Quick Thoughts: Game of Thrones s6 Finale

Ah fuck it, Team Cercei. No one’s played the game of thrones better than her. She’s going to die of course (unless she doesn’t). But until her wonderful, most likely inevitable death (at the hands of Jaime?), all aboard that crazy bitch’s train.

Lady Mormont is the Beyoncé of Westeros. All hail.

I’m pissed that they didn’t reveal much at the Tower of Joy. Only after reading online about its significance online after-the-fact did I get the context of it. I wish they’d spelled it out more obviously for non-book-readers. They’d been leading up to this moment all season long only for them to not explicitly reveal it. Bullshit.

Still, this episode stands up there with Rains of Castamere as possibly the best of the series. The only thing holding it back was that the first 15-20 minutes set the bar too damn high that pretty much everything afterwards felt like comedown.

At the beginning of the season when all the castmembers were doing press, someone (off the top of my head I want to say Maisie Williams aka Arya) said by the end of the season, it would feel like the end is in sight. Even midway through the season, even at episode 6-7, it did not feel like it. It most certainly does now. All the houses are falling into place, conglomerating behind a leader for a final battle royale (and let’s not forget the looming threat of the white walkers). Cercei Lannister has decimated the internal/nearby threats to her and has consolidated King’s Landing to fall in line behind her (in political rule, if not in people’s hearts). Jon Snow & Sansa have won back the North and, with Beyoncé Lady Mormont whipping them in order, the houses of the North (along with the wildlings) have united behind them (with Littlefinger creepily watching (and most likely scheming) in the corner). Pretty everyone with a pulse outside of those two areas have united behind Daenarys. She has the water people (Reek/Theon’s area). It looks like Varys’s secret mission was to get Dorne and Lady Tyrell to unite behind her also. The 3 houses are amassing and dear God I hope season 7 is just an 8-hour battle between the houses and season 8 is a 7-hour battle with the white walkers, plz. Looking at the Game of Thrones logo though, which is the 4th house?

The dragon is House Targaryen. The wolf is House Stark. The lion is house Lannister? Who’s the stag/deer house? Oh right that’s Baratheon. Basically dead then.

Vengeance.
It has proven itself to be the greatest motivator. Cercei has used anger and fury and vengeance to fuel her ascent to the Iron Throne. Daenerys wants to avenge her family name, House Martell & House Tyrell are united behind her to seek vengeance for their dead at the hands of the Lannisters. Jon Snow and Sansa also were motivated by vengeance, first to take back the north from Hitler’s literal decomposed anus Ramsey Bolton, now to seek revenge against the Lannisters, again for the many deaths in their family caused by the Lannisters. Everyone feels slighted and wronged and push aside and in the side of injustice at someone else’s hands, and, as the show has set up well, the audience feels empathy for them at some point or another (even Cercei, sort of). And Arya is just off on her own killing spree (who let her borrow faces though?).

All in all, a fantastic, fantastic season ender to an uneven season.

Quick Thoughts: Game of Thrones IMAX

-You haven’t heard the Game of Thrones theme ’till you’ve heard it in IMAX
-The nearby theater was just renovated so that might’ve helped the whole IMAX experience, sound was on point, a 360° experience. For example sometimes you’d hear, say, a bird cawing and fly past, but you’d hear it behind you, not in any of the side/front speakers, only from those behind. Maybe it’s ’cause I sat in the back row
-Poster was small, not like an actual large poster, bit disappointed at that. Not worth going out in the middle of the night on a workday. Some of the artist’s other posters were better (he made a poster for each episode.
-Visually it’s good. The episodes were very cinematic and were meant to be watched on the big screen, one of the biggest television-to-theater-screen improvements was the scene in “The Children” with the ice skeletons, it was the fuckin’ tits man.
-Doesn’t lose the intimacy of smaller scenes, i.e. Cersei pleading with her father not to take her away from her son, still has the zing as on the small screen.

All in all, GoT fans should definitely try to make it out to the theaters to watch it in its one-week run in IMAX theaters, it won’t be a huge miss if you don’t. Wasn’t worth staying up to catch the first Thursday @ 10pm showing for the poster.

2013-14 Television Season in Review

As May comes to a close, another television season has come and gone. And while there’s still plenty to watch on cable, many shows are on summer hiatus now, meaning I can work my way through the first 4 seasons of The Good Wife (and maybe finally, finally get around to Breaking Bad this summer? Maybe? Possibly?) and binge on various other shows.

While I’ve written extensively about the various networks’ successes and failures and how they can mitigate losses or further build momentum in terms of their ratings in my many, many posts previewing the Upfronts, let’s take a look at how they did qualitatively.

*asterisks signifies I watched the whole season (or just about)

CBS & CW
Both are networks I generally don’t care for, with the former being filled with crime/police procedurals and the latter with soapy teen girl melodramas. Buut there’s usually 1-2 new shows per season I’ll give a try on the CW and CBS had a handful of stalwarts (60 Minutes, The Good Wife) or new shows (The Crazy Ones, Hostages) I tried (or kept watching in the case of 60 Minutes).
*The Good Wife: This right now is probably my favorite drama thusfar of the year (2014, not the television year). I had been reading rave reviews for its 5th season, and one night, luckily enough, they aired an episode of The Good Wife an hour early right after 60 Minutes when I watched 60 Minutes on TV and not my laptop for the first time in a long, long time. The stars aligned. And it was apparently one of the best episodes in the entire series. I was awestruck. I’d been missing out on one of the best things on TV. It was one of the most tightly-constructed, well-written, can’t-stop-watching, interesting, utterly watchable episodes of television I’d seen in some time. Watching the two episodes following it felt like a comedown, so I tried the first episodes of the series before starting at the beginning of season 5. The Good Wife has been chugging along for 5 seasons, falling under the radar of flashier, more headline-grabbing shows like Breaking Bad, House of Cards, and True Detective, but damn if this is not one of the smartest, sharply-written shows on television right now. It may not break ground or be as flashy or be as innovative (arguably) as the aforementioned, but what it does it does damn well; from the music to the writing, especially the pacing, it’s just impeccably well-made and excels at some old-school, good ol’ fashioned storytelling with a bevy of well-constructed characters. Thank God CBS renewed it for another season. The episode I watched, by the way, was ‘Hitting the Fan,’ which you would do well to seek out.
And another thing. While I had missed out on 4 seasons of interactions and history between 2 characters, I could feel that history in the scenes the characters shared. One felt very betrayed by the other and I got the sense that there was a lot of history between the two of them that caused the other character’s betrayal to feel that much more weighty.
It’s not some domestic drama about a woman learning to love her cheating husband again or what have you. Its genre is technically a legal drama, but it builds and is so much more than just a legal procedural. A+

*60 Minutes: I’m a news junkie and 60 Minutes still satisfies my news need. Well-reported, long-form stories gets trampled and abandoned on the argumentative, partisan cable news networks but 60 Minutes is an oasis for it, the botched Benghazi story notwithstanding.

