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SHUPS 4 DETH posted:Apologies for my presumption, but you'll understand why I took that tone after the next 3 eps. Thanks for giving me a legit reason to watch R&M, and props for playing fair. Welp time to eat my words The next two eps of Selfie really fell off a cliff, like to the point where I like the best ep less in retrospect. Rick and Morty is really good, but I don't know about top ten good. Time to edit!
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Jan 1, 2015 01:54
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2. Mom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEJBtg0rFX8 A weird little CBS sitcom created by the auteur behind such hits as Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory. Riotously funny and unflinchingly dark in turns, Mom is a sitcom in the vein of 80s and 90s classics like Taxi, MASH and Roseanne, which combined standard sitcom tropes with a very real and very powerful pathos. Remember pathos, or has it been watered down by dreck like New Girl and P&R with their constant stream of toothless "awwwwww" moments? The characters in Mom don't cry. They're not asking for "awwwwww"s (in fact, the audience is muted when things get rough). No, they stare the darkness right in the face and move forward, like we all do. By harkening back to sitcoms of the past, Mom manages to be the freshest and most honest sitcom on television. Yes, its multi-cam. Yes, there's audience laughter. But once you get past your childish aversions, you'll find what is objectively the best comedy on television.
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Jan 1, 2015 02:43
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I want to hang "toothless 'awwww' moments" on my wall and remember how great that is every second of every single day
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Jan 1, 2015 03:33
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I had never heard of this show, but this clip really impressed me. I'm gonna check it out!
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Jan 1, 2015 03:34
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Toxxupation posted:Everyone who made a qualifying post up to timp should be linked in the second post my list has been finished and rearranged in the correct order.
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Jan 1, 2015 05:36
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 10. Boardwalk Empire There's much to say about the final season of Boardwalk Empire; that it was too short, or there was too much of a focus on Nucky, other characters were more fun to watch, but when you're given a shortened season and asked to end it on your own terms, the show pulled it off with as much confidence as anyone could ask of it. It still felt rushed in a few character arcs, but the focus on Nucky became evident as the flashbacks started to elucidate more of Nucky's early life in Atlantic City and giving them purpose. Perhaps the time could've been better spent on the other characters and giving them some more screen time, but I think I saw what they wanted to accomplish with the final season. It's not easy ending any show, because fans will never truly be satisfied, but Boardwalk Empire set out what it seemed to accomplish with having the flashback timeline to help bookend not just the season, but the series. You may not particularly have liked Nucky Thompson, but after the final season, he easily justifies the time spent on him in final season, especially when you see all the pieces start to fall in place, and giving the entire series additional texture for a rewatch.  9. You're The Worst This was one of the few rom-coms that survived 2014 - the rest having fallen to the wayside - and its uniqueness shows. Taking on two almost anti-heroes (if not just outright despicable people) as the traditional rom-com couple made the genre feel fresh. Not content with simply making the leads of a romantic comedy utterly terrible people, You're The Worst goes as far as to give their "sidekicks" more material to work with than a traditional rom-com sidekick would get and acting less like a foil to their counterparts and more like real characters beings that have their flaws, vices, and despicable wants all out there. The fact that a show about despicable people finding love with each other while also being one of the funniest shows of the year says a lot about You're the Worst. It never dips into overly saccharine territory and remains brutally honest with their characters, despite everything, which makes You're The Worst absolutely fun to watch.  8. 24: Live Another Day The revival of the long-lived series under a shorter episode count definitely gave this season a lot of energy coming into it. Perhaps it was the long gap between it's finale and the start of the revival, but Live Another Day is exactly what fans of 24 wanted and loved. The show takes some pages out of more recent events, but the familiar tropes are all there, just packaged into a shorter format and it seems to work better for it. Nothing ever feels stretched out to pad time and your typical 24 tropes are played long enough for them to pay off before moving on. 24: Live Another Day was definitely some of the most fun TV I've had in 2014 and I'm hoping for the revival to return and take to heart the lessons learned from Live Another Day.  7. Jane the Virgin In one of the biggest surprises of the year, Jane the Virgin is one of those shows that seems to defy belief until someone watches it and gives it a fair shake. I am thoroughly guilty of writing it off just from the premise alone, but the writing and performances are worth it. There's a certain grace in how the show handles the personal relationships in earnestness but then shift into telenovella-levels of absurdity with relations to its plotting, character relationships and general tone without feeling incongruous at all. Never. This is also wrapped around a fantastically voiced narrator who breathes life into the show by giving him character as well as providing a cheeky way for the writers to play with the audience, one of the many feats I was genuinely surprised by. I'm not a stickler for voice overs, but regardless, Jane the Virgin's narrator puts everyone's to shame.  6. The 100 The 100 is the show that could, and frankly deserving of more viewers and more attention. It always defies the trappings of the network it's on to provide riveting and thrilling television from week to week. It's not afraid to pull its punches or show us it's not going to sit idly by and play by the same rules most network television. It's also not afraid to let us know their character's actions have real consequences, and then subsequently deliver in ways you would not expect. It may be on The CW, but this show is extremely sure of itself when tackling very real and complex themes through its narrative and characters. The core cast of the show is split fairly evenly but what is fantastic to watch are the women who are constantly large and in charge.  