The Best Sitcoms of the 2020s So Far
The arrival of the streaming era seemed like the end of the sitcom as it’s always been known. Sure, every streamer has comedies, but the classic template of 22 episodes a year of relatively light comedy with a group of friendly, familiar characters felt endangered once 2010s hits like Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory wrapped up. Where would the half-hour comedies trying to crank out enough episodes to meet syndication as quickly as possible come from with streamers in charge, with their absurd devotion to making eight to 10 episodes of a show every other year, and canceling everything before a fourth season? Could one of the Big Four ever produce a hit sitcom (that wasn’t a Chuck Lorre CBS show) again, with their ratings and cultural cache at an all-time low? What the hell is the world coming to if Ted Danson can’t get at least three seasons out of a new sitcom every decade?
Yes, the future of the old-fashioned sitcom seemed bleak in 2019 and 2020, when all the Peacocks and Disney Pluses and Maxes launched. Sitcom lovers shouldn’t have doubted the durability of the 70-year-old format, though. Yes, some accommodations had to be made for the new media landscape, but the last five years have seen a number of fantastic comedies debut across the streamers, and even the old-school over-the-air networks have found new success with the 22-episodes-a-year model. And as much as we might miss checking in with the same characters every week for almost half the year, it is probably much better for quality control to have shorter seasons.
Of course any discussion of TV comedy today has to deal with what a sitcom even is at this point. “Sitcom” is a bit of an outdated term in the 2020s. The “sit” stands for situation (or situational) and implies that plots and high concepts are more important than realistic characters and their development. That’s an archaic way to look at it—the early ’70s wave of smart, adult sitcoms weren’t a stranger to character growth—but there’s still a distinct difference today between comedies that are primarily about comedy and the kind that balance comedy with drama and win all the comedy awards in the process. Some of the funniest shows of the decade—Reservation Dogs and Barry, for two—didn’t feel right in a list of the best sitcoms, because comedy is part of their toolkit and not the primary focus. And, sorry, a few genuine laughs per season doesn’t make The Bear a sitcom. Meanwhile many of the shows that do make our list have a fair share of dramatic moments and have characters grapple with serious, series-long issues and ailments. There’s no easy to answer to what makes a show sitcom anymore, just as there’s no objective answer to if any comedy is actually funny or not. We’re sticking with a “we’ll know it when we see it” stance here, and defining “sitcom” with a tight focus; they’re (mostly) half-hour shows where making the viewer laugh is the main goal.
That said, let’s get to the ranking and the blurbs and all of that. Here are the best sitcoms of the 2020s so far.
10. Girls5eva
Network: Peacock (2021-2022); Netflix (2024-)
Meredith Scardino’s series, which is also executive produced by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock—her bosses from Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt—focuses on the four remaining members of a one-hit wonder ‘90s girl pop group. Thrown together then by a lecherous and demoralizing manager, they had nothing in common, no autonomy over their talents or their bodies, and no idea what they were getting into. They sang songs entitled “Jailbait” and “Dream Girlfriends” (which included lyrics like “We’ve got the kind of birth control that goes in your arm. And tell me again why Tarantino’s a genius”). Now Wickie (Renée Elise Goldsberry), Dawn (Sara Bareilles), Summer (Busy Philipps), and Gloria (Paula Pell) have all but been forgotten by anyone beyond a bored Wikipedia editor—until a chance at a comeback has them taking a second look at where they’ve been and where they’re going.
