Anatomy of a Pitch: Being a Star Trek Fan Before the Era of Popular Nerdom

This is one of approximately 15 articles I've pitched that I also posted on my Patreon where I detail how I went about the pitching process. Check out more of these.

 This pitch calls for a first-person essay, so I wanted to start it off like that.

I'll never forget the Sunday night in 8th grade when, in my media-regulated household, I snuck into my housekeeper's room I'm often hesitant about this part because it does acknowledge that I'm rich and I had a house keeper to sneak in some TV and fell upon this show I frame it as this show because I'm writing in the past tense and I barely knew of it when I watched it called Deep Space Nine. I had been only marginally familiar but somehow I was hooked because I'm writing for Star Trek magazine, I have to be positive about the show . I remember the specific episode ("Facets") and would keep going back week after week.

Though I was a couch potato who loved nothing more than relaxing in front of the screen as a kid, this was my first TV obsession. I had never experienced serialized storytelling, religious subthemes, science fiction, and such deep concepts What I meant to write was world-building. Since then, I've studied film history in college, enjoyed stints as a TV critics, started a YouTube channel and have been blogging on film and television since I graduated college over 15 years ago. Wanted to keep this part brief. No more than one sentence

But this was 1997 and I was in the boiler room Using fancy vocabulary and vivid imagery helps of middle school before wide-scale anti-bullying initiatives had taken over secondary education. After a couple years of being bullied, I was starting to tweak my image and marginally enjoy the social experience of school. I had a great fear that expressing an interest in Star Trek with the kids who signaled their fandom with t-shirts would be a massive step back

Therefore, my my first foray into TV obsession was one that I did in silence. My very first use of the internet was the message boards for Star Trek. The first password I ever logged was on IMDB so I could discuss Star Trek with others. When I vacationed with my grandparents for a month with no internet, I remember dying to come back to check what responses my board posts had got. I also peaked through books at the library on Star Trek (like the DS9: Technical Manual) though I often wanted to make sure no one was looking. I even had such a phobia of being a nerd that I didn't even want my parents thinking I was a Star Trek watcher and would change the channel if they passed by. I personally thought these touches were humorous (or at least cute) in very specific ways

As I gradually felt secure enough to discuss liking Star Trek, it made the connection more real. Though I can't claim as much bravery as the people who were out-and-proud about their fandom in the 1990s, I'm thankful for the way that nerd culture has been popularized through shows like the Big Bang Theory.

My first-person essay would discuss a little more on a personal level, what drove me to Star Trek, the way that Star Trek fandom might have been seen as negative in my youth, and how Star Trek transformed me from a passive couch potato into someone who critically watches TV..

I already sketched this out (maybe at 50%), so this is simply saying where you'd add more info

I might also draw from research over nerd culture: Certain pop culture like Saturday Night Live sketches, comedy routines, or sitcom episodes (3rd Rock from the Sun's convention episode with George Takei, for example) that initially stigmatized nerds. Showing I'd done my homework, although the nice part of this was that I thought it up in 10 seconds. You don't want to spend the whole day on a pitch you don't know will result in greenlighting Additionally, I'd like oops, I spelled this wrong, I did proofread but sometimes you can't catch anything at the antithesis of that movement: conventions that might have integrated more and more hobbies/interests so that everyone became a nerd of one thing or another; The Big Bang Theory; whatever else I might find,  Admitting that I don't know everything, but hopefully showing enough that I do know....two advantages of this is, you want to fire off pitches quickly before you burn out, and you want to be flexible about what they'd want to see more of anyway   etc.

Sincerely,

Orrin Konheim

This might be my best combination of first-person and film review:

https://sophomorecritic.blogspot.com/2023/01/other-peoples-money-1991-capitalism-at.html

Pop Culture Clips:

https://thefederalist.com/2019/07/02/evolution-star-trek-franchise-says-shifting-tv-landscape/

https://www.tvfanatic.com/2020/07/what-if-parks-and-recreation-had-stayed-closer-to-its-original-t/

https://fanfare.pub/snls-most-talented-cast-the-ups-and-downsides-of-the-1991-season-15c66d6d4dcd

First person essays:

https://thezebra.org/2020/04/27/sometimes-waiting-is-the-hardest-part-one-writers-experience-with-fear-delay-and-a-virus-with-no-name/

https://www.arlingtonmagazine.com/bureaucrat-mom-konheim/

Best TV Ensembles of 2022

 I contributed a couple entries to this TV Fanatic crowd-sourced article about best ensembles on TV.

