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shadowkatOr I should say most "memorable" to me. Best isn't the right word. Memorable on the other hand is.
Finally getting around to doing the most memorable television series that I watched in 2010, post.
And doing it in 2011, so am a bit late, I guess.
Heck it's New Year's Day. The beginning of a new decade and a new year. Two in one. Doesn't happen very often. Should do best tv shows seen in last decade as well. But that'll be a separate post, if you can bear seeing more than one post from me in one day?
In no particular order, because that would require a)organizational skills and b)work.
1. Grey's Anatomy - last season's season finale, where a man who is overcome with bitterness and grief regarding the death of his wife (they took her off life-support without his permission), comes to the hospital armed and drunk, intending to kill everyone involved. Instead he kills everyone who wasn't and traumatizes the rest. Best performances? A tie between the actor who plays the Chief and Sandra OH. Also demonstrative of how you can utilize a multi-racial and multi-gender cast in non-stereotypical ways. Grey's set the bar a bit higher in that regard. But this wasn't the end of it. The season finale was followed by a tight, character-driven, seventh season that may well be amongst the show's best. New characters, new stories, and a deft examination of post-traumatic stress disorder and the diverse number of ways it is handled. Skip the first five seasons of this medical drama, and rent S6 and 7, you won't be disappointed.
2. Caprica - I haven't seen the last six episodes. Those air on Tuesday night, back to back. SyFy has the oddest nitch audience - they give sci-fi fans a bad name. The mediocre and somewhat derivative sci-fi tv shows do amazingly well, while the really good ones barely make it. Methinks most people just want to watch tv with their brains off. Which I can appreciate, do the same thing on occasion. But I do wish tv shows such as Farscape and Caprica would get to fully complete their journeys as their creators intended and not be cut off at the knees. That said? I can appreciate why Caprica failed to keep an audience. It had a woefully uneven year. Started out of the gate with a couple of astonishingly good episodes. (Most tv shows do the opposite - the first four or five episodes are week and they slowly get better with time, example just about every tv show written and produced by Joss Whedon.) Ron Moore's? Appear to do the opposite - they start out great and seem to lose their stamina and get too ambitious or bogged down as time wears on. But to Ron and Jane E (who shouldn't be show-running series because she's not that good at plotting long arcs), credit, Syfy network did not help matters by running the first six-eight episodes in the spring. Then taking a five month break and airing the next group in the fall, then canceling the series, and running the last six back to back one day in Jan. How is the audience supposed to commit let alone follow this show? OR for that matter trust the network regarding any shows it airs in the future? A show needs time to develop an audience and Syfy didn't give it any time. Partly because it was incredibly expensive. But you'd think if they spent all that time and money marketing and producing the thing - it would be cheaper to show it in a way that could grab an audience?
Anywho...the reason why Caprica is on the memorable list is not the above. But rather what was good about it. And what was good, was really really good. Caprica took the whole idea of artificial life forms and robotics and turned it upside down and inside out. What are the ethics of creating artificial life? What are our responsibilities to that life? And to what degree does power corrupt?
Breakout performances included Eric Stolz's Daniel Graystone, whose morally gray creator with a conscience...slowly became unhinged by the number of moral compromises he was forced to make in order to fully appreciate his vision - to bring his daughter back to life. The actor playing Sam similarly was a breakout performance...the tattoos on his body providing one story, while the expressions on his face the next. A killer with a heart, a zionist with a cause, willing to sacrifice all for it. And then there was the girls, the teenage actresses who played Tamara, and Graystone's daughter whose name I've spaced. Both dead in life, alive in a virtual world of Graystone's creation. Existing in the hell between, while a religious zealot name Clarice Willow desperately hunts a way of joining them there, not realizing it's hardly the place of her drug-induced dreams. High production value, and some stellar performances. If only they hadn't gotten so ambitious, tried to bite off more than they could chew, hadn't attempted to delve into the religious zealotry, which unlike the ethical quandry of robotics, was far more didactic plotwise and bordered on the preachy. That said, it's hard to fault an artist for attempting to push the envelope...that's what envelopes are for.
