Mirandatory Viewing of 2022: TV Edition
With the final installment I bring you the TV edition of Mirandatory Viewing! Here are some of the best shows I watched this year and where you can watch them.
2022 for me this year had a lot of shows that I was eager to watch. While there were some I was let down by, there were some that truly had me in it’s grips. Ones that I went back and rewatched after finishing them or shows that I talked about to no end that anyone would listen about. I have a lot of my hangups on the current landscape of streaming and media but I promise I will not bring any of that here.
Instead I present to you my top 5 TV shows of 2022. Presented once again in no particular order. Like films, I wanted to strictly keep this list for shows that premiered in 2022.
There are quite a few shows I started watching this year that their premiere dates pre-date 2022 like Senifeld, and Abbott Elementary or there were shows that came to an end this year that I watched and loved. Those shows have been omitted from here, but if you’re intersted in knowing which those were I’d be happy to write something up.
1. The Bear
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Content warning: Suicide, verbal/emotional abuse
Rating: ★★★★★
Where you can watch: Hulu
I have to say that single screenshot of Jeremy Allen White did more promotion for this show than Hulu did. Whoever on Twitter originally called Jeremy Allen White the working women’s Timothée Chalamet is something I think about every single time I see his face now. The show follows a chef named Carmy, played by White who some may remember as the smart-ass Lip from Shameless, while both stories may take place in Chicago they are vastly different.
Carmy is a young chef entrenched in the world of fine dining, when a death in the family has him returning home to Chicago to run the family sandwich shop. Carmy is left to figure out how to turn around the failing restaurant, while having to deal with a stubborn kitchen crew, his strained familial relationships, on top of a list of his own internal anxieties and shortcomings that he has endured from the tough world of world-class dining.
In his attempt to bring the shop into the 21st century, Carmy, hires Sydney played by the amazing Ayo Edebiri as his sous-chef to help him introduce a French-birgrade hierarchy into a kitchen that prepared food in their own manner without one. An optimistic Sydney promises to help whip the kitchen into shape, however, it is no easy feat.
The show wastes no time throwing you into Carmy’s mind while you experience the hectic life of working in a kitchen. One that had me reliving my own experience as a waitress in my 20s while watching. The show’s handle on Carmy’s anxiety and the often brutal toll is shown especially in the show’s 7th episode when you watch the kitchen crew struggle and scream their way through a pre-order mishap where they have to try to make an astronomical amount of food before opening. It is jarring, unsettling, and anxious to watch as the kitchen descends into chaos and you are meant to feel every bit of it. You watch as tempers flare, and even Sydney breaks under the pressure and quits.
With 8 episodes in total all of them clocking in at just under a half hour, The Bear is an easy show to watch in under a day. However, given some of the scenes I found myself having to break it up to fully let it soak in. It is a wonderfully funny, and heartbreaking show that grapples with anxiety, the pressure of success and perfection and the tolls it takes. The love for food, cooking, and the act of sharing a meal is so present in this show from the way food is prepared in beautiful shots, and how meals are often shared between friends and around tables. It shows the detail and energy taken to create it.
The show was renewed for a second season, and I cannot wait to see what else unfolds in the kitchen and where their journey takes them.
2. We Baby Bears
Genre: Animated, Comedy, Fantasy
Content Warning: None
Rating: ★★★★★
Where to Watch: Cartoon Network, Episodes available to stream HBO Max
Following the success and end of We Bare Bears series in 2020. The bears are back but this time as their cub equivalents. The show follows a baby Grizz, Panda, and Ice Bear with the help of their magic cardboard box that gains powers from a shooting star that lets them teleport among to places and dimensions trying to find their forever home.
