Son...people can SEE you!

I realized this morning that, after my last post, some of you may have worried that my subsequent absence from the blogosphere may have meant that I may have actually died from my massive headache. Never fear, dear readers...still alive and well, watching entirely too much television, and back ready to bend your ear for a while.

First things first...I do think I want to do a more long-form writeup of Justified episodes. I just need to figure out a schedule, and see what (if any) online resources there are for transcripts, which is what I used to do my old LOST recaps.

As for this week's episode, I thought it was good but not great. I sincerely hope that there is more Carla Gugino in the future, as she was obviously perfect in her old "Karen Sisco" role. In fact, that was probably my only issue with this episode...not enough of Raylan and Karen (although they never actually CALLED her Karen).

But, honestly, the rest of the episode was good enough that I can understand why something had to get the shaft. Some of the things I loved:

 - Art being a bada**, and possibly letting us in on why he has such a complicated relationship with Raylan. On one hand, Raylan has to be an absolute nightmare as an employee, and Art has made no bones about how fed up he is with constantly having to clean up Raylan's mess. On the other hand, Art probably sees a younger version of himself in Raylan, which is why he continues to clean up the mess no matter how fed up he gets.

 - Everything about the Boyd/Dicky scenes. Obviously, Walton Goggins is phenomenal as Boyd, but I think Jeremy Davies is a little underrated by people who talk about the acting on this show. There are so many "versions" of Dicky (each one as true and believable as another), and we got a good example of that here...look at the difference between how Dicky is acting when he thinks he's talking to a guard, vs. when he realizes that it is actually Boyd coming to visit. There is a version of Dicky that he projects when he thinks he has the upper hand, and another very different one when he knows he is in a position of weakness...both versions are at the same time very real, but also very much an affectation. I don't think he is ever as strong as he likes to pretend he is sometimes, but you better not underestimate him and think he's as weak as he projects at times either. Just great, great stuff from both guys.

 - Always fun to see Band of Brothers alumni pop up on other shows, and this is not the first time we've seen one here.

 - We didn't get any more of Neal McDonough's character (currently only known as "The Carpetbagger"), but we were introduced to another of this seasons Big Bads. Mykel T. Williamson was terrifying as Limehouse. And also a big fan of Fight Club, which automatically makes it hard for me to root against him.

It's also really disconcerting to see Bubba be such a psychopath. Forrest would be SO disappointed.

Overall, another really good episode, albeit one that I still feel like is doing a lot of foundation work. We haven't even really gotten into what the "Big" story is going to be this season, but that's not unusual for this show...they like to establish the world and its players early on, and then start moving the pieces around.

 - I also watched the pilot of Touch, the new Tim Kring joint that stars Kiefer Sutherland. I thought it was a really good pilot...cool concepts, Kiefer is really good, etc. I'm going to stick around, but it's hard not to compare this project with the LAST one that Tim Kring put out, which was Heroes. This pilot reminded me so much of the Heroes pilot...the global scope, the "everybody is connected" themes, even the overly pretentious voiceovers and long subtitled scenes. I loved the Heroes pilot and most of the first season, but then that show went off the rails in a HUGE way as it collapsed under the weight of its own mythology. This is obviously a different show...I'm hoping that Kring learned the right lessons from Heroes and fixes some of the issues here.

I don't think the show comes back until sometime in March, so you have plenty of time to catch the pilot between now and then...I'll be watching with cautious optimism when it makes its return.

 - Last night's Parks and Recreation was tremendous, and I would actually suggest that this could be an "Emmy submission" episode...there was so much good stuff for almost every character:

Ron - FANTASTIC Ron episode...from the snack bar in the bowling alley being his "favorite restaurant" to his horror at Tom's bowling mechanics ("Son...people can SEE you!"), to his subsequent anonymous testing of Tom's "technique" ("I was never here..").

Tom - Another great Tom list, with all of his possible bowling nicknames (forgot that in the Ron section earlier...he went with BOWLER, GIRL, and TOM). And his whining about his "fingy" was Tom at his pathetic best. All that was missing from his storyline was Jean-Ralphio.

Jerry - "Well, I don't really think you need MY social security number...but I guess it wouldn't hurt to give it out. It's 2-1-0.."

Andy - Every single thing Chris Pratt says and does cracks me up. "Why are we laughing?" "Champion really doesn't like awkward situations..."

April - I really think Aubrey Plaza was the MVP of this episode. Her annoyance with Chris leading to her wanting to win the contest in order to make his happiness "go away", that tremendous scene of her affecting different accents and personas in order to wring donations out of people, and of course her heart growing three sizes after she realizes Chris is heartbroken (and it may be her fault: "I might be a wizard"). April showing actual human feelings always gets me.

Obviously, that list could keep going...the only problem I had with this episode was that it wasn't a great one for Leslie. I thought her reaction to that one guy in the focus group saying he couldn't see himself going bowling with her was too over the top, even for her. But A) the show acknowledged it (through Ben's reactions), and B) she got to redeem herself at the end with her refusal to apologize for the fact that her boyfriend stood up for her to this repulsive jerk, and in fact she found it pretty hot.