3. Lost....ah, Lost, the final season much like Caprica had its missteps. For more or less the same reasons - it tackled religion, and got sappy and sentimental where Caprica got didactic. The altverse's potential seemed somewhat wasted when it was revealed to be little more than a purgatorial way station for the survivors to relive the road not taken before meeting up with those on the island who had changed their lives and helped them find their way at last. This finale enraged many viewers, particularly those who are not religious, agnostic or atheist, offended that their tv show which had once been rich in science and existential philosophy, meandered its way back to the traditional and somewhat dated views of St. Augustine and Dante. Yet, you can't deny it wasn't memorable. And there were enough stand-out episodes to give it a place on this list. Amongst them a rather great episode depicting Ben and Lock's existence as teacher's in a school. Lock a substitute teacher and coach, Ben a professor of history. Ben taking care of his Dad and forming a close relationship with a girl named Alex and her mother...Rousseau, both his victims and his loves on the Island. Lock married to his love and caring for his sick father. Also the cat and mouse games between Smokey (who has taken the shape of Locke) and Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hugo. Who manage to outwit him. While the plot often made little sense and felt overly convoluted, the characters continue to resonate in the mind and heart long after their disappearance from the screen.
4. Terriers - this series is nearly perfect from start to finish. While I missed the first three episodes, the rest held my interest and stayed in my mind long after they were over. Character driven, with gritty, anti-hero characters, it also had a fairly tight plot with a clear through line. Each moment, each piece of dialogue mattered. There were only a few missteps here and there - such as the adultery sub-plot, but overall it worked. You fall in love with these characters, who feel ripped from an Cohen brothers film, or for that matter a Carl Hianessian or Elmore Leonard novel. Not pretty like most of the people on tv, real, with warts intact. The dialogue has rhythm to it, and a humor, that sneaks up on you. Donal Logue and Michael Raymond James were the breakout performances, but not the only ones - the gal who plays Logue's sister, a schizophrenic genius, certainly deserves high marks for delivering amongst the few restrained and realistic performances of this disorder to date. It's no more than I think 20 episodes...possibly less. A full story. A full arc. With a perfectly satisfying ending - amongst the few that I've seen on tv. Definitely rent this baby if you get the chance.
5. Dexter S4. Best season of this series to date. While most of the Dexter seasons tend to get bogged down in the middle or take a while to get revved up, this baby was a roller-coaster ride from start to finish, with few missteps. In part this is due to the excellent roster of guest stars - John Lithgow and Keith Carradine, portraying the serial killer and the lawman tracking him respectfully. Lithgow's family man serial killer is such the perfect doppleganger to Dexter, that Dexter seeks him out for advice and even befriends him...while hunting him. It's also the first time that Dexter's dual life threatens to catch up to him. Demonstrating that Dexter may not be as cut off from emotion as he likes to believe. The examination of conscience of what it is to be a sociopath, and what it is to have a soul - all go far beyond similar examinations in the Buffy and Angel series. People have called Dexter - Angel without the metaphors, but in this season, it was also Batman without the metaphors and easy justifications. The final episode ...regardless of whether or not you know what happens in it (I'd been spoiled by not one but two entertainment magazines), is a jaw-dropper. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. The missteps? The romance between Bastista and her Liet, and eventual marriage which reeked of cliche, and Deb's storyline which was ultimately unsatisfying...regarding her discovery of Dexter's past - clumsily handled. Perhaps they had one too many balls in the air? But everything regarding Dexter and the Trinity killer's cat and cat game...was spot on. So, we can excuse the missteps. Dexter unfortunately doesn't quite handle it's supporting characters subplots all that well. The show is more a lead character piece than an ensemble like the earlier ones mentioned on this list.
6. Doctor Who...much like Dexter S4, this is by far the best season of the New Who. (Can't comment on anything prior to the New Who, since a)don't remember and/or b)haven't seen.) While I'm admittedly partial to David Tennant's Who - by far the most attractive of the Whos to date, Matthew Smith provides an edgy and somewhat playful air to the role, that makes one think he's the child of 10 and 9 come to life. Moffat's writing trumps RT Davies in many respects, it's both less sentimental and less dogmatic than Davies. Moffat has no desire to justify his Doctor's actions...while Davies felt a need to. Also, Moffat unlike Davies seems to be able to create stronger and more mature female characters. River Song is a mature Donna Noble, but at the same time an attractive romantic interest and an equal to the Doctor. While Donna, poor Donna, could never achieve anything more than the wide-eyed comic companion. Don't get me wrong - I loved her, but the moment she becomes the Doctor's equal is the moment he must erase that ability and all her adventures, changing her completely, and her life, rendering her less than she was - without giving her a choice in the matter. Moffat takes a completely different tact regarding both Amy Pond and River Song. Amy who initially was romantically inclined towards the Doctor, chooses Rory over him. She's the anti-Rose, who chose the Doctor over her mate Mickey. Amy here...brings Rory along, and Rory comes. Rory is allowed to be a hero in her eyes, more so, in some respects than the Doctor, the imaginary friend...who changes her life and almost destroys it. That's the difference between Moffat and Davies, Moffat allows the duality to exist. He doesn't justify. Not really. And River Song...who may well be my favorite character in this verse...is a mystery. She's a female Doctor Who. Edgy and playful. Dark and Light. She's his equal. We may know her ending, but we don't know her beginning. Her romance with the Doctor is out of step, out of time, backwards and it is here that Moffat plays with the science of time travel in a way few have considered. While there were a few bad episodes - mostly written by Moffat's ill chosen writing partner Mark Gatiss (who is also responsible for the third Sherlock episode and Victory of the Daleks), most were stellar. The best by far, Vincent and Me, Pandorica Opens, Amy's Choice, and the Finale.