My top pick: Reboot (Hulu)

Reboot is about the coexistence of different generations of artists. In that vein, who could be better epitomize that clash than Paul Reiser and Rachel Bloom as an estranged father and daughter entrusted with co-running a sitcom?

Reiser is an old-school 90s sitcom star with a comic delivery that borrows a little from Borscht Belt comedy. Rachel Bloom made her way to TV fame as the star and co-creator of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend via YouTube stardom that turned musical theater conventions on their head.

The pair is complemented by a writing room that echoes Bloom’s Gen Z approach to artistic merit with Riser’s Borscht Belt big laughs approach, and the combination is hilarious.

Meanwhile on the show’s set, Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer, Johnny Knoxville (who thought of that casting choice?), and Calum Worthy play a quartet of has-been actors who form a found family with healthy doses of comedy and heart.

Other picks:
Ghosts (CBS): The eight actors who play the ghosts weren’t particularly hot on casting lists before this show. In an ideal world, they should be now. Each member of the octet provides such pitch-perfect character beats to create this great whirlwind of humor. It’s like your favorite comedic duo expanded by six with the rat-a-tat banter still operating like clockwork. Of course, credit goes to Sam (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) for bringing the heart and grounding the plots. (I also wrote about Ghosts here)

Star Trek Picard (Paramount Plus): Alison Pill, Michelle Hurd, and Santiago Cabrera bring a sense of visceral edge that I’ve never seen in Star Trek before. Pill’s displays an antsy-ness at being in space that seems pretty logical for most humans, but somehow Star Trek has never shown that side of the 24th century populance before. It makes sense: Star Trek: The Next Generation was designed to appeal to a broad audience in the 1980s so the actors weren’t aiming for high drama, but when the TNG cast is introduced they also are up to that higher bar.

Yellowjackets (Showtime): The show centers around a plane crash involving a teenage soccer in the 90s, and the way the survivors are traumatized all the way through their adulthoods. How fitting that the show cast three of the most promising ingenues of the 90s as the roles of the four main survivors: Melanie Lynskey, Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis. All three have long been underrated actresses and deserve to be attached to one of the hit shows on television. But that’s half the battle: The show also succeeds in casting matching teenage versions of these characters with all their drama.

Winning Time (HBO)-When you have two Oscar winners in your cast (Adrien Brody and Sally Field) and neither of them are central characters, then you’ve got a pretty deep talent pool. This docudrama about the Lakers 1980 championship features John C. Reilly in one of the most complex roles of his storied career as larger-than-life team owner Jerry Buss. Quincy Isaiah shines here in his first screen credit playing Magic Johnson as a bright-eyed superstar that’s still in the incubation phase. His main rival for the starting position is Norm Nixon played with swagger by the real-life figure’s son, DeVaughn. Surrounding them are a murderer’s row of character actors in Jerry West, Hadley Robinson, Jason Segel (did not see that coming), Tracey Letts, and the aforementioned Brody alongside Field who makes a strong impression with little screen time.

Ramy (Hulu): Ramy Yousef just plays a less self-assured version of himself, but there’s so much idiosyncrasy in the characters around him that this show deserves a place. Watching this show and not knowing the names of all the actors is a good reminder of the scarcity of Middle-Eastern actors with name recognition. Ramy’s parents are played by Amr Waked (Syriana, Salmon Fishing in Yemen) and Hiam Abbass (The Visitor) who have both done enough good work to be names among more astute American audiences, but everyone on this show deserves a brighter future. It also helps that the show format gives characters like Dena (May Calamaway), Uncle Naseem (Laith Nakli), and Ahmed (Dave Marheje) an episode in the spotlight or two.

The White Lotus (HBO)-This one is going to pop up on a lot of my lists because you can't make a TV series that works on so many layers without doing so many things right. This show has Lost/Arrested Development levels of Easter Egg placement and you better believe that the actors are in on the intricacies of each character. The show's brightest star is Emmy-winner Jennifer Coolidge but deserves a lot of credit for finding a new tone of deadpan for Aubrey Plaza, and making spaces for the largely unknown-to-American-audiences Italian newbies.

