We hate to break it to you, but we’re now halfway through 2023. Wasn’t New Year’s Day just yesterday? But in the last six months alone, we’ve seen a surprising number of hits on TV—from fresh seasons of our favorite shows to new programs that won us over.
If you want to stay inside all summer and curl up with the AC, a blanket, and some stellar TV, there’s quite a bit to choose from. Plus, the Emmys are right around the corner—start watching all those prestige shows so you can predict the winners come September.
Many of the shows are on the usual platforms. But while Netflix may be home to some big hits like Love Is Blind and I Think You Should Leave, one of the biggest new shows of the year so far came out of Amazon’s FreeVee service, which, as you probably guessed, is free. You don’t need to sign up for any new monthly subscriptions to meet the nicest guy alive, Ronald Gladden, in Jury Duty.
Other new favorites, like Poker Face, Swarm, and The Last of Us, also debuted this year. We even got a new streamer altogether: Max. It’s only sort of new, as it combined HBO Max and Discovery+ into one service. While no post-launch Max Original shows have made our list yet, some pre-launch HBO Max stragglers like The Other Two and And Just Like That… have returned to win us over once again.
This year also saw the end of some of our old favorite shows. We said goodbye to Succession, Barry, and maybe even Ted Lasso. Although, seeing as the Apple TV+ show isn’t on this list (because of its abominably terrible third season), maybe it’s time for a spinoff from the soccer legends instead of more episodes of the original show.
Wondering what shows you should watch this summer, to be fully caught up on what’s good on TV? Here are our picks for the best shows of the year thus far, from January to June 2023.
Abbott Elementary Season 2
Streaming on Hulu
Gilles Mingasson/ABC
Season 2 of Abbott Elementary delivered that wonderful treat of a series already confident in what its comedic voice was in its first season—sharp, topical humor mixed with a whole lot of heart—delving deeper into the lives of its supporting characters. This most recent season also pulled off a will-they/won’t-they storyline that was perfectly romantic and frustrating (how it should be!). Expect its impressive awards haul to continue this year. —Kevin Fallon
And Just Like That Season 2
Streaming on Max
And Just Like That is our culture’s greatest unifier—in joy and also in utter disbelief. The joy is in having Carrie Bradshaw and the girls back on TV again. The disbelief is in every single plot point, line of dialogue, and creative decision. Thankfully, Season 2 of the show, while still wacky and slightly fast-and-loose with what would be logical, according to the greater Sex and the City universe, is a major improvement on the polarizing first season. Perfect? Hardly! But it is equally pleasurable to appreciate the stories about aging and friendship as it is to blow a gasket over the most ludicrous moments. —KF
Barry Season 4
Streaming on Max
The final season of HBO’s Barry is, if not its finest installment, pretty dang close. Season 4 ratchets up the action and violence—Barry starts the season locked up in prison, battered and bruised; all I’ll say is that he doesn’t stay stuck there for all 8 episodes—but maintains the humor that, yes, Barry has in spades. Not since Breaking Bad has there been a show that manages to be so funny yet so unrelentingly dark, and Bill Hader’s masterclass cast (and direction) gave their strongest performances yet for this final go-round. Plus, if you haven’t watched any of this hitman-goes-to-Hollywood caper before, now’s a great time to breeze through all of it: Each season has 8 episodes, with each episode only running 30 minutes. —Allegra Frank
The Bear Season 2
Streaming on Hulu
Yes, chef! The Bear returned for a pitch-perfect sophomore season this summer with no rotten eggs in sight. Although this season veers from the original storyline about Carmy (a marvelous Jeremy Allen White) and the Berzatto family, it actually ends up better than the first. If you haven’t seen Season 1, use the rest of your summer to marathon both seasons—but beware. You may be prone to booking a flight to Chicago afterward, just to indulge in a juicy Italian beef sandwich. We wouldn’t blame you if you ended up at Portillo’s when you finished Season 2. —Fletcher Peters
Cunk On Earth Season 1
Streaming on Netflix
Philomena Cunk isn’t a real person. The dim-witted newscaster is a fictional character written and performed by comedian Diane Morgan, who hails from Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror’s) creative circle. But even if it’s impossible to take her ridiculous questions seriously, she does a convincing job selling us on them. Cunk on Earth’s six-episode season mines a lot of humor from pitting scholars, professors, and real journalists against Cunk’s deadpanned inquiries about the evolution of human society. And as she strings together her (a)historical text for us on-screen, Cunk can’t help but launch into absurd interludes that make this Da Ali G Show-like enterprise so much more unique and unpredictable than it might sound. —AF
Dead Ringers Season 1
Streaming on Prime Video
