Short answer: Tom’s Guide ranked Severance as the best TV show of 2022, followed by Andor, Better Call Saul season 6, The Bear season 1 and The Rehearsal.
This is a retrospective editorial ranking published on December 7, 2022—not a current 2026 streaming guide. The full list mixes new series with standout seasons, and its platform labels reflect U.S. availability at the time of publication.
What this ranking means
Tom’s Guide published this ranking on December 7, 2022, with Kelly Woo leading contributions from Rory Mellon, Tom Pritchard, Henry T. Casey and Malcolm McMillan. It is an editorial ranking, not a statistical league table: the writers explicitly acknowledged that they could not watch everything released that year.
The platform labels below preserve the article’s U.S. viewing context at publication. A title listed under Hulu, HBO Max, Apple TV Plus, Disney Plus, Netflix, Showtime or Prime Video may have moved, changed service names or become unavailable in a particular country since then. Treat “watch it on” as historical routing, not a guaranteed 2026 catalog listing.
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The top five at a glance
| Rank | Series or season | Why it stood out |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Severance | A darkly funny, unnerving mystery about separating work memories from personal life. |
| 2 | Andor | A grounded, political Star Wars story about resistance and authoritarian power. |
| 3 | Better Call Saul season 6 | A patient, devastating final chapter built around character, consequence and performance. |
| 4 | The Bear | An intense Chicago kitchen drama that turns grief and ambition into high-pressure television. |
| 5 | The Rehearsal | A strange, funny experiment that keeps questioning where preparation ends and reality begins. |
The 30 best TV shows of 2022, according to Tom’s Guide
1. Severance — Apple TV Plus
Severance turns work-life balance into a literal and horrifying procedure. Employees at Lumon Industries undergo a process that separates their workplace memories from their personal memories, creating an “innie” and an “outie” who occupy the same body but cannot access one another’s lives.
Tom’s Guide placed it first because the premise supports several kinds of television at once: a corporate mystery box, dark comedy, psychological horror story and unusually controlled ensemble drama. Adam Scott, Britt Lower, John Turturro and Christopher Walken give the mystery an emotional center; the show’s questions about identity and corporate obedience matter as much as its cliffhangers.
2. Andor — Disney Plus
Andor is a Star Wars series with far less interest in triumphal space opera than in the ordinary systems that make authoritarianism work. It follows Cassian Andor and a broad ensemble through surveillance, political compromise, revolutionary organizing and the human costs of imperial rule.
The result is a grounded and politically minded franchise drama. Its strength is not simply that it makes the Rebellion look exciting; it shows why people join, what resistance demands from them and how bureaucratic power operates in the mundane details of daily life. That emphasis helped Tom’s Guide rank it second.
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The sixth and final season of Better Call Saul had the difficult job of completing Jimmy McGill’s transformation into Saul Goodman while bringing the series into alignment with the world established by Breaking Bad. Tom’s Guide treated it as a carefully constructed conclusion rather than merely a prequel obligation.
Bob Odenkirk and Rhea Seehorn are central to the season’s impact, and returning characters are integrated with unusual patience and purpose. The ranking also singled out Carol Burnett’s late-series contribution. The season’s power comes from the way apparently small decisions accumulate into consequences that the characters can no longer negotiate away.
4. The Bear season 1 — Hulu
The Bear places grief, family history and professional ambition inside a high-pressure Chicago restaurant. Jeremy Allen White plays Carmy, a gifted chef attempting to keep his family’s business alive, while Ayo Edebiri’s Sydney becomes an essential counterpart as she tries to build a better kitchen inside a chaotic workplace.
The series captures the speed and aggression of service without reducing its characters to workplace types. Its kitchen rhythm is intense, but the emotional story is about loss, responsibility and whether a damaged family can create something together. Rotten Tomatoes separately placed the first season at the top of its 2022 list with a 100% Certified Fresh score based on 72 reviews as of December 30, 2022. Tom’s Guide ranked it fourth, illustrating why different “best of” methods can produce different orders.