5. The Americans After a fantastic first season, The Americans returned with a renewed energy and came out the gate ready with an even more stellar second season, not only ratcheting up the espionage angle, but also continued to probe the troubles of domestic life and the toll that the Cold War takes on its characters. The only arguably dull spot was the resolution to the final act of the season, but it was far enough removed from many other strong plot threads that everything else hitting its mark didn't really seem to mar the second season at all.  4. Louie When Louis CK is essentially given a blank cheque, it's amazing to see what he can do. Not content to simply make relatively absurd-at-times and brutally honest comedy, he hones season 4 of Louie into a really focused and serial format, including a six-parter and a two-parter - which deserves its own special mention - nestled in the middle of the former. Louie explores some interesting and often dark places with the longer stories and at times what he's committed to screen borders on controversial, or at least worthy of deeper discussion. The other large story in season four of Louie features a flashback to presumably what is a version of Louis CK's childhood and his reflection on it after discovering his elder daughter's behaviour mirrors his, which was extremely fascinating to watch. There's almost no actual "funny ha ha laugh out loud" comedy in this two-parter but proved to be one of the more affecting episodes of television in 2014 for me.  3. Shameless Shameless is a show that does not get enough love, and it's fourth season in particular feels like there was even more life breathed into an already consistently amazing show. Not simply content to ever ride on its own success and any winning formula or retread similar ground, the fourth season of Shameless dials up the emotional drama and it never feels misplaced despite being more of a looming presence over previous seasons. Watching previously very strong characters like Fiona fall from grace and having to truly face extremely dramatic and heartbreaking arcs sounds like a recipe for just more misery. And there is, but the show always proves its own DNA true in showing that rather than sulking about it, the characters pick themselves and continue on as best they can, whether they like it or not. Despite a few faltering plot lines, the sheer strength of this season's strongest character and emotional arcs completely offsets any imbalance.  2. Once Upon a Time This is one show that I absolutely look forward to watching every week. There's a confidence that the show found in the first half of it's third season and hasn't let up on since then. Of particular note is the first half of season four, which introduces the characters from Frozen. It's done particularly deftly, especially considering that the writing staff had to work within the limitations given to them by Disney of having to use characters from Frozen coming out of the events of the movie rather than reinterpreting their origin stories and characterizations, as is the show's typical m.o. The cast of Frozen is particularly well realized, with maybe the only the costume design being just barely questionable, as the straight translation of their costumes occasionally clashes with the show's own aesthetic. Otherwise, the cast of Frozen's characters drive the main plot of the half season but never clash thematically or take over the spotlight from the show's original characters, and the show constantly surprised me at every turn with how well it seemed to incorporate Frozen's characters and themes as part of the show's own. The writers also provided some interesting turns on smaller details from movie through the show, giving both OUAT and Frozen additional texture, almost making Frozen feel like it fit naturally into the mythology of Once Upon a Time, despite being wholly separate ventures. You could very well argue that season 4.1 of Once Upon a Time is as good of a follow-up to Disney's Frozen as you might expect from a possible Frozen sequel.  1. Person of Interest A lot of people were disappointed that the show did not veer off in a different direction coming out of the season 3 finale, but that was never in the books for the show, and I respect the showrunners sticking to the show's formula. Despite wearing a now very thin procedural veneer, the show moves at a fairly quick pace and is one of the few shows that uses its procedural formula to move its serial plotlines forward, rather than reserving them at their bookends, giving the procedural aspect of the show a strong narrative drive rather than feeling like rote filler. Person of Interest also continues to tackle relevant issues such as national security while it also starts to look at the topic of the creation, evolution and fears of self-aware artificial super-intelligences. Person of Interest is wholly deserving of people's attention, and its multiple balancing acts of the procedural-serial format, creating worthwhile and sympathetic protagonists and antagonists, managing of multiple concurrent and significant plot threads, as well as simply having a fantastic mix of action and intelligent storytelling that is always consistent which makes this show some of the best television to you can find right now. Runners-up (in no particular order): Mad Men Transparent Orange is the New Black The Leftovers Game of Thrones Penny Dreadful True Detective Arrow The Flash Hannibal Brooklyn Nine-Nine Cosmos: A SpaceTime Odyssey The Firefly Award for 2014: Selfie Canadian Shows actually worth a drat 2014: 19-2 Strange Empire Orphan Black (only because of inertia) Sober fucked around with this message at 06:49 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 06:38
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I wonder if the CBC will follow up 19-2 by bringing Unité 9 over to the english side as well. Those are the two good serious dramas on Radio-Canada right now. Unité 9 is basically Orange is the New Black if it wasn't loving dogshit.
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Jan 1, 2015 06:43
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Those are the French Canadian ones though right? The English rendition of 19-2 is too loving crazy for CBC since it's actually on Bravo, which is basically cable. So someone would have to go and want to adapt it. I'm actually surprised something like Strange Empire got made though, it does not fit the CBC's usual identity at all, especially as it's not a non-co-pro. like Book of Negroes.
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Jan 1, 2015 06:47
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Sober posted:Those are the French Canadian ones though right? The English rendition of 19-2 is too loving crazy for CBC since it's actually on Bravo, which is basically cable. So someone would have to go and want to adapt it. Dag I didn't know they aired it on a different channel. That's kind of weird. I saw some eps of the English version and it seems pretty faithful so I guess the CBC are just pansies compared to their French counterpart. 