So, yeah...this is still the best comedy on TV.

 - Archer. Well...as usual, there are a lot of jokes that I can't re-create here, either in order to keep the blog family friendly or because they don't translate as well in writing. But even though Parks and Rec is the best comedy on TV, I didn't laugh harder at anything last night than I did at "Did you hear we met a TIGER? But...then, he was....murdered", with the possibility of "I'm gonna die in a toilet stall! Just like the gypsy said!". Or Ray Gillette as a Decepticon.

TOKEN SPORTS CONTENT:
As usual, Blutarsky says what I want to say, just much better...great post from him today on the dangers of a college football playoff, specifically my biggest problem with a tournament-style system. And extra points for using a reference from The Wire in the title of the post.

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND:
 - Chuck has its series finale tonight. If you haven't been watching so far, I guess it's a little late to jump in now...but for those of us who have been along from the beginning, what a ride. And I'm still shocked and happy that we got five seasons of this show, and that they are being allowed to go out pretty much on their own terms. Hooray for NBC suckiness! If they actually had done a better job of developing shows over the last four years, there is no way we would have made it to this point...Chuck kept getting renewed because NBC had absolutely nothing with which to replace it.

Alan Sepinwall has been one of the biggest online Chuck supporters since season one, so of course he is going to have some excellent finale-related material. HERE is part five of his week-long interview with showrunners Josh Schwarz and Chris Fedak, and HERE is a fantastic post listing all of his favorite moments from the series.

As for me, I'm really going to miss this show...but I think I will miss Sarah most of all.

 - Also this weekend is the "beginning" of HBO's Luck. I put "beginning" in quotation marks because HBO actually ran the pilot a while back. I watched it then and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though I had to watch it in standard def vs. hi-def (the HORROR!!!).

I'm a HUGE fan of Deadwood, which is also from creator David Milch. That one was set in a "western" type setting, but it was so much more than just a "western". It was a story about community, the greater good, how the truly awful things in life can sometimes open our eyes to the beautiful things....all with some of the most beautifully profane dialogue ever written. So I'm sure this one won't be for some of you...if you're easily offended by certain words, don't bother tuning in.

But I admire Milch's vision and style, and this one has the added bonus of a visionary director (Michael Mann) and a ridiculously talented cast (Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, Jason Gedric, Richard Kind, just to name a few). So I'm in, 100%.

Oh, and by the way, speaking of Deadwood...AV club has a great piece today about the first season that is co-written by a first-time viewer and a long time fan. Good stuff from them, as usual.

Have a great weekend!

EDITED TO ADD: Didn't want to make a whole post out of this, but Grantland agrees with me with regards to what Jericho is doing since his return (the part in bold is my favorite part):

The shtick was nothing short of brilliant. To play with the crowd's instincts — turning their welcome-back applause against them — was the most effective way for a star like Jericho to "turn heel" in short order. In fact, he was turning heel in perhaps the most meta way possible: Average fans were largely left perplexed by Jericho's act, but the "smart" fans on the Internet felt most strongly aggrieved. Many of them knew what Jericho was doing, yet they were still disgusted by the inanity of it. When CM Punk went off-script, those fans swooned; when Jericho deliberately undermined the whole edifice, that was a step too far. Punk assaulted the fourth wall over the summer; Jericho went out and found a fifth wall to address. Jericho and Punk are expected to clash, and when that happens "reality" may take the biggest beating.

The most obvious precedent for Jericho's audience-taunting is Andy Kaufman's "I'm from Hollywood" routine in the early 1980s, but what Jericho did in those few silent appearances actually has more in common with another Kaufman stunt: reading The Great Gatsby in its entirety to stupefied audiences. It was performance art under the guise of a blunt assault on fans' expectations, or vice versa.

As I Lay Dying...

OK, that's probably a bit melodramatic. I don't really think I'm dying. But I DO have a massive headache that makes it feel like my left eyeball is about to pop out of my skull.

So this will be short and sweet, but I am enjoying being back in the blogging groove and don't want to lose it.

I lied yesterday...I actually DID manage to squeeze in a little television last night. My very very abbreviated thoughts:

 - Downton Abbey: Best episode of this season (or series, as the Brits say) so far. It got a bit dusty in the room during the Crawley Sister duet, that's for sure.

 - Alcatrazzzz: I have so many problems with this show, even outside the extremely procedural structure. The biggest one is the apparent absolute lack of culture shock that any of the escaped prisoners have upon transporting from 1963 to 2012. There are others, that I will likely go into when I feel like writing more, but for now this show is skating on thin ice for me. I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt because I remember how "procedural" Fringe was in the early going before the writers finally said, "Screw it...let's just be weird".

Other quick thoughts:
 - Hoop Dawgs play #1 Kentucky tonight. In the words of the great Lt. Daniel Caffey: "You need to prepare yourself for the fact that we are going to lose....and we are going to lose HUGE".

