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TV Guide staffers' favorite shows, episodes, and performances that didn't make our year-end lists
In a year that felt like limbo, we might as well measure the passage of time by all the good TV we watched. After wrapping up 2021 with our lists of the best shows, best episodes, and best performances of the year, the TV Guide staff is putting a bow on that package by paying tribute to the best of the rest: our favorites that didn't make the final cut. Some, like Showtime's Yellowjackets, are exciting newcomers that debuted late in the year. Others, like HBO Max's South Side, are sleeper hits that barely missed the list. And some, like High School Musical: The Musical: The Series on Disney+, are just nice shows that make us happy. We're also shouting out performers, like Succession's Kieran Culkin, whose co-stars already got their flowers, or who left an impression in only a few minutes, like Bob Odenkirk in I Think You Should Leave. Plus, we're giving it up for a sitcom finale we loved.
These are TV Guide's favorite shows, episodes, and performances not on our year-end lists.
Head here for our lists of the 25 best shows of 2021, the 20 best episodes of 2021, and the 20 best performances of 2021.
A lot of my favorites of the year (The White Lotus, Girls5eva, Hacks, Succession, more) are covered in our Best Shows of the Year, but a few personal favorites didn't make the cut, including the second season of HBO Max's South Side, which has created a totally unique universe that's like a Black, live-action The Simpsons, is one of the funniest shows of the year, and has my new favorite comedy power couple courtesy of co-creator Bashir Salahuddin and Chandra Russell. The new season of Netflix's bleak zombie drama Black Summer somehow ratcheted things up another notch as it once again defied all television logic with twisting storylines, multiple viewpoints on major events, and one-shot action sequences (Black Summer is too daring to get the credit it deserves, but there's nothing on TV like it). And HBO's How to With John Wilson somehow returned in fine form in Season 2 after a magical first season. We'd be foolish not to mention what Matthew Macfadyen did in Succession Season 3, or give kudos to Steve Zahn and Fred Hechinger for some of The White Lotus' best scenes, or shower Olly Alexander for stunning work in It's a Sin, or mention two performances on Apple TV+ shows that were otherwise just OK (Rose Byrne in Physical, Justin Theroux in The Mosquito Coast). And because our list of the best shows was published mid December (we waited as long as we could), we didn't get to acknowledge a great new season of The Witcher and the debut of Station Eleven. Hmm. Looking at my list, the best performance of the year may actually have been HBO/HBO Max. -Tim Surette
South Side, Black Summer, How to With John Wilson
Matthew Macfadyen, Succession; Olly Alexander, It's a Sin; Rose Byrne, Physical; Fred Hechinger, The White Lotus
When Bob Odenkirk survived a heart attack earlier this year, there was an outpouring of support on social media for the great actor and a celebration of his body of work that usually only occurs after a person passes. It was a reminder to tell people you love how much they mean to you while they're still around. And in that vein — and in the absence of Better Call Saul and Undone, Odenkirk's excellent shows, neither of which aired new episodes in 2021 — I'd like to pay tribute to Odenkirk's greatest TV performance of the year, as "Man in Diner" in I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson's "Diner Wink" sketch. He plays a lonely stranger who gets invited into a father's little lie to his child, and uses the setup to imagine a fantasy life for himself where he owns doubles of every classic car (triples of the best), has a beautiful wife who's going to recover from her illness, and doesn't live in a hotel. It's a miniature demo of Odenkirk's incredible gift for absurd comedy and sincere pathos he brings to all of his performances. -Liam Mathews
Bob Odenkirk, I Think You Should Leave
I've already written ad nauseam about Succession's outstanding third season, and I have no regrets about highlighting Jeremy Strong as the show's standout performance, but I have to give Kieran Culkin his flowers here — shameless, slimy, and totally despicable right up until the finale, where Roman showed up to an emotional gunfight with nothing but love as a weapon. Scenes From a Marriage was a tough show (I enjoyed it, though it was five straight hours of miserable people talking at each other), but Oscar Isaac's painfully intimate performance is worth celebrating. Never Have I Ever and How to with John Wilson both had me laughing out loud in their second seasons, which is always appreciated in these trying times. But the show that kept me on my toes, the one that became appointment viewing every week, was The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Its eleventh season was its best yet, delving into the legal troubles of Erika Girardi through the perspectives of the rest of the cast as she revealed herself to be an endlessly compelling villain of the highest caliber. Loyalties wavered, reality was questioned, and mascara ran. I've said that the two best shows I watched in 2021 were Succession and RHOBH, but only one of them gave me Kathy Hilton earnestly asking, "Who is hunky dory?" -Allison Picurro
Never Have I Ever, How to with John Wilson, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
Oscar Isaac, Scenes From a Marriage; Kieran Culkin, Succession
It's still too early to tell how much juice Yellowjackets can wring from its very juicy premise: A girls soccer team in the '90s goes full Lord of the Flies after a plane crash, and decades in the future, the women who survived deal with the fallout. The present-day storyline, despite strong work from reliable greats like Melanie Lynskey, is so far not grabbing me like the visceral thrill of seeing high school girls do cannibalistic rituals in antlers (an admittedly high bar!). But the wild Showtime drama might be the year's most go-big-or-go-home new show — you have to respect that it only took a few weeks to tilt fully supernatural — and I'm happy to go along for the ride. Another new series, Peacock's We Are Lady Parts, made it to our best episodes list, but the whole six-episode first season was a charmer that has stayed with me since I watched. Much of that stickiness is thanks to Sarah Kameela Impey's performance as Saira, whose wounded soulfulness spoke for the show.
