Best Shows of 2010

While the last three lists were compromised by not being able to pay for stuff, this one was actually probably enhanced - there's a lot of time to sit around watching television when you don't have a job. The last couple of years for TV have seemed a bit dry in comparison to what we had before that, but 2010 was another one for the ages. There were are a couple shows that I unfortunately had to cut to trim this list to ten, although a few will get recognized tomorrow. But these shows in particular entertained me an amazing amount this year. Remember, this is recognizing these shows for the seasons which ended in 2010.

Best of 2010

10. The Venture Bros. (Adult Swim)


The Venture Bros. fourth season was its biggest ever, and while maybe not the best, it was still pretty excellent. After some felt the third season strayed too far into building up its own world and just wasn't funny enough, the fourth struck a nice balance between comedy and mythology, developing further one of the most interesting and detailed science fiction universes to come around in a long time. It's a cartoon so consistently well-written and presented that almost every new episodes feels like it could be a contender for the best one ever, although the hour-long finale had the best case of all.

9. The Pacific (HBO)


Major Dick Winters, former leader of Easy Company and the man Band of Brothers spent the most time focusing on, died last week. Not only was he a great man, but he provided a central character around which possibly the best miniseries ever could build. The Pacific lacked that sort of central figure that the whole thing could be tied back to, but it still managed to match and even exceed its spiritual predecessor in some areas, from the scale and intensity of the battles to the harrowing way the horrors of war are portrayed. It wasn't as great as Brothers, but that's quite a lofty goal, and it was still quite good for most of its run.

8. Sons of Anarchy (FX)


This is the most inconsistent show on the list this year, with a tendency to occasionally go too far with some of its plot threads and have its characters make questionable decisions. But besides #1, it was also the best show at producing exceptional individual moments that make all the hiccups seem totally worth it in the end. Sons of Anarchy's world is a tough place to live, and that's just as evident in this season as the first two, especially in the final episode, which had one of the best conclusions I've ever seen and really helped cement the show as one of my favorites. Best finale all year.

7. Parks and Recreation (NBC)


Parks and Recreation was definitely iffy in its brief first season, but the second was just about brilliant from beginning to end. It reminded people of what The Office was like when it was really cooking and not just the acceptable sitcom it is today, and in some ways it was even better. The central cast isn't as big, but in many respects it's stronger, and whatever wacky idea they were tackling, they just seemed to nail it every week. It's been away for way too long, and I can't wait for its return a week from today.

6. Lost (ABC)


Kind of a drop on this list compared to the last two years, but that's more due to the strength of the competition than anything Lost actually did wrong. Like the show's whole run, its final season wasn't perfect, but its strengths were great enough to overcome issues of unanswered questions or uneven pacing. We got some really great payoffs for all the best characters, and I personally thought the ending was perfectly fitting what they had built up. I'll miss seeing it this spring.

5. Community (NBC)


Technically I'm not including what the show has done so far in its sophomore season, although I will say it really helped cement Community as my favorite comedy currently running. The first was plenty excellent on its own, as it transitioned from a likable Joel McHale vehicle about community college into a stunningly brilliant ensemble comedy about anything and everything. The themed episodes get the most attention, but every week you're bound to see something you weren't expecting. The show is hilarious, but it also manages a lot of sentiment without ever seeming cloying. Just a great show.

4. Mad Men (AMC)


This was my favorite season of Mad Men, and it's slowly creeping up my list of the best stuff you can watch these days. It's not as careful and well considered as it used to be, but it's a lot more enjoyable, with a seemingly conscious effort to make the show quicker, funnier, and more dramatic. It was just a bit dry for me before, but I thought they struck a great balance between entertainment and intelligence this time. And yeah, that finale was pretty crazy. Looking forward to what's next.

3. Boardwalk Empire (HBO)


You could swap this and Mad Men and I'd probably hardly notice, but for now I'm taking Empire by a nose. I think some people find it a bit slow, and while I can tell why, I don't really care because I'm always glued to the screen regardless. The show looks great, it uses violence and sex effectively without seeming too trashy, and I love the way they slowly build up their own slightly fictionalized version of 1920 over the course of the season. It's not quite the powerhouse it might have been and still could be, but it's damn good just the same.

2. Dollhouse (FOX)


A lot of people probably forgot about this already, but Dollhouse's second and last season finished airing way back at the beginning of 2010, and so it goes on this list. Dollhouse had a lot of warts in its first year, but it still ended up as a pretty series by the end of the season, and while season two couldn't help but stumble a bit again, I thought it quickly rounded into the best thing Joss Whedon as been involved with since Firefly and one of the best pieces of science fiction TV period. They really did a lot with what little time they had, and I know for one I won't be forgetting about it for a while.

