2023’s Top 10 Television Shows

2023 was an interesting year for sure for media. AI happened. Hollywood was striking. Velma and The Super Mario Bros. Movie existed. But we’re gonna focus on the positives here and go through 10 shows that are considered to be the top 10 shows of the year in ranking of order from 10 to 1. The year isn’t over just yet but that doesn’t stop award shows like the Game Awards or last year’s Crunchyroll’s Anime Award qualifications for submissions, so let’s get on with it.

Rank Number: 10

Succession – Season 4
Succession is a show about the top 1% percent that’s somehow more likable than current day rich politicians. For the final season, while not a perfect bag, it’s a mixed bag of still plenty flavorful treats. Balancing both comedy with realistic drama, the show goes on to showcase the real life world of politics, and while it’s a satire on them, they are pretty realistic and accurate to our own world, such as election voting, voting for leadership, handling emergencies in the news. It’s a season that doesn’t need to hold back their commentary or be slow to explain it, and with how dysfunctional most of the cast is, it plays up for good laughs and persuasiveness to have the audience engaged in the serious moments. While it’s a nominee that may win number 1 on most other top 10 reviews, it’s flawed, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Rank Number: 9

Barry – Season 4
This season of Barry shows the consequences of Bill Hader’s character Barry from the last three seasons, and to go out on its final season, it does accomplish it in the most surprising of ways. Honestly, I really wanted to place this higher, but with the overall pacing and concluding of the series, it was a tricky obstacle to navigate. However, with Bill Hader starring and directing every episode this season, he’s shown that an SNL comedic actor can do gritty drama in all the right ways. There’s plenty of WTF moments and insanely laughable moments this season that by the end of the series, you’ll be saying “wow”.

Rank Number: 8

Beef – Season 1
Ali Wong and Steven Yeun star in this limited series about a road rage incident between the two that causes them both to gradually but steadily worsen the other person’s life. Did I mention yet this is a dark comedy? Because it leans heavily into that. I won’t spoil how, but it knows how to take advantage of its genre and get more hectic and unpredictable with the laughs as it starts building up darker and darker towards the end of the show. The lead performers have great acting chemistry together, which is double ironic since they both want to ruin the other person’s life and also because the two actors before were a loving couple in the series Tuca and Bertie. They both deserve to dominate at the upcoming Emmy’s in 2024, as they have the best performances out of anyone this year in a miniseries, limited series, or movie. A24 keeps producing unique and amazing content, and this show is definitely a major highlight from them.

Rank Number: 7

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – Season 5
Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce to you, a very funny lady in her fifth and final season, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel! The actors return for one last time in the 60’s of New York (and other time periods) as Midge Maisel sets out to become a famous stand up comedian, working her way through the male dominated world of entertainment in a time where men are more credited than women in television. The cast of characters show just how ridiculous and nuts a comedy like this can get, and that’s not even in the stand ups, it’s just normal conversations that somehow spiral into madness for how bizarre the situations turn into, and it’s amazing. With comedic writing, well acted talent, and amazing nostalgia to the production design and concluding of a story like this, it’s definitely worth a grand round of applause from the audience.

Rank Number: 6

Scavengers Reign – Season 1
If you’re looking for a strange new world to watch with unknown but familiar wildlife and plants and a dangerous but beautiful ecosystem, don’t watch Strange World. Watch Scavengers Reign. In this adult animated series, people stranded on a planet need to find a way back to their crashed ship for any way possible to escape this beautiful, but harshly deadly planet. What makes this series stand out from other adult animated shows is that it’s the most original sci fi of the year, period. Not since the movie Alien has entertainment cared to explore new alien planets with new and interesting ideas. In fact, this might be even better than Alien as there’s majestic wonder to wanting to know more on how the world here works and giving us reasons to care about the survival of our main survivors. It’s visually and beautifully well told a story and showing off today’s growing future of sci fi creators that there is something new still yet to explore in creative fiction. It’s not a dead genre, and this series where the characters are faced with the potential reality of dying on the stranded planet many times in the show prove that to be the case.

