The 20 Best New TV Shows of 2022

by Jason Dietz, Metacritic Features Editor – December 27, 2022

In the gallery on this page are the highest-scoring first-year TV series (including limited series) debuting in the United States between January 1, 2022 and December 31, 2022. 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 23, 2022, and any programs with fewer than 7 reviews are excluded. One-off TV specials and made-for TV movies are also excluded (though the best of these is revealed at the end of the gallery, along with a list of the year's highest-scoring returning shows).

1 of 23 photo by Ian Routledge/Two Brothers Pictures

81 The Tourist (HBO Max/BBC1)

(#20) A co-production between HBO Max, the BBC, and Australia's Stan, this six-episode limited series from writer-producers Harry and Jack Williams (The Missing, Fleabag) stars Jamie Dornan as a British man who finds himself being hunted across Australia's outback—while having no memory of who he is or why he is being pursued. Damon Herriman, Danielle Macdonald, and Shalom Brune-Franklin also star. Critics on both sides of the pond praised Tourist's surprising sense of humor and unpredictable storyline.

“As an Irish amnesiac eluding a cabal of killers in the Australian outback, Jamie Dornan is so good you’ll follow him anywhere, which is what gives this relentlessly funny, ferocious, thrill-a-minute series the staying power to haunt your dreams.” —Peter Travers, ABC News

Watch it on HBO Max (6 episodes)

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