It
is my opinion that the highest goal an artist can achieve
is to compel viewers to adjust their perceptions of
the world. Television provides
a particularly fascinating opportunity to
critically examine art because the format is so rigid. Telling
a long, complicated story in the form of a dozen shorter, contained stories requires far more rigid rules than those of today’s popular books, films, or video games. In television you have only a half hour (or an hour) minus commercial breaks and credit sequences to tell
your story. The cast is recurring. Plots are predictable. The object is to entertain, with as
little innovation as possible.
But occasionally - even after you’ve seen so many
shows that you know all the rules, all the tricks - the idiot box does
something else entirely: It surprises you (Of course, just being surprising isn’t enough. Beauty and the
Beast surprised me by how awful it was.)
For a show to be great it has to throw a curveball
while simultaneously showing a complete mastery
of the rules of television. In short, execution counts as
much as imagination. With that in mind,
I have made some ground rules for my list of
2012's best TV shows, weighing two qualifiers equally: Imagination and execution. Creativity and skill. Out of the box, in the box.
10: FRINGE
Imagination: 9
Execution:
6
Total score: 15
Total score: 15
Fringe
hit a pretty even stride midway through Season
Three. It delivered the freak-of-the-week stories with confidence,
and it had no difficulty exploring new, fascinating and disturbing corners of science
fiction. It had a decent ensemble and managed to, at the very least, get good ideas out - only occasionally in a
ham-fisted manner. But it was clear that the writers wanted more. So they gave
their show something new for an episodic
science fiction show: A long memory. Instead of throwing every case of the week
into a box sandwiched between The Ark of the Covenant and that creepy alien fetus from The
X-Files, they used each new episode as a building block towards a larger story.
It was midway through Season Three that I noticed that
everything that had ever happened to these
people was relevant to the plot of each episode, which
was a tall order. But it seemed this
bored the writers, because they decided it
would be fun to retroactively remove one of the main characters from their
universe and examine what effect that would have on the other characters. It was a bold move and while it made for some
very lofty and interesting ideas, it also cheapened some of the show's key relationships.
It didn’t help that every episode contained a rushed, exasperating
final scene, always cramming in as many
overused emotional platitudes as possible to somehow wrap up their bizarre
ideas. It was messy, but the writers certainly
kept me on my toes. And once everything got tidied up at the end of Season Four, I was left wondering, how are these guys
going to surprise me now?
Lo
and behold, Season Five picked up 25 years in
the future. Suddenly, we’re plunged into a
dystopian world where our Fringe team has to
liberate humans from their cybernetic time-traveling
oppressors. On top of the
insane left turn the show has made, they’re also toning down the show's more heavy-handed notes. Yes, there’s
occasionally the painfully expository monologue or by-the-book final speech but the constant, unrelenting world-building keeps the show busy enough to
avoid lingering on its weaker moments. In short Fringe has somehow managed to
constantly throw the rules out the window while simultaneously never forgetting where it came from. It’s a tricky
balancing act. And they pull it off.
9. HOMELAND
Imagination: 7
Execution: 9
Total score: 16
Homeland’s first season blew me
away. Its first few episodes gave us an engrossing enigma: a man who might or
might not be a terrorist but who certainly did have PTSD. It showed his everyday
routine and asked us to watch closely to see if we could discover his true
identity.
As we watched all these sad, confusing, engrossing and always
very personal moments transpire, Claire Danes watched them with us. Homeland
became a subtle and profoundly affecting look at voyeurism and the very nature
of television. Then, after three episodes, the show threw that theme out the
window. Suddenly, the show was about the tumultuous yet completely
magnetic relationship between these two deeply broken people. Then, in an
equally rapid shift, it wasn’t. It was about a madwoman and a suicide bomber. By
the end of the season it was about sheer desperation.
On top of these rapid shifts the acting was brilliant. Every
episode seemed like a new and exhilarating challenge for Claire Danes. The
writers would continuously throw her into the depths of shame and desperation just to see if she could claw her way out. It was a thing of beauty. And I was totally unprepared for it.
When Season Two premiered, I was ready. I knew what I was getting
into. This was a show that religiously threw its own concept out the window.
And now that I knew that, how could it possibly surprise me? For a while the
answer was far simpler than I thought it would be. They simply moved the plot
along very quickly. They wasted no time sloughing off all the leftover
premises of the first season while continuing, in a natural way, each
character’s personal story. The concept changed a few more times; constantly
shifting and pivoting under the immense weight of the show's stakes. And for a
while I was impressed with how well everything seemed to be building, like a
titanic weight on everyone’s shoulders, ready to crash.
Then, they simply changed the theme one too many times and, all at
once, I felt like I was watching 24. The writers started throwing
entirely random events at the side characters for no other reason than to give
them something to do and the bad guy trapped our hero with a brilliant plan
that was literally the same master plan from Season one of 24. I’m not
kidding.
