Here we go:
Hour-Long Shows I Enjoyed in 2014
In the past, the hour-long shows would be mostly dramas and the half hours would be comedies, but it all blends together these days. We've got a good number of dramedies that fit into both categories. So I'm just gonna split this by hour-long and half hour shows. In no particular order, for each.
Game of Thrones Season 4
I spent the first 3 seasons of GoT being convinced that the show was absolutely not for me. I'm not really into the whole fantasy/medieval kings and queens and magical fairies and knights type stuff. I was when I was a kid, but not so much as an adult. But last year right at this time, during my Christmas break, something convinced me to finally try it out. I did, and it sucked me in pretty much immediately. There was no looking back. You see, the setting of the show really doesn't matter ... it's the stories and the characters that suck you the hell in. It's like what a soap opera would be if soaps were SUPER high quality and the characters and stories were way more awesome hahah. And I say that as someone who looooved a couple of the classic soaps when I was a kid. I speak the language.
Season 4 of GoT was the first season I watched live, and it was really fun. Ep 2 when [Spoiler] & [Spoiler] got married and [Spoiler] drank the [spoiler]!? Holy shit I was DYING. And then a few eps later when [Spoiler] fought [Spoiler] in the trial by combat!? It was one of the most stressful and shocking hours of my TV-watching life. Let's just say the first 3 seasons sucked me in and then S4 did NOT disappoint.
Favorite characters: Arya and Brienne, top two, obviously. Then Tyrion, The Hound, Jaime, and plenty of others. Sometimes Daenerys, when they give her interesting stuff to do. Lamest characters: Stannis Baratheon and his stupid Red Witch. I like his daughter though.
Orange is the New Black Season 2
We binged OITNB season 1 right after I binged on GoT last year. I recall finishing it on New Year's Eve, I'm pretty sure. Season 1 was very good. But I think season 2 was better. I contend that the sparing usage of Alex in season 2 was the best thing the show could have done for itself. I don't even recall why it was that Laura Prepon was only in a few eps this season, but for whatever reason, that was the case. And the problem is not her so much as it is that The Alex & Piper Drama Hour gets really old for me, really quickly. The relatively low focus on that storyline in season 2 allowed the show to become much more of an ensemble affair. Piper was no longer the main star with everyone else simply supporting. Instead she just became one of a very large cast of awesome characters, ALL of whom got their time in the spotlight this season.
And season 2 ended more satisfyingly than any season of any show I can think of in recent memory. No spoilers, but let's just say I laughed, I cried, I clapped, and I cheered at my TV screen.
The Americans Season 2
I wrote a blog post about The Americans earlier this year. Actually, come to think of it, I just re-read that post and it pretty much sums up my feelings on this show quite well, especially the reason I enjoyed season 2 so much more than I enjoyed season 1. So if you want to know my feelings on the show, just read that post. Season 1 was pretty good, but I couldn't fully connect with any of the characters on an emotional level, other than Nina. In season 2 though, I felt like Elizabeth and Phillip were just written about a thousand times better and more human-like. I found myself really looking forward to this show each week. Here's hoping that season 3 continues that trend.
True Detective Season 1
What can I say about True Detective that hasn't been said already? It was weird, it was confusing, and it was trippy as hell in the best way possible. I feel like this show's strengths were really in the direction and the acting more than anything. You know what sucks for season 2 though? Both the actors and the director will be totally different people. And I've been reading iffy things about the showrunner lately. So I'm feeling extremely apprehensive about it. But regardless of what happens from this point forward, season 1 was great. The ending though ... a slight letdown, yeah? It was just more ... I dunno ... on-the-nose and more of a straight-forward, typical "we solved the murder mystery, whew!" type ending than I had expected. It was aiight. But oh well. Point is, this show was extremely entertaining each week. And a better soundtrack than I've ever heard on maybe any show ever.
Covert Affairs Season 5
I mean look, I review this show every week, so obviously it's one of the main shows I'm into. And I'd be lying if I tried to claim I'm not still obsessed with it, no matter how maddeningly uneven it can be. Season 4 was so frustrating that it allllmmost broke me of my obsession. I mean it did break me of it for about 6 months after S4 ended. But season 5, goddamnit, season 5, you pulled me back in. You pulled me back in hard. This show is never going to be one of those uber high-falutin' Emmy contender types ... it's just not. It doesn't really aim for that. BUT when it's firing on all cylinders, it is capable of some pretty goddamn awesomely entertaining stuff. And while season 5 certainly carried over some of this show's long-running issues (while creating one or two new ones in the process), it was still a significant improvement on season 4. And I could see concerted effort being made (pretty successfully a good amount of the time) to fix some of those long-running issues, which I greatly appreciated. It kept me hooked in the whole way. You can read my season 5 review here.
