The 25 Best TV Shows of 2021

After a year in which pro­duc­tion was halt­ed on many beloved and high­ly-antic­i­pat­ed tele­vi­sion shows, it’s been hard to keep up with the sheer vol­ume of return­ing favourites and new titles that were aired in 2021. While stream­ing plat­forms con­tin­ue to expand their cat­a­logues, estab­lished stars are flock­ing to the small screen like nev­er before, often drawn to the lim­it­ed series for­mat. Tru­ly, there is some­thing for every­one, and below you’ll find 25 of the best shows to binge-watch over the fes­tive peri­od. Let us know your favourites @LWLies.

It isn’t uncom­mon for a buzzy show to lose its way, but it is rare for it to come back as strong as The Handmaid’s Tale did in its fourth sea­son. After spin­ning its wheels with repet­i­tive sto­ry­lines, the dystopi­an dra­ma saw June (Elis­a­beth Moss) set out on a dif­fer­ent path, lead­ing to hard choic­es, loss, and the dif­fi­cult real­i­ty of life out­side out­side of Gilead. This sea­son was seen as a reac­tion to the Trump era, but more point­ed­ly it showed the chal­lenges that exist in the after­math. It also saw Moss make her direc­to­r­i­al debut, and her intu­itive mind is evi­dent in the three episodes she helmed.

Where­as the sur­prise TV suc­cess sto­ry of 2020 cen­tred around chess, this year’s sleep­er hit took a dead­lier approach to com­pe­ti­tion. Fol­low­ing Par­a­site​’s explo­ration of the class divide, the South Kore­an series from Hwang Dong-hyuk fea­tures over 400 des­per­ate play­ers will­ing to do any­thing to clear their debts. The bright colour palette com­bined with the sim­ple children’s leisure activ­i­ties are visu­al­ly arrest­ing, and Lee Jung-jae’s charm­ing turn as down-on-his-luck Seong Gi-hun make this much more than Bat­tle Royale for television.

Feel Good’s first sea­son hit square in the heart with its inti­mate look at addic­tion and all-con­sum­ing love. The pro­ceed­ing six episodes delve fur­ther into Mae (cre­ator Mae Mar­tin) and George (Char­lotte Ritchie) as indi­vid­u­als as they deal with the fall­out of their breakup on dif­fer­ent con­ti­nents. Mean­while, Mae’s return to rehab is derailed by a trau­mat­ic inci­dent from her past. Sear­ing per­for­mances from Mar­tin and Ritchie, as well as a wel­come return from Lisa Kudrow as Mae’s moth­er, ele­vate the ten­der love story.

The spe­cial episode that bridged Myth­ic Quest’s first and sec­ond sea­sons saw Antho­ny Hop­kins lend his author­i­ta­tive voice as the nar­ra­tor, as the video game stu­dio employ­ees returned to their office with a joy­ful LARP­ing event before famil­iar con­flicts took hold. In sea­son two, Poppy’s (Char­lotte Nic­dao) pro­mo­tion proves far from disin­gen­u­ous ​‘girl­boss’ cheer­lead­ing, result­ing in a sat­is­fac­to­ry sea­son-long arc, while cre­ative part­ner­ships are cen­tral to the flash­back episode that pro­vides the foun­da­tion for CW Longbottom’s (F Mur­ray Abra­ham) bit­ter­ness and a fol­low-up episode fea­tur­ing a stel­lar guest appear­ance from William Hurt.

The first for­ay into Mar­vel tele­vi­sion from Dis­ney+ is a love let­ter to Amer­i­can sit­coms: the por­tray­al of Wan­da Max­i­moff (Eliz­a­beth Olsen), using cosy com­e­dy as a secu­ri­ty blan­ket, avoids the usu­al Avengers plot­ting. The ambi­tious eight-part series took inspi­ra­tion from every­thing from The Dick Van Dyke Show to Mod­ern Fam­i­ly – a stag­ing device to keep Wanda’s grief at bay. Dis­ap­point­ing­ly, the final episode leans into CGI-heavy visu­als, but the pre­vi­ous sev­en instal­ments – and a scene-steal­ing turn from Kathryn Hahn – more than make up for that.

It’s unusu­al for a US series to only have one per­son cred­it­ed as writer/​director, but Mike White took on the dual role for this satire about a lux­u­ry Hawai­ian resort and its mon­strous­ly wealthy guests – as well as the staff who have to pan­der to their every whim. An impres­sive cast includes focus-pulling Jen­nifer Coolidge as the needy Tanya, and Natasha Roth­well as well­ness con­sul­tant Belin­da, who thinks she might make her dreams come true. The shiny veneer doesn’t last and the cracks in man­ag­er Armond’s (Mur­ray Bartlett) exag­ger­at­ed cheery per­son quick­ly turn this into a hol­i­day from hell.

