Top 25 Characters of 2024

 Another delayed listicle. I have long loved doing this 25 characters list.

You can see a couple of them here and another one here

1 Andrew Yancy (Vince Vaughn), Bad Monkey- Like the hard-boiled detective or the steadfast cowboy, Yancy marches to the beat of his own drummer. Yes, he would love to get it on with a hot detective, get his badge back, or enjoy tormenting his waspy neighbor (he’s more chaotic than lawful good), but not if it means letting a white collar criminal go free. It’s the archetype of the wayward American hero across multiple genres, but not many characters can walk the walk,  and talk the talk with such gusto. And it’s Vince Vaughn playing the part, so we know right off the bat, this guy can at least talk that talk.

2 The Goddess Deliria (Hannah Wadddingham) Krapopolis-Let’s face it. Most Gods have a hint of vanity. It’s sort of a requirement for the job, isn’t it? The difference between Deliria and your run-of-the-mill p is that she exists on pure vanity. And enough motherly instinct to make her recognizable for those of us with tough-love mothers. But not too much or the show wouldn’t be as riotously funny.

3 Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), If Matt Damon’s snub at the Oscars for the 1999 film was one of the biggest tragedies of that era, it’s pretty remarkable that Scott can come in and fill those shoes with such fearlessness. Scott’s Ripley is somehow both more forcefully vindictive, and more understated than Damon’s creepy leech interpretation.

4 Jerry (Mike Patrick O’Brien), What We do in the Shadows-The key to adding a character late into the mix of a show’s run is they have to be rough around the edges. Jerry is a perfect foil in that he has the nerve to call out his fellow vampires on their sloth. Every character choice that went into to Jerry was a winner from his outfit as a Transylvanian butler, to his Pinky-and-the-Brainesque casualness about the task of taking over the world, to his aloofness to his role in a Nandoor-induced love triangle


5 Rogue, X-Men 97- If I were to rewatch an old episode of X-Men, it would be for the cringey puns based on ridiculous regional stereotypes. In other words, the Cajun Gambit, the Canadian lumberjack Wolverine, the Black Pantheresque Storm, and Southern Belle Rogue are the caricatures worth ironically laughing at, with a little bit of 90s child Jubilee adding some seasoning. In this attempt to mature the season to accommodate the aging of its primary fan base, the show has miraculously managed to keep Rogue cringe while giving her an actual arc.

6 and 7 Morgan (Justine Lupe) and Sasha (Timothy Simons), Nobody Wants This- I’ve been slowly learning that the difference between a romantic drama and a romcom is all in the supporting players. If there’s laser focus on the leads, then it’s the Richard Linklater Before series. Add the leads’ social circles as stand-ins for their romantic values, and add an extension a dose of quirk and it’s a party. That’s what you have here with a will-they-won’t-they-oh-no-they-can’t….can-they?

8 Amanda LaRusso (Courtney Henggeler) Cobra Kai- The bizarreness of a modern-day high school environment (with its emphasis on anti-bullying compared to the ‘80s), in which teenagers have to learn karate just to survive a Mad-Max-like dystopia of constant bullying, has had a strong need for a deadpan skeptic like Amanda. But at the end of the series run? Screw it. Amanda as the karate equivalent of a soccer mom feels like a more apt direction at this point.

9 Tindaro (Dougie McMeekin) The Decameron-My favorite show of the year was an upstairs-downstairs comedy set in a century where both sides of the societal divide were equally at the mercy of plague-carrying rats. And the bumbling hypochondriac Tindaro would probably not get very far in the “who lives longest” betting pool. But this rotund ball of delight proved full of mettle in a relatively dynamic arc.

10 Eddie Horniman (Theo James)The Gentlemen-In an era when nepobaby is a bad word, it’s not easy to root for anyone with such generational privilege. But it certainly helps that Eddie is never more than a couple false moves from having his head, the heads of those he cares about, and those under his employ blown off. As the title suggests, he’s a sly operator but also a class act.

