Battle of the Shows: Semifinals, and Final

On March 29, 2012March 29, 2012 By sulkyblueIn TV Lists3 Comments

Previously on Battle of the Shows: Rerunning Vulture.com’s battle of the “Best shows of the last 25 years”, led to two of their semi-finalists being knocked out in Round 1 (Breaking Bad and The Sopranos) and the other two being knocked out in Round 2 (Mad Men and The Wire. To save building the tension any further, here are the semis and the final all in one post!

Friday Night Lights v. Six Feet Under
Considering this is the semi-final this choice really wasn’t very difficult, which I think shows up the problems of this structure, but never mind, thems the rules. While this is an easy win for Friday Night Lights there is an interesting point of comparison because I took a break from watching both of these shows, not because I wasn’t enjoying them, but because I was too invested. For both shows I was spoilered on what was coming up (Season 5 for Six Feet Under, Season 4 for Friday Night Lights) and I found it incredibly difficult to bring myself to watch the events actually playing out on screen. I had formed such an attachment to the characters that I didn’t want to see bad things happen to them. The difference however is that I eventually went back to Friday Night Lights because I just couldn’t stay away, while for Six Feet Under I still haven’t quite got round to it.

The West Wing vs Buffy the Vampire Slayer
This is also not a massively hard choice for me, but one that I feel slightly sadder about. I’ve obsessed over both of these series, but my Buffy obsession came before my West Wing obsession and is fading into memory. I can no longer easily quote chunks of dialogue or identify episodes, my love of all things Whedon has been expanded, but also diluted with Angel, Firefly, and even Dollhouse on occasion. My friends of the period that shared my obsession have dispersed and although my box set is in pride of place, I haven’t re-watched it in years.

Meanwhile although West Wing was on at the same time as Buffy, I didn’t actually watch it until several years later when my obsession led to me watching the first 2 seasons in 8 days and maintained a similar pace until I caught up with the dvd releases during season 5. I’ve watched the series end to end at least three times, unable to watch an individual episode without hitting “play all” on the dvd and running it through to the end. Current friends share my obsession and we can cheerfully lose hours trading quotes and references.

I think in many ways Buffy is the more important show, both for its themes and messages, but also for its influence on ‘genre’ and ‘teen’ television ever since, While I do have a sense of regretful rememberence of past love, when I’m asked which show I prefer, I can only really go with The West Wing, the obsession that still burns strong.

The Final: Friday Night Lights vs. The West Wing
It was always going to come down to this choice, it always does. And as I always do, I will give the award to The West Wing.

Friday Night Lights gives you a beautiful insight into a group of people’s lives and makes a seemingly small and unimportant subject fascinating, it’s very intimate both in subject and in directorial style with extensive use of documentary style footage and overlapping dialogue.

The West Wing meanwhile has a much wider scope because while it may focus on national and international politics, it is also ‘just’ about the people who are going to work every day and doing a job. The relationships and personal traumas may not be as front and centre, but they are always there, quietly bubbling and developing over the years. It’s style is completely the opposite of Friday Night Lights, polished movie quality shots and such amazing dialogue that it borders on the improbable.

I am extraordinarily grateful that I got to watch Friday Night Lights, it feels as if I was allowed a privileged insight into something beautiful. But I suspect in a few years time, it will have faded into memory, much like Buffy has done. While I suspect I shall be putting those West Wing dvds in and being unable to resist ‘play all’ when I’m old and grey.

A final note
The final outcome of the battle will be of no surprise to anyone who’s read more than a few pages of my blog. But I am self-aware enough to realise that any knock-out battle or ‘top X list’ can very easily be swayed by preconceptions. Trying to find a balance between not looking at older shows with rose-coloured glasses, while also not being skewed towards more recent memories of new shows.

I certainly think that there’s also a massive distinction between my favourite shows, the ‘best shows’ and ‘the most important’ shows. I do find myself wondering if in 10 or 20 years when I come to evaluate shows from this era I’ll role my eyes that I was so caught up in what was well written, acted and directed, and what was enjoyable to watch. Will I actually look back and realise that the shows that I should have given more consideration to were the ones like Lost, Buffy and Battlestar, shows that will stand out because even if they weren’t technically as good, they were innovative and therefore hugely more important?
Ah well, seeya in a decade to check.

Battle of the Shows: Round 2

On March 28, 2012April 1, 2012 By sulkyblueIn General Articles, TV Lists1 Comment

Previously on Battle of the Shows: Vulture.com came up with a list of 16 “Best shows of the last 25 years”, set them up in a fight and then proceeded to make all the wrong choices. I re-ran the fights to show you what should have happened.

Round 1 was pretty easy, outcomes were largely based on technical quality, impact and in one moment of excitement – a coin toss. Round 2 is where things get tricky. Ish.

Six Feet Under vs. The Shield
It comes down to the simple question of which one I’d rather watch. Although I haven’t been able to bring myself to watch the end of the series, I have been known to re-watch older episodes of Six Feet Under. I don’t regret for a minute watching the episodes of The Shield that I have, but I have no desire to re-watch any of them again and only ever recommend it to the toughest of television fans. Six Feet Under is just a more pleasant experience, which is saying something given that it’s a show entirely about death and the difficulty of living.

The West Wing vs. The Wire
The West Wing. Easy. I will get round to The Wire again, too many people who’s opinion I respect have recommended it. But after season 1 of The West Wing I went straight out and bought season 2 for full price in an actual shop and sat and watched it during my lunch break. After season 1 of The Wire, I never watched another episode.

