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).

4 of 23 photo by Apple

83 Severance (Apple TV+)

(#17) While we await delivery of our Music Dance Experience, let us tell you about one of the most fascinating new shows in recent memory. (And don't just take our word for it—it's topping our compilation of critics' year-end top 10 lists.) Clearly indebted to everything from Lost to The Stanley Parable to The Matrix to Being John Malkovich—but simultaneously fresh and unlike anything else on TV—the twisty, darkly comedic sci-fi workplace thriller Severance is set in a near future in which a tech company called Lumon Industries offers a procedure that provides its employees a unique take on the concept of work/life balance: While at work, they have no memories of their personal lives, and while home, they cannot remember any aspect of their work lives. But what happens at work (waffle parties aside) doesn't fully stay at work—especially when Lumon Industries HQ is one of TV's all-time creepiest and weirdest workplaces.

Worth watching even just for the production design alone, the collaboration between producer/director Ben Stiller and first-time writer/creator Dan Erickson also boasts a stellar cast including Adam Scott, Patricia Arquette, John Turturro, Christopher Walken, Dichen Lachman, Zach Cherry, Michael Chernus, Jen Tullock, and Britt Lower. And don't worry about that cliffhanger ending: A second season will stream in 2023.

“With smart performances, an intriguing script, and buckets of style from Ben Stiller in pure thriller mode, it easily climbs up the list of Apple TV+’s best shows.” —Clint Worthington, Consequence

Watch it on Apple TV+ (9 episodes)

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