TV Obsessive
Hey everybody, it’s time for the 2024 TVObs Awards! Below you’ll find our favorite new TV shows from 2024, our favorite performances, our favorite TV series overall, our biggest disappointments, the things we’re saddest to see go, and what we’re most looking forward to in 2025. Entries are arranged by author, so you’re free to decide which of us has the best taste. Let us know your favorites in the comments!
Brien Allen
Favorite New TV Show of 2024: The Penguin
I certainly did not expect this one. For one thing, I’ve never been much of a DC guy, though that turned out to not be super relevant in this case. I’m also not a fan shows with “bad guy” protagonists (e.g. The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, etc.). I know they are supposed to be amazing shows, but it just never appeals. Call me old fashioned.
And yet, somehow, I dunno…this one worked for me. Oswald “Oz” Cobb, a.k.a. the Penguin, is definitely a bad guy, but he’s the bad guy with a heart, struggling in a world full of bad guys. Always the underdog, always hustling, always fighting for the little guy. Until he backstabs the little guy to take his next step up the ladder. It’s like watching a slo-mo train wreck that you just can’t take your eyes away from.
The performances are absolutely captivating. I didn’t even recognize Colin Farrell as the title role. I already loved Cristin Milioti from Made for Love. And of course, Clancy Brown is a legend. Everything else about this show is fantastic as well. The sets, the script, the story. I’m glad I gave it a shot.
Honorable Mentions: Earth Abides, Dark Matter
Most Disappointing New or Returning TV Series in 2024: Eric
Like The Penguin, this show was another long shot for me, but this time it did not pay off. I gave it a shot because I do love Benedict Cumberbatch. It was also billed as a “psychological thriller,” with the promise of maybe a little something supernatural happening with the larger-than-life puppet of the show’s title. All of that could have been appealing.
But alas, no, it turned out to just be a story about a guy who was kind of awful, to literally everyone, and ends up going kind of bonkers, when his semi-neglected kid goes missing in 1980s New York City. He behaves abysmally throughout the series, to a degree that is just painful to watch, and then ultimately, he is rewarded in the end. Yay.
At least it was only six episodes.
Honorable Mention: Constellation
Favorite Overall TV Show of 2024: Only Murders in the Building Season 4
Eventually, you have to admit that your guilty pleasure show has morphed into something a little more solid. Watching this season of Only Murders, I started to notice that I was really enjoying every single episode, with a big dumb goofy grin on my face at the end of each one.
Yes, it is sometimes a little over the top and can get a little preposterous, but by now any qualms about those things are background noise. Now I’m just watching characters I love doing the things I love about them, and I couldn’t be happier. And, ya know, this has been kind of a crap year, right? So, I’ll take my pleasurable escapism where I can get it, thank you very much.
That said though, this was also a particularly good season of the show. They pulled in a lot of elements from prior seasons, even going back to the first season, in a way that was seamless and makes me wonder if they’ve had a multi-season plan all along. The new characters were all fun, and the twists and turns to solving the murder were well written. I’m looking forward to this making my list next year.
Honorable Mentions: Cobra Kai Season 6, Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5
Favorite Performance in a TV Show in 2024: Joel Edgerton (Jason) in Dark Matter
I almost gave up on this show. In fact, I did give up on it a little bit into the second episode. The multiverse premise has been pretty well played out these days and I was put off by a senseless murder they seemed to have no intention of justifying. But I kept hearing so much hype about it that eventually I went back, and I’m glad I did. What they were doing was actually something new, to me at least, and they won me around with their cleverness.
Anchoring all of this was the outstanding performance by Joel Edgerton. I’m not spoiling anything to say that this being a multiverse show, he gets to play more than one version of his character. Many versions, in fact, and he manages to give each one a distinctly different characterization. You even end up empathizing with the “bad” Jason, at least a little bit, in the end.
Honorable Mentions: Colin Farrell (Oswald Cobb) in The Penguin, Tamara Podemski (Sheriff Joy) in Outer Range
Most Painful TV Show to Part With in 2024: Star Trek: Lower Decks
When I look back at my past picks for this category, it’s always been a series that was unjustly cut down after only one or two seasons, but never a show that went out on their own terms. We can, of course, debate about the unjustness of Star Trek: Lower Decks getting cancelled mid-way through production on Season 5, but at least we got five solid, wonderful, glorious seasons, and they got to wrap it up in a nicely satisfying manner.
