My idea of a perfect weekend is watching an entire TV series... or two.
Thankfully, I've managed to make it part of my ~ personal brand ~ so I no longer feel bad about hiding in my apartment all weekend, watching strangers solve murders on the telly.
This means I've basically watched every new TV show that's come out this year and I can tell you exactly what's worth your time and what's not. So, you know, bookmark this page for your future, super-organised self. (P.S. if you'd like to see my weekly recommendations, follow me on Instagram.)
Here are my absolute favourite TV shows of 2022 so far:
Colin From Accounts.
It's a tale as old as time. Woman flashes man with nipple. Man hits dog with car. Man and woman are bound together by a very expensive vet bill.
That's the premise of Colin From Accounts, the new Binge original written by and starring Australia's favourite acting duo, Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer.
Set in Sydney's inner west, the eight-part series follows Ashley (Dyer), a 20-something medical student, and Gordon (Brammall) a 40-ish brewery owner, who cross paths one January morning and soon find they can't stay away from each other. Even if they want to.
Packed with plenty of poo jokes, two exes, one overbearing mother and a cute lil dog, Colin From Accounts will make you laugh out loud from the very first scene.
Colin From Accounts is streaming on Binge.
Fleishman Is in Trouble.
The premise of Fleishman Is in Trouble sounds like a thriller, but the reality is actually much scarier.
The series is created by Taffy Brodesser-Akner and is based on her 2019 bestselling novel of the same name. It follows Toby Fleishman (Jesse Eisenberg), a recently divorced 40-something New Yorker who has immersed himself in the weird and wonderful world of online dating.
Just as Toby is... getting his groove back, his ex-wife Rachel (Claire Danes) disappears without a trace, leaving him to look after their two children on his own.
Toby navigates this new world order with the help of his friends Seth (Adam Brody) and Libby (Lizzy Caplan).
Fleishman Is in Trouble is a funny and sometimes bleak look at marriage, divorce, and what happens after the 'happily ever after'.
Fleishman Is in Trouble is streaming on Disney Plus, with new episodes dropping weekly.
The Bear.
The series follows 20-something chef Carmy (Shameless' Jeremy Allen White), who returns to Chicago to run his brother's fledging sandwich business after his unexpected death.
Set mostly in the kitchen of the sandwich shop, the series is whip-smart and unexpectedly funny as it explores grief, addiction, failure, family dynamics, burnout, and what it's like to give up on your dreams.
If you're a fan of Shameless and Succession, you'll love The Bear.
The Bear is streaming on Disney Plus.
Heartbreak High.
The original Heartbreak High series defined what it meant to be a teenager in Australia in the '90s. It was ahead of its time, with a super diverse cast who tackled big issues in between telling each other to rack off.
Now Netflix has created a reboot for the next generation.
Like the original series, Netflix's Heartbreak High follows a group of students at Hartley High as they navigate friendship, sex, consent, relationships, and family dramas.
A discovery in the first episode makes Amerie (Ayesha Madon) an instant pariah at school, at the very same time her ride-or-die bestie Harper (Asher Yasbincek) dumps her in front of the whole school.
Later she teams up with Quinni (Chloe Hayden) and Darren (James Majoos) as they navigate the messiness of high school together.
The reboot combines the edginess of Euphoria, with the hilarity of Sex Education, all while giving a nod to the original series.
Heartbreak High is streaming on Netflix.
The Patient.
The Patient asks - what if a serial killer kidnapped you and it was down to you to stop them from killing again?
The series follows psychotherapist Alan Strauss (Steve Carell) who wakes up one morning chained to an unfamiliar bed. Alan soon discovers that a new client named Sam (Domhnall Gleeson) has kidnapped him so their sessions can be a little more... intimate.
Sam has a problem, you see. He can't stop killing people and he thinks Alan is the only person who can help him.
A taut thriller, The Patient explores grief, power dynamics and the struggle between good and evil.
The Patient is streaming on Disney Plus.
Bad Sisters.
Bad Sisters is a murder mystery that will make you root for the murderer.
The wickedly funny series was written by and stars Sharon Horgan, one half of the hilarious Catastrophe.
The 10-part series follows the story of the five Garvey sisters. There's Eva (Horgan), the eldest who took on the maternal role after their parents died. Ursula, a nurse and sensible mum-of-three, who also happens to be having an affair with her photography teacher. Fierce middle child Bibi (Sarah Greene), and aimless baby of the family Becka (Eve Hewson). And then there's Grace, the only sister who seems to be mourning the premature death of her husband John Paul (Claes Bang).
