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. Read More