The 25 best TV shows of 2020

End of year lists ring a lit­tle dif­fer­ent in 2020, with more time spent at home look­ing for enter­tain­ment to shift atten­tion away from real-world hor­ror. The glob­al pan­dem­ic undoubt­ed­ly impact­ed how tele­vi­sion was made and con­sumed, but there is still more on offer than any per­son could fea­si­bly watch even at a time like this.

Stan­dards across dra­ma, com­e­dy, sci­ence-fic­tion, doc­u­men­tary and real­i­ty con­tin­ue to deliv­er an excep­tion­al line-up to curate to your tastes. Lim­it­ed-series draw big names across mul­ti­ple plat­forms includ­ing Steve McQueen bring­ing ​‘Small Axe’ to the small screen. The direc­tor has clas­si­fied his anthol­o­gy as a col­lec­tion of films, and as such it gets an hon­orary men­tion here.

Below you’ll find plen­ty of TV to binge watch over the fes­tive peri­od, but let us know what your favourites of this year have been @LWLies.

Swap­ping Paddy’s Pub for a suc­cess­ful video game ven­ture, Rob McEl­hen­ney co-cre­at­ed and stars in the work­place com­e­dy as nar­cis­sis­tic Myth­ic Quest boss Ian (pro­nounced Iron) Grimm. The impres­sive ensem­ble includes F Mur­ray Abra­ham, Community’s Dan­ny Pudi, and Char­lotte Nic­dao as the often frus­trat­ed lead engi­neer. One stand­out episode is a self-con­tained love sto­ry star­ring Cristin Mil­i­oti and Jake John­son as devel­op­ers in the ​’90s that explores suc­cess ver­sus cre­ative integri­ty. Anoth­er is the uplift­ing ​‘Quar­an­tine’ spe­cial – it was the first com­e­dy to release an episode filmed in lock­down – effec­tive­ly util­is­ing tech­nol­o­gy to tell a relat­able, fun­ny and tear-induc­ing instalment.

In a year with­out Stranger Things, Net­flix has anoth­er teen adven­ture draw­ing on nos­tal­gia. Rather than an ​’80s peri­od piece pay­ing homage to sci­ence-fic­tion movies, Rachel Shuk­ert has updat­ed Ann M Martin’s beloved ​‘Baby-Sit­ters Club’ nov­els for a con­tem­po­rary audi­ence. With a diverse cast and cre­ative team at the helm, the bond between the four entre­pre­neur­ial young women is cen­tral to Shukert’s charm­ing por­tray­al of Dawn, Kristy, Clau­dia and Mary Anne. Cast­ing Ali­cia Sil­ver­stone as Kristy’s moth­er in the same year as the 25^th anniver­sary of Clue­less is a stroke of ​’90s nos­tal­gia genius, but Baby-Sit­ters Club is much more than a pop-cul­ture wink tapestry.

Based on a char­ac­ter Jason Sudeikis first played in an NBC sports pro­mo in 2013, the sto­ry of an Amer­i­can Foot­ball Coach mov­ing to Eng­land to man­age a Pre­mier League team is a clas­sic fish-out-of-water nar­ra­tive. On paper, the opti­mistic coach tak­ing on a sport he knows lit­tle about sounds incred­i­bly famil­iar and Ted Lasso’s strength is the mix of hap­less charm with cyn­i­cal Brits. But there are a few big sur­pris­es up its sen­ti­men­tal sleeve includ­ing Juno Tem­ple as WAG Kee­ley Jones and Han­nah Waddingham’s embit­tered AFC Rich­mond own­er Rebec­ca Wel­ton who both chal­lenge women in foot­ball stereotypes.

The 2001 Who Wants to Be a Mil­lion­aire? episode fea­tur­ing con­vict­ed cough­ing cheat Major Charles Ingram nev­er aired but it is hard to for­get the image of Chris Tar­rant and the rug­by shirt-wear­ing con­tes­tant. Shown over con­sec­u­tive nights, the three-part dra­ma cap­tured the fever­ish reac­tion when this quiz series debuted, as well as the shock­ing scan­dal that threat­ened to derail it. BAF­TA win­ner Sian Clif­ford and Matthew Mac­fadyen nail the cou­ple at the heart of the con­spir­a­cy, while Michael Sheen deliv­ers an unnerv­ing­ly good take on Tar­rant in one of the must-see TV dra­mas of ear­ly lockdown.