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Jan 1, 2015 06:51
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Why have I not heard of You're The Worst?
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Jan 1, 2015 06:53
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Zaggitz posted:Dag I didn't know they aired it on a different channel. That's kind of weird. I saw some eps of the English version and it seems pretty faithful so I guess the CBC are just pansies compared to their French counterpart.
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Jan 1, 2015 06:56
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Pillowpants posted:Why have I not heard of You're The Worst? It premiered over the summer with the Nat Faxon/Judy Greer comedy Married in an hourlong bloc. Neither show got very good ratings but were both renewed anyway.
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Jan 1, 2015 07:24
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Nothing like getting a list in right under the wire! 10. 24: Live Another Day I never even finished watching the original run of 24. I gave up around season 6, as it was getting too repetitive and boring. But I had high hopes for this revival. I hoped that the shortened episode order, combined with some time away for the writers to remember what worked best about the show would allow for them to make the show good again. And thankfully, I was right! The show played to it's strengths, and the shortened episode order allowed them to stay focused. I hope we get another wrap-up season, given the way this one ended, and I hope they give us a real ending that time around. 9. Agents of SHIELD Everything about this show has pretty much already been said. It's not gonna win any awards, but it's total popcorn TV, and as a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it's just fun TV. I haven't watched The Wire yet, but I'm all caught up on AOS, because I can just turn my brain 90% off, relax, and watch the comic book show. 8. Rick & Morty I can thank TV IV for this show. I watched the pilot purely because of my love of Dan Harmon, but I hated it. Then TV IV lost it's collective minds over it, so I made a mental note to check out another episode at some point. So I did, and now it's on my list. Truly great TV, though I still think the pilot is the weakest episode. 7. Last Week Tonight Here's a show I never would have guessed I'd be putting on my top 10 list. I figured it'd just be a Daily Show clone, and since I was getting pretty tired of the Daily Show at that point, that wasn't necessarily a good thing. But LWT became more than that, and it is all the better for it. Being on HBO gives them much more freedom, which they take full advantage of. And that allows them to be not only funnier than TDS, but more informative as well. 6. Silicon Valley If LWT is a show I never guessed I'd be putting on my top 10 list, Silicon Valley is a show I totally guessed and hoped would be on my list. And it did not disappoint. It's a Mike Judge show about the tech industry, and it's every bit as funny as you'd think it would be. Everyone loves the dick measuring scene, but for my money there's not many funnier moments this year than Erlich's "You just brought piss to a poo poo fight you little cock *SLAP* 5. Fargo 4. True Detective #5 and #4 are close. Really close. Fargo and True Detective were both dramas that seemingly came out of nowhere this year and were both really great and universally praised. Ultimately, I think Fargo was the more steadily good of the two, while True Detective had higher highs and lower lows. Fargo definitely stuck the ending better, but there's nothing in Fargo as gripping or compelling as Rust's whole undercover scene in True Detective. Unfortunately, I don't have high hopes for S2 of TD due to the people involved. However, I have high hopes for Fargo S2 for the same reason. 3. Hannibal Fargo and TD were close, but Hannibal was a clear step above either of them. This is a show that I'm not sure how it exists, much less on network TV. But I'm very glad it does, as it gave us some of the best cinematography, suspense, and character drama seen all year. I'd say that i really hope next year this show finds a bigger audience, but as long as NBC keeps it on the air, I don't care what the audience is. 2. Nathan For You Another surprise for me. I didn't watch the first season of this show, mostly for two reasons. One, I didn't know what it was. Two, there were ads for it all over NYC and I hated Nathan's smug face on the ads. Little did I know - that was the point! I don't remember why, but I watched some random S1 episode on Hulu this year and was instantly hooked. Even though it's number two on my list, I think the hardest I laughed all year was at the line "Wait, you got choked by a ghost in Switzerland?" I only hope the show hasn't gotten big enough that Nathan has trouble turning in a great third season, but I suspect he'll get the job done. 1. Review with Forrest MacNeill I give the first season of Review five stars and am greatly looking forward to the second season. HONORABLE MENTIONS (aka Shows that Just Missed the Cutoff) Black Mirror - I had this show at my number 10 spot for a long time. But ultimately I figured that even though I only first watched it this year, the only episode that aired this year was the Christmas Special. And that falls somewhere in the middle in terms of the overall show quality, so it fell off the list. Brooklyn 99 - I like this show, but not as much as most goons I think. It's a good show, but so far it hasn't reached the heights of Parks & Rec or The Office in their primes. Parks and Rec - Still love this show, even though it's undeniably lost a step since it's glory days. Hopefully the time jump and the fact that they know it's the last season will give it the creative jolt it needs to have a great final season. Cosmos - Great show, just couldn't find a place for it on the list. Community - This season was a great return to form with Dan Harmon returning, even if the last couple episodes were a little weak. High hopes for the next season. Star Wars: Rebels - I never really liked Clone Wars. To me, it felt like The Prequels: The TV Show. Whereas Rebels feels like The Original Trilogy: The TV show. So I like Rebels so far, but it premiered pretty late in the year so it missed the list. Maybe if it keeps up this level of quality it will make the list next year. That's it!