 - Part two of Sepinwall's interview with the Chuck showrunners is HERE. In this installment, they discuss the second season, which is universally recognized as the creative peak of the show's run.

 - In other showrunner interview news, Todd VanderWerff has another edition of his always tremendous in-depth walkthroughs starting today with Alex Gansa of Homeland. Great insight into what was one of my favorite shows of 2011.

WHAT'S ON TONIGHT
Well, Justified, duh. I think this may be the show that I start doing weekly LOST style recaps of, if time permits. Tonight includes the introduction of Carla Gugino's character, who the show has said repeatedly is NOT Karen Sisco. I think her name is Maren Misco.

Also...Southland is a show that I really enjoyed when it began airing on NBC and then sort of lost track of after it moved to TNT. I watched the season premiere of the new season last week, and found that A) the show is just as good as I remember it being; and, B) you can jump right in and not be lost, as far as the plot goes. Only thing you really need to know is that these are cops and detectives working South LA. The rest you can pretty much fill in the blanks. Check it out if you like gritty realism in your police shows rather than homogenized cliches.

OK...it's hard to type one handed while clamping the other one over your eyeball to make sure it doesn't pop out. So that will have to do for today.

You understand why I'm not paying for that pizza, right?

Warning...spoilers ahead for last night's Justified.

And also, last night's New Girl, and Glee, if you care. And maybe Monday Night's Alcatrazzzzzzz.

Sweet fancy Moses, it was good to be back in Harlan, KY. Some stray observations on last night's triumphant return of Justified:

 - I am still going to miss Mags terribly, but I think I'm really going to enjoy the new villains that are filling her sizable void. Neal McDonough plays icy cool extremely well, and he was ice COLD in this episode. I'm always a big fan of the soft-spoken, matter of fact, pragmatic/psychopathic bad guy, and that looks to be what they are going for here.

Plus , I can pretend that he is the same guy who had to leave the San Diego area because a certain low-rent PI and his partner put a stop to his underhanded real estate deal (RIP, Terriers).

And the Ice Pick guy...wow. Extremely charismatic performance, and gave the line of the night (which happens to be the title of this post). I sincerely hope that he's not dead, and I don't think he is...that shot seemed to hit shoulder, right?

Hopefully, we will also get a lot of Jere Burns this season as well, as I really enjoy the chemistry between him and Olyphant.

 - A random thing I love about this show...the gunshots are LOUD. Television guns are rarely as loud as real-life guns are, but the ones on this show make your ears ring.

 - You know how sometimes you get two characters who just make you sit up and really take notice every time they have a scene together (think Ben Linus and John Locke, as a good example)? Well, as usual, the screen just crackles every time Boyd and Raylan are on it together. Olyphant and Goggins are at the top of their game.

 - Just like my entire Twitter feed, I was counting the seconds from the time the attractive secretary showed up until her inevitable demise. She should have been wearing a red shirt.

 - So are you Team Winona or Team Ava? I have to admit a pre-existing affection for Natalie Zea, from her work on Dirty Sexy Money, but um....Ava looked REALLY good in those boots.

And a nice callback to her fried chicken expertise (referring to the events surrounding the death of her husband), right before she brained Devil with a frying pan, which was of course fantastic.

So...I'm torn, I guess. Team Winava?

 - I'm a moron, I guess, but I didn't pick up on the fact that Boyd got himself arrested on purpose in order to get at Dickey until I read it in a review this morning.

 - Really not too many hints as to what the overarching plot is going to be this season, unless I just missed it. Instead, this was just the show's way of re-immersing us into this world that they have built, and man...it felt good to be back there.

STRAIGHT GUYS, TALKIN' BOUT GLEE (COPYRIGHT TODD VANDERWERFF)
Good grief, what a convoluted mess that was. As per most episodes, there was some stuff I really liked, some stuff that was just weird/annoying/out of nowhere (or, as I call it, Just Glee Bein' Glee), and some stuff that was just unspeakably horrible.

Breakdown for last night is as follows:

Stuff I really liked: The Artie and Becky storyline (especially Becky's inner monologue being voiced by Helen Mirren...personally, mine is voiced by Ed Norton's character from Fight Club), The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, the synchronized swimming coach.

The scene between Kurt, Finn, and Rachel at Breadstix hit on one thing that Glee has done well this season, which is the whole concept that this time in their life is a very specific and finite one, and it's going to end soon, and what happens after that? That theme has actually interwoven through a lot of episodes this season, which I give them credit for...in the past, it often seemed as though the writers didn't even bother to remember what happened last week, much less make an effort to worry about THEMES.

And, as always...every time Santana was on the screen. Naya Rivera is amazingawesomesauce, I don't care if her brother DOES play for the Hillbillies.

Just Glee Bein' Glee: Finn's dad is an overdosing loser, not a war hero, apparently. Sue Sylvester will NOT just pick a personality and stick with it (seriously...why was she involved in the little "rose walk" at the proposal...doesn't she hate ALL of these people?). This school is supposedly in a perpetual budget crisis, but they not only have a fully equipped Olympic regulation swimming pool, but....a synchronized swimming team?

