As 2024 Becomes a Time of Yore
The new year snuck up on me. Somehow, I thought I had more time to catch up on all the great shows that came out this year. Yes, this did happen last year. But I think this year, with all the exceptional shows that came out just recently, I thought I had more time before I put together my top 5 TV shows of 2024. Alas, I did not. So as much as I’m currently enjoying Squid Game Season 2 and Dandadan, these won’t appear here as I have yet to finish them. But I still have 5 favorite shows of 2024 to share with you. And I hope you get the chance to enjoy them too.
Death and Other Details
Death and Other Details, Hulu’s whodunit on the high seas, didn’t get the highest praise from critics this year. And keeping up with it episode after episode as the plot thickened, I wondered why. Then I got to the ending, which is, admittedly, terrible. But does a failed ending make for a failed show? Reader, I dare think not. Death and Other Details has all the intrigue of an Agatha Christie mystery as a woman uncovers a murder on a cruise ship. And who should be on that cruise but the very detective hired to solve her mother’s murder years earlier… who failed. Violett Beane and Mandy Patinkin are wonderful as these two leads who reluctantly join forces.
Jurassic World: Chaos Theory
So you know how I said I’m still catching up on television from this year? Well, this is technically true of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory. Wildly, the animated show has had two seasons arrive this year. So I’ve just seen the first. But I liked what I saw. After five seasons of Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, the kids are finally off the dinosaur island.
In this successor show, they’re all grown up and living amongst the dinos on the mainland. Well, mostly. One of them got eaten, which immediately sets up Chaos Theory as darker than its predecessor. Some of the voice cast has been replaced, but most people probably won’t notice. And with the Jurassic Park reboot of the Jurassic World films proving a bit lacking in bite, Chaos Theory carries the torch forward.
Bodkin
Largely flying under the radar, Bodkin proved my surprise favorite of 2024. The Netflix whodunit focuses on three podcasters who travel to a quaint Irish town to tell the story of a mysterious disappearance This mystery-comedy is more mystery than comedy. But the mystery stays engaging throughout as past events bleed into the present-day storyline. And there are still some lovable quirks. The entire cast is top notch across the board. But Siobhan Cullen, Will Forte, and Robyn Cara really play up the stark differences between the three podcasters for comedic and dramatic effect. All of these characters have faults, sometimes putting others (and themselves) in danger, but you still root for them by the end.
Shogun
It may come as a surprise to some that Shogun, Hulu’s award-winning darling, isn’t number one on this list. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the riveting drama loosely inspired by Japanese history. In adapting James Clavell’s mammoth 1975 novel, Shogun understandably makes a few cuts. It also alters a few plot points in ways that don’t always make sense or have the strongest payoff.
Still, the cast brings the characters to life in ways that humanize them even as they make the brutal decisions of war. Hiroyuki Sanada pulls double duty as Yoshii Toranaga, the fictionalized version of Tokugawa Ieyasu, imbuing him with cunning and charisma and as producer. Anna Sawai serves admirably as Lady Mariko, a character caught between the ways of the old and the new.
Fallout
Following last year’s The Last of Us, Amazon’s Fallout shows us that the TV format is the way for video game adaptations to work. But unlike The Last of Us, Fallout tells a wholly original story set in the world of the Bethesda game series. And it nevertheless nails the tone and aesthetics of the games. The comedy is as dark as ever, and the philosophical questions lend themselves to as many tough moral quandaries as before. It really feels like its own Fallout game.
And yet, the committed cast makes the case for this as peak TV. From Ella Purnell and Aaron Moten to Walton Goggins and Kyle McLachlan, every cast member understands the assignment of life in this bizarre and sometimes absurd dog-eat-dog world. It’s a great watch for fans of the series and those who have never picked up a controller. Oh, and the apocalypse has never been this stylish.
