Top 10 new TV series of 2020

Raised By Wolves

The updated and improved streaming service HBO Max's first year of production hit a real home run when it opted to acquire the Ridley Scott-produced sci-fi epic "Raised By Wolves," a sumptuous show with thought-provoking themes and challenging stories. The kind of ambitious, highbrow science fiction that is somewhat of a rarity in our times. Furthermore, "Raised By Wolves" is an original concept, written by Aaron Guzikowski, who also wrote the Denis Villeneuve-helmed thriller "Prisoners" in 2013. A show not based on existing IP is also a rare treat on the TV landscape today, and luckily it is a real humdinger - a smart story about androids setting up a colony in a distant future, programmed to bring up children for a budding new world, but as is often the case, it doesn't matter how far mankind comes from Earth, it keeps bringing age-old problems with it. Not bad for someone with only a couple of writing credits to his name. Now that "Westworld" has started losing steam, maybe "Raised By Wolves" will be the company's big budget flagship sci-fi. It's certainly off to a great start.   

 

Ted Lasso

The critically acclaimed, award-winning comedy "Ted Lasso" is probably the best thing on Apple TV+, especially if you like British-American culture clashes, which I do. The combination of cynical British wit and American goofiness has never been done better, although "Episodes" starring Matt LeBlanc came pretty close. You don't really need to like Premier League football to be entertained, but it certainly adds an extra layer of enjoyment to this silly but wonderfully written sitcom full of colorful characters and touching moments discreetly meted out in between all the childish joking. On several occasions you suddenly find yourself hearing some actual words of wisdom, often from the mouth of the titular football coach, and it's to the show's credit that when that happens, it always comes as somewhat of a surprise. Just like the yank does on the incredulous AFC Richmond supporters and players, "Ted Lasso" grows on you pretty darn quick. It's proper feel good comedy, that actually makes you feel good. 

Perry Mason

I'm rarely of the opinion that eight episodes is too short for a season, in fact most TV series would do well to limit themselves to eight, and sometimes even less. But when it comes to this reimagining, or prequel to the classic lawyer portrayed so legendarily by Raymond Burr from 1957 to 1966, I find myself wishing the story was longer and with more episodes. The plot is truly brilliant, not only because it takes place in Los Angeles during the 1930's, a great time and place for detective fiction, but because it weaves into the narrative many elements that are both topical and timelessly fascinating, such as cultish religiosity, political corruption and war trauma. When it's at its best, it brings to mind "Chinatown," that noir masterpiece, and Matthew Rhys has never been as intriguing as he is in the lead role, even if one has seen his diversity on full display in all six season of "The Americans," another great series about similar themes but in a different time. In conclusion, I can barely wait for a follow-up season, hoping HBO gets around to it.

 

Snowpiercer

Bong Joon-ho's post-apocalyptic climate change-themed sci-fi action movie from 2013 is a masterpiece. This spin-off series created for TNT is simply put not that. But as a testimony to the sheer brilliance of the concept, this version of "Snowpiercer" is still really, really entertaining, interesting and at least to me, highly addictive. What they've managed to do is put a spin on the story to make it work for several seasons of ten or so episodes apiece, instead of the more straightforward action-oriented rebellion at the centre of the movie version. And whatever they've done, it really works, for despite a certain unevenness in the writing that occasionally crosses over into the shallow side, I keep looking forward for more. That might be entirely due to the unique concept of witnessing the remnants of mankind hurtling along in a giant train all around the world after the planet's been reduced to a frozen, lifeless landscape, where class struggles have become life or death and the underprivileged "tailies" have had enough and plot to take over the train. Or it might be thanks to a great cast of old and new favorites, from Jennifer Connelly to Daveed Diggs to Steven Ogg to Alison Wright, or it could simply be that the showrunners are really talented and know what they're doing. Either way, I'm hooked for good.

 

The Great

Each episode of Tony McNamara's new series for HBO is introduced as, "An occasionally true story." A mere cursory glance at history, or even Wikipedia, will reveal that there is in fact nothing true at all about it, except that there once was a woman named Catherine, who was married to a czar called Peter, and that she orchestrated a coup against him. Everything else is the result of McNamara's warped imagination, as was pretty much the case with his big breakthrough "The Favourite." But that hardly matters when it's as funny, irreverent, crazy and original as this. Elle Fanning is excellent in the lead role and shows proof of genuine comic timing, and she is bolstered by a truly magnificent supporting cast, in particular Douglas Hodge as the constantly drunk general Velementov, Sacha Dhawan as the nerdy bureaucrat count Orlo and Belinda Bromilow as the czar's aunt Elizabeth, a pleasant new discovery for me who definitely deserves more great roles like this. McNamara is really a playwright, and despite the overabundance of puerile humor and smutty jokes, this is proper theatre in its wit, style and setup, and really good theatre at that. 

