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Also Irish Joe couldn't even be bothered to find a better picture of Eva Green with an even lower neckline.
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Dec 27, 2014 03:45
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| # ¿ Apr 18, 2024 10:58 |
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It's going to be Doctor Who
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Dec 31, 2014 21:45
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It's going to be segment between 14:53 to 26:14 of the SyFy original TV Movie High Moon.
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Dec 31, 2014 21:53
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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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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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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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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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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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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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Creatively, I really liked season 4 of Louie. But I can see why people were completely turned off by pretty big change of format, tone, lack of humour after the first couple of episodes, since those were more akin to what you'd expect from S1-3, and then suddenly Louie decides he's gonna do something a little less (but still) absurd but serious.
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Jan 2, 2015 20:58
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IRQ posted:Perhaps I'm doing it wrong but isn't this all more like "these are the shows I enjoyed the most this year" and not "these are objectively the *best* shows on tv this year" because there's really nothing wrong with enjoying the poo poo out of Gotham even though it's objectively pretty bad. Critics though are generally more likely to value stuff like strong characterization, brisk plotting, etc. Personally my list was a mix of stuff I really enjoyed watching on a per-week basis mixed with things that resonated with me creatively, that even if I did not maybe enjoy or relate to on a deep-to-my-core level, I genuinely loved that either an auteur or writing room as a collective decided to do something in a show that was creatively interesting. I mean, I'm not demanding people have to qualify their choices or anything, but it would be interesting to see why people pick certain things. Actual critics generally leave reasons why (~a paragraph) whereas I'm sure at the other end, internet polls don't let you do that, and systems like these, those are entirely voluntary and up to the poster to either or not elucidate their opinion, or ultimately up to someone else just asking, "why"?
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Jan 2, 2015 23:44
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| # ¿ Apr 18, 2024 10:58 |
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How bad are we talking, True Blood bad or Dexter levels of shittiness?
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Jan 3, 2015 06:31
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