Top Ten Comedies of 2020

I was planning on posting this yesterday, but then yesterday happened.  For those reading this when it was posted, I need no further explanation.  The people who stumble onto this at a later date though, well it's January 6, 2021 and I'm just going to hope you can figure it out from there.

Not that today hasn't had its share of excitements, but I've been much less glued to the news so I'm finally free to sit down and write my top ten comedies of 2020.  It's a weird list.  Feels a bit weaker than most years except at the top, which is probably about as strong as any year.  But I can't help but feel I usually can't come up with better shows on the backend, not that I don't like those shows.

Moving onto the top ten

#10 Archer - Season 11 (FXX)

Archer has not been particularly close to my top ten in some years, which goes to show what an improvement season 11 was over previous years.  It's also partially why I feel the backend of this list is weak.  Archer's 11th season aired 8 episodes, and not all of them were a hit.  Enough of them were to distinguish the show from what will end up being honorable mentions though.  Archer both returned to the basics of what the show was - instead of having a completely new setting - while having a different dynamic than in the past.  Good merge of knowing what works, but keeping things different enough to not feel like you're watching the same thing over and over.  Makes sense for a show losing its main creator for the first time ever.

#9 Mythic Quest: A Raven's Banquet - Season 1 (AppleTV)

Another show that really seems like it'd be on honorable mention most years.  I mention that because this show took a few episodes before things really clicked.  They have an episode entirely unconnected from the rest of the season, focusing on two characters who are only seen in that episode.  It's a wonderful episode.  Weirdly, what came after seemed like a much better show than what came before.  Eventually the show provides a reason for why this episode exists, although it doesn't need one it's so good.  But it ends up making the season storylines of the present day characters work better when it does provide that reason.

#8 DAVE - Season 1 (FXX)

I won't lie.  I didn't want to like this show.  I'm not a fan of Lil Dicky.  But then Alan Sepinwall kept raving about the show so I felt like I had to give it a shot.  So here it is.  I would have bet a lot of money that DAVE would not make my top ten list before I watched an episode to be honest.  But I guess there's the lesson: never assume.  There's a particular episode focusing on a certain character's mental disorder - I believe the person who plays him also has that mental disorder - and I don't really want to say anymore because part of the power is that you don't really expect it.

#7 Ramy - Season 2 (Hulu)

Ramy season 2 is a bit weird to describe.  The main character, Ramy, is pretty unlikable in it.  I like the overall journey that he goes through, but it's not always fun to watch.  If that were all the show was, it wouldn't be here.  But the series decides to give the supporting characters their own episodes - mom, dad, sister, and uncle all have episodes solely focused on them - and all of those episodes are better than the episodes focusing on the season-long storyline.  Which is weird to say, because Mahershala Ali is in Ramy's storyline as Ramy's new sheikh.  But the solo episodes are just better.

#6 Never Have I Ever - Season 1 (Netflix)

I have confined myself to a top ten, but I must note it is at this stage that I see a huge jump.  Never Have I Ever would make my lists most years I suspect.  And it might even be as high as #6 most years.  Possibly higher.  If I followed the spirit of a top ten list by focusing on the elite shows, I would only have a top 6 this year.  A large reason why it's here is because of Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Devi, the main character of the show.  The name of the show appears to just be here to provide a way to give episode titles and not actually for anything in the show itself.  Like for instance, one of the episode titles is "... gotten drunk with the popular kids."  Get it?  Yeah it's kind of stupid name for a show, but it's great nonetheless.

#5 The Great - Season 1 (Hulu)

Typically, I tended to put half hour shows on this list and hour long shows on the drama side.  But between this show and I May Destroy You, I had to change it up a bit.  Both are listed as comedy-dramas, but the half hour show is barely presented as comedic while The Great is almost all comedic.  It's a satirical series focused on Catherine the Great, who came to Russia as an outsider.  The first season is about her journey from being an almost perfect wife who is so disillusioned by how awful her husband is that she begins plotting to overthrow him.  Kind of a spoiler, but you know in history she really did overthrow her husband in a coup.

The performances are why it's here.  Elle Fanning stars as Catherine, who is probably nothing like the real Catherine, but Fanning is charming as someone who is constantly upbeat and cheery despite what she's doing.  But the real accomplishment and why this series is better than it has any right to be is because of Nicholas Hoult, as Peter III, who is so gloriously awful that he is entertaining to watch.  And despite him being awful, he somehow finds the humanity in the character and there are moments where you care about him.  It's a tough feat to pull off but he did it.

