My Favorite TV Shows of 2024

16 shows I loved and some I didn't

• I’m glad to be sending out a fresh newsletter again! Apologies for my absence while recording my audiobook. Once I finish recording it, I will post about it for other writers who might be doing the same soon, or for readers merely interested in the process.

• Breaking Bravo News: On the latest Giggly Squad episode, Paige DeSorbo revealed she and Craig Conover are broken up. I’m sad for her! And I had just started liking Craig! We’re discussing the news in the Frank subscriber chat:

• In the meantime, I announced my book tour. We are adding at least two more cities and tickets aren’t live yet for a couple of cities, so expect a full tour post next week! Current tickets on sale here.

• My first book review dropped on Kirkus Reviews and it’s pretty glowing, which floored me. I’m not a person who scours the internet for reviews¹ (and I will never look at Goodreads!), but my publicist sent this one to me so, I was happy to read it.

• An excerpt from Pure Innocent Fun is available to read via People. Also, thank you The Stacks, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, E!, and BookPage for listing Pure Innocent Fun as a must-read for 2025.

• Finally, Frank is still having a holiday sale! All paid subscriptions are 25% off for one year (offer only available through 12/31!). Paid subscriptions are how I sustain this newsletter of pop culture musings (and now, Real Housewives recaps for paid subscribers) and how I’ve been able to support myself financially this year. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed!

16. Big Brother

26 seasons in, Big Brother is an odd show to recommend to people. At its best, it’s an incredible social experiment with cunning gameplay and some of the wildest people you’ve ever seen on reality television. And its worst (which is usual), it’s corny, has horrible casting, competitions designed only for jocks to win, and is dominated by awful alliances. This year, casting swung for the fences with Angela Murray, Tucker Des Lauriers, and Chelsie Baham specifically. Angela was like a whirlwind straight out of 2000s reality TV — erratic, prone to fights, and overdramatic. Tucker was a charming competition beast who often threw his own game out the window for the sake of entertaining the audience (or himself, tbh). Chelsie was a shrewd gamer who went on to become the second Black woman to win the game (after my girl, Taylor Hale!) and the first to play a “perfect game” — meaning she wasn’t voted out, she never received a single eviction vote, and she won unanimously. Then there’s Jankie, the cute AI mascot who held the houseguests prisoner in the backyard and died in front of them. Yeah. The show is weird. But this season was sublime.

15. Evil

If you’ve never seen this weird, hilarious, and terrifying show from The Good Wife creators Robert & Michelle King, then do yourself a favor and run to Netflix or Paramount+. Ostensibly, the show is The X-Files but with religion. Psychologist Kristen Bouchard and Catholic priest-in-training David Acosta investigate unexplained mysteries, alleged miracles, and potential demonic possessions for the church. The show, which initially debuted on CBS and then was thrown onto Paramount+, concluded with its fourth season this year. It’s a shame because its popularity increased after it was added to Netflix.

14. Matlock

Network TV is kinda back. I love this Matlock redux on CBS that serves an unexpected twist: Matlock is Madeline “Matty” Matlock who joins a law firm to secretly take down the lawyers who helped the prescription drugs that killed her daughter stay on the market. The twist makes the show thrilling and Kathy Bates’ stellar acting keeps you coming back. She’s done a bunch of bad network TV gigs in the past but this is the first truly great one². It is a network TV show in its first season, so there are a couple of duds along the way, but so far it’s been an incredibly engaging show to watch week-to-week.

13. The Penguin

Yeah, Colin Farrell is amazing. But this show is all about Cristin Milioti who is unreal as crime family prodigal daughter Sofia Falcone. It’s another “gritty” take on the Batman mythos, but I enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the Robert Pattinson film. Listen to my interview with Milioti on Keep It.

12. Love Island USA

Was I talking about anything else this summer besides Love Island USA? Aside from Ariana Madix joining the series as a host who actually enjoys watching the show and cares about the islanders, it was also the first season to be played like it's Big Brother. You had people scheming to oust romantic rivals from the show and dramatic breakdowns when people were cut from the island. I loved Love Island in its UK iteration and never paid much attention to the US, but this year, casting with the jackpot most importantly with the most compelling man on reality TV all year — Rob Rausch.

11. The Diplomat

Season two of this Keri Russell political thriller about a US ambassador in the UK unraveling a political conspiracy (while testing the waters to become the US’s Vice President) was a slight drop in quality from season one if only because it was two episodes shorter, and took too long to get to its main plot. But damn, this show is so fucking fun to watch. And the ENDING of this season made me gag. Can’t wait for season three. Plus, Allison Janney!

10. Found

Found is a pulpy NBC series starring Shanola Hampton and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zach Morris!) about a former kidnapping victim, Gabi Mosley, who manages a crisis management firm. Zach Morris plays her former kidnapper, Sir (insane name, I love this show), whom she has kidnapped and keeps locked up in her basement to help her solve her kidnapping cases. In its second season, Sir is on the loose, and all of Gabi’s friends know she had a man locked up and solving crimes for them. It’s giving Scandal. It’s giving You. It’s giving mess. It’s perfect.

