An economy-tanking global pandemic that emptied the streets of the world’s largest cities, putting a stop to almost all film and television production, and changing the way people and businesses will interact forever. And not a scratch on the assembly line for new comedy shows. Ah, the human spirit truly is something to behold. With the year in the gutter and many of us still trapped at home, thankfully there exists a smorgasbord of escape routes out of reality through hilarious new TV.
So, let us take you by the hand and lead you through some of the best new comedy shows to have come out this year.
Related: How to watch movies together online on Netflix, Hulu, Plex, HBO, and more
Space Force
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4mY2asIjWk
- Release Date: 29 May 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Steve Carell, Greg Daniels
- Starring: Steve Carell, John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Lisa Kudrow
Space Force is a workplace comedy that follows Steve Carell as he struggles to get the newly formed branch of the US military, the titular Space Force, off the ground — both literally and figuratively. In the style of Veep or Silicon Valley, it digs down into the bones of a real-world environment with plenty of sarcasm and satire, and overall feels like the perfect delivery system for Carell with exactly the sort of role we’re used to seeing him in.
Related: 7 Best Android apps to watch movies and TV shows free legally
It stacks the deck with plenty of other big names and recognizable faces with the likes of John Malkovich and Lisa Kudrow. Anybody looking for a novel hit of the same flavor of Greg Daniels’ other workplace comedies and filled with the same out-of-whack competency-to-responsibility ratio should definitely give Space Force a shot.
Watch it on: Netflix
Dave
- Release Date: 4 May 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Jeff Schaffer, Lil Dicky
- Starring: Lil Ricky, GaTa, Andrew Santino, Travis Bennett, Christine Ko
If you don’t know Lil Dicky, one of the most ingenious and most self-deprecating rappers on the internet, Dave might just be the best way to get to know him — or well-constructed parody of himself, at the very least. The show follows a fictionalized version of the rapper/comedian as he yearns for fame from within the bland confines of suburbia and stumbles his way towards his perceived destiny to become the greatest rapper the world has ever known.
Related: How to Download Movies and TV Shows on Prime Video on your Windows PC
The show is one of the highest-rated on this list and for good reason: it’s fabulously well-executed, hilarious, and forcefully unique. Plus, having Kevin Hart on its production team never hurts.
Watch it On: Amazon | FXNOW | Hulu
Breeders
- Release Date: 2 March 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Martin Freeman, Simon Blackwell, Chris Addison
- Starring: Martin Freeman, Daisy Haggard, George Wakeman
Breeders is a parental comedy that stays the hell away from the cutesy, family-friendly sitcom-style shenanigans where, at the end of the day, everybody learns a lesson and has a whole lot of fun along the way. No, no… the appropriately entitled Breeders takes a look at the other, more “staring blankly up at the ceiling in the dead of night” side of parenting and has you choking down laughs you don’t want to admit you need.
Related: Netflix on Zoom: How to watch movies together on a Zoom meeting
The parents in Breeders are overstressed, overburdened, deeply flawed adults, the children cute, unceasing attention addicts, and the show as a whole is an unflinching, brutally honest and well-written take on modern parenting.
Watch it On: Amazon | FXNOW | NowTV
Teenage Bounty Hunters
- Release Date: 14 August 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Kathleen Jordan
- Starring: Maddie Phillips, Anjelica Bette Fellini, Kadeem Hardison
What do you get when you cross-pollinate Mean Girls with Dog the Bounty Hunter? (Really try and visualize that most glorious of hypothetical crossovers for a moment.) You get Netflix‘s Teenage Bounty Hunters, a swashbuckling explosion of girl-powered mayhem that follows twin sisters Sterling and Blair as they pair up with veteran Bounty Hunter Bowser Jenkins to learn the ropes of bounty hunting while juggling the trials and tribulations that come with being a pair of lazy teenage girls.
It feels like a well-crafted superhero narrative with the girls doing their best to keep their high octane extracurricular activities a secret while trying to fit in and live their lives as normal high schoolers.