5. The Rehearsal — HBO Max
Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal begins with an elaborate attempt to help people prepare for difficult conversations and keeps expanding the idea until the preparation becomes an artificial world of its own. Sets, actors, simulations and increasingly elaborate contingencies blur the line between documentary, reality television and scripted comedy.
Its central question is not just whether rehearsing can make a hard moment safer. It asks whether controlling every variable can make genuine human interaction impossible. The show’s escalating artificiality and persistent uncertainty about what is staged made it one of 2022’s most formally unusual comedies.
6. Pachinko — Apple TV Plus
Adapted from Min Jin Lee’s novel, Pachinko is a time-hopping historical epic about a Korean immigrant family over four generations. Its story crosses Korea, Japan and the United States while examining racism, immigration, class, identity and the compromises families make to survive.
The series moves between periods rather than treating history as a single explanatory flashback. That structure connects private family choices to larger forces without making the characters feel like illustrations of a lesson. It is one of the strongest choices on this list for viewers who want history and social experience carried through intimate, multigenerational storytelling.
Book-to-screen note: The series is adapted from Min Jin Lee’s novel, but the book is not a scene-for-scene substitute for every structural or narrative choice in the television version. To compare the source with the adaptation, read Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko. Editions vary by market; the publisher has listed a Deluxe Limited Edition with ISBN 9781538784020, so verify the edition, price and availability before buying.
7. Reservation Dogs — Hulu
Reservation Dogs follows four Indigenous teenagers—Bear, Elora, Willie Jack and Cheese—dealing with grief, friendship, boredom and the uncertain passage into adulthood. Its deadpan humor is inseparable from its community setting, and the series treats Indigenous representation as a foundation of the story rather than an occasional subject.
The comedy can be loose and playful, but the emotional stakes are substantial. The characters are shaped by loss and by the place they share, giving the coming-of-age plot a distinctive sense of community, memory and obligation.
Rank #2
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8. Station Eleven — HBO Max
Based on Emily St. John Mandel’s 2014 novel, Station Eleven moves between a pandemic collapse and the years that follow. However, it is less interested in the mechanics of disease than in what people preserve, remember and create after familiar society has broken apart.
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The series is ultimately about human connection: art, performance, friendship, love and the stories people carry through catastrophe. Its post-collapse world is a setting for examining how survivors make meaning, not simply a puzzle about how the disaster happened.
9. For All Mankind season 3 — Apple TV Plus
Season 3 advances the show’s alternate-history space race from the Moon toward Mars. NASA, the Soviet Union and the private company Helios compete to reach the planet, while political disputes and personal relationships remain as important as the engineering and exploration.
The season combines speculative space history with workplace, political and family drama. Its premise is not just “what if the space race continued?” but how institutions and individuals change when technological ambition becomes a permanent source of competition.
10. Abbott Elementary — Hulu/ABC
Quinta Brunson’s mockumentary is an optimistic workplace comedy set among teachers at an underfunded Philadelphia school. The staff’s rivalries, friendships and romantic complications provide the jokes, while the lack of resources gives the workplace a social reality that the show does not ignore.
Abbott Elementary is socially aware without abandoning warmth. Its teachers are not saintly symbols or one-note comic characters; they are people trying to do demanding work inside a system that repeatedly asks them to compensate for institutional neglect.
11. Yellowjackets — Showtime
Yellowjackets combines a survival mystery with a coming-of-age story. After a girls’ soccer team is stranded by a plane crash, the narrative moves between the wilderness timeline and the adult survivors’ present-day lives.
The dual structure makes every relationship carry two kinds of tension: what the teenagers are becoming in the wilderness and what the adults have spent years hiding. The mystery works because the show gives equal weight to survival, memory, friendship and the possibility that the past is not finished with its survivors.
12. Barry season 3 — HBO Max
In season 3, Barry pushes its collision of hitman thriller, show-business satire and moral tragedy further into instability. Bill Hader’s performance becomes increasingly unhinged, but the series remains more than a showcase for his character’s breakdown.
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1Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsThe plotting keeps several characters moving toward incompatible ideas of redemption. Henry Winkler and Anthony Carrigan are among the supporting performers who help make the increasingly extreme story emotionally and comically credible.
