Top Television of 2023 (Part 1)
It’s January here at Do You Know What I Love The Most?, and that means it’s time to sum up the last 12 months with Year End Lists! I’ll be devoting the rest of this month to rounding up and discussing the various media released in 2023 that meant the most to me — just like every other website on the internet! Isn’t that special?
Today we’re going to talk about the best TV shows of 2023! And damn, was this a good year for television, or what? Despite both a writers strike and an actors strike, it felt like there was more good TV than ever this year. I’ve never had a harder time narrowing my shortlist down to 12 entries — in fact, I couldn’t, and settled for 13 — and even then, despite watching way more TV than I ever expected this year, I still didn’t have time to get to it all (The Last Of Us and Beef remained just out of reach on my “To Watch” list all year; I couldn’t binge through all of Reservation Dogs in time for the final season, but I sure as hell still intend to).
I guess what I’m saying is, as always, this is not meant to be a definitive list of the best out there, because I simply cannot and have not watched it all. These are simply the shows released in 2023 that caught my attention and/or tugged at my heartstrings the most throughout the year, in no particular order. Enjoy!
Due to size restrictions for these emails, we’ll be discussing the first half of this list today, and the remaining entries in Part 2 within the next few days.
Abbott Elementary (ABC)
Abbott Elementary — Quinta Brunson’s ABC Mockumentary about a group of teachers working at a Philadelphia elementary school — was a victim of the Writers and Actors Strikes more than any other series I followed this year1. With only the final 12 episodes of its second season airing early in 2023, it could be easy to look overlook Abbott when it came time for year end accolades. Thankfully, Abbott Elementary is a show that has gotten better with pretty much every episode, and those last few episodes of Season 2 were some of the series’ very best. The jokes have gotten funnier, the characters sharper, and perhaps most interestingly, the drama has gotten juicier. The most impactful and memorable moment of Abbott Elementary’s 2023 run wasn’t comedic; it was Janine and Gregory finally kissing at the Teacher’s Convention. And not just because viewers had been waiting for this to happen since basically the first episode — the scene itself was absolutely electric, with Janine grabbing Gregory by his necklace and pulling him into a kiss in what I can only describe as quite possibly the hottest heterosexual interaction to ever air on network television. I audibly gasped and leaned forward in my seat when it happened! The season is full of great character work like that; like all the best sitcoms, Abbott Elementary drew me in with laughs and then got me attached to its cast of characters as if they were dear friends, and I can’t wait until I can see them again when Season 3 finally hits the air next month.
Doctor Who (BBC/Disney+)
I imagine my experience with Doctor Who is pretty similar to a lot of American viewers — I discovered the series through Tumblr sometime during Matt Smith/Eleven’s tenure, went back and watched the reboot from the beginning, fell madly in love with the series, then lost track of it sometime early in the Capaldi era after Netflix lost the rights2. Also like a lot of American viewers, I was compelled to pick the series back up this year for its 60th Anniversary Specials. These specials found Russell T. Davies — showrunner of Who for its first 4 seasons — returning to the series along with former stars David Tennant and Catherine Tate for three new adventures. These adventures were classic Davies, classic Tennant, classic Tate: exciting, heartwarming, tense, weird, unsettling, hilarious, kinda dodgily plotted at times, but with an emotional throughline that holds them together stupendously. As nostalgia pieces they work like gangbusters, reminding me exactly what I loved about this show in the first place and making me go back to check out some old episodes, but these specials weren’t all nostalgia. The fourth and final special brought us our first adventure with Doctor Who’s new star, Ncuti Gatwa3 as the Fifteenth Doctor, and he is a revelation. Gatwa is the first black actor, (as far as I know) the first queer actor, and by far the youngest actor to ever play the Doctor, and he brings such a vital and fresh energy to the character, creating a fashionable and flirty Doctor who is, nonetheless, just as curious and compassionate as those who have come before. The Specials did their job. I’m all in on whatever Doctor Who and Gatwa do next.