*Hostages: On paper this seemed like a nice break from the police procedural-spinoff heavy CBS schedule: a serialized 13-episode show starring Toni Collette (The United States of Tara, The Sixth Sense), Dylan McDermott (The Practice), and Tate Donovan (Damages) about a doctor’s family held hostage unless she follows the captors’ orders that she kill the president when later she performs surgery on him. Too bad the most interesting thing about this show was the description, the execution was botched so badly it became laughably bad (I still watched every episode though halfway through I just started playing it as background noise) D+ For ambition. And Dylan McDermott’s ability to go from 0 to pissed off in 1.2 seconds.

*The Crazy Ones: I’ve never been a huge Robin Williams fan but they made great use of his energy in this show. Throw in a great supporting cast with fantastic chemistry and Sarah Michelle Gellar ends up actually probably being the weakest part of this show (not that she was bad, just dwarfed by a stellar cast). At the beginning of the television season, The Crazy Ones and Brooklyn Nine-Nine were neck-and-neck as my favorite new comedy, unfortunately it became a bit inconsistent as the season wore on. Still had plenty of fun, great episodes, but mixed in were a handful of episodes that lost its fresh, kinetic energy and felt rather like a staid, old show. Because of that I don’t mourn its cancellation too much, but it was still a breath of fresh air amongst CBS’s comedy line-up. B/B+

The Millers: Starring Will Arnett, Margo Martindale, and Jayma Mays and created and written by the creator of My Name is Earl and Raising Hope?! Again, sounds great on paper. And it might’ve been good/decent if it had been a single-camera show, unfortunately it was a multi-camera, laugh-track show, sucking away any chance this show had of being good. C

Mom: I gave this a try for Anna Farris and Allison Janney. Nope. However, the one good thing about The Millers and Mom is that Showtime is owned by CBS, so that probably had something to do with Janney and Beau Bridges (The Millers) showing up and doing great work on Showtime’s Masters of Sex. So there’s that. C-

We Are Men: Cancelled after 2 episodes, it wasn’t nearly as bad as the reviews indicated. Not very good either though. B-

Friends with Better Lives: I watched either 1 or 2 episodes of this, laugh track. No…just no. STOP WITH THE LAUGH TRACKS ALREADY.

The Tomorrow People: I watched half a season of this, and there’s some good stuff in this show, but there’s plenty of stupid-as-shit CW-y shit that ultimately dragged it down too much. B-/C+

The 100: Same as above, but even more thoroughly CW’d.

ABC
Resurrection: Utter bollocks. Skip it, watch the far, far, far, vastly superior, similarly-themed French show Les Revenants, which was easily one of my favorite shows of last year. C-/D

Agents of SHIELD: I did not anticipate this nearly as much as giddy comic fanboys, I was still disappointed. I stuck with it for half a season with plans to keep watching but relegating it to a background noise show, but when the time came I couldn’t be bothered. As much as people love Agent Coulson, Agent May was the stand-out for me, and I didn’t mind the Brit duo though I could see how people could be annoyed by them. Heck, even Agent Ward wasn’t terrible, the writing just never serviced any of these characters (or plots) very well. But fuck Skye. She’s so awful. A blackhole cesspool quicksand void sucking any trace of interest or likeability into it. The fight scenes were good though. B-/B/C+

As you can tell, I’m terribly indecisive when it comes to assigning these shows a firm grade.

*The Goldbergs: It took more than a handful of episodes, but it eventually starts to find its groove, and while not one of my Top 14 comedy shows of 2014 thusfar, it’s still a reliably entertaining 20 minutes (especially towards the end of the season). Wendi McLendon-Covey is a stand-out for me as “the original smother” Mrs. Goldberg, and Hayley Orrantia makes a character as stereotypical as the teenage girl pretty fun. B/B+

*Trophy Wife: It had the best comedy pilot, tied with Brookyln Nine-Nine. Too bad it never matched the heights and promise of that first episode. Like Agents of SHIELD, had it gotten rid of one character (the over-the-top and horribly irritable Jackie) it would’ve made 5-6 minutes of every episode a lot better. The writing is usually pretty good (if a bit inconsistent in quality), but it’s the actors who shine the brightest in Trophy Wife. Marcia Gay Harden, an actress best known for dramatic movie roles, segues into a comedic role (though not much of a stretch in a role playing the decidedly unhumorous, professional, type-A character) with aplomb, and Bailee Madison and Ryan Lee play the over-achieving daughter and goofy son really well. They have bright futures. The precocious Albert Tsai was a hoot and a half in the first episode but it quickly became just too much and over-the-top for me. Also, not enough Natalie Morales. B

Super Fun Night: What a colossal waste of Rebel Wilson’s talents and the post-Modern Family time slot. ABC has yet to find a suitable match for their #1 show. Times a tickin’ ABC, Modern Family’s days of providing a reliably large lead-in is counting down. D/D-

*Mixology: Almost good, almost. Clever at times, nowhere near as bad as the premise sounded but far from a home run B/B-

*Modern Family: In its 5th season and after 4 consecutive Emmys for Best Comedy series, this show is showing some of its age. You could get rid of a large number of the cast and I’d be okay. Cam & Mitch’s storylines increasingly rely on them sniping at each other and their insecurities or hiding something from each other (their adopted daughter Lily is always fantastic all the times forever always though). Sofia Vergara does not get enough credit, often written off as just a walking Latina trophy wife caricature. I could take or leave Jay, Manny has flatlined as a character since season 1. I love the entire Dunphy clan though. They could just make it about them and I’d be happy. Hell, they could jettison the entire cast save for Phil Dunphy and I’d be happy. Its quality has varied more than ever, with some downright mediocre episodes (never an out-and-out bad one though, even the mediocre ones have some funny lines/plots), but it can still rise to the occasion with sublime episodes like Las Vegas. While Modern Family haters probably begrudge it winning so many awards, I do think it shouldn’t nab a 5th consecutive Best Comedy Emmy (that should go to Parks and Rec, but Big Bang Theory probably has a good shot at it after its biggest season yet ) A-

*The Taste: Top Chef shouldn’t have to worry about its place as the best cooking competition show, but dammit I still watched every episode of this and most likely will for its 3rd season.

