Tag Archives: Ranking the Shows That I Watch 2015

Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 22-19

19 May

All hour longs, three with their first seasons, and the fourth one of the most successful cable shows on television. Here we go.

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here and 50-47 here and 46-43 here and 42-39 here and 38-35 here and 34-31 here and 30-27 here and 26-23 here.

22. Wolf Hall – 2014: Not Eligible

Wolf Hall

Based on a couple of popular and excellent books by Hilary Mantel about Thomas Cromwell, Wolf Hall is the most British miniseries imaginable, a period piece following Cromwell up through his his rise to become the chief adviser to the tempestuous and mercurial Henry VIII. The series is like Game of Thrones shorn of the spectacle and composed of the scenes with people talking to one another. It’s filled with complicated conversations about weighty issues and convoluted royal law composed of witty rapport and deals with many of the same questions about power and class. Mark Rylance is absolutely brilliant as Cromwell and grounds the story in a stark humanity.

21. Making a Murderer – 2014: Not Eligible

Making a Murderer

The most harrowing and depressing show on television last year, it outstrips Game of Thrones and the many other serious and depressing shows currently on TV because everything on it is entirely real. I shouted at the screen early and often at the travesties of justice being committed left and right, and no show so brilliantly lays out the myriad problems with the American justice system in just a few hours. Through one incredible case rife with twists and turns, captured every step along the way by the documentarians, everything you didn’t realize about how the American police, lawyers, and judges work together to put someone in jail, rather than necessarily put the right person in jail is on display, and it’s eye opening. In some ways, the structure and limitations of what can be captured on a documentary can make a series like this hard to move up to the top of this list, but alternately, that makes this potentially the most must-watch show on here.

20. Jessica Jones – 2014: Not Eligible

Jessica Jones

Daredevil’s a pretty good show, but it only set the table for the superior Jessica Jones. Jones has superpowers, but her show is more a detective noir than a typical superhero show, even a street level superhero show like Daredevil. Although a foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, self-hating private eye may sound routine for the genre, Krysten Ritter’s Jones is much more than a trope; she’s an emotionally damaged fully-fledged morally divided hero crippled by her nemesis who controlled her for several months, traumatizing her, and  who looms over the entire season. David Tenant, as the absolutely terrifying Kilgrave, delivers one of the scariest antagonist performances in years. Jones must work with her best friend Trish to vanquish him, and their relationship is another high point of the show. Carrie-Anne Moss as power attorney Jeri Hogarth is a strong character as well until it feels like three quarters of the way through the show, everything that happens to her was happened solely to make a particularly plot contrivance believable, and a couple of the male characters aren’t quite so great (I’m looking at you, neighbor Malcolm (edit: friend reminded me to add the horrible Robyn). Still, Jessica Jones is the rare comic book show that everyone, comic media fan or not, should enjoy.

23. Game of Thrones – 2014: 6

Game of Thrones

As I said earlier this entry, the number of great TV shows that aired in 2015 is higher than ever before, particularly the number of excellent half hours which is forcing consistently excellent hour long shows to drop down the rankings unfairly, and has caused shows which have slipped just an inch to fall a foot. Game of Thrones is one of these shows. Long one of mine and many others’ favorite shows on TV, and one of the few event shows left that you feel like you can’t miss on Sunday lest it be ruined by Monday morning, Game of Thrones continues to be great. But last season felt more unfocused than any before, and particularly, had the Dorne plot, a major new location which contained a few new characters. This part deviated from the book for space reasons and never quite worked, trying to fix each mistake with a worse one. I try not to compare the books to the show, in terms of quality, as much as possible, because it’s a rigged game in terms of 10 hours a season vs. hundreds of pages, but it’s impossible not to. Last season had me firmly on the side of preferring the book, which is honestly much more of a compliment to the wonderful books than an insult to the wonderful show. It’s simply a can’t win. It’s a very good show that we have here with a huge budget and we shouldn’t lose site of being grateful to have it.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 26-23

16 May

Yet another foursome that I changed the order of several times before actually deciding. Here they are.

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here and 50-47 here and 46-43 here and 42-39 here and 38-35 here and 34-31 here and 30-27 here.

30. Catastrophe – 2014: Not Eligible

Catastrophe

Rom coms on TV are in again, and no one is doing it better than this British-American combo piece starring Sharon Horgan and Rob Delaney. The premise may be trite; it’s essentially the same as Knocked Up, as an American businessman gets a British woman pregnant during a business trip. But it’s so much better than that. With clever dialogue and two appealing leads with real chemistry, Catastrophe is occasionally laugh out loud funny but still very much enjoyable when it’s not. And in six hyper-quick episodes, which make it faster than watching some movies, there’s no reason not to watch.