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Jan 1, 2015 07:41
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Woooo I have an hour and fifteen minutes let's see if I can get this all done... first, the Honorable Mentions and such... Shows I Have Previously Enjoyed But For Any Number of Reasons Am Not Caught Up on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (I'm on like S3, maybe?) Hannibal (about 3-4 episodes into S1, ughh) Orphan Black (1 or 2 into S2, though most of y'all are saying it wasn't as good as S1) The Americans (9 left this season!) Louie (got about 2 episodes in this season before arguing scared me away for a while) Homeland (have yet to begin the post-Brody era) Shows I Have Enjoyed An Episode or Two Of And Will Hopefully Continue in The Year Of Our Lord 2015 Brooklyn 99 Veep Nathan For You Drunk History Transparent Mozart in the Jungle (Gael Garcia Bernal's my dreamboat captain  )Benched True Detective Fargo Community Shows On My List to Start in 2015, Even Though I Know I Won't Bojack Horseman Cosmos Silicon Valley Manhattan Shameless You're the Worst Halt and Catch Fire Justified Other Things Probably But I Can't Remember Them atm Ok now the real Honorable Mentions Modern Family would not ordinarily get inclusion here as most of the most year was fairly generic, *but* their Las Vegas episode came along in March, and boy howdy, did it bat 1.000. Stephen Merchant, Fred Armisen, and Patton Oswalt all had plus guest-starring roles, and the first half set up perfectly for the second half to play off every possible misunderstanding. If only that episode wasn't such an outlier... Suits, for some reason, has aired what feels to me like two entire seasons in the past year. Maybe I was just really behind before, or maybe it's a side effect of the split season thing? It might just be because so much has happened, I don't know, with Louis almost discovering The Secret, Mike leaving Pearson (Darby?) Specter, Mike fighting with Harvey, Mike getting fired from non-lawyering, Mike returning to Pearson Specter, Louis actually discovering The Secret, Louis demanding for the firm's 83rd name change in the span of the series. Jesus, they packed a lot of drama into 16 episodes, and I didn't even mention any of the [insert Mike-Rachel relationship drama here]. Makes my head hurt. Elementary is a show I usually enjoy, primarily because Johnny Lee Miller is delightful, but probably doesn't have the potential to be upper-tier. Which isn't a bad thing by any means, I mean worst case scenario is it's the only show to feature a tortoise in a major role, so it's always got that going for it!  lovingly taken from the S3 thread e: ok I don't have time to write as much as I should/want to, so I'll put in my list, and fill in the blanks with  and wordy-words afterTHE LIST 10. House of Cards Kevin Spacey does whatever the gently caress Kevin Spacey wants 9. The Good Wife I watched almost the entirety of this show in the past year, but this ranking is not so much because of that as it is killing off one of its leads in such a brilliant fashion. 8. Parks and Recreation Another show I finally got caught up on this year. I miss Ann terribly, but it's very good at what it does, which is actually quite a number of things: (1) prove that both Ron Swanson and Nick Offerman are the greatest living Americans (2) be a vehicle for Chris Pratt to act like an idiot and injure himself (3) allow Aubrey Plaza to continue to be so terrifying bizarre (4) give Leslie and Ben free reign to be adorable nerds together 7. The League Even in the time of Teflondre, Andre still somehow manages to get continuously shat upon, and I wouldn't anything less. He won the Shiva, and yet (deep breath) he was revealed to be a cheater, he had a terrible business idea that hilariously blew up in his face, the beach house that he won with the Shiva literally blew up in his face, and he's still a tremendous idiot with the world's worst fashion sense. 6. Scandal Every single time I talk about this show to anyone, I preface myself by saying that there's no way it can sustain the pace it's had, then clarify that it already has up to that point. And even in the past year, it has incredibly been able to continue topping itself. When I add to this later, I hope to be able to find a scene from the most recent episode in which Joe Morton, in all his scenery-chewing glory, has let his undying love for his daughter (Kerry Washington) collide with her overpowering terror for him, and it was magical. If I can't find it, you may just have to trust me on that. As an aside, Washington is married to a formerly great NFL player whose career went up in flames, in startling fashion for many reasons, and I fear I may look back on that as a great foreshadowing to Scandal's end. 5. The Goldbergs I don't actually need words, just this video, to justify the ranking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG9djvu_yXQ 4. Psych I literally would have forgotten to include it, one of my all-time favorite shows, had I not seen someone include it earlier. You see, I tried to Fringe it (a term I made up from my father's putting off their series finale for like a year and a half out of fear of actually coming to terms with it ending) until a week or two ago, and until then I could've sworn it had already been a year since it left us. It's only at 4 mostly because of the shortened season (drat you USA  ) though the musical sort of counts as the rest of a season by itself3. Person of Interest There's not a lot to say about these top 3 that hasn't already been said by others before me! Though I can say it has, in some ways, become the show I had dreamed it would be since I first watched the pilot, and in other ways, so much more than I could have imagined. 2. Last Week Tonight John Oliver has done a ton of incredible things with the HBO format, and all of them made me very happy. 1. Review I honestly thought I'd be giving this an Awake Memorial Number One Spot, particularly with how it ended, but it was for whatever reason renewed and I am eternally grateful. Maybe so that Season 2 could end with Forrest MacNeil killing himself like I feared Season 1 would. Oh god. 
