Best and worst of 2020 TV: HBO, Zoom fatigue, streaming craziness, more

As 2020 crawls toward its merciful end, let’s take a moment to reflect on the role TV played in the year when a pandemic changed everything. With a public health crisis, economic devastation and a reckoning with racial injustice sweeping through the culture, TV offered context, information, disinformation, enlightenment, confusion and, sometimes, just escape.

With so many people following public officials’ advice to stay home, TV became a lifeline. No wonder use of such streaming services as Netflix and Disney Plus soared. Depending on what viewers watched, TV offered nostalgic reminders of pre-coronavirus life, brought current realities into focus or simply told compelling stories.

Here are examples of some the of the best and worst of TV in 2020, reflecting trends ranging from the serious to the silly.

Best display of flexibility: When the virus caused traditional productions to halt, back in March, it inspired some shows to pivot to do-it-yourself options, with hosts working from home and using Zoom or other video conference technology to conduct interviews. It hasn’t always been smooth, but that’s the point – these are unprecedented times, and it’s been reassuring to feel like TV folks are doing their best to keep informing, and entertaining us. The late-night hosts, in particular, were willing to jump into uncharted waters, from Stephen Colbert hosting “The Late Show” from his house to Seth Meyers engaging in imaginary conversations with sea captain paintings and other attic decor during his remotely produced “Late Night” episodes.

Worst reminder of Zoom fatigue: Willingness to adapt is great, but the unexpected frozen images, vanishing volume and abruptly dropped video conference calls that have been part of news and talk shows during the pandemic are a reminder that celebrities suffer Zoom foul-ups, just like the rest of us.

Best ways for coronavirus-related plots to make an impact: As series have slowly come back into production, some shows have tried to work the offscreen reality of the pandemic into storylines. It can be depressing, and awkward. But when a medical drama like “Grey’s Anatomy” features characters who viewers have come to know coping with COVID, it might bring home the pain of the pandemic, in a way that traditional TV news reporting can’t capture.

Worst ways to use coronavirus-related plots: Shows made to mirror the moment can also be dreary reminders of what we’ve been dealing with for most of the past year, as the self-satisfied preachiness of “Coastal Elites” on HBO demonstrated. The NBC video-chat comedy, “Connected,” didn’t exactly connect with viewers, either. The freshman comedy was yanked off the air in short order, with its remaining episodes streaming on Peacock and Hulu.

Best reason to pay for HBO: The network that has long prided itself on offering series that are better than what you ordinarily see on TV, had a pretty impressive year. High points included Michaela Coel’s one-of-a-kind limited series, “I May Destroy You”; David Simon and Ed Burns’ intense adaptation of Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America”; and the glossy mystery (even when it offered up heaping platefuls of red herrings) of “The Undoing.” Even with a less-than-smooth launch of its streaming sibling, HBO Max, and the pandemic-delayed return of hits such as “Succession” and “Barry,” HBO provided hours of worthwhile viewing in 2020.

Worst reason to pay for HBO: Documentary series have been increasing in popularity for years, and HBO is doing its part to jump on the trend. Sometimes, that results in shows that are affecting, even when they’re longer than they probably need to be. That was the case with “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark,” which sympathetically chronicled the late writer Michelle McNamara’s quest to investigate the serial murderer she called “The Golden State Killer.”

But if “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” felt a bit padded, it was a masterwork compared to “The Vow.” That HBO documentary series purported to be an exploration into the cult known as NXIVM and its leader, Keith Raniere, who has been convicted on charges including sex trafficking. Filmmakers Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer include archival footage of Raniere, who comes off as so transparently manipulative, it’s astonishing that anybody ever followed his lead. Unfortunately, interviews don’t shed much light on why a group that included, in some cases, people with show business experience (such as filmmaker Mark Vicente, whose credits include “What the Bleep Do we Know!?”) fell for Raniere’s scam. As if nine slow-paced episodes weren’t frustrating enough, HBO has for some bewildering reason ordered a second season.

Best reason for streaming mania: As viewers flocked to watch everything from “Normal People” on Hulu to “Tiger King” on Netflix, streaming services competed to attract subscribers. Which is why those of us who had never seen the musical phenom “Hamilton” finally had the opportunity to enjoy it, courtesy of the original cast production that streamed on Disney Plus. Since there was no way anybody could see the show in a theater, because of coronavirus lockdowns, watching the terrific cast led by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr. was a total treat.

Worst reason for streaming mania: Since superstar producer Ryan Murphy (“Glee”) made his lucrative deal with Netflix, the results have been mixed. “The Politician” was feeble, and “Hollywood” lost so much steam toward the end it felt like a deflated Santa Claus balloon on a forlorn lawn. “The Boys in the Band” was an effective version of the 2018 Broadway revival of Mart Crowley’s 1968 play. “The Prom,” which recently began streaming on Netflix, is an uneven but peppy adaptation of a stage musical, with Meryl Streep, James Corden, Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells happily hamming it up.

But, despite reuniting Murphy with his frequent star, the talented Sarah Paulson, the producer-writer-director’s most unpleasant Netflix effort, by far, is “Ratched.” A prequel story for Mildred Ratched, the villainous nurse from the late Oregon-based author Ken Kesey’s novel, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and the Oscar-winning 1975 movie adaptation, “Ratched” is bloody, uninspired and, ultimately, tedious. Evan Romansky, who created the series, deserves plenty of blame, but “Ratched” also bears a resemblance to executive producer Murphy’s gore-galore “American Horror Story” franchise. A good cast can’t prevail over plots that rely on characters getting shot, tortured or lobotomized. Netflix ordered a second season, so we unfortunately have even more of this to endure.