29. w/Bob and David – 2014: Not Eligible

w/ Bob and David

As a super duper short four episode sketch show, w/ Bob and David doesn’t have the impact of the four-season long possibly-best-sketch-show-of-all-time Mr. Show, and because sketch shows all, even the best, have a healthy share of misses, there aren’t the number of all time hits you’d like from the rare Bob Odenkirk-David Cross collaboration. But these two are simply pros at making sketch comedy and there’s more than enough in this short run for fans of the two and of the genre to love and hope for more.

28. Jane the Virgin – 2014: 31

Jane the Virgin

Jane the Virgin does something that’s surprisingly difficult and rare in the world of television. It’s a show about family, tight close-knit family, and has built several extremely well-developed characters that are generally good people, who more often than not like each other. These characters manage to fight and get into realistic arguments, arguments where there isn’t always necessarily an obviously right or wrong side, but arguments where you never doubt that they’ll come back together and get along again. That’s not easy. The show stumbled a bit figuring out how to handle a second season after the baby was born, taking time to find its footing after the first season’s arc largely wrapped up. The show still doesn’t always know what tone it’s going for, sometimes silly, sometimes serious, and it struggles with smaller characters. But when it focuses on the family and the interaction between major characters, it’s on solid ground and worth watching for that alone.

27. iZombie – 2014: Not Eligible
 iZombie

I’m a sucker for Rob Thomas, it is well known, as Party Down and Veronica Mars are two of my favorite shows of all time While this one isn’t quite up to their level, it’s compulsively watchable and a lot better than any show with its description should be. iZombie is, breathe in, a police procedural with slowly building serial arcs about a protagonist who becomes a zombie and works as a medical examiner, and when eating brains of recent murder victims, absorbs bits of their personality and sees visions from their lives that help her, working with her cop partner, solve the crimes. The show can absolutely be gimmicky, and that and its overly predictable procedural nature are its biggest faults. Fortunately it brings great Rob Thomas senses of character and writing along with a mostly pretty good, if not always consistent tonally long-term arc. There are some real issues with this show, but it’s definitely up there on the list of shows people aren’t buzzing about that they should be talking about more.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 30-27

27 Apr

All comedy all the time in this entry. Here we go.

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here and 50-47 here and 46-43 here and 42-39 here and 38-35 here and 34-31 here.

30. The Mindy Project – 2014: 30

The Mindy Project

It’s easy to bash shows for what they’re not, rather than what they are. I’m as guilty of this as anyone; I can’t really complete a sentence about Brooklyn Nine-Nine without talking about how it could be better, even though I watch it every week and laugh. For years, and with good reason, there were complaints from others as well as myself that the Mindy Project was solid but felt unfinished, like subsequent and slowly improving drafts rather than a final product. In particular, the show had  a problem assembling solid supporting characters. But sneakily during the end of its run on Fox, and onto Hulu, it’s become a smart, funny, rom com with one of the great sitcom relationships, between Danny and Mindy. In so many shows I complain about the two leads getting together, and I was definitely initially doubtful here but when it works, it works, and in Mindy it works and propels the show forward. Oh, and Morgan is fantastic; no blurb is complete without mentioning that.

29. New Girl – 2014: 11

New Girl

New Girl’s second half of its fourth season, the only stretch of episodes that aired last year, as the fifth didn’t begin until early 2016, didn’t quite live up to the hit percentage of the season’s first half, but was still easily back on track from New Girl’s off-kilter third season. Damon Wayans Jr. continues to be an excellent cast addition to the season, and really rounds out the ensemble nicely, providing an extra character to spice up the A and B plot combinations. There are plenty of classic funny New Girl moments this season that continue in the line of what has made the show work when it at its best, particularly from Nick, where the show relishes its sitcomness, digging deep into its over-the-top silliness and ridiculousness,. Some of the segments that when described sound incredibly stupid end up as show highlights between of the specific word choices and the performances and chemistry of the cast.

