The 10 best TV shows of 2024
Our choice of the year’s essential small-screen entertainment.
ByTV reviews
Discover compelling insights into the latest TV shows with our selection of reviews, providing critical analysis, expert opinions, and captivating commentary on the most popular and thought-provoking series.
Netflix’s Black Doves is as irresistible as it is annoying
This festive spy thriller is farcical and freewheeling –and like a decent cracker it packs a certain bang.
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The torture of Meet the Rees-Moggs
The last thing Jacob Rees-Mogg needs is to be coddled by reality TV.
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Forty years ago, Band Aid brought mad excitement to my generation
Watching the BBC’s The Making of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, what was once such a big deal dematerialised in…
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Anthony Horowitz’s Moonflower Murders is a delicious buffet of detective-story Englishness
Blood stains, Battenberg cakes and a brilliant older woman – what a treat this series is.
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Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is a masterclass in restraint
In this second series, based on the final novel in Hilary Mantel’s trilogy, the mood is hushed. What volumes are…
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Jilly Cooper’s economic fantasies
Rivals makes the 1980s look like sunlit uplands.
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The Day of the Jackal is more lifestyle show than thriller
In this slick adaptation of Freddie Forsyth’s novel, Eddie Redmayne’s cheekbones shine.
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Generation Z is a tedious abomination
How did this series, in which dastardly pensioner zombies feast on teenagers, get made?
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Undercover: Exposing the Far Right reveals a vile network of pathetic fascists
This film from Hope Not Hate – pulled from the London Film Festival on safety grounds – has a lot…
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The Franchise is a sharp send-up of superhero films
Richard E Grant is glorious in this Rolls-Royce production from Armando Iannucci and Sam Mendes.
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The unadulterated pleasures of Rivals
This Disney+ take on Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire Chronicles is very funny and deeply satisfying. And what a multiplicity of backsides!
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Joan is a diamond in the rough
Sophie Turner shines in this TV biopic of an Eighties jewellery thief.
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The hotel-room blandness of Netflix’s The Perfect Couple
There are bathroom tiles more expressive than Nicole Kidman in her latest in a long line of increasingly hollow TV…
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Why Sherwood matters
The second series of James Graham’s Nottinghamshire-set BBC drama is event television at its best.
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Brian May’s educational masterpiece
The rock star’s plea to save the badgers is strangely captivating.
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Freddie Flintoff’s second coming
The ex-England pro leads his young team for a second series of self-discovery.
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Freddie Flintoff’s Field of Dreams on Tour is a hopeful, tear-jerking delight
This, for me, is the antidote to those appalling race riots. If only all those involved could be made to…
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Piglets: ITV’s “offensive” police comedy
This series set in a police training academy is by turns laugh-out-loud funny and simply embarrassing.
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The Turkish Detective is both familiar and delightfully other
This series based on Barbara Nadel’s bestselling novels is really rather good summer viewing.
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