Best TV Shows of 2020

Imagine Dexter if his wife was a detective. I'd heard that this was among the best Korean series, so I gave it a go. The first 2 episodes were fine though nothing earth shattering. The third was a little more intriguing as well as tense, and episodes 4-10 were relentless, compelling, with twists galore. 11-16 weren't quite as strong, writing or pacing wise, perhaps padded to fill out the episode count (and there was one trope right towards the end that made me roll my eyes and audibly complain) although as a whole, Flower of Evil might well be the best entry of the year. It had a lot to unravel and succeeded for the most part. Notably, I did enjoy how intelligent the police were; usually they're dumbed down to make others, whether the main character or the villains, look good. Here, however, both the wife and her partner were very shrewd.

Excellent chemistry between the leads (no surprise that they got wed in real life) with heavy romantic tension between them throughout. The second half is more pulpy than the first and there was an action scene late on that arguably jumped the shark, however it was a solid fish out of water drama, all in all. The ending was bittersweet and a little divisive, though they were apparently forced to change their original intention due to diplomatic concerns, so it's hard to fault the production team for wanting to prevent a war(!).

An especially strong start with a robust first half. The second half wasn't quite of that calibre, the narrative not as fluid, though it ended well. The production values, costumes, themes and performances were a cut above the norm for K-dramas.

S3- There were bumps in this last stretch of the road. The first 3 episodes were fine, although repetitive (intended to be, but still). 4 and 5 were a strong return to form, 6 was tiresome with its tedious catchphrases getting to be too much and 7 was again good, albeit crammed with information as if the writers knew that they were running out of time to explain loose threads. The finale though, delivered. Dark ended well. A few stumbles in the final season, nonetheless assuring itself as one of the best series of the past decade.

S4- Still going strong, with newcomer Emma Corrin ably playing Diana, however the biggest take away of S4 is just how bad Gillian Anderson was as Margaret Thatcher. She's playing a 53-year old woman (only a year older than herself), and yet she's acting like a 90-year old frail biddy. It was embarrassing. She ruins every scene she's in with her hamminess, although luckily her role is fairly limited. I thought that the Princess Margaret episode sucked the life out of the season a little bit too, and the writer's politics keep cropping up more and more. Other than that, I thought that it was a smooth season. Its Diana-centric nature truly challenges any positive opinions of the royals; they were awful to her.

S2- Aimless, for about 3 and a half episodes. From there, it got more interesting and remained a decent watch until the end (very saccharine in the finale and generally not as well written as S1, but you should like it if you enjoyed S1).

What proved divisive for some was randomly making 2 characters gay (neither being alluded to before, Vanya definitely not being gay in S1 because she dated a man), which means that both were political statements. And making racism such a focal point, both subplots were needless, unnecessarily distracting and the latter especially being completely tone deaf in this unfortunately race-baiting age. Particularly when you compare what life was like in the 60s to now, where shooting drug runners and carjacking rapists are apparently signs of systemic racism(!).

Pretty profound, if infuriating character work.
The first half, which I would assume is the source of all the hype, is a lot better than the 2nd, which meandered a fair bit. A couple of episodes in that third quarter were definitely a series low, however the last quarter ended fairly well.

S2- Another good season, more consistent than S1 yet not quite hitting its highs. The finale saw a few lapses in logic and the brief tokenism was embarrassingly inconsistent with the time, two minor flaws though.

There are many serial killer investigation series out there, albeit few with such a strong cast and quaint setting, with its fashion and mannerisms.

An ESPN basketball documentary is not ordinarily what I would choose to watch, but it was very well constructed, centred around a superstar in Michael Jordan, who has more than enough gravitas and charisma to carry 10 episodes. I was young during his era, I knew of him but mostly knew him from Space Jam(!), so I appreciated the insight into his 14 year reign as an unparalleled phenomenon.  Interesting story, consistently told with no sag.

S1

Get past the first episode, which is very 'he said, she said' to discover why this documentary has gripped the world.  If I was to describe half of the things that are covered in eps 2 and 3, not even the halfway point of the season, you wouldn't believe me.  Of the big cat owners we see, the guy that was the inspiration for Scarface seems to be the least insane person, which says it all.  It is magnetic, these people are all nuts and the things they've done/seem to have done, they're just rattled off in quick succession and my jaw was just on the floor.  I don't typically watch documentaries but this was exceptional.  The last 3 episodes were slower but I liked how the outlook shifted; the first half made it look like Joe Exotic was almost the 'good' guy in a way, but the second half changed the narrative entirely.

S4

Its best episode was its 2nd and having the highlight so early on, maybe it was jarring for some. S4 got a little bogged down in stationary politics in the 2nd half with eps 7 and 8, a bit too much expository dialogue but found its way again towards the end.  It's mainly the Mercian politics going on for a little too long, that's the main flaw of the season. It worked well for a few episodes, Edward accounting for every possibility and adjusting to every new development, but the expository dialogue got a little too much. Fans perhaps expected a little more action but I for one prefer character arcs/dialogue (substance over style), and some stood out quite well; Aethelred, Eadith and Eardwulf changed a lot, and the aforementioned Edward was surprisingly pragmatic for such a young leader (other than what he did when he arrived at Winchester). Good season albeit with some holes here and there.

