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gently caress I'd better actually put a list together for this one Everyone please remember that Sex House is eligible for voting
Rarity fucked around with this message at 13:00 on Sep 15, 2021 |
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Sep 15, 2021 12:31
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I have a list of 20 shows drawn up but the Wheel of Time show doesn't finish till Xmas Eve 
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Sep 15, 2021 13:57
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Raspberry Bang posted:I’m having a really tough time ordering my list. What kind of criteria do y’all use when determining what goes where? I'm deducting spots for shows I didn't finish, were just comfort viewing or had short runs and bumping a few shows up for being personally important to me even if they didn't hold up across their whole run
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Oct 23, 2021 05:10
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The hardest part for me was ordering my top 4, they're all so good 
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Oct 23, 2021 06:11
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Escobarbarian posted:also these lists are great and I love reading them. even insane ones that put insane choices at 1 At least no one's listed a TV show at 1 that's not even out yet 
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Oct 23, 2021 10:28
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Escobarbarian posted:Oh no the anime people have found this thread
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Nov 10, 2021 13:17
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Endings are more important than beginnings
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Dec 16, 2021 12:27
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I'm doing my list and it's making me want to go back and rewatch a whole load of TV shows I really don't have time for
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Dec 28, 2021 15:39
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Hi I spent way too much time on this 20. BROOKLYN NINE-NINE (FOX/NBC) “There’s nothing more intoxicating than the clear absence of a penis.” It’s my firm belief that the peak shelf-life of a sitcom is three seasons, maybe four tops. Once you stretch beyond those limits you will have run through all the most suitable plots, fulfilled the requisite relationship drama and mined the flaws of your characters for laughs. This is why it’s very rare for me to stick with long running sitcoms for more than a few years yet with Brooklyn Nine-Nine I followed the show from start to finish. I’m not going to pretend the show didn’t lose that early lustre over time but the thing is once it dead what still remained was a collection of likeable characters with electric comic chemistry. The precinct of the 99 was a place where no one needed to be an rear end in a top hat for cheap laughs, everyone cared about each other and we cared about them. Sitting down to catchup with Jake, Amy and the gang felt like catching up with family. And in a world where the role of policing in society has come under increasing scrutiny the show managed to acknowledge the flaws in its concept, particularly in a final season filmed under incredibly difficult circumstances that still threaded the needle in giving these characters the send-off they deserved. Real cops are nothing like those you’ll see on Brooklyn Nine-Nine but I think we can all agree that they should be. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlBYdiXdUa8 ========  19. SQUID GAME (Netflix) “Red light! Green light!” It was one quiet Friday a couple of months ago when it happened. I was working but it was a WFH day and I didn’t have much to do so I decided to stick on the first episode of that weird Korean show everyone was talking about, just to check it out before I got on with the rest of my plans for the day. Eight hours later I was yelling at Gi-Hun to get on that drat plane having lost an entire day to Squid Game. I’ve always been a big fan of death game media like Battle Royale, the Hunger Games and the Danganronpa series so it’s not really a surprise that I’d be into this story of the exploited poor throwing themselves into their own deaths for the entertainment of a vapid ruling elite. No, the surprise is that everyone else liked it too, quickly turning it into Netflix’s most watched show ever. Perhaps they were drawn to the relentless pace and ever-tightening tension, perhaps it was the shocking twists and heartbreaking betrayals (justice for Ali), perhaps it was because it reflected our own anger at late-stage capitalism’s destruction of the younger generations, perhaps it because everyone was just really hot. The important thing is that it was adored and whether we get the rumoured second season or not I already feel satisfied with what has dropped as a complete story. I’m never looking at marbles the same way again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrchfeybHmw ========  18. A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS (Netflix) “That’s not how the story goes.” It is my unfortunate displeasure to inform you that the online content distribution platform hereafter referred to as Netflix has produced a woefully dismal adaptation of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, adaption here defined as a redefined piece of work to transfer a story to a new medium. Over three seasons this show tells the miserable tale of the Baudelaire children as they are chased by the menacing and pungent Count Olaf in desire for their extensively outsized fortune. Over the course of their adventures our plucky orphans are repeatedly let down by a string of dismal guest stars including Nathan Fillion, Alfre Woodard, Tony Hale and Max Greenfield, all of whom are of no help whatsoever. While you may think that there may still be moments of joy to be uncovered in these environs you would be strictly mistaken. May it behoove you to find a more appropriate use of your time such as watching paint dry or kicking an empty can across a very long and desolate road. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs96Ksod88M ========  17. GLOW (Netflix) “What I’m interested in are real parts.” In the graveyard of television shows that were unjustly killed before their time few have a headstone bigger than GLOW. After three well received seasons were ended on a major cliffhanger the show began filming for a fourth season that was likely to be the last. That was in February 2020. A month later a pandemic happened. The world shutdown for a few weeks which turned into a few months which turned into a giant shitshow. As Netflix began to roll back into production the complications of filming GLOW in a COVID-safe manner were too high and with a likely three year gap between seasons Netflix judged viewer interest would have evaporated and called it a day. Made up of a heady formula of 80s kitsch, pro wrestling and female empowerment GLOW was a combination of three of my very favourite things. Nominally about the struggles of starting up a small women’s wrestling company in California the show used this setting to showcase the desire of women to tell their own stories in a decade where their voices were still highly marginalised. Whether it was Ruth’s desire to land a serious acting role or Debbie’s push to recognised behind the camera as well as in front or Cherry’s refusal to play up to the angry black woman stereotype these were women that refused to be placed in the boxes that society wanted them to be. The show also unabashedly embraced the campness of its own premise with a number of queer characters and storylines that led to some of the show’s most powerful moments. GLOW being cut unfairly short means we will never see Bash confront his own bisexuality, never see Carmen live up to her family’s wrestling legacy and never see Ruth become the success she was always going to be. If GLOW had nailed the landing it would likely be much higher up this list. Netflix made sure it never got that chance. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUwOeHyE5CM ========  16. JESSICA JONES (Netflix) “You take your godamned pain and you live with it” Before I start writing this entry I feel bound to confess that I found season 2 of Jessica Jones to be a tedious affair and I didn’t even bother with season 3. So if two thirds of this show isn’t even worth your time then why does it deserve a place on this list? Because season 1 is just so damned special, that’s why. If this list was ranking the best individual seasons of television then Jessica Jones S1 would be top of my list with a bullet and it wouldn’t even be a competition. The first season of Jessica Jones is a triumph, an uncomfortable horror story that makes for troubling but absolutely essential viewing. When the first season dropped I was so hyped I took the day off work and binged the entire thing in one back-to-back session. Thirteen hours later when I came out the side I went straight to the store to buy cigarettes and ice cream and spent the rest of the day staring at the wall. It is impossible to watch the story of Jess, who has been raped in body and mind, stand up to her abuser Kilgrave, a man with the power to make anybody do anything he says. And the full terror of this ability is not something the show flinches away from displaying. Kilgrave is played by a masterful turn from David Tennant who brings the Tenth Doctor’s erratic energy and eternal arrogance to a role that acknowledges those traits with the menace they deserve. Meanwhile the eponymous hero is portrayed by Krysten Ritter in one of those mythologised perfect marriages of actor and character. Cynical, self-sabotaging, chaotic and traumatised in equal measure, Ritter doesn’t shy away from how messy being a survivor can be. The pain stays with you long after the marks are gone. As a victim of sexual violence myself I have never seen my trauma so expertly expressed on screen and as I wrote at the time in TV IV’s end year poll, I feel like this show was made for me. So even after losing a whole lot of places for what followed Jessica Jones still manages a respectable finish in my list. Plus the meltdown when it reached #2 in the SA poll had me in loving hysterics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hWZcvjsA40 ========  15. GAME OF THRONES (HBO) “When you play the Game of Thrones you win or you die” Look I’m just going to say it, ok? I quite liked the final season. Like yes it definitely had some problems but there was also a lot about it I enjoyed. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. Let’s dial things back to the end of the 00s when I first started seeing some buzz for a new HBO pilot based on a fantasy book series with an absolute banger of a cast that included Sean Bean, Lena Headey, Harry Lloyd and Peter Dinklage. Right off the bat I was all in. I tracked down the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire and proceeded to tear through the series. By the time the first episode of the show dropped I had already read all of the released books and was beyond excited to see the story hit the screen. And when the series finally arrived I was more than satisfied. It’s easy to forget now considering the direction of the later seasons but for the first four years of GoT it was undeniably masterful television. There were shockingly brutal deaths that left you reeling for days, there were battles that pushed the scope of what can be achieved on television further than ever before and more important than anything else, there were scenes of high calibre actors displaying the best work of their profession. For that was GoT’s true strength: it knew how to take two great actors, put them in a room together and let them act. So for four years GoT was the best thing on television. A cultural phenomenon. Appointment viewing. The highest form of melodrama. Then the books ran out. We all know what happened next. The show wobbled as Benioff and Weiss struggled to find a resolution to a story that not even the creator knew. There were still brief flashes of brilliance such as the attack on Hardhome or the destruction of Baelor’s Sept but the show that everyone had loved was vanishing before our eyes. And so we come to the final season, a clearly rushed endeavour designed to end the story as quickly as possible. Even so, I still quite like it. But then my main investments were Arya and Theon, both of whom had their stories wrap up in beautiful fashion. If you were there for Jon or Tyrion or Jaime or god help you Dany then I can definitely understand your dislike for how the show ended. As it is GoT will go down as one of the most important TV shows in history but with just a few changes it could have gone down as one of the best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f68ZSBLPMCk ========  14. BLACK MIRROR (Channel 4/Netflix) In the 1930s people got their horror in the form of classic monster tales. In the 80s the slasher genre was king. By the time we got to the 00s horror was just straight up torture porn but audiences are even numb to that these days. Enter Black Mirror, a horror anthology series for a modern age. The Twilight Zone if the zone was what took place beyond our screens. Black Mirror was the love child of Charlie Brooker, a writer and broadcaster with a small cult following most known for his columns in the Guardian and his barely viewed TV critiques on BBC4. With Black Mirror Brooker found his spotlight, a stage with which to display the themes that had permeated his work such as humanity’s growing disconnection in a technological world and the repackaging of our culture into a state suitable for consumption by late-stage capitalism. What would you do if you could block someone from your life as easily as your social media? How would you act if your every waking moment effected your Uber rating? At what point does retributive justice become inhumane torture? Black Mirror asked these questions and so many