1. Breaking Bad (AMC)


After seeing the final season of The Shield, I decided it was actually better than Breaking Bad's first effort, which is why I can't really say Bad was my favorite thing on TV for three years in a row. But for a while there it was. They stepped up their game yet again in season three, which was both the show's most thrilling and funniest yet. You might be wondering how I could say Anarchy had the best finale all year after Bad's, but the truth is it honestly just felt like another good episode and solid cliffhanger after all the amazing stuff that came before. It seemed like every week they were topping themselves in terms of mind-blowing events that were going on, and they never let you catch your breath. We have to wait a bit longer than usual for season four, but I bet it will be worth it.

Dollhouse - Season 2

When Dollhouse was facing possible cancellation after season one, I was hopeful it would continue, but the prospect of it ending wasn't a particularly depressing one. The show found its stride in the second half of the season (and the more disconnected first five episodes actually hold up better than expected when watched again), but an early death didn't seem like the tragedy that Firefly was. And the first two episodes of season two continued to underwhelm and shut down any possible chance of the show gaining an audience before Fox finally pulled the plug. But the last two episodes that aired before the cancellation was announced were pretty strong, more or less just stand alone stories, but they signaled that the writers still knew what they were doing and prepared fans for the sad truth. Once we knew Dollhouse was dead, it became the best show on television in what may be an unprecedented run of quality science fiction programming. The show didn't make us really miss it until we already knew it was gone.

The question of course, is whether the show would have still been as good if the writers thought they were safe, and the answer is probably not. At the very least, the plot would have developed much more slowly. They could see that the end was coming, and instead of just playing out the string, they dropped the normal formula of Echo going on various engagements that go wrong and decided to give us as much of the planned story as they could in the time they had. I thought after "Epitaph One", there was no way we could reach that point in the story naturally, but in season two they told us pretty much everything we needed to know. The last two episodes suffer the most for the rushed plotting, wrapping up everything that had to be a bit too quickly and conveniently for the series' normal reasonable intelligence, but they got the job done for the most part. "The Hollow Men" is the heroes' last ditch effort to prevent the Dollhouse technology from destroying the world, which is a bit too much standard action movie, and "Epitaph Two: Return", which makes resolving a horrible dystopia seem too easy. They didn't have to be perfect though, the first sort of working because we know their plan ultimately fails anyway, and wrapping up of all the character arcs being the second's more important goal. In between the first two and last two episodes, the show really was completely brilliant, with smart, believable character development, twists that hit the right balance of throwing you completely off while making sense in retrospect, brilliant uses and abuses of the central premise, and plenty of those tragic Whedon moments. Dollhouse wasn't perfect, but it succeeded in making me care that it's gone, which is an accomplishment for it lasting less than 30 episodes.

Characters of the Decade: Part 5

And we reach the thrilling conclusion. If there's one thing that astounded me, it's how many of these actors had a "Mc" in their name. This sure was a lot of work, but pretty rewarding. I hope it's been as enjoyable to read as it was to put together.

Dr. Horrible
Neil Patrick Harris - Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog


"Oh, goodness, look at my wrist. I gotta go!"

Neil Patrick Harris is currently one of my favorite people in Hollywood, and this is the largest contributing factor. During the writers' strike Joss Whedon and a bunch of likable actors came together and made one of the most simply enjoyable things of the year a musical comedy about a sympathetic super villain. Neil makes you laugh, he sings, and in the end he's both a tragic figure and the true bad guy he always wanted to be. There's a bit of dissonance regarding how he intended to get the nice girl and take over the world at the same time, but watching him stumble through it was great.

The Joker
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight


"How about a magic trick? I'm gonna make this pencil disappear."

The Joker has always been probably the most popular villain in comic books, appearing constantly in adaptations as well. But one thing Ledger did with the character before his unfortunate death was pretty unique: making him scary. There's always been something disturbing about him, because nobody has any idea what he really wants or how far he'll go for it. But with this movie, they took it farther than most people are used to and created possibly the most memorable villain ever in this sort of blockbuster. Unpredictable, darkly hilarious and sad that this is the last we'll see of that particular performance.

Kirk Lazarus
Robert Downey Jr. - Tropic Thunder


"Everybody knows you never go full retard."

