2022 was an outstanding year for television. Apparently. You were busy with your f**king kids. Here’s what you missed because you’re a moron who decided to procreate.
10. Frozen Planet II. Before you had kids you’d never miss an Attenborough. But, as always, it’s a schedule clash with Sunday evening bedtime. So instead of learning about the nesting habits of penguins in Antarctica, you’re learning how hard it is getting a stark bollock naked toddler into their Paw Patrol pyjamas.
9. The Rings of Power. A slow burner. One you made the mistake of letting your child watch with you, because they’d enjoyed reading The Hobbit. Within five minutes they’d bombarded you with so many questions you wished they were hanging round the streets getting recruited by county lines drug gangs.
8. Masterchef. Three episodes a week proved, once again, impossible to keep up with. Especially as you spend weeknights either watching your son being shit at rugby on a freezing sports field or watching your daughter be shit at karate in the relative warmth of a leisure centre. No spoilers, please, you might try and watch it over Christmas. Spoiler: You won’t.
7. Better Call Saul. The final series of this Breaking Bad spin-off aired this year. After investing 50 or so hours, you had to get rid of Netflix to pay for your kids’ f**king school ski trip. Maybe you can binge watch it in about seven years, when they’ve moved out and stopped bleeding you dry.
6. The Traitors. The BBC’s new hit reality show is exactly the kind of trashy TV you love. Sadly you missed the first episode because you were in A&E with your son, who’d shoved a 20p piece and a bit of Lego up each nostril. Still, you won’t have to pay for his Mensa membership.
5. House of the Dragon. You loved Game of Thrones. Unfortunately this spin-off coincided with a newborn. The densely-plotted episodes were too much for your exhausted brain, and in your semi-conscious haze you couldn’t tell the Targaryens apart. Then it was time for another milk-feeding, shitty-nappy-changing night until you were so mentally frazzled the next day you kept thinking, ‘This documentary about the Tudors is surprisingly explicit.’
4. Harry & Meghan. The must-watch Netflix documentary series of 2022. You didn’t see it because your toddler has first refusal on the living room TV. They opt for the movie Trolls World Tour on repeat, upwards of five times a day.
3. The White Lotus. A sumptuous murder mystery satire set in Sicily you watched 10 minutes of before being interrupted by your teenage son who forgot he had food tech at school tomorrow. He then guilt tripped you into going out at 9.45pm to buy all the ingredients for spaghetti bolognese from the local corner shop.
2. The World Cup. A month-long festival of international footballing brilliance. Sadly all the England games kept falling at the same time as your bastard kids’ after-school clubs. Who plays chess for fun? Nerd. The school also scheduled their Christmas concert during the game with France. The incompetent twats. They need to be reported to Ofsted and sacked.
1. I’m a Celebrity. Everyone in Britain was hooked by Matt Hancock’s decision to be ritually humiliated in the jungle. Except you. Your kid decided to get Norovirus on the day he entered camp. So instead of watching him eat sheep’s fanny live on ITV you were cleaning up puke and endlessly washing sheets like a Victorian washerwoman. That wanker Hancock got off lighter.