more by examining the way people relate to technology and how it can bring out the very best and worst in our nature in a manner verging on the prophetic. The very first episode of the show centred on the story of a Prime Minister being blackmailed into loving a pig on live television. Absolutely ludicrous, of course. That is until four years later when the Daily Mail published an account of David Cameron inserting his penis into a dead pig during his Eton days. But that was just the start. Over the course of its run Black Mirror also predicted Google Glass, freemium gaming, digital resurrection, Vtubers, NFTs, #FreeBritney and the Donald Trump movement. It’s the nature of an anthology show that there will be as many hits as there are misses. It’s also the nature of an anthology show that the hits and misses will be different for every viewer but here are the stories that stand out to me. A man looking for one piece of authenticity in a world where every aspect of his life is controlled. A woman waking up in a zombie apocalypse that she seems fated to repeat day after day. A teenager struggling to get out of being blackmailed for a secret far darker than the one you imagine. Two women forging an impossible connection across decades. The hits are the stories you walk away with and they stay with you long after the misses have faded from memory. It’s been two and half years since Black Mirror last gave us content and the world is ripe for a season 6. But then again as we all sit at home, isolated from our loved ones by a global pandemic while billionaires go into space and Mark Zuckerberg brings us screaming into the Metaverse, perhaps we don’t need it. Perhaps we’re already living it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY5It0jnD6M ========  13. WANDAVISION (Disney+) “What is grief if not love persevering?” When WandaVision dropped on Disney+ back in February this year it arrived with an impossible level of weight and expectation. Not only was this show an entry in the media juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not only would it have to tie in to a dozen other Marvel features, not only was it the MCU’s first step in a new distribution strategy that meshed television with film, not only was it the first release for the highly anticipated Phase 4, not only would it have to establish a new direction for the franchise in a post-Thanos world, not only would it be the first release to sate a rabid fanbase in 18 months, not only all of that but also it needed to be completed at the height of a global pandemic. Such a burden would have crushed even many good shows. That WandaVision managed to thread so many needles and come out the other side as a critical darling and commercial success is a testament to the creative capacities of Marvel Studios and the singular vision of the show’s creator Jac Schaeffer. You see the show could have taken the easy way out and told a formulaic superhero story with another disposable villain while the cast got in their contractually obliged quota of quips and Kevin Feige went home to count up another big batch of money. But WandaVision wasn’t interested in doing things the easy way. Instead this highly conceptual show paid homage to a number of sitcoms past including The Dick Van Dyke Show, Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family in a setting that allowed Elisabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany to show off their finest comedy chops. And this too would have been enough for the show to do but still Schaeffer wasn’t satisfied, layering on top a puzzle box that kept us all guessing thanks to a weekly release schedule that reminded us that just because we can binge watch a show that doesn’t mean we should. Week after week WandaVision kept us guessing as we tried to unwrap its many mysteries. How did Wanda manage to create a sitcom world? Why was Vision alive again? Was that really Monica Rambeau and how did she get to the 1970s? Who the hell was the beekeeper? Who’s responsible for all this is why is it definitely Mephisto? Wait why is Fox’s Quicksilver suddenly in the MCU what the gently caress? Ok that last one was just a boner joke but still, WandaVision set up a number of mysteries and tied them all together with aplomb while also giving Wanda Maximoff the space and story she deserved and also reintroducing beloved side characters like Darcy and Jimmy Woo and also building up multiple future properties and also expanding the world and also giving Elisabeth Olsen enough material to take a real crack at winning an Emmy and also presenting one hell of a bop in Agatha All Along. When you look at everything it had contend with and everything it managed to achieve you have to recognise the existence of this show as the exceptional achievement that it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8u8md-NiHM ========  12. THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT (Netflix) “It’s chess. We’re all primadonnas.” Last year my friend’s fiancée was bitten by a venomous snake. This was in fact the second time he’d been bitten by a venomous snake that year. Now, his job was to work with venomous snakes so this wasn’t exactly too unusual but the difference this second time was that we were living in a world with COVID-19. With my friend unable to spend any time in the hospital with her partner I spent a couple of days at her house to keep her company and prevent her from going too insane. It was under these extreme circumstances that we sat down and watched the entirety of The Queen’s Gambit in one sitting. It was a very welcome respite. Detailing the attempts of a female child prodigy to make it in the surprisingly ruthless world of competitive chess in the 1960s, The Queen’s Gambit manages to achieve an impossible feat. It makes chess look cool. And none are cooler than Beth Harmon, an ice queen at the chess board and wrecking ball away from it. Anchored by a spectacular performance from Anya Taylor-Joy, Beth is a mess of contradictions defined by her traumas seeking salvation in the one thing in life she truly understands even while her addictions and insecurities threaten to cut off her burgeoning career before she can achieve the success that she deserves. Every step of her journey from the basement of her boarding school all the way to the Grand Championships in Moscow is threatened by her own self-destruction. But while Beth may not be able to be relied on to be sober there is one thing you can guarantee, she will look absolutely stunning either way. Impossibly stylish with a line in the best of 60s vintage and an iconic haircut Beth serves up fit after fit over the course of her journey. The Wednesday Addams dress. The Mad Men dress. The White Queen coat. I could spend the rest of my years before the grave trying to pull off Beth’s look and I wouldn’t even come close. She was, is and will forever be the moment. A feminist role model, a total genius, a hot mess, Beth Harmon is all these things and more. But there’s one thing she is above all others. Beth Harmon is a loving rock star. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9H-3KHOALP4 Rarity fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Jan 5, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2021 19:21
