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The Also Rans: (I'm including these because I think it'd be a shame not to mention them; any other year they'd be somewhere in my top ten, but there's just so much good television on this year. In some ways it's a nightmare. It'll be a real shame when this bubble bursts, but hopefully it'll mean people can go back and check out a lot of neat stuff they missed along the way.) 20. The Expanse 19 Outsiders 18. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency 17. Channel Zero 16. BrainDead 15. Kingdom 14. Shut Eye 13. Animal Kingdom 12. Falling Water 11. Good Behavior 10. The Detour  The funniest loving thing I watched this year, hands down. Also the tightest plotted comedy on television. Criminally underwatched, though blessed with a second season, thank god. 9. Mr. Robot  I'm still deeply uncertain about this show, though I continue to really enjoy it scene to scene and episode to episode. On a superficial level, the shot compositions are gorgeously geometric and disorientating, the direction is tense and claustrophobic, and Esmail is able to pull really great things out of his actor's performances. But I also love how the show demands concentration and trust, and ultimately works to reward that in a viewer. Sure it put the critics off, but gently caress them -- if anything, 2016 is proving how out of touch the current television cognoscenti are. 8. Galavant  I'm still salty this was cancelled. Yes, it was Commercial Suicide: The Show, but it was also loving fantastic -- heartfelt and deeply funny, and clearly made with such a ridiculous amount of passion and care. I loved all the characters on the show, especially Mallory Jansen's Madalena, but what I was most impressed by was the show's guest casting. Even as the props and set budget clearly dwindled, they continued to cram a truly ridiculous number of great british character actors into the show: Reese Shearsmith, Robert Lindsay, Hugh Bonnerville, Matt Lucas, Eddie Marsan, Sally Phillips... and that's just off the top of my head. loving fabulous. 7. The Magicians  I love how funny this is, and how frequently hosed up it's willing to be. It's got this great, gooey, dark sense of humour that really resonates with me, and a wilingess to just arbitrarily murder or gently caress random minor characters over for the hell of it. At the same time, it's chirpy and frothy, and its characters are spend most of the time bitching at each other despite the fact that they clearly (?) like each other a lot. It really surprised me, and ended up having far more depth to it than I would have thought. 6. Humans  I worry that this show, when it arrives in American in the coming February, is going to get overshadowed by rabid Westworld fans. That's a real shame -- not only, because I see no reason that the two shows can't live harmoniously, but also because I think that everything Westworld did that I enjoyed, this show did better. (And everything Westworld did that I didn't like, and it did a lot of that, this show avoided completely). The Kubrick influence is strong in this one, but more in the way of contrast -- this second season maintains the first's sentimentalist kitchen sink leanings, while expanding its scope, drilling down into issues of identity politics. The characterization is nuanced and heartfelt in ways that reminded me of the best of British genre television -- your Being Human's and your In The Flesh's -- and the writing was powerful in ways that felt subtle and respectful, rather than hamfisted and opportunistic. I laughed, I cried, I craved the soundtrack. Good stuff. 5. Orange Is The New Black  My friends and I made the great / poor decision of watching this show as a group, the day it came out, and the experience fundamentally moved me in a way I haven't felt since Six Feet Under ended. A funny start to the season gave way to something utterly harrowing and monstrous, and though I've seen this season dinged as being cartoonish or whatever, I can say with absolute certainty that the show accurately captured the feelings of attempting futile revolt against an uncaring system -- and that feeling was enough for me. I started crying during the table protest and I didn't stop until several hours after the season was over. 4. The Get Down  I loved it. I love Lurhman's camp episodes, the fun starts to his films before things get lovely and exhausting and headache inducing, and this was that distilled into chunks short enough that they couldn't completely sap my strength. They're also deeply lively episodes populated by fantastic performances, particularly from some of the younger actors. Hell, even Jaden Smith was fun. I loved the interpolation of historical videotaped footage into the mix, and I love that the show took its structure and central metaphors from the turntable -- the characters, like the show, were always jumping tracks from plot to plot trying to keep two entirely different plates spinning at the same time. I just wish it hadn't been so obviously cut off mid-season, some of that final ADR wrap-up is fairly obvious. 3. Crazy Ex-Girlfriend  I have no idea why (the only?) two musical shows on television are on my list, because I've never liked musicals at all, but here we are. I've been a massive Rachel Bloom fan since her YouTube days, and I was really excited to see her finally succeed on primetime. Sure, her show is (one of?) the lowest rated shows on any of the commercial networks, but gently caress it. I'm certain this show will get four seasons. It's too good to die, and too cheap not to be snatched up somewhere. The performances are ace, the show's structure is clever, and it's willing to drop central characters for large quantities of time. It's entertaining in the moment, but demands your patience and attention. 2. Preacher  The only show about angels and demons that does anything novel with the concept, with great fight scenes and a bunch of hidden background gags. The finale was loving killer, and is one of those great plot moves that forces you to completely re-evaluate the season's structure without being some cheap skin-deep reveal or arsepull. Get off your cheap arses and give this show more money, AMC. It loving deserves it. (Also, it's clearly massively subsidised by UK money, so stop acting like you're not raking in the cash. Jesus wept.) 1. American Crime  As much about the crimes we socially permit each other to commit, or at least are reluctant to punish, as it is about actual, you know, crimes, this was challenging and frequently nihilistic, without ever feeling particularly nasty. Episode Nine -- the one that includes real life documentary interviews -- feels more respectful and challenging than anything the frequently confused with American Crime Story pumped out this year. Tough stuff, criminally overlooked -- probably because it looks like the last thing ABC would ever put out in a million years, and yet they did.
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Dec 28, 2016 13:30
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 21:24 |
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