THUD: BEST OF 2012

Nice write-up for SHERLOCK.  I'd be hard pressed not to put it as #1, but that's just me.

We can only vote for one? *Le gasp*

 

Gracias. I had it at #4 on my ballot!

That poll consists of every show that was included in at least one person's top-ten ballot, huh, Schwartz?

I'm counting 6 as possible Top 5 candidates. Wondering which one won't be there.

You are missing Fringe.

I'm all caught up on Fringe and very nearly put it at at #10 on my ballot. But I ultimately couldn't get past how lackluster I think the final season has been this fall.

I proudly voted for Luck. The best damn show I've seen in years. 

 

That's what I DID end up putting at #10! I think I may have been the only one who voted for it.

Good for you, bru!

Shit. Thought I could pick a few. That's why there's an extra vote for Bob's Burgers even though it's a dissssstant 3rd to Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones for me. Can't change my vote either. Poop.

This is an imperfect time to say that I thought this season of Mad Men was astonishing. I've read several critics who say it was weak and maybe its weakest. I don't agree.

 

Also, Luck was wonderful. There's a recent thread about bad pilots that led to good shows. Luck has one of my favorite pilots ever, and got even better. I understand why it was canceled, but I miss it so much.

 

Another also: No Treme? Fuck that noise. <--- Note how my harsh language indicates my love of the show.

Fuck it, I'm gonna throw some love towards HELL ON WHEELS.  I liked this season.

 

Bring it on.

 

I have to agree with you about Mad Men. Such great work this season. But when you have the breadth of work that Mad Men has, weak by comparison is great by any other standard.

 

Luck and Treme are both shows that I am told are great. I need to make some time.

It's a real shame that Spartacus doesn't get more love. It's like the dirty cousin of Game Of Thrones but only gets one tenth of the recognition.

 

Clearly, beeotch, since Doctor Who is no where to be found on it.  I've got a rocket punch all primed and ready, waiting for a forgivable excuse beyond "uhh, we didn't vote for it".

You got the order exactly correct.  It's science.

It's understandable, as it has been well-established and documented that you guys have shitty senses of humor. 

 

Fuck that noise indeed.  Treme was my favorite thing on TV this year.  Breaking Bad was a close second, so my vote goes there.  Game of Thrones would be a close third.  And Community, while I think it regressed a bit in its third season, is still the funniest thing on TV.  So fourth.  

 

Beyond that... I'm still not caught up with some of the heavy hitters like Mad Men and Homeland.  The new season of Boardwalk Empire was fine, but unremarkable.  Haven't cracked into Jusitified or SOA yet.

 

Walking Dead should get special mention, I think, for the massive course correction they pulled off.  The show still has issues, but its immensely watchable now and I'm glad its finally hit its stride and become something that I look forward to each week.  The huge uptick in quality deserves recognition. 

Edited by fuzzy dunlop - 12/20/12 at 1:13pm

Maybe it's because I only discovered Parks & Rec this season and am still in the full blush of first love, but I'd put it ahead of Community. Individual episodes of Community are brilliant, but on the whole Parks & Rec is way more consistent in both the humour and (especially) the character-building departments.

 

Sherlock is about where it belongs to be. It's got the same problem as Community, actually--brilliant episodes mixed with uneven ones. And when your season is three episodes long, that's a problem. The second episode of every season has been seriously weak--"The Hounds of Baskerville" wasn't outright BAD like "The Blind Banker", but it definitely didn't justify its movie-length the way most episodes of Sherlock do.

 

S2 of Game of Thrones was a bit of a mess. I love the story, but to people who haven't read the books it must have been confusing and chaotic, and a lot of awesome stuff was lost or muddled. I'm glad that we're going to be leaving behind the "one season = one book" formula going forward; hopefully this can start to seem more like a TV series and not a checklist.

Hot damn, these are really top-notch summations of the shows, and additional top marks for coming out with the comedies in the correct order.

Percentage-wise Parks & Rec still lacks a little in the jokes department compared to the other three but against sitcom tradition it has improved on each prior season so that by the end of the fourth it's close to being counted among the classics of the genre (and has, in Andy, the most lovably hilarious comedy character going right now). And in terms of manipulation of audience heartstrings it kicks a fair amount of ass and is the one comedy show of this bunch to bring a tear of sentiment to the eye of ol' Bucho.

Community's "snark as but a thin coating on top of a big sappy heart" is one of the sunshines of my life (because snark alone is booooooooooooooooring), especially when it turns its gaze toward the Abed/Troy bromance, but while individual episodes kill, as a series it lacks the propulsion of solid and satisfying throughlines the other three all have. That doesn't mean it's sub-par in any way though, it's simply a point of comparison. I already said it was one of the sunshines of my life!

Joshua Miller's opening paragraph for 30 Rock is perfection. And the only reason Schwartz is wrong about Gillian Jacobs (who I do love and who has proven herself to be utterly charming and hilarious on a couple of episodes of the Comedy Bang Bang podcast this year) being the best comedy performance by a female is that the one-two punch of Tina Fey and Jane Krakowski has been unmatched as the interchangeable top two for half a decade now. It may not be hip anymore, but for flat-out smartness and sharpness in joke-writing it remains the gold standard, and Alec Baldwin continues to prove that he's an actual genius.