Oh yeah...and Coach Bieste got married. Let's just mention that in passing, since that's really all the show did.

Unspeakably Horrible Stuff: Well, this week that was pretty much anything that had to do with one Will Schuester.

How was Will a creepy, horrible douchenozzle? Oh, let us count the ways...

 - He apparently no longer has any friends that aren't teenagers. He comes to them for advice, help on coming up with a proposal, really anything. OH, and even worse...his proposal is actually for their "assignment" for the week. Extremely professional.

 - To continue that theme...he asks his 18 year old student to be his Best Man, and puts him in charge of keeping him under control at his bachelor party (which I'm sure we will get to see at some point, and which I'm double sure will include only underage participants). Dude...that is CREEPY.

 - His apparent best friend confides in him that he is thinking about joining the Army after high school (a noble notion, by the way). So...Will immediately runs and tattles to Finn's parents, and joined with them to stage an Intervention, because God forbid we let that happen since Finn has SO MANY other more respectable options. (That whole thing ticked me off, incidentally...you would think that he had decided to join a kitten strangling gang).

 - Emma's Ginger Supremacist parents tell him that Emma is too coo-coo for cocoa puffs for him to actually think about MARRYING her....and not only does he AGREE with them, he TELLS EMMA THAT SHE IS TOO CRAZY FOR HIM TO MARRY. Jayma Mays actually does a fantastic job in taking what could be this cartoon character and turning her into an actual human being with actual damage, which made the whole thing even worse. How are we supposed to think that Will is anything but a fantastically horrible person? Why should I root for these people to get together? He actually ABUSES her emotionally in one scene, and then because he dresses up in a ridiculous white tuxedo and swims through a bunch of synchronized swimming prodigies (seriously...when did they PRACTICE?), I'm supposed to be happy that she accepts his proposal?

GAH....Will really pisses me off.

And the really sad part about is that when the show started, he was the character I related to the most. I was in a very active and well-recognized (locally) show choir when I was in high school, and I could relate to this guy's story of looking back on those years as some of the best of his life and trying to recapture that feeling somehow. But now...now he's just a creepy, pathetic, whiny, cruel, self absorbed person. Who, apparently, we are supposed to be rooting for.

Take Will out, and that's a B+ episode...but then it's only about 20 minutes long. That's about right, I think.

OTHER STUFF I WATCHED LAST NIGHT:
New Girl - Lizzy Caplan! Matt Besser! Rachael Harris! An episode focused on Schmidt, including the triumphant return of the Douchebag Jar! What else could you ask for? It's like they made an episode just for me!

Alcatrazzzzzz - Yeah, I'm going to keep making that joke. This....was....boring. I'm going to give it a few more weeks, because of the folks involved (a lot of the LOST team, including Hurley) and also because my Monday nights aren't as full of shows to DVR as some other nights. But if it's just CSI: Alcatraz, I'm going to be out pretty quickly.

WHAT TO WATCH TONIGHT:
Well, Idol is back, so there's that. I'm usually super stoked at this point, but this year I'm debating whether I'm even going to bother watching the audition episodes. Are any of you who have been around the blog for a while still interested in me doing recaps once the performance episodes start back up?

Also, the ABC comedy block: Suburgatory, Modern Family, Happy Endings. (that's chronological...in my personal priority order, it's Happy Endings, Suburgatory, Modern Family)

Crowdsourcing UGA basketball, Monday TV thoughts, more stuff

OK, it's that time of year again...football is winding down, tournaments start up in around six weeks or so...it's time for me to actually start paying attention to basketball. So, Dawg fans...what do I need to know in order to get caught up? I mean, other than that we apparently stink like last week's garbage. I want to know WHY we stink like last week's garbage. Were Trey and Travis THAT vital, that we go from a tournament team to one that may not win a conference game? And what happened to Gerald Robinson? I remember him at least being able to score pretty consistently last year, but during the limited time I've watched this year he seems to just be randomly hurling himself into the lane at breakneck speed, with no real intentions or ideas as to what comes next. Is Kentavious Caldwell-Pope living up to expectations, or is he (hopefully) really good but not good enough to be one-and-done?

So...educate me, Hoop Dawg fans!

MONDAY NIGHT TV:
 I watched the first 15 minutes of Alcatraz, before realizing that it was a two hour premiere and was going to keep me up WELL past my bedtime. It looks OK...I'm hearing from various critics (including Sepinwall) that it is mostly a police procedural, with a different "bad guy" every week, and only a cursory attempt at an overarching story. If that's the case, I will probably be out pretty quickly, but I will at least give it a shot due to its very strong LOST ties (JJ, Elizabeth Sarnoff, Bryan Burke, and of course Jorge Garcia (Hurley)).

Which reminds me...I think I am about ready for a LOST rewatch.

So, once I decided to put off Alcatraz, I watched the usual Monday night comedies instead.

First up was an episode of How I Met Your Mother that I enjoyed TONS more than anything else they have done all season. I was a late comer to this show, so I am not as emotionally invested as many fans are...I just want them to be FUNNY. And last night was definitely that ("We built Chip City...we built Chip City on ALL YOUR DOUGH...").