A US pres­i­den­tial elec­tion pro­vides plen­ty of fod­der for late-night talk shows, but the chal­lenges of 2020 saw a major change in how night­ly episodes were pro­duced. Switch­ing from a stu­dio to his home, Late Night With Seth Mey­ers leaned into the makeshift ele­ment with recur­ring off-kil­ter bits. Sta­ple seg­ment ​‘A Clos­er Look’ con­tin­ued to draw on the inter­sec­tion of com­e­dy, rage, and exas­per­a­tion to reflect the fraught polit­i­cal land­scape. Fur­ther­more, dur­ing the Black Lives Mat­ter protests, the open­ing mono­logue was turned over to writer Amber Ruf­fin, in which she recount­ed expe­ri­ences with racist police offi­cers in a sober­ing but vital response to the news.

Mul­ti­ple projects about the same fig­ure is a com­mon Hol­ly­wood occur­rence, which saw two very dif­fer­ent takes on Cather­ine the Great in 2020. Helen Mirren’s lav­ish Sky Atlantic/​HBO went the tra­di­tion­al route, where­as the Elle Fan­ning-star­ring romp on the rise of Russia’s empress promised ​“an occa­sion­al­ly true sto­ry.” The anti-his­tor­i­cal satire from The Favourite co-writer Tony McNa­ma­ra boasts anachro­nis­tic music and lan­guage in its por­tray­al of the 18^th-cen­tu­ry Russ­ian court. Nicholas Hoult is a riot as the petu­lant Peter III and Fan­ning deft­ly walks the line between the com­e­dy and hor­ror of this opu­lent setting.

The year kicked off with Pao­lo Sorrentino’s fol­low-up to the auda­cious 2016 series The Young Pope. Jude Law’s Pope Pius XIII has been in a coma for nine months and the pontiff’s dire prog­no­sis requires a replace­ment choice. Debonair Pope John Paul III (John Malkovich) takes the tit­u­lar role as the clan­des­tine Vat­i­can City antics con­tin­ue with Car­di­nal Voiel­lo (series MVP Sil­vio Orlan­do) work­ing every pos­si­ble angle. No oth­er show hits the aes­thet­ic highs of Sorrentino’s depic­tion of the Catholic church – often blur­ring the line between fan­ta­sy and real­i­ty – and this ambi­tious series is one of the year’s over­looked gems.

Rather than a court­room pro­ce­dur­al in line with the orig­i­nal Per­ry Mason, the Robert Downey Jr pro­duced PI-to-lawyer ori­gin sto­ry leans into the dark­ness favoured by pres­tige tele­vi­sion. Thank­ful­ly, it is far from a stale anti-hero nar­ra­tive. Matthew Rhys in the tit­u­lar role imbues pathos in his per­for­mance as the PTSD-suf­fer­ing war vet­er­an, dou­bling down on the world-weary cre­den­tials that won him an Emmy for The Amer­i­cans. A strong ensem­ble includ­ing Chris Chalk as a Black police offi­cer strug­gling against a racist and cor­rupt LAPD draws par­al­lels to the 2020 land­scape high­light­ing how lit­tle has sad­ly changed.

Standup com­ic Mae Mar­tin writes and stars in the strik­ing semi-auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal por­tray­al of intox­i­cat­ing love and addic­tion. Falling for some­one while attempt­ing to man­age drug depen­den­cy is already com­pli­cat­ed but new girl­friend George (Char­lotte Ritchie) is also grap­pling with her sex­u­al­i­ty. In the bub­ble of Mae and George, the rela­tion­ship thrives and direc­tor Ally Pankew cap­tures the heady ear­ly days in tran­scen­dent tight close-up inti­ma­cy. Out­side forces threat­en this bub­ble, which puts pres­sure on both George and Mae as they strug­gle with per­son­al bag­gage. Lisa Kudrow guest stars as Mae’s moth­er in a scene-steal­ing turn that adds nuance to the med­dling matri­arch archetype.