Incor­po­rat­ing the pan­dem­ic has been more hit than miss on script­ed tele­vi­sion, often feel­ing forced or like it’s inter­rupt­ing some much-need­ed escapism. One out­lier is skate dram­e­dy Bet­ty. Set against the back­drop of New York City com­ing out of lock­down, Crys­tal Moselle’s show (it was inspired by her 2018 film Skate Kitchen) nav­i­gates the chal­lenges of this era – includ­ing the BLM protests from last sum­mer – and the impact on young peo­ple by empha­sis­ing resilience as well as uncer­tain­ty. Care­free shots of the female char­ac­ters skat­ing through almost desert­ed streets reflect the vibran­cy and opti­mism of youth.

Joy cours­es through the veins of this com­e­dy about a fledg­ling all-girl Mus­lim punk band as they nav­i­gate per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al obsta­cles. Cre­ator Nida Man­zoor (who also wrote and direct­ed all six episodes) crafts char­ac­ters that defy stereo­types that prac­tis­ing Mus­lims are often sub­ject­ed to on TV. Tropes are dis­pelled in favour of ful­ly formed char­ac­ters, with micro­bi­ol­o­gy PhD stu­dent Ami­na (Anjana Vasan) attempt­ing to over­come stage fright in order to live out her musi­cal dreams. Thank­ful­ly, a sec­ond sea­son has already been commissioned.

The ​“Believe” nature of Ted Lasso’s first sea­son meant the turn toward a dark­er path (par­tic­u­lar­ly for assis­tant coach Nate) was jar­ring when the show returned this sum­mer. AFC Richmond’s strug­gles to reen­ter the Pre­mier League, a deep­er look at men­tal health in sport, and roman­tic obsta­cles were all part of this more chal­leng­ing and reward­ing sea­son. Two stand­alone episodes were added lat­er to the order – a Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion and a night out for Coach Beard (Bren­dan Hunt) that pays homage to Mar­tin Scorsese’s After Hours.

A new gen­er­a­tion was intro­duced to the wit, wis­dom and occa­sion­al warmth of Fran Lebowitz thanks to this sev­en-part docuseries direct­ed by her long-time friend Mar­tin Scors­ese. Each episode revolved around a dif­fer­ent New York theme, allow­ing the writer to dis­cuss her opin­ions on every­thing from the sub­way to pol­i­tics with her trade­mark sar­don­ic tone. Watch­ing Scorsese’s response to his friend (often with rau­cous laugh­ter) was a delight in of itself. A wel­come slice of pre-pan­dem­ic NYC life.

Based on Stephanie Land’s mem­oir of the same name, Maid is an emo­tion­al roller coast­er that empha­sis­es the uphill bat­tle of a young sin­gle moth­er try­ing to escape an abu­sive rela­tion­ship. Mar­garet Qual­ley plays Alex with both deter­mi­na­tion and exhaus­tion as she nav­i­gates a chal­leng­ing sys­tem with­out a sup­port net. Qualley’s real-life moth­er Andie Mac­Dow­ell stars oppo­site her daugh­ter for the first time – and gives a great reminder that she is capa­ble of much more than com­e­dy. Cre­ator Mol­ly Smith Met­zler cap­tures heart­break­ing and uplift­ing moments with­out resort­ing to cheesy clichés.

Two years have passed since sib­lings Brooke (Heléne Yorke) and Cary Dubek (Drew Tarv­er) were last seen on Com­e­dy Cen­tral try­ing to step out of the shad­ow of their pop star teen broth­er Chase­Dreams (Case Walk­er). Switch­ing to HBO Max didn’t dull the shine of for­mer SNL head writ­ers Chris Kel­ly and Sarah Schneider’s pop cul­ture-skew­er­ing com­e­dy. Brooke and Cary’s quest for fame con­tin­ues and they dis­cov­er that suc­cess does not make mat­ters eas­i­er, while their moth­er Pat (Mol­ly Shan­non) spreads her­self too thin with her grow­ing day­time TV empire.