28: Bob’s Burgers – 2014: 15

Bob's Burgers

Bob’s Burgers is the best kind of show to watch before bed because it will always leave you smiling and send you off to dreamland in a positive mood. Most TV is serial, and that’s great, I prefer it that way, and most comedies now even have occasionally wrenching emotional arcs. These are all good things. Most comedies that aren’t serial are awkward, hard to watch, laugh-out-loud affairs. As they say, though, variety is the spice of life, and Bob’s Burgers is something else, a largely non-serial comedy which isn’t awkward but is both funny and disarmingly heartwarming, Bob’s Burgers in some ways hearkens back to the old tried-and-true pre-00s family sitcom in a more successful way than any current live action example, with plots focusing on different combinations of Belcher family members in most episodes ending in moments where the family, though they may have been fighting or on each others nerves over the past twenty minutes, truly loves each other and stands next to one another against the world. This could be cheesy and I’m as skeptical of easy emotional manipulation as anyone, but because the characters and their relationships are so lovable and well constructed, it works. Last fall’s Halloween episode where the family teams up to scare Louise, leading a legitimately shocked Louie to thank them profusely is just one example.

27. Childrens Hospital – 2014: Not Eligible

Childrens Hospital

Goofy; silly, and only vaguely and arbitrarily serial when it feels like it (the hospital remains in Brazil), Childrens Hospital is about as close to a cartoon as a live action show can be. It’s all about the laughs, and it’s fun, light and silly; because everything is so over the top, and obviously so far removed from the real world, there’s not any sense of awkwardness or hard-to-watchness.  Childrens Hospital has an ear for parody, rather than satire; the barbs are spot on, but delivered with a gentle touch. The best episode of the season may have been “Fan Fiction,” in which a fan contest winner gets an episode produced based on her script, complete with many of the tropes of the genre. “Home Life of a Doctor’ was also excellent, where Jewish doctor Glenn Richie goes home to dinner with his parents, evoking a pastiche of Woody Allen/Neil Simon old-school Jewish families.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 34-31

25 Apr

Three comedies, two of which are only occasionally funny, on purpose, and a Netflix drama.

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here and 50-47 here and 46-43 here and 42-39 here and 38-35 here.

34. Louie – 2014: 27

Louie

Evert year, feel like I rank Louie too low. Louie has the misfortune of appearing towards the bottom of a dozen or so shows that form a tier, and while I could definitely justify ranking it a bit higher, I’d then have to think about which shows it passes, and since if I thought more about this I’d never write it out, it’ll have to just put it right here. While it took me a while to get on board, I eventually came around to the genius of Louie, and though season 4, in 2014, had some serious missteps, season 5 is largely free of them. Louie is only ranked lower this year because there were simply so many more exemplary shows. Louie is always thought provoking, and like I wrote about the previous show on this list, Orange is the New Black, Louie is unique; Louie is the direct-to-our-screens vision of one man and is definitively unlike any show on TV. Louie has definitely suffered a little bit of the new ideas drain that these types of shows can face, and there weren’t so many mind-blowing conversation-starting episodes as there have been in earlier seasons. But when you start any new episode of Louie, you know there’s a chance for greatness, and that’s enough to keep watching Louie as long as he keeps making it.

33. Parks and Recreation – 2014: 13

Parks & Recreation

If I dislike putting Louie this low, I absolutely hate putting Parks and Recreation this low, an absolute first ballot hall-of-famer of a comedy that simply did everything right. It’s not, like Louie, a particularly different or unique series, but boy was it so much better at doing what it did than almost any other similar show. In fact, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, its fine but inferior descendant, shows just how difficult it is to create the all-around magic that was Parks and Recreation. The final season was actually pretty solid, better than the previous season, and could easily have moved higher in this tier. This particular rank is mostly an indictment of its fantastical finale, which, while probably exactly what I should have expected from the world of Parks and Recreation, contained more emotional manipulation than well-earned wins for our favorite characters. Parks and Recreation momentarily forgot that what make its emotional moments so powerful was the hard work, time, and struggle it took for the characters to achieve them, and tried to overdose us on feels by having all the characters get exactly what they want for all of the rest of their lives in the span of an hour.

32. Girls – 2014: 23

Girls

Girls trudges on year after year, and like a veteran athlete quietly putting up solid numbers years after being a rookie sensation, it remains a force amongst those who watch it if not the polarizing zeitgeisty culture magnet it was in its first couple of seasons. Girls hasn’t blunted its ambition due to whatever criticism came it’s way and that’s a good thing. While the characters can drive me, and each other, crazy, and their arcs often find them walking two steps forward and one step back, the characters are well developed and their adventures make for compelling television, along with the welcome growing roles for the expanded cast, the boys of the show. Season four also contained the gleefully terrible Desi, who was as fun to hate as any character on television in recent years.

