The Spectator’s best TV shows of the year

The Offer (Paramount Plus)

Even when you know the ending, this ten-part drama about the making of The Godfather, seen from the perspective of novice producer Albert S. Ruddy (Miles Teller), is outrageously gripping, gorgeously evocative of louche, cocktail-drenched late 1960s Hollywood, wittily scripted and superbly acted. Matthew Goode is especially watchable as superproducer Robert Evans. And this mostly true story has so many eye-popping moments – often involving the real mafia who at first resisted, then supported the movie – it feels more like the raciest and most implausible fiction.

Reacher (Amazon)

Yes, the entire concept is the most preposterous tosh: incredibly tall, handsome loner from military background travels across America dispensing justice while eating junk food and staying in cheap motels which obviously don’t have gym facilities, yet maintains the perfect physique throughout. But it’s redeemed by its cartoonish knowingness. Reacher (Alan Ritchson) is almost comically monosyllabic and brutal, yet adorably sweet with his old-fashioned good manners. You’ll hate yourself for enjoying it – but it’s great.

Slow Horses (Apple TV)

Slough House is the remote, squalid office where all MI5’s rejects are sent to serve out their time under the miserable, cynical, flatulent Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman). But even though they’re all kind of useless, they manage to outwit and outclass their fancy superiors in central London. Ensemble acting, intrigue and atmosphere worthy of those classic BBC John Le Carre adaptations – with the added bonus of a blacker than black sense of humour.

SAS Rogue Heroes (BBC)

Steven Knight has given the SAS the Peaky Blinders treatment: that is, taken one or two unconscionable liberties with true history to create some raucous entertainment. I’m not sure that SAS 2ic Paddy Mayne (Jack O’Connell) was quite the out-of-control, closeted gay, overemotional psychopath depicted here. But the desert action scenes are utterly thrilling and the series does capture well the almost suicidal recklessness and extraordinary inventiveness and resilience of those SAS founder members.

Yellowstone (Paramount Plus)

John Dutton III is the patriarch of an old Montana ranching family and a scheming, ruthless bastard – he actually brands his most loyal workers like cattle and kills those who fail him – but you forgive him everything because he’s played by Kevin Costner. Dutton’s family are similarly tortured and dysfunctional. But the storylines and script by Taylor Sheridan and John Linson keep you watching, especially if like me you love horses (of which there are many). It’s also prepared to take risks: one of the chief baddies is a native American, and it is openly contemptuous of the green movement.

The Bear (Disney +)

A Michelin-starred chef Carmen Berzatto (Jeremy Allen White) returns from New York to Chicago to breathe new life into his family’s ailing Italian beef sandwich shop. Though it’s billed as a comedy drama, the edgily shot, machine-gun-dialogue kitchen sequences are so unbearably intense and nerve-jangling you don’t feel much inclination to laugh. It’s very exciting, though. And perfect viewing to show any loved one you wish to dissuade from attempting to join the restaurant trade.

Why Didn’t They Ask Evans? (Britbox) 

I still can’t remember why they didn’t or how it was even relevant – but such is the convoluted nature of Agatha Christie stories, where the ridiculously contrived ending is far less important than the roundabout journey you took to get there. Christie adaptations are penny a dozen. What I so particularly enjoyed and admired about this one (written and directed by Hugh Laurie) is that it didn’t try to make itself more relevant or modern or politically engaged, but just concentrated on good, old-fashioned period entertainment where all the cast – Sienna Miller, Paul Whitehouse and the excellent Lucy Boynton – looked as if they were having tremendous fun.

The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself (Netflix)

Roughly a thousand times better than either House of Dragons or Rings of Power, this drama about rival gangs of witches – the Fairborns and the Bloods – was perhaps the most underratedly brilliant TV show of the year. Adapted by Joe Barton from Sally Green’s Half Bad novel trilogy, it’s extremely, shockingly violent, but very charmingly acted by a superb cast led by Jay Lycurgo as Nathan and Nadia Parkes as his star-crossed lover Annalise, with a captivating storyline and a smart, sassy script. Not commissioning a second season was Netflix’s worst decision ever.

Lazarus Project (Sky)

Lazarus is a time-travelling team whose job it is to prevent apocalypses by bringing the entirety of existence to a sudden halt by pressing the reset button. Paapa Essiedu is the initially very bemused app developer hero of this fantastically inventive drama. Like Groundhog Day or Sliding Doors on mescaline, it continually moves in directions you never quite manage to predict. Another triumph from Joe Barton who – with Jesse Armstrong, creator of Succession, whose fourth series is likely to be one of 2023’s highlights – is surely the best young British screenwriter working in TV.