Best TV shows of 2022, so far (January-Mid-March)

So I’ve decided to break my TV watching recap into 2 or 3-month brackets instead of waiting till the end of the year. One reason is that my memory really is no longer what it used to be and another is that my end of year recap doesn’t include shows that maybe deserve a spot. Recapping what I’ve watched over the past 3 months allows me to have a fresh memory of the shows as well as it gives more room for more shows.

In all honesty, this beginning of the year was full of surprises! Shows I was convinced I would hate turned out to be favorites while shows I was waiting in anticipation to watch turned out to be duds.

Between January and mid-March, there’s been 5 show that deserve, in my opinion, a mention.

The Silent sea

This Korean scifi series is far from perfect but it has enough originality and intrigue for me to tune in for another episode and want to know more. The story takes place in the near future where Earth suffers from extreme water shortage and follows a space crew sent to the moon on a mission to retrieve mysterious samples from an abandonned research facility where five years prior, all the staff died in bizarre circumstances. Sure, there was some clumsiness in the writing and my first opinion after the first few episodes was that it’s probably an Alien rip-off, but they’ve managed to turn things around and some plot twists have made The Silent Sea a show deserving of more attention.

Archive 81

My previous comments about The Silent Sea’s clumsiness also applies here, for Archive 81. This is a supernatural horror series about a man who’s hired by a mysterious company to restore videocassettes belonging to a student who made, 15 or 20 years prior, a documentary about an appartment building in New-York. As he restores and watches the seemingly mundane footage, he quickly realizes that he’s getting pulled into an intrigue involving mysterious fires, disappearances, cults and conspiracies. Are there plot holes? Yes. Are there unnecessary jump scare techniques? Absolutely. But once again, the show has managed to bring enough to the table to catch the viewers’ attention and make them want to know more.

Suspicion

Suspicion premiered on February 4 and I’m only a few episodes in so my critique will only be about what I’ve seen so far. Four strangers, all ordinary British citizens, are accused of kidnapping the son of a high profile American media mogul. The kidnapping happened in a New York hotel, when all four characters happened to be there. As they desperately race to prove their innocence, one can’t help but wonder if they’re really telling the truth. I must admit that the 4 main characters are nor really sympathetic and I’m not really rooting for them, but curiosity got the better of me. I want to know what happened, who did it and why.

C’est comme ça que je t’aime

Being born and raised in Montral, Quebec, I’ve always been very critical of local TV shows. They very often lack creativity, borrowing from existing American shows, and/or lack nuances and subtility. I can literally count on the fingers of one hand all the Quebec productions I actually like : Rock et Belles Oreilles, Tout sur moi, La petite vie, Les Invincibles and Infoman. Last year, another series can be added to the list : C’est comme ça que je t’aime, a show about two couples who turn into murderous criminals during their kids’ stay at summer camp. The show is not constant but it’s got some killer hilarious lines! The second season has just begun to air and we binge-watched it in no time. Still pretty funny.

Peacemaker

Now this is a show I was sure I would hate! I didn’t even have the intention of watching it because I dislike anything about superheroes. What changed my mind was when I heard some hype about the opening credits and checked it out on Youtube. It was pure genius and convinced me to give the show a chance. I have to say that Peacemaker was a big surprise. Funny, silly, insightful and action packed, with a great ensemble cast and killer dialogues, this series is so different from the movie it’s supposed to come from! I saw bits of the Suicide Squad (1 and 2) and hated it. The TV series is nothing like the movies. The first half of the season is better than the second, but still, I can’t wait for season 2.

So that’s my top 5 series so far, but that’s not all I watched, though. I mentionned earlier that there were some shows I was waiting for with much anticipation. Well, when they finally aired, I was deeply disappointed. These are shows like Severance (too much emphasis on purposeless visuals) and The Afterparty (bad writing for such a talented cast). And then there were shows I just watched out of boredom, hoping to stumble on a surprise, like Dollface (season 2), The woman in the house across the street…., The girl before, Murderville, Shining Vale, Our flag means death. Unsurprisingly, they were disappointing. I also started watching the 4th season of Killing Eve but my interest wanes with each season.