Watch it on: Netflix
#BlackAF
- Release Date: 17 April 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Kenya Barris
- Starring: Rashida Jones, Kenya Barris, Iman Benson
Basically Blackish in mockumentary form, #BlackAF is Kenya Barris’ latest exploration of black family life and this time it stars a fictionalized version of himself — albeit loosely. The show pokes fun at Barris specifically and chooses to take a more parodical take on the black new-money experience, blending social commentary and Barris’ signature tone with outlandish caricatures.
Rashida Jones is excellent as the fictional wife of Barris, an original character. If you’ve watched Blackish or any other of Barris’ critically acclaimed comedies, you’ll get more of the same, intermixed with a novel tone and structure that makes for something entirely new.
Watch it on: Netflix
Ted Lasso
- Release Date: 14 August 2020
- Seasons:1
- Created By: Jason Sudeikis, Bill Lawrence
- Starring: Jason Sudeikis, Hannah Waddingham, Jeremy Swift
Ted Lasso is a fish out of water comedy where the fish is small-time American football coach Ted Lasso, played by a heavily mustachioed Jason Sudekis, the water is a folksy small town in Kansas, and the strange world above the water is AFC Richmond, a London Association Football team Lasso was inexplicably hired to coach.
The show is actually based on a character by the same name that Sudekis played in a series of mockumentary shorts for NBC during their coverage of Premier League football back in 2013 and though the series is shot in a different format it has the same, fun clash of the stereotypes situation at the concept’s core.
Anybody who’s tried to explain American football to a soccer fan or a soccer fan who’s failed to explain just how seriously people take their football over there will have a riot of time watching Sudekis’ unstoppable mustache collide with the immovable object that is English football.
Watch it on: AppleTV+
Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMaPCYRPhY0
- Release Date: 7 February 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Charlie Day, Megan Ganz, Rob McElhenney
- Starring: Rob McElhenney, Charlotte Nicdao, Ashly Burch
Essentially Silicon Valley if it was about the video game industry, the appropriately punctuated Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet follows the staff of a successful games developer as they struggle to keep their aging hit, the titular Mythic Quest, alive without collapsing under the weight of their all-too-enthusiastic founder’s ego.
The show is incredibly well-executed and well-written and manages to poke fun at the industry while simultaneously pulling back the curtain for the audience to catch a highly stylized glimpse at the sausage-making behind many AAA games. Gamers and fans of comedy in general — everyone, really — needs to check out Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet.
Watch it on: Apple+
Upload
- Release Date: 1 May 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Greg Daniels
- Starring: Robbie Amell, Andy Allo, Zainab Johnson
Upload is a high concept sci-fi from Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks & Recreation) that cloaks a compelling narrative and richly developed world in a straightforward comedy. The show takes place in a near-future where people have the option to upload their consciousness into a virtual afterlife.
Throughout the series we follow recently deceased, 27-year-old Nathan Brown as he is uploaded into Lake View, a premium virtual world, and forced to come to grips with a digital heaven replete with in-app purchases and wild characters while dealing with his still-living, still-possessive girlfriend Ingrid and working with his real life handler, Nora as she begins to suspect foul play surrounding Nathan’s untimely death.
Watch it on: Amazon
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist
- Release Date: 7 January 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Austin Winsberg
- Starring: Jane Levy, Skylar Astin, Alex Newell
Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is probably the easiest way for someone to trick their partner into finally watching a musical with them, and one they might actually end up loving. The show is centered around computer programmer Zoey Clarke who, following an MRI, finds herself suddenly able to hear the unspoken thoughts of those around her in the form of spontaneous song and dance.
Sounds ridiculous, but the show juxtaposes this ludicrous concept with occasionally dark humor that makes it a surrealist sort of funny even for people who would otherwise profess a burning hatred for any and all musicals.
