Juliette's Best of 2024

Thank you as ever to Billie and everyone at Doux Reviews for letting me come back and write one of these every year even when I haven't had time to write anything else for the site since the last one! I do love doing them.:)

I have barely made it to the cinema all year and the one thing I was definitely going to go and see – Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim – I missed because I got a chest infection. So, no cinema rundown this year. I will say, though, that I was lucky enough to see the first 25 minutes of War of the Rohirrim while covering it for Den of Geek and I really enjoyed it. I can't wait to see the rest!

Shiny And New (to me)

My standout new show of the year was definitely Fallout, which I really enjoyed. I didn't know anything about the games before I watched it, though I watched a bunch of YouTube videos to learn all about them afterwards! (I am very bad at video games and literally can't play through them myself). I loved the mix of humour, horror, and action in this show and the performances were great all around, especially Star Trek: Prodigy's Ella Purnell as Lucy.

I also enjoyed 3 Body Problem a lot. Fallout's story appeals to me a bit more, just purely from personal taste, but both were great shows and great bits of TV sci-fi. A very different show that came out in 2022 but was new to me this year was SAS: Rogue Heroes, from the creator of Peaky Blinders. Like Peaky Blinders, it glamorises violence and plays fast and loose with the facts in places, but it was still a compelling story about a bit of history I didn't know much about, with a great cast. All three series have been renewed for second seasons, coming in the next couple of years, and I'm looking forward to all of them.

I Should Really Watch...

As ever, there's a growing list of shows I really want to watch and still haven't got around to. I watched a few episodes of Bridgerton back in 2021 and never got around to the rest – I've since watched some YouTube videos summarising both books and show and I can't decide if I feel more inclined to watch the rest of it or not!

I also watched the first couple of episodes of The Bear and enjoyed it – having worked many years in lots of different catering jobs, it's a subject close to my heart! But most of all I need to make time to watch seasons three and four of Only Murders In The Building. I enjoyed seasons one and two a lot, and I love murder mysteries. I started season three but other things have just got in the way and I desperately need to catch up on it!

Bowing Out

Most of the shows under this heading are in their own category below, but I need to give a special mention to Inside No 9. This blackly comedic horror anthology show was recommended to me by my editor at Den of Geek years ago and I have absolutely loved it. Each episode takes place "inside no. 9" or involves the number 9 in some way, and each half hour episode tells a tight story with a small cast set in a single location (a rule they only broke once by my calculation, though there were a couple of episodes that skirted around it a bit!).

I enjoy anthology shows in general, as you get such variety from week to week – I think that's partly what I like about shows like Doctor Who and the more old-fashioned branches of Star Trek as well. Inside No 9 had a great variety of stories all under the basic umbrella of "dark comedy," including ghost stories, murder stories, stories about robbers and thieves and demons and witches, among other things. The very first season (or "series", because it's British) that I watched was probably my favourite overall, series four, but all nine series were great – because of course they had to stop at nine series, in May this year.

The Umbrella Academy also finished this year, with a rather poorly received finale. I didn't mind it too much, which is odd because it was the sort of thing I usually can't stand. I guess it all just got so weird I detached from it a bit. But I really enjoyed Aiden Gallagher as Five, as ever, and some of the jokes really landed for me, so overall I didn't hate it as much as I might have done a few years ago.

Old Favourites

Doctor Who is finally properly back, albeit with a disappointingly short season. I'm loving Ncuti Gatwa's Doctor and I liked Millie Gibson as Ruby as well. I'm less keen on the more fantastical elements that returning writer Russell T Davies is including in this latest season, but that's just a personal taste thing (I love fantasy, I just prefer my Doctor Who more soft-sci-fi flavoured). And the whole mess with whether or not it's "season one" is a pain, though I can see the logic behind it, especially if they want to try to get new viewers on Disney+.

Talking of fantasy, House of the Dragon and Rings of Power are both back and I enjoyed both very much. House of the Dragon suffered from clearly having one or two episodes chopped off the end of the season, and the infamous Blood and Cheese incident was fumbled a bit – but I don't want to see a book-accurate version of that anyway. Rings of Power season two, on the other hand, I thought was better than season one, with better pacing and some compelling storylines. The biggest flaw in that season was that it didn't know what to do with its heroine, Galadriel, who was left floundering a bit, but hopefully the recently-announced season three will provide a better story arc for her.

