For decades, movies were at the center of popular culture, dominating water cooler and dinner conversations. TV has always been entertaining and enjoyed by millions, but it was comfort food. Seinfeld, for example, delivered perfect jokes every week, but it never challenged audiences or subverted our expectations. It was low-stakes fun with our friends. I love Seinfeld, but it wasn’t Cinema. That changed with shows like The Sopranos, Breaking Bad, LOST, and Mad Men. Now, Prestige TV shows have the biggest stars, movie-level production quality, and incredible serialized storytelling. Entire podcasts are dedicated to dissecting episodes of popular shows week-to-week. What used to be the biggest night in Hollywood, The Oscars, are now a blip on the cultural radar (unless someone is getting slapped). The rating for last year’s show were about 15 million, a sharp decline from the 23 million in 2020 (2021 was the record-low COVID year) and things were already trending down before that. Total domestic box office receipts are lower than their pre-pandemic levels too. Our collective attention has shifted to TV. And it makes sense! TV is where most of the creative juice is and where the most interesting stories are being nurtured.

Things are not perfect in TV Land, though. Netflix is bleeding cash, HBO and Discovery are in the midst of a messy merger (deleting shows in the process), Amazon spent $1 billion dollars on Lord of Rings and Peacock can’t spread its wings. We’ve got more scripted shows than ever before (849), but streaming services are losing subscribers and running out of places to find new ones. Streaming services are beginning to scale back production and staff. MINX, a comedy about a feminist erotic magazine in the 70s, was canceled while filming its second season at HBO, Netflix fired hundreds of employees (many Black and Brown women), and a writer’s strike is looming that could decrease the number of scripted shows for studios to choose from. The bottom is beginning to fall out of this moment of “Peak TV”…

Before that happens… we got some great TV this year (and some pretty good movies, too). Here are some of my favorites!

My Favorite Shows of 2022 (Part I)

Station Eleven (Series on HBOMax)

Because this show’s run leaked into 2022, I thought I would sneak it in here. This remarkable post-apocalyptic mini-series grapples with the importance of art after an airborne illness kills most of civilization (the show came at the best or worst time depending on who you ask). Perfect performances from the entire cast, a time-bending story structure, and inventive costume and production design kept it on my mind well after its conclusion.

Atlanta (Season 4 on FX)

Black people can be really weird! The first two seasons of Atlanta captured this so well while also being smart and so funny. Season three had some bright moments, but it was great to see the crew back in the city for the fourth and final season. We have Paper Boi entering the twilight of his career and struggling to embrace his life after rap. Earn is finally forced to confront past trauma and his on-again-off-again relationship with Van. This season felt like the same guys who gave us trap doors in the club and an invisible car were growing up a little.

Episode eight and episode ten, the series finale, were highlights this year. The Goof Who Sat By the Door, in which a Black man becomes the CEO at Disney, was a silly homage to Sam Greenlee’s classic book-turned-movie The Spook Who Sat By the Door. He uses his new power to create “the Blackest cartoon” Disney has ever made with A Goofy Movie. None of the main four Atlanta characters appear in the episode and it does nothing to push the story of the series forward, but I couldn’t stop laughing. It exists in the unique lane the show created for itself and others. Atlanta is certainly aware of the internet but never interrogates it head-on. The series then ends in perfect Atlanta fashion, with a bit of uncertainty.  Was the entire series just a dream in Darius’ mind? Did he see Big Booty Judge Judy in the final shot? Like the spinning totem at the end of Inception, we’ll never know, but the journey was worth it.

Rap Sh!t (Season 1 on HBOMax)

Rap Sh!t, a comedy about two Miami women creating a rap group, exceeded all of my expectations. Media has a way of turning Black people, particularly if they are from the south, into caricatures, but this show was able to avoid that with strong writing and stronger performances from the two leads. Aida Osman and KaMillion have natural chemistry and are so fun to watch. The surrounding cast fills out this world of Miami entertainment, hustling, and nightlife with jokes and drama. Also, the rapping is legitimately good! Seduce & Scheme is a City Girls knockoff in the best way! 

Maybe the biggest achievement of the show is how it integrates social media into its plot and visual language. It transitions from in-person conversations to FaceTime to Snapchat,  then to Instagram Live, seamlessly. This is the best I’ve seen any show or movie use apps on-screen. I never thought I would find myself laughing at comments on Instagram Live within a TV show, but Rap Sh!t had me doing it regularly. I’m so glad this show got greenlit for season two despite all the turmoil over at HBO.

Honorable Mention – The Bear (Season 1 on FX), Barry (Season 3 on HBO)

My Favorite Movies of 2022

Top Gun: Maverick

Tom Cruise refused to let Paramount put Maverick on their new streaming service. He wanted it watched on big screens with crowds of people. They pushed the release date and it paid off. The movie grossed over $1.4 billion dollars and was the best theater experience all year. 

Tom, you did it!

TAR

Give Cate another Oscar.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

There is so much creativity packed into single scenes of this movie.

*Yes, those are hotdog fingers*

Babylon

Babylon is a three-hour epic about Hollywood transitioning from silent films to “talkies” in the 1920s. It also features mountains of cocaine and an elephant taking a shit on the camera lens fewer than ten minutes in. Later on, one of the biggest actresses in the world gets bitten by a snake before we travel into the asshole of LA with Tobey Maguire. This movie is so fun. 