uublog fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 08:24
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10. True detective This was a great police procedural featuring the banality of life in the style of dragnet but with a cthulu mythos. 9. Shameless  The Gallagher clan had some bad times this year, and man was it hard to watch. I like hard to watch, and I'm really curious as to what will happen with Frank Gallagher still around. 8. Trailer Park Boys  They're back, and Bubble's handpuppets are back. Sebastian Bach is back. This is dumb humor about canadian white trash, and when it sneaks in something intelligent it really gets good. There were a lot more of the slow burn jokes this year, but the finale was perfect. 7 Wilfred  Everything about this was great, minus missing Dwight Yoakam. 6. Broad City  Women are funny, and they always have been. The worst thing about this show is my inability to do Iliana's face justice in ink. 5.Bojack Horseman  This show oozes Kid Notorious to me, so imagine the jokes of Kid Notorious with the sensibility of The Kid Stays in the Picture. 4. Person of Interest  Everything about epic this does right, and the only reason it isn't placed higher is that I'm left wanting more. I'm petty. 3. Fargo  Everything about this TV series shouldn't have worked, the movie already did it, but gently caress. I knew The Unusuals would lead to greater things, and I have a giant mancrush on Adam Goldberg since forever. 2. Transparent  Transparent is a great show about how everyone's definition of themselves is based in trauma, like Six Feet Under with less infidelity and crazy Lisa. 1. Utopia  Dark, depressing, and like Black Mirror but happening today. This will be a relic in 10 years, but it's perfect now. Final edit a minute late, do with this what you will Occ. Grassy Knowles fucked around with this message at 09:01 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 08:50
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Rarity posted:I fully expect him to just not finish his list this year Called it
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Jan 1, 2015 09:01
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But then how does Irish Joe top himself next year? I guess we'll need to stay tuned.
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Jan 1, 2015 09:05
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Nice touch with the drawings, Speak. Though I missed the part where Kim Jong-un showed up in Utopia. 
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Jan 1, 2015 14:13
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hcreight posted:Nice touch with the drawings, Speak. Obviously you weren't dissecting all of the newspaper images in s2e1
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Jan 1, 2015 15:04
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2014 TVIVers Poll Results: Worst Year for the World, Best Year for TV? After an exhaustive morning of results compiliation, here are some results! I hope you appreciate the timely service from your humble numbers cruncher. In a truly shocking twist, TVIV this year appreciated slow-moving character works, with complexity of character and deep meditations on the human experience. Just kidding. Everyone still likes to watch people get killed! For 2014 we got 51 polls entered with 133 unique shows included. This was a sharp decline from last year, which had 71 polls with 127 unique shows. As you may have noticed by the total show count, this didn’t stop you special snowflakes from voting for things that no one else cared about, as we had a record 59 shows only voted for by a single person. A truly disturbing number of these had to do with wrestling. The usual methodology notes: Everyone’s vote counted except for Irish Joe and EvilTobaccoExec’s, neither of whom posted a complete list. FX as always was counted as one channel for the channel breakdowns. I Googled the channels for shows I’d never heard of, which was most of them. If someone voted for Utopia without specifying a country. I generally assumed it was the UK one except for Parasara. Kaizoku’s vote still counted because guess what, bitches, I run this thing, and drawings are the best. Without further ado, your Top 10! Full results are at the bottom of the post. pre:Rank Show Points Prior Year Rank 1 Hannibal 177 #5 2 Fargo 167 New for 2014 3 Arrow 132 #4 4 Brooklyn Nine-Nine 127 #11 5 Person of Interest 113 #3 6 Last Week Tonight 102 New for 2014 6 The Flash 102 New for 2014 8 True Detective 81 New for 2014 9 Agents of Shield 79 #71 10 Rick and Morty 63 New for 2014 The Top 10 has almost no continuity from year to year, thanks to the fall of Walter White, clones and apocalypses losing their momentum, and the truly inexplicable loss of Game of Thrones. May you all be poisoned at your weddings while your mother weeps brokenly over your body! I’m serious! But in spite of this, “goons are nerds, like nerd things” will never not be true, with a lot of comic book stuff getting a lot of votes. Even Gotham made a list! Superheroes have got it made. However, it was also a better year for funny TV, albeit funny TV that is kind of mean. After Parks and Rec was the last bastion of joy in 2013, three comedies (including Last Week Tonight) hit the radar, proving that we can still laugh a little. And that Dan Harmon has some kind of mind control device at his disposal that the NSA should definitely be looking into. Despite doom and gloom from TV critics, it was another amazing year for network American television. Every channel is represented in the Top 10, even sad little ABC! The Shonda Rhimes channel! It’s a Festivus miracle. HBO and FX are still staving off the wolves with more cumulative points than any other channels, but the gap is