Like my movie list, I'm splitting this in two: shows that aired (entirely or in part) in 2022, and older shows I finally got around to watching last year (although there were much fewer in that second category).
2022 TV Shows
Andor
After the last couple Star Wars shows killed most of my enthusiasm for the franchise, I went into Andor ready to be disappointed, and now I think this might be my favorite piece of Star Wars media ever?!? The writing and performances are incredible, and listening to the folks on A More Civilized Age break each episode down week-to-week was such a fun experience (even if I really can't get behind their "Luthen is a Jedi" theory). I still cannot believe this thing managed to make it through the Disney machine seemingly unscathed. (They should have kept in Fiona Shaw shouting “Fuck the Empire!” though.) Tony Gilroy and his collaborators have set the bar sky-high, and I can't wait to watch them try to clear it with their second and final season.
Mob Psycho 100
I love my good precious boy Mob!!! This season was the perfect note for this one-of-a-kind anime to go out on: love and kindness saving the day where even the most incomprehensibly strong psychic powers fell short.
The Owl House
It's a crime that this show is being cut short by the execs at Disney, because it's fantastic: imaginative fantasy with some really fun horror elements and queer representation that completely outclasses pretty much every other attempt Disney has made at it. There's only two more specials to go, and I'm going to savor every minute I have left with these characters and the Boiling Isles.
Barry
Remember when this show was a comedy? This season of the show about the hitman turned aspiring actor alternated between nail-bitingly tense and bleak as hell, and I loved every second of it. That's not to say there were no laughs to be had: the dig at streaming execs canceling shows for bullshit reasons was pretty good, and proved incredibly prescient when David Zaslav started axing huge swaths of media from HBO Max later that year.
Harley Quinn
I am so glad that Harley Quinn exists in its own separate continuity from other DC stuff, because it means that the writers can do absolutely anything and everything with these characters. Scarecrow? Kill him off. The Riddler? He’s Clock King’s boyfriend now. The Joker? Socialist mayor of Gotham and suburban stepdad. Most surprising of all, however, is that this raunchy comedy show managed to break down Bruce Wayne’s psychology more effectively than anything since Mask of the Phantasm. Also, getting to finally see Harley and Ivy as a couple this season ruled.
Game Changer / Make Some Noise
There's still plenty of episodes left to go in the latest season of Game Changer (“the only game show where the game changes every show”), but alongside its Whose Line-style spin-off Make Some Noise, it’s some of the most consistently funny and surprising television out there, and host Sam Reich’s unbridled joy from watching the contestants blow away his expectations is infectious. Where else can you get a high-concept game of Simon Sam Says, an incredibly impressive showcase of musical improv, and a side-splittingly funny competition of numerical mystery challenges between three utterly fearless (and shameless) players, all in one place?
Don't Hug Me I'm Scared
A YouTube web series turned full television show, DHMIS is a surreal and disturbing horror-comedy puppet show that goes to some wild places, and wisely chooses to avoid explaining literally anything in favor of letting the audience’s imagination run wild; getting concrete answers would just kill the magic. Thank god for VPNs since there isn’t a way to legally watch it in the US yet.
Doom Patrol
A completely bonkers superhero show about a group of marginalized misfits who are less a crime-fighting team and more a support group that gets roped into saving the world from time to time. I never know what to expect from Doom Patrol, whether it's a fictional (within the context of the show) superhero being given an existential crisis or butt-monsters performing showtunes or having my heart ripped out by the ending of a scene that recontextualizes a Kelly Clarkson song as a queer anthem, and that's what's great about it.
Shadows House
My brother recommended this anime to me and I'm so glad he did because it’s a lot of fun: a horror-tinged tale of class struggle and shadowy conspiracy paired with a protagonist with such an irrepressibly sunny disposition that it feels like she came from a different show entirely. I expected Shadows House to eat her alive, but counter-intuitively, her optimistic personality has turned out to be one of her greatest assets, keeping her from sinking into despair despite the constant peril and disturbing revelations, and helping her make critical allies. It's a great dynamic.
To Your Eternity
Where the first season of To Your Eternity was about immortal shapeshifter Fushi starting from birth and learning how to be a full-fledged person, this second season starts with him learning how to overcome the pain of human connection, having closed himself off from the world after experiencing the deaths of countless friends, unwilling to form new attachments since he knows they’ll inevitably end in heartbreak as he outlives everyone around him. I was initially surprised that the manga this show is based on came from the creator of A Silent Voice, but with this season it makes so much more sense, as A Silent Voice is also all about a protagonist learning to form new connections after years of closing himself off from the people around him. It’s often a tragic show, for sure, but it’s so good at getting you to care about its characters despite knowing what awaits them—or maybe because it makes the time we have with each of them feel all the more precious.
Spy × Family
This show is just so cute and good; one of the more recent episodes literally made me cry a little because of how sweet it was. Anya is a perfect little gremlin child and I love all of her silly facial expressions.
Honorable Mentions
Amphibia, Young Justice: Phantoms, Bee & PuppyCat: Lazy In Space, Made in Abyss: The Golden City of the Scorching Sun. Tuca & Bertie, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, The Boys, Russian Doll, Chainsaw Man, Tatami Time Machine Blues, Rick and Morty
Pre-2022 TV Shows I Watched In 2022
Arcane
I know absolutely nothing about League of Legends, but Arcane was such a visual feast that I adored it anyway. The fact that we're now getting all of these animated projects taking inspiration from Into the Spider-Verse absolutely rules.
Kaiji
Watching Kaiji, it was immediately obvious even before I looked it up that either the anime series or the manga it's based on was a major inspiration on Squid Game; the story of a desperate but persistent gambler who finds himself embroiled in increasingly high-stakes games of skill and chance used as illicit entertainment for wealthy onlookers is rife with parallels to the Netflix phenomenon. The thing is, I liked Kaiji even better. The series' penchant for Death Note-style mind games was wildly entertaining, and the slightly lower stakes counter-intuitively make things exponentially more tense, since it means there's actually a very real possibility of Kaiji losing—which he does, more than once. Also, even as someone who generally tends to find it hard to judge voice acting in languages I can't speak, I loved the narrator's performance; he's so good.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
I don't really watch a ton of sitcoms—I've only ever seen like two episodes of The Office—but my brother wanted to watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine with me, and it turned out to be a pretty good time. The constantly escalating heist episodes were definitely my favorites, but it's a very funny show throughout, and I liked watching the protagonist Jake mature over the course of the series. It was definitely weird watching this straight after my rewatch of The Wire since Nine-Nine is so much less critical of the cops for most of its runtime and pretty much does not care about any criminal not named Doug Judy, although to its credit the final season (which got completely retooled due to the pandemic and George Floyd's murder) does make an effort to address systemic injustice and also introduces an incredibly hateable police union president character.