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My top 10 list is a bit tumultuous this year with 4 whole new faces added on. Particularly missing from my list this year are Justified and Orphan Black. Both had decent seasons this year, but definitely not top 10 material. I guess they can be honorable mentions. FORMERLY TENTH, NOW HONORABLE MENTION) The Flash Last year, I won the dubious award of getting the most of my picks on the overall TVIV top 10, with Arrow being the only show missing from my list, because I hadn’t watched it. Having done so now… my list last year still wouldn’t have changed. Arrow is a pretty good show, but it never blows me away. I really didn’t like the main plotline of the second season because Slade’s single minded obsession bored me. I’m still glad I watched it because it prepared me to watch The Flash this year, and it’s much more my… tempo. Arrow is a bit too grim and serious a lot of the time, and I’m really enjoying Flash’s antics and actual super powers. Plus it’s got an evil time traveler pretending to need a wheelchair so it’s got everything. I expect this show may rise on my list in future years if it keeps it up, but for now it’s so new that it’ll just 10) Fargo I didn't want to watch Fargo because I really don't like the Coen brothers style of films. Fargo was among the most tolerable of those that I've seen, but I still don't love it and didn't have any desire to watch a TV show based on it. But in the past week the combination of this thread and my brother urging me to give it a chance finally got me to cave. For the most part it was alright, but not something I loved. It's too miserable and bleak for my tastes, and just isn't my kind of show. But the final episode was fantastic and, like the original movie, gave me a strong and satisfying ending. For that, and for the quality of the acting, I feel it does deserve some recognition, even if it's not really my kind of show. I might come along for the next season. 9) Parks and Recreation Yikes what a drop, from 3rd place all the way to 9th. I still love P&R and I don’t really think it’s had as much of a decline as it’s popular to say it has. But that said, maybe there’s some truth to it because aside from the ending of season 6, I can barely remember anything that happened this past season. Couple that with the fact that we haven’t had any new episodes this fall and that’s why it’s so much lower on my list this year. I have big hopes for season 7 and the 3 year jump however, so if it’s as good as I think it will be, I expect it to be back up near the top in next year’s list. 8) Game of Thrones It’s probably blasphemous to put GoT so low on my list, but I really wasn’t feeling it for most of this season. Call me a filthy bookreader, but I think the showrunners have made some poor decisions this year and there were several whole episodes that meandered without much purpose and for the first time I sometimes felt bored. Joffrey’s death and the Mountain killing Oberyn however were superb, as was Tyrion’s speech in his trial. Those scenes alone would keep the show somewhere on my list. 7) Sleepy Hollow It was a bit hard to decide how to rank the next two. They both had things this year I loved and things I wasn’t so hot on. Sleepy Hollow’s final episodes from last season were incredible and would’ve skyrocketed it up. Zombie John Cho transforming into a full demon and attacking as George Washington’s Secret Mason Tomb burned around was utterly stellar. So was John Noble’s character Henry revealing himself to be the Horseman of War and going full Walternate style evil. Season 2 has been good so far as well, but it’s had more episodes that were not as great than last year did. Plus I really don’t like the decision to marginalize Captain Irving and Jenny so much in favor of Katrina and new character Hawley who is awful. 6) Hannibal Similarly my feelings are mixed on Hannibal’s second season. The first half of the season while will is still imprisoned are the best the show has ever been. The flipping of the Hannibal/Will relationship on its head was brilliant and I loved every minute of it. Unfortunately I felt the season went downhill a little bit after Will was exonerated. I didn’t personally find the further growth of their twisted relationship as interesting as it had been before, and there was a lot about Will’s actions towards the end of the season that I thought were implausible. That’s why I justify bumping it down a slot. The finale was quite amazing though. 5) House of Cards Here’s the first case where I think that this season was unambiguously better than the last one. From the very first episode I was engrossed and stayed so for the entire weekend as I swept through the season. Frank murdering Zoe, one of the most central characters of the first season was something I didn’t see coming at all and set the tone for an even more ruthless season than the first one. One particular moment I loved was at the end of the first episode where, after not saying a word to us so far, Frank finally looks to the camera and asks “Did you think I’d forgotten you?” It was just so perfect because I actually had been wondering if they’d dropped that aspect of the show. This show is just so totally made for me. I can completely embrace every bit of the premise of this utterly remorseless man doing whatever it takes to rise in power. His plot to gain the presidency without having received a single vote was just astounding, and I can’t wait to see where Season 3 goes for President Frank Underwood. 