Ranking Every TV Show of 2020: #s 20-11

We’re nearing the end of our countdown of every TV show of 2020. If you missed the prior installments, you can find them at the following links:

#s 124-110 (tiers 12 and 11)
#s 109-85 (tiers 10 and 9)
#s 84-61 (tiers 8 and 7)
#s 60-41 (tiers 6 and 5)
#s 40-31 (tier 4)
#s 30-21 (tier 3)

Tier 2: The honorable mentions
20. Away (Netflix, Season 1). For a series about space travel, Away is oddly narrow in scope. There are only a handful of major characters, and roughly half of its action takes place inside the cramped confines of a shuttle. This isn’t necessarily unusual, but what makes the show worthwhile is the depth that it slowly acquires. Each of its first five episodes digs gently into the lives of one of its astronauts, lending them their own particular shading while further complicating the fraught, zig-zagging relationships among the various crewmembers. It’s a fairly conventional approach that nonetheless pays surprising dividends, as does the way the series cuts between perilous cosmic missions—space-walks, retrieval tasks, etc.—and the ground-bound bickering of the command center, where worried engineers attempt to solve problems from millions of miles away, exhibiting both ingenuity and impotence. Hilary Swank is solid as the nominal lead, but no one character really dominates the proceedings, and that feels right, seeing as Away is a show about global cooperation and professional teamwork. It’s a little corny, sure, but it’s executed with terrific steadiness—a precisely calibrated mixture of melodrama, panache, and warmth. Netflix has already cancelled the series, to which I’ll reply with one of my favorite quotes in cinema: Come back.

19. Billions (Showtime, Season 5.0; last year: 5 of 101). Another COVID casualty! I don’t blame Showtime for airing the seven completed episodes of Billions, as opposed to (ahem) axing them until the entire season could be finished. Still, it stinks that Season 5 was cut short just when it felt like it was about to rev up another gear. That said, the long-form plotting of Billions tends to be secondary to its more micro pleasures: the snarling machismo, the whip-smart dialogue, the constant stream of winking references. I’m not sure I buy Frank Grillo as a genius painter (Corey Stoll, by contrast, is a perfect addition as a slimy power player), and with production suspended, it’s difficult to discern this (half) season’s primary theme. But it remains a ferociously entertaining show, and it continues to wield snappy humor as a way to disguise the fundamentally tragic nature of its characters. The GameStop ruckus proved that we all have an appetite for stories of absurd financial wheeler-dealing, but Billions is more than just dirty pool in sleek office buildings. It’s about unveiling the base motives of powerful men, and in examining its predatory and pathetic characters with such wit and insight, it functions as both gleeful entertainment and high art.

18. The Comey Rule (Showtime, Season 1). Speaking of terrible men. Every TV show is necessarily subjective, but The Comey Rule is unique in how heavily it hinges on the viewer’s perspective. By which I mean, if you didn’t spend the past four years feverishly scouring websites and poring over indictments and memorizing names of Russian oligarchs and reading way too fucking many Seth Abramson Twitter threads (I would like those hours back, please!), then your experience in watching this series will likely differ from mine. There’s something galling about The Comey Rule (based on its subject’s book), given that it frames the former FBI director (a steady Jeff Daniels) as a tragic hero rather than a blinkered participant in an attack on American democracy. And yet: This thing is riveting. It’s just a bunch of men in dark suits talking in low voices, but it feels like an agonizingly slow-motion horror movie, the kind where you want to scream at the characters for making terrible decisions. Except that the characters are real people, and the horror is, well, look around. By the time Brendan Gleeson shows up as Donald Trump, hissing his dialogue in a shivery slurp, I wanted to break my television. But I kept watching anyway. That’s the thing about real-life horror: You can’t just change the channel.

17. Mythic Quest (Apple, Season 1). I haven’t played videogames in ages (who has the time?), but to my understanding, they’ve grown obscenely elaborate. So it’s fitting that Mythic Quest, about the mishaps of a software development company, possesses its own exacting verisimilitude; it doesn’t require a doctorate in Warcraft-ology to appreciate the level of care and detail that the show evinces. But of course, Mythic Quest isn’t really about gaming, any more than The Office was about selling paper. It’s about the dynamics of the workplace itself, and it tackles all of its attendant peculiarities —the flirty banter, the uneven power dynamics, the troubling diversity issues—with vivacious intelligence. It delivers two knockout episodes in particular: a standalone flashback featuring Cristin Milioti and Jake Johnson, and a post-season quarantine special that finds celebratory joy among the shared misery of our pandemic. But throughout its run, Mythic Quest hums with a refreshing playfulness that feels like a tonic. It doesn’t take itself too seriously, which is why it’s so indispensable.

16. Feel Good (Netflix, Season 1). Among my many weaknesses is a love of queer romances. Feel Good, the brainchild of the comedian Mae Martin, is a love story about a straight English woman (Charlotte Ritchie) who finds herself drawn to Martin’s Canadian pixie-ish stand-up. It’s also a workplace comedy, a coming-of-age story, and an addiction drama. That it manages to be all of these things at once within six half-hour episodes is impressive. But what’s truly wonderful about Feel Good is that it wears its themes so lightly, conveying important messages about sexuality and sobriety without preachiness or melodrama. It might even feel wispy, were it not for the chemistry between Martin and Ritchie, who essay one of 2020’s most vibrant on-screen couples. Their relationship is hot and cold, sexy and timid, easygoing and tortured, and their journey together is funny, unnerving, and sweet. Sometimes, a title doesn’t lie.

