. With Season 2 ending just as the characters have successfully transformed the erstwhile sandwich shop into a fine-dining establishment, there’s still plenty of meat on The Bear’s narrative bones. I’m already hungry for more.
2. Silo
Ted Lasso gets most of the headlines, but between Severance, For All Mankind, and Foundation, Apple TV+ is by far the best streaming destination for science-fiction fans. Now, we can add Silo to the list. Based on the book series by Hugh Howey and adapted for television by Justified’s Graham Yost, Silo is set in a sprawling underground bunker that (supposedly) houses the last remnants of humanity. For reasons unknown, the atmosphere above is toxic, and any curiosity about the outside world is punished by the powers that be: If someone asks to leave the Silo, they’ll get their wish and quickly perish. Something is clearly amiss, and the thrill of watching Silo is uncovering the show’s mysteries alongside its characters. (The cast is led by Rebecca Ferguson, who is beginning to carve out an impressive sci-fi résumé.) At its best, Silo is a cross between George Orwell and Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer: The levels of the Silo function like a caste system, and inhabitants are constantly surveilled without their knowledge. There’s so much to savor, and the greatest endorsement I can give to this mystery-box series is that, unlike Westworld, Silo already has the complete road map from its source material. To my fellow sci-fi fanatics: Run, don’t walk, to check out one of the most exciting debuts in the genre in years.
1. Succession
Could it be anything else? Succession pulled out all the stops in its fourth and final season: the shocking death of the Roy family patriarch, a ruthless free-for-all to attain the Waystar Royco throne, a fraught election night that will bring back the worst memories of 2016, and so much more. What remains miraculous about Succession is that creator Jesse Armstrong and his all-star writing staff have given viewers every reason to loathe its ensemble—namely, Logan’s self-destructive failchildren—yet we can’t help but feel sorry for them on some level. Whether it’s Roman breaking down at Logan’s funeral the day after he helped call an election for an avowed fascist or Shiv perpetuating a toxic cycle of codependency with Tom just to stop Kendall from being appointed Waystar’s new CEO, these are deeply damaged people with a deeply damaging influence over the world. It’s one of the many reasons Succession is the defining series of an era in which the 1 percent keep getting richer and the rest of the planet suffers for it. Now that the show has ended, there’s little question that Succession belongs on HBO’s Mount Rushmore alongside the likes of The Sopranos, The Wire, and The Leftovers. If you don’t agree, Logan said it best: Fuck off.
