7 TV series to watch from 2022

With so many TV shows (on so many different platforms) to watch, what were this year's standouts?

The Los Angeles Times' Lorraine Ali and NPR's Eric Deggans joined the PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown to share some of their personal favorites of 2022. Here, they discuss the series that made the biggest impression on them.

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"Severance"

It follows the employees of this mysterious place called Lumon Industries. And these employees can have their personalities severed. One-half of you goes to work. The other half goes home, and they do not remember one another. … It is thrilling, but it is also incredibly eerie and creepy.

– Lorraine Ali

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"Pachinko"

It is about a Korean family, four generations, and following them from the Japanese occupation all the way through to the immigration to America, beautifully shot. And it's the women that really push the story forward.

– Lorraine Ali

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"Wednesday"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q73UhUTs6y0&ab_channel=Netflix

This comes from the mind of Tim Burton. And it is just fantastic in so many ways, dark, sarcastic. It really captures this teen angst through Wednesday Addams and is really kind of the teen drama or the teen comedy I wish I had when I was in high school for all us girls that, like, didn't really fit in because we weren't perky enough.

– Lorraine Ali

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"Better Call Saul"

The people who made "Breaking Bad 'really perfected their storytelling techniques on "Better Call Saul." And they created this story that told us about the making of this character and also what happened … after the events of "Breaking Bad," when the cops would have descended on this meth-making operation, and Saul Goodman had to go into hiding. Very subtle, very sophisticated, and also a way of sort of going back and rewriting some of the story of the other "Breaking Bad" characters.

– Eric Deggans

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"Andor"

[This] is a show starring Diego Luna as a rebel leader that we also saw in the movie "Rogue One." And, again, this is sort of his origin story, how he came to be part of a rebel alliance that would challenge the evil empire from the "Star Wars" movies, and, indeed, how that rebel alliance actually was formed. It's about these people seeing a fascist government slowly take over a representative government and how that Rebel Alliance forms to resist it. …There's a lot that can speak to today's times, I will just say.

– Eric Deggans

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"Abbott Elementary"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6hvB1R9sUM&ab_channel=ABC

An amazing comedy on ABC about a young teacher in Philly schools … jokes every five seconds, and they're all funny. The characters are amazing. And it's a show that has three substantial parts … for Black women. And they're all different, and they're all dynamic, and they're all essential to the story, which is something you rarely see in network television.

– Eric Deggan

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"The Serpent Queen"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDyZ41f4xo4&ab_channel=LIONSGATE%2BUnitedKingdom

It follows the 16th-century ruler Catherine de' Medici. … She gets to tell her own story and explain how she became the woman that she is and how she gained so much power. Samantha Morton is just captivating. [It] has this overlay that is really gritty and really raw and very punk-rock. And I just love it. I cannot recommend it enough.

– Lorraine Ali