Friday Night Lights vs. Battlestar Galactica
OK, that’s a lot tougher. I’m going to vote for Friday Night Lights, but I’m not 100% sure that isn’t just the easy option. It’s the show I’ve watched most recently and it’s certainly the easier show to watch. That’s not to say that Friday Night Lights is laugh a minute or anything, it’s a show about hope and dreams, and a lot of the time, those don’t work out. But Battlestar takes it a step forwards and shows you what happens when a distant hope is all you have and that really isn’t much at all. Friday Night Lights is about making the best you can and fighting for what you want; Battlestar is about desperation and fighting even once the war is lost, because what else are you going to do? Battlestar is obviously the more ambitious show covering a multitude of science fiction ideas, time and space, while Friday Night Lights is ‘just’ about teenagers playing football, but both shows take plenty of time to examine the people and relationships. While Battlestar Galactica is a superb achievement, Friday Night Lights more smoothly blends entertainment and drama, just making it a more pleasant viewing experience.

Mad Men vs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Ouch another tough choice. Buffy means so much more to me than Mad Men. I used to get my family to video it and when I came home from university for the weekend my mum and I would watch it in marathon sessions. I think Mad Men is the better show, it’s crafted like fine art to be studied, appreciated and discussed, but that makes it occasionally academic and cold. But Buffy to me is something to love, it’s far from perfect, but it’s something you have a relationship with.

Previously – Round 1, next up – the semifinals and the final

Battle of the Shows – Round 1

On March 25, 2012April 1, 2012 By sulkyblueIn TV Lists1 Comment

Vulture.com are doing a sort of battle of the best TV drama of the last 25 years. I started reading it and was really impressed at the depth of the analysis and with the unexpected outcome of the first decision. But then I read a second article and I could not have disagreed more strongly with their choice. I figured I’d run through their choices myself and explain why they are wrong.

NB – They have started out with a shortlist of 16, which was already wrong. There’s a few of my top shows of the decade missing from the get-go and of course it ignores the output of every country other than the US (oh and Canada, there’s some Canadians on the list!). But I wanted to use the same list.

So round 1 – ding ding:

Deadwood vs. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
This was the first category I came across (because I got the link from Whedonesque) and thought that Buffy would be in for short shrift. But I was impressed not only by the depth of the analysis, but by the fact that Buffy won. Although I’m well known as a Buffy fan, even I don’t think this was an easy competition to judge. I really love Deadwood, it’s a fascinating and unusual show that brings the poetry of Shakespeare to potty mouthed prospectors. Buffy on the surface is just an American high school show with cheerleaders who happen to fight vampires, but of course as any number of sources will tell you it’s really about life and destiny and choice. The beauty of Buffy is that it’s actually both, it’s hugely entertaining and it’s really very important. It created its own genre and dozens of shows owe Buffy their success.

The other issue to me though, and this is what really swung it – Deadwood is incomplete. Cruelly cut down in its prime, it never got to finish its story. Of course that’s not the shows fault, but when I evaluate the competition Buffy got more time and told a complete story.

The X-Files vs. The West Wing
This was where Vulture.com lost me. I’m sorry, but no way in this universe or the next is The X-Files a better show than The West Wing. My love of The West Wing is well documented all over this site, so I’ll not go over how smart the dialogue is, or how fascinating the subjects are, or how much I adore all the characters. On the flip side you won’t find any article about The X-Files because I haven’t re-watched it since I started writing reviews properly about 8 years ago. Now like every geeky teenage girl of the mid 90s I adored Fox Mulder, obsessively videoing every episode and dissecting them with my friends. But even my adoration couldn’t stick with the show when 4 seasons in it degenerated into overly complicated, drawn out conspiracy theories and endless will-they-won’t-they relationship bumblings. Then it went on another 28 seasons or something. Yes, The West Wing had some dodgy phases and although it eventually clawed its way back for a breathtaking season 7, it never really reached its original heights; but the best of The X-Files was never as good as The West Wing’s, and its worst was considerably worse and much longer.

Breaking Bad vs. Friday Night Lights
I have never seen Breaking Bad, I have sesaon 1 on dvd, but I just haven’t got round to watching it. So, I don’t really have any right to make a judgement here. However while I’ve heard stunning things of the early Breaking Bad, I’ve also heard some disappointment at the direction of later seasons. So with an acknowledgement that I’m not being fair, the only way I can vote is for the show that appealed enough for me to actually watch it. An easy win for Friday Night Lights.

The Sopranos vs. Six Feet Under
I’ve seen one season of The Sopranos and four of Six Feet Under, so I’m 5 seasons short on Sopranos and 1 season short on Six Feet Under. But the reason that I haven’t finished either season is the key to my decision. I thought season 1 of The Sopranos was ok, but I never really connected to the characters and there was nothing calling out to me to watch more. The counterpoint to that is that I haven’t seen the final season of Six Feet Under because I don’t want to say goodbye to the characters. I have had the season 5 dvds on my shelf for years, but haven’t watched them because although I know it is a superb season and often described as one of the best series finales ever, I enjoyed the show too much to watch it end. It’s stupid, but that’s why Six Feet Under wins.

The Wire vs. My So-Called Life
This is a bit like the battle of who cares less. I have friends who threaten to disown me for this, but I just didn’t get along with The Wire, I watched one season and really struggled to follow what was happening. I do have vague intentions to give it another try though. Meanwhile, I’ve got the box set of My So-Called Life and haven’t made it past episode 2 – I can’t tell you anything about it, just that I haven’t bothered to put the dvd back in. So on episode count alone, The Wire wins.

The Shield vs. NYPD Blue
This one is another unfair one as I’ve never seen an episode of NYPD Blue in my life. I suspect it’s also not fair because without NYPD Blue, would The Shield exist? I’ve seen the first few seasons of The Shield and thought it was amazing, BUT I haven’t watched the whole series because I just couldn’t take any more. It was all just too bleak, violent and depressing. So do I go for the show that is a foundation for so many great shows after it but that I’ve never bothered to watch, or the one that takes those foundations to their logical but eventually unwatchable extreme? I genuinely flipped a coin and it came down in favour of The Shield.

