The Year in TV 2013: The Honorable Mentions

 The Americans is one of the shows to be on my honorable mentions list

It’s about that time of year the end of TV season is here. This year like with the movies I’m going all in on reminiscing on this year in TV. We start with the fun side of things with my random less serious awards, then bridge the gap with the shows that just missed the top 10 cut (as there were a ton of great shows this year) before finishing with the cream of the crop, the top 10 television shows of 2013. We continue with the shows that just missed my top 10 this year, a group of shows that unfortunately got caught in a year of too much good TV. Here they are, in no particular order, my honorable mentions of 2013.

Girls (HBO)

HBO’s Girls had an equally brave and beautifully funny season of television as the last, taking Hanna Horvath and her unique group of struggling friends to even deeper and darker places. It had some great performances and continued to teeter the edge of dramaty without falling off. It barely misses my top ten this year because I felt at times the series took too many diversions, and at times lost a little bit of what the character arcs were in the middle of the season. That being said Girls didn’t miss by much, and I’m looking forward to another season come January.

Game of Thrones (HBO)

Game of Thrones continued to truck along with its best season yet (no surprise considering it covers part the best novel of the series so far) with big action, great characters, and more solid world building than ever. It continued to have the problem of leaving certain characters out of episodes (cue comparisons to the Wire), and no episode in this season ever reached the focused heights of last year’s Blackwater, but when the show gets a great plot line, or big moment to chew on it does it better than many shows on television.

The Americans (FX)

FX’s best new show The Americans played the cold war spy game from the reverse perspective, that of the Russian spies. The Americans was a fun new drama that had both an emphasis on action as well as the fake marriage played out by the two lead characters. Couple that with some really great acting all around and you’ve got yourself a really good new show with a chance of making the leap to greatness.

House of Cards (Netflix)

Netflix’s political drama House of Cards made a big splash in 2013 putting Netflix on the map as a true contender in the business of TV. It was also was a great looking, well acted show that was exciting and intense the whole way through. It may have been too fond of itself at times and the ending left some people disappointed, but House of Cards was a show built for me (ie politics and shakesperian dialogue mixed together) and when it worked it worked extremely well.

Arrested Development (Netflix)

Netflix also brought back one of my favorite comedies of all time this year as Arrested Development aired it’s forth season this year.  While the fourth season was mostly hit and miss, when Arrested Development hit it had many of the funniest sit com moments of 2013. It may not have been near perfect like the first three seasons but it still provided great laughs and a chance to be back with some of Televisions greatest comedic characters.

That’s it for now stay tuned for my top ten television shows of 2013!

Golden Globes give lots of nominations to 12 Years a Slave and House of Cards

The Golden Globe award nominations were announced at a ridiculous time this morning 

So there you have it…

There were some interesting things about the Golden Globes this year, here are a few point form thoughts:

• No love for Mad Men at all. Not too surprising I guess but it’s still a little sad. The most surprising of the whole no love for Mad Men thing is that instead of Jon Hamm getting a nomination we get both Leiv Schreider and James Spader getting nods. That’s kind of ridiculous considering there are so many great performances and those two aren’t in that special category of great actors and it feels like they are there only because of the HFPA liking shiny new things. So wonderful I guess.

• The lack of Mad Men and Game of Thrones did leave room for the other period drama Masters of Sex to come in and grab a nomination for best drama and for Michael Sheen to get a best actor nod. Good to see at least that the HFPA are at least nominating good new TV Dramas.

• Quick note that not a lick of Homeland everywhere, it’s new show sheen has worn off permanently I guess

• Lots of nominations I do like though. Taylor Shilling and Tatiana Maslany got nominations for best actress in a television drama and July Delpy got a nomination for best actress in a Comedy Musical (sadly the only Before Midnight nomination because apparently shiny new things are more important). Parks and Recreation got a lot of nominations which is nice, but the lack of Nick Offerman is still glaring.

• The film nominations aren’t surprising at all, with pretty much every film that was anticipated to win awards winning awards. The most award nominations went to American Hustle, and Nebraska on the comedy side and 12 Years a Slave on the drama side. This year especially I’m a little bit skeptical about how each category is defined (comedy and drama) as there seems to be inherently dramatic films on  the comedic side but if it gets these films (which is a decent collection of films) nominations that’s what counts I guess.