Dead Ringers is not just another sublime entry into the Rachel Weisz lesbian canon; it might also be her best performance yet. As twins Beverly and Elliott, Weisz does double duty in Prime’s adaptation of David Cronenberg’s 1988 film. She crafts two wholly unique characters that dissect our modern notions of sex and fertility, while also questioning the moral boundaries of science when wealth and power step in to play. The six-episode series is an expletive-filled, drugged-up, consistently surprising ride filled with big swings. Not all of them work, but Dead Ringers succeeds because of its major thematic risks—and Weisz’s willingness to perform them with a gleeful, go-for-broke intensity. —Coleman Spilde
I Think You Should Leave Season 3
Streaming on Netflix
Terence Patrick/Netflix
This is an easy one: If you like I Think You Should Leave, you will continue to like it in its third season. But if your friends haven’t already quoted some of the best lines to you already ad nauseam, brass tacks: Each 11-minute episode of this sketch show packs in more original comedy than most TV shows do in 22 minutes (or longer). There is no telling where any given segment can go, and there are as many one-liners to quote as there are absurdly funny facial expressions and visual details that demand watching and rewatching. Among the best this season: “The Driving Crooner,” a Bachelorette parody, and a very weird sketch about breaking rules. —AF
Jury Duty Season 1
Streaming on FreeVee
Social media will never be as blissful as it was during the weeks when everyone discovered Jury Duty. The series is a sitcom for everyone but one person: Ronald Gladden. Ronald is an average man who is called in for a secretly fictional jury duty, where everyone else is acting. Shenanigans ensue. James Marsden—starring as himself, an irritated actor who must attend jury duty—poops in Ronald’s toilet and clogs it. The jury is sequestered but is taken on one field trip to Margaritaville. On top of being hilarious, Jury Duty is also endearing, and it may be the best new show of the year so far. —FP
The Last of Us Season 1
Streaming on Max
I’m still suspicious of the whole “best video game adaptation ever” label—the HBO drama is more an adaptation of a video game story than the actual, total experience. But The Last of Us does a great job of translating the story of one of the last decade’s most acclaimed video games into one of the year’s best shows. It’s a tightly paced, episodic road trip through a pandemic-ravaged nation, one that is looking increasingly plausible. While it has every right to be nihilistic, there is still a compelling hopefulness to this exceedingly dark show—courtesy of its father-daughter emotional core. —AF
Love Is Blind Season 4
Streaming on Netflix
The best trash on TV was better than ever this season, thanks to some unpredictable twists that led to the most surprising finale yet. (Not one, but two couples broke up way before the altar … but they didn’t leave the show single.) No wonder its hotly anticipated reunion set off nationwide alarm bells, when Netflix failed to air it live as planned. We needed to know if these highly suspect couples actually stayed there just as much as we needed to indulge our collective hate for hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey. —AF
The Other Two Season 3
Streaming on Max
Not since 30 Rock has a sitcom been this sharp of a showbiz satire, with this volume of bonkers-intelligent cultural references in its humor. But The Other Two is also one of TV’s greatest character studies, focused on its titular siblings: two narcissists who are unspeakably cringe-inducing, yet—dear god—far too relatable. There’s a refreshing candor about the gay community and a surprising, often brutal depiction of what life is like when it turns out the things you thought you wanted don’t make you happy. Season 3 is its last—an announcement that came with news of an ugly real-life showbiz parallel that could be a part of the series. —KF
Perfect Match Season 1
Streaming on Netflix
Netflix has an impressive roster of reality shows, from Love Is Blind to The Circle—why not capitalize on that by creating an Avengers-style mash-up of them all? In this show, a bunch of stars from The Ultimatum, Too Hot to Handle, and The Mole compete to find their perfect match. The concept is like musical chairs—two new stars come in, everyone shuffles, and two people are sent home—but it works, because it’s so simple. Plus, these folks have been on reality shows before, so they know how to work a camera. The drama is high, but I choose to believe that everyone is just putting on a show. —FP
Poker Face Season 1
Streaming on Peacock
After the Knives Out movies and, yes, The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson has become one of my favorite creators. When he announced he’d be working on Poker Face, a mystery-of-the-week anthology series starring Natasha Lyonne, I was hooked before I even had a chance to stream the pilot. While Charlie is running away from impending doom in a high-speed chase across middle America, she encounters murders galore. Though we get to see the murders at the beginning of every episode, the most enticing aspect is watching her solve each one. This show came out at the beginning of the year, when last year’s awards season was still in full swing, and it flew under the radar a bit. Don’t let this be a blindspot in your 2023 shows. It’s one of the most exciting new series TV has to offer. —FP
RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15
Streaming on Paramount+