Also, the soundtrack is fantastic!

My Favorite Shows of 2022 (Part II)

House of the Dragon (Season 1 on HBO)

Game of Thrones was such an amazing moment. It felt like we were watching something unprecedented together. A show with a seemingly unlimited budget with excellent writing, acting, and dragons? It felt like everything Peak TV promised. Sadly, the ending was so unsatisfying that Thrones had to go away for a little while. The final season wrapped so unceremoniously that when it was time for House of Dragon to premiere, its success actually felt uncertain… In hindsight, any doubt about it being a massive hit was absolutely silly. Ten million people watched the first episode and once you heard that theme song… THRONES WAS BACK BAYBEE!

While this season was largely set up for the Dance of Dragons, the fiery Civil War for the Iron Throne, it was so many of the things I loved about early Thrones. Great actors in fancy rooms talking about the crown and succession and “the realm”. The time jumps were jarring early in the season but stellar performances kept things grounded. Milly Alcock and Emily Carey played young versions of Princess Rhaenyra and Alicent Hightower respectively and their loving friendship in the first half of the season made their deterioration in the second half even more devastating. Matt Smith was having the most fun as Prince Daemon, but it was Patty Considine as King Viserys that stole the show. The King was a sad man who only wanted to play with his model toys. Unfortunately, he was forced to deal with a bickering, backstabbing, and murderous family. Watching him fail constantly was heartbreaking and his long walk in Episode 8 was masterful. Season 2 promises more battles, more dragons, and more spectacle. Until then I’ll appreciate this quieter season full of schemes and plots.

Severance (Season 1 on Apple TV+)

Severance has a perfect set up. What if there was a procedure that let you separate your work life from the rest of your existence? Your “innie” would stay in the office forever and your “outie” would never have to remember the workday. Over the course of the season, we learn that things are more complicated than they appear. The science-fiction plot with a light touch and a slow build-up gets us to the single best episode of the year. Episode 9 is an achievement on every level. Severance is incredible.

The show understands how silly and sinister jobs can be. Office parties, work perks, corporate-branded swag, and even work-related punishment. The mythos corporations create around themselves is odd. Mission statements, principles, core values, and weird rituals are all absolutely ridiculous aspects of work that we sign up for to feed ourselves and our families. Severance dramatizes how soul-splitting many of our jobs are. The double consciousness of our work-life and home life. The massive gap between our passions and what we do for money eight hours a day.

Industry (Season 2 on HBO)

There is a sequence at the end of the season two premiere that transcends finance jargon, the show’s gray offices, and dull suits. It reaches the heights of the very best television. It’s better than any action scene this year and it involves three people on the phone talking buybacks. I only kind of know what they’re saying, but the music, the editing, and the acting communicate everything the characters are feeling. It’s an extraordinary moment that I’d be satisfied experiencing even once a season. Industry has the performances and writing chops to pull it off multiple times. The first season was exceptional and this season is better.

We watch our main characters Harper, Yasmin and Rob try and mature while working in an industry that has no interest in personal growth. Pierpoint, a global finance firm, brings out the worst in these people and the self destruction is so compelling. Harper is our lead and it feels like we’re watching her set herself on fire. She’s a monster destroying everything in her path.. Including herself. Through the season Harper believes she is manipulating her mentor, her boss, her friend and her family. It all implodes in on her and she makes increasingly bad decisions reactively.  I don’t know how much material this show has but I would easily watch it for 10 more seasons. Thankfully, HBO has confirmed we’ll get at least one more!

Andor (Season 1 on Disney+)

I love Star Wars. I love it in a way that is largely uncritical. I love the original trilogy. I love the prequels! The Last Jedi is the second-best Star Wars movie in my opinion. I love The Mandalorian. I even enjoyed parts of Boba Fett! Although Obi-Wan was flawed I still mostly liked it. So I was going to enjoy whatever writer Tony Gilroy and star Deigo Luna put together with Andor. They ended up creating one of my favorite Star Wars experiences ever. No lightsabers, no Jedi, no Skywalkers. Just moral ambiguity, espionage, and political intrigue. Star Wars has always been about rebellion, but nothing has ever explored the machinery behind that rebellion like this.

Oppression is ugly! Revolutions are violent! Heroes have to do terrible things sometimes. I never thought I would watch Star Wars and make historical connections to the Black Panther Party or anti-colonial movements in the global south. Political parallels have always been a part of Star Wars (Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith = Bush during the War On Terror), but never this nuanced. We see how oppression can be so mundane in a galaxy full of magic super villains. Oppression isn’t Darth Vadar in a space suit, or an emperor shooting lightning from his fingers. It’s an imperial officer trying to get a promotion. It’s the bureaucracy of it all. Andor’s perfect execution allowed me to turn my brain on in ways Star Wars never asked me to.

At one point Luthen Rael, the mastermind behind the early stages of the rebellion, says”

“I yearned to be a savior against injustice without contemplating the cost and by the time I look down, there was no longer any ground beneath my feet. What is my sacrifice? I’m condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them.”

The war at the center of Star Wars has never been described so beautifully.

That’s it! Thank you all for reading!