Outlander is currently airing season seven, part two, which is a relief because I read book seven ages ago and have been keeping certain plot developments to myself ever since while waiting to watch the show with my husband! The show will be finishing with season eight sometime in the next year or two, which is sad, but hopefully means it will be going out on a high point.

The Ghosts franchise is expanding into Germany and Australia, and I'm hoping to be able to watch both of those somehow, I'm not sure how! Meanwhile the American version continues to be great after the British original finished last year, and it's good to see it back for season four after the strikes understandably cut short season three. I love both equally, but I'm so glad we get more episodes out of the American incarnation!

I'm also still enjoying the reboot of Frasier, despite my ongoing frustration at the re-casting of Freddy Crane (justice for Trevor Einhorn!). The Boys continues to be gross but fun, and of course I'm still hooked on Drive to Survive whenever it comes out every year despite its obvious flaws and the fact it often skips over the most notable or controversial event of each F1 season if it paints Red Bull in a poor light (so next year's should be interesting...).

The MCU

I really enjoyed the MCU's limited series Echo at the beginning of 2024 and I'm mystified why it didn't do better, I thought it was a great show. At the other end of the year, I enjoyed Agatha All Along as well, which was good fun, though I don't think it reached the heights of Wandavision or Loki.

On a similar note, Deadpool Vs Wolverine was also a lot of fun and I had a great time watching it, except for one thing – I don't understand these films' treatment of Vanessa. After the first film was described as a "love story," she was fridged in the second, resurrected, and then side-lined in the third. Other than that, though, it was a joy to see Hugh Jackman back and all the cameos were really good fun for a nerd like me.

I'm also looking forward to the final season of What If..., which has missed out on being properly covered in these two years in a row because of the decision to release it all at once right at the end of December, which is baffling to me, but there you have it. Hopefully it will go out with a bang.

Star Trek

Star Trek has been having a big couple of years and deserves its own category here! Unfortunately the entire sub-section is one long round of Bowing Out, but hopefully there are more exciting things on the horizon next year.

Discovery bowed out with a season that was very Discovery – an arc plot I wasn't super keen on, but individual episodes that were very enjoyable and an increasingly likeable cast of characters – though it was a shame most of them disappeared for half the season.

Lower Decks is also in its final season, which is a real shame, as it's a show I really enjoy watching every week. It finished just today, and of course I won't spoil an episode that has only just been released, but I'm glad to say it went out on a high. I hope there will be more opportunities for crossovers with other Star Trek shows in the future, though poor Eugene Cordero, who voices Rutherford, is about half the height of his character so I don't know how they might deal with that.

And to my immense relief, Prodigy's second and probably final season was picked up and released by Netflix after being unceremoniously dropped by Paramount. The cliffhanger at the end of season one, somewhat surprisingly for a new show aimed at kids, centered around my favourite ship in all of Star Trek: Voyager's Janeway and Chakotay. After waiting more than 20 years for some kind of satisfying resolution to their story (which Voyager's finale did not provide) you can imagine my horror at the idea that someone had made one, and it wasn't going to be released! But all was well – although it will be sad if there is no more Prodigy, as they clearly had plans for a season three, both the season and the show were wrapped up in a way that was satisfying, it had some great and unexpected guest stars, and my little J/C shipper heart went away happy.

I'm not feeling super enthusiastic about the upcoming Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, but only because I would much prefer a Seven-of-Nine-led Star Trek: Legacy series, which Paramount seem determined to ignore for some reason. I am, however, very happy that Strange New Worlds will be back next year, as I think it's actually my second favourite Star Trek series overall, second only to my beloved Voyager – the perfect blend of modern character arcs and old-fashioned episodic story-telling. So there's lots to look forward to next year!

