Matt Roush's TOP 10 of 2021

Check out Matt Roush's TOP 10 of 2021

- MATT ROUSH

1 Ted Lasso

When I found myself choking up at an instant-classic Christmas episode—in the middle of August!—that was so overwhelmingly heartwarming it almost caused acid reflux, I realized what a gift Ted Lasso is for all seasons. This year’s Emmy darling, about a Kansas football coach transplanted to England to lead a soccer team, is a feel-good underdog story that expertly blends saltiness and spice with an underlying sweetness. It’s a welcome tonic forour toxic times. In its second season, as folksy-corny Ted (Jason Sudeikis, center, with Brendan Hunt and Nick Mohammed) faces his demons with the help of a warily compassionate sports psychologist (the terrific Sarah Niles), our love only grows for the show’s deep bench of memorable characters. And for Ted’s way with words: “You are more mysterious than David Blaine reading a Sue Grafton novel at Area 51.” He said it. Streaming on Apple TV+

2 WandaVision

My other favorite show of 2021 is the biggest surprise: a Marvel series that rarely feels like a Marvel series, at its best when it uncannily re-creates classic sitcom tropes—with The Dick Van Dyke Show, Bewitched and The Brady Bunch as obvious models—in equal parts homage, parody and cosmic mystery. Using TV nostalgia as a smokescreen to cushion the grief of “Scarlet Witch” Wanda Maximoff (pitchperfect Elizabeth Olsen, left) over losing her android soulmate Vision (suave, droll Paul Bettany), WandaVision is visionary entertainment. Streaming on Disney+

3 Succession