31. Narcos – 2014: Not Eligible

Narcos

There’s probably a couple of other shows on this list that meet the following description, at least in some way, and it sounds like a backhand compliment but it doesn’t have to be. Narcos is a high floor, low ceiling show, and while I have a hard time imagining it ever making it to the top 15, it’s floor is pretty damn decent, and it’s a nifty little show that is a lot better than it could be (which also sounds like a backhand compliment, but really isn’t). It’s compulsively watchable and that’s not a quality to be sold short. When 24 was at its best, there were always lapses with the show, and it lacked a lot of the depth and development that some of the shows higher up on this list are awash with. But when you finished an episode, dammit, you wanted to watch another. Narcos has that same feeling, and being on binge-friendly Netflix, it’s ideal for said binging. I watched one and then paused, but when I eventually got back to the show I knocked it down in just a couple of days.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 38-35

11 Apr

A Netflix original, a Yahoo Screen original, a British show, and a Fox third-season comedy. Moving on.

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here and 50-47 here and 46-43 here and 42-39 here.

38. Peep Show – 2014: Not Eligible

Peep Show

The 9th and final season of Peep Show, which has to be some sort of British record, aired last year, three seasons after the previous. Peep Show may have had over its lifespan more boisterous laugh out loud moments than almost any show I’ve watched, and while it was certainly not at its peak last year, there were just enough moments of vintage Peep Show to earn its place here. It can be painfully hard to watch at times, and the characters are such morons, but no one, not even Michael Scott from The Office, can screw up a dinner party as gleefully as Mark does this season, leading to perhaps both the most awkward and funny scene of the season. Peep Show brought back just about every important character for a minute for one last go around and gave a fittingly miserable send off to Mark and Jeremy.

37. Other Space – 2014: Not Eligible

Other Space

Other Space sadly will not be returning last year largely because no one watched it, at least in part because it was on the short-lived Yahoo Screen, Yahoo’s ill-advised attempt to compete with Amazon and Netflix with original streaming content which resulted in massive failure. Other Space is a zany comedy about a crew of future outcasts who ventured off the grid in outer space. The production values are low, low, low; almost every episode feels like a bottle episode stuck in a few rooms on the ship. Other Space is smartly, however, perfectly tailored towards such an environment, and takes advantage of how silly and low budget it looks. The largely unknown actors (the most famous are Joel, the original host of MST3K, and Lily from the long-running series of AT&T commercials) do a good job, and the comedy smartly takes advantage of the engine that powers most great sitcoms – constantly rejiggering different combinations of characters interacting together. I’m still not sure why this show didn’t catch up at least in a small way with more of the tv-watching internet.

36. Brooklyn Nine-Nine – 2014: 19

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Brooklyn Nine-Nine has settled into its place as a second tier comedy, good for a few laughs an episode, and the occasional breakout episode, but never quite reaching the synthesis of top quality writing and character development that would see it ranked any higher. I’ve said it before, but little has changed; I’ve given up on hoping Brooklyn Nine-Nine will ever reach the heights of its spiritual predecessor Parks & Recreation and have done my best to try to enjoy it for what it is. The characters have begun to occasionally grate on me over time; while they’ve definitely improved since the outset, sometimes the development seems permanently stunted – the characters have trouble becoming more than the over-the-top traits that initially defined them, especially Charles (can we go an episode without him talking about his food snobbishness?). There are still plenty of fun moments, I like the cast a lot, regardless of their character shortcomings, and we’re high enough on the list that I’m in no danger of stopping watching. It’s just hard to shake the notion that this show should be a bit better than it is.

35. Orange is the New Black – 2014: 14

Orange is the New Black

I watched most of Orange is the New Black’s third season in a short period with a couple of friends, and though I generally enjoyed it, we ended up pausing for some reason which I don’t recall with about four episodes to go. I didn’t watch for a while, thinking we’d get back together again, until eventually it seemed like momentum had stalled and even once I figured it’d be okay for me to finish it out solo, I didn’t really want to, having a negative impression of the season in my mind. And then eventually one day, I ran through the episodes, and though the problems of the third season were still present, I enjoyed the end of the season a lot more than I remembered and couldn’t quite figure out why I had held off for so long. And that’s kind of where Orange is the New Black stands. The third season was not its most stellar; it was less focused than the others, and some of the plots fell flat, particularly Piper’s. Luckily, however, Piper is no longer the protagonist. The show has become a true ensemble, and the protagonist, really, if there was one last season was Caputo. The show still offers a perspective different than any other show on TV, with a large and diverse female cast unlike any on TV, and that’s still worth something.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 42-39

8 Apr

Three new shows up for their first rankings, all of which should be back next year, and a cable comedy in its 10th season. Moving on.

