Five great series of 2023 that have gone too unnoticed
It has been a good year for television fiction. Proof of this are some productions that have missed out on the lists of the best of the year. We recover five of them
The end of the year is the realm of list-lovers: the best movies, the best books, the best restaurants, the songs of the year and, of course, the most outstanding series. 2023 has been a bumper crop, as evidenced by the top 10 list compiled by EL PAÍS, from which many notable productions were left out. We now recover five of them to give quality series a second chance and provide the arguments for watching them again or for trying them for the first time. A curious documentary and a couple of very different cop shows are among the chosen ones.
Welcome to Wrexham
It’s hard for this series to go unnoticed by anyone who discovers it, but it hasn’t received the attention it deserves for its quality. The story of this documentary series begins when two Hollywood actors, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, buy one of the oldest professional soccer clubs in the world: Wrexham, the team from a Welsh town of less than 100,000 inhabitants, which plays in the equivalent of a fifth division, what is known as Britain’s non-league tier. But the love that the fans have for the team is first-rate. The aim of the actors, with a large investment, is to revive the club and, in the process, boost the local economy and spirit. The story of these eternal losers whose luck begins to change is one of the most exciting and entertaining stories about the emotional side of soccer, that of connections and feelings. The tracking of their performance in soccer competitions (beware of searching the internet to see how they are doing, there are spoilers) is intermingled with the personal stories of players and fans. An episode of the second season about two people with autism, a fan of the team and the son of one of its star players, is brilliant.
Endeavor
The best classic cop show of recent times said goodbye elegantly and with an emotional ending that broke more than one fan’s heart. There have been nine seasons and more than 30 episodes of classic self-conclusive mysteries, complex and literary characters in the best sense of the word, and impeccable scripts. It is surprising not to see this series in any list of the best shows of the year, despite the strength of Shaun Evans, now forever Inspector Morse, and luxury secondary actors such as Roger Allam in the role of Fred Thursday (boss and guide of the protagonist). The series works as a prequel to Inspector Morse (1987-2000), but it is much more than that and easily lives up to the excellent books by Colin Baxter, the creator of this classic Oxonian universe, with nothing to envy the best crime fiction narratives of all time.
Somewhere Boy
Danny doesn’t know what the outside world is like. His father has told him all his life that it is full of monsters, and that one of them killed his mother when he was little. He has lived isolated in the middle of the forest with his father for 18 years. When the man commits suicide, a now teenage Danny will have to go live with his aunt and a cousin his age, who will introduce him to the real world. The series shows those steps of Danny’s discovery and intersperses fragments of his life with his father in the cabin while growing up with black and white movies as a reference and with a lot of fears stuffed in his head. This fable is a tough story, but it is told with a luminous tone and full of hope. The performance of Lewis Gribben, the actor who gives life to the protagonist, is a standout and, with his look and gestures, gives him a unique fragility.
Invasion
The Apple TV+ series joins the quality productions of this platform with a risky bet: imagine a humanity threatened by powerful aliens and put salvation in the hands of a group of kids. In its two seasons, the series grows and goes much further, especially with the story of Mitsuki Yamato (a troubled Shioli Kutsuna) and her attempt to understand and deceive the beast. Like any good science fiction story, this one is also a search for the ultimate meaning of life and connects brilliantly and subtly with age-old myths and stories. The narrative doesn’t hide anything: they introduce you to the chosen group and make you grow fond of them. Then, they cross the stories and maintain verisimilitude in an almost impossible leap. But it works. There are, also, measured and well-shot action sequences. Much more than a futuristic entertainment offer that was among the most watched on the platform for weeks, yet we are not really able to know if that is a lot or rather a little.
Bosch: Legacy
The second season of the spin-off from Bosch (although it works as a continuation of the original) deserved better luck. Prime Video bet on continuity, and that allows the universe created by Michael Connelly (producer and co-responsible for the adaptations) to expand beyond his novels. Titus Welliver is already in the imagination of all fans of the novels as Bosch: before as the mythical, rebellious and tenacious Los Angeles cop and now as a private detective. There are pleasant surprises, such as the survival of the lawyer Money Chandler (Mimi Rogers) much further than in the books and other interesting aspects such as the life of Maddie, turned into a feisty agent who follows in her father’s footsteps. There is more action than in Bosch, more of a show, but the essence is maintained and that’s already a lot. Connelly’s is a portrait of the Angelino society of the 21st century, and by extension of the whole country, through crime. A masterpiece that has in the series its natural territory of extension.
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