Black Box: I watched one episode of this and damn if it wasn’t one of the longest 45 minutes of my life.

NBC
Believe: I can only imagine how good this would’ve been had Alfonso Cuarón (director of Gravity, Children of Men, one of the Harry Potter movies) stayed on with this show instead of only directing and co-writing the pilot.

Crisis: I watched/suffered through only 1 episode and it already felt way too fucking long after 10 minutes F

The Blacklist: It’s gotten strong reviews. James Spader stands a real chance at nabbing an Emmy nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Drama. It consistently draws high viewership and has played a key role in making NBC the #1 network in the important 18-49 demographic. meh Cookie-cutter procedural. Very little made me want to stay around after its 4-episode trial period, and I didn’t. B-/C+

About a Boy: I really wanted to like this show. I heard good things about it. I’ve found David Walton to be a likeable actor who gets stuck in a bunch of lame, quickly-cancelled romantic comedies. Minnie Driver and Al Madrigal were both selling points for me for their work on The Riches and The Daily Show respectively. Unfortunately, after 4 episodes, I’ve found it to be a fairly bland show. If anything, it makes me want to watch the 2002 film. C+

*Parks and Recreation: My #1 comedy for 2014 so far. I still think season 2-4 were the best of the show, but comparing seasons 2-4 to 5 and 6 is like saying 10 strips of bacon is better than 9 strips of bacon, you’re still getting a lot of goodness either way. [SPOILER ALERT]Getting rid of the 2 weakest characters midway through the season was an excellent choice, [/END SPOILER ALERT] though I’m unsure about the addition of Billy Eichner’s Craig. He looks to be a permanent addition to the cast for the final season (of only 13 episodes! 😦 ). While I hugely disliked him at first, thinking any of the other Eagletonian Parks employees would’ve been a better addition, his outbursts occasionally will elicit a laugh out of me. While there were occasionally plots that didn’t quite do it for me, the growth of the characters (Tom’s transition from public-sector employee to private-sector entrepreneur in particular) have been great and the season finale was one of the best episodes of the show, up there with the election episode (probably the best of the series) and wedding. A

*Community: A return to form for the show, though I didn’t quite love it as much as the hardcore Community fans. Still plenty to love, seemingly combining the unique, offbeat humor of seasons 1-3 with the more introspective, character-focused tone of season 4 (imo). While it’s sad it seems like it won’t get #sixseasonsandamovie, I’m okay with that. It’s had 2 season finales essentially serving as a series finale, I don’t think I’d like another season where they write the season finale as a potential final episode just in case they get cancelled. A-/A

The Michael J. Fox Show: I tried a handful of episodes. No…just…no. Much like Nathan Lane’s Modern Family character (Pepper), J. Fox is better used in The Good Wife (ESPECIALLY so in the case of Lane). D/D-

*Rosemary’s Baby: This certainly wasn’t a very good movie/miniseries, it wasn’t bad, it was just blah. Utterly forgettable, boring, unspectacular to the nth degree. Zoe Saldana does her best with the extremely bland material she’s given, but this 4-hour 2-night snoozefest makes watching paint dry seem like a heroin trip. D

Dracula: Seems like it partially tried to mimic the slower, broody tone of Hannibal with far less success. Still, not out and out terrible. C

*Hannibal: Holy fucking shit. I gave up on this show after a few episodes in its first season. Buuut for whatever reason I watched just 1 episode. And I saw something in that episode that made me watch just 1 more episode after that. And there was something in that episode that lead me to watching 1 more episode and so on and so forth until I ended up watching the whole first season. I still wasn’t that impressed, but the way the season ended I had to at least watch the premiere episode of season 2. And what a turnaround this show has experienced. While I found the show much, much too slow, I did admire its spectacular visuals, well-drawn characters, good acting, and just overall stylish fun, if only it had momentum plot-wise. Season 2 got rid of essentially all the boring and charged ahead, making this show appointment viewing. For the season’s last 3 episodes, it fell back into its molasses-speed slowness, with abstract sequences such as a teardrop becoming a sea with swirls of blood in it taking up minutes of time. Visually good, yes, but too many of them and it’s awfully boring. Still, I spent the last 10 minutes of the season 2 finale with my jaw dropped. So glad it’s getting a season 3 which could go in so. many. different. directions. It was neck-and-neck tied with The Good Wife as my #1 Top Drama of 2014 for much of its run, but when all is said and done with their respective seasons over, The Good Wife edges out Hannibal having only 1 meh episode to Hannibal’s 1 boring episode + 2 halves of 2 episodes being boring. As consolation prize, I’ll reward Hannibal the #1½ spot on my Top Drama Shows of 2014 list instead of outright ranking it #2. A/A-

*Saturday Night Live:

FOX
Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey Alright, I’m gonna alienate a lot of people here. I didn’t like Cosmos as much as most people, who absolutely luuuuuurved it. I tried 3 or 4 episodes, and I just couldn’t. My criticism of it being too boring will likely be met with condemnations accusing me of being an unsophisticated ignoramus. Hold on, I like me some 60 Minutes, VICE news and various PBS programs. I just didn’t like how they presented the information. Sure, they severely upped the special effects budget, but I didn’t like the science side of it. It felt very cursory, very superficial, a very surface-level explanation. I’d rather they focus on one topic and deeply probe it. I’m reminded of a 2-part episode of NOVA I watched way back when, it explained the 4 forces of physics (Gravity, Electromagnetism, Weak and Strong interaction) then spent the next episode exploring string theory. It was fascinating stuff and it spent the time to really explain each of the forces. And when they introduced a new force, they took a bit of time to explain how it relates to the prior force(s) (electromagnetism with gravity, or Weak with EM and Gravity for example). Cosmos sped through its topic, seemingly more focused on trying to impress upon the viewer how awe-struck they should be by so-and-so topic, or explaining the history of science through unneeded, and frankly, pretty goofy, animations. I just couldn’t care less. Science is totally capable of being interesting and entertaining in and of itself, it felt like Cosmos was trying very hard to pander to the science-adverse masses, and, in doing so, diluted their core heavily.

