My Top 100 TV Shows of 2020
Last year, I expanded my already insane top 50 list to my top 100 TV shows of the year for the first time, and I mused about how and when the 'peak TV' bubble would burst in the coming years. But like anyone else, I didn't see COVID-19 coming, and had no idea that the TV's growth years would come to such a screeching halt so soon, at least for the time being. While television was in some ways a welcome and familiar source of entertainment while we couldn't go to concerts of movie theaters, a number of my favorite shows had to cut season short, didn't air at all this year, or got canceled as a result of the economic downturn. Despite all that, there was still more than enough to watch to fill every hour of quarantine. It was a miserable and crazy year, but to quote a cast member of one of my favorite shows of all time, "I'm not happy, but I got TV."
1. Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix)
Everybody hates when a show they enjoy gets canceled too soon, and Netflix did a whole lot of that this year. But I do sometimes really savor a show leaving us with one perfect season, like Terriers, #1 on my favorite shows of 2010-2019 list, even if I'd love to see where the story would've gone in season 2. American Princess was one of my favorite single season shows of 2019, and one of that show's writers, Kathleen Jordan, created my favorite of 2020, Teenage Bounty Hunters. Although it starts out wringing as much comedy as it can out of the premise of a couple of repressed girls from a Christian high school getting mixed up in professional bounty hunting, and remains hilarious (thanks in no small part to Kadeem Hardison and Method Man), it ultimately becomes a pretty poignant and nuanced show about how hard it is for kids to go through puberty in a community that preaches abstinence. Anjelica Bette Fellini and Maddie Phillips both give incredibly funny performances as really three-dimensional characters, and deserve to book a bunch of gigs off of this show.
2. Ramy (FX)
Like Teenage Bounty Hunters, Ramy is a show about the enormous inner conflicts that face a young person with a devoutly religious family these days, and I find it really relatable despite not having that kind of background at all. Between the Mahershala Ali arc and the standalone episodes that zoomed in on the lives of supporting characters, Ramy just kept getting better and better in the second season, outrageously funny in one moment and uncomfortably real in the next.
3. What We Do In The Shadows (FX)
Another FX show that had a big season 2 growth spurt this year -- the first season of What We Do In The Shadows came close to equaling the horror comedy excellence of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement's 2014 film of the same name, but at this point has really surpassed it (although the series is more a spinoff than a reboot, so I recommend watching both rather than choosing one). Kayvan Novak as Nandor The Relentless is very likely the most consistently funny character on TV right now. And between Year Of The Rabbit and Shadows, nobody had a better year than Matt Berry.
4. Avenue 5 (HBO)
When Armando Iannucci followed up Veep with a show that took place on a spaceship, I figured he'd become weary of making a comedy about contemporary politics at a time when the real Washington, D.C. was becoming almost too absurd to satirize. But I don't know if he even knew how much Avenue 5 would hit close to home in 2020, particularly the episode where people convinced themselves that none of this was real, and started walking out the airlock and killing themselves to prove it. In some ways Avenue 5 is much darker and grislier than Veep, because the effects of the characters' poor leadership are much more immediate and life-and-death. But it's also an incredibly funny show, and the first role where Hugh Laurie gets to use both his real voice and his American accent in the most entertaining way possible.
5. Brockmire (IFC)
It's become an odd little trend lately for sitcoms to jump forward 2 or 3 years for the entire final season, to see the characters a little further down the road and maybe get in some jokes about the near future (Parks & Recreation, New Girl and Casual). Brockmire upped the ante by setting its final season in the 2030s, although the show's bleak prognostications actually seemed kind of quaint by the time they aired --- they thought they had to jump ahead a decade for headlines like "another outbreak" and "food shortage riots." But despite the dystopian backdrop, the 4th season of the show was its most sentimental, giving Hank Azaria's profane and misanthropic baseball announcer a daughter and a hard won redemption arc.