Girls5eva is a cautionary tale about the era of low-rider jeans and sateen “going out tops”; about a time when young girls were supposed to giggle when their boyfriends compared them to the women in Maxim magazine and didn’t flinch if their professors offered to buy them drinks after class. But it also has a special present for the Gen Xers, late Millennials, Xennials, and anyone else who groks with its commentary on aging and the frustration and rage one can feel over being ignored and underappreciated—especially the frustrations we have with ourselves for not being “better.”—Whitney Friedlander
9. Ghosts
Network: CBS
Ghosts, the CBS comedy based on the equally delightful British TV series, is peak comfort TV. The series follows Rose McIver’s Sam, who can see and speak to the dead after suffering her own near-death experience, and her husband, the very much not clairvoyant Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) as they experience the hijinks of the spirits, for some strange reason, that are shackled to the couple’s sometimes-floundering bed and breakfast. But even in its comforting vibes and familiar haunts, going into its third season, it also brings about interesting theological and metaphysical debates. Can ghosts feel sadness, love and loss? Can they experience trauma and frustration and anger? Do these traits that make us human go away when we die? Not bad for a comedy series that’s rife with sexual innuendos and a character who perpetually smells like farts. —Whitney Friedlander
8. Killing It
Network: Peacock
Killing It, a sitcom from Dan Goor and Luke Del Tredici, might sound like a live action riff on The Simpsons’ Snake Whacking Day, but it’s actually based on a real competition in Florida to help reduce the state’s population of wild pythons. In a reverse of the sewer alligators of urban legend, Florida has a real problem with pythons bought as pets being released into the wild once they grow too large and unmanageable; without any natural predators, they’ve overrun the swampland and unsettled the state’s ecological balance. Enter Craig Robinson and Claudia O’Doherty as two well-meaning hunters struggling with debt and unemployment who see the prize money as the way to realize their dreams. If you’ve ever seen either actor before, you know how charming and hilarious they are, and they instantly establish the kind of chemistry every successful comedy needs. They’re joined by Scott MacArthur (of The Righteous Gemstones and The Mick) as an overly competitive YouTube hunting influencer also entering the contest, and stand-up comedian Rell Battle as Robinson’s criminal younger brother who hides his inner pain beneath an unflappable exterior. (Battle’s subplot as an assistant for a get-rich-quick hoaxster played by Tim Heidecker is one of the show’s highlights.)
As ridiculous as “the snake hunting sitcom with the guy from the Pizza Hut ads” might sound, Killing It quickly reveals a serious side in its exploration of class divisions, personal trauma, and economic disparity. It’s one of the few sitcoms I can think of that’s explicitly focused on how our financial system preys on the least fortunate and most at-risk among us, with the true life absurdity of a Florida python hunt as the jumping off point for that discussion. Many comedies with a message hammer on it with a heavy hand, but Killing It explores how difficult life can be for its characters without ever feeling like a lecture or sermon. It’s simply the world they live in and are accustomed to, the backdrop to all the jokes and character moments you expect from a sitcom, and the main reason Killing It is more than just a goofy comedy about killing snakes. —Garrett Martin
7. Our Flag Means Death
Network: Max
Midlife crises manifest as many things, and in Max’s Our Flag Means Death, Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) checks off all the usual criteria. A flashy new vehicle? Yep. A flashy new relationship? Of sorts. A drastic career change? Well, that’s an understatement. Inspired by the stranger-than-fiction true story, the historical adventure comedy follows the aftermath of Bonnet leaving his cushy aristocratic life to become a pirate during the Golden Age of Piracy. “Pirate workplace comedy” provides an entertaining entry point, and Darby serves as the show’s hapless but well-meaning boss, bringing a Ted Lasso-esque mentality to the captain who wants his crew to grow as people, not just pirates. Taika Waititi co-stars as the legendary Blackbeard who’s having a midlife crisis of his own, and poses a perfect foil to Bonnet’s antics. While the first few episodes are uneven, creator David Jenkins ultimately strikes a satisfying balance between exploring Blackbeard and Bonnet’s relationship and adding dimension to supporting players. By the affecting first season finale, Our Flag Means Death charts its course in the right direction. —Annie Lyons
6. The Other Two
Network: Comedy Central (2019); Max (2021-2023)