#4 What We Do in the Shadows - Season 2 (FX)

I had never seen the movie and I missed the first season.  Right around the time season 2 was happening, all I could hear about was how great this show was.  So I watched it from the beginning.  My expectations were perhaps too high because season 1 did not meet them.  Whether it was because my expectations had been sufficiently lowered or what, but season 2 blew me away.  I genuinely think it was a much better season, but I'll confess it might just be some weird quirk of how I perceived the show instead of that.  Not that comedies need this, but it became much less standalone in season two at the least.

Hate to repeat myself here, but this show entirely works because of the performances as well.  It's an open competition as to who's the best here.  It's a master class in how to get laughs from delivery alone.  Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou and Kayvan Novak all have moments where I think they're the funniest, but then one of the other will say something else.  And then there's Mark Proksch, who will deliver a line in the most deadpan way.

#3 The Good Place - Season 4 (NBC)

I totally forgot The Good Place ended in 2020.  Feels like a long, long time ago.  If you're not aware of my rules for a top ten list, I only look at episodes that aired in the year of the list.  So when I say season 4 above, what I really mean is the last four episodes of Season 4.  Because the finale was an hour long, it's really five episodes.  That's pretty much the only reason The Good Place isn't higher.  Even making the top 3 with just five episodes is a difficult feat.

Most of why it's here is the finale.  Not that the other three episodes weren't top notch, but if that's all I had to work with, it would find a way to the back of this list.  A lot of the episodes leading up to the finale were plot-related, to get to the finale.  As such, they tended to have a rushed feeling and weren't necessarily as funny as the show could be.  But the finale was one of the greatest finales of all time so it's #3.

#2 Bojack Horseman - Season 6 (Netflix)

Another show I forgot aired a season in 2020.  Much like The Good Place, only a part of season 6 is being factored into this top ten.  In this case, six episodes aired in 2019, and the last eight episodes aired in 2020.  I'm not sure why the show was released like that, but because it was it finds itself here.  While I didn't have the first half of the sixth season that high in my top ten last year - episode count was a factor - the second half was an improvement.

Again, I really like how this show ended.  In Bojack's case, it's not specifically the finale that brings it this high.  It's the culmination of where all the characters end up.  It's in the outstanding penultimate episode.  There are a lot of ways this show could have fucked it up, but they delivered on the ending.

#1 Ted Lasso - Season 1 (AppleTV)

This was an easy decision.  If anything, Ted Lasso being ten episodes made this way easier than it otherwise would have been.  The Good Place with ten episodes against Ted Lasso is a tough competition.  But I give props to length of season in my placement.  And Ted Lasso was just such a breath of fresh air.  I heard about Ted Lasso A LOT before I ever watched the show.  I mentioned above that me hearing the praises of What We Do in the Shadows may have harmed how I saw the first season.  No such issues here.

When I said I was tired of comedies making their main character unlikable, I had Ted Lasso in the back of my mind.  Because Ted Lasso is very likable.  Just about every character is.  You root for everybody.  And it's funny.  And it's heartwarming.  It's just such a feel good show.  That's the only way to describe it.  Anyone can watch this.  I recommended it to my sister - we do not have the same taste in TV shows - she watched it in two days and loved it.  I'd be surprised if anyone didn't love this show who watched it.

Honorable Mentions

Avenue 5 - A show that never felt as funny as it should have been with the names involved.  That said, the last few episodes were its strongest, so I'm hoping season two can find its way on my top ten next year (or in 2022).

Better Things - A show I feel like I should like more than I do, and I think the awfulness of the kids might have something to do with that.

Big Mouth - Big Mouth is 11th on my list.  It was close to making my top ten.  I do hope I can go back to loving this show like I loved the second season.

Bob's Burgers - I always have to give props to Bob's Burgers for still being as good as it is, as far in its run as it is.  That said, I do think this may have been the first year where I felt like it was declining.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - B99's greatest offense is simply the wear and tear of having been on for seven seasons.

High Fidelity - I never watched the movie back in 2000, although I know I need to.  A show that probably deserved one season because of its limited premise.

Insecure - Ultimately the show tried something knew by creating a feud between its two friends and I don't think it was entirely successful because it was always obvious they would make up.

Search Party - Another strong contender for the top 10, Search Party is a satirical show that keeps reinventing itself.  The third season skewers celebrity trials.

Sex Education - A show I still like very much that has TWO annoying pairings when the alternatives look like better options.  Worse, the show doesn't necessarily seem to think they're choosing the wrong pairing.

Top Ten Dramas of 2020

 I have a process for how I make my top ten lists, and one of the first things I usually do is look at the past year's list.  After all, great shows normally have more than one good season.  I look at the placement of the shows, see if they had a similarly great year this year, and that helps me begin to formulate my list.

