TV Rankings

2020 was a terrible year for the world. It was also a spectacular year for TV.

These two truths are complementary, not contradictory. To begin with, many of the TV shows that aired in 2020 were filmed pre-pandemic, so the continued flow of high-quality comedies and intense dramas from sets to homes was simply a function of the pipeline’s normal operations. But beyond that, once COVID-19 upended our daily lives and thwarted even the most basic aspects of communal experience—the play dates and restaurant outings, the long trips to see relatives and the short visits to the theater, the subway commutes and water-cooler conversations—the normally private world of television became a shared haven. Powered by our natural craving for interaction, it morphed from a naturally recessive space into a digital cooperative; it was where we went to find each other, to eagerly debate the best premieres and the worst finales, to collectively laugh and cry and cheer and bicker and maybe just distract ourselves from the all-too-real horrors of the world raging beyond our screens. Forget about cancel culture being a phony grievance; in 2020, TV culture was virtually the only thing that wasn’t cancelled.

Of course, some of us participated more than others. I myself watched 124 different TV shows in 2020, a truly absurd number (and a personal record, up from 108 in 2017) that also seems weirdly low, given how COVID amplified my already-hermitic tendencies. This means that I definitely watched more than you did, but given the sheer volume of #content available over the airwaves (or through the interwebs), it also means that I didn’t watch everything you watched. As ever, I do not care; I am constitutionally incapable of being shamed for not watching a particular series because, in case you hadn’t noticed, I already watched 124 fucking shows in a single year. Match that number, then maybe we can talk. Read More

Our countdown of every 2019 TV show continues! For prior installments, check out the links below. And honestly, you can pretty much rearrange all of the shows in this post in any order you want, because they’re all kind of great:

#s 101-76
#s 75-51
#s 50-31

30. Game of Thrones (HBO, Season 8; 2017 rank: 13 of 108). Gulp. OK, let’s get this out of the way: The last episode of Game of Thrones was bad. Or, rather, the last half-hour of the last episode was bad; the much-maligned finale concluded with an appalling whimper that arguably betrayed the uncompromising ferocity that was the series’ signature. Here’s the thing, though: The first half-hour of the finale featured some pretty terrific stuff, including perhaps the most stunning image the series has ever produced. And leading up to that finale, Season 8 as a whole, while uneven, was filled with killer material. Its second episode, which found its characters grimly preparing for the deadly battle to come, is one of the finest hours the show has ever produced, full of humor and tenderness and hard-won camaraderie. And even if Game of Thrones’ ultimate destination was disappointing, its journey was always full of marvelous sights and sounds: an armada of fires blinking out one by one; a deadly game of hide-and-seek in a dusty library; a giant dragon mournfully cradling a fallen rider; Carice Van Houten’s eyes; Maisie Williams’ face. It’s undeniable that the conclusion of this show left a bitter aftertaste. There’s also no denying that, along the way, it routinely delivered images and scenes we’d never before seen on television. Read More

We’re counting down every show we watched in 2019. For prior installments, check out the following links:

#s 101-76
#s 75-51

50. Modern Love (Amazon, Season 1). Like with any anthology, Modern Love is less a cohesive series than a collection of hits and misses. Sure, there’s a vague thematic throughline about the complexities of contemporary romance—whether between tech-savvy millennials, weary gen-Xers, or dogged boomers—but it doesn’t add up to much beyond, “Love is complicated.” Still, the series’ economy is impressive; each episode clocks in at roughly 30 minutes, and each manages to tell a complete story. It’s also beautifully cast, and when it hits—such as when it tracks the separate relationships of Catherine Keener and Dev Patel, or when it spends a wonderful evening in the hospital with Sofia Boutella and John Gallagher Jr., or when it follows the ups and downs of a bipolar Anne Hathaway—it plays like gangbusters. That other episodes are less successful feels appropriate; after all, who gets love right on the first try? Read More