The Best TV Shows of 2021

TV lovers, you made it: You’ve survived another calendar year of COVID-19 quarantine, which gave you bingers a bevy of options when it came to streaming content directly to your favorite devices. HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, and others joined Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video in this concerted effort to inundate fans of moving pictures with #content. That means many things—old ideas get recycled, franchises expand, and passion projects are greenlit. Many don’t survive, and most of it is mid, but each year, there are a fair number of quality television programs that interested parties should be sinking their teeth into.

Having so many options became one of those good problems this year; for example, not too many networks could boast new seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Insecure, and Succession running at the same time—HBO is doing that right now. Starz and Showtime are churning out content that is speaking directly to the culture on a regular basis, and Disney+ is set to give you theater-quality episodic television every week, and all of it will be MUST SEE. The only real issue is finding the money to afford all of the services you’ll need to satisfy your hunger for new series.

That said, we’ve watched the shows and made the hard decisions. Without further ado, here are the best TV shows of 2021.