6. Ted Lasso (Apple TV+)
Like Brockmire, Ted Lasso is a character who exists in the pro sports world, created by a seasoned comic actor and then dropped into a surprisingly poignant sitcom, although it's a much nicer show overall. Jason Sudeikis always had an innate warmth and humanity even just playing a silly one-joke sketch character on SNL, and as Ted Lasso he's so doggedly optimistic that he convincingly wins over an entire sports franchise and city that expects and even wants him to fail, one perfectly paced episode at a time. Without a star like Zach Braff or a name like Cougar Town to put people off, finally a Bill Lawrence sitcom gets the acclaim it deserves.
7. The Queen's Gambit (Netflix)
Thoroughbreds is probably still my favorite Anya Taylor-Joy performance, but Beth Harmon was really the role of a lifetime for her. The Queen's Gambit frustrates me the same way something like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel does -- it would probably be more interesting to hear the real story of the most successful woman in that male-dominated field in that era than the kind of storybook ascent to greatness that we get here. On the other hand, I appreciated that it never took a Million Dollar Baby turn, and the whole thing was too beautifully written, filmed, and performed to quibble too much with.
8. The Magicians (SyFy)
The Magicians is based on Lev Grossman's trilogy of novels, but it really feels like the show kind of grew and developed around the cast's strengths and chemistry. And in its fifth and final season, they
completed resonant satisfying character arts for Margo, Zelda, Penny, and Eliot, while still being one of the most deliriously creative shows on TV, and also beating Lena Waithe's Twenties to using the word "dickmatized" in a TV series by a few weeks.
9. Harley Quinn (HBO Max)
Nothing will fill the hole left by The Venture Bros., my favorite show that was unceremoniously canceled amidst the industry-wide belt tightening after COVID-19 hit. But one show that at its best entertains me with a similar mix of lightning fast wit, vulgarity, and obscure pop culture references is Harley Quinn, which instead of coming up with its own parodies versions of cartoon and comic book lore, has Gotham City and the entire D.C comics universe to screw around in. It's one thing to get a quick laugh out of the obscure Batman villain Kite Man, it's another thing entirely to do an entire season-long love triangle storyline involving Kite Man that ends up being a pretty poignant love story between the main characters.
10. Lovecraft Country (HBO)
From what I hear, the biggest difference between the Lovecraft Country series and the Matt Ruff book upon it was based is that a lot of the loosely connected stories that center on different characters are rewritten so that every episode has the same two protagonists. And sometimes the show buckles a little under the strain of that change, and the unique narrative challenge of depicting the symbolic monster of American racism as actual literal monsters. But Jonathan Majors (who I was hoping would get a vehicle like this since The Last Black Man In San Francisco) and Jurnee Smollett do a fantastic job of carrying the show and giving it dramatic stakes beyond the weighty subtext.
11. Devs (FX on Hulu)
Alex Garland's features Ex Machina and Annihilation are so surreal and beautiful and otherworldly that one of the best things about his first series Devs was just getting more immersed in a world he'd created for 8 hours instead of 2. But a lot of that time is filled up by a thrilling cat-and-mouse game between the powers that be at a giant tech company (including a great menacing performance by Zach Grenier) and the young employees trying to figure out what's going on with their big secret project. The whole thing ends up on a sentimental note while still remaining dreamily high concept, I don't think everybody loved the ending but I thought the whole thing was pretty brilliantly executed.
12. The Boys (Amazon)
It's a fitting measure of just how dark and nasty The Boys got in its second season that Aya Cash was added to the cast, and was far less redeemable than she was as the star of a show called You're The Worst. But all the gratuitous violence and ugliness felt like it was in service of a corrective to the superhero entertainment industry, and the Billy Joel-soundtracked romance between Hughie and Starlight added a little welcome sweetness to the show's second season. And Antony Starr's evil superman Homelander is a more terrifying character than almost any onscreen depiction of a comic book supervillain in recent memory, the guy deserves some Emmys or something.
13. Corporate (Comedy Central)
Corporate got better and better over three seasons and went out on a high note this year, becoming the most clever, ruthless, and stylized satire of office culture since Better Off Ted as they skewered the streaming TV gold rush and shit-talking co-workers, and pulled off an incredibly dark but still funny episode about depression.