While I am sorely disappointed by some of these turns, looking
back it seems like it was only a matter of time. There was no way they could
keep it up. And while Claire Danes’ performance has become somewhat rote over
the course of Season two, Damian Lewis got his turn this season, producing a
performance so beautifully fragile and raw I was actually winded on multiple
occasions.
8. ARCHER
Imagination: 6
Execution: 10
Total score: 16
I have a theory. And bear with me here. Archer is like a
far more vulgar, animated version of Arrested Development. A lot
of what made Arrested Development such an immaculate sitcom is present
in Archer. The constant, tight, insular jokes, the circular plot lines,
the tightly threaded stories, the razor-sharp wordplay, the humorous
sociopaths, not to mention the presence of Jessica Walter and Jeffrey Tambor.
But I feel that Archer succeeds in exactly the ways that Arrested
Development did not – namely, its limitless ability for expansion. Animated
TV shows have become the new venue for the world’s most adventurous artists. (I’m
going to talk more about this later.) The budgets of animated shows allow room
for the type of adventures that live action shows simply can’t afford. So,
while Arrested Development had to work around its budget limitations to
make an episode about going to Mexico (a personal favorite of mine) Archer
can go into outer space without changing production costs in a
substantial way.
Now, I’m not saying that a show’s creative lifeblood is wholly
dependent on the amount of scenery changes it can make. But, by allowing the
writers that type of freedom, Archer has produced a season of ridiculous
madcap adventures that never get mired in familiar waters. From the aforementioned
season finale in space to a car chase with Burt Reynolds to a Justified
parody to an episode aboard a train and then to one that takes place entirely
in Archer’s mother’s apartment - the show takes full advantage of its incredibly
funny cast of characters by never being limited in where they go next. Put
simply Archer has found a way to shrug off every obstacle that might
stand between the writers and unmitigated hilarity.
7. BREAKING BAD
Imagination: 8
Execution: 8
Total score: 16
Total score: 16
In many ways, Breaking Bad hasn’t changed much since its
inception. The things I like about it – the use of symbolism and subtext – are
consistent. The things I don’t like (namely every single thing Skyler says or
does) are consistent as well. But, if there was ever a good opportunity for Breaking
Bad to tweak its tone, it was Season Five, episode one. And they did it.
There is an electric quality to Season Five. A jittering, swelling, fist-clenching
kind of energy that goes well beyond nerve wracking.
So far, the show has expertly balanced its sense of humor with its
sense of danger. There have always been absurd underpinnings and riveting
stakes. But, after the explosive Season Four finale, the dust has very much
settled. The half nail-biting, half-laughing viewing experience that has taken
us this far has subsided. And now that there was no longer a big bad guy for
Walter to kill with science, I was ready for the inevitable bad guy of Season
Five: Walter himself. It was, of course, the only possible conclusion.
I was pleasantly surprised by the way in which Gilligan and his
gang are leading Walter down that path. It’s not through greed or paranoia or
betrayal or any other tired mobster cliché. Walter’s tragic flaw has been there
all along, peeking at us from beneath those iconic glasses. Walter has been forced
to look at his life and, like most Americans, he is not happy with what he’s
made for himself. His life is not a failure, just an uneven collection of missed
opportunities.
The American Dream is nowhere more a burning question than in television.
Walter wants it all because that’s what he’s supposed to want. His descent into
villainy is so profoundly affecting because it is so mundane. It takes so little
to push him from mild-mannered schoolteacher to scheming mobster. Season Five
ends on this note: How much is enough? And of course, Walter’s ultimate undoing,
the great American tragedy, is his almost too predictable answer: Nothing.
Nothing will ever be enough.
6. GAME OF THRONES
Imagination: 7
Execution: 9
Total score: 16
Game of Thrones’ first
season was almost too good. It was a startling achievement in both the
practical and conceptual challenges of creating a fantasy epic for television.
The solution it seems is to focus on the political dealings, to give the
characters a lot of space to breathe and to rely on a rich tradition of
storytelling. This allows for a great many scenes in which two people can sit
in a lush, beautifully decorated room and talk. For a long time. Of course, a
healthy amount of gruesome murder in each episode gets the audience hooked, but
it’s the touching moments, the fearsome threats, the melancholy admissions, all
made behind closed doors, in stillness, that really suck you in. And after a
shocking, totally engrossing thrill ride of a first season I was looking
forward to season two. But once again (you’ll start to notice a trend here), I
was a little bit disappointed.