Twin Peaks vs. Battlestar Galactica
I’m about two thirds of the way through Twin Peaks. I watched the first half obsessively over the space of a week and have got at least 4 blog posts in my head about it. So why haven’t I finished watching it? Mostly because like most people who watched the show, I found that after they solved the initial mystery of who killed Laura Palmer, the momentum of the show just disappeared. Secondly I wasn’t actually a fan of the levels of weirdness it degenerated to, I liked the kooky and odd stuff, but the resolution to the mystery was just too much. Battlestar Galactica came pretty close to losing me a few times along the way as well with its rather extreme mythologies. But I stuck with it, because it was so well written and produced and in the end, I think it all came together, and then it dutifully stopped. Maybe if Twin Peaks had just stopped, it would have stood a chance, but as it didn’t, Battlestar wins.

Mad Men vs. Lost
I gave up on Lost somewhere in the third season, because I lost faith in the writers. I felt they were trying too hard to make a television show that could be stretched out for as many years as possible, rather than telling a well paced mystery story. By all accounts I should probably go back and watch it through because I hear it pulled it all back together in the end, but I haven’t got round to that yet. With Mad Men however, I have nothing BUT faith in the writers. It’s one of the slowest series I’ve ever watched, half a dozen episodes can go by with seemingly nothing happening except gorgeous period detail and subtle acting. But every now and then, something happens – two characters share a moment, or a single line of dialogue and you realise that all that nothingness has been building to that one perfect moment. It’s breathtaking. The only proviso I put on awarding this win to Mad Men is that it’s one of the few shows on this list still airing new episodes and it still has time to blow it.

Next up – Round 2, and the semifinals and the final

Cancellations good and bad

On May 16, 2010 By sulkyblueIn TV ListsLeave a comment

We’re coming up on the time in the television calendar known as the ‘up-fronts’ it’s where the various networks introduce their schedules for the following year, it helps them sell advertising and also sell to the international broadcasters. In the weeks leading up to the presentations, news and announcements start to trickle through not only about the new shows, but also the old shows which are being cancelled to make space in the schedules. Watching the news roll in made me think about shows I loved and lost and I realised that while there were a number that I really missed and who’s cancellations made me angry, there were a surprising number that I actually accepted happily.

Five cancellations which made me cross…

Firefly
I’ve written plenty about why I think Firefly is one of the greatest shows of all time, and in many ways maybe the reason it will forever live in people’s memories as such is that was cancelled so early. In fact it was pretty much doomed from the start, miss-marketed and mucked about by the networks – it never really had a chance. Inevitable though it may have been, it didn’t make me swear any less when the announcement came in though.

The West Wing
You might say that at seven seasons The West Wing had a pretty good run at it and I should be happy with what I got. But the frustration was that after a disappointing couple of years, season 7 was really turning things around. Preparing to re-launch itself with a new president, a new bipartisanism and new characters, season 8 would have been West Wing: The Next Generation. That we didn’t get to live with President Santos is compensated for by the knowledge that the character was partly inspired by a young senator named Barrack Obama.

Wonderfalls
Wonderfalls was just one of a string of series from Bryan Fuller that died the death (Pushing Daisies is listed below, Dead Like Me almost made the ‘disappointed’ list, and Heroes almost made the ‘not so much’ list). The first episode introduces Jay, a cynical philosophy graduate who lives in a trailer and tries to avoid her crazy family. Then a small toy lion starts talking to her and giving cryptic instructions that eventually seem to help people out. It was weird, but had some great characters, a real charm and was hilariously funny. It was pulled off the air after only four episodes and I was very cross.

Angel
Angel was similar to The West Wing in that after a few years things were getting a little stale and there had been some miss-steps with storylines. But they were turning things around, introducing a new situation, new characters (although not necessarily new actors) and a new mission. Personally, I found it breathed new life into the show, and many agreed with me because the ratings actually went up. Sadly it seems that a spectacular amount of internal politics at the network caused the show to be rather unexpectedly cancelled. At least they were able to wrap up their stories, and Angel got to fight his dragon.

Carnivàle
Carnivàle was a peculiar series, set in a dustbowl era freakshow with a complicated and intricate plot centred on the battle between good and evil and the very nature of those labels. The problem is we will never know how the battle would develop, what all the subtext and hints were leading up to, because the show was cancelled two years into its six year plan, making the first two seasons feel a bit of a waste of time.

… and five that I didn’t mind
Veronica Mars
The first season of Veronica Mars is one of the best seasons of television ever made. The second wasn’t quite as good. The third was worse still. In a desperate attempt to save his at risk show Rob Thomas proposed a few years into the future to when Veronica is a new agent with the FBI. The problem was that in making that proposal he lost my support, because he declared that Veronica would be the only character to make the jump. Without her dad to stable her and Logan to unbalance her, I wasn’t really that interested.

Studio 60
I was so excited about this show; Aaron Sorkin, Matthew Perry, Bradley Whitford, Thomas Schlamme all came together to produce a brilliant pilot. But then something went wrong and I’ve never quite worked out what happened. There were no spectacular failures, things just didn’t quite gel together; the romances felt creepy and annoying, the supposedly hilarious show-within-a-show just wasn’t funny, and the tone was often too preachy and smug. By half way through it was pretty clear that the show wasn’t likely to be picked up, and I was more disappointed about the wasted potential than I was about the actual cancellation when it finally came in.

Dollhouse
Another cancellation that I met with faint sadness rather than anger. Once again despite a great collection of ingredients, the mixture just didn’t work. Maybe the network hadn’t realised they were buying a show with some pretty deep philosophical considerations and tried to re-engineer it, leaving a mishmash that satisfied no one; but maybe it was just a show that was never really going to work at all. Due credit to the network, they gave it a second year when no one, not even Joss Whedon himself had any hope, but the writing was on the wall by halfway through and with an acceleration of the plot we got to see how it would all play out. By the end I was satisfied that the series was finished, rounded out and enough.

Pushing Daisies
The popularity of the first season of Pushing Daisies reaffirmed my faith in humanity. This was a bizarre idea: weird plots, quirky dialogue, random spontaneous singing and a peculiar visual style and yet it was a critical and public success. I adored it. But something happened during the second season and I just fell out of love with it. Others did the same and the ratings died. When it was cancelled I was a bit sad that there was no place for a show like this in the schedules, but I was unlikely to have watched the next season anyway.