tightening. And poor little AMC is just totally screwed after taking the top spot last year. Agents of Shields defied all of the critics and rose from almost total obscurity last year (only 2 votes for 8 total points) into the Top 10. It was by far the biggest riser of 2014. But as I mentioned above, some shows must be shoved through the moon door of their own high expectations and make way for other people with British accents. The losses from the Top 10: pre:Rank Show Prior Year Rank Did not air Breaking Bad #1 #13 Game of Thrones #2 #22 Orphan Black #6 #17 Parks and Rec #7 #40 Justified #8 #62 House of Cards #9 #66 Sleepy Hollow #10 Some less obvious falls from graces are Boardwalk Empire, bootlegging itself from #14 to #69, Archer, which slid from #15 to #58 and New Girl, which I think is the highest ranked still-eligible show from last year (#24) to not receive a single vote in 2014. Since Occupation was inspired to start this poll by the HitFix critic’s poll, it’s only fair to compare our results to theirs. There are a staggering 4 shows in our Top Ten that didn’t even rate a mention by these so-called critics - Arrow, Person of Interest, Agents of Shield, and Rick and Morty appear not even once. We were close to 5, but Eric Goldman voted for The Flash in his 10th place spot to save us from a 50% miss of quality as judged by experts. Props to him! All of their Top 10 shows at least garnered a mention from us, but their 11th place finisher, Olive Kitteridge, I’ve never even heard of and neither have you. But they seem to like it! Here are some more stats about voting that may interest only me: The most “consistent shows”, meaning those that were voted around the same place on the ballot when they were voted for at all, were Black-ish, Veep, and Bob’s Burgers. Black-ish in particular was astonishingly consistent, with 4 of 6 voters agreeing it was an 8th place show. More than 5 votes were needed to qualify for this analysis. The most “divisive shows”, meaning those that were voted in wildly different positions when they were voted for at all, were You’re the Worst and Doctor Who. No middle ground for these guys! Again more than 5 votes were needed to qualify for this. Honorable mentions had no effect. Steven Universe made the highest average with the fewest votes - 2 votes, but one in first and one in second place. Congrats to this show I’ve never heard of! Black-ish once again took the prize as the show that got the most votes (more than 5) with the lowest average. Its name seems vaguely prophetic. Other shows that people liked enough to list but not enough to really go nuts for were 24, Gravity Falls and Transparent. One of these things is not like the other others! We got some TV movie votes this year, including two for a thing where Marnie from Girls sang and danced! 2014 was a strange year for us all. Cosmos was also a big hit, the highest show about learning we’ve ever had. Unless you count The Americans, which I know has taught me a lot. The highest ranked non American-aired show was Doctor Who, unless you don’t count that because of BBC America, in which case it was Utopia. Reality TV didn’t make much of an impact this year beyond some throwaway votes. A poo poo ton of animated shows were voted for. Also like 4 wrestling shows. What the heck. That’s like voting Sunday Night Football as the best show. Whatever. Sherlock got no votes. Elementary got 2. Benedict Cumberbatch will just have to settle for his insanely perfect life, I guess. Sucks for him. Channel-wise, the story this year is all about the CW. It airs literally 8 scripted shows, yet is the 3rd highest points getter after HBO and FX. 7 of its 8 shows were voted for in this poll, with only Vampire Diaries being left out in the cold. 7 shows! It’s insane! Gossip Girl would never even believe you! It has the highest average points of any channel but CBS, which rode Person of Interest and The Good Wife like skis to get there. The overall rankings for networks: pre:1) The CW 2) FOX 3) NBC 4) CBS 5) ABC HBO resurged this year into the first spot with the most shows (11) voted for of any channel. Web distributors continue to slip, with Netflix and Amazon at #11 and #19 respectively. Channel 4 was the first international channel to crack the Top 10, thanks to Utopia and Black Mirror. And most impressively, Comedy Central and especially Adult Swim came out of nowhere to hit the Top 10. And finally, some details about your fellow posters. People who put shows #1 that no one else voted for to prove some kind of point: Senerio (some wrestling thing I won't even attempt to type again) and Deadpool (Mozard In the Jungle). Enjoy your moment as unique individuals. Don’t ban me, Deadpool! The TVIV Outcast, the person who voted for the most shows that no one else likes a.k.a Sophia’s most hated poller because it’s a huge pain to add new shows given my inefficient process: BSam, and it wasn’t even close. He voted for literally nothing in the Top 10. Only Doctor Who stopped that (barely) from being true about the Top 20 as well. Unlike last year, he seems to be an international poster so I feel a bit bad about being so annoyed. But I still am! Sorry BSam, don’t let it get you down. The TVIV Leader, the person who has his or her finger on the very pulse of this forum and is destined to be our ruler for next year and possibly the next mod: hcreight. His domination is not as complete as last year’s winner, as he has only 6 of the Top 10 shows in his list, but all of his Top 5 were, which was enough. That’s it for the year! Thanks to everyone who voted and took the time to enter the poll! None of my data geeking would be possible without you! And of course thank you to Occupation for running it and reminding me to get my rear end in gear