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2020 has been the year of the series.

While we’ve been stuck inside or avoiding the great out there, one of the easiest ways to stay sane has been to sit back and binge-watch something good.

I’m watching Preacher at the moment. Check it out if an irreverent look at religion and middle America, with a touch of the supernatural and a charming Irish vampire, is your thing. There are five seasons to work through so there’s plenty to keep you entertained.

But I digress. We’re here to check out the best of the best, and hopefully, give you a couple of things to add to your watchlist.

Rolling Stone loves a retrospective, and they’ve taken a look back on some of the best series of the year.

Behold, the top five:

1. Better Call Saul

The spinoff of the critically acclaimed Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul takes things down a notch from its parent show. It’s now on season five.

Jimmy McGill lets his inner shyster Saul Goodman metaphorically slip out, ranting that he’s grown so powerful, “lightning bolts shoot from my fingertips!” In another, dogged Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn, a.k.a. TV’s best dramatic actor) reveals just how much her relationship with Jimmy has corrupted her: Right after she outlines a plan to ruin their ex-boss’s career and cash in, she mimes finger guns at her shocked boyfriend.

It might have replaced the explosions of Breaking Bad with a bullet-storm of words, but is no less compelling.

2. Lovecraft Country

In this mashup of genres, a black family in the 1950s battles horrors both supernatural and real.

Yet at its very best — a road trip through Jim Crow’s America scored to a James Baldwin speech; Leti (Jurnee Smollett) smashing up a row of cars owned by racist neighbors; Hippolyta (Aunjanue Ellis) leading a tribe of African warrior women into battle against a Confederate army — Lovecraft aimed higher and hit harder than almost anything else on television.

I’ve added this one to my ‘watchlist’.

3. Brockmire

A story about baseball described as an:

…unheralded comedy about a loquacious play-by-play man (Hank Azaria, never better) slowly rebuilding his life and career after years of drinking, drugs, and sexual debauchery. (OK, so he never quite left the debauchery behind, and we are all the better for it.)

The sport isn’t massively popular here, but that doesn’t take away from the entertainment value.

4. I May Destroy You

It’s a dark 12-episode, delicately handled tour de force about sexual assault.

Writer/star/co-director Michaela Coel made the tale of young author Arabella coping with the aftermath of being drugged and raped into a spellbinding, audacious meditation on consent, trauma, and even writer’s block. Where too many modern dramas feel padded and inessential, Coel packed an extraordinary amount of information and ideas into each episode, exploring Arabella’s ordeal not only through the lens of her recovery, but through her friends’ parallel problems. And Coel proved just as arresting in front of the camera as she was inspired behind the scenes.

Just emotionally prepare yourself – it’s at times a tough ride.

5. The Good Lord Bird

Ethan Hawk as you’ve never seen him before.

Even those who knew that Ethan Hawke had grown into one of our finest actors may not have been ready for the thunderous volume of his turn as violent abolitionist John Brown. And even those who suspected he had an enormous performance like this in him were surely startled by just how funny Hawke made the thing, as both actor and co-adapter of James McBride’s novel.

You can check out the full list of series here, or return to it once you’ve binge-watched your way through the top five.

There are worse ways to spend the holidays, than with a bowl of popcorn and some compelling TV.

[source:rollingstone]