The Great British Bake-Off (BBC/Netflix)
I’m not a newcomer to the Bake-Off, but this is the first season I’ve been able to watch week-to-week as it originally aired rather than bingeing it after the fact, and that actually does make a difference. This charming baking competition that pits 12 of Britain’s best amateur bakers against each other has always managed to get me invested in its contestants, but that’s especially true as I watch over the course of ten weeks, speculating with my boyfriend about who is going to go all the way or who’s going to be eliminated next. Actually, this is one of the few shows on this list that my boyfriend and I watched together, and I’m not going to pretend that that doesn’t have something to do with it being one of my favorites. We especially enjoyed teasing each other about our respective “Baker Crushes,” a recurring fixture of Bake-Off in our household (my crush won this year, to even my own surprise, so I guess I came out on top this time). The Great British Bake-Off is a show that lives and breathes good vibes, that is designed to make viewers release serotonin, root for their favorites, cry when they’re eliminated, and crave something sweet; it’s almost impossible not to love, especially when you’re watching it with someone you love.
Poker Face (Peacock)
On its surface, Poker Face is a throwback to the kind of episodic, formulaic mystery procedurals that dominated the airwaves in the eighties, nineties, and aughties — think Columbo or Monk or Psych — and while bringing that vibe back to television was an express goal behind creating the show, Poker Face does so with real prestige television flair. Creator Rian Johnson brings a cinematic touch to every visual element of the series, and the writing is just as sharp, the mysteries just as twisty as his work on Knives Out or Glass Onion. I’m also impressed by the sense of danger that comes across in some of these episodes — I often fear for Charlie’s life in a way I never did for Monk’s, and it always impresses me when a television show can legitimately make me question if a main protagonist is going to survive a given episode. The guest stars Poker Face manages to pull in are unbelievable. Seriously — Adrien Brody, Ron Perlman, John Ratzenberger, Lil Rey Howery, Chloë Sevigny, Judith Light, Ellen Barkin, Charles Melton, Nick Nolte, Cherry Jones, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Stephanie Hsu, Clea DuVall, Rhea Perlman?! — that is a staggering list, and they all bring their A-Game (Light and Jones deserve Emmys for their episodes). Yet, the one element that ultimately makes Poker Face successful more than anything else is its star, the indomitable Natasha Lyonne. Lyonne has a huge task carrying an entire series on her back as the only character to appear in every episode, but she does so with aplomb, an eccentric, compassionate figure moving through each episode with world-weary snark and chutzpa to spare, bringing a sense of humor to the mysteries while also grounding them in a real sense of sorrow. Lyonne’s a star, and Poker Face is a vehicle truly worthy of her talent and charisma.
Succession (HBO)
Succession pulls off a pretty damn impressive balancing act. It’s a show about abuse, about the way money, violence, and neglect can break people and mold them into the worst possible versions of themselves. It’s almost impossible to not feel sorry for Kendall, Shiv, and Roman when you see how a lifetime in the oppressive shadow of their asshole billionaire father Logan Roy has left them emotionally withered, barely capable of being human beings. But then you see all the heinous shit they get up to, the lives they ruin with barely a thought, and the other shoe flips; Succession is also a show about how the ultra-rich are truly the most evil people on the planet, sympathetic backstories be damned. The Roy kids have a hole inside them, but that hole will never be filled because they’re so privileged that nobody can ever challenge or critique them; they will never improve because they believe money, respect, and power are the solutions to all their problems when really they’re the cause. It’s often exciting and even darkly funny to watch the kids scheme to try to impress and/or defeat their father — to earn the love of a man incapable of it — but even as they fall upwards the Roy kids can never really succeed at any of their goals, and all they do is drag the entire country down with them as they fail. I despise and pity the Roys in equal measure, which is a tremendous accomplishment only the most nuanced of writing and acting can achieve, and that kind of sharp, incisive storytelling held true all the way to the series’ end this year, as the story closed pretty much the only way it ever could: with everybody losing. What a way to go out.