15. High Fidelity (Hulu, Season 1). As I wrote yesterday, Stephen Frears’ High Fidelity is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I was automatically intrigued by—and skeptical of—a gender-flipped TV reboot, with Zoë Kravitz in the John Cusack role. In its early going, the series can feel a little safe, dutifully hitting the film’s high notes without carving out any real personality of its own. Before long, however, this new High Fidelity takes shape as its own glorious mess—a valentine to obsessive art consumers, sure, but also a wide-ranging study of modern romance, professional ennui, and urban life. Kravitz is wonderfully acidic, but the show capitalizes on its runtime by rounding out her employees, beautifully played by David H. Holmes and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. (Jake Lacy remains deeply unexciting as a romantic lead, but his blandness actually suits the show, given its jaundiced view of relationships.) And it seemed like it still had room to grow, which makes its untimely death such a bummer. Did Hulu cancel this show because its ratings were miserable? Or am I miserable because Hulu cancelled this show?

14. Ted Lasso (Apple, Season 1). Whereas High Fidelity took inspiration from one of the great movies (and books?) of our time, Ted Lasso stemmed from… a dude Jason Sudeikis played in a few NBC commercials seven years ago. Not exactly the most fertile source material. But art can sprout from the unlikeliest of seedlings, and Ted Lasso proves to be something of a miracle: a sports show that has little to do with sports, and a heartwarming series where good things happen to good people. (Also: Juno Temple!) There are funnier shows on TV, but I’m not sure there are any that are genuinely nicer, and the sheer sweetness of this series lifts it above corniness and takes it somewhere truly touching. “I don’t really care about wins and losses,” Ted tells an incredulous reporter, but by that point, this strange, charming show has already clinched the victory.

13. Sex Education (Netflix, Season 2; last year: 11). The second season of Sex Education is slightly less perfect than the first, if only because one of the subplots—the simmering non-romance between Asa Butterfield’s nerdy quasi-therapist and Emma Mackey’s disenchanted brain—carries hints of contrivance. On the whole, though, this remains a delightful show, full of warmth and pain and insight and humor. The cast gently expands (Sami Outalbali is a nice addition as a confidently out student), but the series never feels too diffuse, instead spending just the right amount of time on each of its lovingly drawn characters. And while it can traffic in cringe comedy and adolescent misery, Sex Education also supplies moments of well-earned triumph, such as a scene on a bus that feels, in its own silent way, like the apotheosis of feminist empowerment. It’s an effortlessly versatile show, too, operating as a conventional coming-of-age story, a bawdy sex comedy, a heartfelt romance, and a thoughtful study of parenting. That it works on so many levels only makes sense; after all, there’s more than one way to receive pleasure.

12. The Crown (Netflix, Season 4; last year: 40). It’s unusual for a series to improve in its fourth season, but in The Crown’s case, it makes sense. The show spent three years honing its skill at transforming relatively obscure historical incidents—a wall of fog, an exposé of scandalous photos, a tragic avalanche—into polished prestige fare. So when the time came to dramatize some truly juicy material, it was more than ready. There are multiple areas of focus in Season 4, as befits the series’ rigorous crisis-of-the-week format; one episode chronicles a fascinating incident involving a blue-collar worker who breaks into Buckingham Palace and chats with the queen about economics, while another (more perplexing) hour considers some of the shunned members of the royals’ extended family. But the real prize—the reason to tune in, hunch forward, and repeatedly gasp—is the fizzy courtship and fraught marriage between Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) and an attractive gamine named Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin). As conceived on screen, their relationship is more than just tabloid fodder; it’s an absolute disaster, a grotesque match of two wholly incompatible personalities. Corrin is heartbreaking, but it’s O’Connor—so wonderfully smarmy in Emma—who really dazzles, twisting Charles’ unyielding stiffness into something utterly loathsome. God save the Queen, but the prince can rot.

11. Ramy (Hulu, Season 2; last year: 17). There are scenes in Ramy, which follows an Egyptian-American Muslim and his family living in New Jersey, that are so horribly awkward, they make Pen15’s characters seem relaxed by comparison. (I am thinking specifically of the hotel room in Atlantic City, though that’s hardly the sole contender.) Yet it would be a mistake to dismiss this strange, fascinating show as mere cringe comedy. It’s too humane for that, and too ambitious as well. Ramy can certainly be difficult to watch, in part because its protagonist (Ramy Youssef, essentially playing himself) is largely insufferable. But everyone else on the show seems to recognize this, and the thrill of Ramy lies in watching a young man genuinely try to better himself, in opposition to his base instincts. (Plus, Mahershala Ali!) At least, that’s one of the thrills; in its second season, the series continues its welcome trend of devoting entire episodes to other members of Ramy’s family, and these installments pulse with their own flavor and energy. They stand alone, but they also work together. And Ramy is many things at once: an earnest exploration of faith, an equally sincere study of marriage, and a jittery comedy of friendship. Talk about the real America.

Coming tomorrow: the top 10.