Primeval
Primeval managed a pretty impressive deterioration, from the really enjoyable first season which dropped just enough hints of a complex time travelling background story to make it more than just disposable dinosaur fun. But by season three most of the original cast had left and when the major storyline was resolved I was left shouting “is that it?!” at the TV. The show was cancelled and I felt all was right in the world. As it turns out though, other countries love the show, so a whole mix of channels have invested money to save the show. Of all the show’s that deserve saving, this is probably the worst!

Amazon Links
A positive side effect of a show you like being cancelled is that the price of the dvds drops dramatically, most of these are available at massive discounts. Also I’m shamelessly trying out Amazon associates ;0)
Firefly – The Complete Series [2003]
The West Wing – Complete Season 1
Angel Season 1
Carnivale: Complete HBO Season 1 [2003]
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip – The Complete Series [DVD]
Pushing Daisies – Complete Season 1 [2007] (just 6 quid)
Primeval : Series 1 [2007] (just 3 quid)

Top 25 Characters

On April 23, 2010 By sulkyblueIn TV Lists1 Comment

Four years ago I came up with a list of my top 25 characters. I couldn’t resist updating the list.

Gaius Baltar (Battlestar Galactica)
A fascinating character, weaving from hero to villain and back again often within the space of a sentence. The religious stuff was laid on a little heavy towards the end, but the character managed to pull it off.

President Bartlet (The West Wing)
Martin Sheen was so amazing, and the character so inspiring it’s hard to believe that he never won an Emmy. These days we may have Obama, but for a long time President Bartlet was the best hope we had.

Sam Beckett (Quantum Leap)
Bumbling through history playing a variety of parts, but always being Sam. The only connection he had to his old life was his weird friend Al, but despite not remembering it, he desperately wanted to go home.

Chandler Bing (Friends)
The only character in the series that managed to feel like a real person all the time (well, almost all) probably because it’s basically Matthew Perry playing himself.

John Crichton (Farscape)
Hilarious and heart-breaking, just your average astronaut (!) having a weird life.
“I try to save a life a day. Usually it’s my own…”

The Doctor (David Tennant’s Dr Who)
Tennant’s Doctor was such a wonderful character covering the full spectrum from depression through anger to pure childish joy, that I decided he was eligible all by himself without needing his other versions.

Michael Garibaldi (Babylon 5)
Garibaldi was always my favourite character on Babylon 5. He was the human element, he fought, he drank, he mocked everyone and the universe seemed to have some kind of grudge against him.

Jethro Gibbs (NCIS)
I love Mark Harmon and his ex-marine is brilliant. Outwardly gruff and hard, but not so inhuman that he doesn’t show his affection to his team with a kiss on the cheek for Abby or a slap on the head for DiNozzo.

Harper (Andromeda)
Andromeda had some epic problems with plots and writing, but it had some amazing characters and Harper was my favourite. He’s a scrounger, desperately trying to get through life as unscathed as possible while his friends seem weirdly obsessed with dragging him on suicide missions to save the universe.
Abel: You must be the engineer.
Harper: Why? Because I’m the short guy with the sense of humour, the wry wit? Huh? Because I’m so freakin’ amiable with the careless demeanor? Is that it?
Abel: Well, that – and the tools.

Gregory House (House M.D.)
Most of the time he’s a complete and utter bastard, and yet he’s also generally right. Every now and then he shows that he might, just about care about his colleagues.

Susan Ivanova (Babylon 5)
No one from B5 made the first list and now I’ve got two. I had decided on Garibaldi over Ivanova, but then when I started reading through quotes I remembered just how many brilliant lines she had and managed to squeeze her in.
“No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow. What? Look, somebody’s got to have some damn perspective around here. Boom, sooner or later. BOOM!”

Josh Lyman (The West Wing)
He’s a political genius who can’t keep track of time zones or find his luggage without his assistant. Sometimes he’s brilliant, sometimes he’s embarrassingly poor, but he always tries so hard.

Rodney McKay (Stargate Atlantis)
Another character that says all the things normal people never would (I’m spotting a theme). He’s arrogant, obnoxious and rude… he’s also a geek, a genius and occasionally very sweet.

George O’Malley (Grey’s Anatomy)
Poor George. He always means so well, and tries so hard and yet his colleagues are always the ones getting the glory. Except, just possibly, the last thing he does on the show, makes him the greatest success of all of them. His absence almost made me stop watching the show and there’s not much higher compliment can be paid a character.

Veronica Mars (Veronica Mars)
Teenager with attitude. She’s the kid that’s so amazingly cool, the cool kids at school don’t even realise that she’s light years ahead of them. So she tells them. Except that occasionally she also has a bit of a cry, falls in love with the wrong people and needs her dad.

Peggy Olson (Mad Men)
From a historical point of view her character is fascinating, a woman making the leap from being an object, to being an individual. As a character though she’s so compelling because she’s not making a statement about women at work in the sixties, she’s just doing what she wants to do.

Hawkeye Pierce (M*A*S*H)
“I will not carry a gun…. I’ll carry your books, I’ll carry a torch, I’ll carry a tune, I’ll carry on, carry over, carry forward, Cary Grant, cash and carry, carry me back to Old Virginia, I’ll even hari-kari if you show me how, but I will not carry a gun!”

Mal Reynolds (Firefly)
The hero who doesn’t want to be a hero, it never goes smooth for poor Mal. Some people are at their best when they’re having yet another bad day.

Doug Ross (ER)
There are reasons why George Clooney is a star and they’re all demonstrated in Doug Ross. Mark Greene may have been the soul of ER but Ross brought some character to it. He drank too much, womanised, looked great in a tux, looked great in scrubs, said what he thought and even rescued drowning children!