When the series flashes back six months, we find out why.
Bad Sisters is streaming on Apple TV Plus.
A League of Their Own.
When I was a kid in the 1990s, I would watch the original 1992 A League of Their Own at least once a fortnight. It was one of a handful of movies that would get slipped into the VHS player repeatedly.
I loved the tension between Dotti and Kit, the quips between the other players, Tom Hanks' foul-mouthed, disgruntled coach. I would bawl my eyes out during the final 10 minutes of the movie every time I watched it.
So when I heard Abbi Jacobson was making a new TV series based on the original movie for Prime Video, I was excited but also a bit... worried.
But I needn't have been.
A League of Their Own tells the stories the original movie couldn't. It takes what was brilliant about the original and makes it even better. It's funny, warm and always surprising.
Just like the movie, the series follows the story of the Rockford Peaches, one of the teams involved in the All American Girls' Baseball League in the height of World War II.
It stars Abbi Jacobson, Chante Adams, and D'arcy Carden, with sprinklings of Nick Offerman and Rosie O'Donnell.
A League of Their Own is streaming on Prime Video.
The Resort.
Stan's new series The Resort is The White Lotus meets Only Murders in the Building.
The eight-part comedic thriller follows millennial married couple Emma and Noah, played by How I Met Your Mother's Cristin Milioti and The Good Place's William Jackson Harper. Emma and Noah are on their 10-year anniversary trip when they stumble on an old mobile phone, which leads them to the unsolved disappearance of two young guests from a nearby resort 15 years earlier.
The pair throw themselves into solving the disappearance in an attempt to ignore their own marital issues.
Think murder mystery with a side of relationship angst.
The Resort is streaming on Stan.
Candy.
On a summer day in 1978, on a church volleyball court in the countryside, Candy Montgomery bumped into Allan Gore. The friends and neighbours had been diving for the same ball and their bodies collided.
It was a seemingly innocuous moment for those watching on from the sidelines, but for Candy, it was a revelation. Allan smelt good. She decided in that moment to initiate an affair with him.
Two years later, Betty Gore, Allan's wife and Candy's friend, was dead and Candy was charged with her murder.
This stranger than fiction tale of how a preppy 1980s housewife came to murder her friend with an axe has been brought to life in Disney+'s new mini-series, Candy.
This brilliantly paced true crime series stars Jessica Biel as Candy and Yellowjackets' Melanie Lynskey as Betty.
Candy is streaming on Disney Plus.
Chloe.
Chloe is one of the best thrillers to come out of Britain in recent years.
The six-part series follows the story of Becky, a mousy woman who works in a temp job and still lives at home with her mother.
Becky spends her evenings pouring over the Instagram account of a woman named Chloe, who is married to a local council member. When Chloe dies under suspicious circumstances, Becky infiltrates her friendship circle to find out what really happened to her.
Chloe is a captivating thriller about female friendship, the lies we tell ourselves and the ties that bind us.
Chloe is streaming on Prime Video.
Loot.
Loot is a laugh-out-loud comedy that will warm the cockles of your dark, dark heart.
The Apple TV Plus series follows the story of socialite Molly Novak (Maya Rudolph) who seems to have the dream life until she finds out her billionaire tech husband John (Adam Scott) is cheating on her.
After they divorce, Molly has to figure out what to do with her $87 billion fortune and all her free time.
Loot is streaming on Apple TV Plus.
Everything I Know About Love.
Dolly Alderton has been heralded as the voice of a generation. And now her bestselling memoir, Everything I Know About Love, has been adapted into a critically acclaimed TV series that's streaming on Stan in Australia.
From the producers of Bridget Jones' Diary and Love Actually, written and created by Dolly Alderton, and directed by China Moo-Young, the series follows the lives of four best friends living in a share house in Camden, London, in 2012.
There's Maggie (played by Emma Appleton) the main character loosely based on Dolly. And her childhood best friend Birdy (Bel Powley, The Morning Show, The King of Staten Island), plus their best mates Nell (Marli Siu, Alex Rider) and Amara (newcomer Aliyah Odoffin).
