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

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

Ha ha, oh wow. I can't imagine this being my first exposure to their work. Well, you're in for a treat if you choose to dig deeper. Expect things to get real weird.

I cant work out why I didnt vote for Bobs Burgers, I watch it all the time.

I haven't even heard of more than a half dozen of these shows, am definitely out of it

I can understand not getting into Bob's Burgers because it's very silly and low-stakes. But it's maintained its quality amazingly well eleven seasons in.

Yeah its one of those comfort shows you watch with a hangover/eating tea. Like old Simpsons.

Fargo was good in the first few seasons. I will watch this season too but I haven't heard as many great things about it

btw if you liked this show I strongly recommend Mercier as a kid from Israel who wants to become Parisian in Synonyms, where he does some outrageously good acting. Tons of full frontal nudity from him too if that's your thing.
― That's not really my scene (I'm 41) (forksclovetofu), Monday, February 8, 2021

I really liked the film and him in it, it was hard to believe it was his first acting experience

same here. it took me multiple episodes to place him! he's gonna have a hell of a career.

I watched the first episode of the Chris Rock Fargo and bailed; discussion on the thread mostly suggests I did it right. The actors are so great though!

Fargo S2 > S1 >> S3 >>>>>> S4 (we bailed after 2 episodes)

The problem I think with S4 of Fargo is Hawley had been doing Legion for so long it leaked out into the production. There were loads of gloomy dark shots with green tinges, shots down hallways, weird ghosts for no reason, oftn painfully slow pacing.

And Jason Schwartzman I feel was badly miscast.

There is one really good ep that riffs off Wizard of Oz that I did really like.

The Mindy Project has been a comfort show over the last few years so I will check out Never Have I Ever

Just watched one of the Geowizard Missions video series - great stuff! Youtube had recommended me his geoguesser videos but the Missions one are way more up my alley

We watched a couple of episodes of Bluey last night because of this thread. It was great. We laughed a lot.

in my head beef house and sex house are the same show even though I watched both and know they have nothing in common

Sex House definitely superior. I still try to push that on everyone I can (the name sometimes makes it hard sell).

i goddamn loved the OZ episode of Fargo, and i didn't mind the aesthetics (appreciated the old gangster photos). i thought Schwartzman and the nurse were perfect, but didn't really dig Rock; overall it was decent. made it onto my ballot, but it might be the worsts of the 4 seasons. 2>>>3>>1>4

We're in the same place: that's my ranking too, but I also voted for 4. (Actually, the further away I get from 1 and 3, I might rank everything except 2 more or less the same. The second season dwarfs the other three.)

Haven't watched the fourth season (and nothing I've heard has me champing at the bit to rectify that) but otherwise that's my ranking, too.

Have never seen Fargo. Based on the love here for season 2 can I skip right to that or do I need to see season 1 for character depth or something? Or is it total anthology

you can definitely watch it on its own

there are connections between seasons 1 and 2 (and probably 2 & 4, tho i haven't seen 4 so i can't say what those are), but they're not essential to understanding and enjoying s2

The connections between the seasons (and the movie itself) are so incredibly tenuous as to be virtually nonexistent imo. It's essentially an anthology series of season-long stories.

If you're a Coen brothers fan there's often some easter eggs in them which are nice to spot, but you’ll not lose anything by not having that awareness.

I'd rate 2>1>3=4, the Wizard of Oz episode bumped it up for me, absolutely gorgeous black and white cinematography. I wished they'd done the whole series in black and white.

might even be fun, if you're going to commit to the entire series, to watch by time period. so i think it would go: s4, s2, movie, s1, s3.

but if you just want to watch the best one, s2 is amazing... and s3 i think it pretty underrated and worth checking out.

i think season two had a song and a quote from a Cohen bros movie in every episode.

Great, I will definitely watch s2 and then if so inclined will proceed into the others.

fargo sucks and noah hawley is a hack

sorry I have to say this once per thread whenever that show is invoked

i've seen you repeat that a bunch, but to not belabor the point, why you feel that way?

you can point me to a thread if you don't want to spend too much time on it

to put it as succinctly as I can, hawley seems to "get" the coens about as well as twin peaks' other principal writers "got" lynch when he wasn't around to consult

TBF, I've never gotten the impression that Hawley was trying to 'do' the Coens.

I mean, he also made Legion, so whatever he is, it's not a hack.

Sex House definitely superior. I still try to push that on everyone I can (the name sometimes makes it hard sell).

― Vladislav Bibidonurtmi (Old Lunch), Wednesday, February 10, 2021 6:44 AM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sex House is one of the top shows of the last decade and I don't understand why it's not universally recognized as a landmark of television

you've ruined me!

Simon otm re: Hawley and Fargo

Thought the first season of Fargo tried hard to emulate the film; the second, I'd say, much less so.

I guess. Maybe that's why the first season kinda sucked. At any rate, if you didn't stick around long enough to see Bruce Campbell's portrayal of Reagan, you're doing yourself a disservice.

I thought Reagan was really woven into S2 well. And--maybe I'm reading too much into it--thought the ending, with Mike Milligan relegated to a desk job, was some kind of comment on the dawn of the Reagan presidency.

Trying to remind myself this is the countdown thread, not a Fargo thread--it's just a show I like talking about.

I guess I'm in the minority, but I kind of preferred S1 to S2. I watched both recently (haven't gotten to the later seasons yet) and, while S2 was definitely well-done, I didn't feel as emotionally connected to it.

yah i liked s1 more as well. cant remember why at this point lol.