—Jennifer Ouellette

True Detective: Night Country (HBO)

HBO’s True Detective, created by Nic Pizzolatto, was a pop-culture sensation when it debuted in 2014. (Remember “time is a flat circle”?) Its sophomore outing lacked the original’s surreal magic, but S3 was a solid return to form, mixing elements of noir and procedural drama to weave a haunting tale of fractured time and memory. Pizzolatto wasn’t involved in this year’s even stronger fourth season, subtitled Night Country, with Issa Lopez taking over as showrunner. Lopez has reinvented the series, creating what she viewed as a “dark mirror” to Pizzolatto’s three seasons that stands on its own.

Night Country is set in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska, where eight scientists at a research station mysteriously go missing one night with no trace, leaving a severed tongue at the scene. They are found soon after out on the ice, naked bodies tangled and frozen together in a pile, with their clothes neatly folded on the snow. It’s up to Detectives Liz Danvers (Jodie Foster) and Evangeline Navarro (Kali Reis) to crack the case. Night Country only tangentially evokes the Yellow King mythology of the prior three seasons,  but it does capture the anthology series’ essential spookiness and supernatural undertones despite the all-too-human solution to the case.

—Jennifer Ouellette

Only Murders in the Building S4 (Hulu)

This charming Emmy-nominated comedy series has made our “Best of TV” list every season, and 2024 is no exception. Only Murders in the Building stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez as Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, all residents of the same Manhattan apartment complex, the Arconia. The unlikely trio teamed up to launch their own true crime podcast whenever someone died in the building under suspicious circumstances, chronicling their independent investigation to solve the murder. There’s no shortage of podcast fodder since this single building has a shockingly high murder rate.

This time around, the trio investigates the death of Charles’ longtime stunt double Sazz (Jane Lynch), who was shot dead in his apartment while he and his pals were celebrating wrapping the prior podcast season. It’s a complicated mystery involving the strange residents of the Arcadia’s West Tower, a bar specifically for stunt performers, and a film adaption of the trio’s first-season podcast. Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis, and Eva Longoria play fictional versions of themselves cast as Charles, Oliver, and Mabel, respectively, and naturally get into the sleuthing spirit. And Meryl Streep makes a welcome return as Oliver’s actress girlfriend Loretta.

https://arstechnica.com/culture/2024/12/tv-technica-2024-our-picks-for-the-best-of-tv/