2020 has ended. Before I look ahead to 2021 though, I'd like to take one last look at the TV shows I enjoyed from the past year.
I think you know they drill by now. I rate all the shows I watched to completion (or close enough). I include them all because I'm thorough, bored, and like having something to point to when people wonder why I'm never available to do stuff. Also, I like to paint a full picture of what I watch so that if you don't see any of your favorite shows listed at all, then you'll know I'm probably not a person you should listen to about taste.
What I Missed
...But first, let me go over some of the shows I see topping other lists and explain why I didn't get to them.
I May Destroy You - I get that this is supposed to be the best show of the year. But I keep hearing wording like "traumatic" to describe it, and I keep not feeling ready to take it on. I'm sure it's great and I hope to get to it soon.
Dave - I know everyone keeps raving about how this show is aware of what it looks like and that it gets better over the season. I just can't get over the mental block of this not looking like a show that I want to watch.
P-Valley - I don't have Starz.
The Good Lord Bird - I don't have Showtime
How To With John Wilson - Frankly, I didn't know this show even existed until all these year-end lists started coming out. I already had the end of 2020 committed to other things though.
Unorthodox - It's short, been out for a while, and got Emmy attention. When I didn't get around to it in time for the Emmys, it kept getting knocked down my watchlist.
City So Real - For some reason, in my head, I've decided that I'm not allowed to watch this until I've watched Steve James' 2018 docuseries America to Me.
We Are What We Are - Fair or not, I see this as an extension of Call Me By Your Name, what with the Italy and Luca Guadagnino of it all, and I'm not sure I need more than 2 hours of that.
Harley Quinn - Sorry. I'm aware of how good this is supposed to be, but I can't convince myself yet that when people say it's great, that there's an implied "for a DC animated series" at the end.
Pen15 - Big Mouth already gives me my fill of awkward teen comedy. Eventually I'll make more room for this.
Insecure - At this point, I'm far enough behind that it looks intimidating to catch up on.
Reality TV - I don't do a lot of unscripted stuff, and the little I do watch is pretty Bro-ey.
So, yeah. I'm aware of the things I was supposed to watch, but I decided to rewatch all of Game of Thrones, The Wire, and The Leftovers and watch the last 12 seasons of ER instead. Cut me some slack. 2020 has been hard on everyone.
---
Now it's time for the list of what I have seen this year. That ended up being 62 series, which is about normal. It seems most of my extra COVID time went toward rewatches (I watched The Imagineering Story three times, because apparently, I doing well) and movies. I'll give my standard caveats about the list. This is a list of my favorite shows, not an attempt to objectively rate the best shows. I only rate the episodes that aired in 2020, so some shows have an unfortunate cut off. Most importantly, I really don't watch shows that I hate, so even the shows toward the bottom I enjoyed watching in some way. There's just not the time to watch bad shows.
TOP 10
1. Better Call Saul (Season 5)
Best Episode: Bagman
I admit, this is a boring pick. This is the 12th year of the Breaking Bad universe. Just how many times can I praise these shows before it falls on deaf ears? Oh well. Here I go again. Much like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul gets better in old age. Jimmy's evolution into Saul keeps getting better and more tragic. Rhea Seehorn continues to give one of the best performances on TV, and her evolution in this season was especially satisfying. For years, I've wondered if Jimmy was going to ruin her, and it turns out that she might be the one to break bad first. The threat created by the arrival of Tony Dalton's Lalo Salamanca gave the show danger that it was previously missing, and Jonathan Banks' Mike Ehrmantraut found himself in Jimmy's orbit even more often. This is such a satisfying series with some of the best cinematography of anything on TV. It's not an exaggeration to say it might be outpacing Breaking Bad at this point.
2. Ramy (Season 2)
Best Episode: Miakhalifa.mov
I really enjoyed season 1, but something in season 2 really clicked into place. This is one of the funniest shows on TV when it wants to be, and it's one of the few shows that I don't mind the "discomfort comedy" in it. I laughed out loud at least once an episode. As good as writer/creator/star Ramy Yousef is, he repeatedly ceded the spotlight to the rest of the cast, which included Mahershala Ali this season as his new sheik (and father-in-law). I love how the show interrogates his religious exploration. He's determined to be a good Muslim but attempts to do that without being responsible for his own actions. This is just a superb series that is as funny as it is enlightening. I have no idea how the show tackles so much while always remaining a comedy above all.
