Favorites include a dynamic comedy duo flaunting dramatic chops, a new royal scene stealer, a big star, one of the broadcast’s most seasoned ensembles, and more.
Even in a turbulent year like 2020, TV showed enough great performances to fill a Top 50, a Top 100, maybe even a Top 200 list. Unfortunately, the following is just a Top 10, largely (but not entirely) focused on hidden or underrated gems that were not featured in our Top Shows of 2020 lists. As A-listers and Oscar winners continue to brighten up the small screen with their star wattage, the battle for recognition has gotten fiercer than ever. We celebrate actors who already have special trophy rooms, but also highlight deserving newcomers, dependable veterans, and all kinds of talent in between.
Nicco Annan, P-Valley (Starz)
Annan’s resume was full of scene-stealing guest appearances on TV shows such as Claws and Shameless, but his first appearance on Katori Hall’s Mississippi Delta strip club drama is a moment of a fully formed star. Annan is the origin of the role in Hall’s play Pussy Valley, and there is no doubt that the long theatrical experience with the character helped the actor make Uncle Clifford the fully inhabited heart of the TV adaptation. Uncle Clifford identifies as nonbinary and uses her / her pronouns – but she’s mostly just herself, from the immaculate beard and meticulously tended nails to the wobbly heels to her roles as mom and dad with equal shares in The Pynk. P-Valley is essentially an ensemble of peers, and every member of the cast – including relative strangers and more famous figures like Loretta Devine or Isaiah Washington – shines. But Annan puts a little extra glare around that shine. – DANIEL FIENBERG
Emma Corrin, The crown (Netflix)
Even if you remember Corrin from her charming series opening arc on Epix’s Pennyworth, there was little you could have prepared for the star wattage she radiated in her one season as Diana, Princess of Wales, on The crown. There’s room to interpret Corrin’s Diana as anything, from an ingenious deer-in-the-headlights to a clever, self-promoting seductress, and bridging that gap is all happening in the eyes of the actress – even while dancing, roller-skating or on the hunt for another decade in this impeccably acted prestige drama. (And yes, Olivia Colman, Tobias Menzies, Josh O’Connor and Erin Doherty were all fantastic this year too.) – DF
Kaley Cuoco, The stewardess (HBO Max) and Harley Quinn (DC Universe)
Cuoco probably never got enough credit for how good she was The Big Bang Theory nor for how the show’s improvement and success coincided with the writers learning to treat Penny like a comic foil and not just the Sexy Girl Next Door. In its first year afterTBBT, Cuoco spread her wings, semi-literally in the case of The stewardess, a Hitchcockian comedy thriller driven entirely by Cuoco’s stylish, confident star turn, one that invites laughter and concern in equal measure. This came on the heels of Cuoco’s lead vocal performance in DC Universe and now on HBO Max Harley Quinn, a cleverly written series anchored by its high-energy line measurements. Oh, and Cuoco is also an executive producer on both shows. Not a bad year. – DF
Ensemble, The Conners (ABC)
The comedic prowess of this TV canon cast – most notably John Goodman, Laurie Metcalf, Sara Gilbert, and Lecy Goranson – has been noted for over 30 years. And yet the post-Roseanne ensemble continues to impress – perhaps even more so now, as they have subtly updated their multi-cam performances to an era of single-camera supremacy. Not only have the actors forged an enviable chemistry during their years of collaboration, but have also created a bone-dry and fiercely unsentimental morality that is as unmistakable as the show’s famous harmonica riff. – INKOO KANG
Shira Haas, Unorthodox (Netflix)
In a full Emmy category honoring the lead actress in a movie or miniseries, Shira couldn’t beat Haas Guards star Regina King – but had she won, I don’t think anyone would have argued about getting recognition for this 25-year-old Israeli actress. That tells you everything you need to know about the Shtisel veteran breakthrough as an Orthodox Jew who flees her insular Brooklyn community to Berlin and finds her voice. Thanks to copious flashbacks, it’s a role that really lets Haas play her character as two different women, one a source of sympathy and concern, the other a beacon of hope and inspiration. It is a beautiful work, full of precarious vulnerability and the rippling joy of empowerment. – DF
Ethan Hawke, The Good Lord Bird (Show Time)
The role of abolitionist John Brown in The Good Lord Bird would be a gift to any actor, so driven is the historical figure by white-hot justice, bottomless personal tragedy and farcical megalomania. And yet Hawke has made it impossible to imagine anyone else as Brown, the actor’s signature intensity and lack of middle-aged vanity are a perfect fit for a character so remarkable, woeful, absurd and utterly unpredictable. The miniseries’ lyrical dialogue somehow feels natural from Hawke’s mouth, while his face lets the turmoil within Brown resurface for a moment before certainty in his all-out anti-slavery crusade takes over. – I
Paul Mescal, Normal people (Hulu)
Half of the miniseries’ star-crossed Irish romance, Connell, is a tough role to make compelling: a young man who often just wants to recoil into woodwork. As much as he’s in love with Marianne (Daisy Edgar-Jones), he retreats to defend her from his mocking friends, let her in during a crippling depression, or even stand up for himself as a working-class student amid rich, not knowing classmates. And yet, Mescal consistently finds the reserves of pain and uncertainty in Connell’s desire for anonymous emptiness, as well as huddled, self-disabling humanity in his character’s fear of loving too much. – I
Issa Rae and Yvonne Orji, Uncertain (HBO)
TV’s funniest duo – playing 30-something mismatched best friends Issa and Molly – are such comedic geniuses that they can make you laugh out loud with the slightest facial spasm or with their whole body. The chemistry of the actors was evident from day one, with their BFF characters teasing each other so quickly and playfully that they often seemed to make up their own love language on the spot. That effervescence was increasingly offset by dark moments in Issa and Molly’s often tense relationship, especially in the most recent season, which finally allowed Rae and Orji to swing their considerable dramatic abilities. – I
Jurnee Smollett, Lovecraft Land (HBO)
There are times, especially in the second half of the season, when I couldn’t tell you exactly what was going on in HBOs Lovecraft Land, or why. But in shows that are this bizarre, sometimes it’s enough to believe that the actors / characters care about what’s happening – and it makes no sense throughout the entire period of this horror pastiche where Smollett isn’t 100% locked in. Friday night lights and Underground veteran, who has already earned the right to be considered an A-list star ten times over, takes a great turn; In an early scene, she’s been runaway with a baseball bat, and if a moment is designed to be the representative gif of 2020, it’s that one. Plus, Smollett and Jonathan Majors chemistry has to be bottled (though I’m not sure). – DF
Tracey Ullman, Mrs. America (FX on Hulu)
Ullman may have been the last actor to be on the star-studded cast Mrs. America, but the legendary sketch comedian held his own against the likes of Cate Blanchett and Margo Martindale as Feminine mysticism author Betty Friedan, historically one of the least sympathetic figures of the Second Wave (for her homophobia). Ullman’s performance was a perfect balancing act, making the poison-tongued, endlessly self-promoting, terrified-of-irrelevance Friedan perfectly understandable, if not always “likeable.” The infamous debate against Blanchett’s Phyllis Schlafy is a high-level showcase, with Ullman allowing us a raw glimpse of Friedan’s essence by turning her initially charming temper into hopeless self-destruction. – I