One Piece [Live Action] (Netflix)
I was really, really against the live action One Piece adaptation when it was first announced. Consider me protective of my favorite manga; I just couldn’t see how live action could do this story justice and couldn’t bare to see it fail. Thankfully — amazingly — I was wrong, and Netflix’s live action One Piece not only turned out to be a surprisingly good adaptation of the original manga/anime, but a pretty darn good show in its own right. There’s a lot One Piece does right. It has a fantastic cast, first of all, who have a real, palpable camaraderie, who fully inhabit these characters and bring their enthusiasm for them to life on the screen; it looks great, with most of the show filmed on location or on real, ornate sets with tons of obvious care and money put into them; most importantly, it captures the spirit of One Piece, the thrill of adventure and discovery and the joy of finding and protecting your friends. I even appreciate the way the series works around the restrictions of its medium and budget, replacing some of the zanier action with some truly interesting and charming character work (I love the relationship it forged between Nami and Kaya, for example, two characters who barely even interact in the original story) — though the action often is stellar, especially Zoro’s fights. Honestly, the quibbles I have with One Piece have less to do with its faults as a series or story and more to do with its faults as an adaptation, which I actually think speaks well of it. And really, it’s hard for me not to love something that brings One Piece to the masses. This show has gotten a lot of people who would never touch a comic book or read a cartoon into One Piece. Maybe you’ll be next?
My Adventures with Superman (Adult Swim/[HBO] Max)
I love the title My Adventures with Superman. It tells you so much about the show you’re about to watch: Though it still name drops Superman, he’s not the subject of the title. The “My” belongs to Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, and is the very first sign that this series is going to be more focused on its supporting cast and the relationships between them than other adaptations. Thankfully, those relationships are beyond charming: Clark and Jimmy have a really sweet friendship, Lois and Jimmy are a classic take action pair who enable each other’s bad decisions, and Clark and Lois’s relationship — love at first sight complicated by both Clark and Lois’ complex feelings about Superman — is the backbone of the entire series. Adventures isn’t as slice of life as you may at first think, though: the anime inspired action is hype as hell; the creative team has chosen a really fun group of obscure or original villains to focus on; the season’s ongoing villain plot is complex, visually dazzling, a true threat to Superman on a physical level, and ties deeply into both Lois and Clark’s character arcs throughout the series. I also love the focus on Clark as a young person fresh out of college; it avoids ever feeling like Smallville but nonetheless gives us a Clark still discovering who he is and what he can do, and, more importantly, still figuring out how he fits into this world as a person and who, if anyone, he can trust to share his deepest secrets with (again, with this show, it all comes back to the relationships). My Adventures with Superman is fresh, charming, action packed, and always surprising, yet still feels like classic Superman in all the best ways. It’s a series that works like gangbusters, and is quite possibly my favorite superhero show of the entire year…
…but to see its stiff competition for that title, you’ll have to come back for Part 2 of my Top Television of 2023 list!
Do You Know What I Love the Most’s “Best Of 2023” series:
2023: A Year In Review
Top Albums of 2023
Top Comics of 2023 (Part 1)
Top Comics of 2023 (Part 2)
Top Television of 2023 (Part 1)
Top Television of 2023 (Part 2)
Top Movies of 2023 (Part 1)
Top Movies of 2023 (Part 2)
2023: A Playlist
To read previous “Best Of” entries for 2020-2022, click this link to browse the directory!
ABOUT
“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin about his relationship with the stories he loves. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!
Although just to be clear, I fully support(ed) both Strikes; the livelihoods of the people who brings these stories to life is more important than my entertainment.
I did watch most of Whittaker’s first season, and while I think she’s brilliant in the role, there really was just a spark missing from that era.
Gatwa just finished up four seasons of Sex Education on Netflix, a role that should have made him a star if there was any justice in this world. We will talk more about this series, and Gatwa’s role, in Part 2 of this list.