And then there was 2 Broke Girls. Like I said last week, I'm resigned to the fact that this is as good as the show will ever get...it's just a joke delivery system that delivers good jokes about 30% of the time and horribly unfunny and offensive jokes about 70% of the time. By that very low standard, last night was a pretty good episode...I think the jokes were actually funny about half the time, so...

...

WHY AM I WATCHING THIS SHOW?

I don't know...I think I watch it more because I am interested in the online reaction to it now, rather than because I actually think it's worth watching. But, hey...it's only 22 minutes when you don't watch commercials, and I don't have a whole lot else to watch on Monday. And Kat Dennings is hot, so...it stays.

WHAT TO WATCH TONIGHT
 Well....Glee, New Girl, and Raising Hope are all back from hiatus. That is prime Daddy-daughter time, so I will be watching those with the girls.

But the BIG news...JUSTIFIED IS BACK!!! YEEEEEE-HAAWWWW!!!

I just re-watched the last four episodes of last season again, and holy mackerel...I'd forgotten how TENSE those episodes were. I was still banging my head on the ceiling fan and screaming at the television, and I KNEW how everything was going to turn out.

Can't wait to hang out with Raylan, Boyd, Ava (hopefully), Winona, and the rest. I'll again point you to Sepinwall for his thoughts on the season...based on his description, I am really looking forward to what's coming up, even if I will truly miss Mags Bennett.

RIP, Mags...I tip my glass of Apple Pie to you.

My top 20 (plus) shows of 2011

Hey, look! It's a new blog post!

Just got in the mood to write again, so what better in the last week of the year than go the lazy cliched route and do a "Best of" list? So here are my Top 20 shows of 2011!

(These are my top scripted shows...none of my favorite reality shows belong in the top 20 as "best", but they are some of my favorites, so my top 5 reality shows: 5) Work of Art; 4) Hoarders; 3) Top Chef; 2) Deadliest Catch; 1) So You Think You Can Dance)

JUST MISSED THE CUT: Raising Hope, The Office, Up All Night, True Blood, Modern Family, Downton Abbey, The Good Wife

20. Suburgatory – Was not expecting to like this one, but it’s one of my favorite new shows of the season. Creepy chemistry aside, the two leads are very enjoyable, although the fact that Jane Levy was supposed to be 15 for the first part of the season caused some weird dissonance. I HAVE a 15 year old daughter…they don’t look or act like that.

19. New Girl – Look, this all comes down to whether you find Zooey Deschanel annoying or not. I don’t, and Schwarz cracks me up on a pretty consistent basis. The show is still trying to find its footing in many ways, but when they let Jess just be clueless rather than infantile, it’s one of my favorite shows.

18. Psych – Comfort food. Consistently funny, and the many pop culture references are right in my wheel house, since I am roughly the same age as the writers and stars.

17. Louie – Louis C.K. is a genius, and this show is 100% his vision, so of course it’s good. Personally, I found it fascinating and certainly I admired his “no rules” form of creating television, but I found it hard to really ENGAGE in the material, which is a big thing for me.

16. Happy Endings – Just started watching this in the fall, or it probably would have been higher. This is just a really funny show with really funny people that I like to hang out with for 25 minutes every week. Elisha Cuthbert is surprisingly strong, and the rest of the cast is filled out with people who simply know how to be funny. Did I mention it’s funny?

15. Chuck – One of my most personally beloved shows. There have been some serious inconsistencies in the quality from week to week, but when this show is on its game it still hits every one of my pleasure buttons. There are only a few episodes left before it ends its (amazingly) FIFTH and final season, and I’m starting to miss it already.

14. Sons of Anarchy – Would have certainly been higher on the list if Kurt Sutter had not completely wimped out and blown the ending. (SPOILERS AHO…SKIP TO THE NEXT NUMBER IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED ON THE CRAPPY SONS OF ANARCHY SEASON FINALE….). There is NO reason, plot-wise, for Clay to still be alive. None. He killed John Teller, a founding member and Jax’s father. He killed Opie’s wife and father (another founding member of the club). He tried to have Jax’s old lady killed, and possibly derailed her surgical career in the process. He roped the club into this arrangement with the drug cartel that has produced multiple deaths and tons of problems for the club. AND EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT IT. In this universe that Sutter has created, there is NO way for Clay to survive. And yet…next season, Clay will probably be sitting at that table, because Sutter chickened out and couldn’t kill off one of the stars of the show. Booooo.

I actually really liked the season up to that point…definitely would have been in my top 10. But between the botched Clay storyline, the ridiculous deus ex machina ending to the FBI investigation, and the whole Juice fiasco…I need to stop talking about it, or I will have to drop it further and redo the list.

13. Dr. Who – Honestly, the majority of the episodes of this show are just so-so for me. But…when you have a calendar year that includes “The Doctor’s Wife”, “A Good Man Goes to War”, “The Girl Who Waited”, and “The Wedding of River Song”, well…you make the list. Plus, Amy Pond may be at the top of my Favorite Redheads on TV list, and Matt Smith is very fun to watch.