While the show continued to give its characters new life, new
stories, and new possibilities, the veneer started to slip, revealing the cogs
beneath the surface. The format became too transparent. As we watched the show,
I started whispering to my friends, “Here comes a monologue” with increasing
accuracy. Of course, I won’t lie, some of those monologues I saw coming were
truly beautiful. They were poetry in a way that is totally absent in most television.
But the show, on a whole, felt very much like it was treading water. The
characters we loved continued to be lovable, the boring ones, boring.
That is, until the second to last episode, which, in traditional Game
of Thrones fashion, rocked me, hard. Not only did I finally find out what
they’d been saving their budget for – a killer epic sword-and-shield beach battle
with exploding boats – I also got to witness the Game of Thrones' take
on battle. Once again, it was not the scores of murders that got my attention. It
was the quiet moments: as the women huddled in their bunker, waiting for
possible death, the queen slowly got drunk.
5.
JUSTIFIED
Imagination: 8
Execution:
8
Total score: 16
Total score: 16
I
do not envy the writers of Justified. They wrote a second season so
beautiful, so artful, so epic, so much a modern
King Lear, that there was literally no possible way they could follow it up
with anything nearly as good. And I think they knew that.
So,
what do you do when you’ve already painted your masterpiece? You have fun.
That’s what Justified did this season: They had a good time. The symmetry of Season Two, the
poetic notions, the grander statements, all
went up in smoke. And it was probably the best
thing the writers could have done.
They
grabbed a handful of bad guys as terrifying as
they were hilarious – some of them stragglers from Season Two – put them in a
bag and shook it. Then they put Raylan in the mix and had him do what he does
best, try not to get involved. The episodic
nature returned but with a little bit more confidence. The one-offs had more of a punch, certainly more laughs, resulting in whole season that felt increasingly like
the hillbilly noir the writers intended
it to be.
The
finale was a little haphazard, jumping from the show's
most gruesome, hilarious moments to its most heartfelt with barely a
moment to breathe. But there was conclusive
sense of sadness that had a very profound effect on at least this viewer when
it was all over. In a lot of ways Justified’s third season was like a rebound relationship,
a palate cleanser, a way for the show to get
its confidence back between more serious commitments. I can’t wait for Season Four.
4.
Community
Imagination: 9
Execution:
8
Total score: 17
Total score: 17
If
Homeland is the jazz of the TV world, Community
is the prog rock. The writers of Community love television.
They love the all its tricks and tropes, so they've made a show solely for the purpose of
playing with them.
When
the show started, Abed’s occasional TV reference was as self-aware as they got, but as the show grew and gained
confidence, the writers began experimenting with the
degree to which Abed actually knew he was in a TV show. Now, 3 seasons
later, Community has finally hit its boldest stride, moving beyond the occasional self-referential
moment to becoming a sitcom for sitcom junkies.
If
you are familiar with a “bottle episode” or a “flashback episode” or any of the
myriad sitcom formats, this is your show. In
fact, at this point, the writers of Community
are no longer limiting themselves to taking apart the sitcom genre. They will take apart a procedural mystery or a convoluted
conspiracy with the same kind of loving self-awareness as they do a sitcom. The show that was once a love letter to the
sitcom has graduated to becoming a love letter to all genres, to the idea
of genre. And what I find most impressive is that in all their meta-tomfoolery
they’ve yet to sacrifice their characters. Somewhere amidst
all their bizarre exploration of genre, the
writers of Community managed to tell some of the most honest and
touching stories I've seen all year.
3.
ADVENTURE TIME
Imagination:
10
Execution:
7
Total score: 17
Total score: 17
When
talking about 2012’s most adventurous TV, how could I not mention Adventure
Time? The show is a constant unmitigated expression of childish wonder. It's like that feeling you had when you were nine and
you’d rush into the backyard. It was the same yard as yesterday, but your
imagination would turn it into a jungle or a snowy moon in a distant solar
system. There were no limits to your imagination.
This
is what it’s like to watch Adventure Time. I remember the first seven-minute short they released back in 2010. It was
absurdly funny, but in a viral video way. I couldn’t imagine it spawning a
compelling TV show. But it did. It became a fun, childish excursion that slowly
turned into a massive world-building endeavor.
And by Season Two it was most assuredly the strangest and most gloriously
unpredictable show in the world.
But
after three seasons of explosive randomness, I was beginning to grow weary. It
was still unpredictable, but its volatility had become, in itself, predictable.
I could see clearer than ever how random is not the same as adventurous. But then the show did something truly innovative.
The writers decided to slow down the show’s tidal wave of world building, and
instead focus on steady and compelling character growth. They realized they
could tell stories without constant injections of the bizarre, focusing instead on telling honest personal stories.
I was actually surprised by how moved I was by the fourth and fifth season of Adventure
Time. These silly characters, who had been introduced seemingly at random,
began serving a deeper purpose. The show realized that in a world with no
humans and mostly animated candy, they could still tell a profoundly affecting
coming of age story.
