Hi everyone! As promised, I'm back with my Top 10 Favorite TV Shows of 2020! Again, this list is based on my personal opinions and may have spoilers. I'm going to start with some honorable mentions which are some shows that I binged this year but that aren't on air anymore followed by my actual Top 10 list! If you want a refresher, check out my Top 10 TV Shows Of 2013, Top 10 TV Shows Of 2014, Top 10 TV Shows Of 2015, Top 10 TV Shows Of 2016, Top 10 TV Shows Of 2017, Top 10 TV Shows Of 2018 and Top 10 TV Shows Of 2019 as well as my Favorite YouTube Videos and My TV Show OTPs & Ships lists!! Fair warning, there may be spoilers below so keep that in mind!
Up first are my honorable mentions: shows that did not make my list of favorites for the year but still shows that I enjoyed watching!
Leverage
My first honorable mention is Leverage! So if you know me at all, you know that I'm OBSSESSED with con artist shows/movies and heist films cause there's just something so fun about watching people outsmart their targets and I think all of us find a thrill in the idea of being a Robin Hood. I actually was shocked I had never heard of this show until this year and that no one in my life would have recommended it knowing what I'm like so it wasn't until I watched the kdrama adaptation of this show (which I enjoyed fairly well) that this show got on my radar and man oh man where has this been all my life?? In the matter of one season Leverage shot up into my top 5 shows of all time! The story follows an ex-insurance investigator that puts together a team of criminals and thieves in order to help people who have exhausted all legal means of fixing their problems. Though most of this show is procedural, there are some storylines that stretch over episodes or build up in the background only to come out later and the arcs that characters go through actually stick. Every episode is creative and fun and I never once got bored of a con!
Criminal Minds
My next honorable mention is Criminal Minds! Ever since quarantine started I had been looking for a long running show that I could slowly binge but that was low stakes enough that I could watch an episode or two here and there without losing the plot so I picked this procedural. True to it's name it follows a group of FBI agents that work as criminal profilers. They fly to a random city every episode and help the local police solve their scariest cases. I was actually surprised when I finished this show how much I ended up missing having episodes to watch cause being such a long running show it did end up dragging every once in a while cause it was the same old detective story every episode with different and unique settings or overarching stories happening occasionally. Another byproduct of the fact that this show was so longrunning was the fact that so much of the cast rotated in and out but it was also so much fun to see the characters that did end up staying grow from these babies to mature adults. It was also so interesting to see how the quality of the show increased as the years went by and to see the technology on screen update too!
West Wing
And my final honorable mention is West Wing! So technically this might be cheating cause in all actuality I've watched The West Wing years ago and I've subsequently rewatched it multiple times. So why is it in my honorable mentions this year? Well that's where the cheating comes in since I think that cause this show decided to release a reunion special this fall in which all of the actors reprise their roles and act out an episode of The West Wing, it counts as a show I watched this year! No but seriously of course if you haven't watched West Wing by now, get on it! This show despite being filmed back in the early 2000s still holds true today with it's messages and themes. As the name of this show suggests, it follows the Democratic senior staff that work for the President Of The United States though I would say that it's more of an office drama than a political one. The dialogue is snappy, the acting is incredible, and I think it's worth every minute of time you spend on it.
Now onto the Top 10 list which goes from 10 to 1 with number 1 being my favorite tv show of the year!
The Flash
Coming in at number 10 is The Flash! It feels like it's been a thousand years since I last watched or even thought about this show cause while it normally should have been airing the first part of season 7 in the fall, cause of circumstances beyond their control, season 6 came to an end in the spring. I actually ended up enjoying the second half of season 6 a lot more than the first half because once Crisis happened and we didn't have to constantly talk about Barry dying when we all knew he was fine, it felt like the show got a new burst of fresh air to it. Suddenly the show fleshed out Iris's character and gave her a whole storyline and did what I had been begging the show to do since season 1! She and Team Citizen went out to investigate and suddenly the Big Bad that Barry was chasing was connected. It did suck that Cisco and Caitlin were so underutilized but I did love everything with Ralph which is why everything that came out about the actor was so unfortunate. We didn't actually get to wrap up the season in the end but I thought where we stopped was a pretty good cliffhanger so I can't wait for more! The 7th season will start on February 23rd.