Bold and brash, The Boys is at its most potent when it is lam­bast­ing cap­i­tal­ism (yes, it is iron­ic it streams on Ama­zon). From the ter­ri­fy­ing rise in alt-right online activ­i­ty to per­for­ma­tive fem­i­nism pro­mo­tion­al ​‘Girls Get It Done’ cam­paigns, the Supes at the heart of the bat­tle in The Boys face threats both exis­ten­tial and per­son­al to con­quer. Antho­ny Starr as Amer­i­can poster boy Home­lander turns chis­elled good looks and a beam­ing smile into a ter­ri­fy­ing image that threat­ens to flip on a dime. While Sea­son 2 new­com­er Storm­front (Aya Cash) sug­gests a new fem­i­nist queen has joined the team, but her name is a clue to the insid­i­ous cause close to her heart.

Ru Paul’s Drag Race has intro­duced a glob­al audi­ence to an incred­i­ble array of drag per­form­ers and has helped boost many careers. For­mer Drag Race con­tes­tants Shangela, Bob the Drag Queen and Eure­ka O’Hara trav­el to small towns across Amer­i­ca and makeover three dif­fer­ent res­i­dents who then per­form in a one-night-only drag show. Build­ing a com­mu­ni­ty and a safe space for LGBT+ peo­ple is part of the fab­ric of We’re Here, which offers vis­i­bil­i­ty where pre­vi­ous­ly there might have been none. While the pan­dem­ic-impact­ed finale wasn’t the episode this team envi­sioned, it cap­tures how shared expe­ri­ences can occur even when we are phys­i­cal­ly apart.

The best sea­son of Inse­cure to date still fea­tures plen­ty of roman­tic dra­ma, but it is the break­down of best friends Issa (Issa Rae) and Mol­ly (Yvonne Orji) that sets the sto­ry­line aflame. Female friend­ships are a tele­vi­sion cor­ner­stone, but the depths Rae explores on both sides of this fight is trans­for­ma­tive. A shift­ing dynam­ic that begins with a drift into mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion before a pub­lic row threat­ens to per­ma­nent­ly sev­er this bond. Past love is explored in ​‘Lowkey Hap­py’, a stand­out episode in a strong line-up (writ­ten by co-star Natasha Roth­well) that offers a mes­meris­ing one per­fect night escape.

Cate Blanchett leads a star-packed cast in Dahvi Waller’s 1970s-set minis­eries detail­ing the vocal Equal Rights Amend­ment cham­pi­ons and detrac­tors. The two-time Oscar-win­ning actress takes on the role of ERA oppo­nent Phyl­lis Schlafly who chal­lenged sec­ond-wave fem­i­nist icons, includ­ing house­hold names Bet­ty Friedan (Tracey Ull­man) and Glo­ria Steinem (Rose Byrne). It was Uzo Adu­ba who took home the Emmy for her incred­i­ble turn as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elect­ed to Con­gress and the first woman to run for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for pres­i­dent. Reflect­ing the cul­ture war that still rages, Mrs Amer­i­ca is the foun­da­tion this con­flict is built on.

Free will and deter­min­ism are at the heart of Alex Garland’s first TV endeav­our, dou­bling down on themes he pre­vi­ous­ly explored in Ex Machi­na. Sonoya Mizuno plays soft­ware engi­neer Lily Chan who becomes embroiled in enig­mat­ic tech CEO Forest’s (Nick Offer­man) secret quan­tum project that could change the very nature of exis­tence. Gar­land has con­struct­ed an exis­ten­tial mys­tery in an awe-inspir­ing set­ting that includes tree halos, a dis­qui­et­ing gigan­tic stat­ue of a lit­tle girl, and gold lit cube lab. Pro­duc­tion design­er Mark Digby’s Sil­i­con Val­ley visu­als allow the view­er to fall head­first into this unset­tling not-too-dis­tant future.

