My comprehensive, definitive, undeniably brilliant list of the best TV shows of 2020
This is the way. This is the list...
We relied on them to offer us escapism. We needed them to take our minds off things. At times, we also wanted them to help just pass the time. In 2020, amidst the stress of a pandemic, a chaotic US election and the looming threat of global warming, thank God for television. Here are the TV shows that helped me survive this hellish year…
(10.) How to With John Wilson (HBO)
Confession time: I’ve only watched three episodes of this. I’m still recovering from episode three, in which host John Wilson visits a dude who has developed a contraption to help circumcised men grow back their foreskin. Let’s just say: discussing the film Parasite should always be done fully clothed. It’s no suprise to discover Nathan Fielder is behind this show, which spins awkward narrative arcs around New York handy-cam footage. Nathan For You fans will get kicks out of this.
(9) All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur (Amazon Prime Video)
Look, I know some of you liked Cheers, and others enjoyed The Last Dance. Maybe you turned to old All Blacks games to get your sporting fix. For me, with all football cancelled, All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur did the job. This super intense doco started rolling just as controversial coach Jose Mourinho took charge at the ‘Spurs, and it’s about the same time that all hell breaks loose. It’s full of conflict, drama, tension and sporting highlights, but watching multi-millionaire footballer Dele Alli get confused about how to brush his teeth is one of the year’s funniest TV moments.
(8) Zero Zero Zero (Amazon Prime Video)
In a year when we couldn’t go to the movies much, Zero Zero Zero really helped me have a cinematic experience at home. We didn’t get a new Bond film but we did get this, a border-travelling, double-crossing, cartel-chasing drug caper that felt like it should really have been seen on a big screen. The body count was high, but what really tipped this over the edge was a crushing final scene that I still think about all of the damned time. Brilliant, and absolutely brutal.
(7) The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)
Anya Taylor-Joy must have everyone in Hollywood after her at the moment. Her wide-eyed role as Beth Harman in The Queen’s Gambit is absolutely unbeatable, the stand out performance of the year. Watching her quietly decapitate all those incredulous older white dudes at chess was honestly my favourite sport of the year. Get ready: Taylor-Joy is about to be in everything - and that’s absolutely a good thing.
(6) Taranaki Hard (Three)
This Kiwi-as doco came out of nowhere and promptly hit me for six. Taranaki Hard’s four episodes are set in Waitara, and it’s so full of wonderful characters, brilliant dialogue, super-emotional moments and slapstick comedy that it often feels like this is a fictional creation. All 15 were followed for a year of their life and they have stories to tell, from school leavers to budding sports stars and gang affiliates. But it was bogan Axel and his AWOL dad that drew me in, made me laugh, then forced me to wipe tears from my cheeks. The finale’s tonight - make sure you’re there.
(5) Industry (Neon)
Constant drug use, full frontal nudity, and frequent sex scenes - Industry screams THIS IS HBO like nothing else in recent memory. Look past all that and you’ll find a smartly written show bursting at the seams with brilliant performances from mostly unknowns. Set in a brutally tense London banking firm, and full of Shakespearean levels of financial jargon, this is just like The Office - if everyone in The Office smoked meth and competed in The Hunger Games. I loved every second of it.
(4) Educators (TVNZ OnDemand)
It absolutely blows my mind that more people haven’t seen this. Educators is so good, so funny, and so full of killer performances - Jackie van Beek! Tom Sainsbury! Kura Forrester! Josh Thomson! - that it deserves to be ranked among our very best comedies. Following a group of rogue, horny and hungover teachers, this is laugh out loud funny, New Zealand’s very own answer to The Office. All of it is filmed on the fly, Larry David-style, in a West Auckland school. I can’t speak highly enough of it. Just go watch it.
(3) The Mandalorian (Disney+)
Go get your fish balls, Baby Yoda! I laughed and yelled and shrieked all the way through the second season of Jon Favreau’s killer Star Wars reboot with my kids on the couch doing the same thing the whole time. The Mandalorian is sensationally feel-good eye candy. It does what all those recent movies couldn’t do and makes my inner 10-year-old absolutely giddy with glee. I’m suspicious about all those other spinoffs - including one for Tem’s Boba Fett - coming on the back of this. But at least we can watch The Mandalorian over and over again. I will. I definitely will.
(2) Better Call Saul (Neon)
Didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. Until that first lockdown hit in March, Better Call Saul wasn’t even close to making my TV to-do list. I didn’t want this slow-burn Saul Goodman spinoff to ruin my Breaking Bad experience. I was wrong. In March, with lockdown time to kill, I finally soaked it all in - and it proved Better Call Saul is just as good as the OG. By the time Bagman landed (season five’s desert episode that had Mike and Saul sweating it out over bags of cartel cash), it proved it might even be better.
(1) I May Destroy You (Neon)
She did it - she destroyed me. Michaela Coel turned her own experience of sexual assault into a complicated analysis of consent that left me quivering after every episode. Her debut (her debut!) show as writer, director and lead actor was consistently complex and compelling, asking crushing questions about the basic desire for human interaction - and all the ways it can go wrong. I May Destroy You is the kind of show that elevates TV to a place that might not be topped for quite some time. Just a standing ovation all round for this one.
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