Nick Stokes (CSI)
Nick is a straight swap for his boss Gil. This is partly because Gil is gone and got a little irritating towards the end. But Nick deserves this place because he’s the little engine that could, never the smartest or most heroic of theCSIs, he’s just been quietly plugging along with his Texas twang and concerned looks until someone finally realised the department couldn’t run without him.

Buffy Summers (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Almost all the characters in this show are great, and it’s rare for me to chose a hero over a witty sidekick, but I had to go for Buffy over the others. She does occasionally wallow, but then if your teenage years were commandeered by destiny, wouldn’t you whine?

Malcolm Tucker (The Thick of It)
He’s loud and obnoxious and rude beyond words. But he’s also generally the only one talking sense. Also I will forgive absolutely everything he’s ever done wrong, because while he was having the worst day of his career, he ran to his secretary’s defence because people were badgering her.

Nora Walker (Brothers and Sisters)
The very definition of matriarch. Always ready with several bottles of wine, a shoulder to cry on, a rallying call, or even just a perfectly delivered cake. Nora not only rules her dysfuntional family, but is also trying to work out what a sixty year old woman does when her kids have all left home and her husband dies leaving her alone for the first time ever.

Dean Winchester (Supernatural)
Amongst Supernatural fans there are Dean-girls and Sam-girls, I’m a (only slightly ashamed) Dean girl. He’s a simple guy wanting to kill monsters, drink, eat pie, sleep around, drive his car and above all keep his family safe. He pretty much never gets what he wants, but always has a witty comeback.

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce (Buffy and Angel)
In terms of character development you don’t get much more extensive than Wesley, turning from the annoying twit in Buffy to the scary hero in Angel. He does what needs to be done, regardless of the costs.

Television of the Decade

On March 1, 2010April 24, 2010 By sulkyblueIn TV Lists5 Comments

Way back in December various websites, magazines and newspapers started compiling ‘lists of the decade’ and I watched with interest how different those lists were. For a start the lists did different things – “best of the decade”, “most important”, “most influential”, “our favourite” – each allowed a slightly different take on it. But even taking that into account there was a huge range. I decided what I would do was amalgamate those lists into one summary list, so in January I gathered twenty of them up and started doing some statistics.

As it turned out it was pretty hard to merge them together, some had ordered their lists, but others hadn’t, so how did I compare the two. I decided to go out, get some fresh air and post a letter and have a think about it. That’s when I broke my arm and everything went to pieces for a bit.

Two months later I came back and figured I should finish it, but by then I’d changed my tune a bit. Who cares what other people think the lists should be, they’re idiots and only my opinion is right. So while I consider whether to bother writing the original article, here’s my top twenty shows of the last decade. Chosen because they’re important, good, enjoyable or just because I love them.

The West Wing (reviews, quotes)
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again and again and again – The West Wing is the best piece of television ever produced. Yes, yes it went downhill after Sorkin left, but it eventually sorted itself out and the final couple of seasons were very close to its original glories. No other show has this cast, this dialogue, this power, this humour and this passion, it’s about as perfect as seven seasons of television can get.

Friday Night Lights (reviews, quotes)
A show about high school football in a small town in Texas has no right to be as good as this does. The show is very intimate, filmed handheld getting right into the nitty gritty of everyone’s lives – players, supporters, teachers and all their families. You will not find a more real feeling group of characters and a better chemistry, particularly between Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton as the coach and his wife. The show grows and develops each season as kids actually age and have to decide who to be and what to do with their lives and makes you care about every single screw-up and success.

Firefly (review, quotes)
Cruely limited to just a handful of episodes, this may go down as one of the biggest ‘could have beens’ in television history. An interesting and unusual concept partnered with a great ensemble cast and perfect writing. It’s possible that it wasn’t sustainable, that the reason that the show appears on so many lists is that it never had the chance to go downhill (I’m not the biggest fan of the movie) but the world will never know and this will live in the hearts of bitter fans forever more.

Battlestar Galactica (reviews, quotes)
Just as Babylon 5 would have appeared on my top of the 90s list, so does Battlestar Galactica for raising the bar of what a science fiction show can do. The vision for this show was impressively epic and depressingly dark. It wasn’t always perfect but the ambition was admirable and it succeeded far more often than it failed. It’s the only show on this list that I will probably never re-watch because part of the brilliance is in creating a likeable bunch of characters and making their lives increasingly miserable. Thankfully there’s enough beautifully crafted space battles and action sequences to prevent your brain exploding from the complicated debates of religion, politics and what it means to be ‘human’.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (reviews, quotes)
I haven’t re-watched this show in years, and I very nearly selected Angel for the list instead, but in the end I selected Buffy just for what I remember it meaning to me when I watched it. I was amongst those who mocked it when I first heard about it and then fell in love with the show when I finally caught up with it. It was a show that I had my family tape for me, and when I came home from university my mum and I would camp out in front of the tv and catch up. Angel may well be a ‘better’ show, more grown up and learning from some of Buffy’s mistakes, but Buffy earns it’s place by not so much breaking the mold as completely refusing to believe in the existence of a mold. Joss Whedon has two shows on this list, because he creates unique concepts, gathers talented actors and writes the best dialogue in the world.

Supernatural (reviews, quotes)
I became addicted to Supernatural just last year and watched 4 seasons in roughly two weeks. Then I went back and re-watched them all again. It’s entirely fitting it ends up in this list just after Buffy, because it’s clearly an entry in the chain of successors of shows that on paper are aimed at teenagers, but are actually so much more. “Two brothers road trip across the US fighting ghosts and monsters” and yet it actually has the most carefully and satisfyingly crafted plot and character arcs of any show on this list. As it approaches the conclusion of the planned five year story arc the way everything falls together becomes more impressive with each episode. Yet while dealing with all this depth, it’s hugely entertaining and self-aware and fun. I love these characters and am utterly, hopelessly obsessed and not ashamed to admit it.