11 Rufus Coatesworth, Death and Other Details-Considering there are so many takes on the eccentric, tunnel-vision. detective — whether modeled after Hercules Poroit, Sherlock Holmes or whatever the hell Daniel Craig is doing in Knives Out — it’s pretty remarkable for Mandy Patinkin to come up with such a unique creation here, as the detective entrusted with solving the murder of his protégé’s mother.


12 Dove Maloney (Siobhan Cullen), Bodkin- Fitting squarely in the category of female firecrackers who won’t let anyone put them in a box, Dove is the best of the trope. Of course, it helps for a hard-core journalist to have a great foil, in the hapless podcaster Bodkin (played with aplomb by the introspective Will Forte): A directionless and obtuse foreigner particularly with what she sees is a naive kindness.

13 Principal Cinnamon Scuttleworth (voiced by Phil Lord), Clone High- It was thrilling to see my favorite one-season wonder return to the airwaves but the sharp edges of these characters had been filed off and the new additions were pure vanilla. Except Scuttleworth. He has the hamminess of a cartoon villain with a couple ounces of pathos for good measure. You might enjoy seeing him blown up like a Looney Tunes villain, but you root for him to piece himself back together for his next crazy scheme.


14 Nadja, What We do in the Shadows-The best thing about the “Guillermo and the vampires become tech bros” arc is how enthusiastically Nadja assimilated. Her treatment of Guillermo and most other humans as pesky miscreants who are mostly useful for menial labor and meals, so she was always a good fit for the world of passive aggressive one-upmanship of Wall Street.

15 Dexter (Leo Woodall), One Day- What’s this, the thug from White Lotus is a sensitive heart throb underneath all those tattoos? Well, even as a straight guy, I thought Woodall was pretty hunky. But watching him sell this gender-flipped beauty and the geek romance. I’m impressed.


16 Dr Kristen Bouchard (Katja Herbers) , Evil-The show gets a lot of mileage out of this extremely charismatic actress who telegraphs so much with her face.
17 The Bleacher Creatures, Clone High-We all know that the cool kids in school are never the most interesting. Giving Christopher "Topher" Columbus villain friends was the best thing the second season ever did.  
18 Det. Helen Chamberlain (Danielle MacDonald), The Tourist-A brilliant detective with a heart of gold. That successfully sets up a labyrinthine plot to get away from an evil captor and can't pull it off. That's an interesting choice.
19 Mr Beast (James Donaldson), Beast Games-The Beast Games were a disappointment, but it was an interesting glance into the mind of history's most successful YouTuber. Despite attempts at cancellation, he's one to root for.
20 Ethan Crum (Greg Larsen), The Tourist-Helen, Elliot, meet your comic relief. Now that that's out of the way...
21 Beatrice Worth (Brooke Lena Johnson), Cruel Intentions-If the show (like the movie) is centered against the two amoral step-siblings, then Beatrice is your sidelined hero. She had casual sex with one sibling (let's applaud her for sex positivity) and tried to pledge three times to the sorority of the other, but adolescents are complex and conflicted. She's still the right person to take down the elitism in my book.
22 Android SM 33 (voiced by Nick Frost), Star Wars: Skeleton Crew- Confession, I just li
23 Frank the Temp (I can't even remember; that's the point), Futurama-At long last! Someone who's less respected among the crew than Zoidberg
24 Colin Robinson (Mark Porsch), What We Do in the Shadows-Colin has always been a wonderfully jagged fit to the rest of the vampires, and I'll miss him tremendously. Who ever thought of a villain who's super powers were based off boringness. 
25 Heather (Edi Patterson), Resident Alien-Heather, the avian alien who visits Earth for a bureacratic check-up, has a resistant courtship and an epic whirlwind romance. It's thanks to Heather, we now know how Harry's gills are cleaned. We are eternally greatful.

Top Ten TV Villains of 2022

 As a staff writer at TV Fanatic, I contributed to the list of 2022’s Villains We Love To Hate — TV Fanatic. Check out that list!