7. Vampire Diaries...yes, a soap opera, but an enormously entertaining one. Far more entertaining and far better paced than Tru Blood oddly enough. Although True Blood has a bit more to say, and that is the most delightful bit about Vampire..it's a show you can watch just to well have fun. No brain required. Cotton candy for the brain, or crack. It may also be the fastest paced tv show I've seen. Tight plot. Fast pacing. Intricate and innovative mythology. Weakness? The Stefan/Elena star-crossed romance that has gone on too long and has lost its magic. These two are too much alike in their brooding, the energy is sucked from the screen whenever they get together and mope, raising their eyebrows in tandem. But when they are separated and placed with others? It takes off. Other weak points - the Mason arc was not as rich as it could be, but Mason bit the dust and Tyler took the stage changing the tone to great effect. While Dobrev's Katherine is uneven, she is a lot of fun. Far more fun with Stefan than Elena ever was. And Dobrev seems to enjoy playing her far more than she does Elena...who often feels a bit phoned in. Biggest surprise? Caroline. This actress kicks ass. She blew everyone else off screen when she was turned into a vampire - showing pain subtly and her romance with Tyler continues to intrigue. Damon continues to have the best lines, and a seriously good character arc. Moving from devilish villain to reluctant hero, and doomed lover...it's hard not to be riveted when Sommerhandler who chews the scenery and acts astonishingly hard with his eyes is on screen. Campy? Sure. But also fun. And then there's the new guys in town Rosemarie (a tough English vamp), Luke, his Dad, Elijah, and a female werewolf former love of Mason's. The show defies predictability and never slows down. Plus, the cool vampire/werewolf mythology, convoluted sure but not dull.
8. Being Human - I'm admittedly not the fan of this show that others are. It drug in places. But the arc with Nina and the werewolf roommaate was riveting at times. Anything with Nina was riveting. Weak point was the Ghost storyline, the roommate who was a ghost - had the weakest and least coherent arc of the season. In contrast, the vampire roommate (and I can't remember these guys names), had the strongest. Also the grittiest and darkest - making Angel the Series seem fairly tame in comparison. There's a scene where he goes on a drunken orgy with another vamp - killing off an entire subway train full of commuters. And his romance with Lucy, a doctor who believes there's an evil gene and teams up with a bitter priest to exterminate supernatural creatures is one of the better portions of the drama...it's hard not to care about Lucy and to see her moral dilemma, along with the vampire she's hunting. Here, unlike Dexter, the supporting or guest characters are the most memorable. Lucy and Nina rivet you and cannot quite be forgotten.
9. Mad Men - much like Dexter S4 and Grey's S6-7, this season of Mad Men was by far the best to date. Normally Mad Men gets a bit slow and ponderous in the middle, but this season most of the episodes rocked. The best by far was The Suitcase - a two-character piece, featuring the protagonists of the series in an odd tug of war back and forth relationship. Peggy and Don and their all night attempt to come up with an ad for a samonsite suitcase, while everyone else is watching Mohammad Ali's historic boxing match. Their scenes are a bit like watching a boxing match, the back and forth...dialogue, the reveals. Unlike former seasons, this one was better paced and had a mad-cap sense of humor. Best bits? Peggy and Joan's bitch session after Don announced his surprise engagement. Sally's shriek at the Beatles. Betty and Sally's therapy sessions along with Betty's husband telling Betty off finally. Rodger's memories of a young Don Draper pushing for a job, while Don's whining about hiring a bad copywriter who is the son of one of Rodger's relatives, Pete Campbell's save of Don and Don's save of Pete, and finally the aforementioned Suitcase. Weak points? The father-son arc with Lane, whose character borders on cliche, and the Draper voice overs...which I liked at times, but at other times felt a bit much. Overall, riveting season.
