By Thomas Willett
Tomorrow is the start of December, which is the time of the year when we look back at the past 11 months and figure out what significant events shaped our lives. Whether it be the PG-13 rerelease of the King’s Speech or this awesome video (thanks, Benson), it’s hard to not go a year without some pop culture entering your brain and possibly rotting there. For me, it’s become a time when I look back at my year and try to determine what was significant to me. After all, I watched all 144 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and discovered Nicolas Winding Refn. I found out how much the Lady in the Radiator from Eraserhead scares me .
Of course, that’s all stuff I discovered from the past. This year is harder to remember because like it or not, you won’t remember your February that well (though my demise of the most watched Cypress College Media Network show (to that point) remains an episode for the ages). That’s what I love about this time: trying to put everything into perspective (and watching every possible Oscar nominee).
Which is why for the next few weeks, I will be dropping the rants for the more traditional lists of things I remembered from the year 2011. It will be a list upon lists of stuff that I think is worth remembering, and in doing so, I hope to look back in a year and see how it stands the test of time. So, time for me to transform into Rob Gordon and start the countdown.
This week’s theme is television. I am by no means an expert on every genre currently airing, but I did watch enough to make a full-fledged list. To make this list, I am counting shows based on a January-December run and I had to at least watch one whole episode to qualify. Basically, I count the last half of the Community season 2 with the first half of Community season 3, which aired in the Fall. It’s an odd way to judge, but for the sake of this argument, it’ll work.
And now: a compiling of my top 15 favorite shows.
1. Louie
Best Episode: Country Drive
If one show stepped up their game from their previous season and blew me away, it was Louie. While it opened with “Pregnant,” an episode that I totally loathed, it grew into weirder, darker directions that caused me to feel something that is rare in television. I felt uncertain about where the episodes were going. While “Country Drive” is not really the best episode, it is the one that turned me into an absolute believer that this is the best show that aired this year. From the car ride to the dead grandma to the Huckleberry Finn stand-up routine, it was all over the place, but it felt confined and important. The rest of the season featured Joan Rivers, Dane Cook, and a trip to Iraq. What other show has this much variety? The fact that I couldn’t guess where each episode went and was still satisfied does numbers to making me wish this had more episodes.
2. Infomania
Best Episode: Infomania and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
You can watch the Daily Show or Real Time with Bill Maher for your political news (and maybe they’re more credible), but for me, there wasn’t a better news satire show the past few years than Infomania. Through their weekly segments dealing with music, women, gays, technology, and politics, it managed to be fun and inspiring to me, a guy from Long Beach who set the show as a platform of weekly entertainment that was smart and silly. Sadly, the show was canceled in July and has since been reduced to Youtube videos that I often watch with fondness. However, because of their influence, I still follow the happenings of Brett Erlich, Sergio Cilli (he does great Funny or Die videos), Ben Hoffman, Erin Gibson and Bryan Saffi (who both started a podcast called Throwing Shade), and they’re just as funny separate as they are as a unit. Like Indie 103.1, it wasn’t a phenomenon to more than a select few, but it shaped a lot of who I am, and I miss it so much.
3. Breaking Bad
Best Episode: Thirty-Eight Snub
I want to personally thank Netflix for making this all possible. Because you put the first three seasons on Instant Watch, I have become obsessed with this show. I am now onto season four, which I have heard is one of the best. It sure is. Not only is the writing top notch, but I love the time lapse scenes, the montages, and music selections. I love the character traits and the cat and mouse game that is almost spoiled, only to continue from human error. It’s getting intense, and “Thirty-Eight Snub” is the episode that sets it up with Walter (Bryan Cranston) planning to kill Gus (Giancarlo Esposito) and Jesse (Aaron Paul) having one of the wildest house parties ever. There is so much that I love about this episode, and it’s probably because it’s setting up for one hell of a finale (note, as of this publishing, I haven’t seen “Face Off”). I love this show and am going to put it in my Top 10 favorite shows accordingly. If you aren’t watching, you are missing out. I am serious.
