We’re watching more TV than ever before. It comes as no surprise that since lockdown, 36% of viewers in the UK and US are watching more linear TV and 24% are watching more online TV, like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. It helps, of course, that there are more excellent TV series to watch than ever before, too.
When it comes to choosing the greatest shows to devote your telly time to, Sky TV and its contract-free streaming service, Now TV, boast a wealth of UK-exclusive high-profile US imports, including blockbuster HBO shows like Game of Thrones and Westworld. But, it also produces its own original shows too, which are well worth your attention. In this piece, we'll focus on those, since its American shows tend to be seasonal in how long they're available to stream.
Sky's original shows have been growing in recent months - more than 80 Sky originals are set to air in 2020, its largest ever slate of programming. Along with partnerships with the likes of Netflix, Channel 4, Channel 5, and BBC, Sky continues to offer one of the most seamless, complete TV packages available in the UK.
From drama to comedy, here are the best Sky and Now TV shows to watch in 2020.
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Gangs of London
This big-budget action drama is as cinematic and gloriously violent as you’d expect from creator Gareth Evans, director of The Raid. Gangs of London combines the influential filmmaker’s acclaimed expertise in finely choreographed Indonesian martial arts with all the London grit of a used pub ashtray. This saga follows the power struggle between rival gangs, after the head of the city’s most powerful crime family is assassinated. The result is groundbreaking telly that's so brutal you’ll have to watch some fight scenes from behind your fingers.
Breeders
Boasting Brit-com pedigree in its leads Martin Freeman (The Office) and Daisy Haggard (Back to Life), as well as in its trio of creators, Freeman, Simon Blackwell (The Thick of It) and Chris Addison (Mock the Week), the new adult sitcom follows the trials of a sleep-deprived parents in London. They're trying to keep their kids fed and themselves sane at the same time: a pain that's more acutely relatable than ever in the current climate. It’s also definitely the sweariest show about four-year-olds on TV.
A Discovery of Witches
A supernatural romance for grown-ups, A Discovery of Witches tells the age-old story of forbidden love between a witch and a vampire and the ensuing unearthly drama sparked when a centuries-old magical text is uncovered in a prestigious Oxford university library.
It’s based on the bestselling All Souls Trilogy of books by Deborah Harkness, and its rabid fanbase is as much a testament to its protagonists’ brooding chemistry, played by Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode, as it is to the level of period detail in this show. Both make it more sophisticated than what might be, on paper, an angst-laden YA story. A second and third series are coming – catch up on the first now and you’ll be spellbound, too.
Brassic
The second series of the Sky-exclusive comedy drama premiered on May 7, meaning you can now enjoy more critically-acclaimed laffs from the Northern working class-set sitcom. Star and co-creator Joe Gilgun (This Is England) is endlessly watchable alongside co-stars Damien Molony (Game Face) and Michelle Keegan (Our Girl), as the cast of lovable rogues continue to get up to no good to keep money in their pockets – but it’s got a lot of heart, too.
Chernobyl
This spectacular six-part series is easily the most acclaimed TV show of recent times: the Sky and HBO co-production took home multiple awards at the 2019 Emmys and Golden Globes, including for Best Miniseries. It’s easy to see why. This dramatisation of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is horror movie-esque in its presentation – it's a gripping and expertly crafted show. Award-winning performances from Jared Harris, Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgård mean you’ll be thinking about this for months after.
Portrait Artist of the Year 2020
There is nothing more calming than watching people paint. Like self-care in the form of a series, Sky’s Portrait Artist of the Year sees aspiring artists compete to paint a different celebrity ‘sitter’ each week, with one artist winning the show’s final portrait commission at the end of the series.
The show was so popular when it aired this January that Sky Arts have brought out the new, online-only, interactive Portrait Artist of the Week for viewers during lockdown, with celebrity sitters in their own homes dutifully providing poses so you can paint along at home. Homebound artists can then submit their final portrait to the judges through social media using the hashtag #MYPAOTW. At the end of each week, the judges choose some of their favourites to feature on the programme, livestreamed and available to rewatch on the Sky TV Facebook page.
