Deadline’s Top 10 New TV Shows Of 2024
We’ve had elections, high-minded dramas, down-and-dirty comedies and more filling our screens in 2024, but somehow when a Christmas tree-transfixed Otis Heiss (Klaus Tange) uttered “we’re all in the Night Country now” in the fourth episode of the HBO series True Detective, he spoke for almost all of us.
Fans of the fourth installment of HBO’s anthology series will recall the line, the mix of pathos and mystique. The party trick is how applicable it is around the all-encompassing nature of the best new TV shows of this year. Perhaps you could say it was the throughline, on and off screen.
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After all, 2024 saw the fabled Doomsday Clock stay at the 90 seconds-to-midnight spot for a second year in a row. That’s the closest it has been to the end of the day and humankind since its inception in 1947.
Closer to home in Hollywood, in this year where the business was still getting up from the mat and social media platforms grabbed a lot of the thunder, creativity was in fighting spirit in some corners. There were warriors to be found in the final seasons of Blue Bloods and Evil. Also in top form were We Are Lady Parts Season 2, Hacks Season 3, Squid Game Season 2, the Bluey mini-episodes, and Babylon Berlin’s fourth season. Certainly for the rookies, there has to be honorable mentions handed out for HBO’s Robert Downey Jr-filled The Sympathizer, Hulu’s Queenie and the touching and hilarious How to Die Alone.
With that and in random order, here are our Top 10 New Shows of 2024. if you think we’ve missed anyone, drop a line. That’s how it is in Night Country:
Shōgun
If ever you needed to look up a small screen definition of it being all about the journey and not the destination, FX’s exquisite, mostly Japanese-language Shōgun would be what you get. The 10-episode adaptation of James Clavell’s 1975 novel about 17th century feudal Japan never gave away a move or a tilt as Hiroyuki Sanada’s Lord Yoshii Toranaga saw and played all the angles. Cosmos Jarvis more than held his own as Toranaga’s shipwrecked British foil and friend. Visually, the show’s epic midseason earthquake was merely one among a series of spectacular sequences that left no detail unexplored. The death of the Anna Sawai-portrayed Mariko in season’s penultimate episode “Crimson Sky” played to the best traditions of such serious dramas. Clavell’s book and the 1980 Richard Chamberlain-starring adaptation ended with a war. Only intended as a limited series at first, this Emmy-winning primarily Shōgun shifted focus in more ways than one and ended with a nod. Regardless of what happens in Seasons 2 & 3, which have almost nothing from the Clavell’s book to go on, a nod was as good as a wink here — maybe even better.
All of Season 1 is available on Disney+ and Hulu.
Fantasmas
Technology is the butt of most of the jokes here in HBO’s openly whack-job comedy from ex-Saturday Night Live writer Julio Torres. Fantasmas’ world is vivid and broadly insane. Sealing the deal, the jokes are fantastic, nothing is what it seems (literally, HBO’s Fantasmas is a sketch show by any other name, methinks) and there are more cameos than a Beyoncé halftime show. Seriously, for Saturday night or in the fallout of Sunday morning, what more could you ask?
All six episodes of the first season are available on Max.
Baby Reindeer
The words “This Is a True Story” at the beginning of Baby Reindeer may make up the heart of the currently paused multimillion-dollar lawsuit Netflix faces over the well-watched Emmy-winning show from the woman who says the stalker female Scottish lawyer in the series is based on her. However that all turns out as the suit winds its way through the courts, what is totally true is how original and piercing the Richard Gadd-created and -starring Baby Reindeer is. Put another way, there is little limiting about this limited series.
All seven episodes are available on Netflix.
X-Men ’97
Forget all the BTS drama with the sudden axing of head writer Beau DeMayo just as the Disney+ animated mutant series took off this spring, it is the nuanced on-screen X-Men ’97 you really should be paying attention to. The first Marvel Studios project featuring Cyclops, Wolverine, Jean Grey and the rest of the X-Men together (not to mention Magneto) since Disney got back the rights, X-Men ’97 left the constant teasing and dullard tendencies of the MCU on the bench, taking off the white gloves in favor of muscular storytelling for grownups. From a multitude of perspectives, it landed a TKO.
