Top 12 Shows of 2020

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1. The Great (Hulu) -Fans of the 2018 film “The Favourite” will appreciate the way writer Tony McNamara portrays idle pleasures and high drama as two sides of the same coin—ultimately a game that the nobility must play to curry favor with those more powerful than them. As in “The Favourite” the hierarchy leads upward to a monarch (Nicholas Hoult) with absolute power. That’s where the show presents a stark contrast between the villain and heroine (Elle Fanning) Catherine the Great who history tells us will come to modernize Russia with her rule. The question is when and finding the answer has been quite a ride so far. 

2. Dead to Me (Netflix)-Newly widowed Jen Hardy (Christina Applegate) attends a grief group where she makes the acquaintance of a strangely eager Judy (Linda Cardinelli). Judy chips away at Jen’s veneer until she forms a makeshift friendship. Or at least that’s how it seems. Within the first few episodes of the inaugural season of “Dead To Me”, it’s revealed that Judy isn’t a fellow griever but someone involved in the death of Judy’s husband and that her guilt is driving her to make it up in some karmic fashion. It’s a premise Hitchcock or Fincher would have killed for, playing out in a slow burning series. The second season expands the scale of twists--the introduction of an identical twin to the deceased is deliciously soapish (a cheap excuse to keep James Marsden employed)--but more importantly, it heightens the emotional stakes.  

 

3. Brockmire (IFC) -A lot of TV in the #metoo era is about men getting consumed by dark pasts and no one seemed more hopeless than the superhumanly aloof baseball broadcaster Jim Brockmire in the first season, but his redemptive arc that gelled in the final season makes such a light out of the tunnel not only seem possible but easy-peasy. That’s really an “It’s a Wonderful Life” scale miracle worth celebrating. In the final season, the show leapt over a decade into the future in the midst of a technocratic dystopia. Our loose-lipped hero is charged not just with personal rehabilitation but saving baseball as we know it. Pretty ambitious for a show that, remember, originated out of a “Funny or Die” sketch.

 

4. Ramy (Hulu)- The titular Ramy (Ramy Yousef) is a Muslim-American who walks the walk, but with his backwards cap and scruffy beard, he might be too far out of place on a season of Jersey Shore. Or at least, that’s the Ramy at the start of season 1. In the show’s second season, Ramy seeks a spiritual mentor (Mahershala Ali) in Sheik Malik and the show’s central relationship maintains an air of enigma. Malik projects nothing but warmth but never gives Ramy easy answers. Whereas most shows about single guys are about wanting to get laid, this is a show about a guy who wants to veer away from sexual temptation to attain spiritual enlightenment. How refreshing is that? The show also has a penchant for experimentation along the lines of “Louie” or “Master of None” (though way better) as it shifts the spotlight around.

5. What We Do in the Shadows (FX) - One of my serendipitous discoveries last year, this adaptation of New Zealand legends Jermaine Clement and Taiki Wahiti shows no signs of losing its edge. With Laszlo assuming the alternate persona of Jackie Daytona just to escape a fight, Colin Robinson becoming omnipotent through an office promotion, and Nadja gaslighting an octogenarian just to get back a necklace, this is one of the most consistently brilliantly plotted out TV shows on a per episode basis. As a quartet of vampires who have lived hundreds of years longer than the average human, they’ve largely been set in their ways like your creaky grandmother who can’t understand e-mail. Which is why the contrasts with Colin Robinson holding an office job work so well on a humor level or why Guillermo’s character development works so well in pathos.

6. The Boys (Amazon) –“The Boys” reached a new level of gripping as the evil guys became eviler, the good guys got their shit together, and everyone in the middle was forced to make a choice. Not only is this show not some hyper-merchandised part of the MCU, it’s technically not a super hero show. In this universe, super heroes are really a façade controlled by an evil company (although an evil façade is probably an accurate description of Marvel Studios, I’m guessing) in which children buy and inject a chemical. The show is allegorical to all a plethora of wrongs stemming from celebrity culture. In the second season, however, the show took on a darker tone which came with its own set of ups and downs but it was never easy to peel your eyes away. “The Boys” also deserves credit in its second season for pushing Hughie to the side and becoming a true ensemble show. 