14. I May Destroy You (HBO)
I was initially surprised that I May Destroy You was 12 episodes, since British series are often so much shorter and even American cable shows tend to top out at 10 episodes these days. And it definitely feels like there could have been a version of I May Destroy You that ended around the 5th episode in a crowd-pleasing way, but Michaela Coel kept pulling at the thread and pursuing more complex and nuanced issues of consent and agency and crime and punishment. I have very mixed feelings about the final episode -- I appreciate the point Coel was making, but I wish she hadn't done it with what I can only call "a Wayne's World ending" -- but it was still a really fascinating, impressive show.
15. Infinity Train (Cartoon Network/HBO Max)
I respect the love that lots of people, including my kids, have for Steven Universe, but sometimes I wish it was just a little funnier and maybe a bit less earnest. But if there's a show that I would say is similar but much closer my personal taste it's Infinity Train, an anthology series that aired its second season on Cartoon Network this year and then jumped to HBO Max for its third season. My son watched all three seasons over and over at one point recently, and I never got sick of it, they've really created an incredibly dense and original fantasy world for a kid's show but it makes me laugh pretty hard as an adult viewer.
16. Miracle Workers: Dark Ages (TBS)
I think my favorite format for an anthology series is when the same cast and creative team does a different story with a different set of characters each season, which has lately mostly been done by horror series. But it worked out great for comedy with Miracle Workers, which was a moderately amusing show in its first season, but hysterically funny in its Pythonesque second season set in medieval times. Also I enjoyed that the main character's name is Al Shitshoveler, which sounds like a mean nickname for me.
17. Love Life (HBO Max)
I'm a sucker for a good rom com, and Love Life managed to bottle the genre in an interesting new format, with 10 episodes that each tell the story of a different relationship in the life of Darby Carter, played by Anna Kendrick (it's going to be an anthology, with The Good Place's William Jackson Harper playing the protagonist in the second season). Some episodes were cute and some were an emotional rollercoaster, but sticking with this one character over the years, from her first crush to the eventual love of her life, really ended up being a pretty moving and thought-provoking little journey.
18. Billions (Showtime)
A lot of shows either completed their season before the COVID-19 production shutdowns started in the spring, got enough done that you wouldn't necessarily know that they had to shelve a couple scripts, or paused until they could finish shooting the whole season. But Billions went ahead and aired the 7 completed episodes out of the 12 they'd planned for season 5, and it definitely felt like an incomplete arc. But it was still an enjoyable run of episodes from a consistently great show, with Corey Stoll and Julianna Margulies coming in as interesting foils for the show's core cast, and my Complex piece about Billions was also one of my favorite things I wrote this year about TV.
19. Wynonna Earp (SyFy)
Wynonna Earp was another show with an abbreviated 2020 run thanks to COVID, airing only the first 6 episodes of their 4th season. But it had been on my list of shows to check out for years, so I finally binged the whole series over the last few months, and I think the show is probably at its peak right now, as the dialogue has gotten snappier and the stories have gotten weirder and more ambitious.
20. Superstore (NBC)
A lot of shows have gone back into production with COVID storylines this fall, often with really uninspired and sometimes irresponsible results. But Superstore, which has always been brutally honest about what the life of an American retail worker is like for a network sitcom, really was a welcome voice this fall, with dialogue like"You gotta look at it from corporate's perspective: They love money, and they don't care if we die." And the first handful of episodes without America Ferrera reassured me that the show's ensemble is strong enough to carry on just fine without the top-billed actor the show started out with.
21. Diablero (Netflix)
Netflix has produced so many shows from around the world in recent years, and I've been impressed by a good number of them, but I am an ugly American who only speaks one language and sometimes has trouble getting into shows with subtitles or dubbed dialogue. But the Mexican demon hunter series Diablero has some of the better English dubbing I've seen on Netflix, great snappy dialogue, and stylish direction and impressive relatively low budget effects from director Jose Manuel Craviato.
22. Search Party (HBO Max)
I liked Search Party well enough in its first season on TBS, but then the second season was a little underwhelming, and when the show resurfaced on HBO Max after nearly 3 years off the air, I didn't have a lot of interest in keeping up with it. But I'm glad I did, because it was by far the show's funniest season to date, thanks in no small part to Shalita Grant's performance as the inexperienced lawyer Cassidy Diamond.
