The studios continued their upward momentum and delivered several great series in 2024, some even the best series we’ve watched in years.  On the small screen we saw all-new stories, adaptations from novels, more seasons of ongoing shows, and a few good reboots and re-imaginings.  Just look at the variety of genre programs we had to choose from: Ted, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, Dune: Prophecy, Ghosts, The Brothers Sun, Star Trek: Lower Decks, Troppo, Guilt, The Gentlemen, Black Doves, The Day of the Jackal, Quantum Leap, Tokyo Vice, Fight Night, Van Der Valk, True Detective: Night Country, Night Court, Hysteria!, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Supacell, Resident Alien, Bodkin, Culprits, Vikings: Valhalla, Wild Cards, Only Murders in the Building, The Night Agent, The Penguin, All Creatures Great and Small, Doctor Who, Tulsa King, SurrealEstate, and Dark Winds–for starters.  The strangest takeaway of 2024 was the fact that so many series were about crime and drug-dealing plots.  It was like the 1980s all over again.

Today we’re continuing our annual year-end round-up with the Best TV of 2024.  If you missed it, check out our list of the best Kick-Ass Heroines of 2024 here.  We watch a lot of television, and probably love a good series even more than a great movie.  Here are the ground rules: We preview and review hundreds of series, but outside big franchise content you want to know about, we try to only review what we like, what we actually recommend–the best genre content we’re watching.  The theory?  If we like it, we think you may like it.  No other annual awards focus on all the best genres like borg.  The best shows have a compelling story, great characters, tremendous action, a sharp use of humor, and all kinds of well-executed genre elements that satisfy and leave viewers feeling inspired.  It’s even better if we see richly detailed sets and costumes.  Somehow the very best series get canceled at the end of their first season because network execs will never figure out what we genre fans love.  We watched thousands of hours of TV this year, and no other series match the compelling writing, performances–and fun–of the series that follow.

Without further ado, here’s the Best TV of 2024:

Best Series, Best Comedy Series, Best TV Retro Fix, Best New Series, Best Coming-of-Age Series, Best TV Writing, Best TV Visual Effects – Ted (Peacock).  A believable talking bear that interacted seamlessly with a human cast.  Magic?  Nothing this year ticked as many genre boxes as the next installment of Seth MacFarlane’s Ted-iverse.  A biting, laugh-out-loud combination of That ’70s Show, Alf, Mork & Mindy, and The Brady Bunch, it had the funniest situations, the sharpest writing, current, timely stories all tied up into a retro family sitcom.  In one word: Perfect.  Runners-up for Best TV Retro Fix – Fight Night (Peacock), Doctor Who (Disney+), Hysteria! (Peacock).

Runner-up for Best Comedy Series, Best TV Ensemble Cast – Ghosts (CBS).  Ask anyone at the studios, ask any writer: comedy is hard.  Four seasons in and the best wit in dialogue rests with the writers room for Ghosts.  The fact it’s a remake and it’s so good proves you can adapt series for a new audience in a fresh way.  Honorable Mention for Best Comedy Series – Haut Potentiel Intellectuel (France/Hulu), Night Court (NBC).

Best Sci-Fi Series, Best Animated Series, Best TV Musical Score, Runner-up for Best TV Writing – Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+).  If there was an award for best Star Trek series since Voyager, Lower Decks should have it.  It elevated the medium of the animated series.  The writing offered throwbacks and Easter eggs for long-time fans on par or better than past live-action series in the franchise, and offered smart science fiction plots for anyone new to the franchise.  It also used comedy to tackle the kind of current issues the past series were known for.  Runner-up for Best Animated Series – Terminator Zero (Netflix).

Runner-up for Best Sci-Fi Series – Quantum Leap (NBC).  The doubters who didn’t think this show would work without Sam Beckett were proved wrong.  Using more science, updated technology, and enlisting the help of other ongoing characters to try to get their hero home, the show offered up the best of the decade’s science fiction.  Honorable Mention for Best Sci-Fi Series: Dune: Prophecy (Max),  Resident Alien (Peacock), Doctor Who (Disney+).

Best Fantasy Series, Best TV Production Design, Best TV Costume Design, Best TV Makeup, Runner-up for Best TV Visual Effects – The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Prime Video).  It was the season that made the series an equal to Peter Jackson’s movies.  Full of mythology viewers love, and new characters intertwined in one of our favorite classic worlds.  The high priced production was worth it, but it was the story and the cast that sold it. Runners-up for Best Fantasy Series – Dune: Prophecy (HBO Max), Avatar–The Last Airbender (Netflix).  Runners-up for Best TV Production Design – The Gentlemen (Netflix), The Day of the Jackal (Peacock). Runners-up for Best TV Costume Design: Avatar–The Last Airbender (Netflix), Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (Disney+).