We named FX's stellar Reservation Dogs one of the best shows of 2021, but it's worth adding that it wouldn't work without such an endearing, smart ensemble. Devery Jacobs, in particular, embodied a specific kind of teenage weariness — tough on the surface, deeply sad underneath — in a way that tied the series together. And I'll take full responsibility for somehow leaving Superstore's wonderful finale off our list of the year's best episodes. It wouldn't have happened if I had any sense of a normal passage of time over the past 12 months. It's hard not to think that Superstore's brutal exhaustion on behalf of America's workers will only get more relevant in the next few years, but despite notes of darkness in the final episode — the store closing to become a fulfillment center, the union that never happened, the severed feet! — the feeling it left me with was of defiant warmth. Superstore dared to imagine a far-off dream in 2021: that we might all be able to sit around a table with the ones we love. -Kelly Connolly
Yellowjackets, We Are Lady Parts
"All Sales Final," Superstore
Sarah Kameela Impey, We Are Lady Parts; Devery Jacobs, Reservation Dogs
There's no denying that 2020 was a rough year for everyone, but for me, I think 2021 was even harder in a few unexpected ways. We're all so tired, right? The point is that when thinking about my personal favorite shows of 2021, I gravitated toward the feel-good series that buoyed me through another turbulent year spent mostly at home and trying to stave off anxiety about the future. Disney+ became a great source of comfort with its family-friendly programming like High School Musical: The Musical: The Series and The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers. A last-minute delight was HBO Max's The Sex Lives of College Girls, which made me laugh out loud and scream in equal measure. I would be devastated that I didn't watch it in time for our best of the year list if I hadn't been able to celebrate it here. Even when it came to the (mostly) serious shows, it was the comic relief that got me — like the tour de force performance from Matthew Macfadyen in Succession Season 3. So good tidings and good cheer; here are the people and shows that made 2021 a little less anxiety inducing. -Megan Vick
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers, Big Shot, The Sex Lives of College Girls, This Is Us, Station 19, Home Economics
Jessica Marie Garcia, On My Block; Amrit Kaur, The Sex Lives of College Girls; Matthew Macfadyen, Succession
While Evan Peters was, for many good reasons, selected as the best performance from Mare of Easttown, Julianne Nicholson's portrayal of Lori Ross is the one that has stayed with me months after completing the crime drama. Her performance, especially in that gut-wrenching finale scene, firmly clings to the mind. Elsewhere, in Korean drama land, Han So-hee's work as Ji-woo in the noir thriller My Name establishes her as one of South Korea's most versatile actors to watch. A departure from her performance in melodramas, Han's latest project showed her great potential as an action star, with smooth delivery of tightly choreographed fight sequences and a layered portrayal of her character's thirst for vengeance.
A show that deserves more praise is Odd Taxi. I was hooked from its first episode, when the Japanese anime series introduces cynical 41-year-old taxi driver Odokawa — a walrus living in a Tokyo inhabited by anthropomorphic animals. Odokawa's vehicle becomes the point of intersection in a missing persons case, as the lives of passengers from all corners of the city intertwine to reveal clues about the victim's whereabouts. But more than the mystery element, it's the forming and collapsing of relationships in Odd Taxi that's the highlight. -Kat Moon
Odd Taxi
Julianne Nicholson, Mare of Easttown; Han So-hee, My Name
Keep the celebration of the best TV of 2021 going!
Check out TV Guide's roundups of the best shows of the year, the best episodes of the year, and the best performances of the year.