2022 was a huge year for television. People have favorites all over the place from so many sources.
I'm seeing a lot of praise for Andor, House of the Dragon, and Severance, but I haven't seen those shows yet. Neither have I seen The Expanse, Ozark, or Peaky Blinders.
I assure you, while I may be wordy, this post is pretty spoiler free, unless it's something negative, but I don't get into any deeper details beyond a key greivance or made the news.
Stranger Things 4 was massive, and some episodes had not only the runtime, but also the visual effects of a big budget movie. It had a more moving story, growth between the characters, and some important, shocking, gory, and unexpected deaths. The way the seasonal plot threads have been laid out and formulated is getting a tad repetitive, but everything has been coming into place rather perfectly, setting the stage for a remarkable final season, whenever that happens.
The interesting yet plot hole laden and broken dialogue filled Manifest returned from cancelation to begin its final season and it was exactly those things. Pretty fantastic stuff nonetheless.
It's also been the final year for the shamefully poor adaptation of The Walking Dead, let's hope they make it right someday by making an animated series that actually stays faithful to the exceptional comics. I think they should, as the Kirkman headed team behind Invincible could pull it off very well.
Doctor Who finally ended its worst run of episodes since the 1980s, stunted by an awful showrunner who took a loving alien focused on helping Earth and turned them into some kind of chosen one or God. Thankfully the new showrunner, Russel T Davies, who wrote the best run of episodes since the 1970s, plans on erasing and ignoring all of this jokers mistakes alongside the beloved David Tennant returning to the role. It's a shame, as I was very optimistic about Jodie Whittaker as The Doctor and it ended up having the most nonsensical plot contrivances I've seen since the Star Wars sequel trilogy.
Atlanta got two mind warping and innovative surprise final seasons in one year, with many of the series best episodes, and a few that were like bizarro episodes of Black Mirror or Twilight Zone with none of the main cast.
It was the heartbreaking last season of Better Call Saul, which is a spinoff to Breaking Bad that many are calling superior to the long declared "masterpiece" show that it derived from. I'm more on the fence with that idea, as I believe both series are equal in quality, simply with a different artistic focus and tone. The final season was the best possible way to end off the franchise, with a downfall more tragic and poetic than the previous series.
Dexter even came back for a real final season that was almost amazing with one of the best villains in the shows history and some real closure for a character who is only really comparable to Light Yagami in their moral complexity. It would have been nice if they had a few more episodes, as I think it discards a bit of Dexter's character towards the end, and certain things about Angela's plotline come across as way too convenient.
Season two of Alice in Borderland took Arisu directly to the heart of the deadly games and was tense, brutal, and stylish in doing so.
We saw the return of Nathan Fielder in The Rehearsal where he would help people get through tough conversations by completely recreating the possible scenarios with extensive budget so they can endlessly rehearse breaking tough news as his own existential crisis takes hold of the shows focus. At times its hilarious with Nathan's trademark sometimes unintentional cringe humor, other times it's incredibly thoughtful and pointed towards the negatives of reality TV and the television industry as a whole.
How to With John Wilson returned as he continues to film every non consequential thing he sees, making funny, beautiful, and meaningful episodes of television with it.
Diane Morgan is in a new show called Cunk On Earth, where her Borat-esque character haphazardly asks ridiculously dumb questions to scientists and historians who attempt to teach her about the planet.
The third season of The Boys upped the ante and leveled the playing field between its scariest villains and the anti-heroes who make up the resistance. It was pretty amazing, but I fear they're dragging out the main conflict and sacrificing certain aspects of the characters to do so.
Outside of The Boys, I couldn't tell you or care less about what's going on in the world of superhero shows, but in the anime world, we had some pretty substantial returns. Attack on Titan is almost over and is still perfect all the way through, we got the two final batches of Stone Ocean episodes, Mob Psycho 100 is over, Bleach is back, and Chainsaw Man has begun, storming the world with immense popularity.
In mini series, we had Dahmer from the American Horror Story team, and We Run This City from the team behind The Wire, alongside many short series about famous pop culture subjects with a dark hidden truth.

What was your favorite season of television last year? Did you watch much TV? How do you think they're going to follow up your favorite one, if they can?

For me, nothing will beat the satisfying end to Better Call Saul. It's the payoff of over 7 years of meticulous planning and beautiful delivery, and feels very complete in a way not many other shows manage to do, while heavily accentuating the extent of the horrors committed by Walter White in Breaking Bad.

I think Stranger Things 4 takes it. The fact that the season needed a 2nd part and that those last two episodes had to be incredibly long really tells you all you need to know. The characters were amazing throughout the season and there were a ton of amazing visuals. It was so dark too.