If I Picked the Emmys 2022

Best Limited Series

Winnter: White Lotus*
Nominees:

Dropout*

The Shrink Next Door

Winning Time

MAID

American Crime Story: Impeachment

Actor: Clive Owen, ACS

Nominees:

Will Ferrell, The Shrink Next Door

Quincy Isiah, Winning Time

Paul Rudd, Shrink Next Door

Mike Meyers, Penuverate

Best Actress: Margaret Qualley, Maid*

Nominees:
Beanie Feldstein, ACS

Sarah Paulson, ACS*

Amanda Seyfried, Dropout*

Alexandra Daddario, White Lotus* (Different Category)

Julie Garner, Inventing Anna*

 

Supporting Actor:  Naveen Andrews, Dropout

Jason Segel, Winning Time

Dan Bakkehdal, ACS

Murray Bartlett, White Lotus*

Adrian Brody, Winning Time

Fred Hechinger, White Lotus

Tracey Letts, Winning Time

 

Supporting Actress: Kathryn Hahn, The Shrink Next Door

Nominees: Kaitlyn Dever, The Premise

Annika Noni Rose, Maid

Annaleigh Ashford, ACS

Jenniifer Coolidge, The White Lotus*

Sidney Sweeney, The White Lotus*

Laurie Metcalf, Dropout

 

 
Best Episode: Momento Mori, Winning Time

Nominees: Pilot, Dropout

Toxic Fan, Premise

The President Kissed Me, ACS

Pentagon City Mall Interrogation, ACS

String Cheese, MAID

Bear Hunt, MAID

 

Best Writing: White Lotus

Nominees:  American Crime Story

Winning Time

 

Best Animated Show

Winnter: Central Park

Nominees: Adventure Beast

Star Trek: Lower Decks

Dicktown

Inside Job

Solar Opposites

COMEDY

 

Best Show: Resident Alien

Nominees: 

The Afterparty

What We Do in the Shadows*

Killing It

Ghosts

We Are Lady Parts

Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

 

 

Best Actor: Alan Tyduk, Resident Alien
Nicholas Hoult, The Great*

Craig Robinson, Killing It

Matt Berry, What We Do in the Shadows

Keegan Michael-Key, Schmigadoon

Ben Falcone, God’s Favorite Idiot

Glenn Howerton, AP Bio

 

Actress: Claudia O’Doherty, Killing It

Nominees:

Rachel Brosnaham, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Tiffany Haddish, The Afterparty

Cecily Strong, Schmigadoon

Aya Cash, Welcome to Flatch

Elle Fanning, The Great*

Sosie Bacon, As We See It

 

 

 

Supporting Actor: Gwilym Lee, The Great

Mark Prosch, What We Do in the Shadows

Michael Zengen, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Brandon Scott Jones, Ghosts

Tony Shalhoub, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Alan Cumming, Schmigadoon

Sacha Dawson, The Great

 

 

Supporting Actress:  Marin Hinkle, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Alice Wetterkund, Resident Alien

Belinda Bumilow, The Great

Dana Silver, Space Force

Phoebe Wright, The Great

Alex Borstein, Marvelous Mrs Maisel*

Tifany Haddish, The Afterparty

Guest Actor:  Colm Meany, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Nominees: Matt Walsh, Ghosts

Enrico Colantoni, Ghosts

Owen Wilson, SNL

PJ Byrne, Never Have I Ever

Common, Never Have I Ever

Luke Kirby, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

 

 

 

Guest Actress:  D’Arcy Carden, Killing It
 

Nominees: Kristen Schaal, What We Do in the Shadows

Alex Borstein, Resident Alien

Natasha Lyonne, SNL

Jane Lynch, Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Danica McKeller, Home Economics

Selena Gomes, SNL

 

 

Writing: What We Do in the Shadows

Nominees:

Schmigadoon

AP Bio

The Great

Marvelous Mrs Maisel

Welcome to Flatch

 

Drama

 

 

Winner: Yellow Jackets*

Nominees: The Chair

Orville

The Resort

Severance*

Flight Attendant

Star Trek: Picard

 