10. True Blood S2 - yes, I'm behind everyone on this series as well. While weak in places - the whole Maryanne bit was a tad over the top and often dull, the Fellowship of the Sun storyline made up for it in spades. Part wicked satire of Joel Olsteen's movement, and part heartfelt depiction of the pangs of finding meaning in life...it had the humor and subletly that the other tale lacked. Breakout performances from Ryan who played Jason Stackhouse - a lovably dimwitted bimbo, Alexandra Starsgard as Eric, and the guy who played Eric's maker. Eric also had some of the best lines - "Don't confuse me by using words I don't understand." (Or something to that effect). True Blood made orgies and sex boring, yet succeeded where Lost and Caprica failed in slyly satirizing and through satire exposing the weaknesses of the religious zealotry and evangelism. It wasn't as didatic or sentimental, just plain fun. By not taking itself too seriously - it explored these themes in greater depth. It could be tighter plotted and better paced though - Alan Ball could learn a thing or two from Kevin Williamson's lighter in tone Vampire Diaries.
11 The Good Wife (tied with Mad Men) - possibly the best series on broadcast network television and proof you can do serialized television well. It's about politics. It's not really a legal procedural. The cases are often used as metaphors for the politics going on behind the scenes. It's also amongst the few legal shows that gets it right. The Good Wife is to law and politics what Breaking Bad is to chemistry. (It's amazing how few tv shows get legal procedure right. Most are dead wrong.) Taking place in Chicago, it shows and at times satirizes the quagmire of Chicago and by extension state and local politics in the US. It is also the only show on American television that examines what it is like for a woman to work professionally in a man's world. Breakout performances include guest stars such as Alan Cummings (now part of the cast - thank god), Micheal J Fox, and Kate Burton amongst others. Everyone is good in this show. The dialogue is sharp. The characterization complex. The plot character driven and tight. Few missteps. And it gets better as you move forward.
Honorable mentions: Raising Hope - which put the bang back into working class family dramas and did a fantastic job of skewering our health insurance industry, Big Bang Theory - for the addition of MAyim Balik as the female Sheldon, Community for the episode Warfare - the paintball war, the stop-animation Christmas episode, and the episode with the largest pillow fort imaginable - it raised the bar on adults acting like idiotic children comedic formula, and finally Nikita - for managing to do a kick-ass female action series with not one, but four female characters, and two that are minorities - the lead Asian. Nikita is what Dollhouse could have been with a better actress in the lead, a tighter plot, and less musings on sexual violence and prostitution.
Best new series still on the air? Nikita.
Disappointments?
Dollhouse...it ended in 2010...much the same way, Caprica will end in 2011. Except Dollhouse feels even less cohesive. As if its plot were thrown together at the last minute, which from what I've read - I'm guessing it was. It never felt as if the writer new what his story was about. Ambitious from the start, at times Dollhouse felt more like an insane trip inside the dark side of its creators brain, seeing up close and personal all of its creators darkest sexual fantasies and kinks - many of which I'm not sure I wanted to know about. There were good episodes though, mostly in the middle, the end of the first season and middle of the second...focusing on the supporting characters. Whenever Olivia Williams, Amy Acker, the guy who played the male doll, Sierra, or Zach (the guy who played the scientist whose name I forget) were on-screen - I was riveted. When they were off screen?
Bored. The breakout performances were the four I mentioned above. The weakest points? oddly the leads, who veered between wooden to overly mannered. Making one wonder what the show would have been without them? And the stories that focused on them...tended to be by far the most offensive and difficult to swallow. Not a series I'll forget, but not one I feel inclined to rewatch either.
Flashforward - great concept, poor execution. Too many storylines.
The Event...while better than Flashforward and with more intriguing characters, it too feels a bit cluttered.
Lost finale...see review above.
Caprica cancellation...and the way they aired it.
Walking Dead ...great pilot, but I'm not sure this series lives up to the hype. It felt cliche to me at times, and a bit too into shock, as opposed to character. If it comes back - I hope they explore the characters more and spend less time trying to do the big gross out moments.
*[I didn't see Breaking Bad until the end of 2010 and most will be in 2011, so it's not included in this year. If I had seen Breaking Bad - it most likely would have been listed as 12 above. Certainly memorable and right up there in quality with Mad Men, The Good Wife, and Terriers. I also haven't seen many of the Premium cable series or Canadian/British series. Outside of Being Erica - we don't get Canadian TV shows in the States or at least I don't get to see them.]
