Critiquing Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz's Top 100 TV Shows of All Time

As someone who's written listicles, I know it's annoying to
have people on the comment section going "what about this?" but my
hope is to explain theories for the context of choices, suggest alternatives,
and entertain. I also hope to make history as the first person to critique
their work while bubble bathing.

I tried very hard to get it under 20 minutes before
giving up but you have my permission to click around as I count down from 100.
Around 2:00 is when I get to the inherent challenges of a TV canon and I
actually start the list at 4:48.

Alan and Matt's book is:

TV (The Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time.

The authors of this book and I would likely agree that there isn't as established of a TV canon as there is in moviedom because most of the writing about television has generally been by TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly and it has been narrowed around "What to Watch This Week" until the past decade or so. In contrast, film has been seriously analyzed and different decades and auteurs have been matched up against each other since the days of Pauline Kael and the French New Wave.

One downside to this is that TV best-of lists have a lot less variation (everyone loves MASH, I Love Lucy, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Cosby Show, etc) and a lot more reliance on ratings to establish what has been the canon (this book's list of shows matches up very closely to how well those shows dominated over their rivals in their ratings).

Another funny thing about a TV best-of list is that to get anything resembling a popular consensus, you need the public to have had some sort of accessibility to the list and entire generations have gone without seeing some of the classics of this list. I for one have never seen All in the Family or Moonlighting because it wasn't on in syndication when I was growing up (I'm generally in the school of thought that good art has to find its way to you and not the other way around).

Even then the socio-economic factors that make a show popular is more pronounced in this meeting because a lot of these shows weren't designed to appeal to broad audiences in the present and film (a director-driven medium) is somewhat more aimed at timelessness. Others might disagree but I'd argue that many shows like Roseanne, Family Ties, and Golden Girls don't particularly age well when watching them in the present day. The clips I've seen of All in the Family seem like a show about a very whiny and shrill family.

My suggestions for classic work that should be considered are: Looney Tunes, Threes Company, Get Smart and Beverly Hillbillies

Contemporary Shows which could have been interesting choices include: Homeland, Better off Ted, Party Down, The Good Wife, Modern Family, Orange is the New Black, Cougar Town, Scandal, Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Man in High Castle, American Horror Story, and Empire

Lastly, shows that took off after the book was released that could be worthy include: Lodge 49, BoJack Horseman, The Americans, Black Mirror, Lady Dynamite, Crashing, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The Last Man on Earth, The Good Place, Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Derry Girls, Glow, Silicon Valley, and Review

Looking at sophomore shows in 2016

Most Improved:

Schitt's Creek (Pop TV)
My freshman year assessment: A decent and somewhat broad show with a few problematic characters but has its moments.
Choice Quote:
"An effeminate brat who’s likely gay but is restricted to asexuality at the moment (possibly because sex would get in the way of his daily sulking rituals), Dave is the weakest character on the show in that we know only what he doesn’t like (being around his sister, the town, daylight) and not what drives him. He would be more at home in the bratty teen comedies of the late 90s than he would in Doc Hollywood."

Sophomore year:
This year, I saw Schitt's Creek in a whole night. The three members of the Rose family not named Johnny are still all bratty and entitled but giving the kids jobs enabled their rough edges to be sanded off every so slightly while Moira went in the opposite direction. She became more overtly aloof which drew more out-loud laughter from me. The TV landscape is shifting more towards soft-laugh   dramedy and Moira's absurdist demeanor keeps "Schitt's Creek" out of that trap. It's partially my comfort with the show and partially a concerted effort for the show to deepen its bench that I started to really appreciate the entire populance of the town. In season one, the taming of the  David  through the power of Stevie's sarcasm was just about the only memorable character interaction the show had. In Season 2, I enjoyed the sweetness of David-Stevie's evolution but I also found myself suddenly becoming enamored with Twyla's tangential  blabbing, Jocelyn's eternal reservoir of patience and  Bob's creepy intrusions into  Johnny's space.

Another Period (Comedy Central)
My freshman year assessment: The period angles are generally pretty clever, jokes are too dense and haphazard to really get a solid tone going, there are two solid characters, but the protagonists in the middle are too mean-spirited and awful to really enjoy their company.

Choice Quote:
"The main drawing point of the show (and what keeps it watchable) is that it's a fun period piece and it's very rare to see "fun" and "period piece" in the same sentence of a synopsis....The show is too sloppy to be taken as much of a satire and its characters are too cruel to be taken sympathetically or even seriously. The bloated ensemble also leads to episodes that are overly crammed for the thirty-minute running time. Despite these flaws, the show is still watchable and worthy of a laugh here and there."

Sophomore Year: This show  is easily one of my favorite things on TV
A general evening out of karma certainly helped here. The girls were exiled then upstaged by Harriet Tubman and Hortense, the servants had a semi-successful strike, and even Blanche got a good 6 or 7 minutes of maternity leave. Of course it's just a silly comedy, but it's preferable to see characters get their due than to watch the same well-meaning people get beaten up. This is especially true of TV because of the week-to-week repetition.  The oscillating balance of power between Dido and Chair (I'm Team Chair for the record) for control of the house, the possibility that the Commodore might lose his fortune, and the secret reveal of the Commodore's secret brother all moved the show closer to the source material it was meant to parody in "Downtown Abbey." Like "Schitt's Creek," my love for this show also had to do with my greater familiarity with the character beats over time which made the multi-layered character jokes hit that much harder.

Slight Improvement:

Real O'Neals (ABC)
My freshman assessment: I found this show to be passable but hampered by some over-dramatic tendencies by the protagonist. This extends on a meta-level as the show thinking it's more socially significant than it is: Divorces, gay teenage children, and whatever was inflicting the two other children (which were clearly gimmicks) are not really taboo in 2015 or 2016.
Choice Quote: I've never written about this show before.

Sophomore Year: The first season can best be seen as overly prolonged exposition with many of the plots revolving around the O'Neal family restating their problems as if they were wearing character-defining name tags. With the new season, the O'Neals are moving past realization to dealing with life under these new identities. Eileen, for example, is now dating a guy but her baggage lingers as subtext so the establishing premise of the show is existent at a less blaring level. Additionally, Kenny gets served up enough doses of humility to keep him from coming off as too egotistical. At the same time, the show's level of humor isn't as solid as it could be and the show could use a little more definition for Kenny's older brother (younger sister Shannon has been relegated to comic relief which I'm fine with).

Fresh off the Boat (ABC)
My Freshman Year Assessment: Ranked in my top 10 last year.
Choice Quote: "The show is simultaneously a throwback to TGIF family-style sitcoms of the '90s with a modern edginess to it in the vein of "Everybody Hates Chris" or "Malcolm in the Middle." More than those two shows, however, the show approaches 90's sitcoms with an ironic self-consciousness without omitting that genuine sweetness that those sitcoms were known for. More often than not, 11-year-old protagonist Eddie Huang learns a lesson in a round about way."

Sophomore Year (technically, we are in the top half of the 3rd season): The show started out being anchored by an amiable protagonist (Hudson Yang as Eddie), a breakout character in his mother Jessica (Constance Wu), a scene stealer in Grandma Haung (Lucille Soong) and an occasional choice moment by one of Eddie's younger brothers. Perhaps, it was a plus that Eddie's brothers weren't particularly well-developed in the opening season (I often joked that they were interchangeable). It gave room to flesh them out so much more in the second and third seasons. Similarly, Louis Huang has been developed although he sometimes is pushed into cliched aloof dad territory, he's often a solid foil for Eddie and Jessica and his own subplots can often be the strongest of the show. For the most part, the show continues to impress through strongly written plots that find ways to evoke sentiment and twists even with fairly standard set-ups.

For a show that prides itself on being so thoroughly engrossed in the past, it helps that they are slowly moving through the 90s at the same rate the show moves through the 2010s. We had the Bob Dole-Clinton election, Biggie Smalls death, and Shaq's Orlando move. Viva 1996!


Also in this category: Documentary Now (IFC)


Relatively Even:

Casual (Hulu)
My Freshman Year Assessment: I ranked it 10th on my year-end ranking for being one of the few character-based dramedies that is able to be both meaningful and entertaining (looking at you "Togetherness" and "Louie").
Choice Quote:
"Shows centering around flawed people dating are generally problematic because
it's hard to empathize with the trials and tribulations of good-looking actors with active sex lives. Few shows have highlighted the emptiness of sex like this show....Jason Reitman directed the first two episodes of this show and his penchant for combining a light comedic (or as they say "dramedic") tone and truthful character work is in full form here. With Tara Lynn Barr's character pushing the envelope of the bratty teenage daughter trope; Eliza Coupe as a manic pixie sexual nightmare, and one of the most meaningful sibling relationships on TV, there's a lot of great character work being done here."

My Second Season Assessment: Pro: More entertaining, Con: Lost steam towards the end
Shows automatically lose their novelty element in the second season which gets more problematic when novelty is why I liked the show in the first place. "Casual" took a brave approach by having a dramedy template but trying to entertain the audience entirely without jokes (my apologies to the show's marketing department, but who do you think you're kidding calling this funny?) and during the second season it appeared to work even better. I was thoroughly invested by the characters largely lateral movements in life. This would be in the improved column, but the show ran out of steam after around ten episodes when Alex got the girl and the last three episodes were an awkward mix of denouement and half-hearted plot recycling (Judd Apatow films are often said to experience the same problem).

Grace and Frankie (Netflix)
My Freshman Year Assessment: I found the show refreshingly novel in its coverage of the elderly. The closest examples ("Hot in Cleveland" and "The Golden Girls") treat their characters like punchlines next to the nuance shown here.
Choice Quote:
"Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin can act circles around all the young guns on TV so their arrival to serialized TV this year was a welcome surprise. The show is one of the few examples that shows about older people don't have to be tailor made for the AARP crowd. The trials and tribulations of Grace and Frankie were transcendent for all generations."

My second season assessment: The novelty was gone so the show had to swim upstream, to an extent, to maintain my level of interest but when it succeeded, it gave me a renewed appreciation for what the show was trying to do.

The two central characters had a few dragging plotlines. Most notably, the tryst with Phil (Sam Elliott) would have been worth it if it went anywhere but it went out with a whimper. On the plus side, a professional dimension was added to Gracie and Frankie's trials and tribulations. The kids have largely been phased out (wisely so) with the juiciest dynamic on the show being Brianna and Frankie. The tension resulting from personality differences between Robert and Saul finally erupted and the resulting scenes finally earned Robert and Saul the screen time they've been clamoring for.

Also in this category: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) (2nd season assessment here), Blind Spot (NBC),The Awesomes (Hulu)

Gone Downhill

Last Man on Earth (Fox)
My Freshman Year Assessment: I ranked it 2nd on my year-end ranking 
Choice Quote: "The novelty of the premise allowed the show to switch gears with new cast additions and subtractions which leant itself to one of the most unpredictable rides on television backed by one hell of a comic performance in Will Forte as the ever-evolving post-apocalyptic schlub Phil Miller 1.0 ."

My Second Season (although technically this is the 3rd season) Assessment: Blah
I don't blame this show for taking some dive in quality. It was a very high premise show whose high aims resulted in a brilliant one and a half seasons. It was with that same sense of ambition that the show made some gambles that didn't result in a show I still wanted to see. The show's first season was mainly Phil Tandy verse his worst instincts whereas the second season flipped the script to show the shortcomings of the group in not yet accepting a reformed Tandy before escalating into a situation where the other Phil became the group's number one villain. Unfortunately, the show couldn't sustain the tension when it substituted the militaristic grit of other Phil with the playful sibling rivalry of Jason Sudeikis. I like Sudeikis as much as any casual SNL fan but does he merit this much good will? The show needs a palpable sense of danger and "Last Man on Earth"'s unofficial rule of seven is starting to make things predictable.

Also in this category: Narcos (Netflix), Daredevil (Netflix)









 

My Top 12 Shows of 2015

It's time for my annual edition of My Top 12 Shows of 2015 (for past editions, check out the Top 10 TV tag):


1. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, FX- There’s little chance that the show will receive

the awards recognition it so bluntly told us it didn't need in "The Gang Tries Desperately to Win an Award" but, for my money, this is the most sophisticated comedy on TV and deserves even more credit for continuing to be one of television’s most innovative shows after its 100-episode mark. The tenth season featured a drink-a-thon on a cross-country flight, a "Birdman" homage which followed Charlie for a continuous nine-minute shot (with commercials pre-empted), a cult created by Dennis (later co-opted by Dee, Frank, and Dee again), a fight to claim Frank’s bloodline, and an appearance by the gang on Family Feud. With the character beats becoming richer and more complex, It’s Always Sunny not only has one of the most well-developed comic voices on television, but it also has TV’s most finely tuned ensemble.




2. Last Man on Earth, Fox-A Twilight Zone premise wrapped in the sensibilities of an SNL sketch,
Will Forte plays a guy whose makeshift solutions to being the sole survivor of an epidemic-induced apocalypse are building a kick-ass margarita pool and befriending an array of volleyballs. It's an entertaining enough show but the game changes entirely when he meets Kristen Schaal and the show morphs into an Adam-in-Eve situation in which Eve is a shrewish nag and Adam wants to run away from responsibility. And so on and so forth. The novelty of the premise allowed the show to switch gears with new cast additions and subtractions which leant itself to one of the most unpredictable rides on television backed by one hell of a comic performance in Will Forte as the ever-evolving post-apocalyptic schlub Phil Miller 1.0 .


3. BoJack Horseman, Netflix-Move over "Togetherness" and "Happyish": The most psychologically resonant exploration of happiness and depression didn't come from some prestige cable show but a cartoon about a talking horse. BJH started out as a Hollywood satire and while it hasn't lost any of its funny in the Netflix show's sophomore season, the journey of its central character is heart-wrenching but grounded in such truth that BoJack's highs are well-earned and the lows are deeply felt. The show is also doing an incredible job at world-building with meatier story lines for the side characters, the addition of Lisa Kudrow as an owl stuck in the 80's, and too many other anthropomorphic strokes of genius to mention here. The show creators even tried their darndest to explain the lingering question about where meat comes from in this all-animal universe.  

4. Orange is the New Black, Netflix-Continuing its exploration of oppressed womanhood through the lens of a woman's federal prison, OitNB's new season continued utilizing every facet of one of 
TV's best ensembles to achieve a finely tuned balance of the humorously quirky (i.e. Cindy's attempts to convert to Judaism, Angie's escape attempt), the heartwarming (i.e. Crazy Eyes' crush, the budding friendship between Boo and Pennsatucky), and darker territory (i.e. Pennsatucky's rape, Soso's suicide attempt, Sophia's discrimination) culminating in a glorious free-for-all prison-wide stampede into a neighboring water reservoir for a moment of careless joy. Overlying all this is the clash of idealism verse reality in Caputo's pragmatic attempt to best his predecessor in having a net positive effect on prison conditions. If there is one disappointment to be found in Season 3, it is unclear whether the showrunners are aware that Piper (and Alex) no longer has the potential to be the show's most interesting story line in any given episode. That's just a testament to the strength of the ensemble. 

5. The Brink, HBO-Hampered by early unfavorable comparisons to "Dr. Strangelove" and "Veep", the political black comedy did a wonderful job of amassing fans and silencing haters as its disparate story lines weaved together, the characters got more and more absurd (the sexy no-nonsense Israeli consulate, non-sequitors Vanessa and Martin, the hyper religious ambassador and that's just the side characters), its stakes escalated consistently, and its running gags started hitting with increased frequency. The first season followed a pair of distractable fighter pilots (Pablo Schreiber and Eric Ladin), a low-level State Department attache and his driver (Jack Black and Aasif Mandvi) and one of TV's best comedic performances in Tim Robbins as a hell-bent secretary of state. Maribeth Monroe (mastering the diplomatic walk-and-talk in a manner that would make Aaron Sorkin proud), John Larroquette, and Carla Gugino round out a hyper-talented ensemble.

6. Narcos, Netflix-Narcos is the classic study of power corrupting that's been told many times by De Palma, Scorsese and Coppola but it feels fresh when this tale is transplanted to the leadership vacuum of Colombia. 

Pablo Escobar isn't a Ray Liotta character who fell under the allure of crime and turned cold. Instead, Escobar was a man who grew up in an environment where evil was the norm and he just exploited it better than anyone else. Narcos makes the case that Columbia's drug empire was born out of a dog-eat-dog world. Chance is also a key thru-line that runs through the series: It was through mere chance that the "cockroach" surveyed a Chilean death squad and picked Pablo Escobar for his goldilocks qualities (not too murdery, not too soft) out of the three cartel chiefs in Medellin.

The story is one of the few TV shows where over reliance on narration is welcome and if you listen closely, you'll notice that the narration is a character in his own right (not at the Ron Howard level on "Arrested Development" but maybe it soon).

7. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Netflix-Tina Fey and Robert Carlock attempt to mine

humor out of one of the darkest sitcom premises imaginable -- a woman readjusting to life after being trapped for 15 years in a psychotic preachers' bunker -- and succeed wildly in their sophomore follow-up to "30 Rock." Ellie Kemper (the only actress who seemed like she was trying in the latter seasons of “The Office”) shines as a heroine who drops an odd mix of naivette and spunky enthusiasm with every line of dialogue. Casting Tituss Burgess and Carol "Mrs. Latka Gravas" Kane as Kimmy's sidekicks are both strokes of inspiration and, rounding out the cast, Jane Krakowski proves game at once again poking fun at imagined aristocratic mores as a boomerang bigot (she's secretly Native American). The show regularly delves into absurdity and the direction often breaks the fourth wall, but it never loses site of that underlying "Mary Tyler Moore"-like storyline of a girl trying to make it on her own. 

8. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, CW-Genre-savvy Rachel Bloom has made a name for herself by wielding an axe through the conventions of musical theater in a series of deliciously subversive YouTube videos and hasn't missed a beat in transferring her style of comedy to the small screen. Bloom plays Harvard-educated lawyer Rebecca Bunch who gets a lot of mileage out of being so wonderfully neurotic that she's an unreliable narrator in her own story. Is she really in West Covina for Josh? Is she aware of her illness? The vagueness of her situation lends itself perfectly to the reality-bending nature of the integrated musical and there's a lot of fun to be had. The show also deserves credit for developing all sides of the Josh-Greg-Rebecca love triangle. Greg (Santiago Fontana) is jaded without being unsympathetic and Josh (Vincent Rodriguez) is a sincerely sweet guy who just happens to have not yet caught onto Rebecca's loopiness. Both characterizations are hard to pull off. Other highlights include Donna Lynne Champlin as Rebecca's desperate-for-friends coworker and (my personal favorite) Vella Lovell as a neighbor who could give "Brooklyn Nine-Nine"'s Chelsea Peretti as TV's ditziest character a run for her money.


9. Fresh off the Boat, ABC-Simultaneously a throwback to and a riff on TGIF family-style sitcoms, "Fresh off the Boat" has a modern edginess in the vein of "Everybody Hates Chris" or "Malcolm in the Middle." More than those two shows, however, the show approaches 90's sitcoms with an ironic self-consciousness without omitting that genuine sweetness that those sitcoms were known for. More often than not, 11-year-old protagonist Eddie Huang learns a lesson in a roundabout way.


Featuring the first Asian-American family on network TV in 20 years (if you don't count TBS, and who does?), the show is unashamed to be a product of its place and time and half the fun is ironically reliving the 90's references that the show is so generous to sprinkle out. Showrunner Nahnatchka Khan infuses the plots with labyrinthine storylines that are reminiscent of the looniness she brought to the sitcom with "Don't Trust the B----" but the results are enhanced with the sincere performances of Randall Park and Constance Wu. In particular, Wu qualifies as one of the breakout characters of the season with her wry delivery of some of TV's best lines of dialogue.  

10. Casual, Hulu-Shows centering around flawed people dating are generally problematic because
it's hard to empathize with the trials and tribulations of good-looking actors with active sex lives. Few shows have highlighted the emptiness of sex like this show which features the talents of SNL's biggest firing mistake of the century in Michaela Watkins. Watkins plays a recent divorcee cohabitating with her brother (Tommy Dewey) and trying to get herself back in the field. As a psychiatrist, she has an impeccable grasp on relationship problems but can't get over the hump that involves herself.

Jason Reitman directed the first two episodes of this show and his penchant for combining a light comedic (or as they say "dramedic") tone and truthful character work is in full form here. With Tara Lynn Barr's character pushing the envelope of the bratty teenage daughter trope; Eliza Coupe as a manic pixie sexual nightmare, and one of the most meaningful sibling relationships on TV, there's a lot of great character work being done here.



11. Empire, Fox-With it's two instantly iconic leads in Terrence Howard and Taraji P Henson and a kinetic pace, Empire's first season was entirely worthy of being the buzziest show on TV.. In an age where TV critics are becoming increasingly difficult to please as a de facto diversity police of sorts, Empire has been transcendent in its ambition to tell an Orson Wellesian version of the modern African-American narrative. The modern portrayal of the rags-to-riches myth as a hip-hop empire is given its proper due here. Unfortunately in the second season, the show started shuffling alliances and plot sequences with too much carelessness to maintain any consistency. A groundbreaking first season and a shockingly disappointing second season average out somewhere around 11th place.

12. Homeland, Showtime-After skipping a season and a half, it's relatively comforting to jump in on

Season 5 and see it's not impossible to get back in stride with this show. With Brody's story line having run out of steam (along with, you know, his being dead), the show has turned a new chapter (complete with an exciting new atonal opening credit sequence). As the show relocates to Berlin, the show takes on the aura of a neo-Cold War thriller. Saul, Rupert and Dar Adal return in roles that stretch them (particularly Saul) in new scenarios while Miranda Otto as Saul's cunning new right hand woman and Otto During as a high-powered business man with a big heart are among the new characters added to the mix. What's refreshing about the 5th season of "Homeland" is that there's a normalcy to these characters while there's plenty of room to make the principals squirm.

[UPDATE: I HAVE NOW WATCHED MOZART IN THE JUNGLE AT AMAZON PRIME AND THIS SHOW WOULD HAVE MADE MY TOP 12 BUMPING HOMELAND INTO HONORABLE MENTION AND BUMPING MODERN FAMILY OUT OF HONORABLE MENTION]

Honorable Mention:
12 Monkeys, SyFy-"Honorable" is the key word here. The show started strong out the gate with wonderfully loopy time travel plots (I'm a sucker for that kind of thing) and a tangible chemistry between leads Amanda Schull and Aaron Stanford. The show started to muddle itself up by going in tangential directions and I have yet to complete it, but we'll always have the show's great start.

Adam Ruins Everything, TruTV-Of all the sketches from CollegeHumor's catalogue to turn into a TV show, this is a winner. Adam Conover's know-it-all skeptic is a fully-formed comic character who succeeds in both entertaining and enlightening, but much of the credit also goes to the way the show makes full use of the cinematic possibilities of the half-hour format.

Better Call Saul, AMC-It's a breath of fresh air to revisit Vince Gilligan's version of Albuquerque without having the expectations and elevated prestige of "Breaking Bad" and Bob Odenkirk certainly didn't let us down in his new role as series lead. The character work and sense of place were both rich as can be but the storylines weren't as memorable so many months later.

Billy on the Street, TruTV-One of my favorite discoveries of 2015, Billy Eichner is raw, hilarious, and fearless. His obsession with pop culture taken to violent extremes is something that I suspect a lot of us see in ourselves (I know I do).

Daredevil, Netflix-Probably, my #13, Daredevil was a highly satisfying trip that really succeeded at being grounded in an age where every other superhero blockbuster tries to hammer the point in that their hero is an everyday guy. The cast of Charlie Cox, Elden Henson, Vincent D'onofrio, Deborah Ann Woll, Rosario Dawson, Ayelet Zurer, and Toby Leonard Moore produced some of the richest characters on TV.

Grace and Frankie, Netflix-Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin can act circles around all the young guns on TV so their arrival to serialized TV this year was a welcome surprise. The show is one of the few examples that shows about older people don't have to be tailor made for the AARP crowd. The trials and tribulations of Grace and Frankie were transcendent for all generations.

Inside Amy Schumer, Comedy Central-One of the most distinct, edgy and consistently funny sketch shows out there. "12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer" can stand up against any 30 minutes of TV this season but so many smaller sketches like the "Friday Night Lights" parody and the "I'm Sorry" sketch were inspired pieces of satire as well.

Last Week tonight with with John Oliver, HBO-Oliver made my list last year and he continues to make me laugh and inflame my passions in equal measure.

Modern Family, ABC-In recent years, I joined the critical chorus in proclaiming the show's arrival into the land of diminishing returns, but the show seemed to have a revival as of late. The Andy-Haley storyline has been deftly handled and the show continues to find inventive uses for the comedic talents of Ty Burrell and Sofia Vergara. In all honesty, I'm not suggesting this show is groundbreaking but with an uptick in writing quality, it is one of my most consistently enjoyable viewing experiences week in and week out.

Sense8, Netflix-A highly ambitious global soap opera and superhero show from the Wachowski Brothers that feels tonally different than any other superhero show out there with it's more humanist and global tone.

To let you know what exactly I did watch this year so you can see the pool I chose these TV shows from (some of these are in fact, pretty good, too):
2 Broke Girls, CBS, American Dad, TBS; Agent Carter, ABC; American Horror Story, FX (only the 1st episode); Americans, FX (only about 4 episodes, might have made the list if I finished the season); Another Period, Comedy Central; Archer, FX; Bates Motel, A and E; Ash vs Evil Dead, Starz; The Awesomes, Hulu; Big Time in Hollywood Florida, Comedy Central; Blind Spot, NBC; Bloodline, Netflix (only 3 episodes); The Comedians, FX (only 2 episodes); Daily Show w/Trevor Noah, Comedy Central; Difficult People, Hulu; Documentary Now, IFC; Dr. Ken, ABC; Elementary, CBS; Family Guy, Fox; Fugget About It, Hulu; Garfunkel and Oates, IFC; Glee, Fox; Gotham, Fox;  Grinder, Fox; Halt and Catch Fire, AMC; Humans, AMC; Impress Me, Pop TV; Key and Peele, Comedy Central; Librarians, TNT; Late Show with David Letterman/Stephen Colbert, CBS; Late Show with James Corden, CBS; Master of None, Netflix; Man Seeking Woman, FX; Middle of the Night Show, MTV; Mom, CBS; Other Space, Yahoo; Playing House, USA (only 3 episodes); Project Greenlight, HBO; Real Time with Bill Maher, HBO; Review, Comedy Central; Rick and Morty, Adult Swim;  Seth Meyers, NBC; Seven Days in Hell, HBO; Schitt's Creek, Pop TV, Silicon Valley, HBO; Sing it On, Pop TV; SNL, NBC; Toddrick, MTV; Togetherness, HBO; Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, NBC; True Detective, HBO (only the 1st episode)

If I had an Emmy Ballot: Lazy Comedy Picks

This is the comedy series of my lazy Emmy picks. As I said in my previous post, this is where I make decisions about what I would submit on an Emmy ballot without having seen everything. I wish I had time to fill in some of my opinions, but I'm writing so much over at Hidden Remote.


Best Series:
Last Man on Earth  (Fox)
Mom  (CBS)
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)
Fresh off the Boat (ABC)
Silicon Valley (HBO)
Modern Family (ABC)

Best Actor:
Will Forte, Last Man on Earth
John Cho, Selfie (ABC)
Jeffrey Tambour, Transparent* (Amazon)
Jay Harrington, Benched (USA)
Ty Burrell, Modern Family (ABC)
Ken Marino, Marry Me (NBC)


Best Actress:
Zoe Deschannel, New Girl (Fox)
Jane Fonda, Grace and Frankie  (Netflix)
Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie 
Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central)
Anna Faris, Mom
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation (NBC)


Best Aupporting Actor:
Hugh Laurie, Veep* (HBO)
Taran Killam, SNL 
Charlie Day, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia 
Titus Burges, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Sam Waterson, Grace and Frankie
Adam Scott, Parks and Recreation

Best Supporting Actress:
Constance Wu, Fresh off the Boat
Chelsea Peretti, Brooklyn Nine Nine
Carol Kane, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Judith Light, Transparent*
Ariel Winter, Modern Family
Julie Bowen, Modern Family

Best Guest Actor:
Paul Giamatti, Inside Amy Schumer
Jim Carrey, SNL
John Hamm, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Chris Dianotopolous. Silicon Valley
Oliver Platt, Modern Family
Paul Scheer, Fresh off the Boat

Best Guest Actress:
Vanessa Bayer, Portlandia (IFC)
Reese Witherspoon, SNL
Mary Steenburgen, Last Man on Earth
Mary Steenburgen, Togetherness
Natalie Morales, Parks and Recreation
Jennifer Hasty, Selfie


Best Directing:
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Inside Amy Schumer
Selfie
A to Z (Fox)
Modern Family


Best Writing:
Archer (FX)
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Grace and Frankie
Last Man on Earth
Inside Amy Schumer
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Links to all my work at Hidden Remote

Since May, I have been writing for Hidden Remote as a TV reviewer.

I have not been able to blog here as much but I will use this space to highlight the work I've been doing there.

First off, here is my author page.

I started out with an essay on breakout stars from the Spring of 2015 that follows off my annual Top 25 Characters posts. I included probable Emmy nominee Ben Mendelsohn from Bloodline, breakout scenery chewers Constance Wu and Taraji P Henson of Fresh off the Boat and Empire respectively, Anna Faris of Mom, Carol Kane of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Charlie Cox of Daredevil, Emily Hampshire of Schitt's Creek and Charlie Day of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Will Forte for Last Man on Earth and recurring star Adam Devine for Modern Family.

I then did a critical reassessment of the 2003 Daredevil in light of the successful Netflix series.

From there I reviewed 2 Broke Girls in the last two episodes of the season and had a lot of fun reviewing a show I feel has some redeeming qualities but is ultimately very crude and sloppy. In the second review, I had a lot of fun dissecting some of the bad jokes line-for-line.

After that, I looked at some of the Guest Stars You Didn't Know Were On It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

I also did a Season 1 review of Sense8 which I found a highly ambitious and unconventional superhero show that had a very impressive commitment to being a global show.

Currently, I am reviewing the first season of The Brink on HBO and the second season of Halt and Catch Fire on AMC. The Brink is a show that I have fallen in love with after five episodes but it's been particularly jarring to see other critics in disagreement with me. One of the most exciting things about reviewing TV is that you form opinions in a vacuum and I had no idea that other critics wouldn't respond the same way as I did when I reviewed the show. Halt and Catch Fire is a show I pretty much gave up on first season but because of the convenience of the premiere date (and a connection to one of the show's executive producers), I decided to give it a second try and while the show isn't among my favorites this year, it has markedly improved.

Spring 2015 TV Report Part I: Last Man on Earth, Glee, Togetherness, Archer

Last Man on Earth (FOX)-Sponsored by the Tuscon Chamber of Commerce, this comedy isn't so much high-concept as a hard sell considering no one wants to watch "Cast Away" (or "All is Lost" for those of you who weren't coming of age in 2000) as a comedy.

Credit: TVline.com

Will Forte, who co-created the series with "Clone High" cohorts Phil Lord and Chris Miller, believes himself to be the soul survivor of some biological epidemic until he meets Kristen Schaal, and the two deal with the realities of an Adam-and-Eve type situation in which Eve is a shrewish nag and Adam is the kind of adult slacker who sees the end of days as a prime opportunity to go bowling with cars and create a sweet margarita pool.

She's not quite "Flight of the Conchords" Kristen Schaal crazy, but crazy enough to think there's a reason to stop at a traffic light when there are no other moving vehicles on the planet. Schaal wants Forte to "marry" her and then do some hard-core repopulation to save the human race and Forte eventually relents because he's just plain horny.  But we have ourselves a love triangle when a third survivor turns up who turns out to be Forte's dream girl (a very down-to-earth January Jones) and he can't do anything because he's a "married man."

This isn't a show that has an interest in fleshing out any view of the apocalypse. Not even at a comedic level. How these people hijack cars at will, why there aren't dead bodies, or what the hell they're all doing in Tucson (where summer daytime temperatures average over 100 degrees) are questions the show isn't interested in answering. The show can best be described as a Twilight Zone episode wrapped up into the sensibilities of an SNL sketch. Forte finding himself locked out of his dream girls' pants because he quite reasonably married who he thought was the last girl on Earth is the sophomoric comedic equivalent of Meredith Burgess's bookworm character having access to all the books on Earth as its last survivor only to have his glasses broken.

Glee (FOX)-With the pressure of telling the story of a Glee club out of the way (it was supposedly dissolved and the writing room covered their bases by having all the underclassmen mysteriously transferred out), Season 6 had the potential to hone in on tighter stories. It was highly possible for the show to have a decent swan song, but instead Glee devolved massively. Why does everyone end up back in Lima coaching glee clubs when the overarching theme of the first few seasons was the first couple of seasons were primarily about high schoolers harnessing the power of song and dance to avoid being "Lima Losers"?