Fol­low­ing a suc­cess­ful coup, Elle Fan­ning snatch­es the crown in this ​“occa­sion­al­ly true” por­tray­al of Russia’s Empress Cather­ine – a show that rel­ish­es play­ing fast and loose with his­to­ry. Rather than do away with hus­band Peter (Nicholas Hoult), The Great presents an alter­na­tive ver­sion of events. Hoult imbues the buf­foon­ish for­mer ruler with charm and a lev­el of empa­thy that was absent in the first sea­son. Plus, Gillian Ander­son guest stars as Catherine’s moth­er, prov­ing once again her propen­si­ty for com­e­dy. Swing­ing from hilar­i­ty to hor­ror is this show’s speciality.

The image of its four teenage pro­tag­o­nists clad in black suits helps explain the title, but Reser­va­tion Dogs doesn’t ride on Tarantino’s coat­tails. Set on a reser­va­tion in rur­al Okla­homa, the show fol­lows Elo­ra Danan (Dev­ery Jacobs), Bear (D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai), Cheese (Lane Fac­tor), and Willie Jack (Pauli­na Alex­is), who are griev­ing a close friend while dream­ing of escap­ing to sun­ny Cal­i­for­nia. Cre­at­ed by Ster­lin Har­jo and Tai­ka Wait­i­ti, this is an irrev­er­ent, spir­i­tu­al com­ing-of-ager that incor­po­rates Native Amer­i­can mythol­o­gy as a fre­quent nar­ra­tive device.

Rather than rely­ing on CGI or sound­stages, Andrew Haigh shot his lim­it­ed series, about a fic­ti­tious ill-fat­ed whal­ing expe­di­tion, far­ther north than any record­ed TV pro­duc­tion ever (81 degrees north to be spe­cif­ic). It paid off – cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Nico­las Bolduc con­veys the iso­la­tion and expan­sive­ness of this icy ter­rain as the sit­u­a­tion on board the Vol­un­teer becomes ever more per­ilous. Class, mas­culin­i­ty and big­otry are cen­tral themes, with Jack O’Connell’s opi­um-addict­ed ex-army sur­geon going up against Col­in Farrell’s ani­mal­is­tic Drax. The ten­sion between man, beast and nature fre­quent­ly boils over in bone-chill­ing­ly vio­lent fashion.

The first sea­son of Apple TV+’s alt-his­to­ry, which explores the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the Sovi­ets win­ning the Space Race, was slow to start but found its foot­ing when the female cast took cen­tre stage – and turned The Bob Newhart Show into an emo­tion­al anchor for three astro­nauts. A time jump into the 1980s that expands moon bases on both sides of the Iron Cur­tain adds to the ten­sion. How­ev­er, it’s the per­son­al rela­tion­ships – inex­tri­ca­bly linked to the haz­ardous work envi­ron­ment – that makes this a must-see dra­ma. The final two episodes are packed with spec­tac­u­lar, hold-your-breath moments.

Par­al­lels abound between the ram­pant mis­in­for­ma­tion of the Covid pan­dem­ic and the AIDS epi­dem­ic n Rus­sell T Davies’ dra­ma It’s a Sin. Ear­ly on we know the par­ty will not last – the spec­tre of this unfold­ing cri­sis casts a shad­ow over every frame – yet Davies lets the char­ac­ters breathe and expe­ri­ence sex­u­al free­dom before it all comes crash­ing down. A land­mark series that refus­es to let audi­ences ignore how bad­ly the LGBTQ+ com­mu­ni­ty have been treat­ed by the gov­ern­ment and the media.

The sec­ond and final sea­son of Maya Ersk­ine and Anna Konkle’s mid­dle school-set com­e­dy was in the mid­dle of pro­duc­tion when Covid hit; the remain­ing episodes arrived as a ton­ic at the end of anoth­er dif­fi­cult year. An ani­mat­ed spe­cial fol­low­ing the teens on vaca­tion in Flori­da, with Anna’s dad as their chap­er­one, dives fur­ther into mag­i­cal real­ism as Maya and Anna become car­i­ca­tures of them­selves. Pen15’s strength lies in its abil­i­ty to cap­ture the per­pet­u­al aches of grow­ing up – and in break­ing from its teenaged POV, Maya’s moth­er Yuki (played by Erskine’s real moth­er Mut­suko) was giv­en the spot­light in a par­tic­u­lar­ly poignant episode.

Steve Mar­tin and Mar­tin Short have appeared in films and on stage togeth­er, but this is the first time they have tack­led tele­vi­sion in tan­dem. The result is a tri­umph. Team­ing up in a mur­der mys­tery com­e­dy set in New York City sounds like a no-brain­er, but throw­ing Sele­na Gomez into the mix is a curve­ball that only ups the quick-fire ante. The three ten­ants of the Arco­nia, a plush Upper West Side con­do, are bound by a love of true crime pod­casts, lone­li­ness, and actu­al mur­der. Plen­ty of twists and turns and a strong sup­port­ing cast will keep you guess­ing whodunnit.