Veronica Mars (reviews, quotes)
Another show that owes a bundle to Buffy. There may not be any monsters, but the spunky blonde at the heart of this show could easily take on a vampire in her spare time. There was a great cast of supporting characters but the heart of the story was the brilliant father-daughter relationship and the will-they-won’t-they relationships between good girl Veronica and bad boy Logan. Sadly the show peaked with its first season, the two subsequent seasons trying and failing to recapture the perfect mix of characters, episodic cases and the slow investigation and reveal of the season mystery. But even when those elements decayed, the dialogue and central relationships, along with the superbness of the first season, earn this show a place on mine, and many other people’s lists.

Farscape (reviews, quotes)
I was sure this was a 90s show, and that was why not one single other list mentioned it, but actually it premiered in 1999 so with 4 seasons, thoroughly qualifies and people have just left it off because they’re stupid. There are few shows that have caused me to drop my jaw in disbelief so many times – this show was just WEIRD. Setting Jim Henson’s Creature Shop loose on science fiction show in another galaxy brought a creative craziness to the screen that hasn’t been seen before or since. But it wasn’t just weird, it was good. It’s like Blake’s 7 with puppets and budget. It was fun and heartbreaking but never ever dull.

Deadwood (reviews)
Deadwood is the very epitome of what can be done on cable television in the US where they don’t have to deal with censors or advertisers and can do almost whatever the hell they want in terms of swearing, sex and violence. Deadwood is what Shakespeare would have produced if he’d written about an American frontier town in the wild west and been able to say f*** 1.5 times a minute. It does get a little overwhelmed with storylines by the third season, but by then you’ve fallen in love with the poetry, the period and the characters, even those that raise the label ‘dubious moral character’ to new levels.

Mad Men (reviews)
I can’t really imagine watching Mad Men one episode a week as very little plot happens in each episode, meaning you’re relying on the acting and writing to provide interest, which while superb occasionally leaves you asking “but what actually happened?”. However watching it in a chunk, or even a whole season at a time reveals a show of such breathtaking subtlety that the fact that it is so popular actually makes you feel better about the human race. Anyone that says the US can’t do period drama should look at Mad Men (and Deadwood for that matter) and apologise. The unashamed way each portrays its history is fascinating, there is no judgement in showing everyone chain smoking, or a pregnant character drinking, it’s just there in the background. The slow development of the characters and plots over the first three season all paid off in the final episode of season three with one of the most satisfying episodes of television I’ve ever seen.

Outnumbered
Outnumbered is another show I only picked up recently, in fact Christmas 2009 when my brother brought the dvd along for family Christmas and we ALL found it hilarious. Then I shared it with a housemate who doesn’t usually watch this kind of thing and HE found it hilarious. It’s hard to explain how a show set almost entirely inside a house with 2 parents and 3 young kids can be this funny, but it is so fresh and real and “oh god, I can’t breathe” funny that I couldn’t leave it off this list.

Six Feet Under (reviews, quotes)
This show almost didn’t make the list, Dexter was in this slot right up to the point that I started writing this paragraph, but as I started writing, I realised that actually, although Dexter is superb and has an amazing character at its core, it just didn’t have the same level of impact on me as Six Feet Under did.

Six Feet Under deals with the big philosophical questions of life and death, but balances them with the day to day dysfunctionality of the characters’ lives and the practical issues of dealing with death. The humour in the show is about as black as it comes, but it is really very funny. It is also beautiful, created and heavily influenced by Alan Ball of American Beauty, each episode has a movie level of thoughtfulness about the way it’s crafted. It’s not an easy show to watch, and I’ve never quite managed to bring myself to watch the final season, but it is superb and thoroughly deserving of a place on this list.

Band of Brothers (review, quotes)
The only mini-series on this list and I almost excluded it for that reason, but then I figured that if Firefly can make the list with only 13 episodes, it was unfair to remove this because it had only 10. It’s a series that I wanted to re-watch almost as soon as I’d finished it, because at first I didn’t really appreciate it. I had a hard time telling the characters apart, not realising that they really did have characters beyond their ranks and positions. It’s basically Saving Private Ryan but 5 times as long and that is nothing but a complement. The same people are bringing out Pacific this year to serve as a partner to the show and I can’t wait.

Doctor Who (reviews, quotes)
I always enjoyed Doctor Who as a kid, but wouldn’t have counted myself as a fan, it was just something that the family watched on TV. I don’t know whether it’s just the age difference or a change in quality/budget, or the structuring of the series, but I’ve connected with this new version a lot more strongly. The way it’s been brought up to date without losing sight of the past has been really impressive and the quality of it just oozes from every aspect. It earns its place on this list for achieving what I thought was impossible, taking an institution and bringing it up to date without losing the heart and soul of what it was.

CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (reviews, quotes)
Few shows define a decade so neatly and impact upon it so much. The CSI story is a fantastic one, it was turned down by three networks before CBS picked it up to air in October 2000 and has been in the top ten rated shows ever since. It spawned not only two spin-offs but hugely influenced dozens of other popular (and not so popular) shows. It turned CBS (and Channel Five in the UK) into the CSI channels. But it also earns it’s place because I actually really like it, after over 200 episodes, I still enjoy the mysteries, the characters, the fantastic graphic style, the music and the humour.

Grey’s Anatomy (reviews, quotes)
Grey’s Anatomy raised the game in terms of what writers must do. Shows are now aiming to be ‘the next Grey’s Anatomy’, and the majority of them are failing. Grey’s is an ensemble drama in the truest sense, not only does it have a massive collection of characters, but every character has a believable relationship with every other character, be it professional, personal, or inappropriate. The characters aren’t always likable and aren’t always smart, but they’re always themselves. It’s the kind of show that when the writers make a miss-step with their characters, the audience gets upset because it’s just not right.

I think it’s those mistakes that this show off a lot of people’s lists (it only appeared on one), but at the same time it’s the way that the show has earned that kind of passion that means it deserves to be here. I almost didn’t watch the new season, but I did and it immediately suckered me back in the way the show always does. I can’t think of another show that makes me laugh, gasp and cry almost every single episode. I hate myself a bit for it, but I adore this show.