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 11. HAWKEYE (Disney+) “Fighting aliens with a stick and a string” As the child of an avid comics fan I’ve been raised on the Marvel universe from birth. Thanks to some Silver Age trade collections my very first memories of reading are about the X-Men and the Avengers and all their various superhero friends. This soon transitioned into reading through the entirety of my dad’s collection numbering in the thousands of comics. Out of all those stories and all those characters Hawkeye has always been one of my favourites and considering that a reassessment of one Remy Le Beau’s sexual practices is long overdue he may in fact now be my favourite character. I was beyond excited when he was originally announced for the Avengers movie only to be let down by a movie that sidelined him. And that’s continued to be Clint’s fate in the MCU, despite some decent scenes in Age of Ultron the franchise has never really given the world a chance to see him the way I see him. I’ve spent the last decade with one of my most beloved characters being the butt of countless pop culture jokes. When the Hawkeye series was announced I expected that this would be the chance for things to change. Here’s the thing about Clint Barton. He takes on some of the biggest super powered threats in the cosmos armed with nothing more than a bow and arrow and yes, that’s dumb. But think about it this way. He takes on some of the biggest super powered threats in the cosmos armed with nothing more than a bow and arrow. He’s doesn’t have a highly weaponised suit of armour. He’s not got super soldier serum running through his veins. He doesn’t have a magic hammer or turn into a big green rage monster. He’s a normal regular guy who stands shoulder to shoulder with giants because he works his rear end off every single day to be their equal. He’s an inspiration to everyone who’s never been called special. And Hawkeye finally made that clear. With a story that focused on a street-level threat and the space to show how Clint relates to his own deeds he is finally presented as the hero he’s supposed to be. If that was all Hawkeye achieved then it would still be my favourite of the MCU shows. Instead that barely scratches the surface for there is another key player in this series and that is Kate Bishop, a character who takes all the qualities I lo ove in Clint and adds a scrappy underdog mentality, eternal optimism, a strong sense of justice and a whole lot of gumption. Hailee Steinfeld is a revelation as the successor to the Hawkeye name, portraying her journey from adorkable college girl to legitimate superhero with so much warmth and heart, immediately installing Kate right in the top tier of MCU characters. We are also blessed with the return of Yelena Belova from Black Widow, here to process her grief over her sister’s death while taking in some of the New York sights. Yelena’s return instantly kicks the show into a new gear. Florence Pugh is having so much fun with the role and her chemistry with Hailee Steinfeld is unbelievable. Kate and Yelena’s scenes together steal the show as they prove to be the ultimate chaotic combo (and totes gay, shut up Marvel). I love Kate. I love Yelena. I love Kate and Yelena and I am obsessed with when we will see them next. And that’s why I rate Hawkeye so highly. Not just because it did my fave justice but because it gave me two huge new faves that I will follow for years to come. And in all this I’ve not even mentioned the introduction of Echo, Tony Dalton’s wonderful turn as himbo Jack Duquense, the much anticipated integration of Vincent D’Onoforio’s Kingpin with the mainline MCU, the confirmation of Laura Barton as Clint’s Mockingbird or the fact that the finale completely nailed the landing. It’s good, folks. It’s real good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeoEv03xWlE Also at this point I need to give a shout out to Dickinson which I started watching because I needed more Hailee Steinfeld in my life. It’s absolutely fantastic and would definitely make my list if I had the time to fit it all in before the deadline. ========  10. THE GENIUS (tvN) “Oh baby, oh baby, then it fell apart, it fell apart” Of all the entries on my list The Genius is definitely the one that’s the most out there. For starters it’s a South Korean reality show starring a range of celebrities from comedians to record producers and news reporters to Starcraft players. Furthermore it takes those celebrities and makes them face off in a series of challenges that require theoretical game logic, social adaptation and mechanic manipulation to determine who is the Genius in what is essentially a less deadly version of Squid Game. It’s the kind of show that doesn’t exist in the West, it’s the kind of show that couldn’t exist in the West. Our television lacks the subtlety to trust the viewer to follow along or the faith to let the show stand on the strength of the games without providing emotionally manipulative backstories. The games are where the Genius really shines presenting its puzzles in a manner that allows the viewer to work through the solution along with the contestants. A deft editorial hand will often withhold key information from the viewer to maximise reveals for the most dramatic effect, often accompanied with the thudding bass of Moby’s seminal track “Extreme Ways”. Few moments in television get the heart racing as fast as those bass lines pumping while a secret alliance shows their hand. There’s one other area in which The Genius is vastly different to Western reality shows and that’s the camaraderie between the contestants. Korean culture ensures that everyone treats each other with respect and the competition rarely devolves beyond playful. It’s just fun to spend time with these people. Despite this attitude towards the game the show still does an impressive job of pulling out long-term storylines. Whether it was Jinho’s unparalleled tricks in season 1, Sangmin’s quest for revenge in season 2, the Dongmination of season 3 or Kyunghoon’s redemption in season 4 each season had its own story to tell. Stories that emerged naturally through the course of the game without any instruction or interpretation by producers. No, we don’t make reality TV like this but we really should try. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12TwC3cZzQo ========  9. MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC (Discovery Family) “They are my best friends, and they are without a doubt the most important ponies I know” Look, it’s 2021. Can we all be mature about this? Yes? Good. As many posters on this forum will be aware I’m trans. And I wasn’t one of those kids who knew they were trans from the time they were 5. I didn’t figure that poo poo out until I was at university. All of that is to say that my childhood years were filled doing things that would typically be gendered male. I played football and climbed trees, I had my Nintendo and my Legos, my TV shows were Captain Scarlet and Knightmare. I didn’t know I had other options available to me and so like many other trans women I missed out on the formative experiences that would be considered more feminine. My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic gave me a chance to reclaim some of that space. Is it really a kid’s show? Yes. Was brony culture obnoxious? Yes. Were there a large subset of straight white male fans who couldn’t handle that a show didn’t exist to tend to their exact whims? Oh god yes. But I didn’t care about that. I was happy to just disengage from the fanbase and enjoy this charming cartoon about a bunch of friends where the highest stakes were normally on the level of whether a birthday party would go ahead as planned. And charming this cartoon sure was with a core cast of loveable characters with such varied personalities that any kid would find someone to relate to. In truth, I see bits of myself in all the ponies at various times. Mostly it’s Pinkie Pie’s exuberance and Rarity’s flair for the dramatic (and yes, that is where my username’s from) but I can be insecure like Fluttershy or socially awkward like Twilight Sparkle, stubborn like Applejack or thoughtless like Rainbow Dash. And yes, these ponies are very flawed because FiM doesn’t shy away from the fact that people make mistakes. It just knows that it’s how we recover from them that counts. That’s all the show ever had to be. A show for children with a good message at its core elevated by treating children as mature enough to understand modern comedy conventions. And for me, watching it allowed me to connect with a childhood I never had a chance to experience. I’m never going to get to know what it was like to be a young girl but at least for a short time this week while watching this show it was able to give me the illusion that I did. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzsxfO7dBlA ========  8. AEW DYNAMITE (TNT) “Light the fuse, bring the boom” I’ve always been the type of person who’d avoid giving votes to wrestling shows in these TV IV polls. I consider my love for wrestling to be a completely independent to my interest in television. Two completely distinct mediums. However when I think back over the last ten years of TV it would be remiss of me to ignore a show that I have looked forward to week after week for the last two years and which in all that time has not disappointed me once. AEW Dynamite has week after week delivered two hours of thrilling action with a set of dynamic characters while telling long-term stories with shocking twists and regular moments of cathartic pay-off. Wrestling be damned, that’s something that many normal TV shows struggle to achieve. Yes, this is a show about men and women squaring off in the ring in a fake fight with all the gimmickry and theatrics that implies. If you can’t get excited about someone flipping through the air or falling through a table that’s on fire then AEW isn’t for you. But if you the idea of fake fighting isn’t actively repellent to you then watching this show will reward you with a slate of rich, three-dimensional characters. Characters like Adam Page, a young up-and-comer who allowed his friendships with the best wrestlers in the world to eat away at his insecurities until he was a mess of millenial anxiety. Characters like Eddie Kingston, a veteran who was grinding in obscurity for twenty years now finally faced with his big opportunity but worried his body may now be broken to make it count. Characters like Cody Rhodes, a man so devoted to being the hero of his own story that he doesn’t realise his hollow words about hard work and the American Way have turned him into the villain. This is the beauty of AEW. Characters aren’t just arbitrarily forced into boxes that say good and bad, able to be switched at a whim depending on the needs of the next card. Instead characters are fully realised humans, their falls from grace are clearly motivated and their redemptive arcs are duly earned. Their moments of triumph are all the sweeter because we have watched them struggle following a path of evolution that made sense every step of the way. Nowhere is this more apparent than Adam Page’s path to the AEW title, a masterpiece of storytelling across three years with numerous chapters that make up one clear and consistent tale. It’s a feat unheard of in wrestling and a story that deserves to stand as equal to any television show. Plus there were guys doing flips through the air and going through tables that were on fire and what could be more rad than that? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_x3TNEN51s ========  7. SEX HOUSE (Youtube) “Cloudy drink kills frog” Hang on, maybe this is the entry that’s the most out there. Sex House was a nine episode miniseries produced by the Onion and released on Youtube that acted as a parody of 00s reality TV, specifically of the MTV trash variety such as A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila, Flavor of Love and the grand queen of the genre Jersey Shore. Sex House was the story of six sexy singletons ready to get sexed up except they weren’t all sexy, they weren’t all single and they definitely weren’t all ready to get sexed up. Sure, the likes of gym bro Jay, dumb blonde Tara and alt-girl Alex were typical fare for a show of this kind but there was also shy girl Erin, the middle-aged and married Frank and Derek, who was in the uncomfortable position of being the only gay person on a straight dating show. Such a cast promised a unique set of dynamics to poke fun at tacky reality TV culture. And that’s fine enough for a chuckle or too but it’s not enough to be hailed as one of the greatest TV shows of the decade. So why exactly do I rate Sex House as the 6th best TV show of the last ten years? Because Sex House got loving weird. Yes, what started out as a simplistic skewering of reality trash quickly veered off the rails into becoming something very different entirely. The producers haven’t left them any food, there’s no way to get rid of the garbage and you do not want to ask about the white mould in the bedroom. And that’s just the beginning. Over the course of our time in the house there was a kidnapping, a frog infestation, an accidental murder, a mass attempted drug rape and a man assaulting his own gonads with a hammer. Characters that were presented as broad stock archetypes turned out to have incredible levels of depth, reminding us that the people we see on reality TV have been edited and directed into shallow representations of their real selves. Following Sex House week on week was an absolute trip. You would tune in with no idea where they were going to take the show next and each time they went further than you could have possibly imagined. Sex House satirised not just the way that we create media but also the way that we consume media and in so many ways it was ahead of its time. Not only did it predict the rise of Love Island, Too Hot to Handle and the rest of its ilk but it also set new ground in the world of comedy. It was the precursor to a new wave of surrealism that was featured in the likes of Nathan For You and Review, not to mention being on the front edge of streaming as digital distribution. With a full runtime clocking in at just over an hour if you’ve never seen this insane dive into madness you owe it to yourself to discover one of the unsung gems of modern television. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0App7QizQCU ========  6. ORPHAN BLACK (Space) “There’s more than biology between us” “Hey yo, you gotta watch this show but we’re not going to tell you anything about it going in”. That was the initial pitch given to me by the TV IV goons to get me into Orphan Black. Not long later I was looking at Sarah Manning as she watched herself commit suicide by jumping in front of a train. As opening plot hooks go it’s an absolute belter. From there the show quickly pulls you in to a world of an underground transhuman movement, a fundamentalist religious cult, an outlaw military division and conspiracy on conspiracy on conspiracy. This a world where allegiances are ever-shifting and trust is a hard commodity to find. In such a world the only bonds that can be trusted are family and nothing is stronger than sisterhood. Despite having little in common the women are the core of this story are connected by far more than blood. There’s Sarah, the runaway orphan from England who doesn’t know how to stay out of trouble. There’s Cosima, the biology post-grad who’s more interested in science than people. There’s Alison, the suburban housewife who needs every aspect of her life to be just so. There’s Helena, A LITERAL SERIAL KILLER. And there’s Rachel, a cut-throat corporate bitch in a power suit. And Tatiana Maslany shines as all of them. Oh, yeah. I guess I forgot to mention that bit, huh? Yes the main hook of Orphan Black is that this is a story on human cloning meaning TatMas has to play every leading role. She plays clones, she plays clones playing clones, she plays clones playing clones playing clones and she nails every single one. It’s rare to see an outstanding acting performance in a show, here Tati-chan delivers over a dozen of them in a series of work that rightfully saw her rewarded with an Emmy. She’s also backed up a fabulous supporting cast including Jordan Gavaris and Maria Doyle Kennedy who bring real heart to their roles as Sarah’s adopted family. (We just keep coming back to that word, don’t we?) Interest in Orphan Black had waned by the time the show wrapped its fifth and final season. Many viewers had been tuned out as the weight of secrets and betrayals and threatened to collapse with the addition of yet another shadowy organisation and I think that’s a drat shame because while the show threatened to lose its way at the midpoint the final season did a drat fine job of bringing everything together in a manner that made every twist feel relevant. More importantly the show remembered what it had always been about at its core, reuniting the sestrahood and showing that as humans we are stronger together than we are apart. As fans of Lost, BSG and GoT will tell you it is very difficult for a genre show to deliver a satisfying conclusion. Orphan Black pulled it off. If you’re one of those who dropped out midway through feeling like the show had lost of track of where it was going then you owe it to yourself to come back and finish the ride. After all, now you know where it leads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsTc_o5ixU8 ========  5. AMERICAN VANDAL (Netflix) “If enough people see you a certain way do you start to believe they’re right?” American Vandal was a mockumentary aimed at big mid-10s trend of true crime documentaries such as the podcast Serial or Netflix’s own Making A Murderer. It’s almost funny how our interest in such things has waned in recent years, perhaps because there’s enough true crime in the news these days, but when American Vandal first dropped the interest in the genre was its height and the show took great delight in skewering its conventions. Most true crime stories are about murders, robberies, kidnappings, the worst of human nature. American Vandal takes those concepts and transposes them to a midtown high school where the worst things you can do are draw 27 dicks on 27 cars or cause an entire cafeteria to poop their pants, the latter of which is presented in hideous reconstruction. The show takes great pleasure in using these stylings to explore key tangents like how many y’s in a heyy means you want the D or which students have the most bangable mums and mines these situations for maximum comedic effect. But American Vandal is more than just this. American Vandal is a murder mystery presenting a classic whodunnit scenario and a twisting series of clues, misdirections and red herrings along the way to its denouement. For all the inherent silliness of its premise the show still treats its mysteries as worthy of solving. Suspects are presented, examined and discarded as new evidence comes to light revealing new potential scenarios and one key piece of information can change everything. The paintcan at the party. The destruction of Coach Rafferty’s office. The fourth poop crime. American Vandal knows how drop bombs and when an episode ends you’ll be desperate to keep going to learn what happens next. At the end of the first season there is one moment in particular where if you’ve been paying attention the entire case will be blown wide open. The clues have always been there, you just need to know where to look. As a mystery story this show presents everything with the most satisfying of conclusions. But American Vandal is more than just this too. American Vandal is an insightful examination of growing up, a dissertation on the pressures of working who you are when the world has already told you who you’re going to be. The star athlete, the dumb burnout, the weird outsider, we all get placed into these roles which we are expected to play even though there is always so much more to all of us. The star that’s loved by all feels completely alone. The burnout slinging fries instead of going to school still has aspirations. The outsider who intentionally keeps everyone at bay just wants to connect. But when the world has already set out your path is there any way for you to escape this fate? At its heart this is the question that American Vandal examines as it questions the role of educators in our development, the consequences of bullying and the impact of feeling lost. American Vandal is a mockumentary. It’s also so much more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6nopK7tZAk ========  4. SENSE8 (Netflix) “The violence I realised was unforgivable was the violence we do to ourselves” Ever since bursting into the mainstream with the release of the Matrix in 1999 the Wachowski sisters have been telling stories that examine the forces that drive human connection and the boundaries where human perception and reality intersect, all