There was a lot of great television throughout 2022 but here are our top 10 TV shows of the year…
By Damon Martin — Editor/Lead Writer
There’s more to watch on television than ever before — and we use the word TV sparingly because these days people consume series on phones, iPads, computers and just about every other electronic device — but it’s nearly impossible to watch it all.
Between network television, cable and streaming services, there are hundreds of new series combined with returning shows and you’d basically have to quit your job and sacrifice sleep for the entire year to catch up with everything. That said, TV definitely has a way to break through the pop culture zeitgeist where it becomes nearly impossible to avoid certain marquee moments.
Let’s be honest, who didn’t get bombarded with “Running Up That Hill” by Kate Bush after the song found a new audience thanks to “Stranger Things” or hear about “Game of Thrones” making a return to television with a new prequel series? The “Breaking Bad” universe came to a conclusion this year with the series finale of “Better Call Saul” and new shows like “Severance” became must see television mostly through word of mouth as people kept telling friends, family and everybody on social media that you needed to watch this!
There’s a lot to dig into when it comes to television this year so let’s get into our picks for the top 10 TV shows in 2022…
10 ) Peacemaker
The top TV shows in 2022 kicks off with “Peacemaker” — the series based upon a character that previously appeared in “The Suicide Squad,” which inspired James Gunn to then spinoff into a show all its own. Former WWE superstar John Cena stars in the leading role and he’s better playing Peacemaker than he has any business being.
In fact, Cena may have one of the best comedic performances of the year and that’s not hyperbole. He really is just that damn good.
“Peacemaker” is ridiculous at moments — that is sometimes James Gunn’s specialty and he does it better than just about anybody else out there — but this show still manages to tug at your heart strings from time to time while also being over the top with violence and action. The ensemble cast supporting Cena is tremendous and they really do form a team with a bond that rivals any comic book based group across TV or movies today.
If you’re looking for a favorite moment, watch Cena rattle off a long list of names of people who could have taken the place of his father when one of his team members has to finger somebody for a crime not to mention a truly hilarious encounter between Peacemaker’s best friend Vigilante after he puts himself behind bars and deals with a group of white supremacists.
“Peacemaker” was wildly enjoyable and you might even dust off some of your hair metal vinyl records to play again after finishing with all of these episodes.
9 ) Archive 81
Truth be told, this might be the most disappointing entry on our top 10 TV shows of the year and it’s not because “Archive 81” didn’t deserve a slot. In fact, this series absolutely ranked as one of the best television series in 2022 yet Netflix still decided to cancel it after only a single season.
The show was based on a podcast of the same name centered around a character named Dan Turner, who restores and preserves tapes and other equipment, and he’s hired by a mysterious benefactor to dig through a series of videos recovered from a building that burned to the ground years earlier.
The hope is that Dan will be able to piece together the tapes to understand what exactly happened in this apartment building known as the Visser, which has a rich and complicated history in New York. As Dan begins to restore the tapes, he’s drawn to the person behind the camera — a woman named Melody, who moved into the Visser under the guise of an investigation that she’s conducting for a college paper when in reality she has a much deeper connection to this building.
“Archive 81” was a fascinating series that dabbled in horror, the occult and science fiction with some truly great performances, especially from Mamoudou Athie and Dina Shihabi in the lead roles. The whole show was a mystery that just unraveled further and further with each episode as Dan continued to put together the clues from the past while also witnessing everything that Melody had discovered years earlier.
It’s just a shame that Netflix gave up on “Archive 81” before the series had a chance to reach its conclusion because the first season was outstanding — and even with a cliffhanger that may never get answered, it’s still worth watching.
8 ) Cobra Kai
Fun, goofy, yet filled with heart and a whole lot of karate!
That’s probably the best way to describe “Cobra Kai” and even as the show moved into season 5, there’s just something about the “Karate Kid” spinoff that continues to defy the odds.
When this show was first announced, there was a ton of intrigue about how the story would continue, especially after the vast majority of the audience tuned out after the first film sequel dropped all the way back in 1986. Still, there were a whole lot of voracious “Karate Kid” fans who grew up on the original, who were very excited about this series resurrecting characters from the past.
The legacy actors in “Cobra Kai” have been such a delight to see on screen year after year, particularly with the show resurrecting Thomas Ian Griffith’s deliciously devilish villain Terry Silver from “The Karate Kid Part III” to serve as the main antagonist this year.
