The Skinny's TV Shows of 2024

Baby Reindeer

The show that stoked the fear of “Sent from iPhone” into a nation, Richard Gadd's Baby Reindeer is an exploration of how one act of kindness can snowball into something far more tragic and sinister. Martha (Fiona Harvey) goes from local weirdo customer to Donny (Gadd)’s stalker, sparking conversations around the complexities of mental illness, ambition, unprocessed trauma and sexual assault. [Katie Driscoll] 
Watch Baby Reindeer on Netflix

Big Boys

In January, season two of Jack Rooke’s zillennial university sitcom continued to be the sweetest show on TV. I can think of no other show that has so accurately captured the limbo of a mid-league English university in David Cameron’s Britain. Somehow, it manages to punctuate grief-stricken scenes with Cheryl-era X Factor jokes that have you laughing through the tears. [Louis Cammell] 
Watch Big Boys on Channel 4

Dark Matter

If you think you’ve seen too many multiverse stories recently, I promise Dark Matter is leagues ahead of any trendy comic book nonsense. Blake Crouch’s TV adaptation of his own 2016 sci-fi novel is a grounded, compelling and ultimately human puzzle-box thriller, where the science is a tool to explore those relatable ‘What if…?’ questions that haunt Joel Edgerton’s physics professor Jason. [George Sully]
Watch Dark Matter on Apple TV+

English Teacher

Without diluting any of his signature smarts, Brian Jordan Alvarez handles the medium change from online comedy to television with aplomb. Playing an avuncular, passionate young teacher at a Texan high school, inveighing against homophobia and culture wars, he amusingly navigates the jeremiads of overbearing parents and the revelations of generational gaps. Cutting, profane but also sincere, Alavrez reshapes the traditional sitcom template in his image. [Lucy Fitzgerald]
Watch English Teacher on Disney+

The Franchise

The Marvel machine might be an easy target, but that doesn’t mean it’s not cathartic to see Succession’s Jon Brown and The Thick of It’s Armando Iannucci land a good few punches. Himesh Patel’s exasperated First AD weathers us through the production of Tecto: Eye of the Storm, the latest DOA effort from Maximum Studios. A perfectly-cast antidote to superhero fatigue. [LC]
Watch The Franchise on Now

Manhunt

Showrunner Monica Beletsky turns the hunt for John Wilkes Booth into both a nail-biting thriller and a poignant (but never didactic) examination of the United States’ foundation in racist violence. With extraordinary attention to detail in production, neo-noir greats Carl Franklin and John Dahl helming several episodes, and a career-best turn from Tobias Menzies, the result is both sobering and electrifying. [Carmen Paddock]
Watch Manhunt on Apple TV+

Mr & Mrs Smith

The best possible outcome of the IP era, this take on the 90s Brangelina vehicle turns it into something that’s completely different in style and tone, while still retaining the core concept – 'What if we explored a regular romantic relationship through shoot-outs and car chases?' – that made the movie tick. A real luxury of a show, filled with lush locales, stylish outfits and expertly chosen guest stars. [Ross McIndoe]
Watch Mr & Mrs Smith on Prime Video

One Day

The miniseries format serves David Nicholls’ time-hopping novel extraordinarily well, separating each 15 July on which Emma Morley (Ambika Mod) and Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall) flirt, fight, and fall in love over 14 years into its own self-contained episode. With Mod and Woodall turning in luminous performances, the petty frustrations and the sublime, star-crossed romance mark One Day as a future classic. [CP]
Watch One Day on Netflix

Ripley 

As a TV series, Steven Zaillian’s Netflix adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr. Ripley is naturally a much slower burn than Anthony Minghella’s 1999 film adaptation – perhaps agonisingly so – but is all the better for it. It forces us to stew in both the increasingly tangled deceptions that Andrew Scott’s glassy-eyed Ripley mires himself in, and the jaw-dropping chiaroscuro of virtually every shot throughout the show. [GS]
Watch Ripley on Netflix

Say Nothing

Once upon a time in 1970s Belfast... Based on a book, itself based on a true story, Say Nothing tells how mother of ten Jean McConville is abducted and murdered by the IRA in 1972. Through the lens of her tragic story, the show is an explosive look at the motivations and consequences of those involved in the conflict, shining a light on the women caught up in it. [KD]
Watch Say Nothing on Disney+

Shōgun

Adapting the first mammoth novel in James Clavell's Japanese saga, Shōgun isn't just an exemplary historical drama because of its huge scale and excellent performances (not least from Emmy-winners Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai), but because every episode is meticulously designed with dramatic pressure points that are developed with incremental, intensifying poise. It's the rare miniseries that deserves more sequel seasons. [Rory Doherty]
Watch Shōgun on Disney+

Sugar

How could any self-respecting cultural newspaper not celebrate a show about a private detective with a Cahiers du Cinéma subscription? Sugar is cooly stylish and also oddly warm: a hardboiled tale with a deeply human heart. Colin Farrell is magnetic as the doe-eyed detective, like a hyper-intelligent version of his Banshees of Inisherin character. And then there’s that twist… [RM]
Watch Sugar on Apple TV+

The Sympathizer

A unique perspective on post-Vietnam America, The Sympathizer follows a Viet Cong spy integrating into American life after receiving asylum in the USA via the same armed forces he was spying on. Led by a confident Hoa Xuande and featuring Robert Downey Jr. in several cartoonish roles, The Sympathizer exposes the constructed nature of American patriotism and how culture reinforces its artificiality. [RD]
Watch The Sympathizer on Now

The Vince Staples Show

Fulfilling fans’ longtime wishes for him to go into comedy, rapper Vince Staples channels his charismatic irreverence into twisty surrealism. Staples plays a sort of fictionalised self, as five absorbing vignette episodes find quirks in his quotidian life, now complicated by fame. In response to unpredictable chaos imposed upon him (from playful bank heists to a theme park mascot’s ominous mind games), he offers blunt rejoinders and maintains hilarious nonchalance. [LF]
Watch The Vince Staples Show on Netflix