Watch it on: NBC | Amazon | Youtube TV
I May Destroy You
- Release Date: 16 June 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Michaela Coel
- Starring: Michaela Coel, Weruche Opia, Paapa Essiedu
I May Destroy You doesn’t sound funny at all. Set in London, the show follows young writer, Arabella Essiedu, as she comes to realize she may have been the victim of sexual assault. Yeah. We said it wouldn’t sound funny. But BBC One’s new drama-comedy uses great writing to spin an innovative and unexpectedly funny tale of one woman’s survival and her quest to rebuild and reclaim her life.
Anybody looking for a show that can startle you with its emotional bandwidth but keep you chuckling along the way should definitely check out I May Destroy You on HBO and BBC One.
Watch it on: Amazon | HBO | Hulu
Everything’s Gonna Be OK
- Release Date: 16 January 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Josh Thomas
- Starring: Josh Thomas, Kayla Cromer, Adam Faison
The second major project by Australian comedian Josh Thomas, Everything’s Gonna Be Okay follows Thomas as Nicholas, an idiosyncratic entomologist in his mid-twenties as he confronts the responsibilities that come with becoming the guardian of his American half-sisters in the wake of their father’ death.
The age gap between Nicholas and his two sisters is just wide enough that the duty of raising the siblings he’s only just met naturally falls to him despite being himself young enough to have his own growing up to do. Quirky and original, anybody looking for a very different but wholesome comedy should check out Everything’s Gonna Be Okay.
Watch it on: Freeform
High Fidelity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5bkbfdVzbI
- Release date: 28 March 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Sarah Kucserka, Veronica West
- Starring: Zoë Kravitz, Jake Lacy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Zoe Kravitz stars as Robyn Brookes, or just “Rob”, (a nod to the originally male character, Rob Fleming from the Nick Hornby novel the show is based on) as she tries to find meaning and purpose in her stagnant life while running a Brooklyn record store. Brookes, a fan of Top Five lists, decides to seek out five of her ex-boyfriend and deconstruct herself through their breakups in order to learn more about herself and possibly find a solution to her rudderless existence.
The show mixes humor with a deeper contemplation on the nature of romance, intimacy and purpose than your typical, “I just want to switch off” comedy. Unfortunately, there won’t be a second season of High Fidelity but that hasn’t stopped many fans of the show from enjoying what the thoughtful dramedy has to offer.
Avenue 5
- Release Date: 19 January 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Armando Iannucci
- Starring: Josh Gad, Hugh Laurie, Zach Woods
From the creator of Veep comes a surly, sci-fi comedy starring Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad as the captain and owner of the Avenue 5, an interplanetary cruise ship full of the galaxy’s most entitled and spoiled-rotten tourists. When a sudden lapse in the vessel’s artificial gravity sends the ship off-course and causes the death of the one man who could fix it, the passengers of the Avenue 5 find themselves starting down the barrel of a three year voyage with nothing but the provisions for what was supposed to be an eight day cruise.
As the ship descends into chaos, the crew of the Avenue 5 struggle to maintain order alongside their own sanity. Anybody looking for a solid dose of escapist dark humor should definitely check out HBO’S Avenue 5.
Watch it on: Amazon | Hulu | HBO | NowTV
Medical Police
- Release Date: 10 January 2020
- Seasons: 1
- Created By: Rob Corddry
- Starring: Erinn Hayes, Rob Huebel, Tom Wright
Medical Police is a deliciously campy, ingeniously stupid spinoff of Children’s Hospital starting Erinn Hayes and Rob Huebel as Lola Spratt and Owen Maestro, two doctors who have for some reason been recruited by the government to shoot guns at a lot of people as part of a quest to uncover a cure to a disease that threatens to drive humanity to extinction if released.
Like its parent show, Medical Police supposedly takes place in São Paulo but does absolutely nothing to hide the fact that every frame is shot in Los Angeles. It’s ridiculous, and at times borderline insane, but Medical Police is a ton of absurdist fun for anybody who wants to see something inexplicably funny that tries to accomplish nothing other than to make you laugh.
Watch it on: Netflix
You’re bound to find something on the list that’ll help you forget just how long it’s been since you didn’t have a reasonable explanation for your fear of the outdoors. If we’re missing any… please… let us know.
RELATED:
