ILX’s Top 77 Television and Streaming Video Series of 2020

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#58 - The Repair Shop (BBC, Netflix) - 20 points, 2 votes, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
Bathtub Repair - Help
Boring Home Repair Question: the Fridge
This is the thread for questions about car repair

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Website UK
Website US
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/nov/25/the-repair-shop-review-is-there-a-lovelier-show-on-tv

GeoWizard is still the only explorer on Earth <3 my #5, his European adventure especially wonderful but don't count out his 2nd Wales attempt or his Norway crossing with Verity on boat-hauling duties

Kipo too low! Was my #6 so almost two top 5 votes.

One of the shows I watch with my 10 year old. Beautifully animated, a joy to watch and hard not to get caught up in Kipo's boundless optimism whilst still going to some dark places this season. Great finale too and deserves to become a modern day classic of animation.

neat, always keen for good animation, will check out

Historian David Olusoga’s A House Through Time was one of my favorite finds this year and thanks to ILX for sending it my way! Each four-hour season centers around a still-standing British house that was built in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, tracking - as closely as possible - the lives of each of the people who’ve lived there since its founding. It’s a deeply humanistic vehicle for cultural exploration and a great opportunity to take frank looks at issues of fashion, tradition, art, class, race, gender and sex through the centuries. Olusoga is a compelling and erudite narrator who always finds a way to present new perspectives on what would likely otherwise be fusty stories. This season’s house at 10 Guinea Street was paid for and housed slave traders and Olusoga doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to presenting the current owners with the sour news. The upcoming fourth season is one of my most anticipated upcoming 2021 watches.

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#57 - A House Through Time (BBC2) - 23 points, 3 votes, 2 top 5 votes
The BBC
Your Ten Favorite Shows Currently on Television

Olusoga Interview
Full Episode: S1E1
Website
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/may/26/a-house-through-time-review-an-absorbing-important-history-lesson

Had a weird day yesterday so only just catching up but yay for AEW and GeoWizard, which I voted for!

ILX alerted me to AEW's relatively new and surprisingly fresh stories and match-ups. The entire roster and commentary panel is full of everyone you would want to see from the past and present of wrestling - such a talented group.

GeoWizard is the most median representative of Britishness which somehow works as a great palette for these deadpans paeans to beautiful landscapes ('That's lovely that'). His series are so faithful to the trajectory of each journey he takes (you hardly miss a moment with all the timelapse) and it's genuinely thrilling to see how someone copes with often hair-raising obstacles.

There's so much in here so far that I never knew about, so excited to catch up, though I felt this:

opted out this time in remembrance of the only good tv show, lodge 49

― stimmy stimmy yah (Simon H.)

Rewatching again, halfway through season 2. :(

The only talk show worth a damn during COVID was Desus and Mero and I will fight you over this.

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#55 (Tie) - Desus and Mero (Showtime) - 23 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
bodega boys desus nice & the kid mero aka's poll

Pre-COVID Trailer
Officiating a Zoom wedding and fucking up Mero’s foot
Doctor Nina
Ridin’ with Biden
Obama Interview
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lol geowizard made it, I haven't participated in this poll so a surprise. good fun. want to check out a house through time

xpost GeoWizard. I've only watched the first attempt to cross Wales so didn't vote for the 2020 shows. Oddly compelling viewing.

First of mine to place.

First time I've watched enough telly to take part in this. GeoWizard looks right up my street but I got near-instant motion sickness! :(

Olusoga is class. Great show.

Well before WandaVision, Tim and Eric were already doing dark retro sitcom revival but with Meadow Soprano instead of an Olsen triplet. Also way more fart jokes.

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#55 (Tie) - Beef House (Adult Swim) - 23 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job - Christ Almighty this show is funny.

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https://www.vulture.com/2020/04/tim-heidecker-eric-wareheim-beef-house-interview.html

how did i not know about this

It's amusingly puerile but also v minor T&E. I'm a fan generally; it didn't make my ballot.

I’m American and a child at heart so I think you know how I pronounce this title.