3. Cheer
Best Episode: Daytona
I promised myself I wouldn't forget about this show. It premiered back in January and was one of my first binges. This documentary series is a tremendous look at the Navarro College cheerleading team. The members of the team that it follows are all endearing and different. I was impressed by how invested I got in their lives by the end. And, no show/movie has done more to teach people about how grueling cheerleading can be. I defy anyone to come away from this series not believing that these are some of the toughest, most talented athletes around.
4. Schitt's Creek (Season 6)
Best Episode: Start Spreading the News
I'm a late adopter to Schitt's Creek. A lot of that had to do with the early seasons being mean. I really didn't need another Bluth family looking down on small townsfolk. What I fell in love with is how kind this show got season by season while still being funny. I know some people found this final season a little too sweet, but I'm not one of them. You'll hear this a lot, but this year, I really sought out shows that made me feel good about things. Schitt's Creek ended pretty perfectly. All the characters got a happy ending. They are still a mess in many ways, but they evolved so much over the seasons that they earned those happy endings. This is such a lovely show that secured its spot in my TV cannon by the end.
5. Small Axe
Best Episode: Mangrove
Amazon presents it as show with episodes, so I'm calling it a TV show. The people putting the assorted chapters in their movie list are just working off a narrow definition of TV series, as far as I'm concerned. Regardless, this is a pretty remarkable collection of 5 films directed by Steve McQueen. None of the episodes have character overlap, but the connective tissue is that each chapter is about the West Indian community in England during the 60s and 70s. Each episode tackles the topic from a different angle. The standout two episodes are the legal and protest drama "Mangrove" and the hypnotizing mood piece "Lovers Rock". Mangrove alone manages to outdo The Trial of the Chicago Seven, which is among my favorite movies of the year. Lovers Rock has a few moments that I want to watch and rewatch. The cast in each of the five chapters is superb despite not being full of familiar faces. Frankly, I needed this reminder that the kind of racism this tackles isn't exclusive to the U.S. and that there are also people elsewhere fighting against it however they can. I don't know why Steve McQueen opted to make an anthology series like this, at this point in his career, but I'm glad he did.
6. The Great (Season 1)
Best Episode: Meatballs at the Dacha
All hail the one and true queen: Elle Fanning. Huzzah! I came into this show a little skeptical. As much as I like Elle Fanning, she'd never carried a project this big. I wasn't sure how well she'd shake her "child performer" label. And there's the fact that this looked like creator Tony McNamara just trying to make The Favourite as a series. I still kind of think that's what he's doing but I don't care. This darkly comedic and anachronistic take on Catherine the Great is a treat. Fanning quickly removes any doubt about if she's capable of carrying the show. Nicolas Hoult revels in how awful he can be, yet he's so dense that he's almost sympathetic. At some point, I imagine the pitch-black humor and cunning of the royal court will get old, but it sustained for the first season. Also, let's be honest. It's so much fun to say "huzzah".
7. Ted Lasso (Season 1)
Best Episode: Make Rebecca Great Again
I love the oddly revolutionary idea behind this show of "what if someone was just nice?" That's the simple genius of this show about an American Football coach who becomes the manager of an English Football club. Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is just a good guy. No dark secrets or haunted past. No ulterior motive. He just likes to be good to others and see the best in people. And it's so damn contagious. I don't think Ted Lasso is the funniest show out there, but I giggled throughout most episodes from how good it made me feel. Sure, other shows in 2020 had greater artistry, more interesting performances, or more complex topics. None made me feel as just plain good. I needed that.
8. Brooklyn Nine Nine (Season 7)
Best Episode: Lights Out
Brooklyn Nine Nine is one of my comfort shows as evidenced by the fact that I watched through the entire series twice this year at different points when nothing else sounded good. Seven years in, the cast is a well-oiled machine. Everyone knows their role. The writers all know how to write them down. The season was completed before the BLM protests and even before COVID, so it's anyone's guess what it will look like next year, but I was glad to have this season from the "before" times. While not at a Ted Lasso level, B99 is another show that tends to find its strength in characters getting along.
The one downside to these NBC seasons is the 13-episode orders. This late in the run, B99 has a lot of traditions and callbacks. After the Halloween Heist, Doug Judy episode, Pimento return, and semi-seasonal returns of Cheddar, Jake's parents, the Jimmy Jab games, etc., there's not a lot of time to try something new, so the seasons are getting a little stale. I suspect season 8 will have a decent number of new topics though.
9. Betty (Season 1)
Best Episode: Ladies on Fire
Who doesn't love a good hang? This series about the women in a skate group in New York City does go into some deep topics like #MeToo, but mostly, it's just a great place to hang out. The first season is a brief six half-hour episodes, and I would've happily watched 50 episodes. This show is dripping with personality. It shoots a side of NYC that I don't often see. It was such a pleasure to find this quietly released gem. As I've already said, a big appeal for me in 2020 was shows that made me feel good, and this one certainly did that.