 

7. Upload (Amazon)-Greg Daniels’ meditation on a class-based afterlife in which only those who pay can get their minds transferred to a lakeside resort after their body gives up on them, is sure to be classified as a comedy based on the pedigree of the creator (Daniels is most famous for “The Office”). But this is inaccurate. I rarely laughed and there’s nothing wrong with that. “Upload” is a thoughtful sci-fi piece that poses harder questions in a light-hearted way about our ideal reality and class. The show also has parallel mystery and romance story lines that pace along well under the main arc.

8. The Circle (Netflix)-Before the virus caused such massive shifts to our world, the American version of this show was already among the buzziest on television. The central gimmick-- isolated strangers tasked with growing bonds over social media and sussing out each other’s authenticity — surreptitiously became one of the most prescient mirrors of our era is we were forced to quarantine in pretty much the same way. But while the contestants were quarantined, that didn’t get them down. They danced for no one but themselves (in one of the most bizarre and best sequences of the show), kept themselves happy and busy, made incredible friendships, and occasionally fell for one another. Through four different countries, the show endured as a fascinating social experiment, because it reflected how online spaces allow us the freedom to present ourselves in a society with challenges therein. 

9. AP Bio (Peacock)-From outré comedy writer Mike Patrick O’Brien (responsible for some of SNL’s weirder sketches of the decade), “A.P. Bio” was miraculously rescued from cancellation-land in its third season by NBC’s spin-off paywall network. The show’s anti-hero, Jack Griffin, started out as a take on the bad teacher trope, ratcheted up to absurdium: He wasn’t just apathetic about not teaching biology, he actively avoided it to the point of logistical inefficiency. After a few episodes the show found a strange groove and morphed into an anti-sitcom sitcom in which Jack does indeed bond with his students (partially through guilt) while retaining his bitter apathetic ways. The ending of the second season promised an escalation as Helen DeMarco (Paula Pell) was enrolled in Jack’s class which meant an end to his charade. Unfortunately, the show reneged on this direction in the first episode which meant more predictable shenanigans. Fortunately, the show’s shenanigans are still sublime with one of the best ensembles on TV.

10. Fargo (FX)-Told in exquisite visual detail, this crime saga of two competing factions -- the Italians and African-American mob families in the 1950s— is one of the best educations for how and why mobs are formed that this reviewer has seen (and, mind you, this is a pretty saturated genre). “Fargo” postulates that mobs are disenfranchised groups shut out of the mainstream economy who must combine a hierarchy with muscle to claim their space among rival disenfranchised herds. The more you know, kids! In its fourth season, the series is an anthology that’s spiritually tied to the Coens 1996 film and nothing is more Coenesque than rich, eccentric characters. On both sides of the Fatta/Cannon feud, there was an ample amount of iconic larger-than-life figures (congrats Chris Rock on finding a role) and eccentric scatterbrains to make Joel and Ethan would be proud. 

11. Star Trek: Lower Decks (CBS All-Access)-Until this year, Star Trek had aired a combined 732 episodes and (as far as I know) only two have ever focused exclusively on the lower ranks of the ship. While TNG’s “Lower Decks” and Voyager’s “The Good Shephard” were a start, there are still so many holes in Star Trek's supposed post-capitalist society:  Wouldn’t there be any slackers or rebels? Fortunately, Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) has traits of both. This is a show that is deeply in tune with the subject that it’s parodying. If you’ve ever wanted the “Next Generation” characters to loosen up beyond a boring jazz trombone open mic or a poker game that no one mysteriously goes all in on (both tropes that “Lower Decks” lampshades with glee), this is the show for you.  

12. Bless the Harts (Fox)- The endearing portrait of small-town Carolina life is rarely condescending and when it is, it comes from the perspective of a native daughter (“Up All Night” show runner Emily Spivey) poking fun at her own friends. Each of the four main characters is extremely endearing and there’s been a lot of world building towards some of the lesser characters (including the high-pitched Randy and the cheery news lady whose mouth is glued into a smile ala the Jack Nicholson Batman film). The show centers around a lower class North Carolina family and a waitress with modest aspirations to rise above her station; her sly mother (whose primary motivations in life are besting her rival Crystal Lynn, feeling young enough that she can flirt with construction workers, and pulling off semi-fraudulent schemes), her boyfriend (a trucker persona who’s openly a teddy bear underneath), and her dead-panning daughter.