Slight issue: none of my top 10 dramas in 2019 aired a season in 2020.  Not a one of them.  Three of them were limited series, another three ended their run in 2019, two of them got cancelled, and the other two shows took 2020 off, possibly pandemic-related.  

While I'm getting used to at least half of the shows disappearing from the roster, I think all of them disappearing is a first for me.  There is one show that took 2019 off that has made an appearance every year of its existence and another show that would have made my 2019 list had I watched it in 2019.  But aside from that, I really couldn't have foreseen no new season of Succession or that On Becoming a God in Central Florida would be cancelled.

On to the list.

#10 - The Boys - Season 2 (Amazon Prime)

This has been such a long year that I didn't even realize I watched season one and season two of The Boys this year.  The Boys' first season would probably have made my list, but I didn't get to it in time.  I like the second season a little less than the first - I think it starts off a bit slow and the ending wasn't totally satisfying, but in between it was probably as good as the first season. 

#9 - Doom Patrol - Season 2 (HBOMax)

I had a better reason for not watching Doom Patrol in 2019: I didn't have a DC Universe subscription.  Once HBOMax bought it as an original series, I binged all 29 episodes.  Similar story to The Boys actually.  I thought the second season was weaker - the loss of Alan Tudyk was really felt - but this is still a superhero show unlike any other that primarily focuses on the broken down characters and trying to do at least one extremely silly thing per episode (there's a reason for this I swear, but ghosts fuck in one episode).

#8 - The Queen's Gambit - Limited Series (Netflix)

It's this low, because the story it tells does not really support it being seven episodes.  Which is not to say that the show's "extra" episode(s) are bad or anything, but you can definitely feel the story being stretched beyond what it probably should by the penultimate episode.  Things could have been condensed is what I'm saying.  There's not a whole lot I could say about this, seeing as everyone reading this has watched it since it's the most watched Netflix drama ever.

#7 - Perry Mason - Season 1 (HBO)

I don't think Perry Mason would have made my list had it not come up with a great ending.  It's got a central, driving mystery that moves the plot along for its first season, culminating in a trial to wrap things up.  So a lot of the quality of the show is relying on the ending to deliver the promise of the first seven episodes.  And as convoluted and confusing as the mystery could be, I think the show ultimately delivered on that promise.

#6 Mrs. America - Limited Series (FX on Hulu)

I both enjoyed this as entertainment and as sort of a history lesson.  And by history lesson, I mean I would look up to see what was accurate, not that I took what happened on the show as face value.  For the purposes of this list, the entertainment part is the important part.  You get to see the important players in the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment, with Phyllis Schafly played by Cate Blanchett as the primary villain who fights against it.  The rest of the cast, which includes Margo Martindale, Rose Byrne, Sarah Paulson, and Uzo Aduba, tend take their turn in the spotlight, but the show never deviates from Schafly, who according to this show at least helped the ERA fail to be ratified.

Also, the theme song is "A Fifth of Beethoven" and I listened to that for like two straight months thanks to this show.

#5 The Plot Against America - Limited Series (HBO)

You only need to hear one name to convince you to watch this: David Simon.  Also his writing partner Ed Burns, but there's an actor named Ed Burns and that may confuse you.  Also half of the six episodes are directed by Thomas Schlamme, who directed quite a lot of The West Wing episodes and some of the better episodes of The Americans. Yes, I have made it my duty to insert The Americans into anything I can with the slimmest of justifications.

The Plot Against America is firmly alternate history, but an alternate history that is frighteningly easy to imagine.  The context in which this is being released certainly helps, although the book was actually written in 2004, so good job Phillip Roth.  Essentially the question this series posed is: what if Charles Lindbergh was able to actually make political ground with his anti-Semitic views?  The series somewhat mirrors current day although I cannot stress enough that it's based on a book that was written well before now.  It's just apparently not hard to predict America getting pushed into fascism.

#4 I May Destroy You - Limited Series (HBO/BBC One)

I avoided watching this show, because I largely expected it to not be a very fun watch.  The show did not hide what it was about so I knew I was watching a show about a woman trying to deal with getting raped.  It's about more than that though.  The show deals with various types of sexual assault, about consent, and about different types of victims.  The show is listed - when you google it - as a comedy-drama.  I don't think that's accurate.  I think this is just a drama - with some comedic elements.  The comedy aspect may just indicate the tone is not quite as heavy as you'd expect, but to be honest, it's not particularly funny.