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#54 - Strictly Come Dancing (BBC) - 25 points, 3 votes, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
Strictly Come Dancing--am I on my own here?

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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/dec/19/thank-you-strictly-come-dancing-for-giving-us-the-final-we-needed

was about to pour scorn but then saw who the winner was!!

I warmed quickly to the eminently-bingeable, low-stakes British supernatural ensemble comedy Ghosts and presumed it would come to America as a remake within the year. Before I was done with the first season, HBO bought it.

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#52 (Tie) - Ghosts (BBC1, HBO) - 25 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
Rolling UK Comedy Thread - "Ricky Don't Lose Larry David's Number

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Website UK
Website US
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2019/apr/15/ghosts-review-tv-to-give-you-a-right-giggle-at-the-supernatural

Beef House is the first thing of mine to place (I may or may not have been the 1 top 5 vote) . Can't argue against "minor," but it did cause me to laugh hard enough to risk passing out at least twice.

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#52 (Tie) - Fargo (FX) - 25 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
We need a thread for the FARGO TV show yah? Oh, yah!

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https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/30/21495303/fargo-season-4-review-chris-rock

still haven't watched the latest season

Repair Shop my number one, a little tactically. My #2 (which I guess will win) is just better, easily one of the best things I've watched in years; but this been family lockdown viewing since the start of the year, and it's more like a place we hang out to chill at the end of the evening than a tv programme.
That sofa chatter some of the most comfortable memories I'll have when I look back on this strange time - yelling at repairees who aren't grateful enough, me repeatedly saying 'I should learn to solder', marvelling at Steve, wanting to hang with Lucia, shouting 'that's beneath you' when they do an easy fix on something ugly with skill and good grace, just enjoying the weird fakeness of the idyll.
(Also more coldly fascinated by the World War stuff that just keeps coming. The British fixation on it makes more sense to me when people bring in these mementos from their grandparents' wild adventures - life on hell island so dull & dim & unheroic compared to all the shot-down aircraft, shipwrecks etc that randos 80 years ago lived through)

never heard of repair shop but looks up my alley & p good

Right at the start of COVID, you couldn’t have a conversation without talking about death and Tiger King. So I guess we’ve taken at least one step. Until now.

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#51 - Tiger King (Netflix) - 25 points, 6 votes
most outrageously horrible human being featured in netflix's TIGER KING: MURDER, MADNESS, and MAYHEM

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Louis Theroux and Joe Exotic
Website
https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/04/netflix-tiger-king-is-an-ethical-trainwreck/609568/

ha, i started that poll thread but i could not vote for this.

this is definitely the best thing that came from tiger king mania: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzY64Qu8HHc

Tiger king was fun. Will always remind me of early quarantine.

Feels like ages ago yeah. Fun doc but when it became a sort of anti hero worship fest of the dude I lost the taste for it

The psychopathic documentary series this generation dictates, if not deserves. The moral indifference is quite something, but my god does it make for compelling viewing. Creates the good-bad sickness achieved by few documentary series. Didn't feel like there were any 'slow' episodes either. Voted for it.

Our last show for the day, Mindy Kaling’s teen dramedy Never Have I Ever, does the Netflix trick of keeping most of the trappings of the traditional network sitcom but also introducing PG-13 sensibilities and radically expanded cultural, racial and gender diversity. Also John McEnroe.

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#50 - Never Have I Ever (Netflix) - 26 points, 4 votes, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
Never have I ever

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https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-television/never-have-i-ever-reviewed-hotness-and-hotheads

just remembered the part of tiger king where the filmmaker let the park employees know that the jetski guy was an fbi informant lol

And here's today's updated wrap up.