23. Wayne (Amazon)
One of the more positive side effects of COVID scrambling everything up is that various networks and streaming services started acquiring more shows that had originally aired on struggling or shuttered outlets to pad out their programming lineup. So Wayne, a hilarious dark comedy about two Boston teens on the lam that I never saw or even heard of when it debuted on YouTube Premium last year, reached a deserving larger audience this year when Amazon picked it up.
24. Soulmates (AMC)
This anthology series co-created by Brett Goldstein (Roy Kent from Ted Lasso!) sometimes felt like a gentler Black Mirror, looking at a near future where relationships have been transformed by a matchmaking service that pairs people with their soulmates with supposed "100% accuracy." Some stories were more intriguing than others, but it was consistently worth watching thanks to a steady stream of regulars from other prestige cable shows (Sarah Snook from Succession, David Costabile from Billions, etc.).
25. Stumptown (ABC)
One of the most frustrating ways that the coronavirus shook up the TV industry was that a lot of belt-tightening networks went back and retroactively canceled shows they've already renewed. The shows that were hit hardest were once that were in their first season and still building an audience like Stumptown, one of the highlights of 2019's fall season. But the second half of the show's sole 18-episode season were as good as the first, and left me hoping that Dex Parios might somehow keep solving mysteries on another network or streaming service in the future.
26. The Mandalorian (Disney+)
27. Small Axe (Amazon)
28. Bob's Burgers (FOX)
29. The New Pope (HBO)
30. Work In Progress (Showtime)
31. The Flight Attendant (HBO Max)
32. Better Things (FX)
33. Homecoming (Amazon)
34. The Outsider (HBO)
35. Future Man (Hulu)
36. The Good Lord Bird (Showtime)
37. High Fidelity (Hulu)
38. Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (NBC)
39. Grace And Frankie (Netflix)
40. Dead To Me (Netflix)
40. Dead To Me (Netflix)
41. A.P. Bio (Peacock)
42. Workin' Moms (Netflix)
43. Everything's Gonna Be Okay (Freeform)
44. Good Girls (NBC)
45. The Last Dance (ESPN)
46. Evil (CBS)
47. Upload (Amazon)
48. The Great (Hulu)
49. Council Of Dads (NBC)
50. Five Bedrooms (Peacock)
51. Seven Worlds, One Planet (BBC)
52. Rick And Morty (Cartoon Network)
53. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (NBC)
54. In The Dark (The CW)
55. P-Valley (Starz)
56. Don't (ABC)
57. The Sinner (USA)
58. Black Monday (Showtime)
59. Warrior (Cinemax)
60. Normal People (Hulu)
61. The Good Place (NBC)
62. Vida (Starz)
63. The Eddy (Netflix)
64. Warrior Nun (Netflix)
65. Doom Patrol (HBO Max)
66. Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (HBO)
67. Dispatches From Elsewhere (AMC)
68. The Haunting Of Bly Manor (Netflix)
69. Killing Eve (AMC)
70. Dead Pixels (The CW)
71. Pure (HBO Max)
72. Truth Seekers (Amazon)
73. Raised By Wolves (HBO Max)
74. Insecure (HBO)
75. Taste The Nation with Padma Lakshmi (Hulu)
76. We Are Who We Are (HBO)
77. Briarpatch (USA)
78. Mrs. America (FX on Hulu)
79. Hanna (Amazon)
80. Songland (NBC)
81. Breeders (FX)
82. Patriot Act With Hasahn Minhaj (Netflix)
83. Westworld (HBO)
84. Twenties (BET)
85. Valeria (Netflix)
86. Feel Good (Netflix)
87. Single Parents (ABC)
88. Tales From The Loop (Amazon)
89. Woke (Hulu)
90. The Umbrella Academy (Netflix)
91. The Plot Against America (HBO)
92. Bless This Mess (ABC)
93. Connecting... (NBC)
94. We Hunt Together (Showtime)
95. Fargo (FX)
96. Your Honor (Showtime)
97. Transplant (NBC)
98. The Third Day (HBO)
99. Castlevania (Netflix)100. Run (HBO)
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