The 43 Best New Shows of 2022 (2024)

Station Eleven may have started in 2021 (and it also made our Best New Shows list for that year), but it wrapped up in 2022—so we're counting it! Based on the novel of the same name, Station Eleven may seem like a tough watch right now, being about a deadly pandemic and all. But it actually turns into one of the most uplifting, touching, and intensely-built character studies in recent TV history. The entire cast—particularly Mackenzie Davis, Himesh Patel, and Matilda Lawler, among others—are absolutely fantastic. You have to stick through some moments where it seems like the show is spinning its wheels a bit, but it all pays off in the end.

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Another one that was on our 2021 list but wrapped up in 2022, Yellowjackets is simply one of the buzziest and most intriguing shows to come along in recent years. Imagine the intrigue and mystery of Lost, combined with Lord of the Flies, and then mixed with kind of a "then and now" It or Stand By Me vibe— but distinctly 1996. Led by Melanie Lynskey, Tawny Cypress, Juliette Lewis, and Christina Ricci (along with their 1996 counterparts), the show has stellar casting across the board, an incredible soundtrack and is just a great, great watch. Yellowjackets is coming back for Season 2, and can't come back soon enough.

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Peacemaker is part of what we love about The Boys, and then part of what we love about the Disney+ shows in the MCU—a Hard-R, hyperviolent, hypervulgar, superhero romp, set right in a well-established superhero world. While we may not see Batman or Superman, they and their pals are frequently referenced; and John Cena's titular Peacemaker was of course introduced (and used to great effect) in The Suicide Squad, which Peacemaker is directly spun off from.

Writer/Director James Gunn does great work to translate his world to a different medium and the cast is 100% game. Even outside of Gunn, other standouts include Orange is the New Black star Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland as the returning Harcourt, and Freddie Stroma as the totally insane Vigilante who is, well, a vigilante.

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For all the Yellowstone-heads out there, 1883 is the first chapter in the Dutton family's story. Taking place in 1883 (rather than the flagship series' contemporary setting), creator Taylor Sheridan gets to take a semi-unconventional stab at a western here. And with a cast that includes Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Billy Bob Thornton, and one of our greatest cowboys, Sam Elliott, he's got some really great toys in his sandbox.

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Abbott Elementary isn't exactly breaking the mold of the modern mockumentary sitcom, but it's done really well, and brings a lot of laughs. The series is build on the charm of series creator/star Quinta Brunson, while Everybody Hates Chris's Tyler James Williams plays the committed and ambitious substitute teacher. The show tells the story of an underfunded public elementary school in Philadelphia, weaving in a bit of well-deserved social commentary in a place (network sitcom!) you don't usually find it.

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Let's just be real on this one for a quick second: How I Met Your Father is not a show that's going to push you to your intellectual limits. But it's a fantastic show for something we all really, really need: something nice to put on and massage our brains for 20 minutes at a time. This sequel (or spin-off, who knows) from How I Met Your Mother basically flips the script, putting Hilary Duff in 2022 at the center of our story (and Kim Cattrall as the same character in flash-forwards to 2050, lovely stuff), as we wonder who she ends up with. It's not reinventing the wheel, but it's fun and nice and most of us will wind up watching all of it.

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If you dug Only Murders in the Building last year (and who the hell didn't?) The Afterparty may be right up your alley. This star-studded Apple TV+ series (with Dave Franco, Tiffany Haddish, Sam Richardson, Ilana Glazer, Ben Schwartz, Dave Franco, Ike Barinholtz, and Search Party's John Early)is another murder mystery, this time unfolding at a high school reunion with each episode taking place from a different character's perspective. Chris Miller (of the Miller and Lord team that's been behind 21 Jump Street and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) is the creator and director of each episode.

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This based-on-a-true-story series chronicles the relationship of model/actress Pamela Anderson and rocker Tommy Lee (played by Lily James and Sebastian Stan), and the leaking of their sex tape. Seth Rogen and Nick Offerman also star in this series, which is based on a Rolling Stone piece from 2014, and is surprisingly tender and compassionate toward its famous subjects.

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This series from producer/director Ben Stiller (dipping his toes back into TV after the Escape at Dannemora series a few years back) is a darkly comic thriller that feels like a melding of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, and Office Space. The story centers on a man (Adam Scott) who undergoes a process where the memories of his work life and his personal life are 100% severed, with one having zero awareness of the other. The show obviously puts a mysterious thriller spin on the idea of something that everyone struggles with: the work/life balance. The rest of the cast also includes the very funny Zach Cherry and Britt Lower, along with a trio of legends in Christopher Walken, John Turturro, and Patricia Arquette.

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The year of the scammer series peaks with The Dropout. While WeCrashed is also good (and more on that in just a bit), this series starring Amanda Seyfried as Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is truly the cream of the crop. Not only is it stylistically good (and the combination of a genre-appropriate soundtrack and synthy score make the vibe right), but Seyfried is also joined by co-star Naveen Andrews (Lost) giving another strong performance as her professional and romantic partner, Sunny Balwani. Those two are the only main characters throughout the series, but guest stars like Laurie Metcalf, Stephen Fry, William H. Macy, and Alan Ruck are among those who are wonderful in recurring roles. As a show that tells events as they happens, but also holds its troubling characters' feet to the fire, The Dropout is one of the must-see shows of 2022.