frequently. Let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns or suggestions for how everything is done. I’ve made the spreadsheet pubically viewable so that you can all look at it more in depth or steal the data for things. Full results here if you don’t want to open it up: pre:Rank Show 1 Hannibal 2 Fargo 3 Arrow 4 Brooklyn Nine-Nine 5 Person of Interest 6 Last Week Tonight 6 The Flash 8 True Detective 9 Agents of Shield 10 Rick and Morty 11 You're the Worst 12 Silicon Valley 13 Game of Thrones 14 Cosmos 15 The 100 16 Review 17 Parks and Recreation 18 Nathan For You 19 The Americans 20 Doctor Who 20 Veep 22 Orphan Black 22 Bob's Burgers 24 Z-Nation 24 Utopia (UK) 24 Manhattan 27 The Knick 27 24 29 Jane the Virgin 30 Mad Men 31 Continuum 31 Gravity Falls 31 BoJack Horseman 31 Shameless 35 The Good Wife 35 Louie 37 Rectify 37 Transparent 39 Community 40 The Legend of Korra 40 Over the Garden Wall 40 Broad City 40 Vikings 40 Justified 45 Psych 45 Steven Universe 45 Black Mirror 48 Faking It 48 RuPaul's Drag Race 48 Drunk History 48 The Leftovers 52 Too Many Cooks 52 Black-ish 52 Scandal 55 WWE NXT 56 The Walking Dead 57 Banshee 58 Almost Human 58 Playing House 58 The Genius 58 Archer 62 House of Cards 62 The JBL (not Cole) Show 62 Elementary 62 Mozart In the Jungle 66 Sleepy Hollow 66 How To Get Away With Murder 66 Once Upon a Time 69 Adventure Time 69 Trailer Park Boys 69 Boardwalk Empire 69 Trip to Italy 69 Peaky Blinders 74 The Fall 74 Reign 74 Liar Game 74 Eight Out of Ten Cats Does Countdown 78 Supernatural 78 Upper Middle Bogan 78 Crime Scene 78 Orange Is the New Black 78 The Real Housewives of OC 78 Key and Peele 78 The Goldbergs 85 High Moon 85 The Comeback 85 Running Man 85 Bates Motel 85 Comedy Bang! Bang! 85 The Affair 85 Masters of Sex 85 South Park 93 Penny Dreadful 93 Suits 93 Mad As Hell 93 The Daily Show 93 Gotham 93 The League 93 Wilfred 100 Attack on Titan 100 The Quest 100 The Strain 100 House of Fools 100 A Touch of Cloth 3 100 The Monday Night War 100 Foo Fighters: Sonic Highways 100 Kingdom 100 Dominion 100 The Eric Andre Show 100 Grey's Anatomy 100 Peter Pan Live! 112 Star Wars: Rebels 112 Face-Off 112 Inside Number 9 112 Ray Donovan 112 The Apprentice UK 112 Journey to Wrestlemania 30: Daniel Bryan 112 The Librarians 112 Matador 112 Enlisted 112 Alpha House 112 Modern Family 112 Hello Ladies 124 Grimm 124 Gundam Build Fighters Try 124 Covert Affairs 124 Utopia (US) 124 Black Sails 124 Gomorra 124 Saturday Night Live 124 Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle 124 The Originals 124 Looking Sophia fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Jan 1, 2015 |
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Jan 1, 2015 16:50
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Z Nation got robbed! 
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Jan 1, 2015 17:13
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Honorable mentions: Parks and Recreation Archer Brooklyn Nine-Nine The Genius Banshee 10. Community A return to form after the lackluster gas leak season. Cooperative Polygraphy and G.I. Jeff alone would have probably earned it a spot on my top 10. Also, sperm. 9. Justified It felt like a step down after the highs of last season (as evidenced by it's high rank on the TVIV poll) but there's still few characters as compelling and complex as Raylan Givens and Boyd Crowder and I can't wait to see how the final season plays out. Consistently one of the most entertaining hours of television each week, although I could have done without the Ava prison subplot that went nowhere. 8. The Walking Dead Nice recovery as it quietly turned into one of the most tonally confident shows of the year under the new showrunner. Able to balance action, drama and more meditative passages with ease and packed a remarkable amount of plot across several groups of characters for a half season. A far cry from when they just used to hang out at a farm and engineer family drama. 7. You're The Worst TVIV, you're the worst for not watching this. 6. Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Found its voice amazingly fast and managed to differentiate itself ably from TDS and Colbert. The long, well researched segments are an incredible fit for Oliver's style and carry over some of the playfulness of his Bugle podcast. Also saw more of this show shared on my Facebook feed than anything else. 5. Review Another great freshman comedy that needs more love. Bold and absurd in equal measures. 4. Silicon Valley I'd always found it funny, but had no idea just how on the nose the satire was until I spent time there this summer with VCs and startups in equal measure. Still a few issues preventing it from being higher (lack of strong female characters) and I'm curious to see how they'll handle Christopher Evan Welch's passing. 3. Hannibal Amazing second season that started off with a bang and didn't let up for a second until it's bloodsoaked finale. Didn't crack the top two due to its over-reliance on elliptical reveries that I don't feel are the show's strongest point. 2. Game of Thrones Absolute appointment viewing in 2014, no show delivered more massive and memorable moments in this calendar year. From the Purple Wedding to the Castle Black battle to the Mountain vs the Viper there were no other shows that had me anticipating each Sunday as much as this one. 1. Fargo Seemed a near impossible task, but Hawley absolutely nailed it. Everyone here has been rightfully singing its praises and I hope it takes the crown over the disposable likes of SHIELD or Arrow.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:20
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^^^ Well, I suppose now is a good time as any.Sophia posted:Mozard In the Jungle I've always wanted to see a giant lizard concertante.
