A few weeks ago I started making notes about what I thought the best shows of the year were. Since then I've kept coming back and elaborating more and more and this is the end result.
Television is clearly experience a sort of golden age right now in terms of the quality of the shows and storylines in them. Further to this the calibre of actors being atracted to these shows is also the highest it has ever been. All together this makes picking the best of the year difficult if not imposible. I can't watch every single series currently airing, therfore this list ranks the best shows I've watched during 2012.
 |
| Breaking Bad AMC |
Breaking Bad (1)
“All hail the king”
After the season 4
finale “Face Off” could this show get any better? Of course it can. All 8
episode of this mini half season were full of amazing. Highlights include the
train ‘robbery’, Walt and Skyler, Skyler walking into the pool, everything to
do with Mike, the new cooking solution, Jesse wanting to leave, “Yeah magnets!”
Walt ‘retiring’ and that last shot with Hank. Crazy.
 |
| Mad Men AMC |
Mad Men (2)
“Is it just me, or is the lobby full of
Negros?” – Roger Sterling
So much happens in Mad
Men, but unlike Breaking Bad you can’t summarize it into specific scenes or
events. This season, like all seasons, had great character development.
Highlights include Pete and Beth, Don’s family dynamics, Lane, Roger on LSD,
Joan and her husband plus having to go the extra mile for a client and business
picking up. Always solid.
 |
| Game Of Thrones HBO |
Game of Thrones (3)
“Winter is coming”
Lots of characters and
lots of stories. This season got in trouble a little I think for expanding the
universe so fast when the 1st season did it slowly. Peter Dinklage
was amazing as usual and his storyline as well as anything happening in Kings
Landing stood out. The Daenerys storyline
happening in the desert and that city got kind of boring but I imagine the
payoff occurs next season. Personal favourite storylines were Jon Snow in the
north, Arya, the assassin and Tywin Lannister and everything Jamie was involved
in. Blackwater was clearly the best episode and shows how good the series could
be if they based every episode in only one location.
 |
| The Walking Dead AMC |
The Walking Dead (4)
“The world we know is gone, but keeping our
humanity? That's a choice.” - Dale
This series keeps you
on the edge in regards to who lives and who dies and it’s no different this
season. 2012 saw the second half of the 2nd season air and also the
first half of the 3rd. The last half of season 2 was phenomenal and
the build up to the finale was one of the best I’ve seen. The scene between
Rick and Shane was just crazy and is probably the best thing the show has done
to date. The 3rd season started a bit slow and the story with the
Governor was getting boring until they spiced it up in the last few episodes.
This show would have been higher on the list had the whole 2nd
season aired this year but because of the split and the somewhat slow start to
the 3rd season it drops down.
 |
| The Newsroom HBO |
The Newsroom (5)
“First step in solving any problem is
recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world
anymore” – Will McAvoy
New for 2012 this show
was great and combined news/journalism with the mind of Aaron Sorkin and (the
surprisingly good) Jeff Daniels. I loved how it took recent news stories and
made them the center of each episode without having to alter what really
happened. Made me wish that ACN were a real network!
 |
| Homeland Showtime |
Homeland (6)
“You wait, you lay low, and then you come to
life” - Carrie
I have a feeling if I
were an American I would have this show a lot higher on the list. I thought the
1st season was awesome but never agreed that it was the best show on
TV. The awards it received proved me wrong I guess (what do awards mean anyway?).
I felt this season was not as good as the last one and I think it’s because the
Carrier and Brody storyline just got old and uninteresting. I know some of the
24 writers work on this show and it seems like this is a longer, drawn out
version of that show with less insane plots and more real character drama.
That’s fine but when some of the things that were normal in 24 happen on
Homeland it feels out of place. Overall season 2 felt like a transition series
where Brody’s story had to seem to be finished only for it to be re-ignited.
They accomplished that for sure.
 |
| Suits USA |
Suits (7)
“You just got Litt up” - Louis Litt
Suits is one of those
shows that you don’t invest a lot of time in but never disappoints in being
interesting and entertaining. The second season moved away from the episodic
structure of the first by having a couple of overarching storylines that would frequently
come up in nearly every episode until their conclusion at the end. All main
characters had strong seasons and the main storylines were also interesting.
 |
| The Killing AMC |
The Killing (8)
“Who killed Rosie Larson?”
I watched the whole
first season of The Killing over 2 days earlier in the year and while it wasn’t
great I loved that it was different. The characters are bland when compared
with some of the other shows on this list but that’s what makes the show
interesting. Real life isn’t always pretty and The Killing is the definition of
not pretty. It’s nearly always raining and gloomy and the characters lives are
messy, troubled and unfulfilling. The mystery over who killed Rosie Larson is
mainly what kept this show interesting and this season provided the same twist
and turns in the case as the first season. Slow in parts and sometimes
wandering off track I still kept interest right to the end. Hopefully we can
see those two cops back on TV this time with a new case.
 |
| New Girl FOX |
New Girl (9)
“What's going on? Did you guys watch porn
together again? Why do you keep doing that? It's always awkward!” - Jess
I don’t watch many
currently airing comedies but New Girl have been a pleasant surprise. It’s not
of the calibre of something like Community but its funny and entertaining. I
was struggling to think of shows to fill the last two spots on this list, I
know there are shows that would be here if only I watched them (see below).
This show is good and provides a good laugh but I have to note that I can’t
watch it week by week; so far I’ve only watched it in chunks of 4-5 episodes.
Also if you minus Schmidt I honestly wonder how funny the show would actually
be.
 |
| Fringe FOX |
Fringe (10)
“The future, in order” “RESIST”
Fringe is a show that
has survived a lot longer than most people would have thought. It’s currently
airing the finale season and has really changed its story in this last chapter.
The Observer storyline sort of came out of nowhere but to be honest Fringe does
this a lot. I honestly don’t know what has really
happened in the past or which past is the correct one anymore. It sounds
crazy but that stuff doesn’t matter; lately Fringe has focused on its
characters and their story arcs. So far they had done well with this last
season and you can sense with only a few episodes left everything is about to
get crazy. Fringe took off at the right time and the fact that all the story
changes, timeline twists and rewriting of show history hasn’t lead to its
cancelation is a modern miracle in TV world. After watching many interesting
shows get cancelled (Jericho in previous years and this season Last Resort and
666 Park Avenue) I’m glad Fringe made it to the end.
TV series that I
enjoyed that got cancelled (it happens all the f**king time):
-
Alcatraz
-
666 Park
Avenue
-
Last
Resort
No comments:
Post a Comment