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

Everyone here loves it so much, I’m afraid to say I liked it less as it went along.

Xpost to Dan there.

Johnny - Chernobyl is goddamn amazing eh?

wildly good

i forgot another side poll show i watched and really liked in 2020 (prob forgot cuz this was pre-pandemic) - horace & pete

I heard that was kinda of a bummer?

fair to say that; id call it a tragedy prob

it's good and funny and very much a bummer

Thanks for the kind words! I can’t take much credit here! Forks was the one doing most of the heavy lifting in this poll.

There is a visceral thrill in watching IMDY in that Michaela's is the sort of voice who hitherto has never had the chance to make TV shows. There is a minute to minute triumph in the mere fact of its existence.

Thanks to the poll runners - How To with John Wilson sounds fascinating and I will check it out, had never heard of it prior to now.

Excellent poll, many thanks to forks and Moka. Here's my weighted ballot.

1 I May Destroy You
2 The Queen's Gambit
3 Schitt's Creek
4 Unorthodox
5 The Great
6 The Undoing
7 The Crown
8 Ghosts
9 The Great British Bake-Off
10 Only Connect
11 Us
12 Rupaul's Drag Race
13 Roadkill
14 Giri/Haji
15 Small Axe
16 Dracula
17 Portrait Artist Of The Year
18 Quiz
19 Devs

Thanks organisers, was a lot of fun to read - maybe I'll vote next year!

Thanks to forks & moka! My short ranked ballot:

1. Action Button (YouTube)
2. All Gas No Brakes (YouTube)
3. Devs (Hulu)
4. What We Do in Shadows (FX)
5. Normal People (Hulu)
6. The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)
7. Lindsay Ellis (YouTube)
8. Jeopardy (Syndication)
9. Videogamedunkey (YouTube)

Favorite thing I watched last year not from last year: Halt and Catch Fire

THANK YOU FORKS AND MOKA! sorry i couldn't chat during the festivities, was barely keeping up w/ work etc.

here's my ballot! (weighted)

Action Button (YouTube) - Link
Ted Lasso (Apple +)
All Gas No Brakes (YouTube) - Link
What We Do in Shadows (FX)
How To with John Wilson (HBO)
Avenue 5 (HBO)
Search Party (HBO)
Devs (Hulu)
Corporate (Comedy Central)
The Dress Up Gang (TBS)
High Maintenance (HBO)
AEW Dynamite (TBS)
RuPaul’s Drag Race (VH1, Netflix)
Schitt’s Creek (Netflix)
Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet (Apple +)
The Eric Andre Show (Adult Swim)
The History of the Seattle Mariners (Youtube) - Link
Patriot Act (Netflix)
PEN15 (Hulu)
Ramy (Hulu)
Star Trek: Lower Decks (CBS All Access)
Lovecraft Country (HBO)
20020 (Web Only - SB Nation) - https://www.sbnation.com/secret-base/21410129/20020/
Aunty Donna’s Big Ol’ House of Fun (Netflix)
Canada’s Drag Race (Crave/BBC)

Old shows, all first watches in 2020 I think (Utopia may have been late 2019, i can't remember):

1. The Leftovers (WOW WOW WOW how did i miss this)
2. Neon Genesis Evangelion (2 eps left now!)
3. Utopia (2013)
4. Lodge 49
5. Detroiters

also this thread reminded me to watch the seattle mariners thing and it's so good and i love that team so much more than i already even did ughhhh

I May Destroy You (HBO)
How To With John Wilson (HBO)
What We Do In The Shadows (FX)
The New Pope (HBO)
Better Call Saul (AMC)
Mrs. America (FX/Hulu)
Bojack Horseman (Netflix)
The Boys (Amazon Prime)
The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)
Jeopardy (syndicated)
The Mandalorian (Disney+)
The Last Dance (ESPN)
Lovecraft Country (HBO)

I only watched one new old show in 2020 and that was the incredible and beautiful Halt And Catch Fire

Was pretty absent for most of this poll but just got around to looking at the list properly and decided to give How To With John Wilson a go. I'm yet to read everyone's comments because I want to watch the whole thing first, but the first episode was literally a masterpiece. Like Chris Marker meets All Gas No Brakes.

get excited it gets better

I can't even imagine! This is the most excited I've been about a use of the visual form in a while.