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here and 50-47 here and 46-43 here.

42. Casual – 2014: Not Eligible

Casual

As I’m getting to this point, I realize that within my rankings-within-rankings of sad white people in Southern California shows, I might have swapped this with Togetherness, but they’re close enough both in reality and on the list that it’s not a huge deal either way. Casual, like many shows at this point in this list has it’s problems; I don’t recommend it heartily and I’m not sure I’d watch it if it was an hour instead of half an hour. That said, it does have points to recommend for it, and the fact that I did watch all of it, and relatively quickly, says a fair amount; there are many shows, even half hours, which I’ve stopped due to lack of momentum. The three primary actors are all excellent, particularly the always great Michaela Watkins. The uniquely close and comfortable family relationship between Watkins, her brother, and her daughter works and holds together the center of a show that could easily spin out of hand as each family member finds his or her way into hit-or-miss adventures. Watkins’ brother (I’m not going to get into names because it’s the last line of this and you’re not going to remember, but he’s played by the sports agent who dated Mindy in the first season of the Mindy Project) has the potential to be obnoxious (and is) at many times, but pulls away and/or shows enough pathos to avoid passing the point of no return.

41. Daredevil – 2014: Not Eligible

Daredevil

As we’re not yet in the land of full-scale recommendations for everyone, Daredevil is only for people with a toleration for the kind of comic superhero tomfoolery Marvel fans have come to expect, but unlike some of the DC properties below, I’m more confident people who like this sort of thing will like Daredevil. The characters aren’t as deeply defined in a season as I’d like them to be, but Daredevil is one of the Marvel characters with a stronger backstory and the street-level organized crime plot of the first season is a welcome counter to the super-powered and universe-spanning problems of the Marvel movies and DC TV shows. I don’t think primary antagonist Kingpin as played by Vincent D’Onofrio is the genius villain that many do, but I’d be remiss to say that he doesn’t bring a manic energy that’s often delightful. Additionally, unlike so many comic villains it’s a pleasant surprise to find one that’s neither emotionless nor crazy, intimidating but not infallible. There are some weaker moments, and the writing can be a little lazy, counting on viewers to connect the dots and follow the idea of where they’re going, because you can pretty much figure it out, but it’s binge-friendly without being House of Cards-stupid; you don’t need to think and digest every episode, but there are thrills to be had from moving forward in the story and you certainly don’t feel dumber having watched it.

40. Another Period – 2014: Not Eligible

Another Period

Another Period is just a stupid, over-the-top comedy about a wealthy family with servants early in 20th century New England, but it’s about as low on period accuracy as could be aside from wearing digital watches and using smart phones. I would guess it was inspired by wanting to mock the upstairs/downstairs Downton Abbey, but all the American actors didn’t feel like putting on British accents all the time. The jokes are fired off at a rapid pace, and while some don’t work, there are more than enough that do, and those that don’t are inoffensive enough to sit through for a couple of good solid laughs an episode. The cast definitely raises it a cut above the material, with many of my favorites like David Wain and Michael Ian Black, and comic relative newcomers like Christina Hendrix and Jason Ritter.

39. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – Not Eligible
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

This show and the next show have a lot in common (they were originally in the same post, but got bumped around, so you’ll have to wait to figure out the next show is). They’re both show about ostensibly terrible people which can be awkward and difficult to watch, hands-over-your-eyes stuff, but which are entirely about the laughs. There are half hour shows that are ostensibly comedies that aren’t very funny, there are shows in the Parks & Recreation vein that are true comedies but with deep investment in character and storyline, and there are shows like Sunny and the next that are just for laughs. Thus then, they’re actually relatively easy to judge; if you laugh while watching, they’ve done their job. Last year’s 10th (!) season wasn’t the show’s finest, but managed to be a lot better than it could have been considering how long the show has been on. Sometimes the ideas can feel reused but the characters and the cast know how to get the most from the lines, and while the show can get too meta at some points, a little bit of meta here and there can differentiate the later seasons.

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Ranking the ShowsThat I Watch – 2015 Edition: 46-43

4 Apr

A very real dramedy followed by three shows which depart from the realms of the real. Three of these four debuted last year.

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here and 50-47 here.