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This series—loosely based on a true story—follows an aristocrat (Rhys Darby of Flight of the Conchords fame) who abandons his comfortable life as an aristocrat to become a pirate. Along his journey, he meets Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). As if you needed to be sold any more, the show has richly drawn characters across its cast, and a storyline that actually makes you eager to see what will happen next. We can't wait for Season 2.

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Do you love The Boys? Do you love dark, twisted, adult-themed cartoons? If the answer to either of those is 'Yes,' you'll love The Boys Presents: Diabolical, an animated series of short, standalone stories set in The Boys universe. If the answer to both of those questions is 'Yes,' this may just be your favorite show of the year. If you finished The Boys Season 3, this is a great place to come to keep getting your fix on that sweet, sweet Compound V.

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Winning Time focuses in on two super important figures in the past of the National Basketball Association: Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly), the new owner of the Los Angeles Lakers who knows he wants to create the flashiest product (and most winning) product in the NBA, and his new star, Magic Johnson (played by newcomer Quincy Isaiah). The show also features the likes of Sally Field, Jason Segel, Jason Clarke, Rob Morgan, and Adrien Brody, among others—the cast is stacked. The show is vulgar, looks just like the era its depicting, but most of all—it's fun.

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You thought we were done with the year of the scammer on TV? You were wrong. Apple TV+ got into the game with WeCrashed, the story of WeWork's founder Adam Neumann (played here by Jared Leto, of course doing the most) and his fall from grace. Anne Hathaway plays Rebekah Newman, Adam's wife who also played a role within the company. What WeCrashed does particularly well is not pass judgment on its characters or try particularly hard to push them in any light; it simply presents them, and lets the audience draw its own conclusion (spoiler: it should not be a positive one!).

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Based on the widely-acclaimed novel of the same name, Pachinko is one of Apple TV+'s biggest swings yet—a story spanning four generations of a Korean immigrant family. And, so far, it lands—Pachinko is one of the best-reviewed shows of the year and has even loyal book fans compelled. The cast is led by last year's Academy Award winner Yuh-Jung Youn (from Minari), and the direction and photography look stunning through and through.

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HBO Max's Minx is kind of the antithesis to HBO's Winning Time. Where Winning Time kind of looks at the messiness of the "boys club" type of antics that led to the success of the Los Angeles Lakers in the '80s (and the women who ultimately worked behind the scenes), Minx depicts a story that makes it clear that it wasn't all debauchery and misogyny. This story of a woman (Ophelia Lovibond) and a magazine publisher (Jake Johnson) who create an erotic magazine with the female gaze in the '80s is both fun and vulgar (with a lot of male nudity!) while putting everything through a rather progressive lens (and with all the nostalgia we want from this sort of thing).

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One of Marvel's very weirdest comic anti-heroes gets the live-action treatment in the form of a six-episode Disney+ series—and with perhaps the streamer's most impressive cast yet. Oscar Isaac plays the titular Moon Knight, while Ethan Hawke is along for the ride as the show's cult leader-type villain. Moon Knight in recent years has become a story about mental illness, and the show is going all-in on depicting the Dissociative Identity Disorder of Steven Grant—or is it Marc Spector? Moon Knight is a trippy, weird, show, especially for the MCU, where things can admittedly tend to sometimes get a bit formulaic. This is one you'll want to stick with until the very end.

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David Simon and George Pelecanos re-entered the world of the crime drama with We Own This City (based on the book of the same name), a 2015 Baltimore-set drama that unfolds at the same time as citizens of the city were demanding justice for Freddie Gray, the 25-year-old who died under suspicious circ*mstances in police custody. Against that backdrop, Simon and Pelecanos once again paint an intricate story of crime, corruption, and complex characters. Jon Bernthal leads a cast that tells a complex and troubling story.

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The age of Garfield continues! Andrew leads this FX mystery series, based on Jon Krakauer's nonfiction book of the same name. Garfield plays a Mormon detective investigating a murder of a woman who finds his faith in question when he finds clues that the church may have been involved. The series is directed by David Mackenzie (Hell or High Water) and written by Dustin Lance Black (Milk) with co-stars including Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sam Worthington, and Wyatt Russell, among others.

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In the very, very, very, very, very crowded 2022 field of based-on-a-true-story crime drama, The Staircase stands above the rest of the crop (alongside The Dropout) as the best of the bunch. Come for the mystifying and confounding story around Kathleen Peterson's (Toni Collette)death, stay for one of the best TV performances you'll ever see from Colin Firth as her possibly guilty husband, Michael Peterson. The rest of the cast—including Michael Stuhlbarg, Parker Posey, Patrick Schwarzenegger, Sophie Turner, and more—is exceptional across the board.

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