Roman­tic com­e­dy is often an easy tar­get for ridicule, but Rose Matafeo’s Starstruck, which revolves around a reverse Not­ting Hill premise, hits the sweet spot and lights up the screen. Jessie (Matafeo) drunk­en­ly hooks up with famous movie star Tom (Nikesh Patel) on New Year’s Eve, only dis­cov­er­ing his celebri­ty sta­tus the fol­low­ing morn­ing. What fol­lows is a series of mis­un­der­stand­ings, awk­ward sit­u­a­tions, and a whole lot of charm.

This year kicked off with the sec­ond sea­son of Ale­na Smith’s biopic of Amer­i­can poet Emi­ly Dick­in­son and is end­ing with its third and final chap­ter. Despite tak­ing a flu­id approach to var­i­ous anachro­nis­tic ele­ments (as evi­denced in its dia­logue and sound­track), the show is deeply root­ed in 19^th cen­tu­ry New Eng­land. Hailee Steinfeld’s por­tray­al of Dick­in­son goes beyond the reclu­sive rep­u­ta­tion of oth­er biopics, and there is joy, pas­sion, dis­may, humour and dis­com­fort weaved through­out the series.

Kate Winslet marked her first TV role in a decade with this crime dra­ma about a com­mu­ni­ty rocked by a mur­der and the opi­oid epi­dem­ic. As the tit­u­lar Mare, Winslet wears every wor­ry line of this rur­al town and the per­son­al tragedy she is still com­ing to terms with – all while try­ing to solve a case which grows more and more mys­te­ri­ous. The sup­port­ing cast are equal­ly cap­ti­vat­ing, with Julianne Nichol­son deserved­ly win­ning an Emmy (Winslet was also hon­oured), Evan Peters prov­ing his chops, and Jean Smart adding much-need­ed humour.

Pair­ing a grouchy vet­er­an stand-up with a caus­tic young come­di­an recent­ly ostracised because of a ​“bad tweet” could have been a dis­as­trous set-up in the wrong hands. Thank­ful­ly, Emmy-win­ning cre­ators Jen Statsky, Lucia Aniel­lo and Paul W Downs wrote two char­ac­ters that play into gen­er­a­tional dif­fer­ences while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly offer­ing a fresh per­spec­tive. Jean Smart is the Joan Rivers-esque Deb­o­rah Vance, who has trans­formed her pain into a tired rou­tine, while Hanah Eindbinder’s out­spo­ken Ava has absolute­ly no fil­ter. A fiery, fre­quent­ly hilar­i­ous por­trait of being a woman in comedy.

Incred­i­bly Bar­ry Jenk­ins’ lim­it­ed series didn’t win any of the sev­en Emmys it was nom­i­nat­ed for, but his adap­ta­tion of Col­son Whitehead’s Pulitzer-win­ning nov­el will for­ev­er be seared into the minds of those who watch it. The Under­ground Rail­road con­ceives an alter­nate his­to­ry around an actu­al trans­port net­work built to free slaves, which plays a fun­da­men­tal role in Cora’s (Thu­so Mbedu) bid to escape her ter­ri­ble fate. Cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er James Laxton’s colour palette and com­po­si­tion are unlike any oth­er in recent mem­o­ry, and Nicholas Britell’s score cranks up the ten­sion. Trau­ma is preva­lent but brief respites of love add nuance to this remark­able Amer­i­can epic.

After a long delay, it’s safe to say that Succession’s third sea­son was the most antic­i­pat­ed TV event of the year. While there has been some talk of cycli­cal sto­ry­lines, Jesse Armstrong’s por­trait of a lega­cy media dynasty dug even deep­er into the embat­tled Roy fam­i­ly this time around – with Kendall (Jere­my Strong) strand­ed on an island of his own mak­ing, and Shiv (Sarah Snook), Roman (Kier­an Culkin) and Con­nor (Alan Ruck) all des­per­ate­ly vying for daddy’s affec­tion. The show hits all the right tragi­com­ic notes dur­ing Kendall’s cringe-laden birth­day par­ty, while the sea­son finale, in which Tom Wamb­s­gans (Matthew Mac­fadyen) final­ly gains the upper hand over the squab­bling sib­lings (not to men­tion his wife), deliv­ers the moth­er of all bombshells.