46. Togetherness – 2014: Not Eligible

Togetherness

One of the plague of sad-white people with pre-midlife crises shows running amok on TV, Togetherness actually pulled together to be a little bit better by the end than I thought it would be at the beginning. It’s hardly mandatory viewing, but the characters are drawn relatively well and feel somewhat realistic, and the feuds and conflicts feel plausible and unforced, which sounds like a low floor but really isn’t. Mark Duplass’s character is the worst part of the show, but he’s balanced by his best friend on the show, Alex, who is the best character. 

45. Mr. Robot – 2014: Not Eligible

Mr. RobotMr. Robot is a show I’ve expended many words about, written, and in person, and although I’m still not sure if I’ll watch it again this year, I’m glad I did. Few shows actually capture the internet television watching community every year, but Mr. Robot was one of them, and while I’m not a fan of many of the show’s creative choices, I do understand some of the appeal, and some of why the appeal now. If the two shows coming up next after Mr. Robot were classic high-floor low-ceiling affairs, Mr. Robot is the opposite. There was a lot going on, generally more of which I didn’t like than did, but it’s the type of show for which I at least have a level of appreciation for the craft of even if I disagree fundamentally which several of the decisions made. I probably liked the next two shows on this list better, but if someone I didn’t know asked me which season of television they should watch it should probably be this one.

44. Doctor Who – 2014: Not Eligible

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is by no means for everyone, and sometimes I’m not even sure it’s for me, but although I doubted myself while watching several seasons over the course of a year, in the end it was a worthwhile project. There’s a low ceiling; there are never any real stakes in Doctor Who, and whatever suspense there is is trying to figure out what the deus ex machina is going to be, not if there will be one. The character development is limited at best, but the show makes up for it by being relentless silly, casting strong choices as the Doctor, like current Doctor Peter Capaldi, and having at least once every few episodes smart, sci-fi homages and mashups that play well with common tropes even if the end results aren’t surprising. What I just wrote is really true about any season of Doctor Who more than merely the last, but that’s about what this show is.

43. Marvel’s Agent Carter – 2014: Not Eligible

Marvel's Agent Carter

Agent Carter isn’t great or relevatory (it sounds like I’m repeating similar words a lot, but that’s where we are on the list) and it fits in well most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero oeuvre – it’s light on its feet, with a low ceiling and a high floor, featuring heroic tales of patriotic derring-do conducted by heroes who care about the greater good more than themselves, all balanced by some sense of humor to attempt to prevent it from being too mired in its own self-seriousness. What puts Carter slightly above the mean is the chemistry between the two leads, heroic Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell) who has been buried deep in mundane paperwork as a woman in an all-male workplace in the post-war 1940s, and Jarvis, Howard Stark’s butler, full of British charm and snobbery who, increasingly as the season goes on, wants to show he can do more than cook, clean, and aptly manage Stark’s many lady friends. The ‘40s make for a great setting, and the show doesn’t go light on the constant sexism towards Carter, which actually makes the setting feel more authentic and the eventual triumph greater.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 50-47

28 Mar

Two comedies, one action, and one drama/thriller. Moving forward…

Intro here and 58-55 here and 54-51 here.

50. Workaholics – 2014: 36

Workaholics

I will always have much affection for Anders, Blake, and Adam, but it badly feels like the boys of Rancho Cucamonga are running out of ideas, no matter what occasional breaks between seasons they take. This is particularly obvious since the show Workaholics is paired up with in its time slot, Broad City, has risen as Workaholics has fallen, and on the whole I love Broad City more than I’ve ever liked Workaholics, which is more a compliment to Broad City than an insult to Workaholics. Workaholics still has the funny joke here and there, and again, I still love the three of them, but it’s not the buzzy, quotable show of the first couple of seasons, and I almost feel like I want to spend more time in this review going to pay tribute to some of the great episodes (“Real Time,” “To Friend a Predator” for example) than talking about this past season which was largely unmemorable. Alas. Nothing gold can stay.

49. The Affair – 2014: 33

The Affair

Oh, to be a Showtime show. A mildly ambitious premise, generally a little less glassy or bold than an HBO show (generally; HBO made Ballers). They’re often just good enough to be intriguing and keep me watching for a few episodes or a couple seasons, only to eventually let me down, quickly, or slowly. The Affair drew me in with a fascinating premise; a modern day Rashomon – a story slowly drawn out, told in two perspectives, both of which contained shades of the truth. The first season left more or less how it started; still maintaining that same level of intrigue and possibility for more without having actually accomplished that much. The second delivered a little bit less than the first, even while including some worthwhile moments and adding two more perspectives to the melange. Dominic West’s Noah became increasingly despicable over the course of the season which made it difficult to watch and times, and the show continued to feel like it didn’t exactly know where it was going or what it was doing. I’m about at a coin flip over whether I’ll give the third season a shot.