I enjoyed Tropic Thunder quite a bit, but without Downey's performance it would have been pretty mediocre. The Lazarus personality itself is fine, but the character's unrelenting dedication to the role of Lincoln Osiris despite being stranded in the middle of the jungle is pretty amazing. Maybe a bit offensive, sure, but still comedy gold. And the jokes come not from him being a white guy pretending his black, but from just how great that black guy is at messing with people. Every moment he spends with Ben Stiller's character is worth watching more than once. Awesome stuff.

Lafayette Reynolds
Nelsan Ellis - True Blood


"Jesus and I agreed to see other people, but that don't mean we still don't talk time to time."

True Blood was much more enjoyable in its second season, but during the first it was pretty much Ellis' work that prevented it from being a complete train wreck. It can't be easy being a gay black man in the south, but Lafayette thrives there, not taking shit from anyone. He has a rougher go of it in the second season thanks to being kidnapped by vampires, and honestly putting him through it sapped him of a bit of his greatness, but he's still one of the few truly likable people on the show.

Walter Bishop
John Noble - Fringe


"If you were actually going insane, you'd likely have no idea what's happening. Take it from me."

Fringe has gotten better over time, but during its shaky beginning Walter was about the only thing going for it. He's fairly unrealistic, because I'm pretty sure there's never been an actual person with even close to the breadth of encyclopedic scientific knowledge he has, and you'd think some of that would go away after over a decade in an asylum. But he gets away with it because he's funny and weird and the plot needs him to know everything he does. John Noble is the kind of actor that's enjoyable to watch read a shopping list, so seeing him dissect mutated corpses and be kind of crazy is pretty fun every week. I'm not sure I actually care about the tragedies of his past, but it's okay with me that they're going with that.

Kenny Powers
Danny McBride - Eastbound & Down


"I've been blessed with many things in this life. An arm like a damn rocket, a cock like a Burmese python, and the mind of a fucking scientist."

Danny McBride's really come out of nowhere in the last couple years, and this is definitely his best character. I mean, anyone who can craft this big of an asshole and still make you want him to do well is doing something right. His unrelenting narcissism that masks his constant self-doubt is always classic, and watching him waver between stepping all over people and being stepped on himself provides laughter and sympathy at nigh equal levels. We haven't seen anything about the second season yet, but I'm looking forward to whatever new depths he can plumb.

Victor
Enver Gjokaj - Dollhouse


"Did I fall asleep?"

This is sort of a cheat, as Victor isn't so much of a character as a blank slate on top of which any number of real or fabricated personalities can be applied. But Enver Gjokaj is such a pleasure to watch chameleon himself into a role that I couldn't not put him here. Plenty of actors have range, but I'm not sure I've ever seen someone with quite his talents, as he jumps between dozens of unique characters over the course of the show and completely sells all of them. Characters being body switched and mimicking each others' mannerisms is a favorite gimmick of Whedon shows, but this is his bread and butter. In the span of maybe ten minutes he had to play both a serial killer and a slutty college girl, and did both with equal aplomb. Just a blast.

King Silas Benjamin
Ian McShane - Kings


"I will endure a party in the company of my choosing, but with none that sour the wine in my cup."

I've already pontificated on why Ian McShane is fantastic, but for all I knew Deadwood was a once-in-a-lifetime thing. Then I watched Kings and he did nothing but continue to impress. He doesn't get to swear nearly as much, but he's still a lot of fun to watch, especially with the increase in power from influential bar and brothel owner to sovereign king of a whole country. He bounces between saintly benevolence and fittingly biblical wrath like he was changing hats, and totally carries a show that would have been interesting without it, but not nearly as great.

Sue Sylvester
Jane Lynch - Glee


"I got a satellite interview. That's lingo for an interview, via satellite."

Sort of like Chi McBride on Pushing Daisies, Jane Lynch is what takes the almost impossibly joyful Glee and keeps it grounded in depressing reality. If Glee Club is what makes everything good happen in the world, Sue Sylvester is the source of all rot and decay. And that's why I love her. It's the depression she sprinkles all over everyone she sees that makes sure the show is watchable. Every story needs a conflict, and she is it. It helps that she's constantly cuttingly hilarious. The kind of character you could watch yell at people for longer than is probably healthy.

Alan Garner
Zach Galifianakis - The Hangover


"Your language is offensive."

It's not that I don't like Zach as a figure of independent comedy, I just think that more prominent roles in film and television means more of him in general, and that's definitely a good thing. There are some stand up comedians that simply should not take up acting, but Zach isn't one. And if this bizarre character leads to more, then it's definitely a good thing. I'm sort of out of ammo for things to say about Alan Garner, but there's really just not much about him that isn't funny. And uniquely funny, in ways that we haven't been seeing for years.