(For those interested, I believe the NOVA episodes was actually a 3-parter (not 2-parter) called The Elegant Universe, broken down into 3 episodes titled Einstein’s Dream, String’s the Thing, and Welcome to the 11th Dimension)

*Sleepy Hollow: One of the stand-outs of the crop of freshman shows for the 2013-14 season. I remember reading the premise (Ichabod Crane does battle with the headless horseman, goes into a coma, wakes up in present day and assists a local cop solving supernatural crimes. Oh, and did I mention the headless horseman is one of the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse trying to bring the end of times?) and thinking it sounded utterly convoluted and was a textbook case of a show trying far too hard to do far too much.
How wrong I was. Get over the goofy premise and this show is simply a wonderfully fun show. Other shows try to scale great dramatic heights but this show is just a well-paced show with a fun adventure plot supported by an able cast. I’m tempted to give it an A, but I don’t know if it’s on the same level as The Good Wife or Hannibal, but on the other hand, I really can’t think of any bad things, plots, or characters from the show. If it receives a minus, it’s not due to any demerits on the show’s part, but the minus is simply earned relative to the other A-level dramas. A/A-

Almost Human: Almost good. It needs to go through a couple more drafts, better characters, more intrigue, better, attention-grabbing plots. Still, not terrible, just not memorable. Watch Sweden’s similarly-themed Real Humans for a better, more fleshed-out show about a future where robots have become as integrated into society as smartphones have today. C+

*24: Live Another Day Closer to the lousier latter seasons of the show than the heights of the show’s better seasons. It hasn’t reached the depths of the worst of season 8 (yet), but it’s definitely no season 5. Still, the quality seems to be evening out now. Best parts of the show: Mary Lynn Rajskub’s Chloe O’Brian will never get enough screentime in my opinion (hell, if they cast off Bauer and made her the show’s protagonist I’d totally be okay with that) and Lady Catheryn Stark shows her devious side. In the hands of a lesser actress, her character would’ve been a ham-handed, unoriginal villain, but she manages to breath deviousness into even her limpest dialogue.

Dads: The most offensive thing about this show is not the jokes, but the laugh track. The cast tried their best. D/D+

*Brooklyn Nine-Nine: I could write something very long about how solid the cast is and how the episodes balance them out well and how this show made me go from not seeing why he was so popular amongst my peers to liking Andy Samburg, but, to put it simply, it’s as good as you’d expect from two long-time writer-producers from Parks & Recreation. Whenever this show promotes itself as coming “from the producers and writers of Parks & Recreation,” it actually means and counts for something. A

New Girl: I watched the Super Bowl episode and have yet to understand why people like this show (apparently not very much anymore as its ratings have absolutely crashed since its first season)

*The Mindy Project: Even though its first season was very, very hit-and-miss, I stuck with it because, even if it wasn’t consistently funny, it was likeable. This becomes a bigger problem in season 2, and I’m almost disappointed it got renewed for a third season because I’ll feel obligated to watch it and most likely will. Mindy Kaling can write better and funnier than is evidenced by this show.

Rake: blah

Surviving Jack: Like the Goldbergs, but set in the 90s. I actually enjoy this show and between this and his guest appearances on Veep, Christopher Meloni has shown himself to be an able comedic actor (even if his comedic roles never stray too far into zany and stick more with the straight-man character).

Gang Related: Not terrible, it’s actually a summer show and it’s fairly decent for a summer show on a broadcast network. I’ll keep watching so long as it’s good enough, idk if it’s good enough for me to stick with it through its entire 13-episode run. It’s almost like a very, very watered-down version of the sublime/best cop show Southland.

*Raising Hope: An overlooked, underappreciated show that managed to be reliably and consistently funny throughout its 4-season run. A couple of off episodes here and there, but still filled with clever zingers and funny writing. I’ll miss ya Chance family A-

Enlisted: Didn’t like it nearly as much as its fans and critics did. The 3 leads were good, especially Chris Lowell and Parker Young.

Yeesh, 3600 words already and I haven’t even gotten to the cable stuff yet.

Cable
Alpha House & Betas: Amazon’s first forays into original programming were fruitful, the political Alpha House started off well/decently enough but really found its groove episode 3 onwards. Betas was shit for its first 3 episodes but grew from there on and by the end of the series I actually liked it better than Alpha House. It centers on a group of app developers living, struggling, and trying to grow their business in Silicon Valley. Sound familiar to a certain HBO show on air right now? It’s the standard by which I kept mentally comparing Silicon Valley and while it’s gotten closer and closer with each episode, I still prefer Betas. Too bad it got cancelled for a handful of (what looks to be) unspectacular new shows Amazon greenlit.

Helix (SyFy): Promising premise, nice to look at, but utterly, utterly stupid.

Shameless (Showtime): Flawless

Episodes: Doesn’t live up to its potential, but still always an enjoyable and amusing 20-25 minutes

I was gonna do this on quarterly basis but I fell really behind in my television watching, so I may do an update in summer/end of summer before my end of year list.
Top 14 Comedy Shows of 2014 (so far)………………………Top 14 Drama Shows of 2014 (so far)
1. Parks & Recreation (NBC)………………………………………1. The Good Wife (CBS)
2. Shameless (Showtime)…………………………………………..1½. Hannibal (NBC)
3. The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)…………………………..3. Game of Thrones (HBO)*
4. Veep (HBO)……………………………………………………….3. Bates Motel (A&E)
5. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX)………………………………………..5. True Detective (HBO)
6. Community (NBC)…………………………………………………5. House of Cards (Netflix)
6. Modern Family (ABC)…………………………………………….7. Vice (HBO)**
8. Archer (FX)………………………………………………………..etc:
9. The Soup (E!)………………………………………………………-The Americans (FX)
10. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)……………………..-Justified (FX)
11. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)
12. Raising Hope (FOX)
13. Pramface (BBC three)
14. Episodes (Showtime)