2. Mad Men
Imagination: 8
Execution: 10
Total score: 18
Total score: 18
I don’t know if it’s because I’m young and I haven’t seen enough
history unfold, but I feel like America is entering its most self reflective
time period. The 90s, even the aughts, seemed to barrel forward, clinging to
the framework that had gotten them this far. But, perhaps due to the recession, it
seems as if we Americans no longer trust our own traditions. Or, at the very
least, we’ve begun to examine them more thoroughly than before. In this time of
economic shriveling we’ve begun to call into question everything that makes us
who we are, including the American Dream. What’s always impressed me about Mad
Men is that it’s always stuck to its thesis. Back in episode one of season one,
it was clear that this was a show setting out to dissect the American Dream.
And what better way to do that than make a show about advertizing, an industry
that subsists entirely on the ideas of the American Dream (Life, liberty, and
the pursuit of more stuff), set in the 1960s, an age of opportunity where
America was forming its most distinguished identity?
Now that we’ve finished Season Five, Mad Men hasn’t strayed from its original goal. It is still
more than ever a show about selling an American Dream that doesn’t exist. But
this season impressed me more than any previous season. In a lot of ways it’s
due to the show's willingness to try new things and change its core character
relationships. This goes hand in hand with its willingness to let the times
change. The show started in 1960 and has moved to 1967. The décor has changed,
the music, the fashion. The whole mood has shifted. But the thesis remains
intact. This season we’ve seen what people are willing to do for the principles
of our country. For money, or freedom, or in pursuit of their dreams.
The show has really bared its teeth this year and it was a great move for them.
So many times, we watched as characters experienced the effects of wanting it
all, and getting nothing. There came a great quote at one point that sums up my
feelings towards the show. "Not every little girl gets to do what they
want; the world can't support that many ballerinas." It perfectly
encapsulates the feeling that the world they inhabit is crumbling under the
weight of so many American Dreams.
1.
LOUIE
Imagination:
10
Execution:
9
Total score: 19
Total score: 19
Louie
may just be the greatest goddamn thing I’ve ever seen on
television. Season One was a wonderful
scattershot biography. A look inside the life of one of comedy’s bottomless
goldmines. Season Two was less about Louie’s
life, and more about his point of view, but both seasons were done in a series
of vignettes that had little care for consistency. In fact, Louie would regularly
recast the two girls playing his daughters, or recast the woman playing his
ex-wife. He would even change who these characters were between episodes. For
example, Louie’s mother changes, not just in the woman playing her, but her
entire personality. In this way, Louie is trying to tell us that each story is
meant to be totally stand-alone.
Louie
was giving you snapshots; he had really no interest in world building.
So,
imagine my surprise when Louie decided that this season he would tell a long
story. He kept the characters consistent (at least within the season) and more
importantly he kept the theme consistent. He narrowed his focus down to one
constant thematic force: communication: the ways we chose to communicate and
the things that get in our way. Every episode, from having to speak with his
father, or being unable to break up with his
girlfriend, presents the same problem. Louie can’t seem to communicate; why? The
answers range from being too self-conscious to being afraid of death and
everything in between.
But
it goes deeper than that. There’s a terrific moment in the third season where
Louie gets out of his car and gets in a shouting match with a Bostonian. His Boston
accent comes out and the two of them holler at each other until the other man
notices Louie’s nose is bleeding. The other man gives him a rag for the bloody
nose but never ceases calling Louie a “queer.” Then they hug it out and go their separate ways.
To
me, this is such a touching, loving scene about the brief, fleeting moments of
human connection that make life worth living. Those moments when you realize
that we are, in fact, all in it together. And that’s the thing I found most
surprising about season three – its optimism. In a show so with a main
character so constantly marred with bad luck, so unable to overcome his flaws,
it’s odd how reassuring and uplifting it was.
Here’s
another example of not only the show's message,
but also how brilliantly structured the season is on a whole. The first
scene of the third season consists of Louie and
another man looking at a very convoluted New York City parking sign, trying to
figure out if they can park there. The sign post is
littered with confusing signs that read, “6am to 5am Mon-Fri,” and “Parking of
Vehicles Only Authorized.” This is a simple breakdown in communication
that I, for one, deal with daily (especially in L.A.). The final scene of Louie,
without revealing too much, ends with him in the household of a family that
speaks no English, having a really good time. These two moments perfectly
demonstrate the long arc of the season but also
the cyclical nature of TV. We always, in a way, wind up where we start. It’s a
question of how we feel about it. And sure, Louie still can’t really figure
out the world around him but we see the ways in which just letting go of the
constant need to understand everything is a surprisingly liberating experience.
I’d say it’s an adventure. One we could all learn to go on more often.
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