My entries were:

Sunny Balwani (Naveen Andrews), Dropout, Hulu-In this docudrama of the Stanford-educated fraudster Elizabeth Holmes, Sunny is the idle millionaire who initially forms a friendship with Elizabeth as an 18-year-old studying abroad in China. As the relationship veers from age-inappropriate to worthy of many more red lights, Sunny starts to gradually take control of Elizabeth’s better instincts as a CEO. Docudramas are at their best when they frame true stories in novel ways. In this version, Elizabeth Holmes (who, yes, is still responsible for her crimes) as a proverbial Othello to Sunny’s Iago figure. Like all the best villains, there’s a dash of sympathy to the character at the start — he’s lonely; he’s sold his life invention so his best years are behind him — before his crimes start to catch up with him.

Adult Misty (Christina Ricci) Yellowjackets, Showtime-Full disclosure: The show’s inaugural season hasn’t revealed enough to determine whether Misty is the big villain in the present-day. But that’s ok: Misty has done enough bad deeds in the show’s B-plots to qualify her. And holy cow, is she pretty ingenious when it comes to evil doing. In a show as dark as Yellowjackets, Misty is a playful enough personality to balance out the resigned trauma of Shauna or the unsolved anger of Natalie. Without Misty’s presence, it would be a completely different show.

Frederick Gideon (Kevin Durand), Locke and Key, Netflix-I’m having trouble believing, I put this on my Honorable Mentions list last year, because there is a lot of ham and the actors play the level of danger pretty broadly. Kevin Durand, however, must not have gotten the memo when he signed up for the part of back-from-the-dead Revolutionary War general (from the other side) Frederick Gideon. This dude is appropriately dastardly for a man who already hated his American counterparts pre-resurrection; is currently possessed by demons; and has access to modern technology. His presence also comes with small doses of fish-out-of-water humor as he learns about cars and the rules of libraries for the first time.

Lupe (Regina Orozco), Acapulco, Apple Plus: If you’re working at the lavish Las Colinas resort and want a boss who will go easy on you, then you don’t want Lupe. And don’t even think about trying to date her niece! From her tyrannical hold on the lost and found to her low tolerance for fun on the job, Lupe isn’t easy for the laundromat workers under her domain, but she’s a riot for the viewers at home. But she’s full of surprises: She delivers a show-stopping number during the Christmas episode.

Some other entries I would add:
General Eleanor Wright (Linda Hamilton), Resident Alien, Syfy-General Wright is pretty easygoing with torture and various other forms of cruelty in order to meet her goals. On the other hand, she’s pretty consistent the way a diligent civil servant is. So you at least know what you’re getting with her.

Elizabeth Holmes (Amanda Seyfried), Dropout, Hulu-Sure Sunny steals a lot of scenes, but this is Elizabeth’s show. As I said above, a docudrama is about framing a story a certain way. In this eminently watchable version, Holmes is initially portrayed as someone caught in a white lie. “So what if our tech isn’t 100% yet? We’ll figure it out sooner or later,” she assumes. Is it a bad gamble or a malicious act? That’s for the audience to figure out.

Anna Delvy (Julie Garner), Inventing Anna, Netflix-Along with The Dropout, Inventing Anna was another docudrama about a woman with a complex relationship with the truth. But this show wasn’t so much about psychoanalyzing the latest headline-making criminal. Rather, Anna was just a batty meme (exhibit A: Chloe Finneman’s delicious SNL parody) and the story was more about her sly journalist counterpart (Anna Chlumsky) was going to get the story out of her. Though not a dynamic character, Delvy was a pretty entertaining villain. Also, a pretty zeitgeisty one in an era when certain politicians have turned personal narrative into something so plastic.

Quentin (Tom Hollander), White Lotus, HBO-He’s got panache. He’s got refinement. And it’s so nice that he’s just openly gay in contrast to the villains who encoded with effeminate tendencies during the more censored eras of Hollywood. But here’s why I really love him: He’s dumb as a rock as an assassin abettor, and that’s plenty entertaining. Think about it. If not for the fact that Greg entrusted him with such a fool-proof plan and Portia wasn’t so dense, his endless monologuing and extremely direct targeting of Portia would have caught most people off guard pretty instantly.

