By Thomas Willett
As the title implies, I am doing another list. However, this will not be the start of another four week binge. I save those for the end of the year. With recent news of what shows have been renewed, I thought that I would take time to look back on the past few months and determine what stood out. For this list, I have decided to focus on shows that have premiered in some capacity between January and May. This means that whether they are new or returning, they had to have episode 1 of the current season premiere between those dates.
While compiling this list, I discovered that I had watched quite a bit of new shows. What is more impressive is that there was better programming than there was during the Fall season. However, on the flip side, shows were also worse back then. I have highlighted 15 shows that I feel either warranted praise or deserve to be forgotten. Let me note ahead of time that this is strictly from my viewing habits and I will not count anything that I haven’t at least watched one episode of. While Are You There Chelsea? and Work It may be worse than these shows, they are disqualified.
I’ll start with the great. What makes a show great for me is that there is some sense of continuity from episode to episode. Even if it is as simple as solving weekly conflicts done in an interesting way, I will give it credit. These shows have managed to not only make competent material, but they have managed to do it in bold and interesting new ways. These are shows that I will happily pop on any time and lose myself in wonderment.
1. Bob’s Burgers – This show is among the ranks of Louie and Community in terms of bigger and better second seasons. So far season 2 has been dynamite with some great voice acting while parodying everything from the Goonies to Dog Day Afternoon. I even think one was the most subtle parody of King of Kong ever. This show is a welcome addition to Fox’s Animation Domination and provides something different from the Simpsons or Family Guy mold that has tried to fill in the gaps. While I don’t see this lasting even a fifth as long, I think that with the bizarre sensibilities, this could become reminiscent of the great early seasons of the Simpsons, where anything goes while still keeping some heart in the story.
2. Girls –This isn’t the most original show of the season, yet there is something perplexing about it. It managed to quickly cut away from the Sex and the City comparisons and become something more. By mixing hot button issues with everyday life, there is some sort of realism to this that is undermined by Lena Dunham’s great wit (though I see this becoming more of a dramedy a ’la Enlightened). Do note that this is my least favorite of the Judd Apatow-produced TV shows and I feel that it could drop off at any time. For now, it brings some naked honesty and passion that few other shows have.
3. An Idiot Abroad –Ricky Gervais may have created the Office and Extras (which I still need to see), but so far the simple task of sending his friend Karl Pilkington around the globe may be his masterpiece. I also believe that season 2’s general premise of a bucket list gives the show the necessary boost. He is now comfortable to roam around the globe and spout off his knowledge without seeming repressed. It also helps, because there is more for him to do, thus less filler. I just find Pilkington to be a fascinating persona and I thank Gervais for forcing him through such weird rituals to get to the core of why that is.
4. Key & Peele – I do not watch a lot of Comedy Central original programming. However, when I heard that Infomania’s Sergio Cilli (who you may remember from this) was doing work for the show, I decided to tune in. I was immediately intrigued because hosts Jordan Peele and Keegan Michael-Key had such great chemistry. Their banter between clips was almost as inspired as some of their sketches, which includes this gem. They managed to lampoon celebrities like Lil Wayne and Obama’s black translator while creating their own unique universe.
5. Luck – I already made my case on this show here. However, let me remind you the things that it did do: rekindled my interest in horse racing, made Nick Nolte seem like a competent actor, turned me onto hour long dramas, created the sense of humanity in a horse (unlike War Horse), and gave me the first (logically) cancelled show of the year that I will miss. Looking back, I liked it more than I lead on.
6. The Ricky Gervais Show – I am notorious for wanting people to just talk in movies (on screen, not off), so of course this show seemed ideal. Besides helping to establish our Nerd’s Eye View template, it has remained one of those little ditties that I enjoy watching, if just because of the banter between Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington. If there is one flaw, the plot-free episodes sometimes make them indistinguishable. However, it’s still a fun show, especially since they added more creative animation to fit the dialogue.
7. Eastbound & Down – I think that this is the weakest season. However, it does closure in a very inspired way. Take out the weak links, such as Ike Barinholtz, Will Ferrell and Jason Sudeikis, and you get the darkest, most intriguing part of a redemption tale ever. I will also give this show credit for terrific casting in Lily Tomlin, if just for the last few episodes. It also features one of my new favorite final series moments. Many meandering moments come across a little sloppy, though not enough to keep me from missing this show.
8. Eagleheart – Thanks to Chris Elliott and Brett Gelman doing press for this show via podcasts, I quickly familiarized myself. This is an ultraviolent parody of Walker Texas Ranger, brought to you by producer Conan O’Brien. At worst, this show is the weirdest 15 minutes of my week every time. The story is inconsequential, and the humor can be juvenile, non sequitur and violent. It works because the brief run time never lets a gag go too long. Along with Children’s Hospital and Robot Chicken, these are the exceptions to the low brow reject shows of Adult Swim’s repertoire.