4. Bored to Death
Best Episode: “I Keep Taking Baths Like Lady Macbeth”
By having a central theme of finding out who Jonathan’s (Jason Schwartzman) father is, it makes this season a little more convoluted in the actual fun, but with this episode, it presents George (Ted Dansen) trying to cope with their friendship only to chase down Louis (John Hodgeman) in a grocery store. It’s the madcap fun that I’ve come to love from this show that ended with a great battle between some bad guys and a team of Super Rays. Please check out this show, because you are sincerely missing out. You have enough time until next season when it airs sometime next year.
5. Parks and Recreation
Best Episode: Jerry’s Painting
Sure to cause some controversy in my choices, I had to decide which NBC show I enjoyed more from the January-December time slot. While it’s true that 30 Rock barely missed the cut, it’s almost seen as offensive to not praise Community. However, after evaluating my criteria, I have come to the belief that Parks and Recreation had the better combined batch of episodes. Probably because I love the cast and they had their characters go in interesting directions, this is probably why they usurped Community. The humor is really solid and I cannot say no to a show that has Adam Scott, Aziz Ansari, and Aubrey Plaza providing top notch laughs on a weekly basis.
6. Community
Best Episode: Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking
While Parks and Recreation win best overall, I still would like to say that Community season 2 may be one of the best seasons of TV that has aired in recent years. With this episode, they continue their annual tradition of making a mockumentary episode. This time, we have the pleasure of seeing Troy (Donald Glover) stare down Levar Burton for half the episode. It’s only one of the many things that made this season great. However, in the third season (notably starting with “Remedial Chaos Theory”), they became that experimental show that still worked, but it hasn’t always been as compelling. I still will defend this show when the final (I hope it’s only temporary) 2011 episode airs next week. Creator Dan Harmon’s vision has been one of the most enjoyable experiences to hit television in years.
7. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Best Episode: Storm of the Century
What is most surprising about this show is not that they managed to get miles out of an obese gimmick, but that after a lackluster sixth season, they returned strong. Many would call “CharDee MacDennis: The Game of Games” as the best episode, but there’s something about fear at a store that becomes an elaborate 3D TV joke that just works better. Despite a few duds, this has been one of their best and features some of the best episodes of their entire run. They’re still sick and wrong, but for those that stick around, you’ll continue to find gems and understand why I call Charlie Day the funniest actor on TV.
8. An Idiot Abroad
Best Episode: Brazil
(Note: this is going based on the American release of this series that originally aired in 2010 in Britain)
Around the Nerd’s Eye View offices, we all have a fondness for the Ricky Gervais show and most notably Karl Pilkington. It may have been a brief run (series 2 hasn’t set an American air date yet), but what a memorable one it was. I found an odd connection to Pilkington as he travelled the seven wonders and just complained about the different bathrooms. It was a travel show through the eyes of a man who didn’t want to be there, which was brilliant. It’s sad to say, but I learned a lot by his off-hand remarks, and I kind of wanted the episodes to keep going. I mostly pick the Brazil episode as my favorite because I have a Brazilian friend that I tease as being unpatriotic for not attending Carnaval. Also, seeing Pilkington react to all of the weird performers is very entertaining. If you love the Ricky Gervais Show and especially Pilkington, check this out when it hits shelves.
9. Futurama
Best Episode: Reincarnation
Unlike the Simpsons, Futurama succeeds in doing segmented episodes (check out “Anthology of Interest”). With the final episode of this season, they managed to make one of their nerdiest, most entertaining segmented episodes yet. It also caps what I believe to be their first full season in return to form. While I found the previous to be very rocky, almost every episode here featured something promising and entertaining that restored my faith in the show and it’s whacky premises. As far as reboots go, this is one of the better choices, even though it’s sadly one of the few quality cartoons that Comedy Central has, making me long for the days when it was between King of the Hill and the Simpsons on FOX.