12. Walking Dead – I enjoy this show, but I also understand that it is probably never going to be “great television”. Almost* all of the characters are extremely two-dimensional, as well as stupid, and virtually every decision is based on what the plot needs them to do, rather than what actual people would do. But no show does tension like this one, it is beautifully shot, and hey…..ZOMBIES.

* - The two exceptions to the crappy characters on this show are Daryll and Shane, both of whom I found to be EXTREMELY problematic in the first season, but whom I now wish would just branch off from everybody else and start their own show.

11. Archer – Continues to probably deliver the most laughs per episode, plus they actually made a bold attempt at continuity and serialization this season. But mostly, it’s on the list because it’s the show that makes me pause and rewind most often due to laughing too much to catch all the jokes.

10. Fringe – If I made this list in June, this one may have made the top 5. The end of last season had me calling it my “new LOST”. This season, on the other hand, has not been nearly as strong, mainly due to what I think was a major misstep in last season’s finale. Won’t spoil too much, because I still want you to go back and watch this show, but the problem is that the writers have painted themselves into a corner where it seems that either the characters I’m seeing NOW aren’t really themselves, or the characters I’ve been watching for the last three seasons don’t exist anymore. Either way, it lessens my investment in the characters. But, man…I can’t leave it out of my top 10 after the utter awesomeness that was most of season 3.

9. Cougar Town – Barely remembered that this one was on in 2011, due to the ridiculousness that ABC execs are putting the show through now, but the Cul de Sac Crew are probably my favorite group on television to hang out with every week. My love for Busy Phillips has been discussed here before, and the rest of the cast play off each other perfectly. To me, they are the most “organic” cast on television, in that I feel like they talk to each other like real friends do…they rip on each other, they gang up on each other, but they have an absolute loyalty and love for each other. Love this show, and can’t wait until they come back….whenever that ends up being.

8. Boardwalk Empire – Can’t believe this show is this low on the list, but I can’t put it above any of the ones above it. I love this show, and it’s because what some may call its “weakness” (that the plot is historical in nature and therefore unchangeable in many ways) isn’t really that much of a factor for me. I will ALWAYS value characters over plot, and this show does characters better than just about anybody. Plus, they had the guts to do what almost any other show would never do (SPOILER AHO!!!) by killing off a character who was ostensibly the lead this season. Hey, Kurt Sutter…this is how you tell a story. When the story says it’s time to die, then it’s time to die, and there was no way Jimmy could walk away from the decisions he made this season. Nucky could NEVER allow him to live…it doesn’t matter that the attempt on his life was Eli’s idea…Jimmy was in charge and could have stopped it, and Nucky knows it.

Even before the gut wrenching finale, this was a really strong season of television, with typical fantastic acting performances. Jack Huston breaks my heart as Richard Harrow every week, Michael Pitt was outstanding, Gretchen Mol was convincingly creepy, Michael Stuhlbarg as Rothstein steals every scene he’s in, etc, etc. This show does fantastic “moments” and character studies, and the fact that we know basically how the story is going to end doesn’t lessen my enjoyment of it in any way.

7. Justified – I love that this show has started to get mainstream critical approval. Crackling dialogue, delivered by fantastic actors, in a setting that immediately felt lived-in and real from the moment we stepped foot in Harlan, KY. If you grew up in the South, you KNOW these people….heck, you’re probably RELATED to some of them. The cast is phenomenal, but special kudos for this season go out to the magnificent Margo Martindale, who took a character that could have been a very two-dimensional villain and made you sympathize and even ROOT for her at times. This show comes back in just a few days, and I am STOKED. Yeah, I still say STOKED, when it’s appropriate, and it certainly is in this case.

6. Game of Thrones – To say I was excited about this one is a massive understatement, as the books the show is based on is my very favorite book series of all time. The show got off to sort of a slow start, as I think the creators actually tried to stay TOO close to the source material, but about a third of the way through they hit a groove and never looked back. Gorgeously shot, with a truly epic ambience. The creators have been handed a fantastic story, one which they obviously love, and they were smart enough to mostly let that story drive the narrative on the show while only embellishing around the edges. And, honestly, the embellishments were some of my favorite scenes.

Special credit goes to the simply amazing child actors that the show chose to play the vitally important young characters. The Stark children, in particular, felt to me like they leapt directly from the pages of the books onto my television screen, and I REALLY want to adopt Maisie Williams (Arya).

My only disappointment with the show, besides the slightly pedantic opening few episodes, is how little use they made of the direwolves. I know that animals are hard to direct, but the link between the direwolves and the Starks is one of my favorite aspects of the book…but, as usual, the books are better anyway.

5. Community - This one is hard to explain to people who don’t watch the show, or who have tried it and don’t enjoy it, but I’m going to try. WARNING…rambling ahead.