I finished off Worzel Gummidge, what's that German word for nostalgia for a place you've never been? Lots of that.

Sehnsucht? Weltschmerz? Neither of those are quite right.

Omg the music choices in How To With John Wilson are killing me. So simultaneously hilarious and affecting.

i look forward to your response on the scaffolding

That's kind of what I was talking about! Sometimes the humour is absolutely pitch black, shockingly so, but the show also has such incredible compassion for its topics and subjects that the humour is somehow never too much. And yet it's still the funniest thing I've seen in years. Such rewatch value too. It would be impossible to catch everything on the first go!

The 2020 Gummidge episode was the best yet - hope he gets to make the covid-cancelled one, and as many more as he likes (inc zero), when it’s safe to do so.

I built myself a fort and watched the whole season of HTWJW and I suggest everyone else does the same.

Ha, that was fast tangent! Fav ep?

Oh god I couldn't even say. Every episode has so many highlights! Baby, the refs' dinner, the 'designed' scaffolding... The visual poetry is amongst some of the best I've ever seen. Really hope he gets to make more. :)

it's renewed for the second season and was pretty rapturously critically reviewed; i think he gets to do this for awhile.

Hooray! Next for catch-up viewing: I May Destroy You.

you... might wanna pace that one a bit. It may destroy you.

Started Dead to Me on my sister/brother-in-law's recommendation, not realizing at the time it placed here. First two episodes, so-so.

watched most of the mariners youtube thing, its good; wouldve been downballot somewhere for me

you... might wanna pace that one a bit. It may destroy you.

Oh god...don't know if I'm ready. Currently watching It's a Sin and I can barely handle it.

Mariners and Dead To Me both very much on my ballot. Speaking of which, hang on...

Sex Education (Netflix)
All Gas No Brakes (YouTube)
Dead to Me (Netflix)
What We Do in Shadows (FX)
GeoWizard Missions (Youtube)
AEW Dynamite (TBS)
Tiger King (Netflix)
The History of the Seattle Mariners (Youtube)
I Did a Thing (Youtube)
Fairbairn Films (Youtube)
Never Have I Ever (Netflix)
Bojack Horseman (Netflix)
Corporate (Comedy Central)
Work in Progress (Showtime)
The Eric Andre Show (Adult Swim)
The Dress Up Gang (TBS)
The Queen’s Gambit (Netflix)
We Are the Champions (Netflix)
Emily in Paris (Netflix)
PEN15 (Hulu)
Love Life (HBO)
The Great British Bake-Off (Netflix, Channel 4)

I've started watching History of the Mariners. The bit early on where they say "who cares, baseball is boring" got me laughing out loud. So did the team's brilliant scheme of resizing the batter's box.

Just finished HTWJW myself. Ah man. Incredible

cough cough where are you watching it?

i can think of 'one two three' places you can see 'movies'

The finale murdered me but I think the refs' dinner is the Oscar pick sequence

Glad everyone is loving HTWJW. I watched it just after voting and it definitely would have been very high on my ballot otherwise. The background shots throughout are just wonderful and the celebrity cameo in the first episode was amazing, especially as it's not even referenced and I was left wondering whether he even realised until later who it was

cough cough where are you watching it?

It's coming to Sky Atlantic in the not too distant future

We cough coughed the first episode to check it out, and it really was quite something. I'm not sure the husband will be into it. He does not like uncomfortable comedy.

We also found ourselves watching twenty minutes of Congo last night on Film 4 just because they talked about it in The Dress Up Gang.

I was doing a mental inventory last night of all the shows where I'm waiting for new seasons:

Better Call Saul - first on most lists, I suspect.
Big Little Lies - think there's another one on the way.
Atlanta - caught up in time.
Ozark - one more, then call it a day, please.
Stranger Things - I'll watch because I'm come this far; not excited.
Killing Eve - ditto.
True Detective and Homecoming - in development, I believe.
Dead to Me and Flack - indifferent, but I'd continue.

You all are the best for alerting me to the existence of the Dress-Up Gang. I am not much of a comedy watcher nowadays but I could watch 10 seasons of that show and hope somehow they can produce more of it (I know it was a minor miracle the show even aired)

Also, I May Destroy You was as good as 10 #1 votes suggests

Thanks to ILX for getting me to watch Giri/Haji, which was fucking amazing!