My 20 Favorite Television Shows of 2020

As always, I'm introducing my television wrap-up list by giving an update on my quest to watch less than 100 shows in a year.  I may have failed in the previous years, but folks, I finally did it.  In 2020, I fully watched -- meaning I saw every episode a series aired in the calendar year -- only 93 shows.  I'd like to thank my dear friend, the novel coronavirus, without whom none of this would be possible.

If you're thinking "93 shows is still too much television," well, you wouldn't be wrong.  That's not even counting the many shows I checked out for one or two episodes and then quit.  Despite some seasons getting pushed back and others getting cut short, there was still an avalanche of television put out this year.  Out of any small crack in the landscape will pop a new streaming service these days, so now along with the usual suspects, we had Peacock originals and HBO Max originals and, for a brief period of time, Quibi originals (RIP).  It's hard to even consider myself a TV expert anymore.  Any time I tell somebody that I watch alot of TV, they'll inevitably say something like "Oh cool, have you seen that new Netflix show about the anthropomorphic cat who's also a depressed sex worker?"  Before you fire up your search engine, that show does not actually exist, but the point is that there's a whole culture of streaming service crate-digging that I'm just not keyed into at all.

Despite my decreasing completionism, my love of the medium hasn't abated.  2020 was an excellent year in television -- it may not have had the depth of previous years, but the sheer breadth of it was refreshing and exciting.  The best of what the year had to offer came in so many different forms, including anime, docuseries, and especially the increasingly popular limited series format.  There was also a great mix of old favorites and new surprises.  In fact, the number one entry on this list was a sensation that nobody saw coming.  What show is that?  Find out below!

The rules: Last year I implemented a new rule to help account for streaming seasons that got dropped at the end of the year, and I'll be continuing that this year.  So for any show whose entire season drops at once, the eligibility window for this list is if that season dropped between December 13, 2019 and December 10, 2020.   So season 2 of You, which Netflix dropped all at once on December 26, 2019, is eligible for this list.  Any streaming season that dropped after December 10th of this year will be eligible for next year's list.  I know it's confusing but that's the only why I can maintain my sanity and not have to catch up on things at the very last minute.  Thankfully the rules are simpler for shows that air weekly.  For those cases, any episode that aired between January 1, 2020 and December 31, 2020 are considered for this ranking.

My 15 Favorite Films of 2020

Remember yesterday when I said that my music list was the one that was least impacted by the pandemic?  Well, today's film list is easily the most colored by it.  COVID-19 may very well have killed the theater industry as we know it.

Usually in the intro to this list, I lament the movies that I hadn't been able to see because they were only released at the end of the year for critics and big cities in order to make awards contention.  This time around we're all basically in the same boat, as there's a long list of movies we thought we'd be getting coming into 2020, but were delayed until next year or later.  Dune, Black Widow, A Quiet Place Part II, No Time to Die, F9, Candyman, Top Gun: Maverick, The French Dispatch, Last Night in Soho, West Side Story, the list goes on -- so many big movies that, to varying degrees, had a shot at making this list were shelved.

As a result, my new movie intake dropped dramatically.  I saw a total of 48 new releases in 2020, compared to last year's 75.  The closing of theaters and delay of tentpole films play a large part in that, but I also didn't feel much desire to watch many of the movies that were released directly to VOD during lockdown.  I probably would have seen something like the poorly received Antebellum in theaters for $7 on a Sunday afternoon in a normal year, but it was much harder to justify watching it at home for $20 when there were so many other options to stream.

So I was left with a difficult decision to make regarding this list: Do I buck tradition and not have 20 films on it for the first time?  The films in my 16 through 20 spots are ones that I liked a fair amount, but they just didn't excite me the way movies that usually qualify for the end of the year list do.  Couple that with having to also write up five more honorable mentions and it just felt disingenuous to attempt to work up the enthusiasm to declare merely solid films as being the best of 2020.  Hence, we have 15 films on the official list this year.  Still, despite the smaller playing field there were a handful of films at the top that were truly fantastic.  2020 wasn't a complete wash when it came to cinema, and this list is here to show some reasons why it wasn't.

The rules: Things are a little different this year since most movies didn't get a theatrical release.  So let's make it easy and consider any film that got their first non-festival release in 2020 -- whether that's theatrically, on VOD, or exclusively on a streaming service -- qualifies for this list.

My 20 Favorite Albums of 2020

You can't write an intro to an end of 2020 list without paying some lip service to what a tumultuous year it was, but out of the three lists you'll be seeing over the next three days, this music roundup feels like the one that was affected the least by the pandemic.  Back at the beginning of everything, when most people assumed this whole COVID-19 thing would blow over in a few months (oh, how naive we were), there were some albums that got pushed back a few months, but once everyone realized we were going to be in it for the long haul, even those came out.

If anything, we got more music due to the pandemic, not less.  After all, Taylor Swift -- previously known for her rigid gaps between release dates -- put out two albums in the last five months.  And it wasn't just her, all over the map we saw artists dropping more music or putting out projects sooner than we expected.  While some used their newfound time due to canceled tours to supplement their income in creative ways, others simply got to work, and we got to reap the rewards.

Musicians weren't the only people with time on their hands either.  Between working remotely minimizing the amount of interruptions I experience during the day, and the lack of TV programming leading to lots of time needing something to occupy my ears while watching NBA games, I had many more opportunities to listen to music in 2020.  I tried to use that time to expand my horizons and listen to genres I've largely bypassed, like electronic music and emo, because I previously just didn't have the bandwidth to dive into a whole new world.  Naturally, this led to me feeling more overwhelmed than ever by the sheer amount of music there is out there just waiting to be heard.  Every year, there are albums I really want to get to that I don't end up spending time with before the deadline for this list, but it seemed to double this year.  Between the 10 million Griselda albums, the weekly deluge of Detroit rappers dropping Youtube loosies, and all the emo bands Ian Cohen recommends on Twitter, there is so much good stuff that didn't get my full attention.  So think of the list you're about to read as less definitive and more like a snapshot of my favorite things I managed to get to.

The rules: Everything is the same as usual.  The window of eligibility for this list is anything released between January 1, 2020 and now.  This list can include albums, mixtapes, EPs, and anything in between.  As always, I'm praying that nothing substantial comes out in the twilight hours of the year.

75 Songs I Liked in 2020

 

On December 29th, I'll be starting off my end of the year lists with my 20 favorite albums of 2020.  But there's so much great music out there that my album post will only cover a very tiny portion of the stuff that's worth listening to.  So this list is an additional rundown, one that highlights songs from albums that won't be appearing on the top 20 in a few days.  I'm including songs from my five honorable mention albums, so if you see something on here from an album you love, who knows, maybe that album is ranked somewhere between 21 and 25 for me!  Because I listened to and liked more songs this year, I've expanded this list to be 75 tracks instead of the usual 50.  Even this doesn't fully cover the quality that the year had to offer, but it's a good representation of what I generally enjoyed in 2020.