Grid Effect

I don’t know about anyone else, but that was a pretty eventful weekend. It’s amazing how much more active you feel when you’re sitting on your fat ass at a multiplex instead of at your house watching moving images on a screen. Seriously, it really felt like I was accomplishing something by going to three movies in two days, in addition to watching football in a bar instead of at mine or a friend’s house.

Yes, I am aware that this is basically what I've turned into. And I'm OK with that.

But anyhow, here are the five best shows from 2008. We will have left several off of here for various reasons, of which we’ll explain after we post.

5) The Office

It feels like this series has run its course at the end of every calendar year, yet it manages to sneak into our top five regardless. More so than any other series, The Office was a victim of the strike (having the biggest gap in between a single season). But they managed to handle it better than anyone else, providing great story arcs and quality episodes after the strike, that didn’t feel hastily put together or contrived (like so many of their counterparts). The first half of season five has been predominately successful, with obviously a few exceptions. Still, you’re not going to find a better comedy for your time and money on television right now.

4) The Shield

Yeah, we’ve stated a number of times that we haven’t watched this series, at least not on a regular basis. But the final season sounded like a rewarding one for its audience and a devastating one for it’s anti-hero Vic Mackey. It sounded as if the Tony Soprano of police departments finally got his comeuppance (something Tony himself never encountered, at least not in any tangible way), and that in itself makes this critically acclaimed series worth watching. We will get around to it at some point (potentially this summer), but for right now all we can do is assume that The Shield lived up to expectations and trust the opinions of critics we’ve found to be reliable in the past.

3) Mad Men

During any other year that was absent a Sopranos or Wire season, this would have been in the top spot. The atypical story of a 1960’s Madison Avenue executive struggling with identity and life in an ever-changing and hostile world, only improved on its debut season. Mad Men, a show that has gained notoriety through style more so than substance, is chock full of the latter. Season two managed to encompass every imaginable reaction to the turbulent beginning to the 1960’s. There are those that adapt accordingly (Don, Peggy), those who desire to but are unable because of either forces beyond their control or stubbornness (Salvatore, Pete Campbell, Joan Holloway) and those who are reluctant to accept it at all (Roger, Harry, Paul); All while everyone copes with the turmoil of their own lives. Mad Men has always been an atmospheric and a successful one at that, but when the narrative turned into the best thing on television for the second half of the year, this has officially taken the crown from recently retired series as the best show on television.

2) Generation Kill

We might be cheating with this a little, because it’s a miniseries with a completely different scale and much tighter focus. Unfortunately, we do not give a shit. The show adapted from the Evan Wright novel of the same name gave us layman a factual and (mostly) unbiased and honest look at the Iraq war and those engaging in it on our behalf. Was it critical? Yes. But it also portrayed the majority of those on the front lines with a degree of affection, that lent you to believe that it wasn’t personal, just frustrated. David Simon’s follow up to his magnum opus basically took the rank and file of the streets of Baltimore and placed it in Iraq with the US military and gave you a dramatized look at the inner-workings of these men’s experience, and all that entailed. The good and the bad.

1) The Wire

Was the serial killer storyline far and away the most sensational story this series has ever done? Absolutely (and don’t give me Hamsterdam as a counterpoint, because it’s not even close). Did the addition of the Sun to the cast feel hammed up and suffering from tunnel vision about fabulists whoring themselves out for pulitzers? At times, definitely. But this is The Wire we’re talking about. For whatever complaints you may have had about how they handled their final season, their was still plenty of subtext about the corrosion of the American city. Not to mention what most people are primarily concerned with: We got closure and a relatively happy ending for the characters we’ve grown so fond of over the past five seasons. I’m on record as saying this was my least favorite season from David Simon, but it was still better than anything else we watched in 2008.

As for series’ that didn’t make the cut:

-Entourage: For a series that prides itself on the number of insider jokes they churn out in a given episode, they didn’t really seem to apply the nature of Hollywood to it’s protagonist Vince Chase. We don’t believe for a second that any “star” of his caliber would be shunned from the industry after one bad showing at an film festival. But when they decided to go in that direction, it really felt like they had to stick with it and not redeem his entire career in the closing minutes of the season. We always say with comedies that as long as we’re genuinely laughing at what’s taking place, then we’re content with the effort. Problem being, Entourage wasn’t terribly funny in 2008, either.

Rescue Me, Damages, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Flight of The Conchords: Did not air any new episodes in 2008.

