As V.F. highlighted in our June TV issue, episodic content was a great savior—or, at least, distraction—during the very rocky first half of 2020. A surfeit of fascinating series to both binge and savor were on hand to keep us distracted as the world spun into the unknown, from heartwarming teen comedy to a chilling alternate-history allegory for the political troubles of today. Here are the 10 best.
Cheer
In a year when Michael Jordan’s alienating, if fruitful, hetero-masc egomania dominated a lot of sports-television conversation, there was at least another show about athletes that found tense, moving narratives in the struggles, setbacks, and successes of women and a lot of queer men. Netflix’s documentary series about a Texas junior college most known for its elite cheerleading program has its heartbreak baked right in: There is little to no professional life available for student cheerleaders to aspire to post-college. So they get only a few years to grab glory in their intensely pursued field before it’s all over.
Director Greg Whiteley sensitively captures the lives of these fascinating kids, and their tenacious coach, to tell a surprisingly moving story about Gen Z Americans on the grind knowing the future is dim but pushing along anyway. Cheer is as much a paean to their hard work as it is a lament for all those who toil and excel under impossible odds but whose achievements go largely unheralded. Until now, anyway. —Richard Lawson
Devs
For those of you who saw Ex Machina and Annihilation and thought, I want to spend more time in that, Devs offers the series-length experience of wandering around creator Alex Garland’s mindscape. The trip is scary and appropriately thought-provoking. Devs is a darkly, darkly satirical look at Silicon Valley tech, the kind whose implications could, well, threaten the very nature of existence. It’s heady stuff, and not all of the science in Devs makes sense. But the overarching sentiment that Garland is getting at—an alarm bell ringing in a forlorn, perhaps too-late tone—is persuasively communicated.
As an aesthetic experience, Devs is a treat. It’s easily one of the most stylish series of the year, but nothing (or very little) is there just to look cool. What’s thrilling and ultimately horrifying about Garland’s vision is how total it is, how he’s thought out the mechanical anatomy of his show so that everything has a practical, believable weight. If Facebook and Twitter have you concerned about what tech is doing to our personal brains and to the broader civic one, Devs gives you a whole new thing to be freaked out about. Have fun! —R.L.
The Eddy
This transporting, Paris-set jazz miniseries stars André Holland, Amandla Stenberg, and Joanna Kulig as musicians bound together by love and duty, set against the backdrop of a diverse cityscape that bustles along to its own tempo. The Eddy is the name of a jazz club and the band based there; it’s also the name of the song that Holland’s brusque, grieving bandleader, Elliott, writes throughout the entrancing eight-episode miniseries. Stenberg plays his daughter, Julie, in a textured performance that underscores her star power. Kulig is Elliott’s lead singer and sometime lover, Maja.
"TV" - Google News
June 10, 2020 at 10:54PM
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Best TV Shows of 2020 (So Far) You Can Watch Now - Vanity Fair
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