10. The Good Place (End of Season 4)
Best Episode: Whenever You're Ready
Only the final four episodes of the show aired in 2020. Luckily, they were great episodes. Most of my problems with season 4 were in the 2019 episodes, so 2020 only had the stuff like Timothy Olyphant, Lisa Kudrow, and that really lovely finale. Since I have the six-episode Betty and five installment Small Axe also in my top ten, it doesn't feel like such a stretch to put 4 great episodes (one of those was a double episode, so it's more like 5 eps) of The Good Place this high. It's so impressive that this show that had to literally solve the afterlife managed to find a conclusion that I had no qualms with.
NEXT 10
11. The Queen's Gambit
On paper, a 7-episode series about an orphan who turns into a stylish chess prodigy with a drug problem sounds pretty silly. And it is. And I also don't care. Anya Taylor-Joy gives a star performance that sells even the most ridiculous story beats. Seriously, this show has things like a janitor chess mentor (Bill Camp), depressed alcoholic adopted mother (Marielle Heller), and maverick chess champ who dresses like he's coming out of a safari (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and makes them seem like they all belong. It shoots the chess matches like it's a sports movie and even had me convinced that I understood chess strategy by the end of it. Sure, this is empty calories TV, but I'll forgive that if it has this much watchability.
12. Never Have I Ever (Season 1)
How did it take us this long to realize that Mindy Kaling needed to make a teen comedy show? That's basically what her comedic voice is. Her best episodes in both The Office and The Mindy Project were when she acted like someone out of Mean Girls. Of course she'd be able to write this well for teens. The only downside to Never Have I Ever is that Mindy wasn't in it herself, but Maitreyi Ramakrishnan proved to be a great stand in for her. While not an autobiographical series, it's easy to see how much of her own experience Kaling brought into this. I know this sounds dumb and obvious, but I really love shows about people who aren't like me living in a familiar way. Like, this is about an Indian American girl who feels more American than Indian. Most of the stories are just familiar teen comedy stories but with an unfamiliar twist. l also love the oddness of the John McEnroe narration. You'd think that would've gotten old after the first episode, but it never did.
13. Love, Victor (Season 1)
I was suspicious to say the least about a series sequel to Love, Simon: a movie I have really come to love. There was behind-the-scenes turmoil when Disney Plus decided that it didn't match with their "brand" and shifted it over to Hulu. Then there's the show opening with Victor essentially telling Simon to check his privilege. Pretty quickly though, I settled into it and saw how naturally this show about another young man afraid of coming out and reaching out to Simon for advice could shift to being a series. More than anything, I got The O.C. vibes from this but with nowhere near the artificial stakes added. It's the same general format. Secret crushes. Teens being really bad at relationships and not knowing how to treat each other. It's funny and dramatic and everyone has their own issues. Plus, I do like the tweaks on Victor's situation as opposed to Simon's. Victor is new in town and his parent and grandparents are catholic and old fashioned. There's a lot more to chew on over several hours. Simon needed a story that could be handled in two hours. Victor's story can go on for seasons, and I can't wait for more. Like Never Have I Ever, just 10 episodes wasn't enough.
14. Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (Season 1)
This show is absurd. Zoey's wakes up one day after getting hit in the head and realizes she can read people's feelings by them breaking out into song and dance numbers. It's not a premise I thought could last more than 2-3 episodes. Weirdly though, by the end of the first season, I realized it was one of the shows I anticipated the most each week. It's another "jolt of good vibes" show. I've had a Jane Levy-size hole in my life that I've struggled to fill since Suburgatory ended in 2014. And it's giving me Lauren Graham attempting to be a hardass, nice guy Skylar Astin, locked-in Peter Gallagher, only able to move in Zoey's imagination, and many others. This is the kind of show that I'll go into every episode convinced that it can't keep it up but so happy to enjoy it while it lasts.