S3

I liked it a lot more than S2, which was vital for me to want to keep watching.  A good opener, but that and the next 3-4 episodes had a lot of stodgy dialogue and acting, a sense that it was being dragged out.  Enjoyable, but needed better pacing.  Then it started to heat up with a Lovecraftian element that was quite trippy as well as the best spoken scene in the entire show (episode 6).  Diving into the mysterious occult aspect.  Criticism has been levied against storylines being either unnecessary or unnecessarily elongated, and while this is true, if you enjoyed S1, you'll like this.  I must say, I didn't care for the lesbian vampire characters; there's no reason for these to even exist in the series beyond ticking boxes and the try hard acting and corny dialogue do nothing for me.  Every other character has a point within the story, but they don't.  The last two episodes are action packed, so if you're impatient, hold on until then and you won't be disappointed.

S5- Quite an underwhelming season, particularly when every prior one was better than what came before it. Every storyline and character arc was just a bit mundane for my liking. It got a little more eventful towards the end, but I was never hooked as I was in every past season.

S2

Big step down from S1; the writing was strong enough in S1 that the horrifically bad accent from Karl Urban and bland acting from Hughie/Starlight could be relatively obscured, but without that crutch in S2, they had the spotlight and those negativities shone. Character arcs/the narrative were very undercooked too.

I went from going 'Eric Kripke made this?!' to 'Eric Kripke made this'. That's not to say that it's not worth a watch but after S1, you'd expect a lot more, rather than a bunch of questions amid every episode about clear lapses in logic. Needs a better writing team, because they're wasting the likes of Homelander.

S5- Worst season to date. The bulk of it was devoted to badly acted Belter accents with schlocky dialogue. I wish that Amazon had never revived this series, because these past 2 seasons have ruined my interest in The Expanse.

S1- Messy around the edges but if you enjoy Castlevania or mythology, you should find this at least mildly entertaining. It's maybe a 7; it won't top any lists but there are worse applications of your time.
The Castlevania-style frame rate stuttering was a little bizarre considering that we're nearly in 2021 and Netflix funded this. They need to up the bar on that front.
I could've done with a little more polish in the writing department too; some inconsistencies left me scratching my head, like what happened with Zeus as well as what happens with Heron in the climax.

The side characters for instance were pretty unnecessary. There's one comic relief character that's very out of place (every series has one but he could not have been more out of place here) and a token black character that similarly added nothing (in Ancient Greece? Seriously? They did this in Castlevania too, which is set in medieval Romania, no? This industry can't handle an all white series under any circumstances lol). They were introduced more than halfway through as well, so they stood out like a sore thumb. And the female warrior, Alexia; where did she end up? I didn't recall seeing her at all towards the end. There was also an all-powerful sword that the writers seemingly forgot about too.
Hopefully they can hire a better team because timeless characters such as the Greek Gods deserve a little more. Still, decent action, the plot was serviceable enough if you turn off your brain a little, maybe they just had too many threads and didn't tighten up the ones they had before they moved on to others.

S1

The pacing was a problem; it could've been half as long, and as for the end shootout, these cops/ex-military standing there to get shot at rather than taking cover, spreading out, using tactics to take out the shooter... ugh. It was a slow, sometimes frustrating viewing but Ben Mendelsohn is always worth a watch, and I liked the supernatural undercurrent.  Just wished that it was tighter.

I liked it initially but I found that it got less interesting as it went on, having less and less to say. The character who couldn't go through a scene without making a racist comment was an eye roller, and the finale was a little too neatly concluded imo.

Like The Queen's Gambit, good start but losing me a little bit more with every following episode.

S3- Similar to S2, not as funny or well paced as S1, although it wasn't as stagnant as S2 in terms of locations, the character jumping around in different times here. It had a good start before they stayed at the same location for three episodes in the second half of the season, with the pacing dragging along with it. Wolf certainly carried the last 2 seasons in terms of humour.

S1- For maybe half of the season, I was invested. However, that last half was an absolute slog, completely nonsensical. The funny thing is that many found the first half a slog! I'd love for them to try and sit through what was to come; gruelling is another word to describe it.

S4b

The season just seems... limp.  The Vat of Acid episode and finale were alright but the other three were among the weakest that the series has ever done. With all series, it's just a matter of time until they outgrow their welcome, but 4 seasons is typically sooner than expected.

S2

In the vein of the first season, it's okay. I'm not laughing (probably not a good sign for a comedy), I don't hate it but it could be more. For a spinoff series of a hilarious film, I did and still do expect more hilarity.

S3- Started off decently, though it soon devolved into the same shameless anachronisms that S2 became bogged down with. Incapable of reflecting the time period and the books themselves, with the writers trying to rewrite history by going way overboard with feminism, race relations, even trying to make a statement against the native schools, a trending subject around the time this season was made.
That storyline had zero resolution, and the main characters' storylines were bungled too such as the relationship between Anne and Gilbert, Diana's attempt to go to university that inexplicably got resolved, even minor characters like Josie Pye's subplot were forgotten, it was all very haphazard. Like S2, had they spent less time virtue signalling and more time on their characters, those seasons wouldn't look so meagre compared to S1.

S1- Between the acting, writing and humour, everything's just... naff. Look at that star rating; what a joke.