Fifteen seasons in, RuPaul’s Drag Race is more than just a reality television staple; it’s a cultural touchstone. Season 15 brought together a supersized cast, with some of the most memorable, outrageous, and memeable queens that Drag Race has seen in years. But beyond those (literally) glittering personalities, this latest season was a timely showcase of the art of drag when it has been under fire the most. Amid a deluge of anti-trans and anti-queer legislation, Drag Race remained a consistent light in the darkness, highlighting the power and vitality of community. As desensitized as some of us may have become to the show’s potential social impact, there’s no telling how important it is for a new generation of queer youth to repeatedly have their existence affirmed. —CS
Schmigadoon! Season 2
Streaming on Apple TV+
Schmigadoon! is a musical theater-lover’s dream, but one so wild and delightful, they wouldn’t even know they could dream of it. Season 1 of the series chronicled a couple who wandered into a town where all the inhabitants behaved as if they were in a Golden Age Broadway musical. Season 2 moved the concept into the ’60s and ’70s, where characters, songs, and settings inspired by musicals as varied as Chicago, Hair, Annie, A Chorus Line, and Sweeney Todd all intermingle. That it should not work at all is what makes the fact that it works so brilliantly all the more impressive. A show-stopping performance by Jane Krakowski is worth watching the series for alone. —KF
Somebody Somewhere Season 2
Streaming on Max
Of everything on this list, Somebody Somewhere may be the easiest show for new viewers to get into. There are only 14 half-hour episodes between its two seasons, and watching it feels like slipping on a pair of pajama pants and draping yourself in the coziest blanket possible. The series’ recent second season sees its cast of small-town Kansas misfits trying to find their footing once more, navigating grief and friendship with a blisteringly realistic confusion. The characters of Somebody Somewhere are always trying their best but not always getting it right, and that’s what makes the show so special. It’s not afraid to pair life’s sweetest moments with its hardest ones, creating a melange that proves to be some of the best comfort food on television right now. —CS
Succession Season 4
Streaming on Max
For five years, Succession ruled TV. But every dynasty must end, as did Logan Roy’s in the final season of Succession. The empire came tumbling down with the death of Waystar’s founder and CEO, resulting in a mad dash from the four siblings (and other, unrelated folks) to win over the company. While I would’ve watched hundreds of seasons of Succession, a good show knows when to stop before it jumps the shark. Succession did just that, with one of the best seasons of its entire run on HBO. We’ll miss it a lot—but we’re glad it ended on an incredibly high note. —FP
Swarm Season 1
Streaming on Prime Video
Reducing Swarm to a show about “Beyoncé fans” is, well, reductive. It’s a darkly comic journey into the depths of isolation, a horror story of what happens when a woman on the brink of psychotic break loses her only support system. Dominque Fishback is incredible as Dre, an unpredictable narrator who refuses our empathy–so much so that the one episode that gave us reason to feel for Dre was immediately followed by the funniest of the season, which unraveled everything she’d told us up to that point. It’s not the easiest or most fun watch, but it’s impossible to turn away from. —AF
Top Chef Season 20
Streaming on Peacock
Running for 20 seasons is its own feat. That Top Chef has managed to do so while still producing some of the best TV it’s ever delivered, and without resorting to pandering gimmicks, is even more impressive. The first-ever international All Stars edition of Top Chef was bigger than ever, but it never betrayed the classiness nor the emotion that is the base of the show’s unbeatable recipe. As a swan song for inimitable host and judge Padma Lakshmi, it was a beautiful testament of the inextricable connection between the heart and food, something that Lakshmi always championed. —KF
Vanderpump Rules Season 10
Streaming on Peacock
It’s hard to believe that, before its tenth season began airing, most of the show’s longtime fandom thought that Vanderpump Rules was on its way out. The drama had gone stale, and the relationship dynamics between cast members had been circling the drain since well before the pandemic. But that was before news broke that cast member Tom Sandoval cheated on his girlfriend of a decade (and fellow castmate), Ariana Madix, with one of Madix’s best friends, Raquel Leviss. Sorry, did I say “cheated?” I meant “carried out a months-long affair under Ariana’s nose.” The revelation shocked the world and cast the whole season in a new light. Even better: All of the fallout was captured on camera in the season’s final episodes. Vanderpump Rules achieved its highest ratings in years by season end and created a new heroine, in Madix, for women scorned by mustachioed fools everywhere. —CS
Velma Season 1
Streaming on Max
Max’s animated Scooby-Doo spinoff series, focusing on brainiac fan-favorite Velma Dinkley, became the subject of internet vitriol, due to its reimagining of Velma as a teen sleuth of color. But the series quite literally got the last laugh with its irreverent scripts and delightful Scooby-verse references, all built into a show far more adult-oriented than any entry in the Scooby canon before it. Its first season took a couple episodes to find a groove, but once it hit its stride, it was as compulsively watchable and exciting as the very best Scooby series. That was thanks to its confident voice acting from Mindy Kaling, Constance Wu, and countless other fantastic cast members and guest actors. Scooby may have been the dog, but Velma was always the underdog! —CS
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