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What a strange year. At first I thought it would be a year to watch lots of TV shows, including all the ones I never had the time for but as it turns out, watching TV was something I did between doing other things. Now that all the other things are gone the desire to watch TV has gone with it, replaced with simulating doing things in RDR2 or CP2077. Also every show released in January or February has a feeling of nostalgia and makes them seem better. So this is almost as much as a 'rank the 10 shows I saw' as 'the best 10 shows I saw'. Honorable mentions: -A bunch of Cool Girls shows that were decent enough with a stand out performance: Teenage Bounty Hunters (Anjelica Bette Fellini), Warrior Nun (Lorena Andrea) and Fort Salem (Amalia Holm) -Perry Mason which just did not get to where it seemed to be going -Dark and The 100 which spent too much of its precious remaining time on plotlines that did not interest me that much 10: Kingdom, correction. Season 2 was a great follow up to the first one, relentless in its pace towards an amazing climax. Any show where a giant zombie is suplexed through ice as the pivotal turning point in the fight can do no wrong for me. 9: Cheer, one of those pre-covid shows that seem older. I love shows that dig in to a thing I had no idea existed, in this case ultra-hardcore cheerleading. It's got a great cast of characters who open up to the show in a way you can get when they are sure no one will ever bother to watch it. The makers also structured their show superbly to go from cliffhanger to cliffhanger as you count down to the big event and the pressure rises. On some level Monica Aldama is a cult leader who pushes vulnerable kids to extremes but the determination they show to win and the joy when they do is geniune. 8: Devs, Alex Garland delivers in spades on the visuals and themes I love from his movies. In the end the premise that the show is built on almost overwhelms it in the end but its style and acting was never anything less then stellar. 7: The Crown, I think this has been on my list every year and it's still as good as ever. For each season the joy is to discover both a familiar actor as a famous person and a new find in the limitless pool of British acting talent. This year it was Emma Corrin who dazzles as Diana and whose chemistry with Josh O'Connor is so good, even in such a poisonous relationship. 6: Better Call Saul, by most criteria this should be higher. Acting and production are stellar and the season was compelling as ever. But I do think they are making some wrong choices. Breaking Bad started out as one thing and turned into another. And BCS too, except the end of BCS has to line up with the start of BB, not the end. By having characters we know live on and others we don't know together the tension that is created becomes artificial. If Lalo has to fight cartel assassins there is no tension, no matter how much they try. And on the other hand there are the characters I love, Kim, Nacho, even Howard who have to provide the stakes. The tension becomes 'is this the episode where they kill Kim' and that will only get worse. The show I loved most was the one of Kim and Jimmy doing their elaborate scams and insane courtoom antics, not Mike and Lalo shooting cartel footsoldiers. 5: The Boys, a great season carried by Aya Cash as I knew it would. Being worse then Homelander is no mean feat and she did it wonderfully without even needing to show off her powers. The pure malevolence she showed at times showed a whole different kind of monster. 4: The Expanse, Only a few episodes were shown in 2020 but it was enough for a high place. Amazon bucks being thrown at the screen made it look superb and the journeys of the crew on their separate paths were way more compelling then I would have thought. 3: The Mandalorian, it's fanservice for sure. I'm a fan and being serviced in this way is 100% fine with me. 2: ZeroZeroZero, if this was not such a poo poo year this would have been number 1. It's got great action, travels all over the world, compelling characters played by both actors I had never seen or others I knew in a completely different light. Dane DeHaan and Andrea Riseborough especially. And then there is Harold Torres as Manuel, a character who is a complete enigma in what his goals and motivations are. You just see his methods which are brutal to the extreme but you're never sure what his end game is and I still have no idea. And while this is often just bad writing here it feels like a man whose motivations are crystal clear, I just lack the right kind of mind to see them and that's probably a good thing. If it was not so brutal it would have been #1 but I needed something more uplifting to be the best thing: 1: The Queen's Gambit, everything has already been said about Anya Taylor-Joy's mesmerizing performance which carries this show easily past every other show last year. And it opened up my eyes to how Chess Is Actually Really Cool and all the amazing matches to see on Youtube from various channels and livestreams. Thank you show. CeeJee fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Jan 15, 2021 |
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Jan 15, 2021 11:16
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 11:38 |
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