All The Best New TV Shows Of 2019 So Far
From Russian Doll to Chernobyl, it's been a good year for television.
There’s an app I use to track my television schedule and it says I’m 1,151 episodes into 2019. That’s over 740 hours in front of the telly — a whole month — and shows still pass by because it’s impossible to watch them all. Did you know Facebook makes TV now? Madness.
TV continues to be overwhelming but there’s a catch: the quality is excellent. Experts keep making up names for the age of TV we live in, which gets an update on a weekly basis, but the definitive answer is we live in the age of a lot of TV.
The year started strong, especially for comedy. We need more comedies to balance out the heavy-duty drama based on traumatic real-life events, which are still inspiring great TV.
After hundreds of hours of TV and the alienation of my family and friends, here’s the best new TV shows of 2019 so far.
The Other Two
Imagine if one of your relatives went viral and became a celebrity overnight.
That’s the premise of The Other Two, which focuses on siblings (Draw Tarver and Heléne Yorke) who must deal with their younger brother, Chase Dreams (Case Walker), becoming mega famous.
The Other Two is a hilarious comedy series about modern fame, social media and internet culture. Molly Shannon is perfect as Chase’s stage mum and Ken Marino is steals the show as Chase’s manager, Streeter Peters.
The episode ‘Chase Gets The Gays’ satirises the internet news cycle brilliantly and it depicts millennial life without being too cynical or ironic.
Umbrella Academy
A lot of pressure is put on super humans to save the world. Apply that pressure to teenagers and there’s going to be issues.
Umbrella Academy, based on the comic book series of the same name, focuses on a group of teen superheros who become estranged as adults. But, uh oh, the apocalypse is on the way and they’re too depressed to save the world.
The series draws a direct line from heroics to much needed therapy, and there’s a great science-fiction bent to the group’s existence, their powers and the mysterious forces that run the world. Netflix invested big in bringing this comic book to life and it has digital effects and action sequences usually reserved for films – this is blockbuster TV. The first season ends on a wild cliff hanger and so many questions remain unanswered, which only makes us want more. Luckily, Umbrella Academy will return for another season of superhero melancholy.
Stream Umbrella Academy on Netflix.
Pen15
To understand the greatness of this teen comedy you must recognise the level of difficulty.
Adult co-writers, creators and stars, Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, play 13-year-old versions of themselves surrounded by real teenagers. The show is set in the year 2000 so every detail must be perfect to help sell Erkine and Konkle as teens. The execution is risky, it feels dangerous at times, but the payoff is massive.
PEN15 highlights the ups and downs of BFFs, and doesn’t shy away from topics like masturbation, bullying, casual racism (featuring The Spice Girls), the internet and emo ex-boyfriends.
If you grew up during the ‘00s it may feel too real at times but there are plenty of jokes at the expense of the decade to cushion the cringe factor. But it doesn’t matter when you were a teenager, PEN15’s themes of friendship override nostalgia — it’s a subtle parody of nostalgic coming-of-age stories — and it’s as sturdy as a butterfly clip.
Stream PEN15 on Stan.
Russian Doll
“Gotta get up, gotta get out, gotta get home before the morning comes …”
Like the Harry Nilsson song that plays on repeat I could not get Russian Doll out of my head. The series stars Natasha Lyonne as a software engineer, Nadia Vulvokov, who gets stuck in a time loop on her birthday. When Nadia dies, she finds herself back in the bathroom at her birthday party over, and over, and over again.
Russian Doll is an excellent series that confronts Nadia’s past to explain the patterns of her behaviour in each loop. The repetition highlights how hard it is to change as person, but the series never takes a sentimental approach; it’s dark, witty and existential.
The first season does end on a perfect note, but it will return for a second season in 2020. The first season does end on a perfect note, but it will return for a second season in 2020. The first season does end on a perfect note, but it will return for a second season in 2020. Oh no!
Stream Russian Doll on Netflix.
Bluey
The best Australian TV show right now is an animated series about a family of blue heelers living in Queensland.
The first half of its debut season began last year, and it amassed 75 million views (and counting) on ABC iView. The second half arrived this year and certified the show’s greatness.
The premise of each episode is simple with titles like ‘The Weekend’, ‘BBQ’ and ‘Takeaway’. The show captures everyday life with kids and its uniquely Australian. There are games, hilarious kid logic and a rad dad (voiced by Custard front man, David McCormack).
But it doesn’t matter if you’re a kid or an adult; the series has a mass appeal. Bluey hits the sweet spot between young and old like Pixar and it’s an absolute delight.
