The best series of 2022 and urgent replacement: TV we deserve

No matter what happens in the world, but the series is shown on schedule. The stability with which new items appeared, as well as the quality of some of them, brought a lot of pleasant moments in the past year. Watching imports has become, of course, a little more difficult, but if you really want to, then there is a way.

This year, fans of The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones finally got the long-awaited prequels to their favorite fantasy films, and critics never tired of giving reflections on the topic “which one turned out better.” There is a suspicion that both came out very even, and this is the case when the visual part of the projects is the pinnacle of the industry.

Tim Burton has taken a beating for Wednesday, which seems to lack the kind of villainy expected of Addams Family characters. Even if the reproaches are in the case, they do not cancel the desire to watch the show again. Especially during the holidays, preferably with the whole family.

Everyone who follows the big royal family received two shows last year at once, each of which turned out to be exciting in its own way. The fifth season of “The Crown” crept up to the scandals surrounding the marriage of Charles and Diana, that is, to the events that had a considerable impact on all Britons. Calls from two British ex-premiers at once to declare the script of the series fiction only ignited public interest, and the show received good reviews. The documentary series “Harry and Megan” was also associated with many scandals. The story of the fugitive prince and his Cinderella turned out to be very pretentious, but for lovers of social life, this is it.

After the second season of The White Lotus, the series is already being called a cultural phenomenon in all seriousness. The tragic farce about moneybags and their problems seems a little out of touch with life, but at the same time, it shows everything that relates to relationships between people in our strange time as clearly as possible. On the territory of Russia, the series had its own special adventures. Sex scenes that do not fit into the new law on gay propaganda, as well as male nudity, were mercilessly censored, which, of course, added both tragedy and farce to everything that was happening.

Some of our series also got it. The puppet show “Wretches” after three episodes was unexpectedly removed from the show on one of the platforms. No intelligible comments, except that now is not the time for satire, did not really follow. By the way, there are not so many satires in the series shown, except that the state ideology is sometimes stated on a hair dryer. But, apparently, some kind of cloud hangs over the dolls, as over the idea, since the time of the expulsion from TV of the show of the same name. Not otherwise they look too suspicious for someone.

No less revealing reaction was accompanied by the premiere of the series “Monastery”. In the story, a city party girl gets into a bind and runs to a monastery to get lost. But outside the walls of a charitable institution, not everyone is happy with her, so you have to build relationships, change principles, and stuff like that.

In this case, some officials of the Russian Orthodox Church were among the dissatisfied. The show of monastic life was called inappropriate, the person of the actress and blogger Nastya Ivleeva in the context of church life was designated as inappropriate, which means that everything should be banned and removed from the show. As a result, they didn’t ban or withdraw, although they didn’t give a rental certificate in case they want to show the project in cinemas.

By the end of this year, most of the serial premieres have moved to online cinemas. If in 2020 television accounted for almost seventy percent of premieres, now this figure is less than forty percent. Most often, after the premiere on streaming, the series are moved to the air, but the delay in showing can be up to several months.

Among the streaming premieres of the year, there are several projects of different genres. The series “1703” turned out to be surprisingly peppy, the heroes of which were an experienced opera performed by Gosha Kutsenko and his young partner (Kuzma Saprykin). The most gloomy Petersburg, characters as if from Dostoevsky’s novels, jokes on the verge and far beyond it, Bulanova’s songs interspersed with Morgenstern’s tracks. Probably, someone will call it kitsch, but the project turned out to be very timely.

“Patient Zero” about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the USSR is built on completely different, much less spectacular techniques. Nevertheless, this particular project can be called one of the most interesting proposals in the historical genre. Perhaps there are claims to the fake side of the matter, but definitely not to the plot.

“Drip” seems to be inspired by the materials in the tabloids. The hero of the series is a doctor who is forced to pull various celebrities out of binges and drug seizures in a not entirely legal way. Previously, there was a feeling that the local medical series had already decided on the image of the doctor. He saves lives, tries to arrange his own happiness, sometimes jokes sarcastically. And here is a new unexpected twist, which impressed many.

In its own way, it is amusing that one of the highest rated series of the year was the twenty-second season of “Secrets of the Investigation.” And along with it, “The Lady with the Dog”, where the heroine of Elena Yakovleva is investigating cases that the police are too tough for. Apparently, women on guard of law have become an eternal topic here, and new trends are powerless.

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Some time ago, the actor and TV presenter Oskar Kuchera said in an interview that he was ready to replace Ivan Urgant in the evening show if such an offer was made to him. From the outside, all this looks like some kind of absurdity, which, however, can come true. But the point is not even in the Kucher or someone else, but in the process itself called “Urgant Substitution”.

While the suspicion persists that the coolest processors will be produced in Russia much faster than an adequate replacement for Urgant and Nagiyev is found, he, apparently, also went on a long vacation. Of the guards of TV presenters, who are not treated like a talking head, only Andrey Malakhov remained. And given the number of channels and different programs, such a personnel crisis, apparently, hints that even if there are no irreplaceable ones, it is sometimes more difficult to replace them than it seems.

In a situation where projects like “Evening Urgant” are unlikely to be created in the near future, they are trying to make entertainment bets on others. Sometimes things work out. Chefs traveling around the regions of Russia have become one of the discoveries of the season. There are programs of this format on many channels, and almost everywhere it looks pretty tasty.

Apparently, with a shortage of people who can show off humor or charisma, those who can work with their hands will look most adequate in the frame. It is hardly possible to call this assumption optimistic, but that is how life develops. You never know what you can do till you try.