It’s tough to know how much further the creators behind this series can stretch out “Cobra Kai” — at some point these kids have to graduate and leave for college or at the very least stop getting in karate battles in the middle of school — but for now it’s still a very watchable series that is so easily digested that it’s there and gone before you know it.
7 ) Yellowstone
Once again Taylor Sheridan’s family drama set in the middle of Montana remains one of the best TV series of the year yet the vast majority of critics and awards shows continue to ignore “Yellowstone” despite the massive audience this show gathers every time a new episode airs on the Paramount Network.
It’s difficult to understand how an Oscar winner like Kevin Costner doesn’t at least warrant consideration for an award for his performance not to mention Kelly Reilly stealing every single scene where she appears.
Now to be fair, “Yellowstone” definitely has a couple of episodes every season where the story kind of pauses and doesn’t really move forward but there’s enough happening around those huge plot twists that the show never actually slows down.
New characters joined the show in season 4 including Piper Perabo as an environmentalist who ends up on the wrong side of the government not to mention a really strong performance from veteran character actor Will Patton, who portrayed the biological father to Wes Bentley’s character, Jamie Dutton.
It’s egregious that “Yellowstone” doesn’t end up on more best of lists much less get mentioned whenever the Emmy or Golden Globe awards are announced but it’s safe to say Sheridan and company will trade that for continuing to pull in huge ratings as the most watched TV show on cable for the past few years.
6 ) Ms. Marvel
Let’s be honest — Marvel’s jump into television with a slew of series on Disney+ have been rather hit or miss. There have been some great shows (here’s looking at you “WandaVision,” “Falcon and The Winter Soldier” and “Loki”) and then there have been others that were largely forgettable (sorry, that’s you “Moon Knight.”)
That said, “Ms. Marvel” was one of the best surprises of the year as the show introduce Kamala Khan in live action for the first time. Of course it didn’t hurt that newcomer Iman Vellani was so damn charming that she just embodied Kamala Khan from the first time she popped on screen.
The show was funny in all the right parts, filled with action and drama in others and put the pieces together for a story that felt far more cohesive than a lot of the other movies and TV series that Marvel has produced over the past couple of years. Plus, it was great to see a character of Pakistani-American descent — along with her extended family — land in the spotlight as Marvel continues to branch out into newer and different directions than just focusing on the Avengers that everybody has come to know and love over the past 14 years.
If you missed “Ms. Marvel,” do yourself a favor and go watch because it’s definitely worth the time.
5 ) Severance
There’s always a few new shows on our top 10 television shows of the year list but “Severance” may go down as the most pleasant surprise of 2022.
The Apple series starring Adam Scott, John Turturro, Patricia Arquette and Christopher Walken was a truly intricate case study into the human psyche with a setting in a science fiction world.
“Severance” is set at a time when technology has been produced that allows a person to essentially separate their consciousness into two halves — the one who goes to work at a mysterious corporation called Lumon Industries and the other half that only appears after leaving that building.
Admittedly the first few episodes move slow and it required some patience to really get into the world that “Severance” was creating but once the floodgates opened, this series created some of the most tense, pulse-pounding moments of the year. In particular, the season 1 finale was an edge-of-your-seat thriller that didn’t involve a gun fight or any real action whatsoever — but it was a white-knuckle tension filled ride that ended with you screaming at the television and cursing the writers for leaving you on such a shocking cliffhanger.
Here’s hoping “Severance” season 2 can maintain this same kind of momentum and not fall short like other sci-fi series such as “Westworld,” which was never really able to duplicate the same kind of momentum after its first season. Still, “Severance” season 1 was must watch TV and worth binging from start to finish in a single weekend.
4 ) House of the Dragon
Expectations were remarkably muted when “House of the Dragon” first debuted and that’s likely thanks to the emphatic thud felt when “Game of Thrones” came to an end a few years ago. There was a time when “Game of Thrones” was the biggest attraction across all of pop culture but the final season really seemed to alienate what had been a fiercely loyal audience.
This time around, George R.R. Martin wasn’t just serving as an advisor but he was deeply entrenched as a producer and co-creator alongside Ryan Condal and Miguel Sapochnik. Together, these three carefully crafted a story that took place nearly 300 years before the events in “Game of Thrones” and unlike that series, savvy fans could easily go seek out the books this story was based upon to see exactly how this one would end.
“House of the Dragon” was largely loyal to the source material, albeit with a few changes that were approved by Martin, and the result was appointment viewing every Sunday night on HBO. The show reminded us why “Game of Thrones” was so damn good for such a long time — and this series even managed to pull off a bigger magic trick by switching out a two of the lead roles halfway through the season to account for a massive time jump.