Comedy Central’s charming, hilarious series The Other Two follows adult siblings Brooke (Heléne York) and Cary (Drew Tarver) as they try to figure out their own lives in the wake of their 13-year-old brother Chase (Case Walker) becoming an overnight YouTube sensation. Though Brooke and Cary support Chase (who is not, yet, an obnoxious internet star) they want to have careers that stand on their own. But they can’t help but get pulled into Chase’s orbit, making sure others aren’t taking advantage of Chase for their own gain while acknowledging they might be doing that very thing. The Other Two is darkly funny and real, as Brooke and Cary struggle to find success and exist on the outskirts of the vapid world that wants to make Chase an industry unto himself. It is one of the funniest series on TV as well as one of the smartest. Creators Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider understand the modern fame machine better than most, exposing truths in some of its most hilariously audacious scenes. It also has coined one of the best and most useful catchphrase: “In this climate??” —Allison Keene
5. Only Murders in the Building
Network: Hulu
This endearing comedic murder mystery stars Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Selena Gomez as a trio of true-crime obsessives who charmingly try to crack a case in their shared apartment building. The neighbors make an unlikely gang: Charles-Haden Savage (Martin) is a washed-up actor who used to star as a TV detective, and the overconfidence he has in his residual investigative skills thinly masks a deeply insecure man; Oliver Putnam (Short) contrasts Charles as a flamboyant former theater director with a big personality and even bigger debts; Mabel (a well-cast Gomez) is a stylish and quietly mysterious young woman who has more of a connection to the case than she initially lets on. But when they find out they share a suspicion that a tragic suicide in their building was actually a homicide, they decide to try their hand at uncovering the truth—and start a podcast to follow their investigation.
The series—and the podcast within—depend on our central trio being engaging, and the combination of personalities works out well; the cast is wonderfully dynamic, earning laughs while slowly revealing morsels of their secretly lonely lives to each other. Though our heroes like to complicate things, Only Murders in the Building itself keeps things simple; it’s a dazzlingly funny and entertaining series that’s clearly made with a lot of heart. —Kristen Reid
4. Ted Lasso
Network: Apple TV+
Several years ago NBC Sports released a very funny sketch starring Jason Sudeikis as an American football coach named Ted Lasso who manages to get hired as the manager of Tottenham, one of the top soccer clubs in England’s Premier League, which is one of the best leagues in the world. The comedy is the culture clash: a shouting alpha male with a Southern accent trying to figure out a totally unfamiliar sport in a strange place, too stubborn to adapt and bringing all the wrong lessons over from America. As soccer becomes more familiar in the U.S., that sketch becomes increasingly quaint, since even your average deep-south gridiron jock knows more and more all the time about the world’s most popular sport. Which makes the premise of Ted Lasso the 2020 TV show questionable; can you really translate a premise that’s thin in the first place, and extend it into a full series even as soccer becomes less and less foreign to us all the time?
Wisely, creators Sudeikis and Bill Lawrence didn’t really try. Now focused on AFC Richmond, a middling English soccer club facing relegation, the success of the show begins and ends with Sudeikis (whose Lasso is almost pathologically nice as a coach and motivator rather than tactical genius), but the rest of the cast is also superb. In short, it is genuinely moving more than it is uproarious, although the climactic scene in the final episode of the first season might be one of the greatest athletic set pieces in comedy history, and will make any sports fan bust a gut. There’s also something timely about the fact that the competitive drama here isn’t about winning a glorious championship, but about avoiding the shame of relegation. And yet, when faced with the unofficial AFC Richmond credo, “it’s the hope that kills you,” Lasso disagrees. “It’s the lack of hope that comes and gets you,” he tells his team, and whether or not that’s strictly correct is irrelevant. What actually matters is, do you believe? —Shane Ryan
3. The Righteous Gemstones
Network: HBO
In The Righteous Gemstones, Danny McBride plays Jesse, the oldest son of the Gemstone clan of showbiz preachers, the flamboyant heir apparent to his legendary father Eli, who’s played with equal parts solemnity and menace by John Goodman. Eli turned the gospel into a chain store, opening up churches throughout the Southeast, and bringing his whole family into the business. In addition to the permed Jesse, there’s Adam DeVine’s Kelvin, who has the fauxhawk and designer jeans of a Christian pop star, and daughter Judy, who chafes at her family’s unwillingness to treat her as an equal, and who’s played by Vice Principals’ breakout star Edi Patterson. Jennifer Nettles of the band Sugarland cameos in flashbacks as the family’s now-dead (and very Tammy Faye-esque) matriarch, whose passing weighs especially heavy on Eli.