Riverdale
At number 9 is Riverdale! This show was another that wasn't able to air it's full season before production shut down but what we got was all pretty great in terms of the fact that the mystery of the season actually ended up impressing me for the first time since season 1! Every thread that was dangled in the case of Stonewall Prep was tied together in a nice bow but the case with the video tapes and Mr Honey was less well done. Maybe it's cause I'm old now but high key I was on Mr Honey's side whenever the kids fought him and I was sitting here like you cannot be trying to tell me that he's the monster when he's actually the only adult in this show that's actually treating these kids as kids. I wasn't super into the whole thing where the show started to hint at Archie and Betty again cause you know I'm a Bughead shipper but after we found out that Lili and Cole broke up, it only makes sense that the show would break up the onscreen pair too which is why I'm usually super against on screen couples getting together off screen though from what I've seen Lili and Cole didn't seem to have that bad of a breakup. The rumors have it that next season will contain a time skip in which we'll return to Riverdale after our whole cast has graduated college and honestly that feels like the right thing to do and I'm sure we'll return with everything different like Pretty Little Liars did after their time skip. The 5th season will air on January 20th.
Brooklyn Nine Nine
Coming in at number 8 is Brooklyn Nine Nine! I absolutely adore this show cause I find it to be a perfect mix of comedy and seriousness. Every single character in this show well written and well rounded cause while they start out feeling like they'll be tropey in a few minutes you see that there's so much more to them. This season was so intense cause the main overarching storyline was with Jake and Amy trying to get pregnant. I constantly think that Jake and Amy are one of the most well written couples on tv cause they never really did the seesaw thing that shows love their couples to do. Once they got together, they were together and because of that it feels like we've grown up with them from these petty rivals to parents. One of my favorite episodes of this whole show was the one where they tried to get pregnant and couldn't. It was absolutely heartbreaking and absolutely beautiful to watch. We don't actually know when the next season will be coming out but I promise that whenever it will, I'll definitely be watching!
Lucifer
At number 7 is Lucifer! This show is so funny to me cause I really never loved it until it moved to Netflix so I struggle with whether I want to recommend it to others or not cause I can't exactly say oh just get through 3 seasons and then you'll have fun! The reason for this rise in my affection for this show is hands down because once it got to Netflix, the show cut out all the filler episodes and doubled down on the supernatural part of the show which is what I was interested in! This season was really exciting cause it was the season where Lucifer and Chloe finally got together. Lucifer returned from hell and we met his twin brother but it was the cliffhanger that really shook me with the appearance of God. I had been wondering for a while if the show would ever bring God into it or if they would leave it kinda vague so that we could pull our own conclusions out of it but I think ultimately I'm glad. I don't know if I loved everything was Maze though and I was totally sad that Eve didn't come back but here's hoping that whenever the second half of season 5 arrives that she will too!
The Magicians
Coming in at number 6 is The Magicians! Look okay we're all hella bitter that this show killed off Quentin and yes I did think the show's synergy shifted once he did but I still watched the whole final season of the show cause no other show goes as absolutely bat shit crazy like this one does. I still don't know if I liked how much time and energy was spent having our character mourn Quentin or if I would have preferred the show stick to theirs guns with his death and move forward but some of the mourning scenes were the best of the show and I liked that it allowed characters who don't normally spend time together like Eliot and Alice to actually connect. We played around with time travel this season and I actually really enjoyed every single second of it! The villain was also fun cause he was neither good nor bad for so long of the season and I actually liked where everyone ended up minus Penny who's entire teaching at Brakebills storyline was so boring. Speaking of the whole open ending didn't bother me either cause I like the idea that these people's lives will never be normal and once we leave it's not that they'll never have another adventure again but that we won't be seeing it.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
At number 5 is The Clone Wars! I have always been a original trilogy kind of girl but it wasn't until I watched Clone Wars that I started to form an appreciation towards the prequel trilogy as well. This year we got the final season for this show that had been planned and it actually took us all the way up and through Revenge Of The Sith which was absolutely fascinating. We got to see what Ashoka did during the end of the Clone Wars and how she struggled to figure out who she was after she left the Jedi Order. She had spent her entire life there and losing it really tore her up. I didn't particularly need more Darth Maul (who the adoration for makes as much sense to me as the love for Boba Fett) but I liked the way he was brought back in and more Bo Katan is never a bad thing. I even enjoyed meeting the Bad Batch which I'm sure was an opinion shared by all cause now they're getting their own show.
