The 10 Best TV Shows of 2022
See if your favorites made the cut of our end-of-year picks, which include not one, but two (!) vampire outings, as well as a certain Sicily-set murder-mystery.
Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. We may earn a commission from these links.
Early this week, following the batshit season finale of The White Lotus—which, yes, is absolutely on this list—Esquire's editors convened to deem the best 10 TV series of the year. You should know: It wasn't easy. 2022 was the year Ozark made its big Netflix return, Amazon offered us a beautiful look into the lives of three young adults on the autism spectrum, and ABC (yes, A-B-C, the network) turned out the best comedy of the year. Apple TV+ also muscled its way into the streaming game with two of the year's biggest hits, Pachinko and Severance. But not all of them made our final cut. That's showbiz.
Without further ado, folks: Here are Esquire's 10 best TV shows of 2022.Interview With the Vampire
Nearly three decades after the creative misfire starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, 2022 finally brought the Interview With the Vampire that Anne Rice devotees deserve. Opulent, graphic, and unabashedly erotic, Rolin Jones' adaptation tells the familiar tale of two undead lovers caught in a bad romance, with some smart updates (like that the bulk of the story is set not in the colonial New Orleans of 1791, but rather in 1910). In this roaring city, Louis is not a white Creole plantation owner, as in Rice’s telling, but a Black businessman running a saloon in the red light district, where he wrestles with his sexuality and faces countless racist brutalities. “Let the tale seduce you, just as I was seduced,” Louis advises. It's as good a thesis statement for Interview With the Vampire as any.
Read an interview with series stars Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid here at Esquire.
The Bear
Who would’ve thought that one of the most stress-inducing shows ever made would become one of 2022’s breakout hits? The Bear, FX’s nervy restaurant world dramedy, has a way of defying expectations. This the story of Carmy, a James Beard Award-winning chef who comes home to Chicago to salvage the family sandwich shop after the suicide of his brother. Raw and frenetic, it's a gripping tale of family, trauma, and addiction that's not to be missed.
Read our interview with creator Christopher Storer here.
What We Do in the Shadows
At four seasons in, most sitcoms run the risk of retreading familiar ground, but What We Do in the Shadows is still full of surprises. In the gut-busting new season of FX’s supernatural mockumentary, everyone’s favorite Staten Island vampires assemble around three hare-brained schemes: Nadja’s quest to open a vampire nightclub (blood sprinklers!), Laszlo’s journey as a harried parent to baby Colin Robinson, and Nandor’s determination to find his thirty-eighth wife. It’s all as bold and bawdy as ever, but Season Four took some real narrative swings, too: Guillermo came out, Laszlo was profoundly changed by fatherhood, and in one very special parody episode, HGTV took over the show. Warm your heart or make you want a gold toilet? Get you a show that can do both.
Read an essay by series star Harvey Guillén here at Esquire.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds
In a year crowded with self-serious science fiction, Strange New Worlds rose above the pack for its commitment to good, clean, swashbuckling fun. This back-to-basics return to the episodic storytelling of Star Trek: The Original Series is set during the captaincy of Christopher Pike, who preceded Captain Kirk aboard the Enterprise. If you're not a Trekkie, have no fear: there's no learning curve here, and there's a lot to love for any science fiction fan. Uplifting, exhilarating, and gloriously retro, Strange New Worlds is a character-driven series where each episode pairs a top notch sociocultural story with a freewheeling adventure. Whether the Enterprise is battling a lethal enemy or just trying to undo an accidental body swap, it’s always worth beaming up with Strange New Worlds.
Read our interviews with stars Ethan Peck and Anson Mount here.
The Rehearsal
2022 was the year Nathan Fielder cemented himself as this burning planet's resident mad genius. The comedian/prankster not only won our hearts by being one of the most awkward guys on reality television, but his genius schemes have also proven successful. His latest batshit idea—an acting school that practices following around and mimicking strangers using what he calls “The Fielder Method”—was even put into use in another form by Christian Bale for Amsterdam. Bringing these skills to the people on The Rehearsal, Nathan helps real people live out stressful conversations or experiences in elaborate role-playing scenarios that keep track of every word and every potential set detail. Even with all that planning, however, Nathan quickly leans that nothing ever goes according to plan—especially when he becomes directly involved in the process.
