Another list complete!

So, what did I think of Empire's top 20 TV shows of 2024?

Considering first the overlap between Empire and The Guardian (which I haven't looked at all yet, but I'll get round to skimming it next), there are thirteen shows that appear on both lists (exactly the same as last year). Of these, I liked most of them (although I've not got around to watching Industry from the start yet) - my only raised eyebrows would be at X Men '97 (it really wasn't that great) and Ripley (it looks gorgeous but it was sooooo slow).

Of the ones The Guardian chose to ignore, House Of The Dragon is the only one I think The Guardian should have found space for (they gave it four stars, but said it started too slowly), although I can also accept that Interview With The Vampire is good, but just not for me (and The Guardian didn't review it). The Guardian also liked Black Doves (four stars) which was very entertaining, but not "great" telly. Shows on They Guardian list that I'm surprised Empire omitted are the second season of Pachinko (which I'm looking forward to), Kaos (I really liked this and was disappointed they cancelled it), Masters Of The Air (another one I have to catch up with), Fallout (this got great write-ups and feels right up Empire's street) and One Day (#3 in The Guardian's list). Seriously, any of these have to be better than The Rings Of Power...

Looking at the ranks across both lists, we see considerably more disagreement than we saw last year with Supacell being #2 and #30, The Day Of The Jackal being #6 and #44 and Baby Reindeer being #15 and #2. Consistency is the generally the key to making the top five lowest totals being Baby Reindeer (17), Rivals (15 - I really enjoyed this), Slow Horses (12 - this really is consistently good), Industry (8 - I'll watch it one day) and the clear winner Shōgun (2) - the second year in a row they've agreed on the best thing of the year. And I'd have to say I agreed, although I also would have considered The Penguin as an alternative, but both lists had it strangely mid-table.

So that's our second list of the year complete - and it's quite probably going to be the last! I commented last year that I was struggling to get through the lists because I was watching a lot of great telly so it's interesting I'd only watched five off Empire's list and eleven from The Guardian's list beforehand - whatever I was watching obviously wasn't considered to be all that great! But I'm glad I caught up with most of the stuff Empire made me watch - particularly Shogun and Rivals, neither of which I would have normally picked but they were both great (if slightly different).

#1 - Really good

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