It’s not saying much to call a TV family dysfunctional, but the Gemstone children are immediately introduced as being uniquely fractious. They present a united front on TV or in front of their parishioners, who they openly treat as marks behind the scenes, but don’t try to hide their contempt for and disappointment with one another when the cameras are off. Much of what makes the show so enjoyable is the way these three gifted comic actors play off one another as their entire world threatens to unravel. As with McBride’s previous HBO shows, Gemstones delicately balances the ridiculous and extreme with surprisingly subtle character moments that keeps the show from drifting too far away from legitimate emotion and humanity. Even McBride’s Jesse, who is largely a hateful blowhard who deserves every bad thing that happens to him, has moments of levity and regret that humanize him; his relationship with his children might be terrible, but he earnestly seems to want their love and respect, even as he blows everything up again. It’s a worthy addition to McBride’s HBO oeuvre—another messy, honest, exaggerated and realistic look at Southern charlatans desperate for fame, power, and success in a modern South that can too easily fall prey to their schemes. Praise the Lord and pass the loot, indeed. —Garrett Martin
2. Abbott Elementary
Network: ABC
Sometimes there’s that magical moment when you realize you are watching something truly exceptional. From the moment I watched the pilot of ABC’s Abbott Elementary, I knew the show was much more than typical network sitcom drudgery (lame punchline, tinny laugh track, repeat). There was a grounded sweetness to the show. It was neither saccharine nor sardonic. We were introduced to the teachers of Philadelphia public school: the earnest Janine (series creator Quinta Brunson), veteran teachers Melissa (Lisa Ann Water) and Barbara (Sheryl Lee Ralph), as well as reluctant substitute Gregory (Tyler James Williams), the socially inept Jacob (Chris Perfetti), and the self-centered and clueless principal Ava (Janelle James). As a group, they immediately clicked; their combined comedic beats were perfect. The pilot was hilarious but also moving, all while shedding light on the underfunded public school system without being patronizing or exploitative, and the rest of the first season continued in kind.
And ever since, the show has remained everything you would want and expect it to be. Warm, hilarious, relatable… and damn if it doesn’t sometimes make me cry. —Amy Amatangelo
1. What We Do in the Shadows
Network: FX (streaming on Hulu)
There’s no reality in which I’ll ever be ok with not checking in on the latest stupid misadventures of Staten Island’s most ineffectual vampires in FX’s What We Do in the Shadows. For six seasons, this mockumentary series spin-off of Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement’s 2014 cinematic comedy of the same name has consistently earned its place as the go-to comedy antidote from everything serious that plagues us whiney humans. It remains impossible to not laugh at Laszlo’s (Matt Berry) outlandish undulating elocution; Nadja’s (Natasia Demetriou) perpetual exasperation with her roomies; Nandor’s (Kayvan Novak) eternal fussiness; and Colin Robinson’s (Mark Proksch) gleefully beige existence. However, I also can’t fault showrunner Paul Simms and the show’s incredibly talented cast for wanting to go out on top. Based on the three episodes provided for review, this sixth and final season seems to be structured as an opportunity for the vamps to address their lack of forward momentum at conquering the New World, while also helping their former Familiar/current human pal Guillermo (Harvey Guillén) with his next steps in life.
Of course, the writers continue to throw quality jokes at the audience at a breakneck speed, with plenty being situational. But even more of the comedy now comes from our learned history of these vampires with their quirks and triggers fully established and exploitable by new characters and the show’s expanded ensemble of recurring characters. Plus, Matt Berry remains a national treasure for how he continues to wring maximum sexual innuendo and comedic flare from even the most mundane word pairings. Jack Shack, anyone? —Tara Bennett
Main Image: Matt Berry photo by Russ Martin, courtesy of FX. Other photos courtesy of the respective network / streamer.