A Perfect Little Death: The Best of 2021 (part 2)

The countdown continues: my top two dozen shows of 2021, a very good year for television. For #24-#11, click here. Here are my top 10.

But first, my annual disclaimer.

A Little Priest: The Best of 2021

My write-up of 2021, following 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Given the challenges of filming during a pandemic, it’s amazing how much good TV aired in 2021. Last year, as COVID battered the industry, it was easy to limit my “best of” list to 10, with a handful of runners up. In 2021, I counted two dozen series I wanted to praise — even the “flawed but fascinating” ones. So get ready: counting down my top 24 shows of 2021, starting here with #24-#11, and saving the top 10 for next week.

Grantchester series 6

That I adored the first three series of Grantchester should come as a surprise to no one; my affection for the “James Norton years” is plastered all over this site. Shortly after the first series aired in late 2014, I hailed it as the year’s top show, labeling it “an original: part murder mystery, part character drama — but in proportions I've never seen before, equally (and exquisitely) balanced. Each episode a mere 45 minutes, each one offering up a new case as it pushes the ongoing story-lines forward — but the continuing plots never feel slight, and the detective work never feels slighted.” And although I found the supporting cast uniformly strong, I reserved my highest praise for top-billed James Norton, an actor at that time unknown to me: “He's [Sidney Chambers,] a vicar in 1953 England, still mired in memories of the war: tortured and self-loathing, looking to others to deliver him from the darkness. Yet he's also the ideal father confessor: open-faced, reassuring, nonjudgmental — except when it comes to himself, and then he's unforgiving. ‘I'm supposed to be setting an example,’ he bemoans in one episode, when his fondness for whiskey and weakness for woman have led him to another indiscretion — and yet his empathy for others, and his sincere belief in the lessons he preaches, make him refreshingly human, and genuinely heroic.”