The Thick of It
Only the second comedy on this list and another one I’m a late convert to. It’s a modern day Yes Minister, but with a level of swearing that would have made perms fall out in the 80s. While Deadwood is notable for its quantity of swearing, The Thick of It is astounding for the creativity it brings to it, the pure poetry of the diatribes that spew from these characters is breathtaking. The comedy is slightly depressing when you consider that it’s quite possibly not a million miles from the real way a government department might be run, but somehow the characters always manage to come down on the “at least they mean well” side of incompetency.

Planet Earth
This is on the list as a representative of all the output of the BBC Natural History Department. What always impresses me is the mixture of cutting edge technology such as ultra zoomable steady-shots from helicopters with the old-school requirement of a guy sitting in a hide for 3 months to capture 15 seconds of footage. The way they’ve taken to doing a ten minute of ‘making of’ at the end of each episode makes everything feel a lot more real somehow.

Stargate SG1 (reviews, quotes)
Stargate in one form or another has been on the air since 1997 and with about 350 episodes in the franchise at times of writing it’s just been quietly soldiering along almost un-noticed. Longevity alone isn’t quite enough to get you on the list, but Stargate has managed to make all those episodes entertaining in one way or another. Even when the episode plot was nothing special, or the massive arc storylines were getting a bit bogged down in the epic mythology, they could always fall back on some really great characters and dialogue. Unlike the Star Trek characters a lot of the time, Stargate’s characters felt real, these were real scientists and grunts and officers and diplomats dealing with aliens on distant planets. They knew it was cool and scary and bizarre and pulled you right along with them.

Top Gear (quotes)
Scraping its way onto the bottom of the list is Top Gear. For quite a while this was pretty much the only thing that I actually watched on live television rather than on dvd or.. um.. other methods. The show has become a bit of a victim of its own success, becoming something of a parody of itself, but at its best it was by far the most entertaining thing on. It’s not so much a car show, as an excuse for three blokes to just muck about a bit, make fun of each other and do really daft stuff. Challenges like the amphibious vehicles have had me laughing so hard it’s difficult to breath, while trips like riding bikes through Vietnam or driving to the pole left me craving adventure. It’s fun and often the perfect thing to watch on a Sunday night to escape the world for just a little while.

The West Wing: Season 6

On December 22, 2007April 4, 2010 By sulkyblueIn DramaLeave a comment

I think this season marks the low point of The West Wing, both in terms of plot and in terms of quality. There are an increasing number of ‘jump the shark’ candidate moments and it’s frustrating to see a series that previously had such sense and consistency degenerate so far, so fast.

Plot wise there are a number of elements that concerned me. The dramatic shifts in Leo and the president’s relationship, CJ becoming chief of staff, peace in the middle east, war with Canada, resolving Cuba… all moderately ridiculous. Continuity also starts to go out the window, failing to remember events and connections several seasons past and even backtracking on more recent episodes.

On a larger scale the season also suffers from a lack of cohesion. The regular team is broken up and now rather than just telling the story of the white house we’re also trying to keep up with at least 2 campaigns. Whole episodes will go by without seeing some of the characters we are accustomed to seeing every few scenes and while the characters/actors can carry episodes, they are always better playing off each other. The good news is that Jimmy Smits brings a wonderful new character to the show, a smart and worth successor to the now ailing and somewhat sad President Bartlet.

Season 6 is very much filler between Bartlet’s presidency and the final race to the election for the new president. It’s not a proper handover because there’s so little interaction, but it’s a necessary stepping stone. I just with the writers hadn’t lost faith in the audience – we don’t need huge stories about peace in the middle east, it’s the dialogue and interactions that we watch for.

The West Wing: Season 7

On June 9, 2006April 4, 2010 By sulkyblueIn DramaLeave a comment

I haven’t enjoyed a season of The West Wing this much since Sorkin left. Whether the season (particularly the 2nd half) would have been as good if they hadn’t been given a free hand by the cancellation no one will ever really be able to say. While I think it’s moderately idiotic to cancel a show just as it’s about to re-invent itself I am at least glad that NBC gave it a chance to finish, rather than just stop, and gave it the budget to go out in style.

Season 6 tried to cover both the White House and the campaign with an equal hand and consequently felt rather patchy to me. Season 7 however is all about the campaign with the White House definitely taking a back seat. Bartlett’s White House is gradually dying, having lost Josh and Leo in Season 6, they now also lose Toby and all that’s left are the Bartlets, CJ and the ‘fill-ins’ of Will (mini-Sam) and Kate (Nancy McNally-lite), who I honestly don’t really care about. There are a couple of episodes in the season focusing on CJ and they are beautifully scripted and acted to show her trying to hold it all together and denying that the end is coming. I was left a bit cold by the whole Toby story, it all made sense, but it seemed a rather sad, yet inevitable end to the character’s story.

Life on the campaign trail shows us an entirely new side to American politics and the lengthy focus on a moderate Republican is new for The West Wing too. The casting was inspired – the hugely charismatic Alan Alda, paired with the sympathetic Patricia Richardson and the familiar Ron Silver as Bruno Gianelli made for an intriguing and engaging trio. It was never likely that the Republicans would win the election, but they still managed to make the race interesting and exciting. In many ways Arnie Vinick is a lot more like Jed Bartlett than Matt Santos is, he’s more academic, he’s the statesman and the experienced hand, all things being equal he probably would have won, the nuclear thing seemed a bit of an act-of-god intervention.

