After the Party
Robyn Malcolm and Dianne Taylor set out to write a drama that centred on a middle-aged woman as a character – and wound up creating a character who seemed too good to leave behind when the story concluded. Its subject matter made After the Party a tough watch at times, but Malcolm’s Penny bristled with an agency and an urge to chaos that kept things happening – and kept our eyes on the screen.
See it: TVNZ+
Deadloch
This Australian crime comedy – starring our own Madeleine Sami as one of its lead detectives in what must be her most potty-mouthed performance ever – somehow managed to be both a curiously gripping serial killer mystery set in the hippy backwaters of Tasmania and an outlandish lesbian-leaning parody of post-Scandi-noir crime dramas. Come for Sami’s merciless piece of Ocker-mockery, stay for the whodunnit.
See it: Prime Video
Far North
Writer director David White didn’t have to invent much for his first TV drama: he was working with the wildest of true-crime stories and some of his dialogue came straight out of the court documents. Far North’s tale of a bungled meth-smuggling plot may have had some issues with pacing but it was authentic, it humanised its bad guys and it brought Temuera Morrison and Robyn Malcolm together for the first time in 30 years, as the humble couple who did the right thing.
Fisk
The first two seasons of this terrific ABC comedy set in a humble North Melbourne legal practice crossed the Tasman via Netflix. Kitty Flanagan, who wrote the show and stars as main character Helen Tudor-Fisk, does a great line in gently passive-aggressive office politics.
See it: Netflix
Mayflies
This touching two-part British drama may have tackled right-to-die issues but, based on the novel of Andrew O’Hagan, it was about more than that as it charted the friendships of a group of middle-aged blokes with flashbacks to their up-for-it younger selves coming of age in UK’s post-era with bands like New Order, The Smiths and The Fall.
See it: TVNZ+
Rūrangi
Born as a web series, recut as a feature film, then reinvented – with a touch of the supernatural – for a second season as a TV show, there was something unstoppable about Rūrangi. While it didn’t shy away from the hard parts, the series made lighter work than might have been expected of telling a trans story in the midst of a culture war. It also found a lead actor of rare charisma in Elz Carrad.
See it: Sky Go, Neon
Stonehouse
The story of John Stonehouse, the British Labour MP who provoked a media sensation in 1974 by faking his own death, having been recruited as a Czech spy, might have sounded like a thriller in the making. Fortunately, the ridiculousness of the story and fabulist Stonehouse himself inspired this fine comic drama with Matthew Macfadyen an even more perfect chump than he was as Tom Wambsgans in Succession.
See it: SkyGo
The Diplomat
After her long and terrific stint wearing many wigs as a Russian spy on The Americans, Keri Russell returned to more international intrigue as Kate Wyler, the newly appointed US ambassador to the Court of St James. The show’s first season mixed peppy West Wing-style backroom political drama with Homeland-esque thrills, as well as the portrait of two very strange marriages – the crumbling one of Wyler to her career-diplomat husband, and that of the UK and US in their supposed special relationship.
See it: Netflix
The Last of Us
The first big surprise hit of 2023 arrived early with this absorbing HBO thriller based on the post-apocalyptic survival video game. It not only rose above two genres – zombie shows and productions based on games – it created 2023′s best new screen double act with its pairing of Game of Thrones alumni Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey as Joel and Ellie.
See it: Neon
Second or third helpings
Only Murders in the Building
The third season of the Steve Martin-led murder mystery comedy certainly went big, with Meryl Streep and Paul Rudd as guest stars and a murder set against a Broadway show that was meant to be a career comeback of Martin Short’s has-been stage director, Oliver Putman. By rights, its schtick should be getting a little tired. But not yet.
See it: Disney+
Slow Horses
With a Golden Globe nomination for his shabby MI5 veteran Jackson Lamb, Gary Oldman is finally getting some official recognition for his rambunctious performance, which is the smelly, hilarious centre of this terrific genre-bending show. All three seasons come warmly recommended as a holiday binge-watch, though Oldman’s acting is so convincing, best you open a window first.
See it: Apple TV+
Starstruck
The third and final season of Starstruck wasn’t just the one where Jessie finally grew up – it also marked the maturing of her creator, Rose Matafeo, as a writer and director. Exploring Tom and Jessie’s arc beyond the romcom pastiche of the first season might have been perilous, but in the hands of Matafeo (and collaborators Nic Sampson and Alice Snedden), it just got better.
See it: TVNZ+
The Bear
Whatever the special sauce that was in the ingredients to this nervy Chicago diner comedy drama in its first season, the piquant flavour was even sharper in its second outing. Jeremy Allen White’s Carmy Berzatto attempts to turn his greasy spoon into a fine-dining establishment, despite his staff and clientele having other ideas.
See it: Disney+
Documentaries
Beckham
The best, albeit authorised, celebrity life story of the year was this extensive frank and revealing look at the life of Golden Balls himself and, assisted by the presence of former Spice Girl and wife Victoria, it made for quite the time-travel wormhole back to the 1990s.
See It: Netflix
Earth
There was nothing pastoral about this account of the catastrophes that made the planet we know today, yet its epic timescales and global convulsions embodied their own sense of wonder. Chris Packham’s commentaries were focused and purposeful and his sense of fascination was infectious. If you didn’t come away thinking about the time it rained for two million years, you’re just not a big enough nerd.
See it: Sky Go
Last Stop Larrimah
Of the true-crime shows that seemingly arrive weekly on every streaming platform, this one stood out like a platypus in a duck pond. The tale of a bloke’s disappearance in a tiny Northern Territory town, where his absence was very noticeable due to its single-figure population, was funny, weird, sad, compelling and hangover-inducing.
See it: Netflix
The Pigeon Tunnel
Veteran documentary maker Errol Morris’s long conversation with spy novelist John le Carré (born David Cornwell) was completed before Cornwell’s death in 2020. It may have been nothing flashy as a documentary but it sure was the year’s most compelling interrogation scene of a bloke all too happy to expound on his own hidden depths and those of his books.
See it: Apple TV+
Grand finales
Happy Valley
The final chapter of Sarah Lancashire’s veteran Yorkshire police Sergeant Catherine Cawood capped off a brilliant trilogy for the actress and the show’s creator, Sally Wainwright. Its six gripping episodes came with a confrontation between Cawood and her nemesis Tommy Lee Royce (James Norton), that was the year’s most electric single scene.
See it: TVNZ+
Succession
Succession’s fourth and final season was a dark and gripping triumph, especially after patriarch Logan Roy (Brian Cox) carked it on his private jet on his way to negotiate the sale of his heritage media company to a young tech wiz. As the mourning period shifted from family show-of-strength to night-of-the-long-knives, the performances of those playing his supposed heirs – Jeremy Strong, Sarah Snook, Kieran Culkin and Matthew Macfadyen – made them the greatest television ensemble of the year.
See it: Neon, Sky Go
Ted Lasso
Farewell, then, Coach Lasso. Yes, the air went out of the ball on this year’s final season, but it was affecting, feel-good footy fun while it lasted.
See it: Apple TV+