Rank Number: 5

Better Call Saul – Season 6
If you’re looking for drama and a good use of nostalgia that works fantastic as a prequel/sequel story off another great show, well then, Better Call Saul! In this closing season of two parts, we see the final stages of the rise and fall of the most successful con man lawyer of New Mexico, Albuquerque. Like the show’s predecessor, it nail how to nail a finale of a season, and work well with the grey colored conclusion, both literally and figuratively, off a well acted character. It may not be as critically raved as Breaking Bad, but with the care for the characters in the show (even the ones we know die in the original series) to have actual meaning towards the established television franchise and finding a satisfying way to conclude a show that acts as both an origin to Breaking Bad and also the concluding sequel, this is definitely worth the watch.

Rank Number: 4

My Adventures with Superman – Season 1
If James Gunn’s new Superman is as inspiring as this show is, I think the DCU will be in good hands. My Adventures with Superman is perhaps one of the greatest interruptions of Superman in animation. With a well animated (sometimes anime influenced) show pushing past the limits of imaginative storytelling on a character all know from front to back of a cover, this is quite something indeed. It shows Superman as human as anyone else, while there are some who perceive him as a monster, despite him wanting to just help. Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen aren’t perfect non flawed characters, and that’s what makes them perfect characters because like Superman, they are very human in terms of emotions and feelings, and aren’t limited to comic book writing. You feel for these characters, including Superman when he isn’t entirely the Man of Steel just yet. With a clever workaround to explain why the villains in the show have their powers and well known styles of design redesigned, this show knows how to make it its own thing, whether for action, emotion, or character building, this is a Superman cartoon that’s soaring faster a than rocket into the hearts of fans that appreciate good representation of comic book characters.

Rank Number: 3

Blue Eye Samurai – Season 1
Wanna see a more ruthless and vengeful version of Mulan? Then come on down to witness Blue Eye Samurai. It tells the tale during the Edo period of Japan when a violent and cold hearted woman who is hellbent on finding on of the four white men who came to japan and created her as a mixed breed, being feared as a monster because of her racial origins. The representation of Japanese culture and storytelling is a very fascinating element to the show. Another fascinating element is the violence. So much violence that comes from our main leading character and you don’t feel any relief by the end of a fight, as vengeance has consumed her and turned her into something else. You can feel the darkness inside of her as she craves her goal, doing whatever she has in order to find all four white men and end their lives, no matter what, even hiding the fact she’s a woman and not letting anyone see her blue eyes. She’s a monstrous and cold hearted version of Samurai Jack, and with how she’s portrayed as, she’s worth seeing in action and so is this show. If you can’t handle blood and nudity and explicit context, then you’d truly be missing out on this year’s greatest animated series.

Rank Number: 2

Poker Face – Season 1
Charlie Cale, a former poker professional that has an extraordinary and unbelievable natural ability: She can always know when someone is lying. She’s the main character of the best comedy series of the year, Poker Face. On the run and starring in an inverted detective story where the murder is shown in the beginning of each episode, she travels from place to place and meets new celebrity guest actors, some of which who are either the killers or the victims, and uses her talent to solve the murders. Each episode has a different kind of feel to it, and with Rian Johnson creating another great murder mystery series like his Knives Out movies, this is a show I would highly recommend as the comedy show of the year.

Rank Number: 1

The Last of Us – Season 1
And the very top spot for best show of the year goes to The Last of Us. Finding a way to make the best video game adaptation for television and having celebrity actors brought in because they can act and not just because of name recognition (Mandalorian season 3) is no small feat. Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey play Joel and Ellie, trying to make their way through an apocalyptic new world full of monsters, both human and non-human. Their acting beats out any drama performer in television this year, as it’s some of the most captivating and eye catching portrayals of these kind of characters. This show will make you cry, feel scared, go absolutely silent in sound, and waiting to see just what else can this masterpiece of television adapted storytelling will do next. Season 2 will come out in 2025, so you’ve got some time to check out 2023’s best show of the year.

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