15. The Mandalorian (Season 2)
I still haven't adjusted to Star Wars discourse happening week-to-week. I love Star Wars, but the fandom can be exhausting. Normally, I can see a movie then check in and out of the internet discussion as I wish until it goes away. As a series, The Mandalorian keeps it sustained for two months at a time and I don't know what to do with that. No show gets more discussed, so I feel like I'm doing something wrong by liking it yet not obsessing about it. Here's what I know though. In season 2, Pedro Pascal continues to give an All-Time masked performance. I'm glad he's also doing things like Wonder Woman 1984, because I'd hate for how good he is in The Mandalorian to give him no opportunities since people don't recognize him. Baby Yoda continues to be adorable. I love that the show commits to episodes rather than the "It's an 8-hour movie" model. While it's clear that basically everyone would be willing to work for scale for a chance to be in the Star Wars universe, Jon Favreau and company have resisted the urge to stunt-cast irresponsibly. Season 2 deepens the bench of recurring characters (who all seem to have their own show now). I do worry about how next season will work if this really is the end of the Grogu saga. Few shows look or sound better than this though without getting lost in its own mythology.
16. Normal People
This is a quiet show about two Irish teens then young adults who fall in and out of a relationship as their personal situations also change and evolve. There isn't much to it. Even now I'm struggling to recall what even happens throughout the 12 episodes. Here's what I know though. Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and Connell (Paul Mescal) probably shouldn't end up together, but I really want everything to work out for them together. So, that's the kind of emotional mess this show brings. I'm not sure there are two actors I'd like to watch somberly starring off more than Edgar-Jones and Mescal. I'm doing this show no favors because I'm making it sound like a bad time. Sometimes I do love something that's emotionally draining with characters who insist on being their own biggest enemy. This is a lovely little show. The two leads are as interesting together as they are apart. It's not a story that's concerned with being satisfying which is what makes it worthwhile.
17. Last Week Tonight (Season 7)
John Oliver's weekly show is a regular in the teens on my list. That's because it's consistently good but interchangeable enough with previous seasons that it feels like a cheat to move it higher. Well, this year certainly sticks out thanks to COVID and the abrupt change in location and production. Something is absolutely lost with no studio audience. I sure miss a good "Welcome! Welcome! Welcome!" to start the show and there's a showmanship that Oliver brings to an audience that can't quite be manufactured without one. Otherwise, it was the same show as always. COVID and the 2020 Election gave him more than enough topics to dive deep into (remember when Trump was impeached? That was this year!), and the isolation seemed to encourage him to find even more bits to take too far, like his hunt for paintings of anthropomorphized rat erotica or his ongoing feud with Danbury, Connecticut that ended with him getting their sewage treatment plant named after him. It was a year of weird times but good times with Last Week Tonight.
18. Superstore (End of Season 5, Start of Season 6)
It's a little hard to separate the 2020 episodes from the rest of the series, since I caught up on it all this year. What makes it easier is that 2020 saw one big event derailed by another big event. The season 5 episodes were all leading to Amy's (America Ferrera) big farewell. That was then derailed by COVID, which Superstore was uniquely equipped to handle. This show has evolved into a show that likes its characters more than it did early on and is reliable for laughs from the talented cast. Only four episodes of season 6 have aired so far, so they haven't been able to get as much into the COVID fun as I'd hoped (understandable, since it wasn't something they were planning on), so I'm hoping the rest of the [final] season will go even deeper into that.
19. Better Things (Season 4)
It continues to be fun following Sam (not that different from Pamela Adlon) around in Los Angeles and elsewhere as she mothers and works. I love the messiness of the show, both in the characters and way the season arcs. This season saw Sam's daughters get even more independent which left her confronting her place in the world more. The best thing is how this show works as both a family show ("Batceanera") and Sam on her own ("New Orleans"). I also enjoy how much she's challenging the FX sensors with something like the end of "She's Fifty".
20. What We Do In The Shadows (Season 2)
This show is so damn silly. I worried going into season one that the movie had already mined the idea for so much material that there wouldn't be enough for a show. And I've continued to look like a fool ever since. Matt Berry's energy vampire Colin has proven to be an endless supply of humor. The other vampires in the house get even more conceited. And the development of Guillermo as a vampire hunter added a nice wrinkle.
Everything in Between
21. Sex Education (Season 2)
Yes. Another teen dramedy on my list. Except this one is British and raunchy and has a randy Gillian Anderson. This season was a little more scattered with things like Adam getting sent to military school and Otis pissing everyone off, so I wasn't as over the moon with it as the first season, but it remains among the shows I most look forward to coming back.
22. The Last Dance
This Spring and Summer was tough for me as a basketball fan. My favorite time of year - the NCAA tournament - was abruptly canceled. The NBA season was halted and delayed. I had no sense of closure and a deep desire for basketball content. Then, like mana from Heaven, ESPN pushed the premiere of this '90s Bulls documentary series up. While it lacks the thematic heft of OJ: Made in America, this series was just what it promised to be: an in-depth portrait of one of the most dominant sports dynasties of the modern era. While it's clear that it was all released only with MJ's approval, it was nice to see so much new footage and hear even some guarded Jordan interviews.