COBRA
When political drama COBRA premiered in January, most people didn’t know what the government abbreviation – taken from real life, as silly as the name is – meant. A few months on, and everyone is all too aware of the government’s regular COBRA meetings, adding an extra note of intrigue to this interpersonal drama of a government dealing with crisis.
The COBRA meetings in this drama, though, happen when the government is forced to deal with power outages caused across the UK, and the ensuing emergencies, as a result of a devastating solar flare. Trainspotting’s Robert Carlyle stars as the PM, and even researched the role with real politicians, so you can be sure the inter-cabinet barbs are authentic (COBRA stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, by the way).
Save Me Too
The brilliant, bleak drama which made an icon out of the yellow puffer jacket returned for its second series recently, and it was even better than the first. It follows one man’s desperate and dangerous quest to track down his estranged daughter who's gone missing, and stars Lennie James, of Line of Duty and The Walking Dead fame. Full of clues and cliffhangers, it’s almost impossible to just watch one episode of Save Me at a time.
Bulletproof
If Bad-Boys-meets-Lethal-Weapon-on-the-streets-of-London sounds like your sort of thing (and honestly, how could it not?), you’ll love Bulletproof. Creators and stars Ashley Walters and Noel Clarke make the perfect buddy cop duo: lifelong best mates who have grown up to become detectives and tackle serious organised crime together. Get stuck into the two series’ BFF banter and the best car chases on TV, before the show swaps London drizzle for sunnier climes when a new three-part South Africa-set special comes to Sky and Now TV later this year.
Dynamo: Beyond Belief
Dynamo’s latest three-part series might be his most amazing yet. After coming back to health following a real, life-threatening illness, the British magician embarks on a tour of new magic stunts across the globe in his new show, inspired by the ways he's discovered he can control pain. Released in April 2020, the show has been so successful that Sky has revealed it was their biggest launch of the last 10 years. Not painful at all.
Patrick Melrose
You may know that Patrick Melrose dominated the awards circuit on its release, picking up BAFTA awards for Best Miniseries and Best Actor. But what you might not know is that it came to be thanks to Reddit, of all things. In a 2013 Reddit AMA, Benedict Cumberbatch was asked which literary character he would like to play next. His reply? Patrick Melrose.
That forum post led to his casting as the lead in this drama, based on a series of semi-autobiographical novels, which follows an upper class Brit in the 1980s trying to overcome his addictions. It was so well received, in fact, that The Guardian named it of the best TV shows of the 21st century.
Riviera
There has never been a better time to indulge in some South of France armchair escapism than this very moment – and Riviera ticks all the boxes. Gripping thriller? Check. Lavish Cote D’Azur scenery? Check. Rich people doing sinister stuff? Check, check, check. Dripping with glamour, intrigue and mysterious deadly yacht explosions, it’s no surprise that when this launched in 2017, it was Sky’s most successful original series. The third season is due to land this summer, so catch up on the previous two now.
Sick of It
There’s one way to improve a Karl Pilkington show, and that’s with added Karl Pilkington. Sick of It takes this principle and runs with it, with Karl Pilkington starring as both of the comedy drama’s two leads: as his namesake, taxi driver Karl, and as the uncensored voice inside his head (a sort of moaning Jiminy Cricket). When Pilkington goes out on his own, away from Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the result is still hilarious, but strangely emotional and delicate too.
Catherine the Great
You would think that acting royalty doesn’t get more, erm, royal than Dame Helen Mirren. But actually, it does! And it’s when you cast her as Russia’s longest running female leader. The screen legend stars in Catherine the Great – a four-part Sky Atlantic and HBO co-production. Mirren is wondrous as the monarch toward the end of her life, and the costume drama is a perfectly compact standalone story that doesn’t require a lifelong time investment, either.
Britannia
‘Rome may have arrived, but Britannia isn’t about to start acting civilised’ goes the synopsis of Sky’s huge historical fantasy drama. David Morrissey, Zoë Wanamaker, and Mackenzie Crook star in the channel’s big original production, set in the Roman conquest of Britain in A.D. 43, and which follows Celtic rivals teaming up to attempt to fight off the Roman invasion. But this is absolutely not about serious sword fights. All-out bonkers high fantasy is the vibe of this event show.