It had the potential to be higher because it has supporting characters that it sort of ignores.  The main character, played by Michaela Coel, has a clear arc.  It's about as well done as you can get.  Her friends have the makings of an arc, but get dropped or don't get enough screen time in the end to really be satisfying.  It feels like she could have spent a little bit more time on them to complete their stories.

#3 My Brilliant Friend - Season 2 (HBO)

Every year when I make these lists, I have trouble remembering shows that aired early in the year except for broad outlines.  Now this was true before 2020.  2020 has felt like 10 years.  My Brilliant Friend's last episode was March 16th, which was either right when everything shut down or immediately before it.  I'm saying this to say that I remember feeling the same way about season 2 as I did about season 1, but I cannot specifically tell you details of the second season without looking at an episode synopsis.

Seeing as My Brilliant Friend season 1 was listed as #3 back in 2018, this feels like a good placement.  It's about two smart girls who end up taking diverging paths, because of their home life back in 1950s and 1960s Italy.  One of them is (probably) smarter than the other, but had less supportive parents and had to stop going to school.  The other didn't exactly have supportive parents in the modern day context, but they allowed her to keep going to school which qualifies as supportive then.  They both end up envious of the other, because they want what they do not have.  I need to rewatch this before the third season, whenever that happens.

#2 Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist - Season 1 (NBC)

Do I... do I like musicals?  First Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, now this.  Weirdly, I don't have a particular affinity for movie musicals, but I can't for the life of me think of a musical-like moment done in a TV show I was watching that I didn't like.  If I had to guess, movie relies on songs to flesh out its characters, TV shows typically involve musical numbers after the characters are already fleshed out.  Essentially, movies end up relying way too much on the quality of the song for me, while the quality of the song is less important in TV as long as the emotion is there.  I rarely get invested enough in the characters in musicals during movies to really care about what's happening.

The musical element isn't why it's here.  Well it's partially why it's here.  But the premise of the show is that Zoey has a dad who has a condition that leaves him unable to interact with his family - he just stares straight ahead all day.  It's a real condition based on the creator's real life father.  Zoey, through a medical mishap that is no way realistic, begins to hear characters spontaneously sign pop songs to hear to express what they're really feeling.  It's not a spoiler to say that the dad eventually sings to her.  I can guarantee you will cry watching this show.  That or you have no soul.

#1 Better Call Saul - Season 5 (FX)

Back in 2018, I wrote: "Better Call Saul, to date, has the misfortune of airing at the same time as one of my favorite shows of all-time.  Said favorite show - which you should be able to guess if you have read any of these lists - ended in 2018, so Better Call Saul will have the chance to be #1 next year.  I can only hope it achieves that lofty goal."

Well, it didn't have a season in 2019, but as soon as it finally aired its fifth season, it accomplished the task of replacing The Americans.  Back in my Top 50 shows of the 2010s - hate to keep referencing my own work here - I said it has a chance to better than Breaking Bad.  I wrote that before the fifth season.  And since I wasn't all that satisfied with Breaking Bad's ending, a truly fantastic ending to Better Call Saul may very possibly surpass its predecessor as the better show.  For now, it's a better show than anything else airing.

Honorable Mentions

Fargo - The show is suffering from hitting some of the same beats that it has.  I still enjoy the show and I definitely feel weird not including it in my top 10, but this may just be a case of having too high of expectations.

The Mandalorian  - This show, to quote Ryan Theriot, is what it is.  It's good for what it is.  And if season 2 didn't fiddle around for its first few episodes, I may have even ranked it.

Lovecraft Country - It is completely bizarre to me that with modern TV comes a new type of show - a show that has an episode or two that can stand with the best of TV and the rest is... a mess.  Off the top of my head, Master of None's second season, Handmaid's Tale's first season, and The Leftovers first season all had this.

Good Lord Bird - A show I wanted to include in the top ten purely for being a show about John Brown, but the show's less about him, and more about a character in his orbit.  

Marvel's Agents of Shield - Another show I wanted to include, it being its last season and its last season being a step up from what came before.  In fact, its last season reminded me of

DC's Legends of Tomorrow - This is one of those shows where its quality doesn't necessarily occur to you when watching it - you just go with the flow.  It's a top 10 entertaining show of the year ever year since its first season.

The Crown - This is the same show it's been since it started, with some standout episodes and a nagging feeling that it could be better.

Stargirl - I was very surprised this show was as good as it was, and part of that is thanks to a strong selection of villains.

Homecoming - A departure from the Julia Roberts first season, the second season tells a story of a woman (played by Janelle Monae) who wakes up having no idea where she is or who she is and the rest of the season is her discovering that.  Not a great ending to the season though.