If you’re wondering how long the year we’ve just experienced was, use the 77th Annual Golden Globes as a yardstick. The ceremony, hosted by Ricky Gervais, aired back in the first week of January. That’s right – Gervais’ controversial monologue, Bong Joon-Ho lecturing us about subtitles, Ramy Youssef explaining that people don’t know who he is – that all happened this year.
2020 has dragged on forever, to the point when we can practically separate the year into different epochs. Back in early April, I caught the virus (at least I think it was the virus; it was a time when getting tested was impossible and people still dressed like they were going to work) and spent two weeks holed up in my room, recovering and recuperating, with only some comic books and a few streaming services to keep me sane. It was at this time when Tiger King was surging in popularity, and I decided to check it out join in the conversation. Tiger King was strange, outlandish, and too weird to be anything but true – but there was something comforting about the way so much of America united around this oddball docuseries. We were apart, but we weren’t alone.
The list you are about to see does not include Tiger King. (Joe Exotic purists and Carole Baskin truthers look away.) But it does include a variety of other shows that produced a similar experience, albeit at a much smaller scale. These were the shows that kept us entertained, kept us invested, and kept me from succumbing to the insanity of the world outside my little room.
In short, these were the best TV shows of 2020.
10. Mythic Quest
One of the best workplace comedies to debut in years, Mythic Quest bundled its cynical humor with unexpected levels of emotional introspection. Cocreator-star Rob McElhenney (sanding off a few but not many of those Always Sunny edges) played the ego-driven creator of a popular MMORPG, surrounded by plenty of employees whose own foibles led to numerous clashes with their boss and each other. Exploring topics like gaming culture and toxic masculinity with indelible flair, Mythic Quest was adept at blending smart humor with social commentary – as in “Dinner Party,” which tackled the tenets and limitations of free speech – but it could also produce straightforward and effective drama, as in the standalone “A Dark Quiet Death.” And months after the first season concluded, the cast remotely reunited to deliver the single best episode of television produced during our nationwide quarantine.
9. Harley Quinn
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) was not the box-office smash DC was hoping for, in part because the lengthy, cumbersome title threw off casual moviegoers. (That title has since been mercifully shortened for DVD and streaming release.) But the Joker’s gleefully psychotic ex-girlfriend found greater fame and fun in her own self-titled show. Much like the film, Harley Quinn is unapologetic in its violence and language, but beneath its R-rated surface are empowering messages of independence and self-reliance. The show’s rapid-fire dialogue is laced with clever one-liners, delivered with gusto by an excellent voice cast. And the writers’ endless filleting of the DC universe, comedically skewering everyone from Batman to Gordon to Darkseid, serves as both a clever satire and affectionate tribute of the source material.
8. The Boys
(Last comic book adaptation on the list, I promise.) Live-action superhero shows don’t always hit the mark – the CW’s Arrowverse programs eventually blended together in tone and formula, while Marvel’s Netflix series suffered from the midseason bloat that has come to define an unfortunate number of streaming dramas. The Boys is refreshing in the ways it avoids the usual superhero trappings – at only eight hours per season, the stories move at a good clip, juggling over a dozen interesting and complicated characters in each episode. The second season grew a bit more serious than the first, thanks to the arrival of Aya Cash’s villainous Stormfront, but the stories retained their clever, satirical feel, deconstructing the various superhero tropes without feeling forced or manufactured. The writers continually upped the ante, throwing one shocking turn atop another, and tied it all together brilliantly in the finale. Superhero blockbusters may have been absent for much of 2020, but The Boys provided ample compensation.
7. Devs
Following Ex Machina and Annihilation, Alex Garland took a break from confounding audiences at the cinema and decided to confound them on their televisions instead. Enter Devs, a sometimes uneven but highly ambitious miniseries that tackled deep questions about personal freedom and the limits of reality. Gorgeously shot and eerily scored, Devs often emphasized atmosphere over character, but that almost seemed by design – what is the meaning of character development in a world where everything is predetermined? At times compulsively watchable, Devs is a high-concept show that unfolds into ever-more intriguing directions. By no means perfect, but one of 2020’s more unique viewing experiences.
6. Ted Lasso
Who would have guessed that an NBC Sports mascot from 2013 would become the star of a feel-good tonic in 2020? Ted Lasso succeeds for many reasons, but none more potent than its lovable goof of a title character. As played by Jason Sudeikis, Ted is a charming, endlessly optimistic football coach who never fails to see the good in his players, the team owner, or the angry fans who dismiss him as an American wanker. And as the season progresses, his positivity spreads, yielding many likable and sympathetic faces among the supporting cast. The show breathes new life into old sports movie clichés, creating an ensemble of characters worth rooting for even as it takes some forays into the obvious. A warm-hearted comedy with a lovable cast, Ted Lasso was delightful comfort food in a year when many of us needed it.