Each episode begins with narration done by Demetri Martin who voiced the iconic adult Ice Bear during the shows initial run. The bears get into a lot of similar shenanigans in lands where they encounter talking piñata’s, Baba Yaga, ghosts, pirates, mermaids and more. The show is adorable and charming, as you watch the bears make new friends and explore new lands that are vividly drawn to look soft and inviting. You might even hear some familiar voices like Anderson .Paak who voiced TK the oldest brother of a tiger singing-trio group that competes with the bears. Young M.A. also makes a cameo as a bat named Pip that teaches the bears lessons on how bats use echolocation to get around.
Each episode is about 10 minutes long making it a great show to watch whenever you want to unwind and watch something that isn’t entirely too stressful. The show tackles problems while carrying the message of it’s predecessor of building friendship, acceptance, and recognizing home can be anywhere when you are with the ones you love. Often, spinoffs lose some of the heart that made the original so special but I feel this holds up to fans who loved the show, and anyone who is watching them for the first time.
3. Our Flag Means Death
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
Content Warning: Violence, Death, Depictions of mental health
Rating: ★★★★★
Where to Watch: HBO Max
I discovered this show through two friends of mine talking about it on Twitter, so I can only give Chris and Honor massive shout outs for talking about this and piquing my interest. The show begins in 1717, with our lead character Stede Bonnett played by Rhys Darby. Stede is an aristocrat in this time period, who whilst suffering a mid-life crisis decides to leave his pampered life behind and set sails on the seven seas as a pirate.
The show seems like it would be your standard pirate fare. However, the show does something sort of unexpected and veers into the romantic comedy lane. What starts off as sort of a workplace comedy of the crew members each taking time to express their uncertainties of their new captain who has lived a fairly sheltered life in their eyes. You watch as Stede tries to encourage the morale among his crew with things like having them each design their own flags, or having his crew members often express their feelings to maintain harmony amongst them. It is far different than the usual rough crews portrayed in previous pirate films and shows.
Once Stede meets the infamous Blackbeard played by Taika Waititi you watch as the two captains of these crews learn from one another. Slowly peeling back each others layers and discovering hidden truths about one another. All of it building to this slow romance that blossoms between Stede and Blackbeard that is full of heart, affection, and treated with a lot of care. The show does an excellent job showing relationships between queer characters and does not do it at their expense. It was a show that I really enjoyed and found myself missing it when it was over.
4. Spy x Family
Genre: Anime, Crime, Comedy, Drama
Content Warning: Violence
Rating: ★★★★★
Where to Watch: Hulu
Based on the manga of the same name by Tatsuya Endo, Spy x Family is a shonen anime that follows a Westalian spy who the audience only knows by his code name as Twilight. He is tasked by his organization to spy on the reclusive Donovan Desmond the leader of the National Unity Party of fictional nation Ostania that is reminiscent to a divided Germany during The Cold War. Twilight discovers the only way he can get close to Donovan is by having a child attend the same elite school as his sons. Twilight adapts the alias of Loid Forger, and takes in a feisty orphaned Anya as his daughter and marries soft-spoken Yor Briar.
However, Loid is completely unaware that daughter possesses telepathic abilities and his demure and doting wife, Yor is a government worker during the day but an highly-trained and deadly assassin for pay in her off time. All of them posing as a normal family with only Anya knowing the truth of her “parents” the anime is adapted in the same exciting, humorous tone as the manga that makes the show a delight to watch for both the fans of the manga and new ones just beginning their journey with the Forger family.
The show has a lot of what you’d find in shonen animes. With a lot of fighting, cool characters, explosions and a dense history of the world of Ostania. However, the show does an excellent job balancing the more tense moments with some humorous and lighthearted moments woven in through the show. You follow Anya as she struggles in school with her studies, and comes head-to-head with Donovan’s youngest son Damian, who often butts heads with Anya. You get to learn more about her friends, and the plights of Anya’s own over active imagination that tends to land her into some trouble herself.
You learn of Yor’s brother Yuri who also leads a double life as a member of the secret police and there are many times in the show where the characters have moments of discovery that could reveal the truth. Only Anya, knows the truth of her “parents” real identities while the other two remain oblivious.