Best Action Series – The Brothers Sun (Netflix).  A drama that continues a long conversation about the impact of gang violence on the Asian community while incorporating the best crime world action and finest choreographed martial arts work.  Like many of the best series this year, it also incorporated comedy to make the action even more fun for the viewer.  Runner-up for Best Action Series – Black Doves (Netflix), The Gentlemen (Netflix), The Day of the Jackal (Netflix). Honorable Mention for Best Action Series – Fight Night (Netflix), Night Agent (Netflix).

Best TV Drama, Best British Series – The Gentlemen (Netflix).  If Guy Ritchie is signaling the era of major directors bringing equally astonishingly good work to the small screen, please bring it on.  Like his movies, this series featured a strong story, cast, and cinematography.  Its two strong leads and fascinating supporting characters set the bar for TV early this year.  Runner-up for Best Drama and Best British Series: Guilt (PBS Mystery).  Honorable mention: Black Doves (Netflix), Supacell (Netflix), The Day of the Jackal (Peacock), Van Der Valk (PBS Mystery).

Best Suspense/Thriller Series, Best Spy-Fi Series – Black Doves (Netflix). The year’s most engaging, intriguing, and exciting suspense-thriller delivered a new twist on the story of criminals who manage to create personal lives for themselves, making them want to leave the world of triggermen and spying for good.  Runners-up for Both Categories – Dune: Prophecy (Max), The Day of the Jackal (Peacock), Culprits (Hulu).  Honorable mention for Both Categories: The Night Agent (Netflix), The Gentlemen (Netflix), Troppo (Prime Video).

Best Superhero Series – Supacell (Netflix). With a unique dialect for U.S. audiences, and a look at a community’s daily economic strife, this spiritual sequel to Attack the Block, a Brit version of Marvel’s Luke Cage and The Defenders, and a modern superhero twist on The Outsiders became a surprise superhero hit, The Imperfects of 2024, and one of the year’s best series.  Runner-up for Best Superhero Series – The Brothers Sun (Netflix).  Honorable Mention for Best Superhero Series: Echo (Disney+).

Best Mystery Series, Honorable Mention for Best Comedy Series – Haut Potentiel Intellectuel (France/Hulu).  Which series from 2024 could have the longest shelf-life?  This clever and crafty episodic police procedural that continued stories of quirky detectives in the vein of Psych and Monk.  Runners-up for Best Mystery Series: True Detective: Night Country (HBO Max), Guilt (PBS Mystery), Troppo (Prime Video).

Best Supernatural Series, Best Horror Series, Runner-up for Best Coming-of-Age Series, Runner-up for Best Retro Fix – Hysteria! (Netflix).  The series took on the audience for Stranger Things by leaning into a supernatural world where everything isn’t all as you’d expect.  A genre-bending look at the 1980s done right, filled with quality horror creations and makeup work.

Best Borg Series – Terminator Zero (Netflix).  If there is a danger to the world in the 2020s and onward that science fiction has warned us about in so many cautionary tales, it’s watching A.I.–so intermingled in philosophy with cybernetics–go out of control, supported by so many in real life with no thought to its ramifications.  The Terminator franchise can keep offering new ways to tell the story every year until we listen.  Runners-up: Dune: Prophecy (Max), Star Trek: Lower Decks (Paramount+), Star Wars: Skeleton Crew (Disney+).

Best TV Borg (tie) – Sam Rutherford (Star Trek: Lower Decks).  For five seasons we’ve loved Eugene Cordero’s unassuming but effective member of Starfleet.  Not many borg characters have lasted as long and been a significant driver of storytelling on television, and in Season Five, Rutherford showed his human side when science bestie Lt. Tendi left him behind on the Cerritos.

Best TV Borg (tie) – Desmond Hart (Dune: Prophecy).  What seemed like a fantasy series with sci-fi tech surprised us in the end when it was revealed in the finale it was a targeted “microscopic thinking machine virus,” which sounds like nanobots, that made Travis Fimmel’s secretive rogue Hart a supersoldier.

Best TV Actress – Nicole Chamoun (Troppo).  An incredible character, fleshed out so much better than last season.  We saw Chamoun’s Amanda fighting with herself at every step, more so than you’ve ever seen a woman struggle with anything in any series before, often endangering herself and getting her into more trouble.  She was gritty, real, and incredibly believable.  Runners-up: Jodie Foster (True Detective: Night Country), Olivia Williams (Dune: Prophecy), Kaya Scodelario (The Gentlemen), Keira Knightley (Black Doves), Tawny Newsome (Star Trek: Lower Decks).  Honorable mention: Siobhán Cullen (Bodkin), Audrey Fleurot (Haut Potentiel Intellectuel), Rose McIver (Ghosts). 

