It's time for the 8th annual ranking of my favorite TV shows. The first year I did this was in 2014, with streaming still in its very nascent stage, and it was a list of 10 shows topped by Season 1 of Fargo. Over the years it expanded to 15 then 20 shows (2017 onwards), mostly as streaming took off and more than 50% of the list would be streaming shows. This year was an interesting one with a lot of shows that took 2020 off because the pandemic interrupted schedules coming back. Also my 2020 list was very mini-series heavy. Because of these two factors, 16 of my shows from the 2020 list are not there this year (below), and peak TV is just continuing to deliver in every way.
So, let's take it away from a Peyton-ified write-in all the way finally to my #1 - to which that show will join Fargo (S1), Veep (S4), The People vs. OJ Simpson, The Young Pope, Succession (S1), Chernobyl and Tiger King.
Changes for 2020
Show ended/was a miniseries
#17 - I May Destroy You
#13 - Fargo (assuming it's done)
#10 - Schitt's Creek
#9 - The Queen's Gambit
#6 - Bojack Horseman
#5 - The New Pope
#4 - The Last Dance
#3 - The Good Lord Bird
Didn't air in 2021
#18 - The Mandalorian
#16 - Perry Mason
#11 - The Flight Attendant
#8 - Better Call Saul
#7 - Babylon Berlin
Wasn't as good in 2021
#19 - The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
#14 - How To with John Wilson
#1 - Tiger King (it really didn't need a Season 2)
Write-In: The Manningcast
I put Inside the NBA on this list back in 2014, the first year I did one of these. I generally don't put these shows on the list, and I don't want to go crazy and rank the Manningcast, but let's talk about it for a second (in reality, can absolutely see me doing a whole piece on the Manningcast). Peyton and Eli have created something that almost immediately because must-watch TV for football fans. They are funny, they are sharp, they can explain the game well, and they care... a lot. Seeing Peyton fume when a QB does something dumb, or when a coach is being too passive, is fun. Seeing both brothers interact was always going to be good, but their ability to wrap in guests and almost without fail making them interesting, if not funny, is such a great credit to their ability. I hope this is not a one-year experiment.
20.) Beartown (HBOMax)
This is a show probably watched by very few people - a Swedish-language show about a local youth hockey team being rocked by a sexual assult scandal. While on its face this seemed like a #metoo show, and it waded well into that territory of why especially for teenagers, going public is so tough. But what the show also did well was expose small-town Sweden and how incredibly tied into the town's fabric hockey is. Think of it as something of the Swedish Friday Night Lights. As a show it deftly touched on celebrity, on overbearing sports parenting, on the cold isolation of Sweden, and of so much else. At times it was a bit heavy-handed and dreary but it kept to plan in that barren canvas of Sweden.
19.) Invincible (Season 1, Amazon Prime)
This animated show about a father/son dynamic of superheroes which turns on its head when the father turns out to be the bad guy was far more complex, witty and honestly dramatic than it had any right being. The graphics weren't the greatest, and the season dind't conclude in a super satisfactory way - granted setting itself up well for a Season 2. But beyond those minor faults lay a show that had the sharpness, say, of an Archer, and enough realistic superhero pathos to make it work. Also, despite it seeming obvious, anything that JK Simmons does is absolutely perfect.
18.) Loki (Disney+)
Loki is the only Marvel tv show to make my Top-20, and frankly none of the others were close (granted Hawkeye has started promising and I may regret not having them in this list. Anyway, Loki was the one of these new shows to find a good balance in what it means to be a tv show. The episodes felt connected but singular, there was a clear drive with the TVA all the way through to almost introducing the multi-verse in more certainty. Also, hte acting was really great. Owen Wilson fit in perfectly from the start, and Tom Hiddleston is just born to play Loki just perfectly. The world didn't need Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and it probably didn't need WandaVision. After Loki's death in Infinity War, we all did need more of the trickster, and this show paid that off well.
17.) Gentified (NETFLIX)
This show was probably my #21 in 2020, narrowly missing out with a great, light show around a Mexican family finding their way through Los Angeles, running a successful but cash-strapped Mexican restaurant. It graduated well to far more serious themes, without losing an inch of its heart, in a great Season 2 centered around their patriarch, Pop (Casimiro), fighting deportation. At times it felt a bit heavy handed how far and wide the show stretches distress, from deportation to LGBTQ issues, to economic anxiety, to the 'tiger dad' that shows up halfway through, but it all works because it is so well acted, none better than Pop who does most of his work in Spanish but is somehow even more impactful the few times he switches to English. It's a small show, but a damn great one.
16.) What We Do in the Shadows (Season 3, FX)
The show has quickly found its niche as a dependable, constant source of laughs without having to worry too much about the plot. Granted, they did try a bit more plot this year, with the vampiric council, Nandor losing a bit of love of being a vampire, and of course the expiration of Colin Robinson. But then in the finale we get Colin reborn as a baby and you just realize again that the show is not about plot, about seeing these four idiots succeed, but far more about just being funny. There might not have been any Jackie Daytona type moment this season but the show remained just a stellar source of laughs.
