The 5 Best PBS Shows of 2024
We've reached the halfway mark of the third decade of the 21st century, and while things are not anything like people said the future would be, there have been bright spots. One of those bright spots is the rise of prestige TV, a subset of high-end programming that has drawn actors who were once feature films only to the small screen, where they perform some of the best work to be found in recent times. As the streaming wars wind down, those who can afford to make such shows have dwindled, but PBS, despite its struggles, PBS remains a bastion of the genre.
Every year, we run down the creme-de-la-creme of PBS' offerings, many (though not all) arriving via Masterpiece on Sundays at 9 p.m. However, we should note that for 2024, this list must come with an asterisk, as the best show to run under the Masterpiece banner was a nin-year-old rerun; the spectacular Wolf Hall, which has not lost a single step over the decade, proof that the series may be one of the few shows that can indeed be seen as "timeless."
That being said, Masterpiece was also responsible for bringing one of the two worst British shows of the year, Alice & Jack, a leftover vestige of the prestige TV era's worst self-indulgent excesses. So perhaps it is not the worst thing that these big-budget, high-end, thought-provoking shows will be more limited in who makes them. Hopefully, Masterpiece will avoid such pitfalls in the future.
