2020: The best TV moments that helped us get through this year

Miracle Workers tackles the Dark Ages

Really, I could probably fill this entire list with jokes from the second season of Miracle Workers, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Steve Buscemi, Geraldine Viswanathan (as Alexandra S**tshoveler, really you can’t make this stuff up!), and Karan Soni.

This show is so funny you really could watch it over and over again and never get sick of it. From its clever ability to change time periods, each episode this season just improved upon itself.

From the legal battle for the royal goat, to Daniel Radcliffe’s straight face while playing a spoiled fool who wants to make a difference, to the crone that lives next door (“oh, that just went down last week”), to refreshingly new jokes about the Dark Ages (“The earth is flat. The devil is real. And that is everything that we know. Congratulations, graduates!”), Miracle Workers: Dark Ages proved one of the best comedies around. I, for one, am eager for this anthology show’s season three, expected sometime in 2022.

A renewed hope injected into After Life

Ricky Gervais may come across as a cynical jokester when he hosts awards shows, but his series for Netflix, After Life, is shockingly devoid of such cynicism.

In fact, it’s tender, poignant, and above all, extremely touching. A heart-rending portrait of a writer trying to come to terms with his wife’s passing from cancer, the first season set a dismal tone as Gervais’ Tony Johnson contemplated suicide and hilariously made an a*s out of himself. The empathetic way Gervais dealt with grief struck an emotional chord with audiences. As dark as the first season was, Tony finding renewed hope and the reluctant possibility of a new love, has injected the series with moments of triumph that has us cheering for the British curmudgeon.

It’s no wonder that Netflix is heavily invested with the comedian, greenlighting a third season.