THE BEST DEBUT SERIES OF 2021
Only a few more of these year-end wrap-up columns to go before we can start reviewing new 2022 content! Here's a rundown of the best original series that debuted last year, in no particular order.
HACKS
[HBO Max]
The sardonic Vegas-set comedy series -- about the sometimes-tense working relationship between a young comedian (Hannah Einbinder) and the legend (Jean Smart) for whom she's writing jokes -- doesn't exactly break new ground. It does all the things we expect a behind-the-scenes entertainment industry satire and a combative workplace comedy series to do. It just does them a lot better than almost any other shows, with storytelling so tight and carefully paced, it's almost supernatural. This is the kind of show you can only make after you've already made a very good show (the creative team previously developed "Broad City") and know all the pitfalls to avoid and best practices to insist upon.
Smart and Einbinder are terrific comic foils, and their characters develop a complex, nuanced relationship that starts to feel genuinely real by the end of Season 1, but they're also surrounded by a fantastic supporting cast, and every character gets at least a few funny sequences and some degree of focus. (Meg Stalter's delirious new twist on the familiar "dumb assistant" bit was a particular standout, as was Poppy Liu's free-spirited casino dealer.) This was the sharpest and best-written new comedy of the year.
RESERVATION DOGS
[FX / Hulu]
We sometimes talk about diversity or representation on TV like it's purely a civic good. The demographic make-up of our TV shows should roughly match the general American population because it's just the right thing to do. "Reservation Dogs" is a good reminder that broadening the tent, and inviting more people with different kinds of voices and perspectives to tell stories, isn't just morally correct. It also makes for better, more fresh and interesting shows.
"Hacks" takes a familiar formula and setting and just nails it. "Reservation Dogs" opens up an entirely new world for most of its audience (including me), taking us inside the lives of four Indigenous teens living in rural Oklahoma as they hang out, commit petty crimes, and dream of escape. The series -- from Sterlin Harjo and Taika Waititi -- uses the familiar outlines of a coming-of-age comedy-drama as a structure, but its best episodes just spend time exploring the corners and boundaries of this world, giving us a taste for the rhythms of life there. It's equal parts hilarious and fascinating, and full of fantastic performance from up-and-comers, including each member of the central foursome: Devery Jacobs as Elora Danan, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai as Bear, Lane Factor as Cheese, and Paulina Alexis as Willie Jack.
ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING
[Hulu]
After years of redefining himself as a professional banjo player, what a delight it was to see Steve Martin return to comedy, and in such rare form. What establishes itself from the top as a send-up of true-crime podcasts becomes so much more: a meditation on the loneliness of getting older, a celebration of eccentric New Yorkers, and a genuinely involving mystery. "Only Murders..." was one of the least predictable and most surprising series of 2021, what seemed at first like almost a vanity project for two well-liked veterans turned out to be something fresh and strange and new.
Martin and co-star Martin Short have worked together for decades, and have an extremely easy give-and-take, and a lot of natural chemistry, but also demonstrate a downright shocking continued ability to pull off elaborate physical comedy at their advanced ages. And along with co-writer John Hoffman, Martin has also conceived of the best role Selena Gomez has ever had on screen; she more than holds her own opposite two comedy icons.
THE WHITE LOTUS
[HBO Max]
In many subtle ways, without ever staring into the subject directly, "The White Lotus" slyly poses a question that's on the minds of a lot of Americans in the present cultural moment. "Is it possible to live in an unsustainable way, at or near the top of a fiercely capitalist and hierarchical society, and still be a good person?" A lot of shows have struggled with similar questions: the idea of a character who sees themselves as inherently good while doing very bad things is a near-constant on TV, from Don Draper to Annalise Keating to Tony Soprano and beyond.
In "White Lotus," writer/director Mike White manages to approach the question from numerous angles and various scenarios, implicating his characters and even his viewers, but always with enough distance to keep things funny, and even compassionate. White navigates around showing us these characters' flaws, and the sometimes awful consequences of their behavior, without forgetting that they are human, too, and often are even trying their best.
The show features some of the very best TV performances of the year, including Jennifer Coolidge as a grieving woman in desperate need of a friend, and standout Murray Bartlett as a hotel manager whose genuinely starting to come unglued amid all the pressure of his job.
MAYOR OF KINGSTOWN
[Paramount+]
Taylor Sheridan's original crime drama "Mayor of Kingstown" snuck up on me. It's a complicated series that doesn't follow a pre-set formula, and it genuinely takes a few weeks to figure out how these various very dark and violent stories are going to weave themselves together. Jeremy Renner stars as Mike McLusky, who serves as a kind of "fixer" or go-between in a very tough Michigan city where private prisons are the major local industry. As a member of an old Kingstown family with deep roots in local law enforcement, and as an ex-convict himself, McLusky is the ideal guy to communicate between all the different stakeholders in town, from the various criminal gangs to the cops to the FBI to the prison guards, and even some of the more high-profile and dangerous inmates. (Aidan Gillen gives a particularly chilling supporting turn as Milo Sunter, a truly psychotic Russian mobster.)
Sheridan is just good at what he does, and the threads are set up subtly enough that you don't even notice him pulling them together until it happens, in the second-to-last episode of the season. But when they do all come together, and Mike realizes the challenges he now faces, it's one of the most intense and thrilling episodes of any TV series this year.
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