Welcome to the Pilot TV Podcast and our annual review of the year special. Yes, 2020 has been an absolute hellscape from top to bottom.

There is no denying it. But one thing we can be grateful for, other than the fact that the

alien invasion has been rescheduled for 2021, is that the TV this year has been rescheduled for 2021, is that the TV this year

has been truly outstanding.

So over the course of this week's show, we're going to do a thorough post-mortem of the calendar year

and talk about how the small screen fared over this most bizarre of times. We'll

also be counting down the official pilot TV top shows of the year so make sure you've got your not pads handy

because recommendations will abound. I'm James Dyer and this is 2020 a year I think it's safe to say, like no other. We began the year bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,

finally about to get the Mandalorian here in the UK, still glowing from season one of the witcher over Christmas and then March happened and we were

all sent home and here we are nine months later pasty and golem like from not having been outside for most of a year myopic and bleary from the endless

hours of telly we were able to squeeze in in the absence of anything resembling a social

life and this very podcast which we once recorded together in a studio, has now become, frankly, the main way we all see each other, each in our little box, like a kind of nerdy Brady bunch, as we record these shows remotely but we have

endured we have been in your ears throughout the global pandemic and we hope you've all

got as much out of listening to us as we have coming together once a week to record

this for you as As you would expect

joining me once more in voice if not in body are my two co-host. First of all a

woman who went home on maternity leave at the beginning of this year

with no idea that the entire office and indeed the world would soon be doing likewise

but even the birth of her child and the release of her best-selling memoir

pale in comparison to the truly life-changing event she underwent this year

when she finally succumbed to my endless proselytizing and discovered the West Wing.

And let me tell you, her giddy reactions to this have been everything I could have possibly

...