13. House of the Dragon — HBO/HBO Max
The Game of Thrones prequel succeeds most convincingly when it slows down for Targaryen conversations, court maneuvering and private character conflicts. Its dragon battles and large-scale spectacle provide the expected visual scale, but the political drama gives those set pieces consequences.
Tom’s Guide’s selection reflects that balance: the series is strongest when spectacle grows out of disputes over succession, family and power rather than replacing them. Rotten Tomatoes named season 1 its Golden Tomato winner for Best TV Series of 2022, with a 90% Tomatometer score.
14. The White Lotus season 2 — HBO Max
The second season moves the luxury-resort satire to Sicily and examines class, manipulation, sex, money and death among guests and staff. The resort setting is beautiful precisely because the show’s characters keep revealing the anxiety and entitlement beneath the surface.
Jennifer Coolidge returns as Tanya, whose mixture of vulnerability, wealth and self-absorption remains one of the season’s great comic engines. The season changes location and most of its ensemble while preserving the series’ interest in what privilege allows people to ignore.
Rank #3
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15. Stranger Things season 4 — Netflix
Stranger Things season 4 expands the series dramatically, dividing its characters among multiple locations and storylines before bringing them back into a larger supernatural conflict. Tom’s Guide highlighted the scale, the reunions and Eddie Munson, whose outsider status makes him a particularly memorable addition.
The ranking also acknowledged a weakness: some of the Russia material and Mike Wheeler’s storyline felt overextended. That combination—larger spectacle and a few uneven detours—explains why the season made the list without placing near its top.
16. Our Flag Means Death — HBO Max
Our Flag Means Death turns Stede Bonnet’s attempt to become a gentleman pirate into an affectionate ensemble comedy. Stede’s relationship with Blackbeard gives the series a romantic and emotional center, while the crew of misfits supplies an unusually generous supply of comic personalities.
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17. What We Do in the Shadows season 4 — Hulu/FX
The vampire mockumentary remained inventive by giving its familiar characters new problems rather than merely repeating their old jokes. Colin Robinson’s rebirth, Laszlo’s attempts to raise him, Nadja’s nightclub and Nandor’s marriage plot all push the household into new comic arrangements.
The season works because the supernatural absurdity is matched by recognizable pettiness. These vampires have centuries of power and experience, yet they remain spectacularly bad at communication, responsibility and relationships.
18. The Boys season 3 — Prime Video
The Boys continues its dark superhero satire with new Supes, political bite and an increasingly menacing Homelander. The series uses comic-book violence and grotesque escalation to attack celebrity worship, corporate power and political extremism.
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It is deliberately excessive, and Tom’s Guide praised its willingness to push that material to extremes. The spectacle is most effective when it exposes the political and commercial systems surrounding superpowered celebrities, rather than functioning as violence for its own sake.
19. Bad Sisters — Apple TV Plus
Bad Sisters is a satirical murder mystery about four sisters trying to protect Grace from her abusive husband. An insurance investigator’s suspicion creates the procedural engine, while the sisters’ increasingly desperate efforts generate the dark humor.
The series keeps the question of what happened in motion while asking a more uncomfortable question about loyalty: how far should family members go to protect someone, and what happens when protection starts to look like conspiracy?
20. The Dropout — Hulu
The Dropout dramatizes the rise and collapse of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. Amanda Seyfried’s transformation into Holmes is the central performance, with Naveen Andrews playing Sunny Balwani as a crucial part of the company’s personal and professional power structure.
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The limited series organizes facts that were already public rather than uncovering new reporting. Its value is therefore in dramatization and performance: it gives shape to a familiar scandal and examines how ambition, image-making and institutional credulity sustained it.
21. A League of Their Own — Prime Video
This reimagining of the baseball story expands the world beyond the original film’s boundaries, giving greater space to queer characters and characters of color. The eight-episode structure supports a broad ensemble rather than treating the women’s league as a single inspirational anecdote.
The result is a sports series about performance and belonging as much as competition. Its historical setting lets the show explore who was allowed to be visible, who had to hide and whose athletic talent was dismissed.