5. What We Do in the Shadows
If a funnier moment aired on television this year than Laszlo Cravensworth doffing his Jackie Daytona disguise to the shock of his long-lost nemesis (Mark Hamill), I haven’t watched it. But What We Do in the Shadows is peppered with just such moments – comedic setups and payoffs that seems too dumb to work on paper, but which translate to uproarious laughs onscreen. The writers and actors fully commit to the absurdity, taking the silliness to new heights in the second season, and to name all the individual moments of hilarity would require a detailed list on its own. No supernatural element is too mythic to be translated into a modern-day New York sitcom scenario; no one-liner is too dumb to be made hilarious by Kayvan Novak’s deliciously hammy delivery. A perfect blend of the immortal and the immature, WWDITS earns every ludicrous laugh.
4. I May Destroy You
Modern culture is filled with innumerable issues and problems worth discussing, but said “discussion” usually takes the form of one-dimensional memes and hashtags. I May Destroy You is commendable in the way it holds many of these topics – #MeToo, identity politics, media exploitation – up to the light and examines them in nuanced and often unpredictable ways. Michaela Coel (who wrote all 12 episodes) shines as Arabella, a victim of sexual assault who learns to process her ordeal and respond to it. Not every episode hits the mark, but the show’s best moments are sublime, getting us inside Arabella’s head in haunting and off-putting ways, while ingeniously offsetting the heaviness with darkly comic undertones. The four-episode midseason stretch from “The Alliance” to “Social Media is a Great Way to Connect” is among the most remarkable runs on TV this year, forgiving some of the early and late series bumps. This is a show that pulls no punches – and for the viewer, ultimately keeps the implicit promise of its title.
3. The Great
Following his Oscar-nominated screenplay for The Favourite, Tony McNamara turned to fictionalizing another 18th-century monarchy with The Great. Set in imperial Russia, the show follows a young Catherine the Great (an outstanding Elle Fanning) as she suffers through her marriage to the boorish, unstable Emperor Peter, while secretly plotting a coup to overthrow him. A dark, witty satire that throws historical accuracy to the wind and emphasizes comedic farce, The Great is a detailed look at the corruptive and abusive forces of power, held together by a peerless cast and rich period design. No one would ever mistake the series as realistic, but there’s no mistaking its entertainment value, with energy surging from premiere to finale. Initially intended as a miniseries, The Great has since been renewed for a second season, and I couldn’t guess if the next chapter in Catherine’s life will play out as compellingly. But its inaugural year is worth every huzzah.
2. Better Call Saul
I enjoyed the first two years of Better Call Saul, and was thrilled by its third and fourth seasons. But nothing quite prepared me for Season Five, the show’s strongest and most emotionally challenging year yet. As Jimmy McGill – now brandishing the nom de plume we came to know him by in the original series – further embraced the darker side of his profession, dragging Kim Wexler (the continually astounding Rhea Seehorn) along with him, the show pushed its characters to tougher moral limits than ever. Skillfully tying the lawyer arc with the Mike/Nacho thread – and improving both as a result – the series gave us one memorable episode and setpiece after another. The final stretch of the season – particularly the desert-set “Bagman” and the riveting “Bad Choice Road” – rivals the best of Breaking Bad in suspense and intrigue, setting up a potentially explosive final season. A few years ago, I would have scoffed at the idea of hailing Better Call Saul as a superior show to its parent series, but it can now confidently stand aside that show as one of TV’s greatest antihero dramas. The flight has gained altitude with every season – here’s hoping the show sticks the landing.
1. How To with John Wilson
Although it shares a production DNA with Nathan For You and weathers a few vague parallels with Comedy Central’s Review, there is no show on television quite like How To with John Wilson. It is an introspection on the mundanities of life, the hiccups and oddities one hardly recognizes, mixed with an eclectic sense of the surreal and indescribable. As the man behind the camera, Wilson wanders all through New York City, focusing on topics (small talk, scaffolding, covering furniture) that most of us would find too unremarkable to ponder. Yet in each of these topics, he finds surprising meaning and purpose, often ending up in very different places than he started. And his journeys are glittered with some of the most outstanding B-roll footage assembled for a docuseries, spicing up the accompanying commentary in creative and hilarious ways.
It all comes to a head in the final episode, “How To Cook the Perfect Risotto,” perhaps the most essential TV episode of 2020. No other show has captured the unpredictable rawness of emotion that sent shockwaves through America during the month of March quite like this one. The first five episodes feel like a time capsule for the pre-Covid era – a time when New York was vibrant and full of quirky, unpredictable life – while the final episode is akin to a slow-motion car crash, as we watch the pandemic quietly and hauntingly begin to take its devastating toll on society. Had How To with John Wilson aired in a prior year, it would have still been a groundbreaking and unique series, with a voice all its own. But in this current year, it’s a real-time reminder of the things our culture has lost, some of which we may never fully regain. It’s a powerful endnote for an ingenious series, cementing it as the best show of 2020.
Honorable Mentions
Better Things, Betty, Bojack Horseman, The Flight Attendant, Little America, The Mandalorian, Mrs. America, The Queen’s Gambit, Search Party, Teenage Bounty Hunters
Thank you for reading, and 2020 can burn in hell. See you next year.
Critically Touched 
Really good website, thanks so much for showing us
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