The top trend in TV in 2022: there’s simply too much of it

“This Is Going to Hurt”; “Somebody Somewhere”; “The Old Man”; “Irma Vep”; “Los Espookys”; “Mo”; “Abbott Elementary.”

These are some of the shows on critics’ best television of 2022 lists. These are also shows that I have either not seen, or started watching and never finished.

It’s true that I watch TV professionally as a sometime TV writer for the Toronto Star; it’s also true that there is far more out there than I can possibly take in, especially since editing is actually my full-time job — I do almost all my professional TV watching in my limited free time. Every week there is a new batch of “screeners” — digital previews of new shows provided by broadcasters and streamers — clamouring for attention in my inbox.

It’s kind of quaint now to remember that when the COVID-19 lockdowns first halted TV production all over the world, I worried somewhat about the business bouncing back, particularly here in Canada.

Well, let’s see, in 2019 there were an estimated 532 scripted shows produced, according to FX Research. That dropped to 493 in 2020, rebounded to 559 in 2021 and, according to FX chairman John Landgraf, there were a whopping 357 scripted shows released in just the first half of 2022.

And that’s “scripted.” Add in reality shows, docuseries, comedy specials, sports and any other non-scripted TV and the mind boggles.

Landgraf told the Television Critics Association in August that we’ve hit “the peak of the peak TV era” and that these numbers will start to drop in 2023. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t, but for the moment we are drowning in content. And that means it’s hard to differentiate between all the perfectly good shows out there.

For every “White Lotus” or “House of the Dragon” that kept comparatively large numbers of people buzzing every week there was a “Fleishman Is in Trouble” or “The Patient,” well-made shows that fell off the radar after an initial burst of interest.

That’s why my top trend in this story about TV trends of 2022 is that there is simply too much TV. Until the deluge ebbs, I guess I’ll expand my list of shows I hope to catch up on someday.

Here’s what else was happening on the small screen this year:

Keep those corsets laced

Period drama champ “Downton Abbey” has long retired from the screen, aside from the occasional inferior movie sequel, but the period drama as a genre continues to thrive thanks to series like “Bridgerton,” “The Gilded Age” and “The Serpent Queen,” with much more to come. The “Yellowstone” prequel “1883” drops later this month, for example, and “Bridgerton” spinoff “Queen Charlotte” will stream in 2023, to name just two.

TV with bite

Speaking of TV trends that never die, vampire shows continue to walk among us. Fall brought a bumper crop of them, led by the critically acclaimed “Interview With the Vampire,” a sexy but thoughtful new take on the 1976 Anne Rice novel. Dramas “Vampire Academy” and “Let the Right One In” also debuted alongside comedies “Reginald the Vampire” and “Ezra,” while the very funny bloodsuckers of “What We Do in the Shadows” continue to turn east-end Toronto into Staten Island with two new seasons in the works.

Indigenous and interesting

Indigenous TV shows and characters represent but a minuscule fraction of the content out there, but they’re steadily chiselling away at stereotypes. This year, the excellent comedy “Reservation Dogs” returned with an even stronger second season; “Dark Winds” gave Zahn McClarnon a well-deserved lead role as a Navajo detective; “Three Pines” an entertaining adaptation of the Louise Penny Chief Inspector Gamache books incorporated a significant Indigenous plot line; and violent western “The English” gave us a three-dimensional Pawnee lead character. Yet “Rutherford Falls,” which revealed the comedic talents of Canadian Cree actor Michael Greyeyes, got cancelled after its second season. And we’re still waiting for a successor here in Canada to the gone-too-soon “Trickster.” At least we know there’s more to come, including residential school drama “Bones of Crows.”

Dragons and elves and immortals, oh my

Another genre that roared back in 2022 was the fantasy show, literally in the case of “House of the Dragon” and its namesake CGI creatures. It was one of three marquee series that debuted within a month of each other in the summer, including “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” and “The Sandman.” Others, like “Willow” and “The Winchesters,” followed. While “Rings,” reportedly the most expensive TV show ever made, was weighed down by its own earnestness, “Dragon” surpassed predecessor “Game of Thrones” for some fans.

A link in a chain

With all those networks and streaming services racing to produce new content, there is a tendency to stick with the familiar, especially when it comes to superhero and sci-fi franchises. As far as I can tell, there are currently 12 “Star Trek” TV series, nine “Star Wars” series and I gave up trying to pin down the Marvel shows. Frankly, franchise fatigue has kept me from digging into series like “Andor,” even though it’s getting rave reviews. Still, there’s quality to be found in the quantity. “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” for instance, is a very worthy addition to the “Trek” fold.

To be consumed with a cuppa

Another type of show in the ascendant is the so-called “cosy mystery,” a genre of detective drama that often involves quaint settings, female leads and a minimum of gore. Streaming services that specialize in British TV, like BritBox and Acorn, are lousy with them. New ones like “Harry Wild,” “Magpie Murders,” “Sister Boniface Mysteries” and “Murder in Provence” joined stalwarts like “Vera,” “Agatha Raisin” and “Father Brown” this year. Canada even got a cosy-adjacent mystery in “Three Pines,” set in a Quebec village.

It’s good to be bad

The anti-hero is nothing new, but there was a notable fascination this year with shows, both scripted and not, about real-life scam artists and bad corporate actors. Think “The Dropout,” about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, “WeCrashed,” about the downfall of co-working company WeWork, and “Inventing Anna,” about fake heiress Anna Sorokin, a.k.a. Delvey. Then there were docuseries like “Bad Vegan” and “The Tinder Swindler.”

They’re big, the screens got small

Movie stars continued to flock to TV series in 2022. Jeff Bridges was one of the most high-profile conscripts, starring as a rogue ex-CIA agent in “The Old Man.” We also got Gary Oldman in “Slow Horses,” Samuel L. Jackson in “The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,” Colin Firth in “The Staircase,” Alicia Vikander in “Irma Vep” and Julia Roberts in “Gaslit,” and that’s by no means an exhaustive list. Next, look for Harrison Ford, who last dipped his toe into TV in the 1960s and ’70s, in “Yellowstone” prequel series “1923” and the comedy “Shrinking.”

Found in translation

Foreign-language TV shows were already infiltrating streaming services pre-pandemic, but their ubiquity has only accelerated. This year brought titles like South Korean family saga “Pachinko” and zombie drama “All of Us Are Dead”; Japan-set “Tokyo Vice”; German-American mystery “1899”; the “Money Heist” spinoff “Korea — Joint Economic Area”; and new seasons of shows like “Alice in Borderland,” “Elite” and “Tehran.” If there was any doubt subtitled shows are here to stay, this year’s Emmy wins by 2021 monster hit “Squid Game” should put it to rest.

And finally …

Though this isn’t a best-of list, I’d still like to mention some of the new and returning shows I most enjoyed in 2022 including, in alphabetical order, “All Creatures Great and Small,” “Better Call Saul,” “Bridgerton,” “For All Mankind,” “Hacks,” “House of the Dragon,” “Julia,” “Kevin Can F**k Himself,” “Ozark,” “Pachinko,” “Pistol,” “Revenge of the Black Best Friend,” “Reservation Dogs,” “Severance,” “Son of a Critch,” “Sort Of,” “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,” “Stranger Things,” “Succession,” “The Bear,” “The Dropout,” “The Gilded Age,” “The Porter,” “The White Lotus,” “Three Pines,” “Wednesday,” “What We Do in the Shadows.”