*While this list is exclusive to those series that have wrapped up its season (or are very close to it), I allowed an exception in Game of Thrones’s case as it’s a few episodes shy of its season finale and its sheer quality. Still, I am docking it for not completing its season. Put away your pitchforks, I imagine it puts up a formidable challenge for the top ranks once it completes is season (still, The Good Wife was very, very good this season. And admittedly, with this being the first season I watched and binged upon, it does have a bit of a new-show smell leg up)
** Vice is a documentary/news show. I do not have a news/documentary category. In its stories, it showcases real human drama however, so under those auspices, I’m including it on this list. Deal with it.
***Made this list before finishing Silicon Valley

HBO’s 1st Trailer for Upcoming Rapture/Apocalypse Series ‘The Leftovers’

I’ve been waiting awhile for a full trailer—not just a short teaser—for HBO’s upcoming series ‘The Leftovers.’ Everything about this series has intrigued me since I heard about it, from the genre (post-apocalyptic drama), to the premise (“…takes place in the wake of a global “Rapture”—which is the same as the Biblical rapture—and centers on the people who did not get taken that are left behind in a suburban community”), to the cast (Justin Theroux, Christopher Eccleston, Ann Dowd) to Damon Lindelof serving as showrunner (whose reputation splits opinion online but he’s had a hand in writing for Lost and producing/writing Star Trek, Prometheus, Star Trek: Into Darkness and World War Z among many others).

I finally got it on Tuesday, and while it slightly whets my appetite, it still doesn’t make me as psyched for the series as truly good trailer would (I fully acknowledge the futility and slight inanity of critiquing trailers). While HBO has maintained a high level of quality for its shows, based on the trailer ‘The Leftovers’ could go either way (though the worst for HBO is still just being a mediocre show). Still, dat James Blake.

The song by the way, is ‘Retrograde’ by James Blake from his 2nd album ‘Overgrown.’

There’s a number of supernatural-tinged horror-esque shows premiering on cable channels this late spring-summer: ‘Penny Dreadful’ on Showtime (May 11), The Leftovers on HBO (June 29), and The Strain on FX (July 2014). It’s probably not fair to be making comparisons, especially so early, but at this point I’m most psyched for Penny Dreadful, which really hasn’t given much away in terms of its plot (its first episode is actually out already which I should get to eventually).

Top 13 Shows of 2013

The shows are ranked by a 50-50 combination of the show’s quality and how much I liked it.

Comedy…………………………………………………………………………Drama
1. Archer (FX)……………………………………………..1. Game of Thrones (HBO)
2. Parks & Recreation (NBC)…………………………….2. Bates Motel (A&E)
2. The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)………………..3. The Americans (FX)
4. Modern Family (ABC)………………………………….3. Southland (TNT)
5. Veep (HBO)…………………………………………….5. Broadchurch (ITV, UK)
5. Daily Show (Comedy Central)………………………..6. Les Revenants (Canal+, France)*
7. The Soup (E!)…………………………………………..6. House of Cards (Netflix)
8. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX)……………..7. Justified (FX)
9. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox)……………………………..8. The Almighty Johnsons (TV3, New Zealand)
10. The Crazy Ones (CBS)……………………………..9. Homeland (Showtime)
10. Raising Hope (Fox)………………………………..10. Sons of Anarchy (FX)
12. Derek (Channel 4, UK)…………………………….10. Downton Abbey (ITV, UK)
13. 30 Rock (NBC)…………………………………….12. Black Mirror (Channel 4, UK)
…………………………………………………………..13. Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
…………………………………………………………..13. Shameless (Showtime)

Shows I did not watch this year that may have made the list if I did: Breaking Bad (next summer! really!), Mad Men, Rectify, Eastbound & Down, The Good Wife, Banshee

Honorable Mentions (Comedy): NTSF:SD:SUV:: (Adult Swim), The Awesomes (hulu), Pramface (BBC Three), South Park (Comedy Central), Family Tree (HBO), @midnight (Comedy Central), Alpha House (Amazon), Betas (Amazon)

Honorable Mentions (Drama): The White Queen (BBC), Masters of Sex (Showtime), The Escape Artist (BBC), American Horror Story: Coven (FX), Treme (HBO), The Walking Dead (AMC)

