While the subjects of this year’s TV shows started to look exceedingly grim, things have never been brighter for genre TV. In this year’s best shows, the apocalypse has never been more compelling, whether it’s one of the zombie variety, the fantasy-comedy variety, or the emotional variety. Then there were exciting new spins on the murder mystery, ranging from high-tech whodunits to old-fashioned howcatchems. The end of HBO’s most savage corporate thriller may or may not have marked the end of this new golden age of TV, but as of right now, it’s a good time to be a TV fan.

Here are the 25 best TV shows of 2023, according to the Inverse Entertainment staff and some of our favorite freelance writers.

The Last of Us is a lasting story. A decade after the original video game release, it’s garnered a remaster, a remake, a sequel, and an upcoming remaster of that sequel. But its heartbreaking story of found family in a zombie apocalypse reached an entirely new audience in January 2023 when HBO premiered its big-budget TV adaptation starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey.

The most critically acclaimed episode, “Long, Long Time,” took the survivalist character of Bill and made him more than just a doomsday prepper who was proven right. It’s a beautiful story, but how does Bill’s prepper character stack up against the real thing?

To find out, Inverse spoke to Levi W., a prepper who requested anonymity for privacy reasons. To him, Bill reacts exactly how a prepper would in a SHTF (prepper lingo for “S— Hits The Fan”) situation, showing just how important emergency preparedness is even if you’re not hunkering down for the zombie apocalypse.