John Kreese (Martin Kove), Cobra Kai, Netflix-I mean, duh. This guy falls more toward the bottom of the list because he’s quite cartoonish in his motivations. I’m sure there’s a good drinking game to be had for how many times he launches into each of his awful monologues (i.e. “everything I did was to make you stronger blah blah blah”). But on the upside, he actually is pretty scary. Our capacity to care whether the good guys won was significantly lower in Season 6 when Kreese was in prison, so that’s a good indication. It didn’t help that one of the faux sophisticated Terry Silver’s methods of terror was trying to sow seeds of discord by (not making this up) inviting the LaRussos to a fund-raiser and then making Danny look stupid by being nicer to his wife than to him.

Satan (Leslie Bibb), God’s Favorite Idiot, Netflix-In this office comedy set at the potential dawn of the apocalypse, Leslie Bibb plays a Satan with a sexy Halloween costume kind of vibe. Comparable to Elizabeth Hurley in the 2000 Rom-Com flick The Bedazzled, Bibb is practically breaking the fourth wall to telegraph to the audience how much fun she’s having here.

Top Ten Character Arcs in TV in 2022

 

10 Best Character Arcs on TV in 2022

I contributed a number of entries to TV Fanatic where I am currently writing:

Tori Nichols (Peyton List) Cobra Kai, Netflix-Tori caught the audience’s attention the first day when she walks into Cobra Kai and challenges anyone in her way to a battle royale. In 2002, she became a capable anti-hero that provides a welcome counterpart to Samantha’s privilege. Although we expected to cheer an eventual Samantha win at the tournament this year, it felt unexpectedly right to see Tori triumph at the end of the day (Even if there was a technicality involved).

Gordon (Paul Reiser), Reboot (Hulu): The best thing about Gordon is that he isn’t that much different from where he was at the start of the season. He makes insensitive jokes and doesn’t appear to have changed his ideas of what’s funny or what isn’t. But, he has formed a genuine relationship with his daughter and a genuine appreciation of the people he works with. With that, every insensitive joke he makes has a little more good intent behind it.

Al (Adhir Kalyan), United States of Al (CBS)-South Asian characters on TV are typically either ambassadors of cool (the personas of Kumail Nanjiani or Utkarsh Ambudkar) or sheltered nerds. Adhir Kalyan first became known through the 2007 TV series Aliens in America as an exchange student who was doomed to high school nerdom the moment he entered the school in his traditional South Asian garment. Most of Kalyan’s roles have been like that, but Al is a wonderful exception as he has started to change and (more importantly) assimilate to the better opportunities of his culture. He even gets a make-out buddy (Jayma Mays) and squares things better with his non-traditional love interest (Azita Ghanizada).

If I were to round out the list to a clean top 10, I would say:
Craig (Craig Robinson), Killing It (Peacock:) Learning to stop chasing some bourgeoisie vision of success is empowering (If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t be writing these words). And learning to appreciate a good person (Claudia O’Doherty) for her faults and strengths takes a lot of growth as well.

Eli “Hawk” Moskowitz: (Jacob Bertrand), Cobra Kai (Netflix): It’s not just Tori that was a tournament winner that no one predicted. It’s also an ending we didn’t know we wanted until it happened.

Emma (Cristin Milioti), The Resort (Peacock): A determinator of a character, nothing will stop Emma from finding out what happened to these two random strangers 15 years ago. But she learns about herself and her marriage in the process. Sort of like that hackneyed “the treasure was friendship all along” trope, but tonally the show managed to work out Emma’s arc.

John Hunchman (John Hodgeman), Dicktown (FX): The stunted Encyclopedia Brown John Hunchman finally earns an iota of self-respect when he solves a 20-year-old high school case. The second season of Dicktown was more serialized than the first and it worked y to John’s favor.

