Luckily there were just as many good shows this year to choose from as ever, even with movie selection having dropped off due to COVID. And we all spent lots of time bingeing shows, didn’t we? Here were my faves of this nightmare year.
1. BETTER CALL SAUL Season 5 (AMC)
The show’s best season was unforgettable and haunting, from Rhea Seehorn’s continually fantastic performance as Kim Wexler to Bob Odenkirk’s desperate walk through the desert to get back to her. Can’t wait for the saga to wrap up.
2. MRS. AMERICA (FX on Hulu)
Cate Blanchett anchors a great ensemble that takes us back to the throes of the women’s movement, exploring liberal pioneers like Gloria Steinem and Shirley Chisholm to conservative villains like Blanchett’s Phyllis Schlafly
3. HARLEY QUINN (DCU)
Season 1 carried into 2020 and Season 2 aired not long after, so take this as a package deal for both seasons. This wonderfully zany, vulgar, crude and outrageous cartoon has a sense of humor and developed characters and story arcs not much different from any live action series. It’s a bloody good treat.
4. NORMAL PEOPLE (BBC3/Hulu)
This love story is for people who miss the early, steamy seasons of Outlander. The acting from the two leads carries every episode of this miniseries.
5. DAVID BYRNE’S AMERICAN UTOPIA (HBO)
A concert film that functions as a lovely companion piece to 1984’s Stop Making Sense and a love letter to the eternally awesome David Byrne. Life affirming, joyous and speaks to the moment.
6. SCHITT’S CREEK Season 6 (CBC)
The final season continued the show’s trajectory of every year being better than the last and ended on its best episode, a sweet and funny wedding finale that took the Rose family full circle and made this little Canadian show that could complete.
7. IMMIGRATION NATION (Netflix)
Heartbreaking and urgent documentary series exposing ICE and the Trump administration for what it is, down to the racist and inhuman core of both the agency and the criminals at the top.
8. THE CROWN Season 4 (Netflix)
The fourth season brought us Diana and Thatcher in all their glory with fantastic performances and a new, obsessive hunger to find the truth in recent royal history, making waves in the zeitgeist like it never has before. Give Emma Corrin her Emmy now.
9. THE GOOD LORD BIRD (Showtime)
A bonkers black comedy take on the abolitionist John Brown, played by Ethan Hawke in his best ever screen performance- uncompromising, relevant and packs a punch in the way it looks at pre-Civil War American history from a new angle
10. HIGH FIDELITY (Hulu)
This prematurely canceled series was a gender flipped adaptation of the book with a nod to the movie in Zoe Kravitz (daughter of Lisa Bonet) as Rob. It had charming characters and was a refreshing look at the subject matter, as well as sweet and romantic. Gone far too soon.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Dracula; Lovecraft Country S1; The Boys S2; Sex Education S2; Outlander S5; The Baby-Sitters Club S1; Stargirl S1; The Mandalorian S2