#50 - Never Have I Ever (Netflix) - 26 points, 4 votes, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
#51 - Tiger King (Netflix) - 25 points, 6 votes
#52 (Tie) - Fargo (FX) - 25 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vot
#52 (Tie) - Ghosts (BBC1, HBO) - 25 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#54 - Strictly Come Dancing (BBC) - 25 points, 3 votes, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
#55 (Tie) - Beef House (Adult Swim) - 23 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#55 (Tie) - Desus and Mero (Showtime) - 23 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#57 - A House Through Time (BBC2) - 23 points, 3 votes, 2 top 5 votes
#58 - The Repair Shop (BBC, Netflix) - 20 points, 2 votes, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
#59 - GeoWizard Missions (YouTube) - 20 points, 2 votes, 2 top 5 votes
#60 (Tie) - Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts (Netflix) - 20 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#60 (Tie) - Murder on Middle Beach (HBO) - 20 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#62 (Tie) - High Fidelity (Hulu) - 19 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#62 (Tie) - Ozark (Netflix) - 19 points, 4 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#64 - Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet (Apple +) - 18 points, 5 votes
#65 (Tie) - AEW Dynamite (TBS) - 18 points, 3 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#65 (Tie) - The Plot Against America (HBO) - 18 points, 3 votes
#67 - The Good Lord Bird (HBO) - 18 points, 2 votes, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
#68 - Star Trek: Picard (CBS All Access) - 18 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#69 - Dave (FX) - 16 points, 3 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#70 - 20020 (SB Nation) - 16 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#71 - Bob’s Burgers (FX) - 15 points, 3 votes
#72 (Tie) - Oxventure Dungeons and Dragons! (YouTube) - 15 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#72 (Tie) - Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult (Starz) - 15 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#72 (Tie) - Taskmaster (Channel 4) - 15 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#72 (Tie) - Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix) - 15 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#72 (Tie) - Videogame Dunkey (YouTube) - 15 points, 2 votes, 1 top 5 vote
#77 (Tie) - Bluey (Disney +) - 15 points, 1 vote, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
#77 (Tie) - Followers (Netflix) - 15 points, 1 vote, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
#77 (Tie) - She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Netflix) - 15 points, 1 vote, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
#77 (Tie) - The Umbrella Academy (Netflix) - 15 points, 1 vote, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote
#77 (Tie) - We Are Who We Are (HBO) - 15 points, 1 vote, 1 #1 vote, 1 top 5 vote

never have i ever was cute

Neat results so far, lots of stuff I've never heard of. GeoWizard Missions and A House Through Time have particularly piqued my interest

Never Have I Ever WAS cute! Aaah Mindy is the best. The series really picked up in the last few episodes.

Never Have I Ever was my #1 vote. Idk why Netflix labels it comedy-drama instead of sitcom, since all scenes are played for the lols. Maybe because the writing is excellent and it's smart and poignant throughout?

there are definite dramatic undertones, what with her dead father and her strained relationship with her mother and best friends. tho i agre, it's no more a drama than scrubs was.

Kipo too low! Was my #6 so almost two top 5 votes.

One of the shows I watch with my 10 year old. Beautifully animated, a joy to watch and hard not to get caught up in Kipo's boundless optimism whilst still going to some dark places this season. Great finale too and deserves to become a modern day classic of animation.

― groovypanda, Tuesday, February 9, 2021 7:43 AM bookmarkflaglink

neat, always keen for good animation, will check out

― imago, Tuesday, February 9, 2021 7:44 AM bookmarkflaglink

groovypanda OTM, it's a beacon of light and hope. I will say that the animation in the last season was a lot worse than the first season -- I assume the studio had to crunch to finish the series.

Beef House my first vote to place, I think I heard about this on ILX, it aspires to be absolutely nothing other than what it is but it is about as well-made an example of the thing that it is as you can imagine

have not thought about it between the time i finished watching it and today, and never will again

I mean 'note-perfect fake sitcom with bizarre & OTT digressions' is a thing T&E do very well, but they'd already done it several times over before Beef House and it works better in bite-sized chunks IMO (imagine how much impact would be lost if Too Many Cooks had been turned into a series, as a non-T&E example).

But yeah, it was funny and fine for what it was but disappointing only inasmuch as it seemed like a step backwards rather than a broadening of the palette.

Oh I've never really watched anything by them before so I have no sense of this