Colonel Hans Landa
Christoph Waltz - Inglourious Basterds


"I did have something else I wanted to ask you, but right now, for the life of me, I can't remember what it is. Oh, well, must not have been important."

Hey, at least the Golden Globes got one right. Basterds was amazing in ways I really wasn't expecting, and a lot of that was because of Waltz' magnificent, multilingual performance. I mean, how does he manage to be so menacing while being completely genial the entire time? It's unfathomable. There are a couple moments where the friendly smirk leaves his face, but they're very few and far between. And he ends up being surprisingly fallible for such an intimidating force. But that's sort of why he's great. He represents the Nazi party: nearly unspeakably evil, but in the end still just human.

Arthur Mitchell
John Lithgow - Dexter


"Hello, Dexter Morgan."

And here's our final character, who debuted a mere four months ago. I've always known Lithgow from comedic work like 3rd Rock from the Sun, but apparently he's done dark before, and his return is nothing if not a triumph. He managed to remain a captivating villain even after he was humanized over the course of the season, but I'll never forget what a terrifying presence he was when we still knew nothing about him. And that butt wasn't a very pretty sight either. Even after we knew more though, he still managed to provide buckets of tension for good old Dex, and has ended up getting him better than anyone else to date.

Best Shows of 2009

Again, things get on this list by having a season end in the year in question. Even if all but one episode was shown in a different year. Causes some odd situations, but it makes it a bit easier. This was a good year for shows I like, with lots of them either maintaining high standards of quality or bouncing back from relatively sub-par seasons.

Best of 2009

8. Pushing Daisies (ABC)


This is one of those odd situations. ABC failed to renew Daisies for a full second season, so they waited until the middle of the year to unceremoniously air the last three episodes. The show's second run didn't have quite the verve of the first, but it was still a beautifully shot, fiendishly clever, and highly charming show while it lasted. Maybe too cute for some, but it never bothered me.

7. Mad Men (AMC)


I really thought this was the show's best run, showing just how much good stuff there was last year. It featured a few of the series' greatest moments so far, some of its best humor, and some truly game-changing upheaval of the status quo in the last couple episodes. Ultimately though, I want to know what happens now more than I want to revisit what already did.

6. Dexter (Showtime)


The show's best go-round since the first, it wasn't perfect but managed to recapture a lot of what was missing the last time and tell an exciting story again. John Lithgow was probably the best pure villain on TV last year, and there were a number of scenes as shocking, disturbing, and downright just as tense as what you can accomplish in the medium. Plus it was the only thing on this list to have a significant supporting character regularly show her tits, which doesn't hurt. Nah, if that actually mattered True Blood would be here.

5. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX)


This year's best comedy, and I'd be tempted to name it the comedy of the decade if it weren't for Arrested Development. It's not as smart or subtle as some network shows, but it's just so damn laugh-out-loud funny all the damn time that you can't not love it. This was the year I feel Dennis overtook Charlie as the best character, but they're all so good that your personal pick doesn't really matter. I kind of wish the seasons were longer, but it might dilute the humor if they had to hire more writers.

4. Kings (NBC)


I kind of wish I had given it a shot when it was still airing. Not that it would have mattered, because I'm just one person and I don't have a Nielsen Box. Of all the shows I saw last year this one could be considered unique, with its own sense of pacing, dialogue, design, and themes. And Ian McShane played what was probably the year's best character. Just watching him pontificate while he shook hands with one arm and held a noose behind his back with the other was a treat every time he was on screen. Farewell Kings, I hardly knew ye.

3. Dollhouse (FOX)


It's really, really too bad FOX insisted on changing Joss Whedon's vision for the beginning of the series, because the consistently low ratings after just a few weak episodes show that it never really had a chance to recover, despite every nerd who kept with it shouting "No really, it's good now!" at everyone they come across. The show came to its own in the back half of season one, and the unaired (in America) finale was a big-time game changer.

2. Lost (ABC)


You can probably pencil this in for a similar place on the list for this year, as my anticipation for the show's final season is approaching a fever pitch and the creators have done nothing but prove they can do this sort of thing better than anything else on TV right now. Despite saying they weren't going to do time travel early on, they ended up instead creating one of the best long term time travel stories I've seen without coming close to overdoing it, and it ends with a few more shocking revelations while setting up what could be a truly special last run.

