Only Murders in the Building to Cooking With Paris: the unsung TV heroes of 2021

Paris Hilton's disgusting dishes! Martin Freeman as a bad dad! A history of swear words! Here's another chance to discover the incredible shows of the year you may have missed

The sci-fi murder mystery doctor dramedy Earth needs now!" That was the US marketing blurb for Resident Alien, a plucky attempt to turn the show's audacious genre-mashing into a marketing angle. While it certainly has a lot going on - an alien crash-lands in small-town Colorado and attempts to evade detection by hijacking the identity of a big-city doctor - it only took a few episodes for me to realise why I was enjoying it so much. This story of a fusspot out-of-towner clashing with the rhythms of a town full of curious eccentrics is a spiritual descendant of 1990s fish-out-of-water touchstone Northern Exposure, complete with snowy setting and covetable local bar.