• Finally, other than July Delpy no nominations for Before Midnight at all. Not even screenplay. Oh well…

That’s all for now I’ll write a more detailed piece once the actual awards air in January and the winners are announced.

The End of the Year TV Awards 2013

It’s about that time of year the end of TV season is here! This year like with the movies I’m going all in on reminiscing on this year in TV. We start with the fun side of things with my random less serious awards, then bridge the gap with the shows that just missed the top 10 cut (as there were a ton of great shows this year) before finishing with the cream of the crop, the top 10 television shows of 2013. Of course as usual it’s time to start with some fun and thus we have my mini award show of sorts. I present to you the TV Awards of 2013:

Most Comical Revival or remake:

Winner: The Killing revived…. Again… Thanks Netflix?

Oh the Killing how the heck do you keep getting to come back? Why? Yes after being canceled twice the Killing has yet again been brought back to life this time through the magic of Netflix. Thanks Netflix now we get to enjoy 6 more episodes of red herrings, red herrings, and more red herrings. Sigh…

Runner up: Wait NBC is remaking Murder she Wrote?

Worst/Most Disappointing Finale:

Winner: The Newsroom

Oh The Newsroom I was just starting to like you maybe… How naïve I am as only a single episode after I had gotten decently on board with the season the show it reverted back to everything that I hated about it. All the stupid relationships and bad plotlines returned with a vengeance and zapped all the hope and faith I had acquired a few episodes earlier… Thanks Aaron Sorkin you’re the best!

Runner Up: The Killing

The Wait what?! Why?! Award:

Winner: How I met your Father

Why CBS why? Bad idea physics, take a show that’s been struggling creatively for a long stretch of time that many people have a particular distain for and announce a clearly money grubbing spin off that no one in their right mind wants. The result is How I met Your Father… Why?

Runner Up: The second return of the Killing

The this show should have ended a few seasons ago award:

Winner: Dexter

I’m just a lumberjack and I’m ok… Yup everyone was laughing at the terrible last season of Dexter this year a show that should have been a whole heck of a lot shorter and braver…

Runner Up: How I Met your Mother

Most Influential new player:

 

Winner: Netflix

 So Netflix joined the original series game and now they’re the big boys calling the shots. Releasing all episodes at once, and then being the first “online medium” to have a significant presence at the Emmys. They’ve also caused a bit of a revolution as now every major online player needs a series. Sadly for them no one really cares about them because Netflix is just doing it better.

Runner Up: Sundance Channel

Best Supporting Performance in a TV Show Female:

Winner: Ana Gunn (Breaking Bad)

There were a lot of great female supporting performances in 2013 but none was as horrifying or as captivating as that of Ana Gunn on this final stretch of Breaking Bad. The true winning moment of the performance comes when she portrays a horrified Skyler who collapses in the middle of the street after Walt takes Holly away from her. Truly haunting and amazing on every conceivable level.

Runner Up: Christina Hendricks (Mad Men)

Best Supporting Performance in a TV Show Male:

Winner: Dean Norris (Breaking Bad)

Dean Norris had always been great on Breaking Bad but he got to take it a step further this year as he became Walt’s main adversary in the final episodes. From his desperate hunt for Walt to his near perfect heroic death, Dean Norris player Hank the best he ever has and thus climbed the ladder and became the best actor in a supporting role this year.

Runner Up: Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad)

Best Leading Performance in a TV Show Female:

Winner: Elizabeth Moss (Top of the Lake)

This was a great year for women in TV but this category really came down to two Elizabeth Moss performances and Claire Danes. Probability would tell you to bet on Elizabeth Moss and in this case it would not be wrong. She may be great on Mad Men but she takes it to another level in Top of the Lake where she gets to play all angle of a detective desperate to find a lost pregnant girl before other potentially menacing people. It’s a great performance one filled with all kinds of subtlety and emotional depth.

Runner Up: Claire Danes (Homeland)

Best Leading Performance in a TV Show Male:

Winner: Brian Cranston

Is there really anything left to say about Cranston’s performance at this point? I mean really? It’s just so fantastic words cannot properly describe how great he has been over the course of this amazing show.

