3 Shows That Should Not Have Been Left Out of (Nearly) All the Best of 2022 Lists

Editors' Picks: TV Guide already ranked the Best Shows of 2022, but as the year comes to a close, individual editors share their personal favorites for your enjoyment — and to argue about over the internet. Happy New Year, and happy watching!

It's that time of the year for Best Of lists, as writers everywhere comb through their digital journals for our favorite pop culture titles from the last 12 months. Occasionally, these lists include an under-appreciated gem that has not appeared in others' picks. But more often than not, they feature a handful of works written about nearly everywhere else. For TV's 2022, click into any Best Of story and you can expect a combination of Abbott Elementary, The Bear, Better Call Saul, The Rehearsal, Severance— or all of the above. To be clear, many of these shows are among my personal favorites (I'm still recovering from Severance's emotionally damaging finale), and all of them are on TV Guide's own Best Of 2022 list. The repeat titles deserve every bit of recognition and should absolutely be praised for their sharp writing and inspired performances. But I can't deny the thrill I experience when spotting a lesser-mentioned, cream-of-the-crop show like The Boys or Heartstopperin a writer's top picks. 

And what about the shows that are just not featured anywhere? I have obviously not read every single Best Of piece that's out there — and more are being written in the last days of December. But there are a few glaring omissions I've found across the board, not including the Best Of lists that focus entirely on anime and K-dramas. I could write a whole essay on how more non-English series need to be included in end-of-year lists — especially with today's globalization of TV. But for now, here are three that should not have been left out of almost all the Best Of 2022 lists.

Spy x Family (Wit Studio, CloverWorks)

It's shocking that Spy x Family only premiered this year, considering how the Forgers have become pop culture icons whose popularity extends far beyond Japan. But one close look at the story of this unlikely family and it becomes immediately clear how the show amassed a legion of fans. Spy x Family, adapted from Tatsuya Endo's manga series of the same name, follows master spy Loid Forger as he forms a pretend family to accomplish his mission of maintaining world peace (extremely high stakes, I know.) What Loid doesn't know is that his pretend wife Yor is secretly a professional assassin and his pretend daughter Anya is actually a telepath fully aware of her adoptive parents' true identities. The bizarre premise is a gold mine for comedy, and some of the show's best moments come when it boldly parodies tropes in action and romance. Spy x Family also takes full advantage of its art form, with much of the humor delivered through characters' facial expressions and body movements that are only possible in animation. 

Twenty-Five Twenty-One (Netflix)

Every once in a while, a show enters your life with a story that feels eerily similar to your own experiences. Twenty-Five Twenty-One was that for me. I'm no professional fencer like Na Hee-do (Kim Taeri), but her tenacious fight for her dreams — even when it's an often lonely journey — resonated deeply. And personal sentiments aside, Twenty-Five Twenty-One is a superb show. The series chronicles Hee-do's dogged journey to becoming the best fencer in Korea, and how meeting one Baek Yi-jin (Nam Joo-hyuk) shapes her not just as an athlete but as a person. However, the Korean drama is more a passionate ode to youth than a record of one's first love. Through Hee-do's bond with teammate Ko Yu-rim (Bona), the show captures the singular impact of sisterhood created in one's teens and twenties. And as Twenty-Five Twenty-One follows Hee-do's victories and defeats on and off the fencing piste, it invites all to reflect on our losses and wins — and more importantly, the people who turned our losses into wins.

Alice in Borderland (Netflix)

Alice in Borderland has a more logistical reason for being left out of end-of-year lists: Season 2 was just released on Dec. 22. That means it's even more essential to give the show the praise it deserves now. Two years after its first season premiered, the Netflix adaptation based on the manga of the same name returned bigger and better. In Alice in Borderland, high school student Arisu (Kento Yamazaki) has been transported to an alternate Tokyo where the only way to survive is to compete in deadly games. The challenges were undoubtedly the best part of Season 1, and they are entirely elevated in this second chapter. The new games simultaneously inspire awe and terror through their expanded scale, heightened complexity, and all-around chilling promises of pain. Alice in Borderland Season 2 is more philosophical than ever with its exploration of mortality, but the high-octane action and drama that fans have come to expect is never once diminished.