Actor: Adam Scott, Severance*

Nominees: Jay Duplass, The Chair

Billy Zabka, Cobra Kai

Patrick Stewart, Star Trek: Picard

Actress: Melanie Lynskey, Yellowjackets*

Britt Lower, Severance

Sandra Oh, The Chair

Annie Murphy, Kevin Can Go F**k Himself

Elizabeth Moss, Shining Faces

Kaley Cuoco, The Flight Attendant

 

 

Supporting Actor: Luis Gerardo Mendez, The Resort

Bob Balaban, The Chair

Skyler Gismodo, The Resort

Kevin Bigley, Upload

Daniel Dae Kim, Kevin Can Go F*** Himself

John Turturro, Severance*

Supporting Actress: Christina Ricci, Yellow Jackets*

Allegra Edwards, Upload

Holland Taylor, The Chair

Juliette Lewis, YellowJackets

Peyton List, Cobra Kai

Rosie Perez, The Flight Attendant

Allison Pill, Star Trek: Picard

 

Guest Actor:

Paolo Costanzo, Upload

Michael  Chernus, Severance

PJ Byrne, Cobra Kai

Guest Actress:
Leighton Meister, The Orville

Mackenzie Carroll, Upload

Whoopi Goldberg, Star Trek: Picard

 

 

Episode:  The Chair, The Chair
Dinner Party, Upload

Pilot, Yellowjacket

F Sharp, Yellowjackets

Twice in a Lifetime Graves-Orville

From Unknown Graves-Orville

What I'm Watching July Edition

 Severance (Apple Plus)-One of the best-developed science fiction worlds I’ve ever entered, Severance is about a world where a set of workers have their memories completely compartmentalized when they are in and out of work. Audience surrogate Helly (Britt Lower) works in a classified division of a faceless company who clocks into work every day and has no memory of what her life is like outside. When she clocks back into work, she is essentially a different person with a different set of memories. For Mark (Adam Scott, in his first Emmy nod), erasing his memories for eight hours a day is a good way to deal with the grief of his lost wife. Like great sci-fi, the show explores big themes of the human condition in dramatic terms. There’s also a good mystery angle that moves the plot forward. For reference, the show reminds me of Orphan Black on BBC.

The Bear (Hulu)-This show, about the adrenaline of a gourmet chef managing the kitchen of a high-end New York restaurant, is getting some good reviews. It’s an exciting sphere of our world that we don’t often get a glimpse of, so there’s a lot of potential here on paper. However, I personally wasn’t hooked. It either works or it doesn’t. The show is episodic and none of the 30-minute plots were memorable enough to remember 5 minutes after the show’s conclusion so the show relies primarily on atmosphere which isn’t enough to get over the hump. At the very least, the show gives employment to Abby Elliott, a decent character actor, who was very much in no man’s land through three and a half seasons of SNL.

The Orville (Hulu)-The Orville: New Horizons expanded in ambition this season with a larger special effects budget (a plus) and a new one-hour-plus format (a mixed bag).

The first few episodes were wobbly right out of the gate and when an episode doesn’t hit, the longer running time makes things worse. Ideally science fiction combines character development with the kinds of thought-provoking situations that can be created by when reality can be altered through scientific imagination. But the first two episodes of the first season are based on character moments that are irrelevant to the viewer: The first episode deals with the crew hating on Isaac but didn’t Isaac’s betrayal of the crew happen in early season 2? The second episode revolves around Claire’s ex-husband but he never existed before.

Another episode, “A Tale of Two Topas”, is a blatant attempt to preach around the modern-day issue of gender identity but it doesn’t combine the character development with any science-based plotting. It’s essentially a soap opera that’s too topical to have breathing room. On the other end of the spectrum, another dud of an episode, “Mortality Paradox”, is all science and no character, and there’s nothing remotely interesting behind the science. An away team goes to a planet or something that resembles a high school cafeteria (maybe they ran out of budget and decided to scout the nearby high school?) before being wandering aimlessly to a Moclan death crypt and a lake on Keyali’s home world. The episode sprinkles a couple clues as to what’s really happening and eventually the reality is revealed, but if this is an episode based on a twist, the extra-running time doesn’t suit that twist.