10. The Simpsons
Best Episode: Angry Dad: The Movie
It’s hard for me to ever really excuse any season when you have episodes like this. It manages to parody awards shows by making fun of Randy Newman and every animated style possible in one of the most inspired, bizarre segments produced during this run time. While the rest of the episodes go back and forth on quality, it’s overall a really solid batch that include an inspired parody of the Bank Job (“The Book Job” with Neil Gaiman) and an appearance by Cheech and Chong. While it may not win back any fans of the old style, I’d like to think that there’s still some spunk in this show for fans still dedicated to watching every episode possible.
11. Children’s Hospital
Best Episode: Party Down
This show is nothing but 10 minute segments of jokes, and they work brilliantly. I cannot figure out what exactly I love about this show, but it manages to pack ridiculous gags into every scene in ways that they haven’t done since the first season. They even fit in a Run Lola Run reference that is immediately bizarre and helps move the scene forward. However, if this show will be remembered for one thing from this season, it will be reuniting a portion of the cast of Party Down (no Jane Lynch) for two minutes, teasing the fans one more time.
12. Curb Your Enthusiasm
Best Episode: Car Periscope
I’ll come clean. I have never watched a full season of Curb Your Enthusiasm until this year. Probably because the competition was Weeds (which was really terrible this year), but I was compelled to watch every moment. There was something compelling about Larry David’s character this time, and no matter how rude or delirious he got, I wanted to see what happened next. In this particular episode, it wrapped up in a great way that I felt defined why I was watching the show. It took a million weird ideas and they all played out as a puzzle at the end. While I don’t love this show, I doubt that I will write off ever missing a season again.
13. United States of Tara
Best Episode: The Good Parts
One thing that has been hard to defend is my interest in Diablo Cody as a writer. For those who already considered Juno to be hipster garbage, she’s hard to grasp. While this show has a niche premise and you either buy it or you don’t, I simply enjoyed most of it. Unlike most fans, I was fine with it coming to a close as I felt that it could only get darker and sadder (which it did around the “Chicken N Corn” episode). I didn’t want to see the series where Tara (Toni Collete) played a mental patient. True, it was sad to say goodbye, but in the final episode, we get a convenient send-off set to “Supertramp.” In a way, it kind of epitomizes why I was true to this show and it’s interesting group of characters (notably Brie Larson and Keir Gilchrist).
14. Portlandia
Best Episode: Aimee
One of the earliest scares of the year came sometime in February. I turned on IFC to discover that there wasn’t any new Portlandia. I freaked out so bad. Because it wasn’t well known, I thought that it was cancelled. Oddly, it’s because it only aired six episodes. I held hope that maybe it could petition its way back onto the air. It wasn’t until an article in Spin Magazine that I got the big sigh of relief that it was finally coming back in January (but for how long?). In truth, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein’s show may be very hipster oriented, but it’s one of those low energy sketch shows parodying Portland that I just somehow became perplexed by and wanted more. The only reason I chose “Aimee” is because it’s the episode where I discovered Aimee Mann and liked her (despite those Magnolia songs I discovered five months later). I cannot wait until this show comes back. Who knows, it might move up on my list next year if it plays it’s cards right.
15. New Girl
Best Episode: Wedding
I’ll be honest that this show hasn’t quite lived up to my general vision that I spoke about a few months ago. While Zooey Deschannel is still a fun actress, the premises have gotten a little more sitcom clichéd, and the characters are hit and miss. However, it still manages to be one of my favorite shows of the fall. Its best episode has been “Wedding,” because while it’s heavily featuring wedding tropes, it manages to do it in a fun way that makes the results interesting. I sadly feel that maybe MLB Baseball and the X-Factor have bullied it into its sad shape that it is now by making four weeks of potential episodes disappear like that. I’ll still stand by this show, but I just hope that it stops pushing it around and getting it stuck between shows like Glee and Raising Hope.
What were some of your favorite shows this year? Did I miss any great ones? What should I look out for next year?
You can read Thom’s blog every Wednesday and hear him on Nerd’s Eye View every Tuesday and Thursday atnevpodcast.com. Send your thoughts on television’s best of the year to nevpodcast@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter @nevpodcast and like us on Facebook. You can also read Thom’s movie reviews at Cinemabeach.com.
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