23. Little Voice (Season 1)
Apple is building quite a brand for earnest, feel-good programming with this and Ted Lasso. Earnest really is the best word for this show about an aspiring singer-songwriter trying to make it in New York City. It's hard to root against Bess (Brittany O'Grady) as she navigates her dreams and love life. I've gotta say, I'm also a fan of how her brother Louie (Kevin Valdez) is just a big excuse for creators Sara Bareilles and Jessie Nelson to talk about how much they like Broadway shows.
24. Brockmire (Season 4)
Formerly disgraced baseball announcer Jim Brockmire (Hank Azaria) remains one of the great joke delivery devices on TV. In the final season, the show gives Brockmire a teenage daughter and jumps ahead a decade to an America that is a frightening hellscape thanks to environmental disasters and technology run amok. Of course, when they made the season, they couldn't've realized how unappealing a black comedy dystopia would be for people stuck in their houses because of a pandemic. Still, the show was a great place for both filthy and Baseball-related humor until the very end. You won't find many shows like it.
25. BoJack Horseman (Season 6, Part 2)
This very well may be the best show Netflix has made and its final season ended on an appropriate note. I can't point to any bad episodes in this group. I do think that splitting the season into halves killed the variance of this batch some. As it wrapped things up, these final 8 episodes were sadder at the expense of the jokes. Good episodes. In a 13-episode season with some more zaniness, they would've been fine. Still, it ended on a fitting bittersweet note that nicely wrapped up the series as a whole, which was more important.
26. Mrs. America
So many great actresses. I love the basic structure of this series about the fight for and against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s that followed a different main character each episode. This is an Ocean's 8 of a cast that gave me every kind of character I could want from Cate Blanchett's Phyllis Schlafly to Rose Byrne's Gloria Steinem to Uzo Aduba's Shirley Chisholm. And those opening credits were my favorite of the year.
27. One Day at A Time (Season 4)
This poor show got screwed. Fresh off a surprise renewal from Pop after Netflix cancelled it, production was shut down for COVID midway through. In the months since, Pop changed its focus and canceled the show for good without a proper ending. So, only 6 live-action episodes aired this year and a seventh animated one. That this fell all the way to 27th on my list for the year says more about the depth of good shows that aired. So, even as great as an episode as "Boundaries" was, the incomplete season is enough to knock it down the list. It deserved much better than this kind of ending.
28. Ozark (Season 3)
Here's another show I caught up on during a COVID binge. I liked to shit on it during my binge, saying things like "I feel like Ozark thinks it's Breaking Bad when it should be trying harder to be Justified". Really though, I did enjoy the show, and the third season was easily the best. Laura Linney had the most to do in any season. Julia Garner inched closer to just being the lead (which is a show I'd rather watch). It even had Janet McTeer as a sort of big bad for the season. And, where the season ended has me as curious as ever to see what will happen next.
29. The Plot Against America
Honestly, I thought David Simon and Ed Burns' adaptation of the Philip Roth book was pretty heavy-handed throughout a lot of its run, although it looked great and had a nice cast. It really wasn't until the final episode when it won me over. Even more specifically, it was Zoe Kazan's phone acting with her son's friend that floored me. The helplessness of the situation mixed with her resolve was so damn impressive.
30. The Crown (Season 4)
Let's be honest, seasons 2 and 3 were kind of a snooze. The first season had Winston Churchill, Elizabeth's marriage, and her coronation. They did what they could to make seasons 2 and 3 more interesting, but there's only so much Philip and Charles whining that I can take. Season 4 moves into the 80s, when it starts getting good again. It covers Margaret Thatcher's (Gillian Anderson) time as Prime Minister as well as the appearance of Princess Diana (Emma Corrin). I was impressed by the treatment of both characters - treating Margaret Thatcher as a rounded and at times, sympathetic, character and not immediately handing the show over to Diana. The show still isn't quite my taste, but this is the most interested I've found the story of the Royals in years.
31. Lovecraft Country (Season 1)
Few shows had highs quite as high as Lovecraft Country. I often loved how it mixed the Sci-Fi with the racial topics and how district the episodes were from each other. Jurnee Smollett and Jonathan Majors gave star performances along with a strong supporting cast. If I'm being completely honest though, I really didn't know what was happening most of the time. I was on board for the performances and weird stuff, not the mythology.