Finally getting around to doing the most memorable television series that I watched in 2010, post.
And doing it in 2011, so am a bit late, I guess.
Heck it's New Year's Day. The beginning of a new decade and a new year. Two in one. Doesn't happen very often. Should do best tv shows seen in last decade as well. But that'll be a separate post, if you can bear seeing more than one post from me in one day?
In no particular order, because that would require a)organizational skills and b)work.
1. Grey's Anatomy - last season's season finale, where a man who is overcome with bitterness and grief regarding the death of his wife (they took her off life-support without his permission), comes to the hospital armed and drunk, intending to kill everyone involved. Instead he kills everyone who wasn't and traumatizes the rest. Best performances? A tie between the actor who plays the Chief and Sandra OH. Also demonstrative of how you can utilize a multi-racial and multi-gender cast in non-stereotypical ways. Grey's set the bar a bit higher in that regard. But this wasn't the end of it. The season finale was followed by a tight, character-driven, seventh season that may well be amongst the show's best. New characters, new stories, and a deft examination of post-traumatic stress disorder and the diverse number of ways it is handled. Skip the first five seasons of this medical drama, and rent S6 and 7, you won't be disappointed.
2. Caprica - I haven't seen the last six episodes. Those air on Tuesday night, back to back. SyFy has the oddest nitch audience - they give sci-fi fans a bad name. The mediocre and somewhat derivative sci-fi tv shows do amazingly well, while the really good ones barely make it. Methinks most people just want to watch tv with their brains off. Which I can appreciate, do the same thing on occasion. But I do wish tv shows such as Farscape and Caprica would get to fully complete their journeys as their creators intended and not be cut off at the knees. That said? I can appreciate why Caprica failed to keep an audience. It had a woefully uneven year. Started out of the gate with a couple of astonishingly good episodes. (Most tv shows do the opposite - the first four or five episodes are week and they slowly get better with time, example just about every tv show written and produced by Joss Whedon.) Ron Moore's? Appear to do the opposite - they start out great and seem to lose their stamina and get too ambitious or bogged down as time wears on. But to Ron and Jane E (who shouldn't be show-running series because she's not that good at plotting long arcs), credit, Syfy network did not help matters by running the first six-eight episodes in the spring. Then taking a five month break and airing the next group in the fall, then canceling the series, and running the last six back to back one day in Jan. How is the audience supposed to commit let alone follow this show? OR for that matter trust the network regarding any shows it airs in the future? A show needs time to develop an audience and Syfy didn't give it any time. Partly because it was incredibly expensive. But you'd think if they spent all that time and money marketing and producing the thing - it would be cheaper to show it in a way that could grab an audience?
Anywho...the reason why Caprica is on the memorable list is not the above. But rather what was good about it. And what was good, was really really good. Caprica took the whole idea of artificial life forms and robotics and turned it upside down and inside out. What are the ethics of creating artificial life? What are our responsibilities to that life? And to what degree does power corrupt?
Breakout performances included Eric Stolz's Daniel Graystone, whose morally gray creator with a conscience...slowly became unhinged by the number of moral compromises he was forced to make in order to fully appreciate his vision - to bring his daughter back to life. The actor playing Sam similarly was a breakout performance...the tattoos on his body providing one story, while the expressions on his face the next. A killer with a heart, a zionist with a cause, willing to sacrifice all for it. And then there was the girls, the teenage actresses who played Tamara, and Graystone's daughter whose name I've spaced. Both dead in life, alive in a virtual world of Graystone's creation. Existing in the hell between, while a religious zealot name Clarice Willow desperately hunts a way of joining them there, not realizing it's hardly the place of her drug-induced dreams. High production value, and some stellar performances. If only they hadn't gotten so ambitious, tried to bite off more than they could chew, hadn't attempted to delve into the religious zealotry, which unlike the ethical quandry of robotics, was far more didactic plotwise and bordered on the preachy. That said, it's hard to fault an artist for attempting to push the envelope...that's what envelopes are for.