viewed through the kind of queer lens you’d expect from Hollywood’s most well known trans creators. In Sense8 they have produced their magnum opus, the clearest distillation of the ideas that permeate their work. It should come as no surprise then that its reception was somewhat divided but for those that connect with their work they will find in Sense8 a show that is hauntingly beautiful and deeply personal. Featuring the kind of high concept you would expect from the Wachowskis, Sense8 is the story of eight individuals from across the world separated by culture and distance but intimately connected by their senses, memories and emotions. Despite facing different struggles they are able to draw on each other’s strengths to survive. There is a deep government conspiracy tying this all together, of course, as is only proper for this type of genre show but this is secondary to the importance of living their own lives. And it turns out whether a beat cop in Chicago or a safecracker in Berlin, an actor in Mexico City or a bus driver in Nairobi, a DJ in London or a hacker in San Francisco, a business executive in Seoul or a pharmacist in Mumbai, our experiences are far more similar than we would ever admit. It’s in the feeling of singing your favourite song, the taste of your most beloved meal, the sweat of the dancefloor and the heat of sexual pleasure. This is where the true beauty in Sense8 can be found. In the scenes where the barriers between the cast fall down and the sheer joy of sharing these moments can be felt in a series of artistic sequences that wonderfully shot by the show’s fantastic cinematographic team. The show is also unapologetically queer, presenting a world where love should be available for all and even sexual labels have room for interpretation. Sense8 is by no means a show that will resonate with everyone, as reflected by its unjust cancellation at the end of the second season. Fortunately Netflix saw enough sense (heh) to order one last special to wrap things up, producing the kind of perfect happy ending that most shows would struggle to earn but which for Sense8 was only right for it was always about love. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fElAFzOQHv8 ========  3. THE GOOD PLACE (NBC) “Take it sleazy” As sitcom pitches go ‘a woman accidentally gets sent to Heaven and has to avoid going to Hell, also there’s lots of philosophy lessons’ doesn’t exactly sound like a laugh riot. And with such a concept The Good Place was initially quite a tough sell. However halfway through its first season the show proved that it was willing to race through its plot like Lewis Hamilton and they straight up just blew it all to hell (and I do mean literal Hell) in the season finale. By this point The Good Place had already started to build up its fanbase and by the end of its run it was regarded as one of the biggest critical darlings of the 21st century. I think that’s because while it portrayed such a conceptual setting While it was first advertised around its main leads Kristen Bell and Ted Danson, like any Michael Schur product the show quickly transitioned to being about found family. As found families go four dead people, one eternal being and one not a girl might not be the kind you’d expect but their trials and struggles soon formed unbreakable bonds and despite putting them in the most unbelievable situations the show always stayed grounded in character. We could always rely on Chidi’s inability to make a decision or Tahani’s extensive collection of celebrity friends to raise a laugh. And then there’s a fantastic array of guest stars including Marc Evan Jackson, Adam Scott, Maya Rudolph and Maribeth Monroe all delivering memorable performances. But for all that The Good Place was billed as a regular sitcom it was so much more than that. Over the course of four seasons the show put together a puzzle box that would put Lost to shame, setting up mysteries and paying them off time after time. Whenever you thought you had the show pegged it would decide to dump its entire setup and start over as something else entirely. In a genre where sticking to the formula is all we know it dared to rip up the script over and over again, in the process building a unique mythos that was so fun to explore. And it would be remiss not to mention the show’s finale which acted as a fitting tribute to the characters we had grown and who had grown to love each other, making sure that each one got the exact ending that they deserved. This was a show full of heart, full of life lessons and fully reminding us that every now and again we all need to take it sleazy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut0ai4s4mjU ========  2. MR. ROBOT (USA) “I wanted to save the world” In truth there was very little separating my top two shows. Both are incredibly well crafted pieces that are well written, feature the best actors in the business and have a penchant for straight up loving with your head. However after much deliberation I found I resonated more with Mr. Robot and its themes of disconnection from society, disaffection with modern day capitalism and nihilism at the prospects of our future. I guess I’m just cynical like that. But it’s hard not to be when you follow the journey of vigilante hacker Elliott Alderson as he is exposed to the dregs of humanity in his quest to take down Amazon. Oops, I mean E Corp. Or as the show always refers to it, Evil Corp. See, here’s the thing about Mr. Robot. Everything we see and everything we hear is filtered through Elliott’s interpretation of events and Elliott isn’t exactly entirely with it. With an acknowledged history of hallucinations and psychosis we can never be sure that the reality we witness is legitimate, a set up that the show immediately plays into as it creates a potential Fight Club with Elliott’s mysterious ally, the titular Mr. Robot. While many shows would get cute around this central question to hide a big twist, Mr. Robot places this questionable reality at the forefront of the viewers’ minds. As events unfurl it becomes clear that this may just be the start of Elliott’s delusions. Even our most basic preconceptions must be reassessed, nothing can be taken for granted. However there’s more to Mr. Robot than just the headfuck. It’s also a spectacular thriller with numerous tension-filled scenes. With show creator Sam Esmail holding the majority of writer and director credits every episode displays a unique visual style that exemplifies the off-kilter lens through which we view the world. Rami Malek delivers a portrayal of Elliott that finds the ties between his psychoses and his humanity in a performance that won him an Emmy and catapulted him to mainstream Hollywood success. Carly Chaiken is also a standout as the bruised and defensive Darlene, Elliott’s closest ally. There’s also a raft of supporting performances from stalwarts like Christian Slater, Bobby Cannavale and BD Wong. With its critique of corporate greed and anarchic sensibilities Mr. Robot acts as a scathing indictment of late-stage capitalism and rising fascism that would turn out to be all too prescient. No television show over the last ten years has better captured the world we live in or the dark path we risk going down and that is why for me Mr. Robot is the best show of the decade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3dSZtkv3s ========  1. DICKINSON (Apple+) I've just finished watching this show and it will require much processing. I don't yet have the words to accurately sum up my feelings, I will save those for the 2021 thread once I've had more time. Suffice to say this is the most profoundly personal show I've ever seen. Never before have I felt a show speak so directly to my experience. I'm going to be thinking about this show for years, if not the rest of my life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCSrWUMzur4 Rarity fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Jan 5, 2022 |