If you’ve ever watched anything Trek and have somehow skipped out on Lower Decks, I implore you to give it a chance. The show is nothing short of a love letter to the fans. Yes, it is a goofy comedy, but it is also smart, witty, fun, heartwarming and even adventurous. In short, it lives up to everything Star Trek is, was, and should be. I’m going to miss it so much.
Honorable Mentions: Outer Range, Dead Boy Detectives
Most Anticipated TV Show of 2025: Spider-Man: Noir
There are a lot of shows coming out next year that are on my list, and a lot of them are “franchise” shows: Blade Runner, Alien, Daredevil, Star Trek. I didn’t even know about Spider-Man: Noir until I saw a mention in a Reddit thread a few weeks ago, but once I did, this one leaped to the front of the list.
While there have been plenty of animated Spider-Man shows brought to the small screen, you can count the live-action ones on one hand with a few fingers missing. In fact, the last one finished airing in 1979, and while 10-year-old me was absolutely enthralled by it at the time, the technology to do it justice was certainly not there.
Several well-done live-action movies later, we are finally getting the TV show I’ve always wanted to see. Although with a different version of Spider-Man, which I admittedly only barely know through the Spider-verse movies. Also with a 60-year-old Nicolas Cage playing the title role, which I’m not so sure is a great idea, but I’m willing to see what they deliver.
Honorable Mentions: Blade Runner 2099, Daredevil: Born Again
Michael Suarez
Favorite New TV Show of 2024: Fallout
I can’t say that I loved Fallout after watching the first episode, but there was more than enough to get me to return to it, and I’m so happy that I did. I’ve been familiar with the games that inspired the show for years, but I’ve never played them. No matter. The series works on its own in a way that is fun, and more often than not this year, I’ve wanted to watch something fun. (Note: I’m thoroughly enjoying the current season of Silo, and had the show been released earlier this year, it might’ve been my pick for favorite.)
Most Disappointing New or Returning TV Series in 2024: From
This was not a show that I ever loved, but give me a series with echoes of Lost, and I’m in. After that fantastic final moment in the Season 2 finale, I was ready for whatever the show had up its sleeve. It turned out to not be very much, which is such a shame. Did the final moments of Seasons 3 encourage me enough to return for Season 4? I don’t believe so.
Favorite Overall TV Show of 2024: Disclaimer
Wow. Just…wow. Alfonso Cuaron’s adaptation of Renee Knight’s novel is an outstanding examination of point of view in a way that only a modern master like Cuaron could achieve. Though it certainly addresses the idea of listening and believing women, it has a lot to say about how we come to conclusions in modern-day society. Maddening, sexy, and ultimately disturbing, Disclaimer is a series I will return to again.
Favorite Performance in a TV Show in 2024: Cate Blanchett, Disclaimer
It shouldn’t surprise me that Cate Blanchett was good in Disclaimer. However, I wasn’t prepared for her to give one of her best performances ever, specifically that final episode, which didn’t necessarily surprise me so much as devastate me. I could see the “twist” coming, and that made it all the harder to watch. But it would be immoral for me to watch the show’s sex scenes and then turn away when reality strikes. Blanchett made me care more than any other actor in a series that I watched this year, sometimes through the way she delivered a line and other times without having to say anything. Honorable Mention to Kevin Kline, as well as Leila George, who played the young version of Blanchett’s character.
Most Painful TV Show to Part With in 2024: Constellation
I adored this show, so when it was announced that it wasn’t returning, I genuinely felt bummed in a way that I haven’t been about a series’ cancellation in recent memory. Enough of the narrative was paid off, so I don’t feel left hanging, but I loved Noomi Rapace as Jo Ericsson and the performances of sisters Davina Coleman and Rosie Coleman as Jo’s daughter Alice so much that I’ll miss them. Smart sci-fi with a puzzling mother-daughter relationship at its center, if you haven’t seen this, go in blind, but of course, don’t expect the most satisfying of endings, because unfortunately, there isn’t one.
Most Anticipated TV Show of 2024: A four-way tie—Andor, Severance, The Last of Us, and Stranger Things
I’m going to be spoiled next year. Even if all four shows don’t live up to their respective previous seasons, I’m excited to get back into these worlds. I’m rooting for these shows, but I’m also aware that not every season lives up to the good stuff that came before. Andor and Stranger Things are headed to the finish line, while Severance and The Last of Us have taken their sweet time to return, only for viewers to have to wait even longer for their continuation, let alone endings. No matter. If narratives really are more about the journey than the destination, consider me ready to take some road trips in year.