The Democrat campaign meanwhile is largely the Jimmy Smits and Bradley Whitford show for the first 1/3 of the season and that makes pretty good tv in my book. Santos is the epitome of words like youthful and energetic, he seems to have no respect for the way things ‘should’ be done and this drives Josh nuts, and Josh is always most entertaining when he’s nuts. Josh seems to flounder a bit this season, he seems to be continually fighting his candidate, without the support of his old friends at the White House and without Donna he loses confidence and becomes isolated. However eventually the writers decide to change gears – suddenly the supporting characters in the campaign develop personalities, Donna returns and it’s a whole new ballgame. While the Republican campaign is full of ‘grown-ups’ the Democratic campaign is youthful and energetic and fun! Janeane Garofalo is brilliant taking no crap from the candidate or Josh and keeping things on track, it takes a while for the other minions to distinguish themselves but during the election and the transition they find their niches and claim them, bringing back some idealism and naivety to the otherwise somewhat jaded cast. Teri Polo and Janel Moloney both play it perfectly as the “other-halves” of the two powerful men, not taking any crap and being amazing characters in their own rights, the two pairings are written and played absolutely perfectly never forgetting the long histories involved.

No matter the rest of the season the highpoint was always going to be the election and following the death of John Spencer the writers decided to combine the high with the horrible low of Leo’s death. The two part episode was absolutely amazing, hitting so many emotional notes that my house-mates must have thought I was insane as I laughed and wept at the screen throughout the whole thing. Kristin Chenoweth breaking the news to Josh was just heartbreaking and if there was an Emmy for most amazing 5 seconds acting she would be the winner in a very tight race with Allison Janney and Martin Sheen for their scenes in this episode. These two episodes were just about the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen on tv.

The final episode on the other hand was far from perfect television, there wasn’t really anything spectacular about it, some nice acting and some beautiful locations, but nothing outstanding. Unless you’re a West Wing fan, then it was cram packed full of perfect moments and brilliant references. I cried through the whole thing. Bringing back so many of the old characters, even if just for a moment was brilliant – I bounced in my seat when Ed and Larry appeared, I squealed as Ginger delivered a line for the first time in years, I cheered at Ron Butterfield and Steve the reporter, I did a double take when Aaron Sorkin was lingered upon at the inauguration and laughed when Bartlet told Nancy (played by Martin Sheen’s daughter) that he was looking forward to seeing her mother again. And Mallory’s gift to the president? That required even more tissues. It was so sweet to see everyone where they should be – Sam in the White House at Josh’s side, Donna in a big shiny office and with Josh, CJ off to California with Danny, even Toby – pardoned but not forgiven was exactly where the character should end up. It was pure sap and I loved every minute of it.

Season 7 may not be the best season of the West Wing, it really is a completely different structure and idea to the early seasons making it hard to compare. It is however a very good example of how to close down a show in a satisfying way. I think it would have made a good springboard for a spin-off/sequel series in the Santos White House, but we’ll never know.

West Wing to End

On January 23, 2006April 10, 2010 By sulkyblueIn DramaLeave a comment

Now I’m sad.

The West Wing makes a very good challenge for my favourite tv show of all time and the only reason the position is challenged is because of a blip in the quality after Aaron Sorkin left. The first 4 seasons of this show are absolutely superb – they’re interesting, funny, dramatic, touching and sad. I can go back and watch almost any episode and be moved by it even after half a dozen other viewings. After Aaron Sorkin left the show floundered a bit, with some poor choices of plotline and a hole in the writing that just never quite filled. But the first half of season 7 I’ve seen put me back on the edge of my seat, I was physically jittery when I ran out of episodes, desperately wanting to know what was going to happen.

The loss of John Spencer hurt, and I’m almost dreading watching the episodes dealing with his passing. I’ve been re-watching season 3 and it’s painful to think of the show without him. It’s almost cruel that having found a way to keep him in the show following the change of administration he passed so suddenly. Season 8 of the show would already have to stand the loss of several of the characters we’ve followed, not least the president himself (the fact that for all this show’s awards, Martin Sheen has won very few, nominated five times for the emmy and never winning it).

I can’t quite understand cancelling the show now. While the ratings have fallen, that’s hardly surprising given the move to a Sunday night time slot and the transitory nature of the year. While I’m not surprised The West Wing has been cancelled, I am confused by the lack of a partner announcement for a spin off series for the new administration. If the West Wing is failing, why cancel it just as they’re about to have a huge shift in nature of the show?

Maybe it is better for the show to end at this point, but I’m going to miss these characters. I have a huge number of show quotes on my site but so many of the things that make The West Wing great were not the words, but the things that were not said, because they didn’t need to be.

Favourite West Wing Moments

Josh and Leo, end of season 6: “You”
Toby’s speeches
Josh and Donna: If you were in an accident, I wouldn’t stop for red lights.
Almost anything Charlie ever said. Or didn’t say.
Epic steady-cam shots
Latin
Every time the president flips his jacket
Josh and Leo: a guy’s walking down the street and he falls into a hole
Dire Strait’s Brothers in Arms, Tori Amos I Don’t Like Mondays, Jeff Buckley Hallelujah
Big Block of Cheese Day
Gail!

The West Wing: Season 5

On December 20, 2004April 4, 2010 By sulkyblueIn DramaLeave a comment

Oh. I knew that with the departure of Aaron Sorkin many said that The West Wing had just died, with some despondent fans going so far as to start Don’t Save Our Show but I hoped on. having watched the season through I understand where they’re coming from. It’s lost a great deal of what made the earlier seasons great, much of which I couldn’t even begin to describe. However, even West Wing at it’s worst, without the Sorkin shine, is still a great deal better than most of the other stuff on TV.

My primary criticisms would be that the new show-runner John Wells (he who kept causing issues with helicopters on ER) lost track of the fact that people watched and loved TWW despite there not being something to fuss about every week. We don’t need to have social security saved, or the government being shut down, or gimmicky mock-documentary episodes. Those sorts of spectacles were limited to ends of season while regular episodes comprised of nothing more exciting than filibusters, broken space probes or discussion of a census. And we *were* excited, and enthralled, and uplifted. Add to that the fact that some of the characters appear to wander off the plot and it’s just..not the same. I miss the proper West Wing, but I’ll take what I can get.

Narrative Devices

Tag: west wing