The Witcher
Coming in at number 4 is The Witcher! So technically this might be cheating cause the actual first season of The Witcher aired in December of 2019 but I only watched in January of 2020 so personally I think it should count not to mention the fact that if it had aired like normal tv then it totally would have ended in 2020! I have actually never read the books or played the game which this show is based on but I went in cause I saw Henry Cavill's beautiful face playing the lead and found myself falling in love with the characters, storytelling, and the world. I was really fascinated with the way the show played around with multiple timelines so that at first you only really got hints towards the fact that we weren't watching things concurrently. Ciri was a little boring to follow but I was super into everything we got with Geralt and Yennefer including their romance which not going to lie I was all about. The war at the end of the first season was so much fun to watch and though the cliffhanger of Geralt and Ciri finally meeting had me screaming in frustration cause I wanted more, it did leave us in the perfect place. The second season is supposedly coming out in 2021 and if I had to guess it'd be in December again.
Agents Of SHIELD
At number 3 is Agents Of SHIELD! I was truly heartbroken that this year marked the final season for this beloved show of mine. As you know, I have been watching SHIELD religiously from the first episode that aired to the last without dropping it once and this final season was really a love letter to the fans. I mean yes I was bitter as hell that Fitz wasn't in this season until the end cause he's been my favorite character since the beginning but I can't exactly blame the writers for a decision that an actor made to step away from a show so instead we can focus on the positives. I loved that this entire season was about time travel and that we traveled around and saw so many fan favorites though at new points in their lives and that so many Easter Eggs were left around for the hardcore fans to find. I gained a new appreciation for Daniel Sousa who became a regular in this season and ended up with Daisy and though the ending didn't really work for me cause it feels a little too much like tv writing to end the series with all our characters separated (unlike The Magicians who's open ending I praised) but I was still happy with how happy our characters were. This show will forever have a place in my heart.
Vikings
Coming in at number 2 is The Vikings! It's honestly kinda crazy that I ended up placing this season so high on my list cause I've always felt that Vikings may have peaked in their first season in so much that I've always liked watching this show and I have watched every episode that aired as it airs but I've always thought that the best episodes were in season 1. It's especially interesting that season ranks so high cause if you know me you know that Lagertha was my favorite character on this show and this season we actually see her die but I have to say that of all the characters who died in this show, Lagertha hands down had the best goodbye including Ragnar himself! This season made me cry and cry and cry and I swear that even to this day when I watch Lagertha's funeral scene, I cry all over again as if it's my first time. I am really excited for the next season and how it plays around with Rus but I'm worried that after we lose Bjorn (who's possible death was the cliffhanger for the first half of this final season) we'll actually be watching the fall of the Vikings. I mean it would give us a nice rounded show in which we saw the rise and fall of the Vikings but my heart cries for the fact that we spent so many seasons loving these characters that I just want them to be happy!
Legends Of Tomorrow
And finally at number 1 is Legends Of Tomorrow! Honestly was this a surprise to anyone who's been keeping up with my blog?? I never not have a blast with this show and this season might have been up there with my favorites! Though this show is an ensemble, I have to say that in my mind it was Zari and Behrad that stood out most despite this season being the one to flesh out Charlie. Zari 1.0 had always been a favorite of mine so I was worried when she came back as Zari 2.0 but luckily enough I ended up liking the new version just as much though I think a large reason for it was her sibling relationship with Behrad. He showed up this season and cause he was always supposed to be around it really did feel like we had known him forever. I was also hardcore shocked to find myself on board with Zari 2.0 and Constantine when the season past I was so on board with Zari 1.0 and Nate! Somehow Tala Ashe made it so Zari 2.0 didn't actually have chemistry with Nate when it's the same actors. I also did end up liking the whole Fates storyline cause I'm a sucker for Greek mythology and in the end it looks like we lost Charlie but maybe gained Astra as a season regular and I seriously can't wait until the next season where we're in space! Maybe we'll run into the Hawks again cause they are Thanagarian??
So that concludes my Top 10 TV Shows Of 2020 list and I'll see you all tomorrow for my list of Top 10 Asian Dramas Of 2020!
xoxo Allie