We Own This City
This year, David Simon returned to HBO with his greatest muse in tow: Baltimore. Unfortunately, the source material hasn't improved too much since his masterpiece, The Wire. But as a result, we're left with a powerhouse of a limited series, chronicling the disastrous Baltimore Police Department's Gun Trace Task Force. Full of corruption and misgivings, it makes for perfect fodder for one of Simon's Baltimore character studies. Jon Bernthal, Jamie Hector, and Josh Charles shine as the leads in a run of episodes that instantly entered Simon's canon of greatness.
The White Lotus
I can promise you: there's no recency bias here, because I'll be replaying the moment when a certain someone tried to jump from a certain place and died in a way that I'm still very much confused about well into 2023. Season One of The White Lotus was a whip-smart skewering of the rich in the iPhone era, sure. But Season Two is something you could study—frame for frame, word for word—and notice something different every damn time. Creator Mike White's trip to Sicily explored the transactional nature of sex (and damn near everything else) while still delivering the goods with an appointment viewing-level murder mystery. It's more than enough for us to make our reservations for Season Three.
Read our interview with Michael Imperioli here.
Andor
I can hear you trolling already. Another Star Wars show on Mickey Mouse+? What, it's not over already? Is Luke Skywalker in it?! I swore off Star Wars after JJ and Rian. I hear you! Really. I do. I sat through The Book of Boba Fett. But Andor, the Rogue One prequel that follows Diego Luna's Cassian Andor, may very well end up as the best TV series on Disney+. At long last, Andor sees the Star Wars-verse trade cameos and canon for a damn good story. Luna somehow doubles the intensity of his Rogue One turn, showing every bleeding bit of his slow-burning resistance to the Empire. And in Denise Gough and Kyle Soller's villains, we have very against-the-grain Star Wars baddie performances. Think less Grandpappy Palpatine, and more teacher's pet. I'll raise a glass of blue milk to that.
Read our interview with Kyle Soller here.
Pachinko
Apple TV+ knows a good thing when they see it, so they've taken Min Jin Lee’s award-winning novel, placed Academy Award winner Yuh-jung Youn at the forefront, and created something spectacular. In this multilingual series, the emotionally epic story of one immigrant family is told across four generations and three languages. It all begins with a pregnant young woman’s decision to enter a marriage of convenience that ferries her to a new beginning in Japan. Her decision to leave home echoes across generations, all of it playing out in an ever-changing 20th-century Japan, where the Zainichi (Korean immigrants and their descendants) encounter brutal racism and class discrimination. Richly engaged with questions of history and identity, this bittersweet story of joy, sacrifice, and heartbreak will have you crying buckets of ugly tears (not that we speak from experience…).
Read an interview with creator Soo Hugh and star Lee Minho here at Esquire, as well as an interview with star Jin Ha.
Severance
If there's any show that nailed the surreal vibe of 2022, it's Severance. Set at the retro-futurist offices of Lumon Industries, where employees’ work memories are separated from their personal memories upon arrival and dismissal—sounds like the perfect corporate strategy, doesn’t it?—the show explores the many ways in which we split ourselves in half, especially the parts that refuse to stay put. When the four staffers of the Macro-Data Refinement department begin to seek answers about what, exactly, it is that they do, the series reveals its true face as a conspiracy thriller about corporate secrecy. Brimming with bold ideas, torturous pacing, and stylish direction, Severance never strikes a false note. The breakneck finale, a master class in tension, tone, and sweaty palms, is the year’s best hour of television.
Still flabbergasted by that ending? Creator Dan Erickson explains the Season One finale here at Esquire. Plus, read a profile of Ben Stiller here.
Watch Next
The 25 Best Comedies and Musicals of 2022
The Best Documentaries of 2022
The 20 Best Memoirs of 2022
The Best Books of 2022
