Nicely affecting little comedy. Great character work, love love the trip to California and Ed Begley Jr. seals the deal.
Runner-up: Top of the Lake
A decidedly strange, Twin Peaks-ian mini-series, without the humor but with engrossing cinematography (no other word for it) of a high elevation New Zealand town and the surrounding countryside. The mystery is viscerally disturbing, Peggy Olson is great as the miserable, not-so-smart detective, and an astoundingly haunting Holly Hunter (say that five time fast!) steals the show.
10. Community
There were actually some good episodes scattered through, from old crew writers like Megan Ganz, and they managed to wrap it up surprisingly well. I was at peace with its conclusion, but really psyched for Harmon to be back this season. First two episodes are up on Hulu...check 'em out!
9. The Good Wife
Last season hit the doldrums with the Mr. Big Goes to Washington storyline, but with the divergent rival firms, they're firing on all cylinders again.
8. Orange is the New Black
Wildly ambitious, so naturally has some flaws to work out, but that's way better than the 'Boardwalk' way. American pie guy needs to seriously fuck off tho.
7. Arrested Development
Speaking of ambition, Hurwitz is working some crazy angles here, refusing to take any easy route for laughs. My problem with AD has always been the over-exposition, over-reliance on flashback, and this season was worse there. But the creativity and daring more than made up for it. And this:
6. Parks & Recreation
Talk about an ensemble. My favorite cast, top to bottom. Perhaps not as funny as it once was, but Pawnee has an alluring geniality that makes you want to set down roots forever. With a time-share in Muncie for getaways, of course.
5. Veep
Matt Walsh is my spirit animal.
4. Game of Thrones
I could understand writing this show off, if every actor wasn't absolutely murdering it. Only the Jon Snow love saga brought you out of the moment. That said, I think spelunking for Arctic sex caves, complete with requisite hot springs probably skyrocketed this year.
3. Justified
The season-long mystery was a masterclass on the slow burn.
2. Mad Men
I think I've finally pinpointed my reluctance to fully embrace this season: Linda Cardellini. I understand the importance of the storyline, triple-underlining what a wretched man Don Draper is, but her performance, and the writing for her, was unarguably sub-par. And the hair.
I still trust Weiner to pull the Season 7 train into the station, but consider the following:
"Who'd rape her?" "Don'd Rape'r!" "Why?" "Because he's a Dick Whit(e)man."
Meaningful? Meaningless? Idiotic non sequitur from a man who doesn't know how to stop talking about Mad Men? Who knows!
1. Gravity Falls
This might seem like trolling, but I swear it isn't. Check it out.
1 comment:
My lack of cable, let alone HBO, is definitely hurting me (also I tried watching Top of the Lake about ten times on Netflix but the damn thing would never load), but nevertheless, here are my rankings of the only shows I feel warrant ranking (Mindy, SNL, Glee, Community, Trophy Wife, and Parks & Rec possess many fine and admirable qualities, though far from consistently):
7) Orange is the New Black (the last two or three episodes REALLY saved this thing; hope they've moved permanently away from the condescending and insulting inmate-of-the-week flashbacks)
6) Brooklyn Nine-Nine
5) Breaking Bad (a very troubled finale doesn't undo EVERYTHING)
4) New Girl
3) Happy Endings
2) Arrested Development
1) Mad Men
More and more, I value most shows like New Girl and Happy Endings that do formula so exceedingly well, especially as stuff like Louie (the 3rd season of which I am currently catching up with) and Community seemed to become more and more desperate to find new modes of expression that they came to express very little (even much of Community S3 was wearing thin, and S4 was several levels of atrocious). Never mind that the average episode of the aforementioned sitcoms was just flat-out funnier than the latter two.
However, Mad Men and Arrested Development continued to be exceedingly fine examples of how malleable the television format can be in the hands of expert storytellers, and both series were not only extraordinarily incisive in many ways regarding cultural values and how impossible it can sometimes feel to truly maintain one's family in a meaningful way (even as you continue to spend great amounts of time with them), but also continued to make true art of their medium.
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