It has certainly been a strange fall season, but TV still came through.
Despite expensive setbacks and production delays and workarounds caused by the pandemic, a whole bunch of network shows have managed to premiere anyway—not to mention the dozens of cable and streaming series that were already in the pipeline. When we thought we’d have to go without a lot of new content, we ended up with a smorgasbord of ways to distract ourselves from the real world, even when the real world showed up on screen.
Not everything has been perfect, and while we’re thankful for all of it, we can’t say everything’s been a winner. Hence, this list.
While we straight up ignored ratings during this bonkers time, we did take a look at some of the big (and occasionally the small) premieres and even finales we were treated to this fall to see what was successful and what was not. We’re happy to report that we found more winners than losers and more trends to declare losers than actual TV shows this year.