The four best friends have just moved to London, and into their first share house, when Maggie meets a guy named Street (Connor Finch). When Street introduces Birdy to his flatmate Nathan (Ryan Bown), events take an unexpected turn for the group of female friends.
The seven-episode series is a celebration of female friendships, coming-of-age in the most unexpected ways, and falling in love with all the wrong people.
Everything I Know About Love is streaming on Stan.
The Staircase.
The Staircase is not always an easy watch, but it might just be the series that changes the true crime genre forever.
Created by Antonio Campos (Martha Marcy May Marlene), the series is based on one of the most fascinating true crime stories of the past two decades. The story of wealthy North Carolina business executive Kathleen Peterson (played by Toni Colette), her untimely death at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and the subsequent arrest and conviction of her crime novelist husband Michael (Colin Firth) for her murder.
The series explores all the possible scenarios surrounding Kathleen's death and the impact it's had on her family.
The Staircase is streaming on Binge.
Heartstopper.
If Sex Education and Love, Simon had a TV baby, it would be Netflix's Heartstopper.
The series follows 14-year-old Charlie Spring (Joe Locke), who develops a crush on popular rugby player Nick (Kit Connor). The two boys strike up a friendship which soon develops into something more.
It's a super sweet coming-of-age story about best friends, first loves, and big heartbreaks.
Heartstopper is streaming on Netflix.
Shining Girls.
Apple TV Plus' Shining Girls is based on Lauren Beukes' bestselling book of the same name.
It's a time-travelling murder mystery (yes, you read that correctly) starring Elisabeth Moss as Kirby Mazrachi, a newspaper archivist, whose dreams of becoming a journalist are put on hold after she survives a brutal attack while she's out walking her dog one night.
When another local woman is murdered, Kirby works with an investigative journalist at her newspaper and together they try to track down an elusive serial killer who seems to defy the normal laws of time.
It's a nail-biting intense thriller and a study into the impact of trauma.
Shining Girls is streaming on Apple TV Plus.
This Is Going To Hurt.
This Is Going To Hurt is a completely different type of medical drama.
The gritty BBC comedy-drama, which is based on Adam McKay's bestselling memoir of the same name, takes the audience behind the curtain of Britain's much-loved National Health Service (NHS).
Set in 2006 in a busy obstetrics and gynaecology ward in an NHS hospital, the series follows junior doctors Adam (Ben Whishaw) and Shruti Acharya (Ambika Mod) as they juggle abusive patients, horrible bosses, and medical emergencies.
The series shows the horror and the hope of working on a labour ward and doesn't shy away from the more confronting storylines.
It's absolutely brutal one minute, and laugh out loud funny the next.
This Is Going To Hurt is streaming on Binge.
Anatomy of a Scandal.
At the end of the first episode of Anatomy of a Scandal, Rupert Friend's character James is literally blown backwards by the force of his own shock after he is accused of rape.
While it's a shock to James and his wife Sophie (Sienna Miller), it's not a shock to those of us playing along at home who have watched this story play out many times before.
You see, it's no longer surprising to us that a man in a position of power (James is a prominent British MP) would use that power to take advantage of someone working under him.
That a man would casually rape a woman and wholeheartedly believe that he will get away with it.
Because it's happened so, so many times before.
That's what makes Anatomy of a Scandal such a compelling watch. It's both a 'dirty little thriller' that you'll rip through in an afternoon, and a study of a marriage which asks: can we truly ever know what the people we love are capable of?
Based on Sarah Vaughan's bestselling book of the same name and created by David E. Kelley (Big Little Lies and The Undoing) and Melissa James Gibson (House of Cards), the six-part series is a thrilling tale of consent and deceit, with just a sprinkling of soapy drama.
Anatomy of a Scandal is streaming on Netflix.
The Dropout.
There's a scene in The Dropout which I'm still thinking about months after I watched it.
In the scene, Amanda Seyfried's character Elizabeth Holmes slowly dances towards her much older partner Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews) in their co-joined offices.
She's lip-syncing to Lil' Wayne's 'How to Love', while sipping on a green juice, and making these robotic movements with her arms which I believe deep down in my soul she believes are... sexy.
The moment is so cringe-worthy I felt an urge cover my eyes with my fingers, but then I wouldn't have been able to bask in the glorious awkwardness of it all.
That scene pretty much sums up the brilliance of The Dropout and Seyfried's portrayal of Elizabeth Holmes.