Ten Runners-Up (very close call):

Cobra Kai (YouTube/Netflix), Middleditch and Schwartz (Netflix), Miracle Workers: Dark Ages (TBS), Never Have I Ever (Netflix), Nora from Queens (Comedy Central), Solar Opposites (Hulu), Space Force (Netflix), Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix), Unorthodox (Netflix), We Are the Champions (Netflix)

 

Everything else I watched:

American Dad (TBS)*, Archer (FX), Animaniacs (Hulu), Black Monday (Showtime), BoJack Horseman (Netflix), Broke (CBS), Carnival Row (Amazon), Comedy IQ (BYU TV), Connected (Netflix)*. Crossing Swords (Hulu), Everything’s Gonna be OK (Freeform), Explained (Netflix), Five Apartments (Peacock), Fresh off the Boat (ABC), Duncanville (Fox)*, Good Girls (NBC), Good Place (NBC), Joe Pera Talks to You (Adult Swim), Holey Moley (ABC), Hollywood (Netflix), Hoops (Netflix), Intelligence (Peacock), Kidding (Showtime), Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Loafy (Comedy Central), Medical Police (Netflix), New Pope (HBO)*, Ozark (Netflix)*, Pen15 (Hulu), Politician (Netflix), Queen’s Gambit (Netflix), Quiz (AMC) , Saved by the Bell (Peacock), Sex Education (Netflix), Schooled (ABC), Schitt’s Creek (Pop TV), Simpsons (Fox)*, Solar Opposites (Hulu), Some Good News (Youtube), Space Force (Netflix), Stumptown (ABC), Studio C (BYU TV), Tales from the Loop (Amazon), A Teacher (FX), Tiger King* (Netflix), Transplant (NBC), Twilight Zone (CBS All Access), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix), Umbrella Academy (Netflix), Unorthodox (Netfflix), Upload (Amazon), Utopia (Amazon), Waco (Netflix), Where’s Waldo (Peacock), White Lines (Netflix), Zoey’s Infinite Playlist (NBC)

*=Very limited capacity

25 Best Characters on TV in 2020

1. Linda Cardinelli as Judy Hale, Dead to Me-A wet ball of emotion caught in the center of an accidental murder in this dark comedy, Judy is magnetic in her endless positivity, empathy, and hope. She deservedly wins over the cynic Jen Harding and her family and when the two break down crying, it’s worth all the feels. The character is also cleverly dressed in bright colors and cute outfits to radiate her persona and even in times of distress, she remains resolved to make lemonade out of lemons.

2. Mahershala Ali as Sheikh Malik, Ramy- Ali is the first Muslim to win an Academy Award in acting and he reportedly jumped at the chance to be in the most mainstream piece of pop culture portraying American Muslims to date. His character oozes wisdom and authority and there’s a lot to be said about the way Ali pauses in conversations to show that he doesn’t take even basic human interaction lightly.

3. Awkwafina as Nora, Awkwafina is Nora from Queens-Awkwafina broke out in Crazy Rich Asians and has had a number of notable roles on screen in an astonishingly short time but if you want to see her unleashed in her full comic glory, you have to watch Nora from Queens. The character is a developmentally stunted late twenty-something with minimal job credentials who lives at home and completely owns her mediocrity in all its glory. Awkwafina works the character’s baseless positivity through physical comedy, voice inflections, and facial tics and it’s a master class.

4. Jack Quaid as Hughie, The Boys-The closest equivalent modern television has to a Hitchcockian hero a la North by Northwest or The 39 Steps. Jack is constantly over his head and never asked to be on the wrong end of a global conspiracy but he has gradually grown into the role and is a great one to root for.