D’Arcy Bloom (Alice Wetterlund), Resident Alien (SyFy): The idea of watching a Winter Olympian try to retain her former glory is always an interesting arc. It’s also a great anti-ship: Her relationship with Elliott didn’t work because she’s not there yet, but her efforts towards intimacy count for their own sake. It’s also unclear if a Season 1 version of D’Arcy would have apologized to Kate.

Portia (Haley Lu Richardson), The White Lotus (HBO): A lot of fellow fans of this show saw Portia as suffering from some sort of character defect for rejecting the vanilla Albie in favor of the bad boy. But, come on, she needed to go over to the dark side a little before valuing him properly. And what a wild episode it was: Surely more than the ennui-laden zoomer wished for when she wanted to feel alive.

George Shultz (Sam Waterson), Dropout (Hulu): Having unfortunately lived in the US during the last six years, it’s easy to see how evil is perpetuated by powerful people not wanting to admit they’re wrong. I’m not familiar enough with the real-life story of Elizabeth Holmes to know what George Shultz actually did but the idea of him is nice and we need to know more. And he’s pretty damn effective in Sam Waterson’s hands

If I Picked the Emmys 2022

Best Limited Series

Winnter: White Lotus*
Nominees:

Dropout*

The Shrink Next Door

Winning Time

MAID

American Crime Story: Impeachment

Actor: Clive Owen, ACS

Nominees:

Will Ferrell, The Shrink Next Door

Quincy Isiah, Winning Time

Paul Rudd, Shrink Next Door

Mike Meyers, Penuverate

Best Actress: Margaret Qualley, Maid*

Nominees:
Beanie Feldstein, ACS

Sarah Paulson, ACS*

Amanda Seyfried, Dropout*

Alexandra Daddario, White Lotus* (Different Category)

Julie Garner, Inventing Anna*

 

Supporting Actor:  Naveen Andrews, Dropout

Jason Segel, Winning Time

Dan Bakkehdal, ACS

Murray Bartlett, White Lotus*

Adrian Brody, Winning Time

Fred Hechinger, White Lotus

Tracey Letts, Winning Time

 

Supporting Actress: Kathryn Hahn, The Shrink Next Door

Nominees: Kaitlyn Dever, The Premise

Annika Noni Rose, Maid

Annaleigh Ashford, ACS

Jenniifer Coolidge, The White Lotus*

Sidney Sweeney, The White Lotus*

Laurie Metcalf, Dropout

 

 
Best Episode: Momento Mori, Winning Time

Nominees: Pilot, Dropout

Toxic Fan, Premise

The President Kissed Me, ACS

Pentagon City Mall Interrogation, ACS

String Cheese, MAID

Bear Hunt, MAID

 

Best Writing: White Lotus

Nominees:  American Crime Story

Winning Time

 

Best Animated Show

Winnter: Central Park

Nominees: Adventure Beast

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Dicktown

Inside Job

Solar Opposites

COMEDY

 

Best Show: Resident Alien

Nominees: 

The Afterparty

What We Do in the Shadows*

Killing It

Ghosts

We Are Lady Parts

Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

 

 

Best Actor: Alan Tyduk, Resident Alien
Nicholas Hoult, The Great*

Craig Robinson, Killing It

Matt Berry, What We Do in the Shadows

Keegan Michael-Key, Schmigadoon

Ben Falcone, God’s Favorite Idiot

Glenn Howerton, AP Bio

 

Actress: Claudia O’Doherty, Killing It

Nominees:

Rachel Brosnaham, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Tiffany Haddish, The Afterparty

Cecily Strong, Schmigadoon

Aya Cash, Welcome to Flatch

Elle Fanning, The Great*

Sosie Bacon, As We See It

 

 

 

Supporting Actor: Gwilym Lee, The Great

Mark Prosch, What We Do in the Shadows

Michael Zengen, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Brandon Scott Jones, Ghosts

Tony Shalhoub, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Alan Cumming, Schmigadoon

Sacha Dawson, The Great

 

 