Byron Lafayette
Favorite New TV Show of 2024: Tracker
Tracker is a procedural crime show, but one that takes the action to the great outdoors and features a “Rewardist” who hunts for rewards that people offer for tasks that need completing. Justin Hartley leads a great cast bringing a charming and tough new hero to the small screen.
Most Disappointing New or Returning TV Series in 2024: Fire Country
I have been a fan of Fire Country, but its latest season has just not lived up to the high bar that Season 2 set. Upping the drama to 11, and regressing some of our favorite characters in ways that make little sense, I hope the show can right itself before the season ends.
Favorite Overall TV Show of 2024: The Lincoln Lawyer
Netflix’s excellent legal drama The Lincoln Lawyer returned with a fantastic new season that saw fresh challenges for our hero Mickey Haller, the season continued to up its game from the previous, giving us a great mystery, evil villains and some wonderfully quirky characters.
Favorite Performance in a TV Show in 2024: Kathy Bates in Matlock
Kathy Bates gives a heartfelt and wonderful performance as Matlock in the CBS reboot, showing vulnerability and cunning, Bates has created a character that will be long remembered in the annals of TV shows.
Most Painful TV Show to Part With in 2024: Magnum P.I.
CBS’s reboot of Magnum P.I. always had a rough road, rebooting an iconic show from the 1980s that reinvented what TV shows were always thought to be, and recasting an equally iconic character. However, Magnum P.I. did it—a splashy and sexy detective show, it gave us good reinvented characters, good mysteries, and gorgeous scenery (both of the islands and the actors!). Cancelled at the end of Season 4, the fans rallied and NBC saved it for one more season. Magnum P.I. ended before its time, but oh what a fun time it was!
Most Anticipated TV Show of 2025: Watson
From the creator of the excellent show Elementary comes a spin-off of the Sherlock Holmes mythos. Focused on Doctor Watson, this show sees him post the (supposed) death of his friend Sherlock at the hands of Moriarty. Watson has returned to medicine and started a clinic that looks at medical mysteries. Its an unusual and cool premise and I am excited to see how this new tale unfolds.
Ryan Kirksey
Favorite New TV Show of 2024: 3 Body Problem
Was the latest home run swing by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss the greatest thing produced or aired on television over the last 12 months? Perhaps not, but very few shows held my attention, fascinated me, and kept me watching more than 3 Body Problem. This science-fiction mystery box layered in just enough actual history, human emotion, and futuristic technology to make it one of the most unique viewing experiences I had in 2024. It may not have always made sense (revisit the storyline about Will again and see if you can understand it), but it was ENTERTAINING. In a year where much of what we watched lacked that ability to grip its viewers, 3 Body Problem was an actual spectacle on television.
Most Disappointing New or Returning TV Series in 2024: House of the Dragon Season 2
Season 1 of House of the Dragon ended with an event that—based on all we know about Westerosi history—would have immediately meant war between Team Green and Team Black. We left Season 1 on the brink of war, and HBO let us know that as HOTD came roaring back last summer. In fact, in the leadup to the show returning we were urged to “Pick a side!” and prepare for the incoming Team Green versus Team Black showdown. However, as we left Season 2, we were at the same place we were at the end of Season 1; on the precipice of war. A lot happened in Season 2, but frustratingly, a lot also didn’t happen. Here’s hoping Season 3 actually shows us some of this infamous civil war.
Favorite Overall TV Show of 2024: Say Nothing
Very rarely does a television show or movie live up to the weighty expectations when it is adapted from a well-loved piece of fiction or literature, but Say Nothing meets that criteria and then some. Adapted from Patrick Raddon Keefe’s novel about a small group of people living through The Troubles in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s, Say Nothing is powerful not only because it is historically accurate, and not only because it is well acted and well shot, but because it leaves the question completely up to the viewer about who was “right” during this tumultuous time.
Favorite Performance in a TV Show in 2024: Liza Colón-Zayas, The Bear
In an uneven third season of The Bear, Liza Colón-Zayas’s performance as Tina in “Napkins” stands out as the best acting on one of the best shows on television. She won a 2024 Primetime Emmy award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, but her chops are clearly more than just comedy. In this episode that follows Tina’s journey from a laid-off, middle-aged line worker to her first encounter at The Beef restaurant, she is warm, emotional, relatable, and pensive—essentially all the things we love about that show wrapped up in one character.
