Monster, Bad Sisters among the six best 2022 TV shows made-for-grown-ups

Here are six made-for-grownups shows that made me sit up and take notice this year.

The best children’s TV, the best Asian and Scandinavian shows – and the best local TV of the year – will all have to wait for another day.

READ MORE:
* The White Lotus: Why it’s the best TV show of 2022
* Troll: It’s easy to see why this Norwegian movie is a monster hit for Netflix
* Ghislaine Maxwell: Filthy Rich: Why this watchable, mostly informative Netflix doco is hopefully the last word
* Reservoir Dogs: Why Tarantino’s lean, merciless and hellishly funny debut still kills 30 years on

Bad Sisters (Apple TV+)

When the funniest show of the year is also one of the most intriguing, you know you have a winner.

Sharon Horgan’s light-black comedy of sisters joining forces to put one of their number out of the misery of matrimony, was an absolute gem.

Danish Dracula and Clive Owen-look-a-like Claes Bang was creepily terrific as the brother-in-law who everyone wanted gone. While Horgan, Eve Hewson, Sarah Greene and a cast of dozens, delivered dialogue and action that just never let up. Bad Sisters – based on the Belgian series Clan – was a perfect hoot.

Heartstopper (Netflix)

This is a wee British gem, set in a modern day high-school. The show is based on Alice Oseman’s graphic novel, following the life of Charlie, who is gay – and his classmate Nick, who plays a lot of rugby.

The show is sweet, wise, funny, modest, humble and lovable. If you have a teen in the house, they will love Heartstopper. The young cast are terrific – and Olivia Colman turns up as Nick’s mother. The headmaster’s voice on the school PA is Stephen Fry, finding time for a project he passionately advocates for.

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story (Netflix)

This will be contentious I know. Monster was a hard series to watch.

All true-crime shows are open to accusations of exploitation. But showrunner Ryan Murphy was respectful and cautious in this recounting of one of the most notorious serial-killer cases of all time.

The series’ directors were almost all from within the communities that Dahmer targeted. While the writing and performances did the opposite of sensationalising the case.

Like it or not, Monster was this year’s Chernobyl.

The Offer (TVNZ+)

I loved this series because no one had to take it seriously. The show was a fiction of the making of The Godfather – and how truth and story-telling became intertwined on that famously eventful production.

The Offer was laugh-out-loud funny, perfectly cast – Dan Fogler and Patrick Gallo, as director Francis Coppola and author Mario Puzo, were a comedy double-act to die for – and just close enough to factual to send me looking for a real documentary.

In a year of tough-to-watch dramas, The Offer was just fun.

This Is Going to Hurt (TVNZ+)

There is no better example of how bold and groundbreaking a TV show can be.

This Is Going to Hurt is based on a memoir by Adam Kay, a junior doctor and gynaecologist in England’s health service in the first decade of the 21st century.

Ben Whishaw takes the lead as Kay, our guide through an underfunded, overwhelmed system struggling just to keep people alive. The show is bloody, dark, controversial, relentlessly true-to-life and occasionally almost impossible to watch.

But, just like life and death, This Is Going to Hurt was also darkly funny, cathartic and unmissable. This list is alphabetical, but This Is Going To Hurt was the best show of 2022.

The White Lotus Season 2 (Neon)

Even more than season one, season two committed to the bit and never lost sight of the fact that we knew how it ended. We just wanted to know how it got to the point where a body (or bodies?) were floating in the Mediterranean.

The set-up – obnoxious and moneyed strangers in a resort – is simplicity itself. Think Lord Of The Flies, but dressed by Gucci, with catered picnics. That’s The White Lotus. Season three has been confirmed. My fingers are crossed it’s set on Waiheke.

And that’s just a sample of what 2022 offered. I haven’t even made room for season four of Stranger Things, season five of Yellowstone, season three of Derry Girls, season three of Barry, Severance, Slow Horses, The Old Man, We Own This City, The English, The Bear or Andor… What a time to be alive.