Ambi­tious Ger­man sci-fi series Dark nev­er shies away from brain wrin­kling plot twists, and the com­bi­na­tion of fam­i­ly tree bomb­shells straight out of a melo­dra­ma with phi­los­o­phy and physics could implode. How­ev­er, even when an alter­nate world is intro­duced in the final sea­son, cre­ators Jan­t­je Friese and Baran bo Odar keep a firm grip on the emo­tion­al stakes. Time trav­el has a way of com­pli­cat­ing a sto­ry that can leave char­ac­ters unmoored and threads left dan­gling, but Dark defies those con­ven­tions by keep­ing all the major play­ers on the board — no mat­ter the decade (or century).

Far from a Lit­tle Britain spin­off that some read­ers might expect from this title, the eight-part anthol­o­gy series devel­oped by Lee Eisen­berg, Kumail Nan­jiani and Emi­ly V Gor­don explores per­son­al immi­grant sto­ries that are both uplift­ing and heart­break­ing. From the Chi­nese sin­gle moth­er impact­ed by a painful past who is dis­con­nect­ed from her teenage kids to the Niger­ian stu­dent who finds joy and iden­ti­ty in cow­boy attire, each per­spec­tive is unique. Based on true events, the strug­gles and tri­umphs depict an Amer­i­can Dream that can­not be defined by one expe­ri­ence or through one lens.

Cre­ators Maya Ersk­ine and Anna Kon­kle have proved that play­ing them­selves as 13-year-olds is nei­ther gim­mick nor a one-trick pony. Sea­son 2 digs fur­ther into the awk­ward, painful, and eye-open­ing ado­les­cent moments that would be impos­si­ble to por­tray with actu­al teenagers. Draw­ing on per­son­al expe­ri­ences cov­er­ing the gamut of peri­ods, sex­u­al expe­ri­ences, and parental dis­cord, the sev­en-episode run (pro­duc­tion was cut short) is a breath of fresh air in a crowd­ed TV land­scape. The mid-sea­son finale pays homage to Good­fel­las’ long take, dials up the dra­ma, and leaves the audi­ence clam­our­ing for more from the mid­dle school BFFs.

Based on Sal­ly Rooney’s nov­el of the same name, the high­ly-antic­i­pat­ed series lived up to the hype. Star turns from Daisy Edgar-Jones and new­com­er Paul Mescal as on-again-off-again cou­ple Mar­i­anne and Con­nell made this one of the most talked-about shows of the year (acces­sories and hair­cuts have their own Insta­gram accounts). Mescal’s raw vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty as Con­nell dis­cuss­es his fray­ing men­tal health in Episode 10 is an unfor­get­table moment that points to why his pro­file has explod­ed. Inti­ma­cy coor­di­na­tor Ita O’Brien helped guide the intense sex scenes, cre­at­ing a safe set while cap­tur­ing the lust and love-dri­ven phys­i­cal­i­ty that is cen­tral to this story.

Long before Amazon’s All or Noth­ing sports docuseries, a film crew bed­ded-in with the Chica­go Bulls team dur­ing the now-leg­endary 1997 – 98 sea­son. The 10-part series debuted in the ear­ly stages of lock­down when no live sport was being played. Even if you don’t reg­u­lar­ly watch bas­ket­ball, it is easy to become gripped by the on-court ath­leti­cism and lock­er room antics. Per­son­al tragedy, tri­umphs, and old grudges make this a must-watch, which also spawned count­less memes. Michael Jor­dan is a pro­duc­er call­ing into ques­tion the bias of the series, but as a form of exhil­a­rat­ing enter­tain­ment, it is sublime.

The belle of the Emmy Awards ball, the final sea­son of Dan and Eugene Levy’s Cana­di­an sit­com broke all records with a com­e­dy clean sweep. Wrap­ping things up at the height of its pop­u­lar­i­ty is a bold choice and while we would hap­pi­ly spend more time with the Rose fam­i­ly in their adjoin­ing Rose­bud motel rooms, the res­o­lu­tion is heart­warm­ing, hilar­i­ous, and sat­is­fy­ing. Love radi­ates from char­ac­ters who pre­vi­ous­ly found it hard to open up, and a ground­break­ing three-storey bill­board of David Rose (Dan Levy) kiss­ing fiancé Patrick Brew­er (Noah Reid) is part of the last­ing LGBT+ legacy.

