Best TV Shows of 2020: you need to binge-watch these now

2019 gave us a new officially-highest-rated TV show of all time, according to IMDb. Chernobyl, the first co-production between Sky and HBO, dramatises the awful true story of the aftermath, reaction and cover up of the worst nuclear disaster in history.

Tense, gripping and horrifying, the show has been praised for its realism too. In fact, scenes were actually filmed in an abandoned power plant in Lithuania with the same reactor as the one that exploded at Chernobyl.

Not only did Fleabag Season 2 have the nation fawning over Andrew Scott’s Hot Priest™, it sparked a country-wide increase in sales of the pre-mixed Gin & Tonic cans the character swigs in the show, with Marks and Spencer reporting a 24% increase in sales after the drink was featured in the second episode of the season.

Wondering about the title? Writer and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge has revealed that while though the show isn’t autobiographical, the name comes from her family nickname: ‘Fleabag’.

Stranger Things just keeps getting better and better. Things have moved on in season 3 and, despite the series playing of nostalgia, there's no yearning for the characters how they were in season 1 and 2 – it's truly a delight to see how they've grown and changed. It's tense, it's colourful, it's achingly 80s and it's a must-watch

Natasha Lyonne stars in this Netflix dark comedy about a woman caught in a time loop, constantly dying and re-living the same night in New York City. The show is as endlessly rewatchable as the night she’s reliving.

You’ll be adding the song that plays every time Lyonne’s Nadia ‘resets’, “Gotta Get Up” by American singer Harry Nilsson, to your playlists immediately. But others considered by the producers included "Not Tonight" by Lil' Kim, and "No Fun" by The Stooges.

Acclaimed spy thriller Killing Eve returned for its second season this year, following a multi-BAFTA-winning first. In a cat-and-mouse game across the globe, Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh star as a psychopathic assassin and the MI5 agent on her case, who are both equally hunting, and obsessed with, each other.

Comer’s assassin, Villanelle, is rumoured to be named from a combination of "Villain" and the French word "Elle" for 'she' – meaning She-Villain.

In 1989, a jogger was assaulted and raped in Central Park. The case gripped New York, and five young black and Hispanic men, all aged between 14 and 16, were found guilty of the crime – even though they never committed it.

This emotional dramatisation of the events aired on Netflix to critical acclaim. The story is increasingly significant today. At the time, Donald Trump actively camaigned to bring back the death penalty to ‘punish’ the wrongly accused Central Park Five.

Mr Robot has been one of the most ambitious and tense shows to watch since it was first released back in 2015. And for anyone who thinks this is just a show about hacking, you couldn't be more wrong. This is one of the most watchable, fantastically-acted shows around right now with the fourth and final season really went above and beyond - the format of some of the episodes in this season were so ambitious we still haven't wrapped our heads around them.

Sure it's always a near-impossible task to end such a beloved TV series. And we won't give away the ending, but we will say it's a very pleasing and cathartic one for a change.

As addictive as the screens its cautionary tales warn us of, the anthology series Blac Mirror returned this year for its fifth season: a mini series featuring A-list stars including Miley Cyrus, Anthony Mackie and Andrew Scott.

Miley Cyrus stars as popstar Ashley O in her feature-length episode, “Rachel, Jack And Ashley, Too”. She even performed the song her character during her 2019 Glastonbury set, complete with her character’s lilac Black Mirror wig.

This hit new TV show follows the Roy family. They're owners of a big media company called Waystar Royco and everything is thrown into turmoil when the family patriarch, called Logan Roy, becomes ill. As you might expect, his power (and money) hungry children start to prepare for what will happen if their dad passes away. It's a satirical comedy with fantastic performances from the likes of Brian Cox, who plays Logan.

Watchmen was first dreamed up by Alan Moore back in 1986, since then it's been adapted for the big screen and now for the small one - although, importantly, Alan Moore has famously had nothing to do with the adaptations.

The Watchmen TV show we're referring to here was released in 2019 and was created by Damon Lindelof, of Lost fame. We weren't sure about the first few episodes, but now the season is over we can confirm it's a brilliant, bonkers re-imagining of the Watchmen story (well, set after the original Watchmen story) full of mind-bending time travel, crazy twists and some fantastic performances.

The Expanse could be one of our favourite TV shows of all time. It's science-fiction, dealing with the challenges that arise once humans have left Earth and begun to venture into the solar system, but it's so much more as well. It deals with friendship, love and a lot of politics to boot. That's why we'd recommend to everyone - not just space nerds.

The latest season is a change of pace. No longer are the main characters of the Roccinante just whizzing through the solar system, there are more and more worlds to discover and, as you'd expect, lots of ancient aliens, challenges and hardships to face.

The remake of the Lost in Space TV show has a fantastic aesthetic. You'll see lots of amazing special effects, truly gorgeous shots of space and a fantastic robot/alien design. The plot is exactly what you'd expect: the Robinson family are lost. In space. But this is a really enjoyable and fresh take on the story with fantastic performances from the cast, especially Parker Posey as Doctor Smith.

The second season puts the Robinson family in a slightly awkward position - on a very small strip of beach on an alien planet. But using their engineering skills and, quite frankly, ridiculously big brains they get themselves off the watery planet and start another adventure.

The new season of GLOW is here and the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling bring us what might be the best season of the heartfelt wrestling show yet. For the uninitiated, this is a show about wrestling, yes, but really it's about the deep personalities of the women (and a few men) who put the wrestling shows together. There's fantastic acting from the whole cast and it manages to be heart-breaking in one beat and funny in the next. A huge achievement.

Neil Gaiman says that, before Terry Pratchett passed away, he told him Good Omens should be made into a TV show. So, a few years later, here's the magical, hilarious and gorgeous-looking Good Omens. Fans of the book will be happy to hear it's extremely faithful. The only major addition character-wise is John Hamm as Gabriel and I don't think anyone can complain about that.

This super-bingeable Netflix mystery drama has seen more twists than a pretzel factory and two protagonists even saltier, too. Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini star as two women who meet at a bereavement counselling group, but all is not what it seems.

As fun as the thriller is to watch, though, Applegate has said the show took its toll her, and that she actually went to therapy after filming it, drawing on past personal loss to film it.

Game of Thrones was originally publicised with the premise of ‘The Sopranos in Middle Earth’. Since then, babies all over the world have been named after characters, the fictional language Dothraki has become a language course and TV as we know it has been changed forever.

This year’s final season closed the chapter on the most influential series in pop culture history in cinematic style. Every episode is feature-length and full of revelations, long-awaited character reunions, heart-pounding action, and a heavy dose of death. No show has ever felt as monumental as this.