3. Lost....ah, Lost, the final season much like Caprica had its missteps. For more or less the same reasons - it tackled religion, and got sappy and sentimental where Caprica got didactic. The altverse's potential seemed somewhat wasted when it was revealed to be little more than a purgatorial way station for the survivors to relive the road not taken before meeting up with those on the island who had changed their lives and helped them find their way at last. This finale enraged many viewers, particularly those who are not religious, agnostic or atheist, offended that their tv show which had once been rich in science and existential philosophy, meandered its way back to the traditional and somewhat dated views of St. Augustine and Dante. Yet, you can't deny it wasn't memorable. And there were enough stand-out episodes to give it a place on this list. Amongst them a rather great episode depicting Ben and Lock's existence as teacher's in a school. Lock a substitute teacher and coach, Ben a professor of history. Ben taking care of his Dad and forming a close relationship with a girl named Alex and her mother...Rousseau, both his victims and his loves on the Island. Lock married to his love and caring for his sick father. Also the cat and mouse games between Smokey (who has taken the shape of Locke) and Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hugo. Who manage to outwit him. While the plot often made little sense and felt overly convoluted, the characters continue to resonate in the mind and heart long after their disappearance from the screen.
4. Terriers - this series is nearly perfect from start to finish. While I missed the first three episodes, the rest held my interest and stayed in my mind long after they were over. Character driven, with gritty, anti-hero characters, it also had a fairly tight plot with a clear through line. Each moment, each piece of dialogue mattered. There were only a few missteps here and there - such as the adultery sub-plot, but overall it worked. You fall in love with these characters, who feel ripped from an Cohen brothers film, or for that matter a Carl Hianessian or Elmore Leonard novel. Not pretty like most of the people on tv, real, with warts intact. The dialogue has rhythm to it, and a humor, that sneaks up on you. Donal Logue and Michael Raymond James were the breakout performances, but not the only ones - the gal who plays Logue's sister, a schizophrenic genius, certainly deserves high marks for delivering amongst the few restrained and realistic performances of this disorder to date. It's no more than I think 20 episodes...possibly less. A full story. A full arc. With a perfectly satisfying ending - amongst the few that I've seen on tv. Definitely rent this baby if you get the chance.
5. Dexter S4. Best season of this series to date. While most of the Dexter seasons tend to get bogged down in the middle or take a while to get revved up, this baby was a roller-coaster ride from start to finish, with few missteps. In part this is due to the excellent roster of guest stars - John Lithgow and Keith Carradine, portraying the serial killer and the lawman tracking him respectfully. Lithgow's family man serial killer is such the perfect doppleganger to Dexter, that Dexter seeks him out for advice and even befriends him...while hunting him. It's also the first time that Dexter's dual life threatens to catch up to him. Demonstrating that Dexter may not be as cut off from emotion as he likes to believe. The examination of conscience of what it is to be a sociopath, and what it is to have a soul - all go far beyond similar examinations in the Buffy and Angel series. People have called Dexter - Angel without the metaphors, but in this season, it was also Batman without the metaphors and easy justifications. The final episode ...regardless of whether or not you know what happens in it (I'd been spoiled by not one but two entertainment magazines), is a jaw-dropper. Brilliant. Simply brilliant. The missteps? The romance between Bastista and her Liet, and eventual marriage which reeked of cliche, and Deb's storyline which was ultimately unsatisfying...regarding her discovery of Dexter's past - clumsily handled. Perhaps they had one too many balls in the air? But everything regarding Dexter and the Trinity killer's cat and cat game...was spot on. So, we can excuse the missteps. Dexter unfortunately doesn't quite handle it's supporting characters subplots all that well. The show is more a lead character piece than an ensemble like the earlier ones mentioned on this list.
6. Doctor Who...much like Dexter S4, this is by far the best season of the New Who. (Can't comment on anything prior to the New Who, since a)don't remember and/or b)haven't seen.) While I'm admittedly partial to David Tennant's Who - by far the most attractive of the Whos to date, Matthew Smith provides an edgy and somewhat playful air to the role, that makes one think he's the child of 10 and 9 come to life. Moffat's writing trumps RT Davies in many respects, it's both less sentimental and less dogmatic than Davies. Moffat has no desire to justify his Doctor's actions...while Davies felt a need to. Also, Moffat unlike Davies seems to be able to create stronger and more mature female characters. River Song is a mature Donna Noble, but at the same time an attractive romantic interest and an equal to the Doctor. While Donna, poor Donna, could never achieve anything more than the wide-eyed comic companion. Don't get me wrong - I loved her, but the moment she becomes the Doctor's equal is the moment he must erase that ability and all her adventures, changing her completely, and her life, rendering her less than she was - without giving her a choice in the matter. Moffat takes a completely different tact regarding both Amy Pond and River Song. Amy who initially was romantically inclined towards the Doctor, chooses Rory over him. She's the anti-Rose, who chose the Doctor over her mate Mickey. Amy here...brings Rory along, and Rory comes. Rory is allowed to be a hero in her eyes, more so, in some respects than the Doctor, the imaginary friend...who changes her life and almost destroys it. That's the difference between Moffat and Davies, Moffat allows the duality to exist. He doesn't justify. Not really. And River Song...who may well be my favorite character in this verse...is a mystery. She's a female Doctor Who. Edgy and playful. Dark and Light. She's his equal. We may know her ending, but we don't know her beginning. Her romance with the Doctor is out of step, out of time, backwards and it is here that Moffat plays with the science of time travel in a way few have considered. While there were a few bad episodes - mostly written by Moffat's ill chosen writing partner Mark Gatiss (who is also responsible for the third Sherlock episode and Victory of the Daleks), most were stellar. The best by far, Vincent and Me, Pandorica Opens, Amy's Choice, and the Finale.