Ethan Hawke is anoth­er movie star final­ly mak­ing the leap to TV in a project he devel­oped along­side ​‘The Good Lord Bird’ author James McBride. Play­ing abo­li­tion­ist John Brown, this is a less­er-known pre-Civ­il War sto­ry that tells a fic­tion­alised ver­sion of a piv­otal moment. A flawed and fiery hero, Brown’s cause to free all slaves arrives in a year when George Floyd’s mur­der at the hands of police led to glob­al BLM protests. The wounds of that peri­od are still raw and this mini-series does not shy away from real­i­ty while deft­ly inject­ing some (often absurd) humour into the his­tor­i­cal drama.

The sur­prise break­out hit comes cour­tesy of Scott Frank’s chess lim­it­ed-series adapt­ed from Wal­ter Tevis’ 1983 nov­el of the same name. At the cen­tre is a trans­fix­ing Anya Tay­lor-Joy as orphan Beth Har­mon who becomes addict­ed to tran­quil­lis­ers at a young age. Marielle Heller deliv­ers a nuanced per­for­mance in a stun­ning turn as Beth’s adop­tive moth­er high­light­ing her tal­ent in front of the cam­era. Chess­board aes­thet­ics weave their way into Uli Hanisch’s pro­duc­tion design and cos­tumes by Gabriele Binder, which adds to the allure. A sto­ry of tri­umph over adver­si­ty, Beth’s mid-cen­tu­ry jour­ney avoids the cliched pit­falls of a trou­bled genius.

True crime doc­u­men­taries often cen­tre the killer turn­ing hor­ri­fy­ing acts into a grue­some spec­ta­cle. Writer Michelle McNa­ma­ra didn’t approach these sto­ries in a sen­sa­tion­al man­ner and the work detail­ing the crimes of the Gold­en State Killer – a name she coined in 2013 – gave a voice to the trau­ma­tised. McNa­ma­ra sad­ly died before her book was fin­ished, and the infa­mous ser­i­al rapist-mur­der­er was caught, but the six-part docuseries gets to the heart of the writer’s obses­sion and fight for jus­tice. This is less about a con­vict­ed ser­i­al killer, rather it is a med­i­ta­tion on the vic­tims, McNa­ma­ra and the peo­ple she left behind.

Con­sid­er­ing the dizzy­ing scale of the pro­duc­tion, it is not sur­pris­ing the Ger­man his­tor­i­cal dra­ma is the most expen­sive non-Eng­lish lan­guage series. Set in the Ger­man cap­i­tal in 1929, Detec­tive Gere­on Rath (Volk­er Bruch) and assis­tant Char­lotte Rit­ter (Liv Lisa Fries) are caught in the tur­bu­lent cross­fires. Mur­der on a film set takes the audi­ence into the world of Expres­sion­ism adding a sur­re­al aes­thet­ic to the genre-bend­ing series. Baby­lon Berlin’s strength is that it doesn’t know­ing­ly wink at the ter­ri­ble future to come, instead, the hor­ror, beau­ty, and polit­i­cal plots are part of dai­ly life that is about to get so much worse.

Over 12 episodes, Michaela Coel explores the trau­ma of a sex­u­al assault in a way that breaks bound­aries and demon­strates why tele­vi­sion is a pow­er­ful and chal­leng­ing medi­um. Flash­back episodes to Ara­bel­la in Italy before the attack and as a teenag­er add depth to the nar­ra­tive that goes beyond this hor­ri­fy­ing event in the first episode. Cov­er­ing ques­tions of con­sent, racial micro-aggres­sions in the work­place, the impact of social media, and the writ­ing process, Coel’s com­e­dy-dra­ma is one that refus­es to give easy answers. A cathar­tic finale lingers long after its sum­mer debut, I May Destroy You will be cel­e­brat­ed for years to come.