What the series does so well is present both Holmes the human, with faults, unresolved trauma and truly terrible dancing, and Holmes the con woman, who seemingly would stop at nothing to live out her fantasy of being the next Steve Jobs.
It's brilliant, compelling TV.
The Dropout is streaming on Disney Plus.
Abbott Elementary.
If The Office and Parks and Recreation had a wholesome baby in the middle of the pandemic, the result would be Abbott Elementary.
Abbott Elementary takes us behind-the-scenes of a fictional elementary school in Baltimore, where the teachers are underpaid and overworked, and there's not enough money to buy even the most basic of supplies.
But don't worry, this series is anything but a downer. The "mockumentary" style of filming, plus the Michael Scott-esque principal, the burgeoning love story between two of the junior teachers, and the genuine friendships between the characters mean you'll be laughing out loud one minute and genuinely moved by the wholesomeness of it all the next.
Abbott Elementary is streaming on Disney Plus.
Severance.
For the past few months I've been wondering whether I'll ever feel the desire to return to the office full time.
After watching Severance, I think I have my answer. And that answer is... hell no.
Severance is a dystopian thriller that takes all your anxieties about work and the corporate world and turns them into a true horror story.
Created by Dan Erikson and mostly directed by Ben Stiller, the series follows a group of "severed" employees working at a mysterious company called Lumon.
The employees have voluntarily undertaken a procedure which severs their outside self from their work self. Their "outies" have no memory of their time at work once they step out of the elevator and walk into the carpark, and their "innies" have no memory of their outside life once they step out of the elevator and onto their work floor.
Mark (Adam Scott) chose to be severed after the death of his wife, in the hope it would lessen his grief.
On the inside, he’s the happy-go-lucky department head of the macrodata refinement division at Lumon, where he and three other employees - Dylan (Zach Cherry), Helly (Britt Lower), and Irving (John Turturro) - organise some mysterious numbers all day.
But after one of his ex-colleagues reaches out to him, Mark's "outie" begins to have doubts about what's really going on at Lumon.
After a slow start, Severance builds to a cliffhanger finale that will leave you on the edge of your seat.
Severance is streaming on Apple TV Plus.
Somebody, Somewhere.
It's not often that you find a TV show that's both laugh out loud funny and so bloody touching, it'll leave you in tears at the most unexpected moments.
But that's exactly what comedian Bridget Everett's semi-autobiographical series Somebody, Somewhere is.
The series, which was created by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen and is loosely based on Everett's own life, follows the story of Sam (Everett) a woman who moved back to her small hometown to look after her sister who had terminal cancer.
After her sister dies, Sam reassesses her place in the world and begins to connect with a group of local misfits.
Somebody, Somewhere is a series about grief, failure, adult friendships, and finding hope in the most unexpected places.
Somebody, Somewhere is streaming on Binge.
The Afterparty.
The Afterparty is just a lot of fun.
It's like Bridesmaids meets an Agatha Christie novel.
The series follows a group of former high school friends who come together for their 15 year high school reunion. When someone dies at the reunion afterparty, everyone else immediately becomes a suspect.
Each episode is told from the perspective of one character/suspect as they tell their own version of events to a rogue detective (Tiffany Haddish) who is trying to crack the case before it's taken off her.
The cast includes Dave Franco, Ilana Glazer, Ben Schwartz, Ike Barinholtz, Zoë Chao, and Sam Richardson.
The Afterparty is streaming on Apple TV Plus.
Inventing Anna.
Inventing Anna was created by Shonda Rhimes' Shondaland for Netflix, so you know you're in for a good time.
The series tells the (mostly) true story of Anna Delvey, a Russian-born German woman who pretended to be a German heiress worth millions of dollars.
After she moved to New York City in 2013, she convinced the city's most elite socialites that she was an heiress with a huge trust fund, and infiltrated their close-knit social circles.
In 2017, she was arrested for defrauding international banking institutions, hotels, and even some of her closest friends.
Inventing Anna follows Anna's rise and fall plus the story of the journalist who broke the story.
It's soapy, thrilling ride through one woman's delusions and another woman's determination to get the story, no matter the cost.
Inventing Anna is streaming on Netflix.
Keryn Donnelly is Mamamia's Pop Culture Editor. For her weekly TV, film and book recommendations and to see photos of her dog, follow her on Instagram and TikTok.
This article was originally published in April 2022, and has since been updated.
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