The themes from the original series to this prequel were eerily similar — absolute power corrupts absolutely — but the means to grab and then hold onto that power were different in many ways, especially when it came to morally questionable characters that were harder to define as good or evil, which was a nice change of pace.
Overall, “House of the Dragon” proved that HBO took the right gamble when deciding to expand upon the “Game of Thrones” universe. Now let’s see what they could do to fix season 8 of the original series.
3 ) Better Call Saul
It always seemed a little unfair that a great serialized drama would be fondly remembered or quickly forgotten based solely upon a series finale. Then again, “Game of Thrones” was arguably on track to become the greatest TV series in history until the final season of that show unraveled into a pool of disappointment not to mention shows like “Dexter” that just fell apart at the seams towards the end.
That said, “Better Call Saul” had a tough role to fulfill considering the show was really set up as a prequel to the already completed “Breaking Bad,” which itself had one of the most memorable series finales in history. Somehow season after season, “Better Call Saul” managed to put together incredible television with awe-inspiring performances and plot development that had fans arguing if perhaps the prequel might actually surpass its predecessor.
Well, we’re not here to argue if “Better Call Saul” was better or worse than “Breaking Bad” but instead let’s just celebrate that this was one of the best TV series of the past 50 years and it really did find a way to stick the landing with a truly satisfying conclusion. Everything you could have wanted out of this series managed to deliver and at the end, “Better Call Saul” actually served as the final chapter in the “Breaking Bad” universe.
This is another one that could have easily grabbed the top spot because “Better Call Saul” was just that good — and TV is going to be a lesser place without this show around next year.
2 ) The Boys
In any other year, “The Boys” season 3 would have been a runaway winner for the best TV series of the year because this show continues to find new ways to unleash shocking scenes and still manage to put forth weekly episodes that will constantly leave you begging for more.
Considering this show has a massive ensemble cast, you’d think that it would be a little bit harder for certain characters and/or actors to stand out but that’s definitely not the case with “The Boys.” The fact that Antony Starr hasn’t been nominated for an Emmy every single year for his portrayal as the homicidal hero Homelander is just proof that a lot of critics don’t watch this show.
Let’s also not forget to praise Jensen Ackles as a guest star in “The Boys” season 3 after he joined up to play Soldier Boy.
Of course who could forget the infamous “Herogasm” episode that left more than a few jaws on the floor after that aired. Plus you’ll never get better dialogue than Homelander staring down The Deep (Chace Crawford) — the stand-in for Aquaman who speaks to fish — with murder in his eyes while telling him “eat fucking Timothy,” which just so happens to be an octopus he befriended.
“The Boys” season 3 also featured the best superhero fight of the year when Butcher, Hughie and Soldier Boy teamed up in an attempt to bring down Homelander. It’s not a knock on anything Marvel or DC did in 2022 but they could both take a lesson from the drama and action-packed moments in this epic encounter.
“The Boys” continues to surprise and produce some of the best episodes in television year over year and it’s hard to believe that season 4 won’t end up on this list in 2023 as well.
1 ) Stranger Things
Keep running up that hill because 2022 was definitely the year of “Stranger Things.”
The sci-fi and horror filled homage to the 80’s has been popular since first debuting on Netflix but there was something different about the fourth season and it’s not just because the show got split into two parts with an epic finale that was essentially a full length movie.
No, what separated this season of “Stranger Things” from past installments really came down to the creators — Ross and Matt Duffer — leaning harder into the horror elements of the show than ever before. While the series has certainly had those influences in every season — and who can forget a trip to the movies to see “Day of the Dead” at the start of season 3 — these episodes really pushed hard into actually scaring the audience.
Just shout “Chrissy wake up!” and the sounds of bones snapping should be enough to send shivers down your spine.
The story also took a big step forward in “Stranger Things” season 4 as the series sought to answer some long lingering questions while still leaving enough intrigue to keep audiences ready for the fifth and final season (likely coming in 2024 or beyond). Iconic songs like Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” and Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” found new life thanks to the show and Eddie Munson became a household name — and probably one of the most popular Halloween outfits in the past decade.
A guest appearance from horror icon Robert Englund only served to up the ante with the entire cast really stepping up their game with particular nods to Sadie Sink and Caleb McLaughlin not to mention Millie Bobby Brown still managing to steal the show with her performance.
Overall, “Stranger Things” became the most talked about series of the year but the show really managed to create something special during season 4 with a compelling plot, a terrifying villain and tremendous action pieces, which is why this was our top TV series for 2022.