That being said, even as four of the first five episodes failed to land, there was no show I was looking forward to each week because the potential was always there to turn in something good. Ambition and a firm tonal grasp always trumps a mediocre show. As such, some of the greatest episodes I’ve seen all year have occurred in the back half of the season.

What We Do in the Shadows (FX)-Regularly topping my list of favorite shows, this show continues to be all that and a bag of chips. The third season saw the characters attempt to do big things. Nadja was going to take over at the world vampiric counsel, Nandor was going to travel the world, Guillermo was going to be a vampire, and Lazlo was going to raise Colin Robinson (mistakenly thinking that the new creature that emerged from the old Colin would be less boring). This is a sitcom so a lot of those arcs got aborted, but the show wisely has continued to mix things up.

Star Trek: Picard & Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (Paramount Plus)-My first time coming into contact with either of these two shows on the instructions of an editor for an essay I was writing.

Strange New Worlds is typical Trek. The characters are a bit more modern and relatable (and Spock’s jacked), but it’s the same technobabble-heavy tripe.

Picard, on the hand, is a season-long mystery. It’s visually stunning and tonally coherent. There are characters here you’ve practically never seen in Star Trek. A vagabond pilot (Santiago Cabrera), a nervous nellie of an engineer (the always underrated Alison Pull), and a depressive who self-mediates to escape her pain (Michelle Hurd). Picard is like a late-stage-John-Ford Western hero, once revered but now living with guilt. There was never a fraction of this depth on TNG, and Patrick Stewart finds a way to be true to the shallower version of Picard without making him an entirely new character.

The first season (of which I’ve seen six episodes so far) is a mystery that can compete with TV’s Golden Age in terms of telling a story that can integrate flashbacks and switch points of view without losing a beat.

Video Review of CBS All Access: Star Trek Discovery, Twilight Zone, Lower Decks, No Activity

 

Top 12 Shows of 2020

(click here for past editions)

1. The Great (Hulu) -Fans of the 2018 film “The Favourite” will appreciate the way writer Tony McNamara portrays idle pleasures and high drama as two sides of the same coin—ultimately a game that the nobility must play to curry favor with those more powerful than them. As in “The Favourite” the hierarchy leads upward to a monarch (Nicholas Hoult) with absolute power. That’s where the show presents a stark contrast between the villain and heroine (Elle Fanning) Catherine the Great who history tells us will come to modernize Russia with her rule. The question is when and finding the answer has been quite a ride so far. 

2. Dead to Me (Netflix)-Newly widowed Jen Hardy (Christina Applegate) attends a grief group where she makes the acquaintance of a strangely eager Judy (Linda Cardinelli). Judy chips away at Jen’s veneer until she forms a makeshift friendship. Or at least that’s how it seems. Within the first few episodes of the inaugural season of “Dead To Me”, it’s revealed that Judy isn’t a fellow griever but someone involved in the death of Judy’s husband and that her guilt is driving her to make it up in some karmic fashion. It’s a premise Hitchcock or Fincher would have killed for, playing out in a slow burning series. The second season expands the scale of twists--the introduction of an identical twin to the deceased is deliciously soapish (a cheap excuse to keep James Marsden employed)--but more importantly, it heightens the emotional stakes.  

 

3. Brockmire (IFC) -A lot of TV in the #metoo era is about men getting consumed by dark pasts and no one seemed more hopeless than the superhumanly aloof baseball broadcaster Jim Brockmire in the first season, but his redemptive arc that gelled in the final season makes such a light out of the tunnel not only seem possible but easy-peasy. That’s really an “It’s a Wonderful Life” scale miracle worth celebrating. In the final season, the show leapt over a decade into the future in the midst of a technocratic dystopia. Our loose-lipped hero is charged not just with personal rehabilitation but saving baseball as we know it. Pretty ambitious for a show that, remember, originated out of a “Funny or Die” sketch.