Even before the second season the backlash had already started on Louie from some quarters, and fair enough in some ways because it's by no means the perfect thing it's been hailed/hyped as, but it is the most compelling thing on comedy television right now. In its own way it's more heartfelt than Parks & Rec, more experimental than Community, and more smarter than 30 Rock. Ultimately you know than when the makers of those other shows go home at night the one show they would rather watch than any other is Louie. Just like Louis was always a comic's comic, his show is the sitcom's sitcom. (And yes Stelios, I did read all of that.)

 

Can't really speak for Homeland yet, but I wasn't fully satisfied with Boardwalk either.  The final stretch was fantastic (as it always is with BE), but it felt like too little too late after nearly a full season's worth of meandering subplots that were all frustratingly disconnected from one another.  I guess I'm just not that interested in Nucky anymore.  I don't know if its Buchemi or the writers or what, but I'm more interested in the stuff that seems to only be happening in the peripheries.

 

But that's been something I whined about with the first two seasons as well, and right when I'm about to throw up my hands and complain about the lack of focus, the show kicks into high gear and for the last couple episodes I can barely catch my breath and all of a sudden I'm itching for the next season to start.  

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I'd go so far as to say that Parks & Rec is the new Cheers.

 

At least when Homeland missteps, it's still focused on the right characters. Boardwalk Empire is like if Homeland were focused on boring Vice President Walden and his family, with the occasional few moments given to unconnected subplots for Carrie and Brody, and Saul showing up for 2-3 episodes a season.

 

If you charted the characters on BE by screen time, then by how interesting they are, you'd have a giant "X". When the glow of the last 2 episodes wears off, what you're left with is a frustrating season of wheel-spinning and reset button-mashing. Putting it in the Top 10 is laughable.

 

On a more positive note: anyone else (someone with better taste than the CHUD guys ) want to chime in on Sherlock? Is it really that good?

I've still only seen the second series, but I can tell you the first and last episodes of that are brilliant. The middle ep, Hound of the Baskervilles, is less so, but is still worth watching.

The very first episode of Sherlock was one of the best films of 2011. Just jaw-droppingly brilliant. The successive eps have been less so but they're still better than most released movies. The final ep of Season 2 was a definite high point though.

I'm in your head Art.

I always have been.

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While you're in here, please feel free to enjoy the buffet table & endless parades of naked ladies. Don't forget to tip your server. I don't pay them very much.

Surprised at how well Breaking Bad did here. It's a good show but, ever since a female friend pointed out how badly written the women characters are, I can't unsee it. Thank God for Bryan Cranston, right?

Skyler is in no way badly written.

 

Yes, absolutely.  The show makes you care for the characters and root for them like I haven't seen in a long while with Sherlock Holmes, maybe ever.  Whip smart dialog, great performances, and so many clever touches.  Unlike the Richie movies, writer/creators Moffat and Gatiss really get Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's approach to Holmes.  Modernized but faithful to the source, with enough brilliant twists on the material to keep things fresh.  Each episode is a feature film, many of which got me sitting up in my chair and shouting back at the screen with excitement.

Sherlock is wonderful. I still think "A Scandal in Belgravia" is one of the best films of 2012.

 

Skyler is one of the best written female characters on TV - well at least one of the best written female characters on TV that isn't on Girls.

 

The fuck?

 

It's very good, sometimes brilliant, and Cumberbatch and Freeman are amazing. The second episode of both seasons are really weak, especially The Blind Banker, which almost instantly undermined my goodwill for that awesome first episode. And since a big part of the fun is watching them find ways to reinterpret the classic Sherlock Holmes stories for the modern day, you may get more out of it if you're familiar with the classic stories than if you're going in cold. I'll also say that the writers, especially Moffat, are sometimes guilty of rushing past plot points so that you don't notice how contrived/unlikely they are.

 

But none of this takes away from the fact that it's a great show. It definitely deserves its place in the recent nerd pantheon.

 

I loved "The Great Game" until the extremely disappointing cliffhanger.  Couldn't stand Moriarty (he got better).  Hated how they kept teasing the audience like a puppy with the dozens (wait, how many snipers are in hiding?) of red dots appearing and disappearing.  It was a lame way to hold things for over a year.  I'm glad Moffat just turned it into a joke and got on with things in S2.

 

 

Skyler has been too often used as a plot point rather than a character with her own agency. When Vince Gilligan and crew needed additional complications for Walter, Skyler would get suspicious or belligerent or find some other way to muck up his plans. When Walter had other obstacles to deal with, Skyler was complicit or barely on screen at all. You can see this further in the way her character jumps from one extreme to the next depending upon what the writer's need her to do in relation to Walt. We’ve had Trusting Skyler, Betrayed Skyler, Betraying Skyler, Smart Skyler, Dumb Skyler, Crimelord Skyler, Smoking in the Dark Skyler, Basketcase Skyler, and Accounting Genius Skyler. Who is Skylar?

 

I'm not beating down Breaking Bad here, guys. I enjoy the show a lot. It's just that the writers appear to have difficulty with female characters.

 

I understand that you're not making this a criticism of the show as a whole but in all honesty, I still don't know what you're talking about. Just because she's not one thing at all times doesn't mean they're betraying the character. I've actually found her evolution to be remarkably consistent.