Rank #4
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22. Black Bird — Apple TV Plus
In this true-crime limited series, Jimmy Keene enters a dangerous arrangement: he must obtain a confession from suspected serial killer Larry Hall. The psychological contest depends on Jimmy’s ability to earn Hall’s trust while recognizing how much risk he is taking.
Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser anchor the confrontation, with Ray Liotta adding weight to the surrounding story. The series gains much of its tension from performance and manipulation rather than from constant procedural twists.
23. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law — Disney Plus
Tatiana Maslany plays Jennifer Walters, a lawyer who develops Hulk powers and loses much of the privacy she previously took for granted. The legal-workplace premise gives the series a sitcom-like structure, while the superhero setting turns public scrutiny into a literal part of Jennifer’s life.
Tom’s Guide highlighted how unusually sitcom-like this MCU entry could be. Its central conflict is not only how Jennifer handles being a superhero; it is how she maintains an ordinary identity when strangers, institutions and media insist on treating her as a public object.
24. Hacks season 2 — HBO Max
Season 2 sends Deborah and Ava on the road, making their already prickly professional partnership harder to escape. The changing venues expose Deborah’s ambition and selfishness while also giving her more opportunities to recognize the damage those traits cause.
The comedy comes from the pair’s mismatched instincts, but the season’s deeper interest is in whether self-awareness can arrive before a relationship becomes irreparable. Neither woman is reduced to a mentor or a protégé; both are trying to decide what success should cost.
25. Only Murders in the Building season 2 — Hulu
The second murder case is somewhat less absorbing than the first, according to Tom’s Guide, but the season gives Charles, Oliver and Mabel more room for backstory and relationship development.
That trade-off matters. The mystery may not have the same freshness as the original premise, but the trio’s contrasting histories and growing dependence on one another remain the show’s most durable attraction.
26. The Afterparty — Apple TV Plus
The Afterparty builds its murder mystery around competing accounts of the same night. Each retelling adopts a different character’s genre and perspective, creating a comic, whodunit version of the Rashomon effect.
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The format makes point of view part of the investigation. Viewers are not simply collecting clues; they are also judging how each storyteller edits, embellishes or misunderstands their own memories.
27. Slow Horses — Apple TV Plus
Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb gives Slow Horses its abrasive center, while Jack Lowden’s River Cartwright supplies a more ambitious counterpoint. The series follows intelligence officers relegated to an underperforming department, where bureaucratic punishment does not necessarily prevent them from becoming useful.
Tom’s Guide also pointed to the compact twelve-episode total across the first two seasons. That makes the show a particularly manageable spy-thriller recommendation for viewers who want a continuing story without an enormous episode commitment.
28. Euphoria season 2 — HBO Max
The second season raises the emotional and visual intensity of Euphoria. Sydney Sweeney’s Cassie material receives particular emphasis, while Zendaya’s performance as Rue remains the dramatic anchor.
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29. Peacemaker — HBO Max
Peacemaker was an unexpectedly successful spin-off from The Suicide Squad. James Gunn’s tone combines irreverent comedy, comic-book violence and a protagonist whose self-image is far more heroic than his behavior deserves.
The series works by allowing its ridiculous premise to coexist with a surprisingly sincere interest in shame, loyalty and the possibility of change. Its humor is crude and its action is violent, but the ensemble gives the character’s attempted growth a genuine emotional counterweight.
30. Atlanta seasons 3 and 4 — Hulu/FX
The third season takes the characters to Europe and leans into surrealism, while the fourth season brings the series toward its conclusion. Together, they remain ambitious, strange and thematically consistent with Donald Glover’s vision.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesAtlanta does not always explain its shifts in tone or structure, but that refusal is part of its identity. The final seasons continue to examine race, celebrity, alienation and performance through stories that can move from comedy to discomfort without warning.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why other “best of 2022” lists look different
There was no single authoritative order for television in 2022. Rotten Tomatoes’ year-end list placed The Bear season 1 first with a 100% Certified Fresh score based on 72 reviews, followed by Heartstopper, also at 100% based on 55 reviews. Its system considered Certified Fresh status, review counts and tie-breaking rules, so it was measuring critical-score strength rather than reproducing Tom’s Guide’s editorial judgment.