5. Belinda Bromilow as Auntie Elizabeth, The Great-Cautious enablers of autocrats might not necessarily be in vogue right now, but the beauty of a period piece is it enables us to look at characters from a distance. Rather than looking at Elizabeth as a proverbial Ivanka to an 18th century Donald Trump, we can simply take her as an interesting character on her own merits and that she is. She’s firmly old money but is quite sharp for a woman in a pre-feminist era and is never out of the loop of court intrigue.

6. Chris Rock as Loy Cannon, Fargo-Rock has been ill-served by a filmography that couldn’t successfully harness his comic gifts or speech cadences. If Chris Rock were to ever fit into a dramatic role, this would be it. It channels his observational prowess, punctuated line delivery and adds a hint of world weariness.

7. Hank Azaria as Jim Brockmire, Brockmire-Alcoholic characters are a dime a dozen but Brockmire is a truly unique brand of mess. Predicated on a Funny-or-Die sketch in which a baseball broadcaster can’t stop tourets-ing about his personal demons on air, Brockmire has been a hilarious character for four seasons whether he’s winning or losing at life. The show’s final season saw the character closing out his own life out on a win. Considering how impossible this seemed from the outset, it was nothing short of inspiring.

8. Jo Firestone as Sarah, Joe Pera Talks to You-In this sweet subplot of two oddballs connecting romantically, Sarah has some lovely quirks. She compliments Joe nicely through her social awkwardness as she is afraid of crowds and has moments of frustration that hint at something deeper. She’s never not animated whereas he is more reserved. The biggest bombshell about Sarah, however, is that she casually believes in an imminent apocalypse like it ain’t no thing. Bring on the brimstone.

9. Ramy Yousef as Ramy, Ramy-How refreshing is it that a male TV show protagonist isn’t about trying to get laid but trying to avoid the perils of sexual temptation? Whatever your thoughts are about religion or Ramy’s particular religion, watching Ramy struggle on his journey is rarely devoid of insight.

10. Wynn Everett as Ellen Johnson, Teenage Bounty Hunters-The guidance counselor every high schooler wish they had. She’s the kind of side character that hints at a richer back story you’d want to see more episodes of.

11. Jessie Buckley as Oraetta Maylower, Fargo-Every season of Fargo has an off-beat character who treats murder with the same gravity as watering their hydrangeas and that’s Oraetta Mayflower in a nutshell. Only this time, it’s baking pies.

12. Bette Middler as Haddasah Gold, The Politician-Hadassah manages to remain endearing (to the audience, at least) while remaining brash, unfiltered, and ruthless.

13. Laura Haddock as Zoe, White Lines-The psychotropic paradise-set noir had a lead protagonist that was pushy, and sometimes foolish but never devoid of passion or charisma.

14. Jillian Bell voicing Violet Heart, Bless the Hearts-The deadpan goth daughter (think a more thoughtful version of Aubrey Plaza navigating high school) stepped into the spotlight quite a bit this season with episodes showing her having a wide range of emotions and puncturing a couple of holes through her veneer.

15. Matthew Berry as Jackie Daytona (AKA Laszlo Cravenworth), What We Do in the Shadows-The alter ego created by Laszlo in order to flee a duel is a high school volleyball coach and bartender who can hide his true form with a simple tooth pick. Few guises could be more ridiculous and few random character traits put together could be as surreptitiously funny.

16. Kayla Cromer as Mathilda, Everything’s Gonna Be Ok-For the show’s tonally jarring mixture of serious and frivolous, it at least gets one thing right: The autistic character of Mathilda, who is far more vibrant than the typical mold of the disabled character we ordinarily get. Like any ambitious person, Mathilda wants to be more than what her condition defined her as: Sexual, popular, independent.

17. Dawnn Lewis voicing Becket Mariner, Star Trek: Lower Decks-The Star Trek canon would forever be incomplete if a character like Mariner didn’t eventually surface. It wouldn’t make sense that in this massive space fleet, a few iconoclasts or slackers wouldn’t pop up among the lower ranks. Luckily, Mariner is an apt mixture of both.