There is not a show with more ambition on television, in my opinion. They aren’t just aiming to be funny (though they are hilarious), they want to be…DIFFERENT. Not content to just be another sitcom that can live in perpetuity in syndication. Not a Chuck Lorre project, in other words.

I am square in the middle of the target demographic for this show…I don’t just enjoy watching television, I love exploring what makes television what it is, like examining various tropes and clichés and figuring out why they work or don’t work. I love meta commentary. I am in my mid thirties (barely hanging on to them), so I recognize all of the pop culture beats that the show hits. It just hits so many sweet spots for me.

Plus, the entire cast is super talented, extremely funny in a very clever way. And, yes, I know the “cleverness” is what turns a lot of people off, but what can I say? I’m often guilty of assuming I’m the smartest person in the room, and that’s the vibe this show gives off when it’s at its worst…so I can sympathize.

This show has my heart. Six seasons and a movie.

4. Homeland - My very favorite new show on television this year. I’m not going to spoil anything, because it’s still new enough that you can probably find a place to watch it. I will just say that it is refreshingly bold in its narrative, in that nothing is dragged out simply because the length of the season requires it (hello, THE KILLING). There are several moments that happen a good 5-6 episodes, or even 1-2 seasons, before they would happen on a typical show, simply because…that’s when these things would happen if they were happening in real life rather than on my television screen.

And, seriously…I can not possibly over praise the work that Damian Lewis and Claire Danes do on this show. These are two actors that I am predisposed to like anyway, due to their previous work (I ♥ Angela Chase FOREVER), but wow…Lewis will find it hard to break in to the Cranston/Buscemi/Hamm/Hall/Grammar field for Best Actor (especially with Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte joining the fray soon with Luck), but if Claire Danes doesn’t get serious Emmy consideration then we need to consider shutting down the whole system.

Go watch this. I promise, you won’t be disappointed.

3. Parks and Recreation – OK, I take it back. Among comedies, Community really has more of my BRAIN…Parks and Rec has my heart. No show brings me more sheer joy than this one…even when I’m not laughing till I hurt (which happens at least once every episode), I usually have a ridiculous grin on my face the entire time. I love every single one of these characters…even Jean-Ralphio (played by Ben Schwarz, who is probably in my top three favorite podcast guests).

The show just does everything well…character, story, ambience, you name it. Fancy Party is probably my favorite comedy episode of the year, and that is not because it was the funniest…it’s because it completely captures everything that this show is about, and what it’s about is pretty near perfect.

Plus, Ron Swanson…enough said.

2. Friday Night Lights – I still can’t talk about this show without getting emotional. This final season was a perfect send-off to a truly amazing show.

Amazing on so many levels…not just the truly spectacular acting performances (too many to name), the gut wrenching writing (I’m sure I wept openly at least once at every episode), the flawless direction (the show often looks and feels like the greatest home movie ever made)…but the fact that we actually got five seasons and that the writers were able to finish their story as they wanted, when we spent the first two seasons wondering if every episode may be the last one to see the light of day due to America’s stupidity.

This show is an American treasure. It’s television as an art form.

Texas, forever.

Clear eyes, full hearts…you know the rest.

1. Breaking Bad – Speaking of television as an art form…in my mind, there is no question that what Vince Gilligan is doing with this show is truly next-level stuff. It is visually astonishing. The story SIZZLES. The characters…well, more on them in a minute. Every single episode just flies by for me…I’m truly sad when it’s over and I know I have to wait another week before I can step back in to this deeply disturbing, wondrously wrought, bleak and yet somehow hopeful universe.

As for the characters, this show has a truly unique ability to surprise me without sacrificing the characters that have been built over the life of the show. It’s easy to surprise a viewer…just write a scenario that calls for a character to do something that we would NEVER expect. LOTS of shows do that, but most of the time the reason the character surprised you is because their actions completely contradict everything we know about that character. It is much more difficult to pull off what this show does, which is to have characters do completely unexpected things that first shock me and then cause me to say, “Yeah…that is EXACTLY what that character would say/do in this moment, because it is exactly in line with what we know about him/her.” It’s art, is what it is…and this show does it better than anybody.

From a storytelling perspective, there are few better. From a character perspective, there are none more well-developed and formed. From an acting perspective, there is no better cast. From an aesthetic perspective, no show currently has a better grasp on what their visual style is and how to best use it.

For all those reasons, Breaking Bad is my Best Show of 2011.

So, fellow TV fanatics...what's your favorite? Any that I'm missing? Let's discuss!

My favorite things I have been watching

Sorry this is late...real life interrupted in a big way over the last week or so.

So...what's been going on in the magical world of television while I have been gone?

- The return of Justified. Haven't watched last night's episode yet, but sweet tomato on a cracker, it is great to have Raylan Givens on my television again. Love the new "bad guys" (which includes two LOST cast members, most notably Jeremy Davies in a very non-Faraday role), and of course the dialogue and acting were as top notch as ever.

- Last week's episode of Raising Hope. I didn't enjoy this week as much (too much Granny, who is the Pierce F'ing Hawthorne of this show), but last week was certainly a triumphant return. Garret Dillahunt and Martha Plimpton are simply amazing, the rest of the cast holds its own (with the exception noted earlier), and Hope is possibly the cutest baby currently on television.