 

4. Ramy (Hulu)- The titular Ramy (Ramy Yousef) is a Muslim-American who walks the walk, but with his backwards cap and scruffy beard, he might be too far out of place on a season of Jersey Shore. Or at least, that’s the Ramy at the start of season 1. In the show’s second season, Ramy seeks a spiritual mentor (Mahershala Ali) in Sheik Malik and the show’s central relationship maintains an air of enigma. Malik projects nothing but warmth but never gives Ramy easy answers. Whereas most shows about single guys are about wanting to get laid, this is a show about a guy who wants to veer away from sexual temptation to attain spiritual enlightenment. How refreshing is that? The show also has a penchant for experimentation along the lines of “Louie” or “Master of None” (though way better) as it shifts the spotlight around.

5. What We Do in the Shadows (FX) - One of my serendipitous discoveries last year, this adaptation of New Zealand legends Jermaine Clement and Taiki Wahiti shows no signs of losing its edge. With Laszlo assuming the alternate persona of Jackie Daytona just to escape a fight, Colin Robinson becoming omnipotent through an office promotion, and Nadja gaslighting an octogenarian just to get back a necklace, this is one of the most consistently brilliantly plotted out TV shows on a per episode basis. As a quartet of vampires who have lived hundreds of years longer than the average human, they’ve largely been set in their ways like your creaky grandmother who can’t understand e-mail. Which is why the contrasts with Colin Robinson holding an office job work so well on a humor level or why Guillermo’s character development works so well in pathos.

6. The Boys (Amazon) –“The Boys” reached a new level of gripping as the evil guys became eviler, the good guys got their shit together, and everyone in the middle was forced to make a choice. Not only is this show not some hyper-merchandised part of the MCU, it’s technically not a super hero show. In this universe, super heroes are really a façade controlled by an evil company (although an evil façade is probably an accurate description of Marvel Studios, I’m guessing) in which children buy and inject a chemical. The show is allegorical to all a plethora of wrongs stemming from celebrity culture. In the second season, however, the show took on a darker tone which came with its own set of ups and downs but it was never easy to peel your eyes away. “The Boys” also deserves credit in its second season for pushing Hughie to the side and becoming a true ensemble show. 

 

7. Upload (Amazon)-Greg Daniels’ meditation on a class-based afterlife in which only those who pay can get their minds transferred to a lakeside resort after their body gives up on them, is sure to be classified as a comedy based on the pedigree of the creator (Daniels is most famous for “The Office”). But this is inaccurate. I rarely laughed and there’s nothing wrong with that. “Upload” is a thoughtful sci-fi piece that poses harder questions in a light-hearted way about our ideal reality and class. The show also has parallel mystery and romance story lines that pace along well under the main arc.

8. The Circle (Netflix)-Before the virus caused such massive shifts to our world, the American version of this show was already among the buzziest on television. The central gimmick-- isolated strangers tasked with growing bonds over social media and sussing out each other’s authenticity — surreptitiously became one of the most prescient mirrors of our era is we were forced to quarantine in pretty much the same way. But while the contestants were quarantined, that didn’t get them down. They danced for no one but themselves (in one of the most bizarre and best sequences of the show), kept themselves happy and busy, made incredible friendships, and occasionally fell for one another. Through four different countries, the show endured as a fascinating social experiment, because it reflected how online spaces allow us the freedom to present ourselves in a society with challenges therein. 

9. AP Bio (Peacock)-From outré comedy writer Mike Patrick O’Brien (responsible for some of SNL’s weirder sketches of the decade), “A.P. Bio” was miraculously rescued from cancellation-land in its third season by NBC’s spin-off paywall network. The show’s anti-hero, Jack Griffin, started out as a take on the bad teacher trope, ratcheted up to absurdium: He wasn’t just apathetic about not teaching biology, he actively avoided it to the point of logistical inefficiency. After a few episodes the show found a strange groove and morphed into an anti-sitcom sitcom in which Jack does indeed bond with his students (partially through guilt) while retaining his bitter apathetic ways. The ending of the second season promised an escalation as Helen DeMarco (Paula Pell) was enrolled in Jack’s class which meant an end to his charade. Unfortunately, the show reneged on this direction in the first episode which meant more predictable shenanigans. Fortunately, the show’s shenanigans are still sublime with one of the best ensembles on TV.