4) Agents of Shield “WHAT THE gently caress” I can hear the outraged voices now. AoS hasn’t exactly been the most popular show around these parts. I liked it well enough from the beginning, but I would definitely have agreed it wasn’t anything super amazing. At least not until near the end of Season 1. The reveal of Hydra’s infiltration of Shield in Cap 2 and the way it completely turned the show upside down was amazing. I’ve loved every single episode since that point. I think it’s a really strong show now and the only reason it’s not even higher on my list is that there are shows that are even better. I like the cast, I like the worldbuilding they’re doing for the MCU, I like the filler episodes, I like everything. It’s one of the shows I try to make sure I watch live almost every week. 3) The Good Wife I just watched through the entirety of this show last month (thanks to zoux and Mu Zeta for persistently recommending it in the Couch Chat) and I was surprised at how engrossing this lawyer show could be. Once I’d started I was completely hooked. If I’d been watching it last year it would definitely have been right up near the top of the list, neck and neck with Person of Interest. Alicia Florrick is one of my favorite characters on TV right now. The second half of last season, with her starting her own firm and getting into serious, angry competition with her former boss and former lover Will Gardner was thrilling. But to then - right at the height of their war – have Will be suddenly and senselessly killed in the crossfire of a courthouse shooting was something so much beyond anything I’d seen from the show. It stunned me so much I had to go yell about it in The Good Wife thread and take a break before I could continue. And the show didn’t pull any punches from then on either. Alicia had to deal with the grief and the guilt and it was truly painful to watch. It really is an amazing show. 2) Person of Interest Person of Interest still wins out as my favorite though. Its ambitions keep growing with each passing season, the end of Season 3 putting a second AI out into the world, and bringing us into a new kind of existence. No longer is Team Irrelevant the one with all the information, now that Samaritan exists and is even more powerful than the Machine. Even before that though, the end of Season 3 was among the best stuff the show’s ever done (not quite up to last year’s Endgame episodes, but that would be hard to surpass). One of my favorite episodes involved Root getting tortured by Control, and older woman, and the Machine talking to her using morse code transmitted through Control’s phone at a frequency too high for the older woman to hear. The best part of this is that they actually played the morse code beeps at said frequency on the show, so that I could hear them but older people could not. This is just one example of how cool this show is and how much thought they put into everything. And that’ll do it. That’s my top ten list of 2014. Once again PoI is squarely on top where it belongs… wait… 1) Over the Garden Wall It was kinda hard to decide if I really wanted to put this on top or not. I’ve never put a miniseries on my top 10 list and it really is only the length of a movie. But despite its length it really is the best thing I saw on TV this year. If you somehow haven’t seen it yet, go watch it immediately. It’s such a brilliantly told story about two boys getting lost in the woods. I feel like I can’t even do it justice writing about it. The last episode is one of the best episodes of television I’ve ever seen, and it was just 11 minutes long. Regy Rusty fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Dec 16, 2014 |
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Dec 7, 2014 03:22
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Bown posted:If Game of Thrones tops the list this year (and Orphan Black makes it anywhere near the top 10) this subforum has some serious problems to deal with. I don't think they will. They both put in relatively lackluster seasons this year. It'll be interesting to see what does win though, with the juggernaut of Breaking Bad out of the running, there are a lot of possibilities.
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Dec 7, 2014 03:55
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Ravane posted:Ah, no. I loved this, and I should have put it at my top honestly, but I completely forgot about it. The animation is absolutely quaint and charming; I really like anything with Elijah Wood in it. The last episode was brilliant indeed. I'm contemplating changing my list now. Yeah it deserves the recognition. Remember everyone, it's not too late to watch Over the Garden Wall and put it in your top 10! (Seriously it's only 2 hours long total)
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Dec 7, 2014 04:40
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I've just edited my submission putting Fargo in at the number 10 slot, knocking The Flash down to honorable mention. I just watched it this week and I liked it better than I thought I would.
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Dec 16, 2014 23:31
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Toxxupation posted:Oh god the time skip in fargo is so good Yeah it's pretty cool
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Dec 17, 2014 00:16
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The varying numbering styles should have been a red flag, but it still took until reading my own words to realize what was going on in that list.
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Dec 29, 2014 14:32
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You should really watch that last episode of Fargo.
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Dec 29, 2014 15:55
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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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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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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 06:04 |
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At least they recognize how good The Good Wife is.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:46
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