YouTube

More and more of us are watching YouTube on TVs, instead of TV, and its something I've been doing for several years already. As well as continuing to enjoy some of my favourite channels and "shows" on those channels – Dominic Noble's Lost in Translation, P1 With Matt and Tommy, TLDR News, Tasting History With Max Miller, Modern Gurlz, Trek Culture, and Who Culture – we've actually subscribed to Dropout, the subscription service spun off from College Humour, mostly to satisfy my husband's obsession with Brennan Lee Mulligan. My favourite show on there is Make Some Noise, especially since Whose Line Is It Anyway is another classic show that sadly bowed out just a few weeks ago.

I also became a YouTuber myself last year. Technically I started my channel in November 2023, but I really started working seriously on it in January 2024. So I've watched thousands of hours of advice on how to run a YouTube channel, of which my favourite channels, and the ones I kept watching even after getting the general gist of their advice, are Katie Steckly, Modern Millie, and Kayleigh June. Katie Steckly and Kayleigh June both also have travel vlog channels and I do love travel vlogs – Katie and Dan in a Van are always a great watch, with or without their van!

And as a final addendum, this post is a day late because I am currently laid up with a chest infection, so I had to find hours and hours of YouTube videos to doze in front of. This is how I found Kiun B's amazing films of life in her home in the coldest city in the world, Yakutsk in Siberia, and the wider state of Yakutia (the Sahka Republic), and then for some reason I fell down a rabbit hole of videos about climbing Mount Everest, of which Ryan Mitchell's Go Pro footage is amazing (though don't watch it if you're feeling nauseous!) and Michael Tracy's channel has the most incredibly thorough examination of the source material I've ever seen on a YouTube channel, which as an historian, of course makes me really happy! So that's been my past two days – and now I'm finally upright enough to finish this review of the year off...

Awards

Best Couple
Nominees: Claire and Lord John (Outlander); Sam and Jay (Ghosts); Hughie and Annie (The Boys)
Winner: Janeway and Chakotay (Star Trek: Prodigy)

Most Shocking Ending to a TV Episode
Nominees: House of the Dragon, 'A Son for a Son'; Agatha All Along, 'Follow Me My Friend/To Glory At The End; Inside No 9, 'Boo To A Goose'
Winner: Doctor Who, 'Dot and Bubble'

Best Callback
Nominees: The whole setting and plot of 'Cape Cod' (Frasier); Old Man Willow appears in yet another new location (The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, 'Eldest'); Wesley meets Jack (Star Trek: Prodigy)
Winner "You're all still Ensigns?!" (Star Trek: Lower Decks, 'Fissure Quest')

Best Captain
Nominees: Captain Lord John Grey (Outlander); Captain Chakotay (Star Trek: Prodigy); Captain Isaac Higgentoot (Ghosts)
Winner: Captain ****** (redacted - from the very end of Star Trek: Lower Decks!).

Best Baby Shark
Nominees: Thief Baby Shark and his unhealthy burger; Doctor Baby Shark and his ability to cure any illness or injury almost instantly; Classic Baby Shark
Winner: The long road trip with Baby Shark stuck playing on a loop in the car (The Umbrella Academy, 'Jean and Gene'). As the parent of a small child, that scene spoke to me!

Most Likely To Induce Uncontrollable Weeping
Nominees: Ian Sr and Ian Jr (Outlander, 'Unfinished Business'); Will and Jin (3 Body Problem, 'Only Advance'); Mariner's finale voiceover (Star Trek: Lower Decks, 'The New Next Generation')
Winner: For some reason, Lewis Hamilton winning Silverstone in Formula One made me bawl like a baby this year. I think I cried when Lando Norris won in Miami too. I've been very tired this year!

Top Ten TV Episodes of the Year
10. Ghosts, 'Holes Are Bad'
9. Agatha All Along, 'Maiden Mother Crone'
8. Inside No 9, 'The Curse of the Ninth'
7. Star Trek: Lower Decks, 'Fissure Quest'
6. Outlander, 'A Hundredweight of Stones'
5. Doctor Who, 'Dot and Bubble'
4. Star Trek: Prodigy, 'Cracked Mirror'
3. Fallout, 'The End'
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, 'Doomed To Die'
1. House of the Dragon, 'The Red Dragon and the Gold'

Juliette Harrisson is a writer and historian who increasingly has a finger in every pot (YouTube, podcast, short story collection...). Check out her linktree here!