9. Survivor

This show has been on foreeeeeveerrr but a lot of people either started watching for the first time or came back to the fold during the Covid lockdown. Survivor is currently in its New Era, where the game is shorter than it used to be (26 days versus 39) and there are a ton of new twists. But this most recent season, 47, managed to have an amazing cast that overcame the show’s obnoxious twists. Rachel was an amazing winner but Andy, the contestant who had a meltdown in the premiere and got my boss Jon Lovett sent home, turned out to be a dark horse gamer and amazing television. This was the best season of the New Era.

8. The Traitors

The Traitors, a bit like Mafia, involves three Traitors murdering Faithfuls one-by-one, while the Faithfuls try to figure out who the Traitors are by banishing someone from the game each night. I think we can all agree the rules of The Traitors make little sense and leans heavily in favor of the Traitors. But the only thing important about this show is the casting of reality TV stars who fucking bring it. Phaeda Parks made season 2 incredibly riveting, appointment television. I can’t wait for season 3 on January 9!

7. Diarra from Detroit

I discovered this show late in the year, but I’m OBSESSED. Absolutely one of the funniest things I’ve watched all year. The series, from comedian Diarra Kilpatrick, is about a woman going through a messy divorce who returns to her old neighborhood in Detroit. After a man from a dating app ghosts her following an amazing first date, she’s propelled into investigating his “disappearance.” What she uncovers in a wild conspiracy plot to rival Chinatown. When I tell you that you need to get BET+ just to watch this series, I fucking mean it. Or at least get a one week trial via Amazon Prime and binge the first season over a weekend.

6. Elsbeth

Elsbeth is a quirky cop show (it’s still ACAB here, but not on my TV shows, sorry) that’s the third entry in the Good Wife universe. Elsbeth Tascioni is a savant lawyer and detective who’s a bit like Columbo and the cases are usually goofy and the guest stars are great. Much like Columbo, you discover who committed the crime when the episode begins. In the season premiere, Nathan Lane murders someone because they keep talking during the opera. What more do you even need to know??

5. Interview with the Vampire

Okay, yes, another app you need to get! But AMC+ is worth it if only for this sexy, riveting, and smartly adapted take on Anne Rice’s 1976 novel. It’s also one of the sexiest shows you’ve ever seen. I’m also biased because Jacob Anderson listens to Keep It and we had a great interview with him last year. Listen here.

4. The Valley

I didn’t even want to watch this spin-off of Vanderpump Rules (RIP to the OG cast, I pray the reboot doesn’t end up like RHONY) at first. Why would I willing tune in to watch Jax Taylor on TV again? But somehow, this managed to be one of the best shows Bravo has debuted in YEARS. What used to be a show about wannabe actors and models and singers slumming it in a tacky West Hollywood restaurant, fucking each other, and getting into dumb fights has turned into a show about adults with kids who are coming to grips with the bad choices they’ve made in their lives. Choices that have led to them living in North Hollywood, watching their marriages and friendships crumble, and yes, getting into even more dumb fights. It’s brilliant?

3. X-Men ‘97

I had Marvel fatigue the longest. I still kinda do. But this sequel to the original ‘90s X-Men cartoon is the best thing Marvel has produced in ages. It’s nostalgic and funny and as emotionally complex as its comic book source material. So much so, that I learned quickly that I couldn’t just watch the show stoned on a weekend morning. I actually have to pay attention to what’s happening. Devastating, I know, but it’s worth it.

2. Slow Horses

Is it time to admit that Apple TV+ kinda slaps? At this point, I watch The Morning Show, Bad Sisters, Presumed Innocent, Shrinking, Severance, and now Slow Horses³. I binged all four seasons in three weeks. Six episodes a season is kind of perfect for a show like this. An elevated spy drama that feels like it’s made for your dad, but it’s also hilarious and genuinely suspenseful. Plus, it’s British people doing spy shit which is always fun to watch. The best part about it, is that usually the next season of the series has already begun filming when a new one airs. Which means you don’t have to play the Netflix game of worrying they’ll a) cancel the series before you’ve even watched it or b) will have to wait three years for a new season.

1. The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City

I’ve said over and over again in my recaps this year, but this isn’t just the best reality TV airing currently, or the best Real Housewives franchise airing right now, but it’s the best thing on TV right now, period. This series has managed to throw Bravo back into the zeitgeist and also turn the franchise on its head through a breaking of the fourth wall, actual criminal convictions, a cast that approaches the genre’s penchant for petty fights with an incredibly acerbic humor, and cast member Mary Cosby’s transformation into a real human being by sharing her son’s struggle with drugs and subsequent enrollment in rehab.

Nobody is doing it like Salt Lake City! And I look forward to nothing more than Thursday mornings when my phone lights up with texts from various friends who are all as obsessed with the series as I am.

And a few shows that disappointed me this year… I was excited for Squid Game to return (I even loved the game show, bring THAT back), and then I started watching season two and… whew… I wish I hadn’t! House of the Dragon is not good, I fear… The Real Housewives of New York had promise in its first season, but the second season has swung between boring and unwatchable.

1. If you believe the good reviews, you have to believe the bad ones too!

2. Sorry, Harry’s Law.

3. I promise the sci-fi series Silo and Foundation are next but I was really having a spy thriller year. I’m also into Black Doves and The Day of the Jackal.