1. Breaking Bad (AMC)


Two straight years at the top of the hill. I don't know how much longer Vince Gilligan and company can keep it up, and it's going to take some doing with Dollhouse currently near the end of possibly the best season of science fiction I've ever seen. Still, I can see them doing it. The second season moved a bit beyond the first's angle, showing the meaning of the title as Bryan Cranston ably depicts a man who's lost sight of what's important and will do increasingly terrible things just to keep a leg up. Few shows manage its combination of genuinely good, intelligent drama and heart-wrenching, brutally intense moments. Just consistently brilliant.

Television Update 4: Straight-to-DVD Finales

A few shows that have recently ended or been in danger of ending have seen episodes or even feature length movies be put out on home video instead of the airwaves, at least in the USA. Here's what I think of them.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan


Edward James Olmos, who directed this movie, claims it won't be the end of the Galactica saga, and he's not talking about Caprica. In any case, it felt less like a real film and more like a very long, somewhat informative filler episode, giving a lot of background on what was happening with the Cylons in secret in the beginning of the war, within the context of what we know from the end of the series. Cavill and Simon have the biggest roles, with the former orchestrating nearly every move made within the walls of Galactica in the first couple seasons, and the latter having a genuinely intriguing character arc, adding some purpose to a model which was hardly used at all during the regular run of the show. The new footage is heavily interspersed with clips from earlier episodes, although the new perspective was enough to prevent it from feeling like a recap show to me. Not great really, but had some interesting nuggets.

Dollhouse - "Epitaph One"


Because of filming two pilots, the season order got a little screwy for Dollhouse's first season. Only the first twelve regular episodes ending up airing in America, with an extra thirteenth filmed cheaply and shoved onto the DVD. Epitaph One could have been the last episode of the series until it was somehow picked up for a second season, and it jumps into the show's future, showing an apocalyptic world torn apart by the organization's apparent poor business practices. It's pretty fascinating, though it will probably end up becoming frustrating when the show eventually does get canned before the plot can really get this far along. Despite some real clunker episodes, it's brilliant, original science fiction like this that makes the show worth watching every week, although unfortunately there won't be another new episode until December.

Prison Break: The Final Break


I believe this was originally intended to be the show's final two episodes, but they ended up packaging them together into a separate movie, which honestly feels like the right decision. It just doesn't really jive with a series ending, feeling more like a little bonus adventure that's not really relevant to the story arc. I guess it really is the ending anyway, but oh well. It features one last jail break, this time from a women's penitentiary. It fills in some details missing from the ending montage in the series' final episode, and provides an adequately tense and interesting story, although it seems weird that they are able to get in so quickly after the series' other two breaks both took at least a dozen hours of television to pull off. Prison Break was always a second tier series to me, and this does little to change that, but has a nice send-off for the characters.

Dollhouse - Season 1

Thanks to a weird production quirk, there was another episode filmed that didn't relate directly to the season's plot and won't air on TV just yet, but will appear on DVD. That leaves this week's twelfth (that's a weird looking word, isn't it?) episode as the finale, although hopefully not for the whole series. The show's in big trouble thanks to poor ratings, though I'm not sure what FOX was expecting sticking it on Friday night. After hating the original pilot so much that they made Whedon do another one, causing the aforementioned confusion with the last episode, they seemingly made him do several episodes in a style he didn't want, causing the show to sputter out of the gate quality-wise, and then stuck it in a viewership black hole. It's like they were trying to kill it before it even started. I was definitely not sold on Dollhouse through the first five weeks. A couple episodes were pretty good, but there was no thrust to the overall plot when the series seemed to be crying for it, as we saw Eliza Dushku go through several disconnected assignments with only hints of what was to come.

Thankfully, by the sixth episode things get more or less on track as the central story develops into something worth following and the show simply becomes more enjoyable to watch. In many ways it's not very typical Whedon, as there's still some humor but it's not as prevalent in the tone, and they often seem more focused on delivering a message than just keeping the viewer entertained. The very idea of the Dollhouse is a scary one, as for various reasons, some more justified than others, these people are removed from their bodies for years as they are forced to do whatever their employers are paid to do. Even if they agree to it beforehand, there's something very wrong about what they're doing, despite the fact that they are very often used as forces for good, protecting helpless people and bringing criminals to justice. Still, just as often or even moreso, they're merely pimped out for some rich guy's personal amusement. But even with that it's hard to dislike any of the people responsible too much, because they seem to believe that they're not in the wrong and are very well-written as likable, complex characters. They really packed a lot of great revelations and twists in the second half of the season, culminating in a great climax to a lot of things I thought would have taken longer to cover. I hope it survives to see another season, because I really wonder what they could do with the continued opportunity.