Orphan Black Season 2
Well, o.k. Here's the thing about Orphan Black season 2 - It was NOT as good as season 1. Not by a long shot, I don't think. It was just kind of ... up and down for me. A little messy. It had some great moments though. Especially with Helena. But I'm still including it here because even when this show is uneven, it's still really fun and more interesting than most of the other stuff on TV. Here's to hoping season 3 is a bit tighter.
Half-Hour Shows I Enjoyed in 2014
Girls Season 3
Girls. Oh Girls, Girls Girls. You can be hit-and-miss and some of your characters can drive me a little insane, particularly Marnie. But when you're good, I love you SO much, and let's face it, even when you're not-so-good, I still love you more than most stuff on TV. At the end of season 2, I was feeling slightly exasperated with the Hannah/Adam relationship, along with simply wanting to stab Marnie during every second of her screentime. But season 3 picked up and brought me back to these characters. It gave Marnie enough to struggle with that I only wanted to punch her maybe like, 60% of the time she was on screen. Shoot, maybe it was 75%, but it wasn't 100%. Hannah and Adam faced a lot of problems this season too, but it was all played in an interesting and entertaining manner.
Season 3's first 2 eps out of the gate were great. Per usual there were a couple eps that I didn't enjoy quite as much, but I don't recall any huge stinkers. Well, "Dead Inside" definitely disturbed me. But the cemetery sequence in that ep was so great that it was still worth my time. It's been nearly a year since it aired so my brain is now fuzzy, but I think my favorite episode of the season was "Flo", which was hilarious and emotional and totally relatable from the family drama perspective. Bring on season 4, ladies. I think it starts back up really soon, like in a couple weeks or something. I can't wait.
Inside Amy Schumer Season 2
Goddamn this show was made specifically for me. It's like they crawled inside my brain and asked me exactly what I'd want to see in a sketch comedy show. Not everything worked for me in season 2, but most of it did, the stuff that was good was absolutely fucking brilliant. One of the best things I've ever seen in my life on any medium is the "A Very Realistic Military Game" sketch from one of the early episodes. If you want to know why this show is great, that sketch explains it all.
Drunk History Season 2
This show is just consistently one of the funniest things out there. Just watch it. My only complaint is that season 2 wasn't longer. When it ended, I was caught completely off guard that episodes simply stopped showing up on our DVR. It felt like half a season and I needed more. Oh! and not only was S2 hilarious, but I actually legitimately learned some super interesting historical facts and stories that I never knew before! Especially the Rosa Parks story. Get educated while you drink, folks. It's fun.
Workaholics Season 4
I gotta admit, we didn't start catching eps of this show until it was in season 3, I'm pretty sure. At that time, we would just watch it if it happened to be on when we were channel surfing. But the more we watched, the more we laughed. So we set a season pass for S4, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. This show just makes me laugh SO hard, so consistently, and that's all there is to it. And I have a weird attraction to Blake. Fave eps of S4: "Fry Guys", "Three and a Half Men", "Beer Heist", "The One Where the Guys Play Basketball and Do the 'Friends' Title Thing", "Friendship Anniversary".
Side Note: Interesting. I just realized that the AV Club seems to think S4 was this show's worst season. I don't have any perspective because I've only seen a few random eps of earlier seasons, so I'll have to catch up on the past seasons to see. All I know is, watching S4 on its own made me laugh hysterically, quite often. If this is Workaholics' worst season, then I can't wait to see the others.
Transparent Season 1
Oh, Pfeffermans. You crazy, selfish, asshole-ish, entertaining Pfeffermans. I have spent a certain amount of time wanting to punch all of you, except for maybe Maura, though she certainly has her wacky tendencies too. But the kids, the 3 kids, most definitely I have wanted to punch hard at several points in this series (which of course is only season 1 so far). If there's any thought that ran consistently through my head throughout the entire season, it was, "WHY does everyone keep acting so MEAN to the goddamn Rabbi?!" I mean she is the nicest, sweetest lady in the universe and all anyone in this show ever does is SHIT on her!! I can't, I just can't with these people. O.k. not really. I actually really can with these people, because they thoroughly entertained me for all of season 1. They are a complex bunch of characters, just like real live human people are, and that's what makes this such a good show. Plus it's just like nothing else you've ever seen on TV, in terms of the story it's telling. I love unique and groundbreaking shows like this. They change our entire frame of mind for the medium.
Here's just a few things Transparent gave us that I'm thankful for this year:
- Continuation of the Gaby Hoffman renaissance, which Girls revved up in the beginning of the year, and which I am thoroughly enjoying.
- Putting Angela Bower a.k.a. Judith Light back on my TV screen and reminding me what I've been missing all these years.