10. Fargo (FX)-Told in exquisite visual detail, this crime saga of two competing factions -- the Italians and African-American mob families in the 1950s— is one of the best educations for how and why mobs are formed that this reviewer has seen (and, mind you, this is a pretty saturated genre). “Fargo” postulates that mobs are disenfranchised groups shut out of the mainstream economy who must combine a hierarchy with muscle to claim their space among rival disenfranchised herds. The more you know, kids! In its fourth season, the series is an anthology that’s spiritually tied to the Coens 1996 film and nothing is more Coenesque than rich, eccentric characters. On both sides of the Fatta/Cannon feud, there was an ample amount of iconic larger-than-life figures (congrats Chris Rock on finding a role) and eccentric scatterbrains to make Joel and Ethan would be proud. 

11. Star Trek: Lower Decks (CBS All-Access)-Until this year, Star Trek had aired a combined 732 episodes and (as far as I know) only two have ever focused exclusively on the lower ranks of the ship. While TNG’s “Lower Decks” and Voyager’s “The Good Shephard” were a start, there are still so many holes in Star Trek's supposed post-capitalist society:  Wouldn’t there be any slackers or rebels? Fortunately, Beckett Mariner (Tawny Newsome) has traits of both. This is a show that is deeply in tune with the subject that it’s parodying. If you’ve ever wanted the “Next Generation” characters to loosen up beyond a boring jazz trombone open mic or a poker game that no one mysteriously goes all in on (both tropes that “Lower Decks” lampshades with glee), this is the show for you.  

12. Bless the Harts (Fox)- The endearing portrait of small-town Carolina life is rarely condescending and when it is, it comes from the perspective of a native daughter (“Up All Night” show runner Emily Spivey) poking fun at her own friends. Each of the four main characters is extremely endearing and there’s been a lot of world building towards some of the lesser characters (including the high-pitched Randy and the cheery news lady whose mouth is glued into a smile ala the Jack Nicholson Batman film). The show centers around a lower class North Carolina family and a waitress with modest aspirations to rise above her station; her sly mother (whose primary motivations in life are besting her rival Crystal Lynn, feeling young enough that she can flirt with construction workers, and pulling off semi-fraudulent schemes), her boyfriend (a trucker persona who’s openly a teddy bear underneath), and her dead-panning daughter.

Ten Runners-Up (very close call):

Cobra Kai (YouTube/Netflix), Middleditch and Schwartz (Netflix), Miracle Workers: Dark Ages (TBS), Never Have I Ever (Netflix), Nora from Queens (Comedy Central), Solar Opposites (Hulu), Space Force (Netflix), Teenage Bounty Hunters (Netflix), Unorthodox (Netflix), We Are the Champions (Netflix)

 

Everything else I watched:

American Dad (TBS)*, Archer (FX), Animaniacs (Hulu), Black Monday (Showtime), BoJack Horseman (Netflix), Broke (CBS), Carnival Row (Amazon), Comedy IQ (BYU TV), Connected (Netflix)*. Crossing Swords (Hulu), Everything’s Gonna be OK (Freeform), Explained (Netflix), Five Apartments (Peacock), Fresh off the Boat (ABC), Duncanville (Fox)*, Good Girls (NBC), Good Place (NBC), Joe Pera Talks to You (Adult Swim), Holey Moley (ABC), Hollywood (Netflix), Hoops (Netflix), Intelligence (Peacock), Kidding (Showtime), Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), Loafy (Comedy Central), Medical Police (Netflix), New Pope (HBO)*, Ozark (Netflix)*, Pen15 (Hulu), Politician (Netflix), Queen’s Gambit (Netflix), Quiz (AMC) , Saved by the Bell (Peacock), Sex Education (Netflix), Schooled (ABC), Schitt’s Creek (Pop TV), Simpsons (Fox)*, Solar Opposites (Hulu), Some Good News (Youtube), Space Force (Netflix), Stumptown (ABC), Studio C (BYU TV), Tales from the Loop (Amazon), A Teacher (FX), Tiger King* (Netflix), Transplant (NBC), Twilight Zone (CBS All Access), Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix), Umbrella Academy (Netflix), Unorthodox (Netfflix), Upload (Amazon), Utopia (Amazon), Waco (Netflix), Where’s Waldo (Peacock), White Lines (Netflix), Zoey’s Infinite Playlist (NBC)

*=Very limited capacity