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Dec 30, 2021 19:21
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Escobarbarian posted:I’m very glad at least one other person will have You’re the Worst on their list I had a couple of late ideas that would have pushed it off the list but I didn't want to write another entry 
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Dec 30, 2021 19:39
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Escobarbarian posted:weeeelllllllll……… #2 Goon show of 2015 can't be wrong  Looten Plunder posted:Don't stress, I'll inevitably push the deadline Now you loving tell me
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Dec 31, 2021 00:11
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Looten Plunder posted:seriously, can we please bring back weekly TV? Have you heard of this thing called the MCU? 
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Jan 1, 2022 13:28
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Stranger Things really dropped off the zeitgeist after Season 1 as well
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Jan 1, 2022 14:04
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Oh neat, I made it through before deadline. Sorry, You're The Worst, you're outta here:Rarity posted:1. DICKINSON
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Jan 5, 2022 23:05
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Escobarbarian posted:I agree, except in my case “my experience” refers to “being attracted to Ella Hunt”. Meanwhile I'm going to go watch Arcane to see if I can fit a third Hailee Steinfeld show into my 2021 list 
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Jan 5, 2022 23:16
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Yeah I can't believe no one's talking about it. Or rather I can cause it's on Apple+ but people should be
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Jan 6, 2022 06:38
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Yeah I felt like it got better as it went along. It's definitely not a show that will impact on everyone as strongly as it does on me in fairness e: I don't know if you got to the opera episode in season 2 but that was definitely the point where everything kicked up a notch for me
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Jan 6, 2022 13:19
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Open Source Idiom posted:I don't know what show acts as the best focal point of Channel 4's contributions to television in the 2010's: Flowers or Love Island I'd guess Flowers cause Love Island was ITV 
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Jan 8, 2022 15:23
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I'm so glad it's not just me voting for Sex House
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Jan 8, 2022 15:49
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Escobarbarian posted:Almost a decade later and I’m still a Sex House denier, sorry guys but y’all were crazy for that 1 
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Jan 8, 2022 16:12
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BSam posted:*list* Why are you like this?
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Jan 9, 2022 09:33
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Oasx posted:Why wouldn’t you want to rank them? All shows are equal, I'm a communist 
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Jan 10, 2022 07:39
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Yeah I'm really tempted to edit my list again to fit Arcane in. It's the best animation thing I've ever seen
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Jan 10, 2022 11:23
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I dunno if they'd dominate so much if the Wire and the Sopranos were in the mix
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Jan 10, 2022 18:01
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I think what I'm most curious about is Breaking Bad vs. Better Call Saul. Really feels like the upset is on
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Jan 11, 2022 16:16
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BSam posted:A fair comment, I have edited to fix that. lmao
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Jan 12, 2022 21:54
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Thanks for all the hard work LP!
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Jan 15, 2022 18:12
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Lid posted:Was there one of these for the first decade and by how much did The Wire win by? I don't think they had TV in 0-10 AD
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Jan 16, 2022 12:16
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I really need to submit my 2021 so I can write a proper entry for Dickinson (and also Arcane)
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Jan 19, 2022 00:41
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Thanks for all the hard work, LP. Did a hearty lol at the Vince Gilligan 1-2. My best show was Game of Thrones
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Jan 19, 2022 09:15
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If Jessica Jones had stopped after the first season it would be top 20 easy
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Jan 19, 2022 09:37
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Escobarbarian posted:I highly doubt it! Seems like a show that got voted in at #2 would have performed well in the decaded ranking too
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Jan 19, 2022 09:55
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Escobarbarian posted:Maybe! But that was one year, over six years ago, when Marvel Netflix was fresh and new. Since then it turned out to largely be a shitshow and the makeup of the top list doesn’t really make me feel like JJ would fit in there. But I am of course biased I know that for me if I was just ranking JJ on season 1 it would have been fighting with Dickinson for my #1 spot
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Jan 19, 2022 10:27
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