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Jan 1, 2015 17:57
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I hadn't realized it until we started this poll that people really didn't like House of Cards season 2 as much as the first one. I thought it was better. None of the other top 10 drop offs surprised me. Looks like I need to check out Rick and Morty though. I've only seen the pilot which I didn't care for, but I'll give it another try.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:00
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Ravane posted:I've always wanted to see a giant lizard concertante. Actually, I would like to see an urban version of Mozart in the Jungle: "Wolfgang in da Hood".
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Jan 1, 2015 18:09
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Regy Rusty posted:I hadn't realized it until we started this poll that people really didn't like House of Cards season 2 as much as the first one. I thought it was better. I don't think its so much about not liking it as much as it is about not watching it. The show just wasn't good enough to sustain its audience once the hype machine died down. See also: Orange is the New Black or, "that other show everybody liked in 2013 but didn't care about in 2014." The most surprising thing about the list is Last Week Tonight's rapid ascension. John Oliver pulled an amazing trick by convincing the tumblr generation that a funny, fifteen minute outrage piece was "in-depth analysis unlike anything else on television." Unlike anything else on television except, you know, 60 Minutes and Nightline. I suppose if you lack the attention span to watch a real news program (or, heaven forbid, read a newspaper) and need constant jokes and non-sequitors thrown in to keep you focused, Last Week Tonight might seem like a revelatory breath of fresh air. As it stands, a show with segments such as "Top Ten Reasons Miss America is Evil" and "  Local Politicians Sure Are Wacky" being considered in-depth and well-researched is just laughable. News for the tumblr generation indeed.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:27
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Regy Rusty posted:I hadn't realized it until we started this poll that people really didn't like House of Cards season 2 as much as the first one. I thought it was better. 2014 was a stupidly good year for TV. As Sophia said, great year for TV, but the world went to its shittiest otherwise. And honestly last years big shows that dropped still would've fallen, but not as bad if not for just vastly much better fare that was new to 2014.
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Jan 1, 2015 18:37
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Sober posted:And honestly last years big shows that dropped still would've fallen, but not as bad if not for just vastly much better fare that was new to 2014. Yeah, I know a few that really stood out for me last year just did not this year. Orphan Black for instance just had a really lackluster season 2. Justified was the same. Sleepy Hollow I think Sophia is right should have been a limited run. I have it sitting on my DVR but instead I'm alternating between watching Hotel Impossible on netflix and burning through SHIELD which I have to say everyone was right about when they said it got good.
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Jan 1, 2015 19:04
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IRQ posted:Yeah, I know a few that really stood out for me last year just did not this year. Orphan Black for instance just had a really lackluster season 2. Justified was the same. Sleepy Hollow I think Sophia is right should have been a limited run. I have it sitting on my DVR but instead I'm alternating between watching Hotel Impossible on netflix and burning through SHIELD which I have to say everyone was right about when they said it got good. I feel the same way. I have sleepy hollow and black list on my DVR and I want to try to watch them, but I usually end up watching West Wing instead. Perhaps I should delete them and start alternative West Wing, Fargo, and season 2 of the Americans.
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Jan 1, 2015 19:52
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Thanks a lot for organising this, Occ/Sophia! A great poll with decent results overall. And thank you to all goons for not voting for the godawful Sherlock season 3.
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Jan 1, 2015 20:13
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Sophia posted:Steven Universe made the highest average with the fewest votes - 2 votes, but one in first and one in second place. Congrats to this show I’ve never heard of! I'm glad to have helped it get to #45, though it deserves a higher spot, in my opinion! (I also wish that Over the Garden Wall had gotten a higher score, but considering I didn't vote for it, as I hadn't watched it until after submitting my list, and didn't want to bump anything off... I guess I can't complain about that one.)
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Jan 1, 2015 20:18
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Bown posted:Thanks a lot for organising this, Occ/Sophia! A great poll with decent results overall.
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Jan 1, 2015 20:45
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Bown posted:And thank you to all goons for not voting for the godawful Sherlock season 3. What do we look like, Emmy voters?
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Jan 1, 2015 21:02
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Sophia posted:Even Gotham made a list! I'm a monster.
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Jan 1, 2015 21:28
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Everyone who voted for Hannibal disgusts me
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Jan 1, 2015 21:37
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Toxxupation posted:Everyone who voted for Hannibal disgusts me At some point maybe you should really consider that you might actually be wrong about it.
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Jan 1, 2015 21:40
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Regy Rusty posted:At some point maybe you should really consider that you might actually be wrong about it. You're right actually; I'm gonna go watch every good episode of Hannibal before making fun of it any more
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Jan 1, 2015 21:50
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Aaaaand done.
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Jan 1, 2015 21:52
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I'd be completely okay with eating whatever Hannibal served me. You know what I wouldn't eat? The Leftovers.
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Jan 1, 2015 21:57
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realtalk i know that...man, this is hard to say...i know that hannibal is a good show that i just happen to rabidly hate, i'm just legit surprised that it toppled fargo since like, at least from what i've anecdotally heard about hannibal s2 it doesn't measure up to fargo, at all
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Jan 1, 2015 22:02
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