9. Don’t Trust the B**** in Apartment 23 – While I am on the fence of giving the show more time, I do admire the general concept. There is plenty of creative moments sprinkled throughout that has slowly begun my choice to give ABC shows like Happy Endings and Cougar Town (scratch that last one) a try after Modern Family turned me off. However, there is too much of a feeling that the naughty humor has to be mixed with winking silliness that sometimes doesn’t feel right. There is also pointless promotion for other ABC shows that was kind of a turn off on 30 Rock and remains my biggest detractor for both of these shows. For the time being, I’ll consider this to be an entertaining use of my time.
10. Unsupervised – Created by Nick Hornby (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), this is what I believe to be an example of next generation Beavis and Butt-head. Where the recent resurrection of the Mike Judge show left me feeling like they matured into something unrecognizable, this feels like a worthy adversary to the animated slacker mold. It doesn’t rip off Judge’s work, and instead places them into interesting new situations at a rundown public school. This show isn’t always solid, but there is enough substance and interesting characters here that makes me support it. It manages to be crude and sexual while also giving the characters dignity.
Then there are the disappointing shows that have come and gone in my life. What makes something disappointing is that they first had to have something to intrigue me. By not living up to it, they became a disappointment. For this logic alone, shows like Veep (which was good, but not my thing) are disqualified because I had doubts going in that were reestablished.
1. Life’s Too Short – There is a moment on An Idiot Abroad where Karl Pilkington calls Warwick Davis to talk about a dwarf colony. That conversation is hilarious and made me so excited to see if this could work. Truthfully, it is the most disappointing show because this is the first Ricky Gervais program that I downright hated. I find Davis to be a charming fellow, but it felt too staged for a mockumentary concept, especially since there was a strong sense of blatant winking at the camera. I don’t know that the concept evolved to something greater besides inspired guest stars, but I didn’t feel the need to stick around.
2. House of Lies – Let me remind those at home that this is the show that Ben Schwartz took a break fromParks and Recreation for. Let that sink in. Sure, on the surface it seems like it cannot be all that bad. It has Don Cheadle, Kristen Bell (who was also on Unsupervised), and Schwartz. Not a dream team, but enough to entice me. From the pilot episode, in which Cheadle does a lot of freeze frame asides to the audience, I found the show to be too gimmicky. The general idea that these characters were helping big businesses never worked for me and everyone felt like a caricature. Five minutes into the second episode, I gave up. It felt too lifeless to even get better.
3. Napoleon Dynamite I know that I am critical on dethroning Seth MacFarlane on Animation Domination. I like to see what shows are trying to take it down. As I stated on yesterday’s show, I did like Napoleon Dynamite, but I didn’t feel like it went anywhere. It had all the imagination and quirk that attracted me, but it lacked enough flair and passion to make me grasp onto it. It was a competent adaptation of the movie, but it felt easily forgettable after a while. I am mostly disappointed here because I felt like it could have been more than a weird deadpan show.
4. 30 Rock – I am so glad that this show is coming to a close next season. This season crossed the line into self-parodying their satire. Sure it was ambitious and brought some great episodes, but I felt that ratio was 1 out of 7. What we got most of the time was bad parodies and the ultimate sign that it’s ran out of ideas: “the Shower Principle.” This episode was pretty much saying “we’ve already done everything” repetitively, and the show only continued to prove it by making every other episode centered around Tracy Morgan and Jane Krakowski trying to be respectable actors. I feel confident in saying that there were many weeks in which I preferred the Big Bang Theory over 30 Rock. Was the CBS program really having a better season? Yes, which is normally unprecedented, but sadly the case here.
5. Best Friends Forever – I’ll be honest. I never convinced myself to watch more than the pilot, even though I had plenty of positive things to say on it. It barely creeps above Portlandia’s slight decline (okay, this was great) because I heard that it got better. Since it was recently cancelled, I am thinking that maybe I should give it another go. Unlike Free Agents, I probably will not miss this show, but I thought it had potential to at least make an entertaining season of episodes instead of the 4 it inevitably got left with.
Those have been the shows that have been holding my interest for the past few months. I apologize that I never got around to watching the Legend of Korra, which I have heard is just as fantastic as the Last Airbender counterpart. As the summer line-up approaches, I am excited to see new shows (Russell Brand’s talk show) and old faces (Futurama, Louie). Did I miss any great shows? I’d like to know now that all of my programming is coming to an end (Community’s triple header finale airs tomorrow on NBC. Don’t miss it).
You can read Thom’s blog every Wednesday and hear him on Nerd’s Eye View every Tuesday and Thursday at nevpodcast.com. Send your thoughts to nevpodcast@gmail.com. You can also read Thom’s movie reviews for Cinema Beach at cinemabeach.com.
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