32. High Fidelity (Season 1)
Despite the many, many things I've seen Zoe Kravitz in, I really didn't know if I liked her as an actress until this. It's such a natural and comfortable lead performance. I definitely never expected to say a sentence like "It turns out, Zoe Kravitz is really good in the John Cusack role". It's sad that Hulu canceled it, because it would've been a fun show to check in on for a batch of episodes for a few years.
33. Black-ish (End of Season 6, Start of Season 7)
This is about the point when family sitcoms start getting unwieldy. The kids grow up and start needing more time on their own. The parents start running into the same problems with the younger kids that they did with the older kids in the early seasons. Black-ish already lost the oldest daughter, Zoey, to her own show. They might be losing Dre's parents to their own show. Still, Black-ish manages to mine current events for new topics. Just this fall there were episodes about the election, COVID, and BLM protests that weren't nearly as ham-fisted as in other shows.
34. Killing Eve (Season 3)
Look, it's following the traditional "hot new show" life cycle. Season one is excellent all around. Season 2 struggled to keep the story going but stayed afloat because they knew how to write even better for the performers. By season 3, the story is rubbish but they can hopefully have some fun with the characters we love. So, obviously, this is the year we get Villanelle (Jodie Comer) dressed as a stylish clown. Like with Orphan Black and Tatiana Maslany, I'll probably keep watching as long as Jodie Comer, Sandra Oh, and Fiona Shaw are around. The show is by no means a slog to get through. I'm simply not invested in the story any more.
35. Challenger: The Final Flight
This documentary series on the Challenger explosion does exactly what it was supposed to. It taught me about the whole crew and not just Christa McAuliffe (the teacher who was chosen for the mission). It taught me about O-Rings, how they led to the explosion, and why it was all avoidable. For a non-NASA obsessive, four episodes was just the right length.
36. Fargo (Season 4)
I don't know why, but Noah Hawley just isn't doing it as much for me anymore. I was already a little low on Season 3. Since then, the diminishing returns of three seasons of Legion and the disastrous film Lucy in the Sky, have spent up all my remaining goodwill for Hawley. Despite yet another very impressive cast and an entertaining 1950s Kansas City setting, I struggled to get as into this season. Perhaps I'm just judging it against the unfair comparison of previous seasons, when what the show was doing felt like a magic trick and now feels expected.
37. The Flight Attendant (Season 1)
This show is basically like if Chuck Bartowski was an alcoholic. It's total empty calories. I doubt it has 6 great seasons ahead of it, but Kaley Cuoco is really fun in it. Zosia Mamet is a scene-stealer. It plays like the airport novel that it is and was an easy binge.
38. Lego Masters (Season 1)
I remember playing with LEGOs. I probably will build things with LEGOs again. So, I love seeing what other people can build with LEGOs. It's just that simple. Unfortunately, most episodes had to fill time by teaching me about who these builders are and featured a really extra Will Arnett as host. I'm coming back for season 2 to see the builds, but I couldn't care less about the human drama.
39. The Babysitters Club (Season 1)
This is 2020's "show for kids that was adopted by adults". It's a sweet show. Once I got past the indignity of relating more to the adults, I found plenty to enjoy even though I never read any of the books when I was younger.
40. American Ninja Warrior (Season 12)
The season was delayed, abbreviated, and scaled down due to COVID, so there wasn't quite the sense of scale as in prior seasons. Yet, quietly thinking "it doesn't look that hard" as athletes complete incredible obstacles remains one of my favorite summer pastimes.
41. McMillions
It's a little hard to rate this series. The story of how the McDonalds Monopoly game was rigged for over a decade and eventually taken down by the FBI is undeniably fascinating. I hope a Steven Soderbergh makes a movie about it someday. However, I wasn't crazy about how the documentary series told the story. The playful energy and re-enactments didn't work for me, and the whole thing felt padded out by a couple episodes.
42. Big Mouth (Season 4)
For whatever reason, I tend to find animation more clever than funny. This show is so smart and, while never sacrificing its crudeness, touches on a lot of topics about puberty and adolescence. It's a very impressive and funny show that also exhausts me after watching more than one episode.
43. The Simpsons (End of Season 31, Start of Season 32)
As I say every year, even aging, mediocre Simpsons is better than most of what else is out there. I can't say I remember any specific episodes from this year, but I wouldn't dare miss an episode.
44. Battlebots (Start of Season 5)
You know what I like? Remote controlled robots beating each other up. Like other non-scripted shows I watch, I don't particularly care about the people controlling the bots (although there is a fun factor to seeing the different builders try to look cool*). The season was delayed by COVID, so only a few episodes aired in 2020. Otherwise, I'd inch this a little higher on the big list.