Comedy
1. Archer (FX)
2. Parks & Recreation (NBC)
2. The Colbert Report (Comedy Central)
The Colbert Report broke The Daily Show’s 10 and 2-year winning streaks for Best Variety Series & Best Writing for a Variety Series respectively at the last Emmy’s, and deservedly so. Not to knock TDS, but Colbert’s writing has been crisper and better for awhile now, both in wonderfully satirizing politics and media, and doing absurd bits like this one where Colbert gets a celebrity colonoscopy on air for a “November Sweeps stunt.” Though, all the good writing could fall apart in the hands of a lesser man than Dr. Mr. Stephen T. Colbert D.F.A. whose delivery of the jokes adds a whole ‘nother layer to it. I’ve never seen someone with a faster wit than Colbert, fully on display during interviews, throwing out zingers and off-the-cuff remarks like it was nothing.
4. Modern Family (ABC)
This show has taken some knocks from people who never really got into it, or those who felt it peaked in season x. And yes, Manny Delgado has not been that great since season 1, kinda just coasting on ‘ha ha he’s a young kid with a mature taste.’ And to an increasing degree, much of the humor of Cam & Mitchell is derived from their insecurities, vanities, or jealousies about each other, which is growing to be grating (which thankfully hasn’t been too awful during this whole wedding plot). But hey, 8 out of 11 castmembers still being wildly entertaining ain’t bad. Hell, it could ditch all the families save for Phil & Claire Dunphey & co and it’d still be amazing.
5. Veep (HBO)
I liked Veep’s first season, but others felt it was merely okay. Then came season 2 and won over all the doubters, building nicely on the solid foundation of s1. With more overarching plots giving momentum to the show, it made you more invested in the antics and plans of Vice-President Selena Meyers & staff. So when VP Meyers walks through a glass door, shattering the glass and cutting up her face and then getting loopy off of pain meds right before a press conference, it feels like it’ll have long-term consequences instead of just being a plot contained within this one episode, with everything reset at the beginning of the next ep. But what really propels Veep is that it arguably has the best comedic cast on TV right now (Parks & Rec and ModFam gives it a run for its money).
Out of all the comedy shows on this list, if I had to recommend just one for you to watch (as much as I want to recommend all of them, especially if you’re not on the Parks & Rec train or Archer has flown under your radar), I’d recommend this one. There’s only 2 seasons totaling 18 half-hour eps, that’s 9 hours or one lazy Sunday afternoon. Get on it you jolly green jizzface (one of an abundance of this show’s brilliant insults brilliantly delivered by Julia Louis-Dreyfus & Co)
5. The Daily Show (Comedy Central)
7. The Soup (E!)
The Soup?? Yes. The Soup. It is to reality shows what Daily Show/Colbert Report is to politics and the media. But just because its jokes are about reality shows and not weightier topics such as political discourse and the media, doesn’t make its jokes and humor any lesser than that of TDS/Colbert. As long as Miley’s are twerking, beauty pageant children get juiced on energy drinks, and E! and Bravo keep churning out excrement in the guise of “televison,” Joel McHale & co need to do their civic duty and mercilessly mock their ludicrousness. McHale’s amazing deadpan delivery elevates the barbed zingers, which surprises me every now and then at how far they’ll push it, comedians have gotten in far more trouble for far less offensive jokes than some of the ones told here.
8. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FXX)
The past couple of seasons were kind of hit-and-miss, though it was never flat out bad, they could still churn out amazingly uproarious episodes like Chardee MacDennis, but not consistently. Going into season 9, I expected more of that, with the various castmembers each having their own projects and gigs, IASIP wasn’t really their baby anymore with various writers going in and trying to emulate the original raunchy jokes and tone to varying degrees of success.
I was wrong.
Sunny had an amazing string of episodes right off the bat and never really let up.
9. Brooklyn Nine-Nine (FOX)
Two longtime writers of Parks & Recreation created this show with an equally capable cast. That alone should get you on board.
10. The Crazy Ones (CBS)
10. Raising Hope (Fox)
12. Derek (Channel 4)
Ricky Gervais does a nearly 180° turn from his earlier awkward cringe-humor work with Derek. It gets on this list because of its unexpectedly poignant moments, this show has hit me in the feels moreso than any other show in a long, long time, going from a heartstring-tugging moment one second to fart jokes the next. While it occasionally crosses into overly-sweet moments and Gervais REALLY loves his musical montages in this show, it nails authentic moments of poignancy far more than it misses.
13. 30 Rock (NBC)
I’ll miss you Liz Lemon et al.

Honorable Mentions:
NTSF: SD:SUV:: (Adult Swim)
The Awesomes (hulu)
It’s not Archer. And it’s not South Park. But this animated comedy (voiced by a who’s who of recent SNL alumni/castmembers including Seth Meyers, Taran Killam, Kenan Thompson, Bill Hader, Cecily Strong, Rachel Dratch and including Ike Barinholtz and Rashida Jones among others) is still a whole lot of fun.
Pramface (BBC Three)
South Park (Comedy Central)
South Park hasn’t had a truly outstanding season since s14 (200, 201, Insheeption, You Have 0 Friends), but you can’t really blame them since Matt Parker & Trey Stone have been busy with The Book of Morman & habitually-delayed video game The Stick of Truth since then. With that said however, a bad/mediocre episode of SP is still usually wildly entertaining even if it doesn’t make you laugh; s17, though, is the strongest season since 14 with some of the most unexpected and hilarious mashups: from World War Zimmerman to putting together Game of Thrones & the next-gen console wars. SP 3-parters are always fun and while the Game of Black Friday isn’t as good as Imaginationland (really, will any 3-parter top that?), it’s better than their last 3-parter (the coon trilogy). Few shows could get a chorus singing ‘Weiner Weiner Weiner Weiner Weiner’ to the tune of the Game of Thrones theme song to be so entertaining.
Family Tree (HBO)
Chris O’Dowd (Bridesmaids) is my comedy MVP of the year, between this and his own creation Moone Boy, he personifies the quintessential dry British wit.
@midnight (Comedy Central)
Alpha House (Amazon)
Ep1: Good, easily the best of the 8 pilots Amazon let users preview and vote on
Ep 2-3: Eh
Ep 4-: Here we go, found its groove
Betas (Amazon)
Ep1: Eh
Ep 2-3: Blah
Ep4-: Here we go, found its groove
Amazon’s first foray into original content is a decent start; political buffs will dig Alpha House while the Silicon Valley hijinks of a group of programmers trying to get their start-up app off the ground will appeal to techies. Both find their groove around ep4, but both would be fairly enjoyable to people outside of their respective political/Silicon Valley niches. Before House of Cards, Arrested Development & Orange is the New Black, Netflix had Lilyhammer. And with a pilot from the creator of The X-Files about a thriller set right after the apocalypse in production, maybe Amazon will find its House of Cards in 2014, but for now, House and Betas are promising starts.

