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10: Derry Girls, short and sweet. It's got just the right amount of 90's nostalgia without it overstaying its welcome. And between all the comedy it's taking on the big events of the day, who is pulling those strings for Strabane ? 9: Kingdom, finally a fresh take on the zombie apocalypse with a great historical setting to provide some stunning visuals and compelling story. And if you've read anything on the Imjin War it becomes sort of historical documentary on how the Korean courtiers saw an invasion of an unstoppable force of doom as a great opportunity to grab some more power. 8: Attack On Titan. A brutal, relentless conclusion to the first part of season 3, this show is like no other in how it's a rollercoaster from deep despair to soaring triumph followed by a reveal that the triumph was quite hollow and even greater disasters are imminent. 7: Emergence. Between this and Evil this was a good year for network shows starting with an E. In the end Emergence was the better show for me with better plotting and acting. The cast is especially strong with Allison Tolman and Clancy Brown being as good as you'd expect and for network TV an uncommonly good young lead in Alexa Swinton. 6: Jett: Cool, stylish, a perfect little show that does exactly what it sets out to do. And one of 3 shows this year (not counting Saul) with Giancarlo Esposito in a small role as the Man Everyone Is Afraid Of. 5: Barry. I think everything about this has been said already. Ronny/Lily is probably the best 30 minutes made this year. 4: The Boys. This kind of came out of nowhere and helped keep my Amazon Prime subscription active waiting for The Expanse. Equally hilarious, scary and engaging this took the unbearibly edgy source material and made it into something quite amazing. Absolute standout was Antony Starr as Homelander with an incredible performance as the complete nightmare of a person a realistic Superman would be. As a sidenote, several shows this year suffered from having Omnipotent Villains that felt like plot devices, being always more powerful than what seems plausible until the story deems it time for them to fail. Like Mr. Robot's Dark Army, Watchmen's 7th Kavalry, The Expanse's Murtry, High Castle's Third Reich and a few more. Homelander is one of the few cases where the villain is truly formidable and acts like it. And another Giancarlo Esposito appearance. 3: The Crown. Watching this is like stepping into a warm bath, you're sliding into pure quality acting, costuming, sets and dialogues. Switching the entire cast to a new generation would be daunting to many but the British have such a vast army of great actors that the transition is barely felt, as if the characters merely put on a new coat. While I do miss Pip Torrens as Lascalles a whole new set of great secondary characters came in, each one of which I wanted to see more of. Princess Anne spin-off now please. 2: Chernobyl. Pure terror, brilliantly portrayed, even with the somewhat questionable claims of whole continents in danger. It's impressive how instantly authentic everything seems, even if you never experienced the 1980's Soviet Union. It's even better then The Americans, quite an accomplishment. 1: Succession. Out of all the shows this year this was the one I was looking forward to each week the most. Much like The Crown it's rich, powerful assholes making each other miserable fighting over who gets to be a little more powerful then the other. It's really the most unlikely premise to produce must watch TV but hey, get some amazing writers and actors and even The Not-Murdochs can become your greatest obsession.
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# ¿ Jan 4, 2020 14:49 |
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# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 06:14 |