Welcome to TV in 2023
Welcome to TV in 2023
Previewing a year filled with what we hope will be a lot of triumphant returns and reinventions
Happy New Year, everybody! The first What’s Alan Watching? newsletter of 2023 coming up just as soon as I let the Big Dog off his leash…
Old business
As I alluded to when last we met, I published one story near the end of December, a review of Peacock’s docu-comedy miniseries Paul T. Goldman, which… just read the review. It’s too complicated for me to try to explain in the space of a paragraph here, and I’m still working through how I felt about that amusing, weird, deeply uncomfortable… thing.
Didn’t do much new TV watching over the break, but at least had an opportunity to finally finish Slow Horses Season Two. Without spoiling anything, I will say that I still enjoy the show a lot, but felt these new episodes were an inevitable step down from Season One. When the gimmick is “disgraced, marginalized spies surprise everyone — themselves included — by proving to still be useful at espionage,” it’s all but impossible for the balance of comedy and suspense to be perfect when the Slow Horses prove themselves yet again on a second case, and a third, etc. Definitely a less funny outing overall than the first, but still hugely likable and very well-assembled, and I’m in on this for as long as Apple, Graham Yost, and Gary Oldman want to keep making them. And speaking of Graham Yost…
New business
Yesterday, we published my list of the 2023 TV shows I find most intriguing. This is not exactly the same as the 2023 TV shows I expect to be the best. I imagine Sam Levinson and The Weeknd’s The Idol, for instance, could be deeply messy. But as with Levinson’s Euphoria, I don’t expect it to feel quite like anything else on TV, you know? The list also leans mostly towards new series, though in several cases we’ve got revivals (Party Down! Raylan Givens!) or new seasons of shows that took 2022 off (if not longer).
I’ve seen several of these already — and not necessarily just some of the January premieres, like The Last of Us and Poker Face — but embargo rules and whatnot prevent me from offering definitive opinions at this time. That said, it’s hard not to feel excited about a year in television where we will have new shows produced by Rian Johnson, Steven Soderbergh, Damon Lindelof, Steven Spielberg, and others, you know?
You should start seeing reviews, features, and even recaps of some of these over the coming weeks. In the meantime, let’s do a good old fashioned discussion prompt: what new or returning show are you most excited to see in 2023?
My instinctual answer to this question of "most excited to see" was Succession but while it'll be great to dive back into the Roys, I'm definitely most intrigued by S2 of Yellowjackets. Can they keep the show, and its mad premise, compelling for another season?
Other contenders:
Justified is one of my favourite shows ever so cannot wait to see Raylan again. Comes with mandatory fear of it harming that love.
Anything Lindelof does on TV is must-see for me - Lost, Leftovers and Watchmen are also favourites.
My most anticipated is easily Masters of the Air, because I love Band of Brothers and The Pacific and I've been waiting nearly a decade for this installment to happen. While I was initially disappointed this series left HBO, Apple+ has no qualms about throwing money at good concepts from smart people.
Beyond that, it's Soderbergh's newest foray into TV, Full Circle, because I make no apologies for my devotion to the man and his work on TV has been always been interesting and typically must-see.
Also really looking forward to Last of Us and while I'm hesitant to not set my hopes too high, the return of Justified should be worth our time. The other shows in your list are various levels of intriguing, we'll see what happens in 2023. But one thing I've learned over the years is that typically the best shows/new series every year don't make these lists: they come out of the blue. So I expect your 10 or 20 best of 2023 will only have a handful of these.