(included the picture just because I think it's hilarious)

- Last week's Chuck episode. This past week was just a'ight for me, Dawg, but last week was...you know what, I don't remember anything about why I liked it, except for this.



Honestly, I think that is enough. I know Bernie agrees with me.

- The return of the Alt-Universe on Fringe. For the past two plus seasons, the writing staff and showrunner Jeff Pinkner have been conducting a master class on how to compose a serialized sci-fi procedural. A big part of their success is how they have handled the Alt-Universe stories. The amount of time spent swapping episodes back and forth between the "Red" and "Blue" worlds went on just long enough to be intriguing without getting tiresome, and now I think they waited the exact right amount of time before sending us back for an episode. I had not even realized how much I missed the "Other Side" until I saw that gigantic Zeppelin cruising past the Empire State Building. And the case of the week was Fringe at its creepy best. Love this show.

- Shawn Ryan does it again with The Chicago Code. As much as I loved the pilot episode, this past week's was even better. The characters are already getting so much deeper, particularly Jason Clarke's fantastic performance as Jarek Wysocki. I seriously can not wait to see where this show is going, as we are already seeing the shades of grey and line-blurring that Shawn Ryan likes to do and does so well. This show has quickly become a must-watch for me.

-GROUP NIGHT, GROUP NIGHT, GROUP NIIIIGGGHHHHTTTT!!!!!! Ah....one of my very favorite things in the whole wide universe....it's Group Night on American Idol!

Here is how Jacob over at Television Without Pity previewed it (with some editing for family-friendly reading):
"Ridiculous people: Shake out meaninglessly into Popular, Unpopular, Other. Turn on each other in the middle of the night, splitting up and forming new groups halfway through rehearsing that will never be as tight, as strong, as complete. Wander the halls, looking eternally for your group, like a hotel ghost; never find them. Crying jags in stairwells and hallways, frantic calls home in the starry smoggy night.

This is your only shot, your only chance, this is the bigtime. This is your Ambling Alp, your Waterloo, the Clare Quilty that stands between you and superstardom. You don't want it bad enough, you want it too badly, you are not a team player, you are not standing out. Turn in early and get a good night's sleep, while your competitors rage on. Stay up all night watching colors roll down the walls.

Choose absurdity. Work the accompanist's and vocal coaches' last f'ing nerve. Fight about minor details while letting major s**t fall through your hands. Start crying halfway through when you realize you can't do this, live and onstage. Ditch a girl, then ask her at breakfast where she went.

Get pissy about the choreography, discuss the choreography at length, make friends over choreography, lose friends for no real reason, they were never your friends, this is summercamp for borderline hysterics. "

Yeah, that pretty much covers it. Group Night could be nine hours long and I would happily watch every single second. And last night lived up to my expectations for the most part, other than the fact that there weren't any groups where one guy/girl decides to go to bed at like 11 while the rest of the group stays up all night, and then they meet up at that deliciously awkward breakfast. Those are always a highlight.

Oh, what were the highlights? So glad you asked!
- The cherubic 15-year old Jacee being heartlessly booted from his group in the middle of the night, only to be scooped into the arms of the carrot-topped anti-bullying hero Brett Lowenstern, culminating in a tear-filled passage into the next round, at which point poor little Jacee is going to be eaten alive by the pressure and endure years and years of intense psychotherapy.

- I hated the stage mothers of the 15-16 year old group "The Minors" (wonder if the producers forced that name on them to keep Steven Tyler away from them?), but that didn't mean I didn't take joy in how much frustration they were causing everybody around them.

- "I have a GREAT idea...let's all of us attractive females pull Steven Tyler on stage with us and sing and dance around him, and let him pull faces and randomly sing into the mic and have a blast. It will be so much fun that there is no WAY they won't let us through!"

"Lauren - you stay, cause we said after your audition that you were probably going to win. The rest of you? Your journey ends here."

Delicious.

- The absolute joy of watching the horrible Tiffany Rios wander around the auditorium full of people that she completely dissed earlier in the day, begging for someone to take her into her group.
Tiffany: Do you want me in your group?
Random awesome dude, totally straight faced: No.
Tiffany: Are you serious right now? ?
Random awesome dude, still totally straight faced: Yes.

This was followed by some poor attractive blond girl making what she is surely ruing today as the worst mistake of her life and joining up with this no-talent delusional horror show, which meant she was of course eliminated after about two lines of their doomed duet.

Oh, Group Night....I miss you already.

- The season premiere of the Rob-Russell showdown on Survivor. As I have said before, last season of Survivor was the first one that I actually watched from start to finish, and I was completely unimpressed. Watching last night, however, I can see why the show has lasted 22 seasons. It's amazing what having actually compelling people who seem to have an idea as to how to play the game can do.

And, yes...the show confirmed my suspicions. I do in fact hate Russell.

What about you guys? What are your favorite things that you are watching?