7. Vampire Diaries...yes, a soap opera, but an enormously entertaining one. Far more entertaining and far better paced than Tru Blood oddly enough. Although True Blood has a bit more to say, and that is the most delightful bit about Vampire..it's a show you can watch just to well have fun. No brain required. Cotton candy for the brain, or crack. It may also be the fastest paced tv show I've seen. Tight plot. Fast pacing. Intricate and innovative mythology. Weakness? The Stefan/Elena star-crossed romance that has gone on too long and has lost its magic. These two are too much alike in their brooding, the energy is sucked from the screen whenever they get together and mope, raising their eyebrows in tandem. But when they are separated and placed with others? It takes off. Other weak points - the Mason arc was not as rich as it could be, but Mason bit the dust and Tyler took the stage changing the tone to great effect. While Dobrev's Katherine is uneven, she is a lot of fun. Far more fun with Stefan than Elena ever was. And Dobrev seems to enjoy playing her far more than she does Elena...who often feels a bit phoned in. Biggest surprise? Caroline. This actress kicks ass. She blew everyone else off screen when she was turned into a vampire - showing pain subtly and her romance with Tyler continues to intrigue. Damon continues to have the best lines, and a seriously good character arc. Moving from devilish villain to reluctant hero, and doomed lover...it's hard not to be riveted when Sommerhandler who chews the scenery and acts astonishingly hard with his eyes is on screen. Campy? Sure. But also fun. And then there's the new guys in town Rosemarie (a tough English vamp), Luke, his Dad, Elijah, and a female werewolf former love of Mason's. The show defies predictability and never slows down. Plus, the cool vampire/werewolf mythology, convoluted sure but not dull.
8. Being Human - I'm admittedly not the fan of this show that others are. It drug in places. But the arc with Nina and the werewolf roommaate was riveting at times. Anything with Nina was riveting. Weak point was the Ghost storyline, the roommate who was a ghost - had the weakest and least coherent arc of the season. In contrast, the vampire roommate (and I can't remember these guys names), had the strongest. Also the grittiest and darkest - making Angel the Series seem fairly tame in comparison. There's a scene where he goes on a drunken orgy with another vamp - killing off an entire subway train full of commuters. And his romance with Lucy, a doctor who believes there's an evil gene and teams up with a bitter priest to exterminate supernatural creatures is one of the better portions of the drama...it's hard not to care about Lucy and to see her moral dilemma, along with the vampire she's hunting. Here, unlike Dexter, the supporting or guest characters are the most memorable. Lucy and Nina rivet you and cannot quite be forgotten.
9. Mad Men - much like Dexter S4 and Grey's S6-7, this season of Mad Men was by far the best to date. Normally Mad Men gets a bit slow and ponderous in the middle, but this season most of the episodes rocked. The best by far was The Suitcase - a two-character piece, featuring the protagonists of the series in an odd tug of war back and forth relationship. Peggy and Don and their all night attempt to come up with an ad for a samonsite suitcase, while everyone else is watching Mohammad Ali's historic boxing match. Their scenes are a bit like watching a boxing match, the back and forth...dialogue, the reveals. Unlike former seasons, this one was better paced and had a mad-cap sense of humor. Best bits? Peggy and Joan's bitch session after Don announced his surprise engagement. Sally's shriek at the Beatles. Betty and Sally's therapy sessions along with Betty's husband telling Betty off finally. Rodger's memories of a young Don Draper pushing for a job, while Don's whining about hiring a bad copywriter who is the son of one of Rodger's relatives, Pete Campbell's save of Don and Don's save of Pete, and finally the aforementioned Suitcase. Weak points? The father-son arc with Lane, whose character borders on cliche, and the Draper voice overs...which I liked at times, but at other times felt a bit much. Overall, riveting season.