Drama
1. Game of Thrones (HBO)
Even without the Red Wedding, this show managed to balance a huge cast of characters and plots, you could cut off a bunch of different characters (and they have!) and plots and this would still be a great show. How many shows can provoke such visceral reactions like this?
2. Bates Motel (A&E)
This is probably where I should explain my methodology a bit more. It’s 50% based on the quality of the show and 50% based on how much I like a show (very unscientifically measured of course). This is an instance where if it was purely quality-based, Bates Motel would probably fall a few rungs below Americans & Southland as they are probably ‘better’. But this show hooked me from the beginning, ticking off all the boxes of a show tailer-made towards my tastes: a mystery show set in a small town with many mysterious characters and a moody atmosphere, and ultimately its addictive quality from start to finish propelled BM to #2
A contemporary-set prequel to Psycho from the channel best known for ‘Duck Dynasty’ and not 1, but 3 iterations of ‘Storage Wars’ doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. But buoyed by 3 strong lead performances and an intriguing mystery plot, Bates Motel managed to exceed my expectations and made me eagerly await Monday nights.
From the casting to the writing and feel of the show, Motel was firing on all cylinders. Norman and Norma Bates are big shoes to step into, but Freddie Highmore (that kid from Charlie & the Chocolate Factory) and Vera Farmiga (Up in the Air, The Conjuring) make it their own. Freddie makes a teenage Norman Bates a sweet kid and quite likable, which makes the brief glimpses into his psychotic side that much more effective. Vera Farmiga turns a clingy, slightly-neurotic mother into a fairly believable character. Equally good is Max Thieriot’s relatively sane character to contrast Norma & Norman. Beyond each of them individually, the relationships between each of them feels like a character unto itself, Thieriot’s antagonistic relationship w/ Norma and his protective one with Norman and the creepy, verging-on-incest-territory relationship between Norman & Norma.
3. The Americans (FX)
The best new show of 2013, bar none. Granted, I’m a sucker for spy dramas, but to label Americans as just a spy drama would be a disservice. Like a secret agent, The Americans wears many masks and wears them well: a family drama about a husband and wife with kids struggling to uphold a marriage tearing at the seams, an espionage thriller with some good ol’ fashion asskickery, a Cold War historical political drama. It seamlessly shifts gears and interweaves its various genres with aplomb.
The acting is great, Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Noah Emmerich, Margo Martindale are all solid and this show has a lot of fighting stuntwork and asskicking, which is fun to watch, I mean, gun shoot-outs are fun and all but sometimes you just wanna watch someone open a can of hand-to-hand whoopass. Fans of Alias will greatly appreciate this show. It took me a couple eps to really get into The Americans, but once you’re in, buckle up, you’re in for a ride.
The 2nd season returns Feb. 26, and if I could only recommend one show from the drama side, it’s The Americans. Its 13 45-minute episodes is definitely worth losing a weekend to
3. Southland (TNT)
Already canceled once, Southland somehow made it through 4 more modestly/low-rated seasons on a channel chock-full of hits, and I’m thankful for the time I had with this show (Christ, I sound like I’m describing a recently deceased person). This is the best cop show I’ve watched (haven’t seen The Wire yet). This is an intense show with action in every single episode. This not a boring show, and it’s shot wonderfully to throw the viewer right into the middle of the action and chaos of the LAPD.
5. Broadchurch (ITV, UK)
Most people know David Tennant for portraying the 10th incarnation of the Doctor: frenetic, energetic, and fast-talking. Tennant does his best to make you forget that role, doing a nearly 180 in portraying a sullen, downbeat cop in this 8-episode British murder mystery. Again, this show ticks off the qualities in a show that’s guaranteed to draw me in: mystery, large cast of mysterious characters, moody atmosphere, small-town setting. Beyond that though, this intriguing show explores what happens to a small town when a child is found dead and a local cop (a reliably good Olivia Colman) struggles to separate her personal relationships with the town’s residents to start looking at them as suspects first and friends and neighbors second while paired with Tennant’s character who has a lot of baggage of his own and views this case as some sort of redemption. A bonus for Who fans, Arthur Darvill (Rory Williams) has a supporting role in the show. He promptly dies 3 times in the course of the first season (just kidding, only twice).
Fox is planning to adapt this show with Tennant back along with Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn, Nick Nolte and Silver Lining Playbook’s Jacki Weaver. Solid cast, but please Fox, please don’t fuck it up. Please?
Also worth a mention is the gorgeous Dorset cliffs and a great soundtrack.
*6. Les Revenants (Canal+, France)
While Les Revenants aired internationally and in the U.S. in 2013, it was originally broadcast in France at the very end of 2012, and because of that (I’m a stickler for technicalities), it isn’t officially placed on this list. But if it had, it would be #6.
Highest-rated new show of 2013 on Metacritic. A hearty endorsement from Stephen King. An International Emmy for Best Drama. Yeah, Les Revenants is good.
Les Revenants (In English Les Revenants could be translated as either “The Returned” or “They Came Back) is most often referred to as a French zombie drama, I would disagree with that misnomer. There is no brain eating. No rotting flesh (probably). Nothing that is the hallmark of the typical zombie. It’s a mystery show at its heart, about a small mountain town in France where people who’ve been dead (some a couple years, others a few decades) suddenly reappear with no memory of being dead and how they and their loved ones try to adjust. The supernatural element is minimal. Yes, it’s in French, so you’ll have to read subtitles, but if there was one show this year that’s worth the effort, it’s Les Revenants, a deeply engrossing show that’s different from anything coming out of America. A great soundtrack sets the moody, downbeat, spooky tone for the show (it sounds a bit like Explosions in the Sky if they were playing a gig on Halloween).
The kid below is Victor and is the creepiest child character this side of Damien.

6. House of Cards (Netflix)
Best parts of the show for me:
1) Corey Stoll is the stand-out for me, playing a US representative trying to overcome his addictions for the sake of his career and children, unknowingly getting played as a pawn in Kevin Spacey’s political chess game.
2) The dark cinematography sets the mood for the show from the get-go
3) The tantalizing relationship between Robin Wright & Kevin Spacey is greater than either character individually, a marriage built more on mutual benefit than love or romance.
7. Justified (FX)
I never really anticipate or eagerly await Justified’s return, but it’s consistently solid, deftly mixing season-long plots with case-of-the-week episodic storytelling.
8. The Almighty Johnsons (TV3, New Zealand)
I stumbled on this show and quickly tore through its 3 seasons. First, for fans of the formerly-great Misfits, skip s4-5, and watch this show. I practically guarantee you’ll like it.
If I had to use one word to describe this show it would be fun. 2 words: really fun. Johnsons is a just hugely entertaining show that’s very bingeable. It’s a light drama that’s heavy on the laughs and plays with the idea of Norse gods living in New Zealand. It sounds a bit goofy, but there’s no shitty CGI or special effects. Great cast, witty writing, and a fun spin on Thor & Loki different from Chris Hemsworth & Tom Hiddleston’s Marvel versions, this show is just straight-up fun and a breath of fresh air. It comes to America via SciFi Syfy in 2014.
9. Homeland (Showtime)
Oh Homeland. Much has been said about Homeland and many arguments have been waged over Carrie Mathison & co. I’m a sucker for spy shows, so that automatically gives this show a boost. I was in the honeymoon period for the past 2 seasons, and I guess looking back some parts of s2 required quite a bit of suspension of disbelief, but I still enjoyed the fuck out of it. And I still hugely enjoyed the third season.
But about those first 4 episodes…
It felt like an exercise in how this show could function without Brody. And it might have succeeded. If the guy playing Mike had stayed on the show (he left for a regular role in NBC’s disappointing The Blacklist) and explored the Brody family with Mike as a surrogate dad, it might’ve worked. Instead, it focused on serial scowlface Dana Brody for far too much of the runtime. Now, I have a higher tolerance for Dana than most people, I didn’t hit my Dana tolerance threshold until episode 4, but for most people she had long since become Jar-Jar Binks reincarnate. Her story could’ve worked had it not taken up 20-30 minutes of each of the first four episodes, but with Brody MIA and Mike missing, there was a gaping hole and for whatever reason they decided to fill all of it with Dana Brody, and a spy drama just can’t function with half of its episode dedicated to teenage angst.
Still, Homeland is not a show to be judged and ranked episode-by-episode. It plays the long game and is a season-long show with season-long arcs. From episode 5 onwards, it started to find its footing and get back to it’s espionage-thriller-drama roots. Damian Lewis’s performance in episode 9 pretty much made his absence worth it. Between this and Orange is the New Black, I am straight up never doing hard drugs. Seriously, their reaction to withdrawal is like my reaction after eating a bad batch of Mexican food, I can’t imagine what withdrawal would be like for me.