Best TV Supporting Actress – Giorgia Whigham (Ted).  Whigham’s Blaire Bennett was the best reflection of the real world in 2024.  Her simple stares told so much, but it was her stalwart ability to say what she thought that lit up the show and stopped us in our tracks.  Runners-up: Emma Canning (Dune: Prophecy), Tamsin Topolski (Guilt), Eliza Taylor (Quantum Leap), Niamh Algar (Culprits).  Honorable mention: Fiona Shaw (True Detective: Night Country), Jinkx Monsoon (Doctor Who).

Best TV Actor – Ben Whishaw (Black Doves).  Whishaw’s nearly washed-up triggerman harnessed years of anxiety and gave us glimpses at his underlying emotions in visuals few actors have ever created in TV or in the movies.  His skill as an actor helped propel TV further as high art.  Runners-up: Shô Kasamatsu (Tokyo Vice), Mark Bonnar (Guilt), Colin Farrell (The Penguin), Marc Warren (Van Der Valk), Kevin Hart (Fight Night), Brandon Scott Jones (Ghosts).  Honorable mention: Martin Short (Only Murders in the Building), Ncuti Gatwa (Doctor Who).

Best TV Supporting Actor – Bruce Campbell (Hysteria!).  When fan service is done right, it’s a sweet reward for genre fans.  Campbell’s grandfather cop was a character so cool and intriguing you wish he had his own spin-off series.  Genre fans can’t get enough of this incredible, under-rated performer.  Runners-up: Don Cheadle (Fight Night), Jamie Sives (Guilt), Charles Edwards (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power).  Honorable mention: Bruno Sanches (High Potentiel Intellectuel), Finn Bennett (True Detective: Night Country), Greg McHugh (Guilt). 

Best TV Episodes – Ted episode 4, “Subways, Bicycles and Automobiles,” — one of the all-time best Halloween TV episodes; possibly the best tie-up of a series in a satisfying episode ever can be found in the finale of Guilt where Max finally gets his just desserts… and more; “Endgame,” the final episode of Tokyo Vice, another satisfying finale sees Sato’s dark future set and creates a great springboard for a new season; in the final series episode of Quantum Leap, “Against Time,” everything comes together without tying up loose ends, which here is a good thing leaving the future uncertain; The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Episode 4, “Eldest,” features a “Return of the King” foreshadowing plot that sees the appearance of Tolkien’s memorable Ents, and cinches the series as great fantasy storytelling; in the Doctor Who episode “73 Yards,” Ruby lives out her life in search of… herself; and finally, in the Dune: Prophecy episode “Sisterhood Above All,” viewers got a huge surprise, as Tula’s violent past shows someone far different than she appears in the present day of the series.

Best TV Villain – Adar (The Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power).  Villainy comes in many forms.  Usually it’s the antagonist, but Sam Hazeldine turned the idea on its head.  He embodied the only thoughtful, strategically driven character in the series, the only character who–unthinkably–has good intentions, and a drive to protect peoples he cares about–the Uruk.  In eight episodes his character has the biggest character arc, the most heavy lifting of any character.  And Hazeldine’s skill at balancing good and bad all comes together to create the most powerful moment of the season in the eighth episode.  Runners-up: Tozawa (Tokyo Vice), The Maestro (Doctor Who).

Best Cameo – Alfre Woodard, Jolene Blaylock, Andrew Robinson, Alexander Siddig, and Garrett Wang – Star Trek: Lower Decks episode 5.9, “Fissure Quest.”  A surprise reunion for the last story of the series was a great way to send off the show, bringing together favorite characters from Star Trek: First Contact, Enterprise, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

Best Genre Find from Previous Years Now Streaming: The Outsider (HBO Max).   A creepy blend of true crime and the supernatural that calls into question eye witness testimony in a way only Stephen King could conjure.  If you missed this one in 2020, catch it streaming now.

Note: For the most part but with a few exceptions this year’s eligible series aired the final episode of the season by December 15.  And no, we aren’t forgetting anything–if it’s not here we probably watched it (or the initial episodes) but didn’t think it worth a recommendation to you.

Come back for more of borg‘s Best of 2024 tomorrow as we reveal the Best Movies of 2024.  If you missed our list of Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines of 2024, be sure to check it out here.

C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg