25 Best TV Characters of 2018

Again, check out my patreon  to keep me in business. Don't worry. Though I'm posting this in 2020, I have a 2019 edition of this list lined up too. I also did these lists between 2012 and 2015 if you click on the top 25 character tab.

1.       Pete Holmes as himself, Crashing (HBO)-As opposed to most comedians (or the fictionalized TV versions of themselves) who just want to get ahead, this show has a protagonist who’s sincerely trying to navigate the changing boundaries of integrity as he gets a taste of success in the world of stand-up. The apologetic Holmes is gangly, awkward and sometimes wrong but there’s an underlying sweetness to him.

2.       Giovanni Ribisi as Marius Josipovic/Pete Murphy, Sneaky Pete (Amazon)-Watching genius at work is why we’re attracted to a character like Pete whose extroadinary abilities to think on the fly, read people, and work a con make him almost like a stateside Sherlock Holmes on the wrong side of the law. With a supreme expertise in his field, Pete is in the mold of the procedurals of the aughts (particularly Burn Notice but also House and Monk) but his backstory and the progression of his relationship to the Murphy clan make him fit into the serialized mold as well.  

3.       Julie Garner as Ruth Langmore, Ozark (Netflix)-Ruth feels like she wouldn’t fit in anywhere other than the Missouri/Arkansas border and that’s great for the show. She’s pragmatic and tough-as-nails but she doesn’t shy away from showing her emotions with her allegiance to her boss or her hope for a better future for her cousin.

4.       Kristin Chenoweth as Lavinia Peck-Foster, Trial and Error (NBC)-To fill in the shoes of John Lithgow’s unapologetically weird professor and carry the momentum of a sitcom into a second season with entirely different, Chenoweth had a high bar to meet. She’s not just a great caricature of disconnected rich privilege, but she also is a great example of the bunny ears lawyer trope (someone who shouldn’t be as effective professionally as they are) as killers go considering she seems to have so little awareness of reality.

5.       Manny Jacinto as Jason Mendoza, Good Place (NBC)-There is now depth to the stupidity of Jason Mendoza that can’t be mined for comedy. This year’s Jason-centered episode “The Ballad of Donkey Doug” proved quite a bit of impressive backstory for a guy who’s Jacksonville upbringing has sounded too ridiculous to be true.

6.       Wyatt Russell as Sean “Dud” Dudley, Lodge 49 (AMC)-Think of how great the world would be  if we had more people as open to other people (of all generations) and as curious about the world around them as Dudley. The seemingly dense surfer has had some bad breaks with the death of his dad and the decline of his pool business but he never stops seeing the glass as half full.

7.       Carla Jiminez as Alba, The Mick (Fox)-The opening scene of the pilot shows us a protagonist who saunters into a grocery store and uses the cosmetics aisle for her morning routine without even paying. But even then, she’s not the most id-driven character on the show. That would be the nanny left over from a past regime who will happily shirk responsibility and go on a bender if the situation calls for it. She’s also body positive.

8.       Juliett Lewis as Jandice, Camping (HBO)-Most suburbanites probably know a soccer mom or HOA member who resembles Jennifer Garner’s uptight camping trip organizer Kathryn. Likewise, most of those people wish that those Kathryns in their lives could be paired up with a foil like the boundary-pushing hippyish Jandice.

9.       Wilson Bethel as Ben “Bullseye” Pondexter, Daredevil (Netflix)-A fitting doppelganger to our title character, Daredevil’s powers are more fully spelled out than in any other iteration of this story which makes his fight scenes both cool (duh) and menacing within the context of this higher-stakes story.  

10.   Allisyn Ashley Arm as Heather, AP Bio (NBC)-Heather started as one of about  dozen students in  fraudulent teacher Jack Griffin’s teacher through which limited screentime has been divided. But Arm used every opportunity when the camera was on her and every line delivery to be spectacularly eccentric and a treasure in her own right.

11.   Dale Soules as Frieda Berlin, Orange is the New Black (Netflix)-The focus of the show’s sixth season was on two feuding sisters who turned the rest of the prisoners into competing gangs. The squirrelly Frida managed to show how far her survivor instincts had gotten her by quietly outsmarting the show’s main villains in Rube Goldberg fashion.

12.   Jordana Spiro as Rachel, Ozark (Netflix)-The kinds of characters in these high-pressure dramas (like Breaking Bad or The Americans) that get caught between conflicting sides with no way out are generally the innocent bystanders worth rooting for. Rachel is a resilient firecracker with good instincts and it’s wonderful to see her make it out alive.

14.   Deborah Ann Woll as Karen Page, Daredevil (Netflix)-In my previous iteration of this list, I felt I had to make room for Foggy, Matt, and Karen as all three big something to the team besides being well-drawn characters themselves. As the stakes felt higher and the story became more gripping, Karen was the one who was most transparent with her dread and resolve. She also made the list the last time I did this.

15.   Nick Sandow as Warden Joe Caputo, Orange is the New Black (Netflix)-Obviously the main storyline of Season 6 is Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson but to see an ally say he’ll do something and then put his money where his mouth is, is quite cathartic. Yes, the white savior trope can be debated but that doesn’t necessarily mean Taystee’s story has been diminished or Caputo’s stepping up isn’t insignificant.

16.   Tony Shalhoub as Abe Weinberg, Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon)-Poor Abe. Certainly not the most stringent and unreasonable of old-world Jewish fathers from the era but he’s been dealing with a world that’s changed too fast for his comfort. He should have given his wife more agency, and he should have been  less stubborn about his university , but Amy Sherman-Palladino’s shows aren’t built around tragedies: Hopefully, there’s room for Abe to grow in later seasons.

17.   Brandon Flynn as Justin Foley, 13 Reasons Why (Netflix)-While 13 Reasons Why can be tonally inconsistent and come across more like a typical high school show than something worthy of the topics it broaches, Justin has been written surprisingly strong this season. He’s dealt with guilt and remorse over enabling rape, a broken family, a drug addiction, threats from a step-mom and a betrayal by his best friend and it’s all been handled in such a way that I can’t take my eyes off the guy.

18.   D’Arcy Carden as Janet, Good Place (NBC)-Janet can literally do anything, but it’s the moments when she chooses to deal with the mundanities of, say, getting over an ex or dealing with people who aren't at her speed (like Michael typing at 6 wpm) where she shines. And bonus points for that bar brawl that she impulsively starts against Sean's demons in her dress and high heels. And even more bonus points for the creation of the second best character on the show in Jason Matzoukas’s Derrick.

19.   Carol Kane as Lily Kaushtupper, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)-The final half-season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was a great showcase for the whole cast but count me in for more of the unattached Lily who has Tracy-Jordan-like namedrops to past chapters of past badassery. Kane gives the monologue of the season

20.   Hillary Anne Matthews as Diedre, Alex Inc (ABC)-An example of how an otherwise forgettable show can be watchable just to see a scene-stealing side character. Deidre is a scatter-brained assistant whose clinginess to her boss (Zach Braff) overtly borders on obsession.

21.   Cedric the Entertainer as Scott Joplin, Another Period (Comedy Central)-Part of the fun of this show has been the exaggerated cameos of historical figures who inexplicably make their way into the lives of the Bellacourt clan like Sigmund Freud (Chris Parnell), Albert Einstein (Matt Bessar) and Thomas Edison (Stephen Tobolowsky). Perhaps none of these comic characters is as cleverly constructed as the show’s version of Scott Joplin who’s presented as an aughts version of Kanye West (complete with self-worship and an Armenian bride).

22.   Libe Barer as Carly Bowman, Sneaky Pete (Amazon)-The Brendon de Wilde to Alan Ladd’s Shane, Carly is the kid of the family (if you can believe a 27-year old actor passing as 16) who stars agape at her older cousin who fascinates her with hints of a less provincial life. What’s interesting behind Carly is that she’s one step behind the others but you can never count her out as she has traces of Bowman ingenuity herself.

23.   Connie Britton as Abby Clark, 9-1-1 (Fox)-No harm in adding a pollyanna to a procedural. Abby is middle-aged and single with an aging parent to care for but there’s a certain upbeatness to her that makes her a quiet sort of stand-out. Her scenes, set apart from the rest of the cast, make her an interesting narrator of sorts.

24.   Jonah Hill as Owen Milgrim, Maniac  (Netflix)-One of the best portrayals of a depressed character to appear on TV. Jonah Hill does an excellent job at portraying the quiet surrender and numbness as he goes about his every day life and eventually enters into the world of fantasy.  

25.   Dania Ramirez as Jacinda/Cinderella, Once Upon a Time (ABC)-When introduced in her featured episode, Jacinda is a femme fatale disguised as a typical Cinderella. It matches well with her real-life persona who’s down on her luck but refuses to play damsel in distress with the two men vying for her affections.

Honorable Mentions:

Armen Weitzman as Garfield, Another Period; Beth Dover as Linda Ferguson, Orange is the New Black; Charlie Cox as Matt Murdoch, Daredevil; Danielle Brooks as Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson; Dascha Polanko as Daya, Orange is the New Black; David Koechner as The Commodore, Another Period;  Henny Russell as Barbara Dennan, Orange is the New Black; Jane Adams as Maggie Murphy, Sneaky Pete; Jayma Mays as Carol Anne Keane in Trial and Error;  Kristen Bell as Eleanor Shellstrop, The Good  Place; McKenzie Phillips as Carol Dennan, Orange is the New Black; Parker Posey as Dr. Smith, Lost in Space; Rachel Brosnahan as Midge Masel, The Marvelous Mrs Maisel; Sally Field as Dr. Greta Mantleray; Sophia Black-D’Ella as Sabrina Pemberton, The Mick; Scott MacArthur as Jimmy, The Mick; Ted Danson as Michael, The Good Place; Tituss Burgess as Titus Andromedon, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Reviews: Ramy Season 2, Brockmire Season 2, Intelligence, Broke, Once Upon a Time Season 7, Where's Waldo (Peacock)

Ramy (Hulu)-One of the best shows of the year for sure. Review here: 

https://www.tvfanatic.com/2020/07/ramy-season-2-boasts-a-uniquely-introspective-character-despite/

Brockmire (IFC) -A lot of TV in the #metoo era is about men getting consumed by dark pasts. 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. 

The leap over a decade into our future is ambitious to say the least (especially for a show based on a Funny or Die sketch) and that's not counting all the emotional overtones. The show is now set at a time where global warming, automation, and split national interests have spiraled out of control and baseball is just one of the show’s casualties.

If you fell off this show due to any perceived dip in quality, that’s not a problem here.

Final Season Aired in 2020, Streaming on Hulu.

Intelligence (NBC Peacock)-The strokes are a little broad here but it’s essentially the egotistical elitist gets humbled by the peons office comedy formula. The gimmick of the show is that it takes place in the English CIA and the fish out of water is an American so it has a little bit of a satirical bent towards American arrogance from a Eurocentric lens.

If I’m complaining about the lack of originality it’s because Space Force just did this but, hey, it’s a good time as any to puncture the myth of American exceptionalism.

As a show, it’s mildly funny if a bit obvious. Whereas Space Force or similar shows about jerks in power (Newsradio, The Office) might have allowed some wiggle room for us not to hate the guy who’s taking up the majority of the screen time: Either he learned or got his comeuppance. In the three episodes I’ve seen, the consequences of this awful man’s actions are mostly sidestepped. Perhaps, it’s a British comedic sensibility to go darker?

The side characters have potential and if the Office improved, it’s possible that this one could go that route too.

Broke (CBS)-Natasha Leggero and her suave Latino husband Javier (Jamie Camil) are rich and out-of-touch people who lose all their money in a pyramid (not a scheme, mind you, but they buy a pyramid [cue laughter]). They have to move in with their lower-class sister (Pauley Perrette) and, like the dad-son combo in Frasier, there’s a class difference so enormous, it’s hard to believe the two are related and grew up in the same house. On the other hand, hey, they wouldn’t have a show if they seriously addressed this, so shhh.

This show has a laugh track which doesn’t disqualify it by being good for modern standards but puts it at a disadvantage. Watching this was an interesting exercise for me in studying just how much the laugh track has devolved; how weaker jokes might get into the script for the purpose of an immediate pay-off.

Still, as far as outdated laugh-track shows go, this one’s watchable. Javier’s wealth-based aloofness makes him a good scene-stealer and it helps that he has heart. His butler Luis (Izzy Diaz) is even funnier though he’s not used for as many punch lines.

 

On the whole, it’s comfort food.

Once Upon a Time, Season 7 (ABC)-There’s something that just clicks with this show. In the first couple seasons (and probably the ones after, I didn’t watch), the episodes alternate between two universes that are connected. There’s a small town in Maine with a corrupt mayor (Lana Pirella) and police sheriff (Jennifer Morrison) fighting over the soul of the town and influence over a young boy. The second is set in fairy tale land where a hodgepodge of fairy tale stories-Little Red Riding Hood, Rumplestilskin, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland, even Aladdin and Princess and the Frog-interact in some variation on the land of Mother Grimm (based in the forests of Germany).

What makes the show work is that these traditional fairy tales are given a twist and then re-interpreted through a modern universe where, say, Snow White is a school teacher who hooks up with Jiminy Cricket, and Rumplestilskin doesn’t just want a first-born but control of the whole town.

Like most serialized TV, however, six seasons is a lot to keep up with multiple levels of mythology to sort through. Fortunately, season seven gives a fresh restart. Henry Mills (the little boy who knows about the alternate universe) is grown-up and is now not just an adult but also a skeptic. And the evil mayor is now just a bartender and one of the good guys in true American Horror Story fashion. As someone who missed some of the in-between seasons, a background detail here and there gets confusing, but for the most part, it’s a self-contained story that balances episodic and serialized elements well.

 

Streaming on Netflix

 

I’m Dying Up Here, Season 2 (Showtime)-Relatively watchable serialized comedy set in the 70s that focuses on the arts. Ari Gaynor (a poor man's Kate Hudson) stars with Oscar winner Melissa Leo and Michael Angarono (Will and Grace, The Knick), Clark Duke and Jake Lacy co-starring. Duke and Lacy were the two last-season additions to The Office as entry-level twerps and they've both been carving out impressive careers for themselves. There's also a couple token black guys with Erik Griffin making the bigger impression of the two. The characters sort of blend into another and there's a lot of cocaine and sex in a premium cable sort of way. The series is meant as a time capsule of the 70s but I'd rather re-watch Baz Luhrmann's Get Down or watch some more Glow. In other words, it's not that insular of a genre. The biggest mistake of the series is that Melissa Leo's character doesn't get more screen time.

Where's Waldo (Peacock)-I could totally see a faithful adaptation of Where's Waldo working. Waldo likes to hide and he's in exotic places so that's something to run with. Instead the series is a weak knock-off of Carmen Sandiego and Wizard Whitebeard is too cartoonish to feel like the adult of the group.

A super-belated top 10 tv shows of 2011

Doing top ten lists in December is overrated. I half-worked on this in December, shelved it while working on a top 25 characters of the year. The lag in time has allowed me to make a better and more accurate list as I have a better idea which shows resonated with me in retrospect. This is true even if the show took a nose dive after the New Year as is the case with Parks and Recreation. Like any blogger who aspires to be a TV critic and doesn't possess superpowers to slow down time so he or she can watch everything, compromises had to be made in terms of what to watch and what not to watch. The pool of shows I selected this from is listed down below.

1. The Onion News Network, IFC, Seasons 1 and 2-Even though this is my #1 slot, I don’t have a whole lot to write here except that this is the program I was most blown away by week in and week out. I know it doesn’t score too many points for originality or risk as it is was basically an extension of their youtube channel, but that doesn’t mean the show’s not on the edge creatively. Both the first and second seasons came out this year and the show added a new level of complexity in the latter as the show became experimental and semi-serialized in the form of Brooke Alvarez’s rivalry with do-gooder news reporter Brady O’Shaw. Examples of episodic arcs included the broadcasting of the apocalypse, the computer becoming a sentient being and falling in love with Brooke, and the revealing that the icy Brooke was once a famous Russian cosmonaut as a baby. I imagine that in the same way hard core fans of The Daily Show and Colbert Report cling to those shows as a bastion of cutting edge satire, I see this as program as both the most funny and twistedly honest program on television. On second thought, maybe I do have a lot to write about it.     
2. Parks and Recreation, NBC, All of seasons 3, 1^st half of Season 4-No longer in the shadow of Office, Parks and Recreation has an incredibly strong cast that didn’t lose a beat with the arrival of Adam Scott as geeky outsider Ben Wyatt and Rob Lowe as hyperactive city manager Chris Traeger. The show hasn’t just created a strong sense of place and time, but it’s created an inviting one. Leslie Knope was originally an irritating opportunity for Amy Poehler to try out a leftover SNL impression. Now, she and her gang of government bureaucrats have become the best definition of a great ensemble: you see them less as actors and more as a group of friends we want to hang out with.

3.      Archer, FX, Season 2, 1^st 3 episodes of Season 3-The show isn't just another spy parody but a first-rate spy parody and a wacky office comedy to boot. The key to the show is that the characters are uniquely idiosyncratic creations rather than the means to and end for traditional parody.

More of my review can be found here

4. Hell on Wheels, AMC, Most of Season 1-The show is beautifully shot but doesn’t do the glamor of the West any favors. The railroad camps and the life of backbreaking labor is so hellish that only marked men would go there. The show interestingly contrasts that with two Irish brothers who think they can get a slice of the American dream with their picture show, a preacher who wants to open up a church, a whore with scars from her time as an Indian princess and a newly widowed fair-haired maiden who was told by another character that, not being a whore or Indian, she doesn’t beloing out there. It’s the traditional Western told through a lot of unique and diverse perspectives.  Note: In retrospect, I've learned that not a lot of other people liked this show because its inferior to Deadwood. I never saw Deadwood and proudly stand by it.

5.      Jimmy Kimmel Show-ABC-With his brilliant ambush of Jay Leno last year during the Late Night wars or his faux romance with Matt Damon among other things, Kimmel’s antics have made for viral sensations on quite a few occasions. Too bad only a few people know him as a consistent entity night in and night out. It’s ironic that he was previously known as the co-host of the unforgivably crude The Man Show, because I could argue that he's the classiest and most genuine host out there. Like Conan, he relies on a stable of cast and crew members as go-to sources of humor, but the difference is there’s a clear sense of affection that drives their interaction. This was most apparent in Kimmel’s teary-eyed TV eulogy to his Uncle Frank which marked a high-water mark of his series, if not Late Night Television. On top of that, he’s a pro at interviewing and a gifted comic. In short, a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stagnant format.

6. Wilfred-FX-Season 1-It took me a couple episodes to get into this, but I loved it once I started seeing it as a drama rather than a gimmicky comedy. It has one of the most depressed characters on television, it doesn't treat his illness with kid gloves and it's a feel good story with no false moments which is a lot to say for a show with a talking dog in it. Read my review here.

7.      The Office-NBC-Back half of Season 7, front half of Season 8-In the post-Michael-Scott Era, The Office has provided easy fodder for Critics to show off their sophistication with analysis of just how and where the show fell from grace. I’ll happily take the opposite position and declare announcements of the show's demise to be premature. True, the show’s suffered at the top with Will Ferrell’s lacking in any identifiable characteristic and James Spader offering little to the mix other than creepy blankness, but come on, this is still The Office and the work of a writing staff that knows what it’s doing. As the Michael Scott storyline came to an end, the staff did an admirable job of steering the show through uncharted territory and twisted the storyline to revolve around Andy rather than Jim. Andy’s no force of nature like Michael Scott, but he’s a fully realized character and the writers haven’t betrayed his arc. The staff has also kept the momentum going with storylines and grown Daryl, Gabe, and Erin.

 8. Portlandia-IFC-Season 1-This sketch show’s backstory is almost as endearing as the show itself. It evolved around a platonic friendship between SNL star Fred Armisen and alt-rocker Carrie Bowenstein wanting to spend more time together and work on a project. Not only does the pair expertly skewer hipster culture, they help us articulate and define what it entails better than we would have ourselves had we never watched the show. A tangible chemistry between the two stars and a sketch show with a unique perspective are two good reasons for this show’s existence, which is two more than nearly every other sketch comedy on TV.

9. Once Upon a Time-ABC-First half of Season 1-Last year, I'm embarrassed to say, I somehow winded up with No Ordinary Family on my year-end list. I was a little bit too stubborn to get off that train and admit the horse I backed in the proverbial Fall Season derby was a dud. This year, I'm going to go with ABC's most ambitious production and again, I have a small fear that the show's reliance on a 10-year old to dictate the rules of its universe might wear a little thin. But at the end of the day, even if the show crashes and burns, it had a great opening run that set up the possibility of a great series. As hour-long entertainment, it's been solid and the show has gradually built up its world enough to arouse curiosity over what its future may bring. A full review can be found here.

10. American Dad-Fox-Front half of Season 7, Back half of Season 8-An under discussed animated entity, American Dad deserves mention for being consistently funny and inventive. Roger, that lovable extraterrestrial duex-es-machina, continues to lead the show in interesting directions signifying just how well the writer’s room has resisted the temptations to overextend his limitless personality. Unlike sister show, Family Guy, American Dad has distinctive characters which exist as more than just an excuse to get from point A to point B in the plot.

Honorable Mentions:

-It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia-FX-A couple duds, but one of the most consistently hillarious shows on television over the last few years, deserves praise

-Mr. Sunshine, ABC-I thought Matt Perry had a fairly impressive hit on his hands and some of the side characters (particularly Nate Torrence, Allison Janney, and whomever played Heather the psycho seceretary) added a lot of color. Deserves more praise than it got. I think the score and some of its other tonal elements gave it a bad taste and I think Matt Perry's downer character wasn't necessarily appealing. I'm a fan of his type of comedy and would not have watched Friends for as long as it did.

-Terra Nova, FOX-I-Unlike Rowan Kaiser over at AV Club or James Ponziewichii P. (however you spell that guy's last name) at Time, I never thought this show took that big of a drop after its initial run. I can't deny it was exciting to see a universe with such wide open rules and I didn't see the cast.

-Sing-Off, NBC-A reality show with three great judges, a lot of great groups and an overall take-home message of synergy and harmony. Who know that you didn't need a British asshole and a dog-eat-dog environment to make a successful reality show? It might have made the top ten is I feel the show strained its format by running a couple episodes too long and I also felt the judging up to the final four was erratic.

-New Girl, Fox-Zooey Deschanel is ridiculous and implausibly weird. Even more surprisingly, I've slowly come to love her. She's so over the top and hammy, it's more of a send-up than a performance to be taken at face value. Schmidt started getting good storylines after the New Year which might have affected my rankings because it's now more of an ensemble comedy. 

-The Looney Tunes Show-Cartoon Network-Every time, I watch Looney Tunes reruns on TV, I've not only seen the skit before but I almost know the lines. In other words, I've been hungry for new Looney Tunes material for a while, so it's really good to see Bugs and Daffy back on the screen again. Then again, I wasn't expecting to see Bugs and Daffy cohabitating together in a household tackling mundane tasks like double dates, holding down a job, earning membership into a country club, being the star of a bowling league. Even worse, Yosemite Sam doesn't see Bugs and Daffy as hunting trophies, but roommates to mooch off of. Still, Kristen Wiig kills it as Lola and it does kind of make me happy to see Bugs and Daffy openly admit to being friends
-Revenge, ABC-A good twist on the high society soap opera: Having an infiltrator out to secretly destory everyone
-Web Therapy, Internet/Showtime-I did not expect to like this show because I'm not a Lisa Kudrow fan at all. This show was highly inventive in premise and execution and I was taken by surprise as its characters grew into an intertangled web with each other. Guest stars like Alan Cumming, Rashida Jones, Michael McDonald, Selma Blair and Molly Shannon all deserve great praise.


Just to let you all know what I saw this year:
2 Broke Girls, CBS, 2 and a Half Men, CBS, 30 Rock, NBC, Big Bang Theory, CBS, Bob's Burgers, Fox. Bored to Death, HBO, Burn Notice, USA, Community, NBC, Conan, TBS, Cougartown, ABC, Daily Show & Colbert Report, Comedy Central, Eastbound & Down, HBO (just one ep. but I hated it), Family Guy, FOX, Free Agents, NBC, Funny or Die Show, HBO, Futurama, NBC, Glee, Fox, Grimm, NBC, H8R, CW, Happy Endings, ABC, Ice Road Truckers, History Channel, In Plain Sight, USA, Last Man Standing, ABC, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, NBC, Life and Times of Tim, HBO (or that might be 2010, not sure), Mad, Cartoon Network, Misfits, Hulu (Although the 3 episodes I saw were originally produced in 2009), Modern Family, ABC, Off the Map, ABC, Onion Sports Dome, Comedy Central, Outsourced, NBC, Pan Am, ABC, Playboy Club, NBC, Raising Hope, Fox, Retired at 35, TV Land, Ricky Gervais Show, HBO, Royal Pains, USA, Running Wilde, Fox, Saturday Night Live, NBC, S*$# my Dad Says, CBS, Sports Show with Norm McDonald, Comedy Central, Suburgatory, ABC; United States of Tara, Showtime, Waking Dead, AMC, Wipeout, ABC

Once Upon a Time....

“Once Upon a Time” is an interesting show to watch in a vacuum (what I call watching a TV show or a movie without having read any reviews, reading commentary, or internet message boards). So many questions are popping up that I can’t turn to the convenience of the internet for: Does Regina know that she’s an evil queen? So the bail bondswoman’s stated reason for being in town is to stalk the kid she gave up for adoption ten years ago against her mother’s wishes? Is that the crazy guy from Prison Break as the town sheriff?

ON TO THE REVIEW:

Once Upon a Time is a show about the residents of modern-day Storybrooke, Maine, who previously inhabited the world of familiar fairy tales before being banished by the evil queen from the Snow White story.

In the modern-day world, that evil queen goes by the name of Regina Mills (Lana Parrilla) and she is the town's mayor. The narrative is complex and highly confusing which is due to the fact that the plot is dictated almost entirely by Regina's 10-year old adopted son, Henry. The other characters all have amnesia and somehow he is the only one to have figured this all out.

Thus, the story is told from two conflicting perspectives and that's a very interesting scenario that the show delivers on. From the point of view of everyone else, Henry is a troubled child with a big imagination and from the POV of Henry, these are lost fairy tale characters who haven't figured out their true identity.

Because Once Upon a Time jumps back and forth between Storybrooke and the actual fairy tale world (I'd estimate the screentime is split 70-30 between the two universes with Maine getting the 70%), the show is on the side of Henry and we know it's only a matter of time before the rest of the town starts seeing things from his point of view. This is the central conflict and that's reinforced by Henry's belief that the characters will all be happy when they discover their true nature. Thus, it's a show of characters awakening to their true nature and works on that level.

This also makes Henry the guy who's always right. He's also a giant exposition machine. The person who he's doing most of his expositioning to is Emma Swan (Jennifer Morrison). Swan is a cynical 30-something bounty hunter who discovers in the pilot episode that she is Henry's birth mother.

Emma's a key figure in the story, but the reasons that she impulsively uproots from Boston to Storybrooke after the pilot episode aren't particularly well hashed out. There's not really a strong case for why she's there. Emma's concerned that Regina doesn't have her son's best interests at heart but, then again Regina doesn't want her to take an active role in the kid's life ten years later and Emma has no rights to do otherwise. It's a good thing the show's fantasy, because if we looked at Emma's rationale from a realistic ethical or legal standpoint, we might not really be on her side at all.

Regina is eventually revealed to be somewhat malignant, but the show starts off with some genuine thematic confusion as we're left wondering why we should be behind a woman who voluntarily gave up her kid in a closed adoption process, and is now upending everyone's life on a hunch that the boy's adopted mother isn't all she seems. This is made iffier by the fact that Emma reconnecting with her son is one of the key conflicts in the story. If you can discount the clunky set-up (the key to enjoying much of this show), it's not such a bad story either).

Besides, the pilot at least establishes Emma's motivation, although somewhat weakly. The "why" of what Emma's doing in Storybrooke, is more of a "Why not?". One of Emma's key characters traits is that she's being rootless and having close to no support system (she's adopted herself).

The show's biggest strength is that it works both as an overarcing storyline, and as a series of entertaining one-off episodes. The fairytale land sequences are having diminishing returns with me for each episode, but it frames the story well.