The 20 Best New TV Shows of 2021

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – December 28, 2021

Above are the highest-scoring first-year TV series (including limited series) debuting in the United States between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021. Shows are ranked by Metascore (an average of grades from top professional critics on a 0-100 scale) prior to rounding based on scores as of December 24, 2021, and any programs with fewer than 7 reviews are excluded. One-off TV specials and made-for TV movies are ranked separately at the end of the gallery.

14 of 23 photo by PBS

85 Hemingway (PBS)

(#7) The latest PBS documentary series from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick spends six hours tracing the life of author and daiquiri lover Ernest Hemingway, with narration from Peter Coyote.

“Over six hours, Burns, Novick, and regular writer Geoffrey C. Ward (a winner of five Emmys for Burns projects) don’t just offer a chronological biography of Hemingway, they dig into his strengths and weaknesses as a writer and human being. They are unafraid of tackling his abusive side and claims of misogyny and racism, resulting in as three-dimensional a portrait of a twentieth century icon as I’ve seen in a very long time.” —Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com

Watch it on PBS (3 episodes)

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