A separate Rotten Tomatoes category ranked House of the Dragon first and Andor second after adjusting for variation in review counts. That supports two of Tom’s Guide’s selections without proving that either show belongs at a universal rank. TVLine’s retrospective used another editorial approach and included titles such as Chucky, Minx, Industry, Ghosts and The Patient, alongside overlaps including The White Lotus, Pachinko, Heartstopper, The Boys and Severance.
The useful takeaway is the broad agreement around several standout series, not the precise position of every title. A ranking can reward originality, performances, ambition, emotional impact or formal experimentation; an aggregate score emphasizes review averages and the number of reviews available.
New series, returning seasons and why the distinction matters
This is a list of notable television from 2022, not a list restricted to shows that premiered in 2022. It mixes new series with selected seasons and finales. For example, Better Call Saul season 6, The White Lotus season 2, Stranger Things season 4, Barry season 3, For All Mankind season 3, What We Do in the Shadows season 4, The Boys season 3, Hacks season 2, Only Murders in the Building season 2, Euphoria season 2 and Atlanta seasons 3 and 4 are all evaluations of continuing shows.
By contrast, the ranking treats series such as Severance, Andor, The Rehearsal, Pachinko, The Dropout, Bad Sisters and Black Bird as new or newly launched 2022 entries in its editorial context. The Bear is represented by its first season. The distinction helps explain why a “best shows” list can compare a complete final season with a brand-new series that has only established its premise.
Where to start based on your taste
| If you want… | Start with… |
|---|---|
| A cerebral mystery | Severance, Yellowjackets or Bad Sisters |
| Politics and historical power | Andor, Pachinko, For All Mankind or Better Call Saul |
| Fast, stressful workplace drama | The Bear, Abbott Elementary or Hacks |
| Experimental or reality-bending comedy | The Rehearsal, Atlanta or The Afterparty |
| Dark satire | The White Lotus, The Boys or Barry |
| Large-scale genre television | House of the Dragon, Stranger Things, Peacemaker or She-Hulk |
| A character-led true-crime drama | Black Bird or The Dropout |
Bottom line
Tom’s Guide’s 2022 ranking is best read as a wide-ranging snapshot of what ambitious television looked like at the end of that year. Severance, Andor, Better Call Saul, The Bear and The Rehearsal form a persuasive top five, but the larger list is valuable because it puts radically different achievements side by side: historical drama, workplace comedy, superhero satire, true crime, horror, mockumentary and experimental television. The order is subjective; the range is the point.
Platform availability and service names change. Check the relevant service in your country before planning a viewing watchlist.
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Are all 30 shows still available on the platforms listed?
No. It is a retrospective of Tom’s Guide’s U.S.-focused editorial ranking published on December 7, 2022. Streaming rights and service names can change, so the listed platforms should not be treated as guaranteed current availability.
Does this list include only shows that premiered in 2022?
No. The ranking mixes new 2022 series with selected seasons of continuing shows, including Better Call Saul season 6, Stranger Things season 4, The White Lotus season 2, Barry season 3 and Atlanta seasons 3 and 4.
Why does this ranking differ from Rotten Tomatoes’ 2022 list?
The Bear season 1 topped Rotten Tomatoes’ 2022 year-end list with a 100% Certified Fresh score based on 72 reviews as of December 30, 2022. A separate Rotten Tomatoes category placed House of the Dragon first and Andor second. Those lists used different scoring or editorial methods, so there is no universally correct order.
Which show on the list is adapted from a book?
Yes. Pachinko is adapted from Min Jin Lee’s novel. The book and series share the central family story but are not identical in every structure or narrative choice.
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The Bottom Line
Bottom line: This is a retrospective editorial ranking, not a current streaming guide or objective scorecard. Start with Severance, Andor, Better Call Saul season 6, The Bear or The Rehearsal, then use the full list to match a genre or mood.
Quick Recap
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