This year streaming went wild with tv shows. As streaming models dominated, however, the question of erasing media like HBO and removing the binge model initially set out by Netflix began to get called into question.

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This year's tv shows played on a careful awareness of its predecessors, with sitcoms improving upon others, advancements in the way women characters are portrayed, and upping the awareness of how life on tv differentiates from real life. At its best shows created questions about our culture as it exists today and brought to the table new questions on media consumption.

'Reboot'

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Image via Hulu

The Hulu show Reboot both pokes fun and re-examines the relationship with media, creators, and viewers. The show's premise follows Hannah (Rachel Bloom), who wants to reboot a show that followed a stepdad trying to blend into a new family, now updating to a new age with a serio-comedic take. Hannah brings her story into the equation while also adding another, darker layer to the original sitcom characters.

The show has an exploration of celebrity culture, examining the actors as they left the once beloved show, and how people feel about media. A story that once seemed happy and light gets turned on its head from a different perspective.

'Abbott Elementary' Season 1

Janine and Gregory in Abbott Elementary
Image via ABC

Following the young enthusiastic Janine Teagues (Quinta Brunson) a teacher at Abbott Elementary, a poorly funded public elementary school in Philadelphia. While the show is a classic sitcom, it also centers on an almost all-black cast all of whom end up exploring the nuances of teaching black children specifically, an important factor to what makes the show so great.

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The political undertones are never a great distracter but instead create a backdrop, as teachers not only struggle to get paid, but it shows how certain districts remain underfunded and who's most affected. With documentary-style filming, talking head interviews and the always important will-they-won't-they arc between characters Janine and Gregory.

'The Rehearsal'

The Rehearsal - The Fielder Method

The initial premise revolves around having random people rehearse scenarios over and over again in some way they can perfect them in real life. The series quickly derails as a rehearsal goes awry in the second episode, when holding a rehearsal for Angela, a woman who desperately longs to be a mother rehearses motherhood itself, the placeholder father walks about, and Fielder himself steps in.

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Oftentimes Fielder is obsessively tracking information about people outside the simulation of setting up as many things in the "real world" as he can, literally bringing unassuming people's everyday lives into the imaginary world.

'Euphoria' Season 2

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Image via HBO Max

The hit show from 2019 came back with a bang, this time the focus was on the feud between Maddy (Alexa Demie) and Cassie (Sydney Sweeney). Euphoria's story of betrayal and heartbreak in the fan-favorite friendship is what held center stage. The two have their friendship derail as Cassie falls for Maddy's abusive ex-boyfriend, Nate (Jacob Elordi) which culminates in several iconic moments in which Rue (Zendaya) reveals the relationship to divert attention from her relapse.

While there's much to be said on the show's lack of realism towards high schoolers, it mastered airing episodes in a week-by-week format and having the entire world posting on social media about it, setting the groundwork for a broader conversation on why airing episodes on a weekly basis was a stronger model.

'The White Lotus' Season 2

Simona Tabasco as Lucia and Beatrice Grannò as Mia in The White Lotus Season 2
Image via HBO Max

Mike White's iconic series The White Lotus returned with another season of a different set of rich people, this time at a White Lotus resort in Italy. The series follows a grandfather-father-son trio (F. Murray Abraham, Michael Imperioli, Adam Dimarco) heading to Sicily to reconnect with their Italian roots, a new billionaire (Will Sharpe) with his lawyer wife (Aubrey Plaza) on vacation with a college friend (Theo James), an already established billionaire, and his wife (Meghann Fahy), and returning to the White Lotus from the previous season, Tanya (Jennifer Coolidge) with her new assistant, Portia (Haley Lu Richardson).

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The carefully interwoven narratives hold audiences captive as the dynamics between the billionaires' relationships carefully shift, Mia and Lucia grow tighter through scamming men out of their money, and every character's lives go awry. Mike White's mastery in balancing darkness with humor pulls through with a perfectly matched cast.

'The Dropout'

The Dropout

For those captivated by the narrative of Elizabeth Holmes came The Dropout, created by New Girl showrunner Elizabeth Merriwether came another brilliant tv show, one that explored more than the captivating story but the complex woman behind it. The show followed Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried) from an awkward but incredibly intelligent kid to the founder of faulty business Theranos and how she was able to climb her way up.

What's important to the narrative is how it doesn't frame her as vindictive or entirely evil but works to create a genuine complex human being, one that's rarely viewed. The newer eras of more complex women is knowing that the women framed as villains remain complex rather than one-dimensional and The Dropout is the perfect show to capture just that.

'Stranger Things' Season 4

Sadie Sink as Max in Stranger Things in the Upside Down, running desperately away from Vecna.
Image via Netflix
 

The most recent season of the thrilling sci-fi series brought with it a host of fun new characters and arcs, as Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), Will (Noah Schnapp) and Jonathan (Charlie Heaton) move to another state, Lucas (Caleb Mclaughlin) joins Hawkins basketball and divides off from his friends, Mike (Finn Wolfhard) and Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) join a Dungeons and Dragons club, and Max (Sadie Sink) begins to isolate herself from coping with her step-brother's death.

One of the many strengths Stranger Things contains is its revival and examination of 80s culture, and the presence of Eddie alongside the nature of Hawkins, Indiana, draws in a sense of the 80s Satanic Panic, in which false claims of satanic cults began to pop up as a form of political scare tactics for the Christian right.

'Wednesday'

Wednesday Addams holding bags of piranhas at the Nevermore Academy swimming pool.
Image via Netflix

The beloved Addams Family saw a revival this year in the form of following the now-teenaged Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega). Her family sends her off to a boarding school where she meets her total opposite in Enid (Emma Myers) and embarks on an adventure to solve a mysterious trail of murders at the school.

The show brings back Tim Burton's imagination alongside Jenna Ortega's acting ability, as she lights up the screen as Wednesday, taking creative liberties such as creating the popular dance scene. Wednesday's long been a fascinating and beloved character and the tv shows delve into a deeper story around the girl audiences have forever been in love with.

'The Sex Lives of College Girls' Season 2

Leighton, Whitney, Kimberly, and Bella laughing under the snow in The Sex Lives of College Girls.
Image Via HBO Max

The Sex Lives of College Girls returned with the second season, improving far more on the initial stories laid out in season one, as Leighton (Renee Rapp) openly explores the gay dating scene at Essex, Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) finds her passion outside soccer, Bela (Amrit Kaur) creates her own comedy magazine, and Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet) attempts to fix her financial situation.

As the season came to a close the last few episodes faced backlash for the storylines of each girl, but as women-dominated tv shows take over more and more, the show did exactly what others should explore complex and flawed characters. The show continues its fun humor while allowing the girls to develop and come into their own as people.

'Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin'

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Image via HBO Max

As the nostalgia for Pretty Little Liars set in, the revival appeared just in time. Their mothers originally bullied a girl who ended up killing herself, as the daughters grow up they soon become terrorized as an act of revenge on their moms. Led by 16-and-pregnant Imogene (Bailee Madison), her friend and newly adoptive sister Tabitha (Chandler Kinney), ballerina Faran (Zaria), the shy Minnie (Malia Pyles), and the delinquent Noa (Maia Reficco) as they witness the death of their classmate Karen (Mallory Bechtel) by a masked figure, the same mask figure who terrorizes them.

The new revival has much more of a horror and supernatural angle in comparison to the previous show but also takes on a far more enlightened view. Where the previous show allowed for questionable relationship dynamics, Original Sin sets out to create characters who fight sexism, sexual assault, predatory relationships, and more.

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