*I say this as someone well aware that I wouldn't look cool either. I respect the people. I like that they are having fun. I just don't think the broadcast has found the right tone to present them.
45. His Dark Materials (Season 2)
I like that I get to see the adaptation that New Line promised a dozen years ago. The show looks good. It's pretty faithful to the books in the right ways. I like the band of misfit toys cast they've assembled. Like, this year added Bella Ramsey who I always need a minute to tell myself "that's not Lyanna Mormount". Really, my big issue with the show is the source material. I wasn't that into the books and the show hasn't convinced me otherwise. I think it's doing a good job at being the show it wants to be. That said, I was surprised how much Lee Scoresby's (Lin-Manuel Miranda) death in the finale hit me, so maybe the show it doing righter than I realized.
46. Love Life (Season 1)
As an Anna Kendrick delivery system, no show was better. I am all for 10 episodes of Anna Kendrick in anything. If you take her out of this show though, I wouldn't've watched it. Simply put, it just wasn't romantic or funny enough for me. It's a problem in the premise of the show. It's about all her failed romances until finally getting the right guy. So, it was hard to get invested in any of the first 9 episodes, and since the show always had both feet in reality, there wasn't much room to get fun with how bad those all flamed out. As I said though: Anna Kendrick, so I don't regret watching a second of the show.
47. Saturday Night Live (End of Season 45, Start of Season 46)
A fascinating 2020 for SNL. They had some great early hosts like Adam Driver, RuPaul, and John Mulaney. Then COVID hit hard. There was the awkward Daniel Craig episode, when no one knew how to joke about the yet to be labelled pandemic. That was followed by the bizarre SNL at Home episodes. I have to dock some points for a Fall that really whiffed on the Election sketches. I'm sure the episode quality could also be traced back to them doing six episodes in six weeks for the first time in 46 seasons. As always, I think SNL will be just fine. There were several sketches this year I enjoyed a lot. The hit rate was just a little lower, and not all of it is their fault.
48. Perry Mason (Season 1)
Do you ever watch something because the cast is so good and the production looks so good that you hope investment in the story will eventually follow? That was Perry Mason for me. Look, if you put Matthew Rhys, Tatiana Maslany, John Lithgow, Lili Taylor, and Stephen Root (among others) in a show together, I'll be watching it, and they will sustain me. And this was one of my favorite shows to look at. HBO didn't scrimp on the budget. I just never really got into the investigation of the season. It could've just been that particular story and next season I'll be fully into. Who knows?
49. The Haunting of Bly Manor
I wish I loved this show more. Where The Haunting of Hill House was straightforward horror, Bly Manor was more of a gothic romance, and it didn't quite do the trick for me. I guess I like my time hopping in scary stories to be more straightforward. I also feel a little teased by only getting Carla Gugino in the first and last episodes. I think I'll always give these Haunting anthologies a chance, but I do prefer when creator Mike Flannagan is more hands on with them, like with Hill House.
50. Avenue 5 (Season 1)
It's hard to pitch a show that's more appealing to me than Hugh Laurie, Zach Woods, and others in an Armando Iannucci comedy. I like the boldness of making it a futuristic space comedy. It just isn't as funny as Iannucci's other work (Veep, The Thick of It, The Death of Stalin). I appreciate the attempt to bring his form of poetic swearing and incompetence from politics to something else, but it wasn't wholly successful in season one. I sensed some growth by the end and this wouldn't be the first comedy to struggle in the first season only to find its footing later. I remain hopeful, but for now, too often Avenue 5 was a tin can with swirling shit, flying aimlessly through space.
51. Bob's Burgers (End of Season 10, Start of Season 11)
I always put Bob's Burgers so low, even though I consistently enjoy the episodes and never miss an episode. I think it comes down to the fact that animation just isn't my comfort viewing. Like any show 10 seasons in, it's hard for me to tell you what episodes even aired in 2020. I just know that they were mostly a good time.
52. Miracle Workers: The Dark Ages
I wish the humor of the show worked a little more for me, because I like just about everything else about it. I like how wildly different this season of the anthology series was from the first. I love a sweaty Daniel Radcliffe performance. Since Harry Potter, he's made a nice career out of playing characters who make just getting through a day look incredibly hard. I'm weirdly obsessed with Geraldine Viswanathan and her brand of sarcasm. I even like how the show proves that it's pretty easy to just ignore race in a period setting. Viswanathan and Jon Bass couldn't really be siblings with the same parent. It's doubtful there's be so many people of African and Indian descent in a Medieval town. But it never matters. A few shows have tried this and it never bothers me. Obviously, it can't be done for all shows, but especially for the ones where the reality is heightened anyway, I don't see the harm in casting for character fit rather than who would believably be in a setting.