48. Archer – 2014: 39

Archer

Archer is long-veteran show at this point, and like Workaholics, just above, it often feels at this point like it’s running out of ideas. However, unlike with Workaholics, this past season was a step up over the previous season, the ambitious but ultimately lacking Archer Vice. It certainly wasn’t golden era Archer (seasons 2 and 3) but it was clearly, if not way past the solid enough to keep watching point. At this point it often feels like the veteran that it is; it’s not exciting or flashy but it comes to work and does the job at least well enough to earn its paycheck. Archer marks the first clear tier break on this list so far. Everything Archer and above I plan on coming back to for sure in their next seasons; everything below is a big question mark.

47. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – 2014: 32

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

I doubt Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is ever going to rise too high in these rankings. It’s probably never going to be a great show; it’s been on long enough that I feel pretty comfortable I know what it is and it’s unlikely to take a leap. That said, it’s settled into a comfortable place in my viewing lineup, never much higher than the cut off, but safely above. After a really rough first 15 episodes that had me ready to give up the show, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has improved to a level of competence putting together enough smart dialogue and occasionally unpredictable plotting to take advantage of my natural inclination to like things comic book and superhero. Like Flash and Arrow, this show isn’t for everyone, and those who have zero interest in superheroes have absolutely no reason to give it a look. But it is a step up above those DC shows, slightly better written, one level deeper, which is not saying a lot, that stay just a little bit farther away from obvious and cringeworthy tropes enough of the time to make it worth watching.

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Ranking the Shows That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 54-51

21 Mar

Our first comedy of the rankings shows up along with three cable dramas that only have the potential of conspiracy in common.

Intro here and 58-55 here.

54. True Detective – 2014: 21

True Detective

Thousands of words have been spilled over the disappointing second season of True Detective, some by me, and I’m not sure I have more to add; one-dimensional characters, frustrating plot choices, and misguided casting, let to a somewhat sad season of television. It’s not lower than this because it was strangely ambitious in a way other bad shows aren’t; Flash and Arrow failed on a lower percentage of what they tried, but True Detective tried way more. There was something interesting enough in the failure of True Detective to probably ensure I’d watch another season, but that doesn’t make it a success. Recently, this past season of True Detective made me think of the Star Wars prequels; unquestionably failures, but, especially compared to The Force Awakens, surprisingly ambitious failures which actually really went for it.

53. Community – 2014: 10

Community

The Yahoo! Screen (and points if you remember that Yahoo!’s short-lived video service was called Yahoo! Screen) season of Community really made me sad. It’s fair to say I had no right to be disappointed by the season, consider how up-and-down Community has been over the years, and considering the turmoil behind-the-scenes including the cast changes and the new network. Still, it was one of the more disappointing seasons of TV I can remember considering what a special place Community has held in my heart at times, and considering this was going to be its likely last impression (unless they actually get around to that movie). There were fleeting glimpses of what made Community great; but they were gobbled up by so much mediocrity, poor choices, reused plots, unbalanced character usage, overdone jokes and just a seeming running out of ideas. The fifth season, upon reflection, I found to be better than I had believed initially; with the sixth, it’s sadly the opposite. There’s way too much Dean, a side character elevated to a larger role than his character could handle, and again just rehashing and overusing what worked well when done subtly and in moderation. Quite simply, the magic was gone.

52. Orphan Black – 2014: 25

Orphan Black

Orphan Black post-Season 1 is a bit of a mess rendered worth viewing simply due to the powers of Tatiana Maslany. The plot was clearly put together with only one season in mind and since then there have had to be incomprehensible secret organization on top of incomprehensible secret organization on top of incomprehensible secret organization to prevent the Clone Club from finding all the answers, past the point where it makes all that much sense. Fortunately through for Orphan Black, the show has a sense of humor, which many shows in this tier (see: House of Cards, AMC’s The Walking Dead) lack, especially in regards to the generally enjoyable Alison plotlines. Orphan Black is hardly appointment television; but I don’t think I’ll be giving it up just yet because I like the clones enough to eventually catch up, even if that means on a lazy Saturday weeks after the episodes have aired.