10. True Blood S2 - yes, I'm behind everyone on this series as well. While weak in places - the whole Maryanne bit was a tad over the top and often dull, the Fellowship of the Sun storyline made up for it in spades. Part wicked satire of Joel Olsteen's movement, and part heartfelt depiction of the pangs of finding meaning in life...it had the humor and subletly that the other tale lacked. Breakout performances from Ryan who played Jason Stackhouse - a lovably dimwitted bimbo, Alexandra Starsgard as Eric, and the guy who played Eric's maker. Eric also had some of the best lines - "Don't confuse me by using words I don't understand." (Or something to that effect). True Blood made orgies and sex boring, yet succeeded where Lost and Caprica failed in slyly satirizing and through satire exposing the weaknesses of the religious zealotry and evangelism. It wasn't as didatic or sentimental, just plain fun. By not taking itself too seriously - it explored these themes in greater depth. It could be tighter plotted and better paced though - Alan Ball could learn a thing or two from Kevin Williamson's lighter in tone Vampire Diaries.
11 The Good Wife (tied with Mad Men) - possibly the best series on broadcast network television and proof you can do serialized television well. It's about politics. It's not really a legal procedural. The cases are often used as metaphors for the politics going on behind the scenes. It's also amongst the few legal shows that gets it right. The Good Wife is to law and politics what Breaking Bad is to chemistry. (It's amazing how few tv shows get legal procedure right. Most are dead wrong.) Taking place in Chicago, it shows and at times satirizes the quagmire of Chicago and by extension state and local politics in the US. It is also the only show on American television that examines what it is like for a woman to work professionally in a man's world. Breakout performances include guest stars such as Alan Cummings (now part of the cast - thank god), Micheal J Fox, and Kate Burton amongst others. Everyone is good in this show. The dialogue is sharp. The characterization complex. The plot character driven and tight. Few missteps. And it gets better as you move forward.
Honorable mentions: Raising Hope - which put the bang back into working class family dramas and did a fantastic job of skewering our health insurance industry, Big Bang Theory - for the addition of MAyim Balik as the female Sheldon, Community for the episode Warfare - the paintball war, the stop-animation Christmas episode, and the episode with the largest pillow fort imaginable - it raised the bar on adults acting like idiotic children comedic formula, and finally Nikita - for managing to do a kick-ass female action series with not one, but four female characters, and two that are minorities - the lead Asian. Nikita is what Dollhouse could have been with a better actress in the lead, a tighter plot, and less musings on sexual violence and prostitution.
Best new series still on the air? Nikita.
Disappointments?
Dollhouse...it ended in 2010...much the same way, Caprica will end in 2011. Except Dollhouse feels even less cohesive. As if its plot were thrown together at the last minute, which from what I've read - I'm guessing it was. It never felt as if the writer new what his story was about. Ambitious from the start, at times Dollhouse felt more like an insane trip inside the dark side of its creators brain, seeing up close and personal all of its creators darkest sexual fantasies and kinks - many of which I'm not sure I wanted to know about. There were good episodes though, mostly in the middle, the end of the first season and middle of the second...focusing on the supporting characters. Whenever Olivia Williams, Amy Acker, the guy who played the male doll, Sierra, or Zach (the guy who played the scientist whose name I forget) were on-screen - I was riveted. When they were off screen?
Bored. The breakout performances were the four I mentioned above. The weakest points? oddly the leads, who veered between wooden to overly mannered. Making one wonder what the show would have been without them? And the stories that focused on them...tended to be by far the most offensive and difficult to swallow. Not a series I'll forget, but not one I feel inclined to rewatch either.
Flashforward - great concept, poor execution. Too many storylines.
The Event...while better than Flashforward and with more intriguing characters, it too feels a bit cluttered.
Lost finale...see review above.
Caprica cancellation...and the way they aired it.
Walking Dead ...great pilot, but I'm not sure this series lives up to the hype. It felt cliche to me at times, and a bit too into shock, as opposed to character. If it comes back - I hope they explore the characters more and spend less time trying to do the big gross out moments.
*[I didn't see Breaking Bad until the end of 2010 and most will be in 2011, so it's not included in this year. If I had seen Breaking Bad - it most likely would have been listed as 12 above. Certainly memorable and right up there in quality with Mad Men, The Good Wife, and Terriers. I also haven't seen many of the Premium cable series or Canadian/British series. Outside of Being Erica - we don't get Canadian TV shows in the States or at least I don't get to see them.]