- I've never seen Kathryn Hahn play anything other than sassy and self-confident, until now. She breaks my goddamn heart in this role and I love seeing her in such a different light.
- Making me confused and slightly uncomfortable and questioning how I view gender norms at times (I mean just what exactly IS going on with Ali right now??).
- Giving me the first lead character I've ever encountered with the same name as my dog Maura, who, to be fair, is named after Maura Tierney.
Silicon Valley Season 1
I love absolutely everything about Silicon Valley EXCEPT its depiction of the role of women in this valley. You see, I live in the actual Silicon Valley, and I've worked in high tech for 16 years, and I am a woman. I've worked with many many great female developers and tech leads and architects, but in the TV version of Silicon Valley, those women simply don't exist. Like, literally AT ALL. We don't even get so much as ONE token techie chick, anywhere. And that is unfortunate, because it's the only part of this series that I found to be inaccurate. The rest of it is pretty dead on. They even had an ep that took place in Gilroy for Christ's sake. Gilroy!! And it looked pretty accurate too, although I suspect it may have been filmed somewhere in the ol' Inland Empire or maybe the Simi Valley area. But it was a pretty good approximation. And they explained how the Agile/Scrum process works!! It's ... so weird. My life projected on screen.
And, well, this is a Mike Judge show. Which means it's hysterical. Mike Judge only does hysterical things. The show was consistently funny all season long, and ended on a fantastically strong note. Now if they could only fix their glaring "woman problem" in season 2, I'd be all-around thrilled with it.
D'OH I Almost Forgot: Community Season 5!
Crap I almost forgot Community! I was going through my TiVo season passes to help me remember any shows I may have forgotten in 2014, but Community wasn't there anymore because its NBC run is over. Anywho I'll just cut to the chase: Season 4, minus the showrunner Dan Harmon, was AWFUL. It was a weird creepy bizarro version of itself. It was hollow and unnerving and felt like it had been taken over by aliens, like pod people or something. We (my husband and I) couldn't watch more than a couple eps of it before we canceled our season pass. But in season 5, PRAISE the TV gods, NBC or Sony or whoever it was who fired Dan Harmon, I can't even remember anymore, finally came to their senses and hired him back. And bam, that's all it took. Community was back again and just as good as ever. It was nice to get one final season with it back to its old awesome self. I know it's coming back on Yahoo! soon, but Yvette's not gonna be in it and with Donald Glover already gone, I have no clue what that's gonna look like. So for now, I'm kinda considering season 5 as its last season being the version of Community we all currently know. We'll see though.
That pretty much sums up my favorites list, but here a few more honorable mentions. These are shows I'm (still) watching and thoroughly enjoying on a weekly basis (when they're airing): Louie, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Parks & Rec, Portlandia, and newcomer Garfunkel and Oates. These are all great shows too, but I don't want this blog post to be 20 miles long haha.
TV Shows I Gave Up on in 2014: Good Riddance
Homeland
Uggh. Fuck you Homeland, seriously. This show started going downhill mid-season-2 and then just kept spiraling. I flat out hated season 3, and then by the time Carrie was seducing a child like the biggest PERV in the universe about four eps into season 4, I'd finally had all I could take. I didn't cancel my season pass flat out, but I stopped watching. But no, this show couldn't just stop there. They had to then come back and put out what were supposedly 3 or 4 good eps later in the season (according to several friends who keep telling me I should watch them). Homeland WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!? Or give me a Quinn spinoff so I can just watch that instead. He's all I care about anymore. I'm 8 episodes behind at this point, and hell if I want to spend 8 more hours of my life on a show just to get 3-4 hours of good stuff, only to then be disappointed next season when they fuck it all up again. Just please go away Homeland, so I can move on with my life. You're like a bad boyfriend who keeps crawling back begging for forgiveness & promising to do better.
Modern Family
I actually can't remember exactly when we gave up on this one. It might have been late 2013. But for this show we just canceled our season pass outright. One day we simply realized we weren't enjoying it anymore. It felt like a chore to watch each week, so we said, "Eff it let's cancel this thing." Done. This show was awesome in its first 2 or 3 seasons, don't get me wrong. It's just that it doesn't feel fresh anymore. Every ep started to feel like a goofy formulaic 70's family sitcom set-up. Boring and not funny enough to make up for the dumb storylines. It feels great to hit that "Cancel Season Pass" button sometimes, don't it??
O.k. that's my list. Tell me what shows I missed this year. I already have several other shows on my list that I plan to try out, some of them LONG overdue (like Veep and The Mindy Project). I'm also gonna try You're The Worst on FXX and ... umm ... maybe Rectify since Shelby loves it so much.
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