18. Ben Whishaw as Rabbi Milligan, Fargo-For those who found the season’s opening montage confusing (though undeniably visually fantastic), Milligan was the son of an Irish mob boss who was forced as a pawn between the Irish and Jewish mobs to be raised by a Rabbi’s family. As a kid, he abetted his father in a slaughter of Kansas City’s Jewish mafia, then turned on his Irish family years later to secure a top lieutenantship in the incoming Italian mob. In the present, the Rabbi isn’t to be trusted but his instincts aren’t violent or malicious. He simply laments the imperfect hand of cards he’s been dealt with and tries to make do.

19. Aya Cash as Stormfront (Kiara Risinger), The Boys-Every good superhero series needs a villain and while an argument can be made for putting a moratorium on the Nazis, I’m willing to excuse it with Stormfront for the shock value of the reveal alone. Raise your hand if you saw her origin story coming.

20. Rob Riggle as himself, Holey Moley-This wacky sports competition that would be at home on the fictional TV station, “The Ocho”, as presented by the movie Dodgeball. Helping keep the surreal vibe alive of treating mini-golf as if it’s the world’s most intense sport is comedy vet Rob Riggle who commits fully to the bit while riffing so hard that his broadcasting partner, Joe Tessatore, can barely keep from breaking most of the time.

21. Natasa Demetriu as Nadja, What We Do in the Shadows-Like her fellow vampires, Nadja has about as much empathy to humans as we mortals have towards farm hens that will eventually end up in a McDonald’s Happy Meal. Occasionally, she’ll humor them or entertain a centuries-long romantic fling, but don’t mess with her jewelery. With Demetriu’s vocal inflections, she really sells the “oh, what an adorable human” angle.

22. Justin Kirk as Peter, Kidding-A very rich and nuanced portrayal of a step dad awkwardly trying to fit into a new family. A considerate guy, Peter treads the line in a rough relationship of exes. He tries to be both a supportive husband to a woman who wants space from her ex, and a genuine pillar of support to the severely scarred ex himself. And don’t forget his killer musical number.

23. Geraldine Viswanathan as Alexandra Shitshoveler, Miracle Workers-Imagine being the only sane man (or woman) in the Dark Ages of Europe capable of making the observation, “hey, maybe we’re not living in a good era of history.” Alexandra has ambitions in a time when the concept of ambition doesn’t exist and that’s a pretty solid character to base an ambitious comedy around.

24. Kate Mara as Claire Wilson in A Teacher-Judging by the reviews and internet comments, not everyone was able to move past Claire’s sins to appreciate the complexity of the story being told about her situation. That’s a shame because if you make that leap of empathy, there’s an interesting portrait about the why and the how of someone who falls into a situation which would brand her with quite the scarlet letter.

25. Jennifer Esposito as Brenda, Awkwafina is Nora From Queens-For a socially awkward single dad who’s best dating days are behind him, Brenda is the best you can hope for. She ricochets your lame dad jokes with some old spinster humor and accommodates your mid-life paralysis to see the prince within. Sweet, artsy, and eccentric, Brenda made a big impression with a small amount of screen time.

Honorable Mentions:

Amanda Peete as Jules James, Brockmire; Bowen Yang as Bao, the Chinese Trade Minister, SNL; Catherine Keener as Diedre Pickles, Kidding; Daniel Radcliffe as Prince Frederick, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt; Elizabeth Berkley, Saved by the Bell; Hamza Haq as Bashir Hamed, Transplant; Heidi Gardner as Bailey Gismert, SNL; Jessica Rothe as Samantha, Utopia; Jessica St. Clair as Kelly, Space Force; Jessica Walters voicing Mallory Archer, Archer; Jimmy O Yang as Dr. Chan Keifang, Space Force; Julie Garner as Ruth Langamore in Ozark; Kate Mara as Claire Wilson in A Teacher; Lisa Kudrow as Hypathia, The Good Place; Maddie Phillips as Sterling Weasley, Teenage Bounty Counters; Mary Mack voicing Jesse, Solar Opposites; Mary Mouser as Sam LaRusso, Cobra Kai; Maya Rudolph voicing Betty Hart, Bless the Harts; Nicole Law as May, Tales from the Loop; Nuno Lopez as Boxer, White Lines; Patton Oswalt as Principal Durbin, AP Bio; Peyton List as Tori, Cobra Kai; Poorna Jagannathan as Nalini Vishwakumar, Never Have I Ever