All 10 episodes of the first season are available on Disney+.
True Detective: Night Country
Having debuted on January 14 of this year, the Jodie Foster- and Kali Reis-starring True Detective: Night Country revealed just how good the Nic Pizzolatto-created anthology crime drama could be again — in the fresh hands of Issa López. Heating up the franchise and the genre as much as its backwoods Alaska setting put things in a deep freeze, Night County was a new show in all but name. As cultures and genders clashed over death, trust and what lies beyond this mortal coil, it was an Emmy-winning sight to see.
All six episodes of the January 14 premiering True Detective: Night Country are available on Max.
Diarra From Detroit
Diarra Kilpatrick has long been a star waiting to happen, but for reasons obvious and some not, that stardom wasn’t happening. So, the Emmy-winning American Koko creator went back to her roots, on so many levels, and her hometown, and put together a show for herself. The ghosting-fueled dramedy co-starring Morris Chestnut and Phylicia Rashad is a broad-shouldered whodunit that put pedal to the metal Motor City style.
All eight episodes are now available on BET+.
Star Wars: Skeleton Crew
A cavalier Jude Law as a space pirate meets four kids way too far from home, plus some secrets of the galaxy and the Old Republic. Put it all together, add a delightfully grumpy droid to the crew, and you have yourself the most fun Star Wars TV series yet. Which is exactly what the Jedi ordered.
The first five episodes of the eight-episode series are available on Disney+, with new episodes out every Tuesday until January 14.
Landman
Besides the sheer sorrowful swagger and script quality of Landman, timing has proved almost everything for the Billy Bob Thornton star vehicle from Taylor Sheridan. Just as the hardest working man in show business’ flagship Yellowstone was coming to its Kevin Costner-less kinda end, the Texas oil patch drama stepped into the breach with a fatality-filled November 17 debut. Add to that the realignment in the body politic out of this year’s election, which works in a bipartisan fashion for the show from a red and a blue POV. With all that and a bag of chips, plus complex family dynamics and some of Jon Hamm’s best post-Mad Men work, the Christian Wallace co-created Landman struck small-screen black gold for Paramount+. Just wish Landman would give Demi Moore more to dig into than an exaggerated cameo.
The first eight episodes are available on Paramount+, with new episodes every Sunday until January 17.
2024 Election
Near instant analysis: The ratings for the 2024 election were down from 2020 and way down from 2016, but Donald Trump still came out on top. Why? Well, he’s a billionaire who says what he wants and does what he likes, fights with the law and wins, lives in a palace in Florida, scores ringside UFC seats, and has sex with porn stars and ex-models. Forgot the glorified civil servants that most Democrats are, Trump is literally the real American Dream for many, whether you like it or not. Add to that an election with more twists and turns than the best or worst season of 24 you never saw, more celeb cameos than a SYTYCD season, a billionaire boy band in all but name and a world on fire. So, in full Gladiator throwback mode from the shallow end of the pool, the real question has to be: “Were you not entertained?”
Donald Trump will be sworn in for the second time on January 20, with all cable and broadcast news outlets covering. The 2028 presidential election will begin later that day, if it hasn’t already.
The Franchise
There are a number of Deadline references in the first season of the satire series produced by Sam Mendes and Armando Iannuccci about the soul-crushing grind of making of yet another superhero movie. We appreciate the shout-outs, for better or worse, but what we really appreciate is the universality of this Himesh Patel-fronted workplace tale of the people behind the camera and the green screens. The Franchise could have an exercise in spot-the-Kevin-Feige for industry wannabes. Instead, over its first run, as Tinseltown tried to get out of its creative and financial funk, the often biting series was truly funny, with just the right dollop of terrifying and a win for the good guys in the end.
All eight episodes of the Jon Brown-created series are available on Max.
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