My gift to you for the holiday season is this list, which comprises 10 good-to-great scripted shows from 2024 that hardly anyone has talked about (obvious exception: me!). These are the hidden gems from the year in streaming, and they’re ideal for filling out your summer viewing schedule.
Batman: Caped Crusader is anything but a a throwback.Credit: Prime
BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER (Amazon Prime)
Penguin wasn’t the only Gotham City-set success on television this year. Steeped in the expressive shadows and vintage corruption of detective noir, this animated series took Bruce Wayne (Hamish Linklater) and his vigilante alter-ego back to the future. Bruce Timm’s show unfolded in the past, as comic books from the 1940s and ’50s provided the inspiration for Batman’s investigations alongside a familiar roll call of characters, but the psychological insight and deeply held emotional wellspring that steadily unfolded was anything but a throwback. A Batman project has rarely been this entertainingly complete.
Daniel Bruhl in Becoming Karl Lagerfeld: Ambition and desire.Credit:
BECOMING KARL LAGERFELD (Disney+)
You know who had a great year in streaming? The German actor Daniel Bruhl. His high-profile role was in Binge’s The Franchise, where he was both archly funny and low-key heartbreaking as a filmmaker getting devoured by the comic book movie machine, but his best performance was playing one of haute couture’s iconic figures in this French biographical drama. Set in the 1970s, before Karl Lagerfeld ascended to creative control of Chanel, it’s a portrait of ambition and desire that is confidently told and briskly paced, while the period production design and archival outfits are ravishing.
DAVEY & JONESIE’S LOCKER (Amazon Prime)
I’m going to pay this Canadian teen comedy a true compliment and say that it has an excellent whiff of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure to it. Misfit besties trying to survive high school, Davey (Veronika Slowikowska) and Jonesie (Jaelynn Thora Brooks), bypass detention when they discover that their shared locker happens to contain a portal to a multiverse. Soon they’re sampling variants of the classrooms and student body they’re familiar with. It’s a science-fiction romp, complete with silly puns: the temporal agency pursuing the pair is the Management Organisation of the Multiverse (MOM).
Lina El Arabi in The Furies.Credit: Emmanuel Guimier/Netflix
FURIES (Netflix)
If you were yearning for a dose of John Wick action this year – high-octane gunfights, arcane underworld rules – the best place to find it was this French action-drama about a teenager, Lyna Guerrab (Lina El Arabi), who tries to distance herself from her family’s organised crime allegiances but is dragged even deeper in after a massacre at her birthday party. Lyna’s quest for vengeance leads her to the titular referee of the Paris underworld, who wants Lyna to become her apprentice. Earning an MA rating for multiple reasons, the series has already had a second season commissioned.
Natasha Rothwell in How to Die Alone: Snappy lines and absurd flourishes.Credit: Disney+
HOW TO DIE ALONE (Disney+)
The White Lotus star Natasha Rothwell got her opportunity and nailed it this year, starring in a bittersweet comedy bearing genuine resonance that she created. Rothwell plays Mel Jackson, a blue-collar worker at New York’s JFK airport whose attempts to ignore her setbacks and slip-ups peak in a near-death experience, with no one she can call on for help afterwards. Mel’s efforts to course-correct result in real struggle – there’s no easy sitcom success here, and the person Mel wrestles with the most is her own self.
Eve Best and Suranne Jones are estranged sisters in Maryland.Credit: Britbox
MARYLAND (BritBox)
When their mother is found dead under suspicious circumstances, two estranged sisters are forced to both reconcile and investigate their parent’s hidden life. This British drama is an absolute showcase for Vigil’s Suranne Jones and House of the Dragon’s Eve Best, who play siblings Becca and Rosaline, respectively. Their every exchange is charged with regret and calculation, lest the trauma that marked their upbringing should win back out. The past is always present here, but the true focus is the future as the two women try to make sense of who they can be to each other.
Louisa Harland in Renegade Nell.Credit: Disney+
RENEGADE NELL (Disney+)
Given that its creator, Sally Wainwright, was previously responsible for the scything British crime drama Happy Valley, this fantastical period adventure might be the most unexpected change of pace on television screens in 2024. Derry Girls space cadet Louisa Harland plays Nell Jackson, a 19th century English highwaywoman whose sidekick in her struggle to be exonerated for murder is a magical sprite named Billy Blind (Ted Lasso’s Nick Mohammed). Girl power takes on a whole new form in this through-the-looking-glass romp, which has a whirlwind energy and wholesome teenage insouciance.
Shelved is a Canadian sitcom set inside a chaotic public library.Credit:
SHELVED (Binge)
Set in a chaotic Toronto public library where the staff can barely make sense of each other, let alone members of the public who stream through the doors, this Canadian workplace sitcom is further confirmation that underfunded and overstretched public institutions are the ideal setting for a contemporary comedy. Nodding to contemporary issues with both genuine interest and screw loose wisdom, creator Anthony Q. Farrell turns 22-minute episodes into witty, concise character studies. As amusing as the show is, Shelved never shies away from genuine understanding.
Louise Brealey as Deb, and Kat Sadler in Such Brave Girls.Credit: Stan
SUCH BRAVE GIRLS (Stan)
You know that moment when a comedy delivers a line that is equally outrageous and revelatory so you laugh out loud even while earnestly nodding your head? This British sitcom, which confirms creator Kat Sadler as a major talent to watch, is rife with them. The story of a mother (Louise Brealey) and her two daughters (Sadler and her real-life sister, Lizzie Davidson), whose dysfunctional home life together sees them seemingly pursuing the worst of intentions, this is a savagely articulate slice of life. Are they coping? Not really.
Heike Makatsch and Axel Stein in Where’s Wanda?, a darkly comic thriller about a family’s unconventional search for a missing daughter.Credit: Apple TV+
WHERE’S WANDA? (Apple TV+)
This German black comedy is a deceptive marvel. It’s the story of ill-prepared parents (Heike Makatsch and Axel Stein) who, out of desperation, launch an illicit investigation in their home town after the local police make little progress in the search for their missing teenage daughter. The stakes are genuine, especially when illegal surveillance escalates to breaking and entering, but the tone is laced with daftness, comic mishaps and kooky revelations. It shouldn’t be as funny, or as gripping, as it proves to be. Fans of Bad Sisters will recognise a kindred show.
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What has been your hidden gem TV show in 2024? Let us know in the comments below.