The 22 best new TV shows of 2022

James Gunn gave DC a second crack at The Suıcide Squad, making it a raunchy, gory, hard-R affair. That energy carried over to the TV spinoff Peacemaker . Starring John Cena as Peacemaker, the show delved into his psychology a bit and also, dare we say, sometimes even made him sympathetic. Of course, there were plenty of gore and raunchy jokes.

Improv comedy on television often struggles to work, but Netflix’s Murderville did. Will Arnett stars in the partially scripted show. The premise is that a celebrity, Conan O’Brien, for example, is brought in to be Arnett’s character’s new partner in the homicide department. However, the hook is that the guest star has not seen the script and doesn’t know what is going to be happening, and they just have to go with the flow.

Apple TV+ is still working to make strides in original programming. They have Ted Lasso in the world of comedy, and now, Severance on the dramatic side. This dystopian sci-fi show starring Adam Scott got several Emmy nominations and seems primed to bring more subscribers to Apple TV+ than, say, that one Tom Hanks movie on the boat.

Taika Waititi can rub some people the wrong way, but the success of What We Do in the Shadows and Thor: Ragnarok show what he can do when firing on all cylinders. Our Flag Means Death is a step down from the best Waititi projects, though it does have Rhys Darby as the lead in this comedy about an aristocrat who decides to become a gentleman pirate.

Was this show about Jerry Buss buying the Los Angeles Lakers and drafting Magic Johnson entirely accurate? No, but who cares? It’s a dramatization, and if you accept it on that level, you can enjoy it, especially after the first couple of episodes, when Adam McKay (and all his annoying directing tics he’s picked up) leave the show to the showrunners who are more capable of handling the story.

There have been attempts to get Craig Robinson his starring vehicle in the past, but so far, they haven’t been fruitful. Killing It, a Peacock original, is the best showcase for him so far. Don’t overlook costar Claudia O’Doherty either, a delightful Australian actress.

Did you enjoy the film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy starring Gary Oldman? Then Slow Horses is for you. This spy thriller is based on a series of novels and stars, yes, Oldman as a British spy. It’s a real showcase for him and a reminder of just how many vaunted actors work in TV these days.

Strange New Worlds is a spinoff of Discovery, which is itself, of course, owed to the original Star Trek. Anson Mount plays Captain Pike, who helmed the USS Enterprise before Captain Kirk, and Ethan Peck is Spock. Like space adventure? Strange New Worlds is up your alley.

It’s been a bit since AMC hit us with a strong new series. Dark Winds is scratching that itch. Set on a Navajo Reservation, this crime thriller is headlined by an excellent performance from Zahn McClarnon as police officer Joe Leaphorn.

In a way, a reboot of Iron Chef America, there are enough changes to make this a new show. One, it’s on Netflix. Two, Alton Brown now has a co-host in Kristen Kish, a nice addition to the mix. Also, it’s built for bingeing, so the format has changed, but in ways that work just as well.

Jeff Bridges stars in a TV show. That alone is significant. However, it also happens to be good. Bridges plays a former CIA agent who dropped off the grid long ago, but his past catches up to him. John Lithgow costars, and is very good.

Paper Girls was canceled by Amazon Prime after one eight-episode season, but it’s worth the binge anyway. Based on a Brian K. Vaughan comic, it’s a time-traveling sci-fi drama that would have probably clicked with Stranger Things fans had they heard of it.

The Walking Dead is a well that AMC keeps going to. This isn’t even the first spinoff of the zombie series. However, this one is relatively fresh, as it is an anthology series set in the world of The Walking Dead. This series has enough energy to make it worth watching, even if you have tired of the original series.

It took a long time, but Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series finally hit the air. The Rings of Power is only tangentially related to the films, as the series is set centuries before the movie's events. If you are into the fantasy realm of Middle Earth, The Rings of Power will give you what you are looking for.

An original TV series about the rebooting of a fictional TV series? With the number of reboots these days, a show like this was inevitable. Fortunately, Reboot turned out quite well. Sure, it does some obvious stuff, but it mostly works. Does the show include the character of the out-of-touch writer from the original? Of course, it tends to work when Paul Reiser plays that character. The cast also boasts Keegan-Michael Key, Johnny Knoxville, and Judy Greer.

Venerated writer and director Tony Gilroy got his crack at the Star Wars universe. Andor is a prequel to Rogue One, itself a prequel to Star Wars. And yet, it still has built a world of its own. Tenser, tauter, and darker than a lot of Star Wars projects, Andor sometimes stretches things out a smidge thin, but all in all, it turned out to be riveting.

There was reason to be dubious about AMC’s adaptation of Anne Rice’s vampire story. Then, the critical assessment turned out to be surprisingly good. Indeed, Interview with the Vampire managed to exceed expectations and justify itself as another iteration of the story. Hey, it was probably time for a dramatic vampire show.

One for the fans of Star Wars in animated form, Tales of the Jedi comes from Dave Filoni. The anthology show features a different prequel-era Jedi in each episode, allowing Filoni and company to have an expansive look at the Star Wars universe.

We move into the realm of limited series. Among those, the clear best of the bunch for 2022 was The Dropout . Amanda Seyfried was fantastic as Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder who, well, played fast and loose with ethics and the law. The Dropout was gripping and incredibly well done, and it will likely be the best work Seyfried ever does.

The story of WeWork could have leaned on the fact it starred Anne Hathaway and Jared Leto as Rebekah and Adam Neumann. However, it did not merely rest on its laurels. Yes, the stars shoulder a lot of the load, but WeCrashed was also well-crafted, leaving us with a worthwhile story that, yes, was carried by Hathaway and Leto.

One more time into Star Wars. After The Book of Boba Fett fell flat and made us yearn for the next season of The Mandalorian, there was reason for concern about Obi-Wan Kenobi. Plus, Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christiansen were returning after the prequel films, which didn’t go great. Then, we found out that kid Leia was a key character, and that felt likely to go poorly. In the end, Obi-Wan Kenobi managed to pull it off. At the very least, it was better than Boba Fett’s show.

Werewolf by Night was good, but a one-off. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law was a sweaty comedy paired with questionable CGI. Ms. Marvel, though, was a success for Marvel and Disney+. Ms. Marvel was a fresh character that opened up a lot of new storytelling, but the show didn’t get too heavy-handed when it could have.