51. AMC’s The Walking Dead – 2014: 34

The Walking Dead

I’m in a strange place with AMC’s The Walking Dead. Objectively, this has been one of, if not the single strongest year in the show’s existence. It’s hardly spectacular; but the year is notable more for the absence of the bigger problems that plagued swaths of AMC’s The Walking Dead past; glacial pacing, bringing the Governor back well past his due date, focus on the wrong characters, young Carl. AMC’s The Walking Dead has never been a great show but it’s had spurts of promise that have always, until now, kept me watching, and on paper, this past year would certainly appear to be composed largely of such spurts. Subjectively though, while I recognize the show is actually in a fairly solid place, for whatever it’s worth, I simply seem to have a case of AMC’s The Walking Dead fatigue. I’m just tired of the show. The novelty and the fun have worn on me, and while the plot changes, I’ve felt some sense of sameness that has been grating on me over the seasons. Several times in the past couple of months I planned to put on an episode, just to realize I really didn’t want to watch one. Will I ever get back to it, or will I simply fade away from the show? Tune into next year’s rankings to find out.

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Ranking the Show That I Watch – 2015 Edition: 58-55

14 Mar

Four hour longs start us off, two CW, one Netflix, and one Amazon.

Intro here.

58. House of Cards – 2014: 42

House of Cards

I probably wouldn’t have watched this past season of House of Cards if I didn’t traditionally marathon it with friends. No show benefits from that binge watching more than House of Cards. It’s a fun activity as a group, but the more you think about the show, the more it all falls apart, and the dumber it is. The show makes so little sense that the best way to watch it is to finish it because you can think. The ridiculousness can be fun, and it legitimately was in the first season; the binge-watching advice was as much backhanded compliment as insult. Now it’s just, well, very bad. On top of the mess that the show is, there’s a sense that the show believe it’s more meaningful than it is which eats away at whatever fun the show has left. Whether I watch again this season will depend on whether my friends and I put aside a rainy day and beers for it; otherwise it’s probably not going to happen.

57. Arrow – 2014: Not Eligible

Arrow

Arrow is the darker and more dour companion to the happier-go-luckier The Flash, which we’ll see in a minute, and I have fairly similar thoughts on both shows.  The Flash’s first season was better than Arrow’s downer of a third season, but Arrow’s fourth season so far has been better than Flash’s second, half of the episodes of which seem like back door pilots for new series (mostly CW’s upcoming Legends of Tomorrow.) These shows aren’t necessarily and are only enjoyable on and off. They lean in super hard to obvious tropes and are incredibly predictable, and because there are 22 of them a year, have some of the worst pacing and are incredibly repetitive. More than almost any other show, I’ve watched I feel like I can read or fade in and out and not really miss much from these shows, and while that’s been useful when binging to catch up with these shows, that’s not a compliment. There are charms; the actors are generally competent, and there are good fight sequences and moments of clever snappy dialogue. Still, it’s not quite enough; I’d watch a couple of hour season recap of each if someone made it, but I’m not sure I can justify devoting the amount of time required to watch this show and the following one moving forward.

56. Flash – 2014: Not Eligible

Flash

I’d rather not write separate pieces for this and Arrow, but here we go. The Flash can be fun, and relative to Arrow, it’s lighter, and it’s best when it stays that way. There’s a lot of emo, a lot of angst, a season long big bad, but and it stays fun when it’s just on the right side of mediocre. The Flash and Arrow don’t crossover a lot but they almost crossover just enough and there’s not enough difference in quality that I want to watch one without the other, and that means that it’s 44 or so episodes a year, or zero, which is a big commitment for a pair of shows that would be somewhat more compelling with a small one. Great shows are for everyone; Flash (and Arrow) are only for relative comic fans.

55. The Man in the High Castle – 2014: Not Eligible

The Man in the High Castle

I really wanted to like The Man in the High Castle. It’s an alternate history, which is a genre unseen on TV; as a history buff, I was definitely interested and it’s based on a Philip K. Dick book which I have shamefully not read but is well-regarded by my friends who have. It’s one of the classic alternate history premises; what if the Nazis had won World War II? In this world, the Germans control the eastern half of the US and the Japanese the West, but there are resistance groups working deep underground, which our unknowing protagonists are introduced to within the run of the show. There’s so much I want to explore within this premise, and so many interesting questions which could be asked and presented. The problem, however, is that the characters aren’t great or really even good. It’s hard to feel anything for the protagonists and the world building and plot doesn’t come fast enough to make up for the lousy characters. I’d be interested in coming back to it if the next season got glowing notices, but I’m saddened by how hesitant I am to return.

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