BOTTOM 10
53. Run (Season 1)
Episode to episode, I never knew what this show wanted to be. It was kind of a mess despite an intriguing premise. What sustained me though was the constant feeling that I just wanted Domhnall Gleeson and Merritt Wever to bang.
Crude? Yes. Inaccurate? No.
I'm sort of happy the show was canceled because it was the only way I'd be free of it. In theory, it should've worked though.
54. Heaven's Gate
I appreciated how this four-part documentary series slowly built up the story of the Heaven's Gate cult with the more sensible aspects of the story before moving to the insane stuff. It never moved beyond the idea that "cults aren't that weird from the inside" so I don't know that I needed 4 episodes to cover the story rather than a 2-hour film, but it's an undeniably interesting story. And, they got a good assortment of talking heads for it.
55. A Teacher
I simply never invested in the central relationship. Kate Mara and Nick Robinson are good individually, but I never bought into why she would throw away her life for that. The show hinges on that pull, so that's why it has fallen so far on this list.
56. Tiger King
Similar to McMillions, Tiger King has a crazy story and crazy characters but I don't actually think it was a well-made documentary series. Too often, the enjoyment of the show came from laughing at these people which isn't something I care for. Most of my enjoyment of the show came from taking part in the larger pop culture discussion around it (the jokes and memes on twitter and with friends). Had it not been such a hit, I would've happily skipped it.
57. High Score
I think part of my issue is that I didn't meet the show on its level. While it's sold and structured as a survey of video game history, it's really a collection of stories from less explored corners video game history. As a broad examination of classic gaming history, it was unfocused and only got a lot of second or third tier people for interviews. As more of a look at the culture though - a lot of fun stories about assorted gaming competitions and what it was like to work for the Nintendo assistance line - it was successful. This is another show that was successful at the thing it was trying to be, but it wasn't something that interested me as much.
58. Fresh Off the Boat (End of Season 6)
I love this show, but it certainly limped to the end. It felt like everyone (not just Constance Wu) was ready to move on. Only a handful of episodes aired in 2020 anyway, including a backdoor pilot that went nowhere. The end felt more required than satisfying.
59. This Is Us (End of Season 4, Start of Season 5)
I'm not hate-watching the show, but I am looking for the off ramp. As much as I like much of the cast, the structure of the show is impeding it so much now. Mandy Moore has to do most of her work under old age makeup. They have to bend over backwards to find new ways to use Milo Ventimiglia. The Sterling K. Brown/Susan Kelechi Watson show feels almost completely separate from the rest. And, this had by far the clunkiest COVID integration due to how much the show plays with time. Maybe 2021 is the year that I decide that the slight positives aren't worth the time spent anymore.
60. Modern Family (End of Season 11)
The series ended right before having to deal with COVID, which was lucky. The show overstayed its welcome by several seasons. It ended on a nice enough note. There were several episodes that showcased the things that always worked about the show. "The Prescott" was the kind of puzzle episode with overlapping stories that Modern Family did better than anyone. "Paris" was another nice location episode: another strength of theirs. They even had the sadly precedent "Legacy" in which Phil's father died, which aired only 4 months before Fred Willard’s actual passing. As much as I complained about the show, I will miss it in small ways.
61. Westworld (Season 3)
I don't know what else to say. I just don't care about the story. The park stuff of the first two seasons intrigued me. This season, however, shifted to a futuristic real world and I simply could not care less. I'm not a big SciFi series guy, no matter how stellar the cast or pretty it looks. The fact that apparently half the characters were a Dolores made it even staler for me. More power to the people who enjoy the futurism and storylines. For me though, it was a convoluted mess that was incapable is sustaining my attention.
62. The Flash (End of Season 6)
It feels wrong to have The Flash at the bottom of my list. I really didn't hate watching it. I'm simply not invested in it at all at this point. I think this is the year that I finally check out. I don't think a show like this is meant to age much longer than this. The cast has all gone from being young adults to just adults, which changes the tone. As I said, I'm just not into it anymore. It's still outlasted Arrow and Supergirl with me, so that's something.
Again, let me again repeat that there are hundreds of shows I didn't watch. Many, I didn't watch for a reason. I don't like wasting my time on shows that I think are very bad, so I'd place much more meaning on the top of my list than the bottom of it. It was a very good year of TV, despite all the production delays. I hope this doesn't mean 2021 will suffer for it.
No comments:
Post a Comment