In the fifth season, the show's infrastructure fell apart as so many of the original characters were graduating and scattering in different directions. To hold the show together, "Glee" has employed every artificial coincidence imaginable. The show has gone beyond jumping the shark: It's almost as if Glee's writing room had determined that their last chance at cultural relevancy would be to jump the shark in such a memorably absurd way that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull's "Nuke the Fridge" might be supplanted with "Hypnotize the  Chord Overstreet character" or "sex-change the football coach."

Nostalgic folks who look at the disaster of Season 6 and long for the days when Glee wasn't so erratic are forgetting that this show has always had a problem with burning through plot too quickly. If you remember, Finn and Rachel would quit or rejoin the show every other episode, and it was only a matter of weeks before big bully Puck was part of the gang and dating Rachel.

The show succeeded in stretches where the brand of crazy managed to be contained towards amusingly out there as opposed to batshit insane.This was one of show's few sensible long-term decisions Murphy and his crew consciously made. It was also the show's last good decision. 

Togetherness (HBO)-Although I suspect that the half-hour length will place this show-- about a couple of thirty-something lost souls simultaneously crashing on the couch of a couple undergoing marital decay-- squarely in the comedy category. who are we kidding here? The Duplass brothers' style has strains of what I believe is referred to as neorealism (think Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio de Sica, Noah Baumbauch, or Alexander Payne) where the story line is paced at the speed of life. Two of my favorite films in this mold that coincidentally came out in the same year are "Lost in Translation" and "Master and Commander." The former tracks a chance platonic relationship in a foreign country and the latter tracks a war ship in the Napoleonic Era. Neither film moves faster than the speed of life and that adds value to the storytelling. In reality, a ship in that era would go long stretches of time without seeing any significant action and by setting the story mostly during those lulls in action, the viewer feels an appreciation for the vast distances in time and space in the 19th Century.

Similarly, this show feels like watching an extremely lifelike view of a marriage as its dissolving. Up until the seventh episode when Brett (Mark Duplass) gets high on mushrooms and crashes his child's birthday party, very little happens on the show that's more eventful than, for example, my own life. When the characters I'm watching on TV are less interesting than me, I would say that's problematic but I'm willing to chalk it up to a curious phenomenon.

This is all well within the mold of the Duplass style but at the same time, previous efforts such as "Jeff Who Live at Home" and "Cyrus" had hooky scenarios. This show's scenario seems to have potential as two adults are navigating a weird situation but many of the episodes focus on low-key activities. The episode where Michelle (Melanie Lynskey) tries to spice up her sex life with Brett was even tame by the standards of today's television landscape.

This isn't to say that the show isn't watchable. Melanie Lynskey and Amanda Peete are excellent actresses who truly elevate the material and the chemistry between Steve Zissis and Duplass as two lifelong friends has a lot going for it. Similarly, there's nothing emotionally unfulfilling about the main storyline of this marriage on the rocks. There's just a little bit of energy lacking at times.

Archer (FX)-I analyzed this show to death over at TV Fanatic this past season so it's best to read my reviews there. To give a brief summary on my views of this season, Archer Vice was a bold experiment that paid off tremendously, but this season took us back into the old groove of Archer. I know going into the season that unless something drastic happened to Adam Reed's brain chemistry (I learned over the course of this season that Adam Reed writes nearly every episode of the show himself), that the writing would be as steady as it had always been. The difference is that without the overarching through lines, each episode had to sink or swim on its own merits.

The season was largely one of regrouping as the gang welcomed Slater into the fold as a sort of surrogate Mallory (leaving Jessica Walter with less airtime). Slater has spent quite a bit of time with the gang at this point and has managed the remarkable feat of spending time with the gang and not getting a little bit batty himself. As we've seen with Cyril and Lana, the descent from sensible human being to can amusing miscreant is inevitable when you spend enough time with Archer and company.

The bottle episode and the mansion listing episodes were the season's strongest outings and demonstrated that when the gang gets together in one place and all of their various ineptitudes are combined in pursuit of an outlandish goal, the possibilities for humor are endless.

Too often, however, the show broke off the main group into an action-oriented A-plot and highly forgettable B-plots which carried out their designated function of breaking up the action and that was about it. Most of the B-plots revolved around Baby AJ who was a pretty questionable addition considering Archer and Lana were already on a collision course anyway and we already had the wee baby Seamus (a definite fan favorite, ok, not really, but...). It's also worth noting that this is a baby Lana had using Archer's man juice (I spent a while thinking up a good word there) without his permission which is a pretty bizarre thing for anyone to do who isn't a psychotic stalker. That's pretty far away from what Lana is.

Write-ups to come on: Fresh off the Boat, Modern Family, Empire, 12 Monkeys, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. It's Always Sunny, The Librarians, Schitt's Creek, Daredevil
  
[Ed. Update: Part II is here http://sophomorecritic.blogspot.com/2015/04/spring-2015-roundup-part-ii-schitts.html]