The Life and Times of Tim: We would have put the first half of the season at #5 or #6, but was bored senseless in the second half, to the point we opted to keep it off the top ten altogether for those that exhibited a little more consistency.
Probably it for today, and potentially the rest of the week. We’ll post again if anything comes across the wire but most only pretend to work in the final months of each year, those in the television industry are no different. Have a happy new years if you don’t hear from us again in 2008.

I do not know why I always make a point to wait until after Christmas to do these lists. It couldn’t make less of a difference when they are done in December, so long as they encompass every series that was available. It’s even more baffling considering I’ve been doing links posts for the past two weeks. But hey, that’s me. I’m an enigma wrapped in idiocy.

As usual, these are the top ten series’ in 2008 and they include everything show that aired new episodes during the calendar year. We are basically measuring each show against itself, and how thoroughly it accomplished what it set out to accomplish. So, for instance a comedy might be ahead of a drama, if the comedy was exceptionally clever and the drama was growing old and mundane, and continued on the same track through 2008.

We’d also like to point out that due to the strike and our lack of Direct TV, there will be some notable additions and absences on this years list. Not necessarily shows we recapped like in years past.

With that said, in reverse order, our completely subjective and self-serving top ten list of 2008.

10) It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia

Kidnapping, extortion, fraud & cannibalism were just some of the “high jinks” that the gang found themselves in in 2008. It started off and closed successfully, but in the interim we had a few too many disappointing episodes for us to place this any higher on our annual countdown. This was definitely the least memorable of the four seasons to date, but the least memorable season of It’s Always Sunny is like the least memorable gunfight you were in. Regardless of how uneventful it may have been relative to past gunfights, we imagine the details are still pretty clear.

9) Survivor: Fans Vs. Favorites

Personally, I couldn’t stand how this season ended and that usually dictates one’s impression of the season as a whole (I’m certainly not immune): Whether or not you liked the person who won the million dollars. And while I didn’t like Parvati, Alexis or Natalie (especially Natalie), I have to concede that they made the season inherently interesting, even if endlessly frustrating. They essentially road the additional votes they got from two young, naive boys that couldn’t avoid the manipulations of attractive women in bikinis. All the while Cirie was discretely behind the scenes, bending everyone to her will and she never got the credit she deserved.

Let me put it this way, if Penner or Yau or Cirie or Amanda ended up winning that season, it would probably be a couple spots higher. Instead, we got some ditz whose circumstances allowed her to advance in the game, and much to her credit she took advantage of those aptly. While we respect it, we certainly do not have to like it.

To be fair, I would have been mightily distracted as well.

Weeds

We spent a lot of time complaining about this show: It’s too forgiving of Nancy, it’s redundant, there isn’t enough Andy & Doug and the transplanting every major character down to the border seemed highly convenient. But when all was said and done, they had thrown together what was mostly an effective, well-constructed season; even if the most brutal and least comedic of the four to date. We can’t say we were all that enamored of the cliffhanger that they ended with, as it seemed like just another conveniently timed ploy to keep Nancy out of prison and the morgue. But on a whole, Weeds reinvented itself rather successfully. If compared to another series that tried something similar, it really beat the shit out of Nip Tuck.

7) South Park

Season twelve sported some great episodes in “Canada On Strike”, “Over Logging”, and “Elementary School Musical”, but those were all countered with “Major Boobage”, “Britney’s New Look” and “Super Fun Time”. It was a relatively uneven season for Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who some say might be running on empty with their historic animated series. But they showed they still have the chops to bring the funny when they’re not mailing it in. This season was (surprisingly) rife with controversy. You figure most critics would be used to the vulgarity that this show usually produces, but events in “The China Problem” and “Brtiney’s New Look” that sparked outrage proved that there is nothing this country takes more seriously than its celebrities.

6) 30 Rock

Yes, well, we never watched much of this series, but from what we’ve seen it’s one of a kind. It seems like too many comedies are placed in the entertainment industry these days (Extras, Curb, Entourage, kind of Flight of The Conchords), so we’ve been hesitant to watch based on the now commonplace setting. But when a series is great, despite our reluctance to actually find out for ourselves, we’ll admit it once we do. Jack Donaghy is one of television’s best characters in 2008, Liz Lemon isn’t far behind and with a strong supporting cast that includes Tracy Morgan, Jane Krakowski and Jack McBrayer; we’ll gladly put 30 Rock at #6, even if it is going to be off the air in two years.

Alright, we’ll tackle 1-5 next Monday. Have a good weekend.