30 Coins

If you've never seen an Álex de la Iglesia movie, do yourself a favor and check one out immediately. Before we had Guillermo del Toro, de la Iglesia made some terrific Spanish-language horror comedies, chief amongst them his breakthrough "The Day of the Beast" from 1995. In his new show for HBO Europe, the grotesque, gory, scary, cool, funny as hell and outrageous "30 Coins," there is an international hunt for Judas' thirty silver coins under way, while an exorcist priest with the build of a heavyweight boxer that has been exiled from the Catholic church arrives in a remote Spanish countryside village, with a locker full of machine guns, right as a cow gives birth to a human baby and all sorts of devilry start happening. Also getting caught up in the crazy supernatural phenomena is the local mayor Paco and the village veterinarian Elena, and crazy is not nearly strong enough of a word to describe what transpires. Even the Biblical opening title sequence is breathtaking and unforgettable, beautifully shot, violent and thrilling, which really sets you up for this highly blasphemous mix of Catholicism, mystery, kinetic action movie, horror and high-octane comedy that is unlike anything you could've seen this year.

 

Gangs of London

Speaking of dynamic action sequences and crazy violence, one of the top surprises for me in 2020 as far as new TV series goes was "Gangs of London," created by Gareth Evans for Sky Atlantic, a hardboiled crime drama in nine episodes wherein the death of a London gangster boss leads to a complex internal war between all the rival gangs. I've been a huge fan of Evans' work ever since his big breakthrough, the Indonesian martial arts movie "The Raid" in 2011, and since his return to England, it's gotten even more interesting. First the excellent horror movie "Apostle" in 2018, and now this, a solid drama with good character development, top-notch cinematography and great atmosphere built around Evans' typically elaborate and impressively realistic martial arts sequences. Sensitive viewers be warned, there are several quite gruesome moments, but if you're as used to that sort of thing as I am, there's a lot to be excited about in "Gangs of London," in particular a great cast led by Joe Cole from "Peaky Blinders" and Michelle Fairley from "Game of Thrones," and a new favourite in Sope Dirisu as an undercover cop infiltrating the main London gang, who is sort of the show's main character. Actually, it's the show's large roster of characters that makes it so endlessly fascinating, there's the Irish mob, the Albanians, the Kurds, the Pakistanis, the Nigerians and even Welsh travellers (or "pikeys" if you've seen "Snatch"). It's the best portrayal of the complex nature of the criminal underworld I've seen since "The Wire," and really makes you realize how richly multi-cultural an international big city like London is.

 

The Flight Attendant

There have been attempts before to make interesting television out of the lives of airplane personnel, but none ever stuck the landing the way "The Flight Attendant" on HBO Max did. That might have something to do with the fact that it was based on a bestselling novel, but whatever the case, it was the kind of show that had just the right amount of trash to make it addictive, yet was also grounded and real enough not to turn you off. Thanks to some clever pacing and a great cast, led by Kaley Cuoco in a role that really made the best use of her charisma and relatability in a way that the ridiculously overrated "The Big Bang Theory" never quite did in my opinion, "The Flight Attendant" became one of the year's biggest surprise hits, and rightfully so. We also got to reacquaint ourselves with Rosie Perez, who I for one had not seen in ages, and I would never have guessed how much fun that would be. 

 

Bridgerton

Not many of the new TV series on 2020 dealt with the hardship most of the world was going through at the time, with lockdowns and daily death tolls and everything, mostly because of the fact that the streaming services' output had been created and shot before Covid. But if there was ever a time when binge-worthy material that transported you away to distant and beautiful places was needed, it was now. So if you think about it in those terms, Netflix's biggest hit show of the year, the Shonda Rhimes production "Bridgerton," based on a series of bestsellers by Julia Quinn, was the perfect show for 2020. There are a lot of adjectives that come to mind when trying to describe this over-the-top romantic depiction of Regency era high society life, but I'll leave it at that. It's over-the-top, it's romantic, it's a bit kitschy to say the least, and it's also a complete fantasy, this interracial version of 19th century England, but that is of course the point of the show and what makes it unique and very modern. In the end, it is most importantly really well-made, quite charming, fetching and very entertaining.

 

Ratched

If you went into Ryan Murphy's new Netflix creation "Ratched" thinking you were gonna see something that is in any way related to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and the character of Nurse Ratched, so immortalized by Louise Fletcher, then you would be setting yourself up for disappointment. If you instead consider the word "creation" that I used, in the fashion sense of the word, then you get an idea of what this is, and also of what Murphy in some ways always is, a designer, and this is kind of like a fashion show. A macabre and rather outlandish fashion show in the shape of a television drama that comes up with a rather inconsistent but ultimately thrilling and more entertaining background story for said nurse. "Ratched" could easily have been a season of Murphy's other creation, the anthology series "American Horror Story," for it is very similar in style and content, only with less silly humor and a more cinematic approach that brings to mind Hitchcock, 1950's melodramas, exploitation movies, soap operas and film noir rolled into one. In other words, a very eclectic experience, which is typical of Murphy's work really, and if you're up for some absurd television with great actresses like Sarah Paulson, Cynthia Nixon, Judy Davis and Sharon Stone, you can't go wrong.