Stream Bluey on ABC iView.
Shrill
Lindy West is a writer whose work focuses on pop culture, social justice, humour and body image. West wrote a memoir in 2016, Shrill: Notes from a Loud Woman, and its been adapted into a series starring Aidy Bryant (one of the best cast members on Saturday Night Live).
In the first episode Annie (Bryant), a writer living in Portland, gets lectured by a woman in a café about her weight. In one scene the series captures the feeling of constantly being judged, and over the series Annie grows into confidence and comfort in her own skin.
But it ain’t a smooth ride, she juggles an idiot boyfriend (Luka Jones) who has a podcast (too real), an ill parent (Daniel Stern) and an overbearing boss (John Cameron Mitchell). By the end you’ll wish that Annie’s housemate (Lolly Adefope) was your own best friend, mentor and hype person.
Shrill is funny and authentic but never preachy.
This Time With Alan Partridge
Miracles do happen because Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) is back at the BBC! The former TV host gets another shot at the big time after spending time in the weeds of digital radio.
This Time With Alan Partridge is set in real time, a similar format to Get Krack!n, and focuses on a talk show where Partridge is filling in for the beloved regular host who is in sick leave.
Partridge is live and at his awkward best interacting with guests, troubleshooting touchscreens with Sidekick Simon (Tim Key) and appearing in insane pre-taped packages. This Time With Alan Partridge satirises breakfast/morning TV perfectly and Alan is still desperate to be liked.
Chernobyl
On the morning of 26 April 1986, one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded.
The full scale of the disaster was kept quiet, and it was business as usual for people who lived in the nearby town of Pripyat. But the situation was extremely bad and the area around the power plant has been declared uninhabitable by humans for up to 20,000 years!
The true story has been dramatised by HBO and it’s a stunning allegory for what happens when a government values their own agenda over human lives.
The series asks: what is the cost of lies?
The body horror is unrelenting as radiation slowly kills people and workers are put in nightmare scenarios in service of the Soviet Union. There’s also parallels between the environmental catastrophe the Soviet Union scientists faced in the 1980s and the one we’re grappling with in 2019: climate change.
Chernobyl is unsettling but it’s a timely series that forces us to seek at the truth in the age of fake news.
Stream Chernobyl on Foxtel.
I Think You Should Leave
TV can blowout with runtimes hovering around the 90-minute mark. Bless Tim Robinson (SNL, Detroiters) for keeping the sketch comedy series I Think You Should Leave to 17 minutes of comedy perfection.
Each episode features skits about awkward situations. Often, a person (played by Robinson) has a breakdown after refusing to admit they are at fault or bizarre social taboos play out. There are weird game shows, motorbike obsessed aliens and a wild baby of the year pageant.
The series has generated thousands of memes and it’s impossible to go anywhere online without someone yelling “you have no good car ideas!” Here’s to you, Mr Robinson.
Stream I Think You Should Leave on Netflix.
Tuca & Bertie
When the BoJack Horseman team announced they had a new show led by illustrator Lisa Hanawalt it sounded like the greatest idea. Guess what? It is!
Tuca & Bertie follows a songbird (Ali Wong) and a Tucan (Tiffany Haddish) who live in the same apartment block. Like BoJack, it’s a jungle out there as plants and animals coexist in a big city. Tuca & Bertie has eccentric flourishes of animation and explores the dynamics of friendship, anxiety and trauma.
The series has big laughs but an even bigger heart. Tuca and Bertie 4 Life.
Stream Tuca & Bertie on Netflix.
When They See Us
The depiction of true crime stories on TV are complicated because of the way tragedy gets exploited. We’re being bombarded with so many shows that promise to be “your next true crime obsession” but it’s rare to find one that’s legit.
When They See Us, which tells the story of the Central Park Five, is a powerful examination of a crooked time in the New York City justice department — it’s the real deal.
The shocking part is this only happened 30 years ago. At the time the future President of the United States, Donald Trump, took out a newspaper ad with a demand to bring back the death penalty for the teenagers at the centre of the case.
Writer and director Ava DuVernay (Selma, A Winkle in Time) captures the innocence lost, the fractured legal system and the brutal tactics of the police department. Similar to Chernobyl, the series looks at the cost of lies and what happens when a narrative is spun to exploit bigotry.
Stream When They See Us on Netflix.
Cameron Williams is a writer and film critic based in Melbourne who occasionally blabs about movies on ABC radio. He has a slight Twitter addiction: @MrCamW.