Supporting Actress:  Marin Hinkle, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Alice Wetterkund, Resident Alien

Belinda Bumilow, The Great

Dana Silver, Space Force

Phoebe Wright, The Great

Alex Borstein, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Tifany Haddish, The Afterparty

Guest Actor:  Colm Meany, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Nominees: Matt Walsh, Ghosts

Enrico Colantoni, Ghosts

Owen Wilson, SNL

PJ Byrne, Never Have I Ever

Common, Never Have I Ever

Luke Kirby, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

 

 

 

Guest Actress:  D’Arcy Carden, Killing It
 

Nominees: Kristen Schaal, What We Do in the Shadows

Alex Borstein, Resident Alien

Natasha Lyonne, SNL

Jane Lynch, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Danica McKeller, Home Economics

Selena Gomes, SNL

 

 

Writing: What We Do in the Shadows

Nominees:

Schmigadoon

AP Bio

The Great

Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Welcome to Flatch

 

Drama

 

 

Winner: Yellow Jackets*

Nominees: The Chair

Orville

The Resort

Severance*

Flight Attendant

Star Trek: Picard

 

Actor: Adam Scott, Severance*

Nominees: Jay Duplass, The Chair

Billy Zabka, Cobra Kai

Patrick Stewart, Star Trek: Picard

Actress: Melanie Lynskey, Yellowjackets*

Britt Lower, Severance

Sandra Oh, The Chair

Annie Murphy, Kevin Can Go F**k Himself

Elizabeth Moss, Shining Faces

Kaley Cuoco, The Flight Attendant

 

 

Supporting Actor: Luis Gerardo Mendez, The Resort

Bob Balaban, The Chair

Skyler Gismodo, The Resort

Kevin Bigley, Upload

Daniel Dae Kim, Kevin Can Go F*** Himself

John Turturro, Severance*

Supporting Actress: Christina Ricci, Yellow Jackets*

Allegra Edwards, Upload

Holland Taylor, The Chair

Juliette Lewis, YellowJackets

Peyton List, Cobra Kai

Rosie Perez, The Flight Attendant

Allison Pill, Star Trek: Picard

 

Guest Actor:

Paolo Costanzo, Upload

Michael  Chernus, Severance

PJ Byrne, Cobra Kai

Guest Actress:
Leighton Meister, The Orville

Mackenzie Carroll, Upload

Whoopi Goldberg, Star Trek: Picard

 

 

Episode:  The Chair, The Chair
Dinner Party, Upload

Pilot, Yellowjacket

F Sharp, Yellowjackets

Twice in a Lifetime Graves-Orville

From Unknown Graves-Orville

Best TV of 2020: 10 Honorable Mentions

Cobra Kai (YouTube Red/Netflix)-The catharsis of landing a devastating flying kick at your bully is at the core of the Cobra Kai experience. The bully-bullied relationship took on added complexity in the show’s second season as it seemed like everyone had an axe to grind based on their socio-economic status or lack of a father figure or the classic “you kissed my boyfriend, prepare to die” scenario. Yes, it was a soapish season but it was one that built the world and developed a lot of solid supporting characters

.

Miracle Workers: The Dark Ages (TBS)-This would likely be my tenth pick and I was prepared to write it off, but upon rewatch, however, this show is too darn clever. Show runner Simon Rich wrote the show “Man Seeking Woman” and the short story “What in God’s Name”, upon which the first season is based on, and he is a comic genius. His story of extremely unlikely upward mobility in an era where doing anything other than dying of the plague is virtually impossible.

Middleditch and Schwartz (Netflix)-A live special of Thomas Middleditch ("Silicon Valley") and Ben Schwartz ("Sonic the Hedgehog") are geniuses at this art form. They effortlessly switch characters; incorporate comic tics very early on so you're laughing sooner than later; and think several steps ahead to where the story should go. It's not too far-fetched to think that they could write a sitcom pilot on the spot. Jesse David Fox wrote an excellent article about how this could resurrect the often maligned form of improv, but the problem is that most improv shows you see don't feature people with these abilities. The only problem is that Middleditch and Schwartz only have three episodes. 