Carrie Mathison: Uglycry MVP 3 years running

10. Sons of Anarchy (FX)
For most shows, going from 45-minute episodes to a season filled mostly with episodes that run a full hour (or more) would dilute the show and have too much filler, but it’s a testament to this show that I didn’t hate this season because of that. Would I have liked it more had they streamlined the plot and stuck to 45-minute episodes? Probably, possibly. But this show had enough jaw-dropping, ‘holy shit!’ ‘Jayzus Chroist!’ moments to (mostly) make up for the extra time. Gemma Teller is the motorcycle gang equivalent of Queen Cercei.
10. Downton Abbey (ITV, UK)
I binged on the first 3 seasons and that’s probably why season 3 was my 2nd favorite show of last year while s4 is #10. No major drop in quality, though the absence of several characters is felt in the first couple episodes. It soon finds its footing though, as plotlines take hold and propel the show forward. One plot in particular is the darkest thing this show has done (moreso than any of the deaths imo) and leads to some fantastic performances. And don’t get between Daisy and her man or she’ll sass & zing the fuck outtaya.
12. Black Mirror (Channel 4, UK)
A part of me really wants to rank Black Mirror much higher (#8? #9?). It only had 3 episodes in season 2, but it managed to do a lot more in those 3 episodes than some shows did with 2, 3, 4x as many episodes. Black Mirror is an anthology series centered on technology in the not-too-distant future. Think Twilight Zone with a technological twist. That sounds goofy and a bit ‘too sci-fi,’ but it’s firmly rooted in human emotion. No show has ever consistently left me as unsettled as Black Mirror did. At the end of nearly every episodes I was left with a sinking pit at the bottom of my stomach, leaving me feeling empty and needing time to decompress that only one other show did (season finale of Homeland). It’s best not to hype this show up too much and just dive right in. It has 6 episodes total and since it’s an anthology you can watch it in any order. Most of them are floating around on either YouTube or Vimeo.
13. Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
13. Shameless (Showtime)
Boardwalk Empire and Shameless are 2 very different shows. One is a lavishly designed and intricately detailed period piece about bootleggers in the 1920s, the other could be shot at any old dumpy house exploring family drama and present-day lower socioeconomic issues. One is a violent gangster drama from HBO slowly building season-long arcs around antagonists, the other focuses on the hectic everyday life problems of the Gallagher family trying to hold it together. Different shows. Different goals. Different tones. But both very satisfying, entertaining and successful in their respective aims.
Shameless handles it’s comedy-drama split extremely well. For the most part, it’s a light show where you laugh at the ridiculously shameless situations and schemes the Gallaghers & neighbors come up with to scrape by in life. And then the tone and mood shifts suddenly to put perspective on the seriousness of their problems and lives to ground the plotlines. It has veered more into less-than-realistic situations like Steve/Jimmy’s whole Brazilian mob boss thing, but plots like custody battles and Mama Cosette’s foster children-run sweatshop don’t feel too far-removed from reality. Also big props to the cast who can shift from hilariously barbed zingers to dramatic scenes in an instant. The Gallagher kids are to drama what the Modern Family kids are to comedy.

Honorable Mentions:
The White Queen (BBC)
The War of the Roses=Real-life Game of Thrones minus dragons & vaginal smoke-monster assassins
Masters of Sex (Showtime)
When I realized this was a good show: the episode 5 scene between Dr. Masters & his wife.
Also, this show seems to be the refuge for legit actors stuck in shitty CBS comedies (Allison Janney, Beau Bridges).
The Escape Artist (BBC)
Between Broadchurch, Doctor Who 50th, and this, David Tennant is 3-for-3 this year.
American Horror Story: Coven (FX)
Stupidly entertaining. Stupid & Entertaining in equal measures.
Treme (HBO)
The Walking Dead (AMC)

Honorable Mention (Comedy?Drama?):
I’m not sure whether television coverage of the political implosion (he’s still mayor btw, albeit with most of his political powers stripped) of coke-snorting Toronto mayor Rob Ford who has “more than enough pussy to eat at home” is hilarious or just downright depressing (if he had a reality show, I would watch the shit out of it). Meanwhile America’s best political scandal of 2013 was a former US representative and NYC mayoral candidate sexting a chick under the name of Carlos Danger (seriously). We’ve gone from Oral in the Oval to dick pics, step up your shit in 2014 America.

Worst Shows of 2013:
1. The Following (FOX)
2. Super Fun Night (ABC)
3. The Millers (CBS)
A colossal waste of talent in front of the camera (Will Arnett, Beau Bridges, Margo Martindale, Jayma Mays…just all of them) and behind the camera (Greg Garcia, creator of Raising Hope and My Name is Earl). This could’ve conceivably worked as a single-camera show, but making it a multi-camera laugh-track show just killed it.
4. Hostages (CBS)
For a show about a surgeon tasked with killing the president during a surgery after her family is taken hostage, this show only got more and more convoluted as the season progressed. A big waste of Toni Collette and Dylan McDermott’s abilities.
5. DaVinci’s Demons (Starz)
A show created and written by David S. Goyer who was advertised as the guy who had a hand in writing the Dark Knight Trilogy? Sign me up. Too bad the series ended up being ham-handed with dialogue that’s clunky as hell and gratuitous nudity liberally inserted in place of plot, or logic. Ends up Goyer co-wrote Batman Begins and only came up with the story for the last 2 movies, and watching this, you can see why they didn’t want him touching the actual screenplays for Dark Knight & Rises.