White Lotus to North Sea Connection: Four of the best TV shows of 2022

Somewhere Boy (Channel 4), Am I Being UnreasonaPble (BBC), North Sea Connection, (RTÉ) and White Lotus (SKy and Now) top my list.

These are four shows I enjoyed watching in 2022.

Somewhere Boy (All 4) made me immensely sad. It was the story of Danny who was kept locked up by his Dad until the age of 18, to ‘protect’ him from the monsters outside. It turns out the monsters were in his father’s head, after his wife (Danny’s mother) died in an accident.

The story unfolds when the Dad dies and Danny goes to live with his aunt. The heart of the story is his relationship with his new-found cousin, Aaron, as they fumble their way towards friendship. It’s heart-warming at the end, just the stuff for the dead of winter, and there’s even a twist that I didn’t see coming.

Am I Being Unreasonable 

Am I Being Unreasonable? (BBC and BBC iPlayer) was a complete surprise. My wife put it on one night and I was a bit cranky that I didn’t think of it myself. Written by Daisy May Cooper (Kerry in This Country) and real-life buddy Selin Hizli, it stars the two of them in an unlikely friendship. Cooper’s character Nic is sleeping with her husband’s brother who dies in an apparent accident at a train station. She is haunted by this, along with her contempt for her husband. It’s bitterly funny and gripping and a bit chaotic, but that’s good because the bombshell ending creeps up on you without realising it. I think comedy thrillers might be my new thing.

RTÉ’s North Sea Connection is further proof that Ireland can produce proper thrillers. (I liked Smother as well from last year.) This one has moody views of the west of Ireland, a believable lead character who wants to make a go of her small fishing boat, a dodgy brother who uses her to import drugs for a Scandinavian gang, plus Irish and Swedish cops working together against the bad guys. It doesn’t break the mould for these kind of things, but it fits in nicely alongside things like Trapped, the Icelandic Scandi thriller that was good for a few seasons before it fell away.

No surprise to see that it sold overseas, you can watch it in Australia over the holiday season if it’s too hot outside.

North Sea Connection has moody views of the west of Ireland

I only caught season one of White Lotus (Sky and NOW) a month ago. It was one of those ones where everyone was talking about it when it came out last year and I decided it mustn’t be any good without watching. It is good. Ok, it’s not Succession, but then every show can’t be Succession and this does a reasonable impersonation.

The people here aren’t as rich as powerful, but they are good value, particularly the two bitchy girls who sit around the pool of the posh resort reading all the other wealthy guests, while also reading books about Marxism. The rich guests are reassuringly unhappy, so the rest of us don’t feel too bad about them being pampered around the clock. It’s light-weight satire, which is just as well, because full-on satire is a bit worthy and would put you to sleep. Give it a watch.