Never Have I Ever (Netflix)-Co-created by Mindy Kaling, this teen comedy centers on an American-Indian teenager and gleefully subverts the stereotype that a South Asian teenager is obedient and primarily focused on academics. Sure, Dev is smart but she uses her good grades to shove it in her frenemy’s face and begins her sophomore year making a beeline straight for Boyfriend City (or at least sloppily attempting to land there). “Never Have I Ever” dramatizes the dichotomy between immigrant norms and assimilation in a very funny package and won me over quite a bit by zigging where I expected it to zag. The first season closed on one hell of a rewarding tear-jerker.

Nora from Queens (Comedy Central)-Awkwafina broke out in “Crazy Rich Asians” and has had a number of notable roles on screen in an astonishingly short time but nothing is as pure a form of her comic gifts as this show. Awkwafina is a developmentally stunted late twenty-something with minimal job credentials who lives at home and completely owns her mediocrity in all its glory.

Solar Opposites (Hulu)-The sophomore effort behind the team that bought us “Rick and Morty” (Mike McMahon and Justin Roliand) brings us a similar playground of extreme high-tech humor without the nihilism or needlessly complex mythology that the former has. The concept of the show—aliens have to present some semblance of normalcy--has been done many times ranging from “Mork and Mindy” to “Third Rock from the sun”, but the jokes fly at a faster pace than even by 21^st century standards. The show casually throws out a very wide range of concepts

Space Force (Netflix)-I get the backlash about how lazy it is to rip a show premise from the most bizarre thing in the news. At the same time, both TV insiders and critics know the premise of a TV show is often what gets the show greenlit and is a very incomplete measure of a show’s worth. Yes, the show has plot holes the size of swiss cheese but the solid writing of sitcom pros is on display. Like “The Office” (of which Greg Daniels, Brent Forrester and Paul Lieberstein are also writers here), the characters all have strong comic foundations and there are some very intriguing character pairings. Humorwise, the show splits the balance between poignant satire and throw-away absurdity.

Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix)-Call it the “13 Reasons Why” effect. Netflix has developed a wide ilk of teenage shows and this one hits the mark really well. Bounty Hunters hones in on the hypocrisies and occasionally progressive homely vibes in the culture of Christian boarding schools. Pre-marital sex is the opposite of brag-worthy here and group prayer is in. Our heroes are twins Sterling and Blair and they’re juggling a little bit of everything:  juicy sex triangles, a secret side gig as bounty hunters (think Nancy Drew, but a bit more hard-core), family troubles, and a refreshingly honest look at navigating religious ethics.

Unorthodox (Netflix)-As someone who has spent time on the fringes of an Orthodox community in Richmond, Virginia, I have seen modern Orthodox Judaism up close, and have often heard horror stories about some communities in the Northeast and this is what this show is about: The entrapment that countless individuals face growing up in such a religious state of insularity where they’re kept from even knowing there’s any other way of life. The magnitude of this knowledge differential is ripe for drama and this miniseries goes a long way to telling that story from a well-researched perspective. 

We Are the Champions (Netflix)-As someone who’s been fascinated with some of the world’s most bizarre sports (Bog snorkeling, chess boxing, canal jumping are a few of my favorites), this is my bread and butter. At its height, Rainn Wilson’s narration and Nature-Channel-style storytelling captures the glorious spectacle of something I was already enthusiastic like cheese rolling. Things like hair styling or dog dancing weren’t things I ever felt I’d be caught up in, but the format of the show with its the gradual balancing of storylines and exposition made pretty much any absurd competition watchable. 

TV has had an amazing year which has been a blessing during the quarantine. There are a number of shows that would have made honorable mention status in most other years: Animaniacs (Hulu), Archer (FX), Five Apartments (Peacock), Medical Police (Netflix), Studio C (BYU TV), Twilight Zone (CBS All Access), White Lines (Netflix)

Stay tuned for the top 10...