Exactly four years ago, the COVID-19 lockdown stranded us at home with nothing to do but doom-scroll through social media and watch TV. Granted, this wasn’t a drastic deviation from the regular life of a TV reviewer, but it did require a deeper dive into the streams.
You remember critical hits like The Flight Attendant and cultural anomalies like Tiger King—but these were some of the real treasures of 2020.
Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens (streaming on Max): A spiritual sister to Broad City, Comedy Central’s Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens arrived just ahead of the pandemic in January 2020. Twenty-something Nora (Awkwafina, obvs) lives with her grandma (Lori Tan Chinn) and dad (BD Wong) in Queens, and every day presents a new ridiculous scenario, including one episode dedicated entirely to her distinctive “queef” (search it … or don’t). AINFQ is occasionally as introspective as it is hilarious, especially in the series finale, where Nora meets the IRL Awkwafina. This was the last great Comedy Central original.
Mythic Quest (Apple TV+): Apple TV+ is slowly becoming the new HBO, a reliable source of high-quality (and high-dollar) programming. Back in 2020, it struck early comedy gold with Mythic Quest. The video-game company workplace sitcom could have coasted on the sparkling dynamic between arrogant creative director Ian Grimm (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’s Rob McElhenney) and anxious lead engineer Poppy Li (Charlotte Nicdao), but the ensemble cast (including Danny Pudi, David Hornsby and Ashly Burch) puts it over the top. Mythic Quest is Veep for coders.
Dave (Hulu): One of the few YouTubers to make the jump to trad TV successfully, rapper Lil Dicky (aka Dave Burd) recently bailed on his hit FX series Dave to refocus on music—it’s Flight of the Conchords all over again. Dave never rises to the idiot genius of that classic, but it did produce three seasons chronicling Burd’s unlikely climb to the hip-hop top, with dozens of actual stars contributing surprisingly self-deprecating cameos (including Justin Bieber, Demi Lovato, Drake, Rachel McAdams and Brad Pitt). It often pegs the cringe meter, but Dave is (or, was) a true original.
Three Busy Debras (Adult Swim, Max): A trio of white-clad women, all named Debra, live it up in the suburban utopia of Lemoncurd—Three Busy Debras was the surrealist escape that Lockdown 2020 needed. “Debras” Sandy Honig, Alyssa Stonoha, and Mitra Jouhari, who also created and wrote the two-season series, over-weird even the most outre Adult Swim shows while simultaneously championing and trashing feminism in a fever dream of undocile domesticity. It’s not for everyone—or anyone, some would argue—but Three Busy Debras is a brain-melting gem.
Dicktown (Hulu): Former famous boy detective John Hunchman (voiced by John Hodgman) still solves crimes as a middle-aged man in his small hometown of Richardsville (nicknamed Dicktown), aided by his former school bully, Dave Purefoy (David Rees). This aggressively adult cartoon may sound like Encyclopedia Brown in the saddest timeline, but it’s really a tightly plotted satire that doesn’t scrimp on profanity or seedy details. Mike Tyson Mysteries would never have taken a case investigating a strawberry patch littered with used condoms—guaranteed.
Brews Brothers (Netflix): Brews Brothers dropped eight episodes on Netflix in April 2020, never to be heard from again, but at least Season 1 is still hanging around in the endless sprawl. A rude ’n’ crude bro-comedy in the vein of The League, Brews Brothers plays like an early 2000s cable comedy, about a pair of siblings who run a Van Nuys craft brewpub somewhat successfully—and always antagonistically. Its aim to be a hoppy mashup of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Beerfest isn’t always true, but Brews Brothers did produce this nugget: a hefeweizen blithely named “Weiss Power.”
The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch (Hulu): “There is a ranch in Northern Utah … It is considered the epicenter of the strangest and most disturbing phenomena on Earth … Animal mutilations, bizarre UFO sightings and unusual energies.” So opens The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, a History Channel reality series that’s been trying to smoke out aliens since March 2020. Of course, the team of scientists and ranch employees—including a dude named “Dragon”—never find anything, because they need the network to greenlight just one more season to get to The Truth. It’s stupidly addictive.