Runner Up: Jon Hamm (Mad Men)

Biggest TV Story of the Year:

Winner: Dan Harmon returns to “save” Community 

Yes ladies and gentlemen after probably the biggest TV story of last year being that Dan Harmon was fired from Community it feels almost like poetic justice that just one bad season of Community without him later that he is reinstated to help steer the ship of the show back into the realm of quality. What makes the story so interesting is that it’s pretty much the first of its kind and that we’ll get to see on January 2^nd whether Dan Harmon can bring back the Community we knew and loved (which from really early critical response on Twitter seems to be the case).

Runner Up: Scott Gimple got to so far stay showrunner on the Walking Dead!!

Homeland “Big Man in Tehran” Review: Back in the saddle again

 Quin and Saul call the shots on Homeland

A review of tonight’s Homeland as soon as I talk trash about America on TV…

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve had the chance to review Homeland (things came up apologies) which is too bad because for the last few episodes I haven’t been minding the show, all ridiculousness included. The show has felt more focused and that it led to an actual goal instead of hopping around for episodes upon episode. I especially enjoyed last week’s episode, one that focused entirely on Brody’s move towards the Iranian border as it had both, focus and energy. “Big Man in Tehran” is less successful than last week’s outing, but still managed to engage and entertain, as it, all issues aside, managed to stay largely on target in terms of cutting out what hadn’t been working in the early episodes, and provided a decently tense ride through a key point of the operation.

Probably the biggest problem with “Big Man in Tehran” was the pacing. It seemed like what went down in this episode should have at least been stretched over the course of two episodes, sans time jump in the middle. It would have been better to draw out the tension of both, the initial meet up plan and the transition towards the final play especially the latter as it felt we didn’t have enough build up, and thus the episode felt a tad rushed. It would have been nicer to have the time to examine Brody’s extended time to Tehran as we didn’t get to see either his refusal to be extracted or his rise to stardom in the circles of Tehran. All we get is a brief glimpse of him immediately after meeting with Nazir’s widow, and then we cut ahead 6 days later in order to cram everything that was needed to make this final hour work. It feels at this point that there should have been a reduced amount of time put on Saul and Carrie’s master ruse at the beginning of the season, most of which after the stupid twist felt meaningless (actually it might have made the twist more bearable just cut out all the shots of Carrie trying to act insane towards no one but the audience, and end up cutting out one of the episodes, maybe in the Carrie/Brody parallel episode instead of making us think that both can’t escape their predicaments get Carrie out of there during that episode make it counter parallel and cut out the episode after and we’d have more time here and maybe I could feel better about the twist as a whole) and place the emphasis on what’s working here which is drawing out the Brody mission in the name of good suspense. The result we get ultimately is a little rushed and as a result both tension and logic at times follow by the wayside in “Big Man in Tehran” something that could have been ratified with more time.

Most of the logic that goes by the wayside involve Brody’s plan at the end of the episode, and Carrie as an active player in this plot. Brody’s plan didn’t seem ridiculous (unlike every other plan on this show) per say ultimately but it felt a little less sensible then it could have been with more patience and time devoted to it. It all felt like the plan came off way to quickly for such a grand idea. It makes little sense to me within the given time that Brody could look desperate enough, or is ultimately trusted enough, to get in to see Akbari, who we’re told time and time again is a super private man. With a little more time though this could be established and that it would ultimately feel more organic than it appears in this episode. I certainly wouldn’t mind talking time away from things that didn’t work in the beginning of the season (like less time with Dana and her murderer boyfriend) to make the things that actually have me engaged in the show a little better.

The last thing that could ultimately be clarified is how Carrie actually works on this show any way shape or form. At this time she seems so shrill, and so disobedient that I’m surprised that the CIA hasn’t pulled the plug on her entirely. She just seems to get in the way of the operation all in the name of hunches that while right, are by no means probable in any way shape or form. She’s been doing this all along and we’re suppose to accept her still as the heroine of this show. It makes very little sense and, at this point I would rather live without Carrie than Brody, and that’s saying something because I’m still in the belief that Brody needs to die at the end of this season.

That being said I did like this episode as I’m much more invested in how this turns out than I was with anything at the beginning of this season. With all this talk of redemption this episode maybe the Homeland finale can keep pushing us towards an ending that can partially redeem all the bad things the show has tried throughout the season. It may not be perfect by any stretch of the imagination but at least it’s a decent step in the right direction.

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?