We all may be doomed—we’ve seen too much TV in the last decade.
The number of original scripted TV series in the United States more than doubled from 216 at the start of the decade to 495 in 2018. Just the first half of 2019 had 320 original scripted TV series air. The past decade didn’t see a single year produce that much until 2013. Worst of all, a lot of that TV has been really good.
The 2010s saw five seasons of a chemistry teacher’s transformation into a meth kingpin, seven seasons inside a women’s prison, four seasons following around a mentally unstable hacker who takes down America’s 1 percent, five-and-a-half seasons of a law professor trying to get away with murder, three seasons of children from the ‘80s battling demons from an interdimensional realm, five seasons of an animated horse suffering from depression and we ended the decade with a season featuring a blue god disguised as a Black man in a world where cops wear masks. That’s only a fraction of what has been dubbed “peak TV.”
This new decade will have to do more than any other decade in recent memory in order to wow people. Russians disguised as Americans? Been there, loved that. America’s most wanted man helping the FBI? We can already binge that. A Marvel TV universe? OK...and?
It’ll be difficult—but not impossible—to amaze us in 2020, especially when major players like Netflix, Apple and Amazon are prepared to collectively spend tens of billions of dollars on original video content. So, ONE37pm decided to round up ten of the TV series coming in 2020 that will start the decade off on the right path.