The Best TV Shows Of 2021
Murderous dolls, rich animated adventures, and mysteries galore… there’s a lot to love about the TV shows that came out this year. As the year comes to a close, Pop Culture Planet is sharing the Best Of 2021.
Alrawabi School For Girls (Netflix)
Alrawabi School For Girls is a Jordanian miniseries on Netflix about the impact of bullying on young women. In the show, the bullied outcasts at the prestigious school for Girls plot revenge to get back at their tormentors… not realizing just how far it will go.
Chucky (Syfy)
When a vintage Chucky doll turns up at a suburban yard sale, Charles Lee Ray’s hometown of Hackensack, New Jersey is thrown into chaos and we learn the untold origins of the killer doll’s story.
Craig of the Creek (Cartoon Network, HBO Max)
Craig of the Creek season 3 took the show to new heights, as it expanded the scope of the creek while also diving deeper into the lore, community, and world building. A series that is truly diverse and works hard to get that inclusion right.
Cruel Summer (Freeform)
Cruel Summer tells the story of a girl who goes missing and another girl who mysteriously takes over her life over the course of three summers in the 1990s.
Disney Intertwined/Entrelazados (Disney+)
Disney Intertwined, or Entrelazados, is a new Argentinian series on Disney+ about a girl who has a passion for musical theatre and finds herself torn between her dreams and her family. It’s got everything: time travel, multigenerational female relationships, and musical numbers.
Ghosts (CBS, Paramount+)
Ghosts is an adaptation of the British series by the same name starring Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar. They play Sam and Jay, a couple who inherit a beautiful country mansion that they plan to turn into a bed and breakfast, but when Sam has a near death experience she develops the ability to see and hear the ghosts in the house.
Locke and Key (Netflix)
Dodge is back, disguised as Gabe, with a new plan and a new accomplice in the demon-ified Eden. As they work to create an all-powerful key, the Locke’s tackle growing up and uncover the history of the keys.
Love Victor
Love Victor season 2 picks off where we left off with Victor as an out and proud gay Latino man. We see the ups and downs he deals with as he learns as he goes along and becomes a guide for someone else.
Maya and the Three (Netflix)
Jorge R. Gutierrez creates a stunning, colorful world of adventure in Netflix’s Maya and the Three. The animated event follows a fierce Eagle Warrior Princess who discovers a dark family secret that leads to a magical, epic quest to save the world with an unlikely group of new friends.
Only Murders In The Building (Hulu)
In Hulu’s Only Murders In The Building, Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez play three strangers who form a bond over their shared obsession with true crime after they find themselves wrapped up in a mystery of their own. A truly captivating murder mystery, Only Murders both parodies and pays beautiful tribute to the genre of true crime and their passionate fans.
Panic (Amazon Prime)
Author Lauren Oliver adapted her book Panic into a teen drama starring Olivia Welch, Mike Faist, and Jessica Sula. It follows seniors the summer after they graduate high school as they participate in a risky competition to win $50,000 to escape their small town.
Secrets of Sulphur Springs (Disney Channel, Disney+)
Secrets of Sulphur Springs follows two teenagers who discover a secret portal that allows them to travel back in time. They work to uncover clues about a girl who disappeared decades ago from their small Louisiana town.
Squid Game (Netflix)
Squid Game has taken the world by storm, becoming a global phenomenon, with its candy coated killer kids games that expertly explores its characters and the balance between society’s powerful and powerless. We follow Gi-Hun, an absent father who is struggling through life and major debt, who gets kidnapped into a Battle Royale to the death alongside 456 other contestants to win a life changing amount of money.
Sweet Tooth
Based on the DC Vertigo Comics, Sweet Tooth tells a storybook dystopian tale of Gus, a boy who’s half human and half deer, as he searchings for a new beginning in a post-apocalyptic world with a poacher turned ally named Tommy Jepperd.
The Sex Lives of College Girls (HBO Max)
Mindy Kaling and Justin Noble’s new HBO Max series The Sex Lives Of College Girls focuses on four college roommates at Essex College who are figuring out themselves — and their sex lives — on the prestigious campus.
The White Lotus
The White Lotus follows a week in the life of vacationers in paradise and the cheerful hotel employees that slowly becomes darker and more complex with each passing day.
Yellowjackets (Showtime)
Yellowjackets is one of the wildest shows of 2021! It follows two different narratives — the first in the 90s where a team of talented high school girls soccer players survive a plane crash deep in the Ontario wilderness and descend into cannalbilistic clans — and then 25 years later in modern day as their adult counterparts deal with the truth of their survival so many years ago.
YOU (Netflix)
Trapped in Madre Linda with his wife Love and their new son Henry, Joe Goldberg is back to his old ways in YOU season 3. Through therapy sessions, we learn that both Joe and Love are looking for unconditional love and family, but can’t seem to deal with each others… murderous impulses.
Have you checked out all these shows? What were some of your favorites this year? Get more recommendations, here.