Most Painful TV Show to Part With in 2024: Curb Your Enthusiasm
Whether or not you agree about how Larry David chose to end Curb Your Enthusiasm after 12 seasons, with all of the references and similarities to the Seinfeld finale, you can go debate a wall about that. What is undeniable is the impact this show had on television and culture at large over the last quarter-century. For a show that was frequently about a man who was just as good as infuriating other people as others were about annoying him, it’s heartbreaking to think about how much this show will be missed.
Most Anticipated TV Show of 2025: Stranger Things Season 5
There are so many shows I am looking forward to in 2025. Severance Season 2, Yellowjackets Season 3, Andor Season 2, The Last of Us Season 2, Righteous Gemstones Season 4, Daredevil Born Again… I could go on and on. But, as discussed on our podcast recently, the Stranger Things story has been in our lives in some way or another since the summer of 2016. By the time Season 5 airs in the summer or fall of 2025, more than 20% of my life will have been with these characters. It’s been a perfect mix of nostalgia, original storytelling, and pathways to introduce my children to some of the greatest things about my childhood while also weaving in a creepy and fun coming-of-age story.
Caemeron Crain
Favorite New TV Show of 2024: Constellation
Constellation might take a few episodes to get its hooks into you, but once it does you’ll find the thing that always puts a TV series in my top tier: There is a lot to think about. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled shortly after Season 1 concluded, but that just means we’re left with a fragment that gives us plenty of room to dream. Don’t get me wrong, I wish Constellation had been renewed, but I love that we got what we did even if this is it. It’s fun to imagine different directions the story might have taken.
Most Disappointing New or Returning TV Series in 2024: Sexy Beast
I am a fan of the 2000 film Sexy Beast, so I felt compelled to check out the prequel series that aired on Paramount+ in 2024, even if it wasn’t something I thought needed to exist. The series might be enjoyable enough if you don’t remember the film well, or if you’re willing and able to view it on its own merits without thinking about the film too much—in my review I suggested viewing it as fan fiction—but for me it landed as something worse than otiose. I actively did not want this backstory for these characters.
I was hoping for something fun that had the vibe of the 2000 film, but instead the vibe feels off while the character beats feel like they’re referencing the source material too directly. I think you might enjoy this series more if you haven’t seen the film at all.
Favorite Overall TV Show of 2024: Squid Game Season 2
Premiering on December 26, Squid Game’s second season might have come too late in the year to make it onto a lot of lists like this, but as soon as I watched it, it vaulted over the other contenders I had been considering. I don’t want to demean any of the TV that aired in 2024—there was a lot of good stuff!—but nothing felt so immediately and consistently compelling as Squid Game.
As someone who didn’t necessarily think Squid Game needed to continue beyond its first season, I was a little surprised by this, but the series is so well-directed, so well-written, and so well-acted that I can’t help but give it the award here. Just be sure to watch it with subtitles.
Favorite Performance in a TV Show in 2024: Jamie Lee Curtis, The Bear
Oh. My. God. I noticed that Ryan gave the award here to Liza Colón-Zayas for her performance in The Bear, but for my money it has to go to Jamie Lee Curtis for her performance in “Ice Chips.” Reprising what was a standout guest role in The Bear Season 2, Curtis shows up for this episode of Season 3 and simply takes the show over with her portrayal of Donna. Every line delivery and every facial expression from Curtis feeds into a depth of character I’m not sure many others have ever accomplished in such limited screen time. I know this woman, even if I’m not always sure I want to. I care about her, even if it hurts.
Most Painful TV Show to Part With in 2024: Somebody Somewhere
As somebody whose been with Somebody Somewhere from the beginning, it’s been really heartening to see the series getting its plaudits over the past year or so. Season 2 won a Peabody Award, and Season 3 is just as deserving. This is a story with “small stakes”—a “coming of middle age” story if you will—but it’s been consistently funny and poignant throughout its run. I’m sad to see it end after three seasons because I want to spend more time with Sam, Joel, Fred, Tricia, Iceland et al., but it ends well. If you haven’t seen it and you’re looking for something that might make you cry tears of joy, I can’t think of a better recommendation.
Most Anticipated TV Show of 2025: Severance
There are lots of good options here, from the final season of Stranger Things to Yellowjackets Season 3 to Squid Game Season 3… But, when it comes down to it, I have to chose Severance Season 2. It’s been a three year wait, and as I rewatch Season 1 to prepare for the forthcoming continuation, I find myself wondering if I’ve seen anything better than this over the course of those three years. Maybe I have, but I’m least not sure off the top of my head. I can’t wait for January 17.
What were your favorites in 2024? Let us know in the comments!
