[imagesource: Suzanne Tenner / FX]

Holidays are for friends, family, the great outdoors, having one too many and waking up with the feeling you did something daft, and all of that fun stuff.

They’re also about recharging the batteries after another one of those years.

Here to help with the latter is Rolling Stone, fresh off their best songs of 2022 list, with the year’s best series.

2022 has been labelled a year of franchise reinventions, a year of goodbyes, and also hellos. That means nothing to me and I’m done waffling so let’s get started.

Firstly, This Is Going to Hurt:

TV does not lack for hospital dramas, with Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Doctor, Chicago Med, and others chugging along season after season. But it’s been a while since we’ve had one debut that’s as raw and engrossing as This Is Going to Hurt, starring Ben Whishaw as an OB/GYN struggling with burnout and the overwhelming, fragile nature of the UK’s National Health Service.

I binged this and it’s not always easy watching. It is very good.

Perhaps my favourite series of the year is The Bear:

This FX-produced drama set in the kitchen of a Chicago sandwich shop is easily the most stressful scripted TV show you could watch this year. So much so that yours truly actually gave up midway through the third episode.

But what brought me back — and what made The Bear one of this year’s word-of-mouth sensations — was how time spent in that kitchen didn’t just make the anxiety palpable, but every emotion, both good and bad, being experienced by Jeremy Allen White’s grieving Carmy and his skeptical employees.

Yes, chef!

If you’re after a binge that’s not going to leave you feeling sorry for chefs around the world, smash Somebody Somewhere:

Other series on this list featured spaceships, explosions, serial killers, time travel, and other spectacle. The whole point of this small-town dramedy was how little happens in the lives of its characters, particularly Bridget Everett and Jeff Hiller as a pair of former high school classmates who reconnect after she returns home from a disappointing life elsewhere.

The pleasures of Somebody Somewhere came not from exciting incident, but how deeply felt each small moment was…

Easy watching, easy enjoying:

It’s been renewed for a second season which is expected to drop between early and mid-2023.

For the Star Wars fans, there’s Andor:

The highs of this Rogue One prequel series were incredibly high, offering visceral, tactile drama that felt truly adult in a way Star Wars rarely has, with great performances by Stellan Skarsgård (as ruthless spymaster Luthen), Genevieve O’Reilly (as anxious future Rebellion leader Mon Mothma), Andy Serkis (as jaded prison trustee Kino), Kyle Soller (as Andor-obsessed security guard Syril), and more. But the show also meandered around for the first chunk of the season, and never found a way to make the emotional journey of its title character (Diego Luna) nearly as interesting as that of everyone around him. When it was rolling, though, Andor went to creative places it didn’t seem possible for a Star Wars series to visit.

I’ve been told you can enjoy it even if you’re not all clued up on what’s come before and after. Don’t shoot the messenger.

To finish, a show that’s not new but did wrap up its final season this year.

That means loads to binge if you haven’t yet started Better Things, which you totally should:

At various points in the final season of this family dramedy, other characters would praise Sam Fox (Pamela Adlon) for the life she has built for herself as a single mother, daughter, friend, and actor (in that order)… because the audience knows that Sam’s life is so closely inspired by Adlon’s..

But Adlon has told Sam’s story with such artistry, and with such frequent self-laceration, that these moments play less as boasting than as the show finally cutting Sam a break after all these years of struggling. One of the best shows of the last decade went out on its own thoroughly lovely terms.

You’ll also see Louis C.K. popping up now and again before it became public knowledge that he was such a creep:

Is that five?

Yeah, that’s five.

I also found a great list of the year’s top series here and another here.

Binge. Chill. Relax. Recharge.

[source:rollingstone]