Spy x Family has something in it for anime fans, whether they be casual or more devout. The first season just wrapped up the week of Christmas and has already been renewed for a second. I am excited to see how the manga that was recommended to me by my dear friend Itzel, continues to come to life in the anime.
5. AMC’s Interview With The Vampire
Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Romance, Drama
Content Warning: Suicide, Domestic Partner Violence, Emotional Abuse, Implied Rape, Physical Abuse
Rating: ★★★★★
Where to Watch: AMC+, AMC, Amazon Prime
This was the show I waited all year for. The moment I heard the novels were going to be adapted into a TV show I was extremely excited. I was even more thrilled when I learned that the lead role of Louis de Pointe du Lac would be played by none other than Jacob Anderson, who many may know as Greyworm from Game of Thrones. Although I came to know him as his alter ego Raleigh Ritchie that he adapts in his music. (Which is increidble and you should stream your albums if you haven’t)
The show still follows some of the same format of the original novel, and movie. It begins with Louis reaching out to reporter Daniel Malloy played by Eric Bogosian. However the noticeable difference in the show is that the “boy” reporter is played by an older actor, Louis in the novel who was a white plantation owner, is now a Black man who runs a brothel in historic Storyville a city just outside of New Orleans during the 1900s.
You’re invited to Louis’ penthouse in Dubai where the vampire recalls the story of his life and how he came to met the charming, eccentric, and terrifying Lestat played by Sam Reid. Interview With The Vampire is a story that is gothic, unashamedly queer, romantic, and terrifying. The show is lush with details down from Lestat’s lavished townhouse, the wardrobe, the language, and even the way Bailey Bass who plays the role of Claudia made famous by Kirsten Dunst, that Bass knocks out of the park in this adaptation, takes the time to learn how Black women of the time would have styled and worn their hair making sure all of that was included in her execution of the child vampire.
No detail was left out of immersing the audience into this story.
The performances of Anderson and Reid are electric, from the moment the two of them appear on screen together in the very first episode you are drawn in just like Louis was. You are enchanted by the world, and the way that Lestat uses his vampiric abilities to get anything he wants is so enticing to Louis who has had to live with the duty as the sole provider of his family living his life behind closed doors.
Interview With The Vampire unlike other modern adaptations does not ignore the changes it makes to the material. It acknowledges Louis’ identities, it does not gloss over his experiences as a gay Black man living in the south. You are faced with all these parts of him and Anderson plays Louis with such conviction and nuance that your heart aches with him. The show is spell-binding and enchanting, terrifying and beautiful. It does an excellent job in exploring the toxic and abusive relationship between Lestat and Louis, and how often when we are too close to a loved one who is being abusive towards us that we may often misremember details in which Molloy does not hesitate to call out Louis on his inaccuracies throughout the interview process.
The show is a knockout and it is one that even while episodes were airing I would go back and rewatch the previous ones. I have seen the first season all the way though about 10 times now and it is just as fresh and exciting as the first time I saw it. The network had such faith in the show it was renewed for a second season before the pilot even premiered. Interview With The Vampire for me, was the show of the year and had one of the best pilot episodes of a TV show I have seen in a very long time. If you have not seen it you should. If you love vampires, and gothic horror, or just excellent storytelling, this is the show for you.
As they say in show business that’s a wrap! If you made it to this part of the newsletter I just want to say thanks so much for reading and subscribing it means a lot to me. I also want to take the time to wish all of you reading this a safe, and Happy New Year! I hope that 2023 is full of success, joy, and good health for anyone reading this.
2022 was a great year for me in terms of discovery of music, films, TV, and more. I hope that I can continue to share more that with you all here in this space in the coming year. Thanks again so much for reading this little series. If you liked what you read feel free to subscribe, if you ever wanna talk more in-depth you can always find me on Twitter @mirandatorys or you can drop a comment here.
Thank you again, see you all next year!