It’s been a long time since I wrote about what I’ve been watching, so I need to add the disclaimer, so that you don’t think I do nothing except lie on my couch watching TV, that these were all watched over a long period of time. Here we go:

Broadchurch

My thoughts on this would probably be a lot different if I hadn’t watched Gracepoint, the short-lived US show based on this British one, first. Gracepoint really didn’t change very much, except for adding a few plot twists to make it three episodes longer, so I knew every single thing that was going to happen. I only saw the first season, though, so maybe at some point I’ll watch the rest.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Love this show. When the new episodes came out, I watched them all in one night. Everyone is fantastic on it- Ellie Kemper, Tituss Burgess, Jane Krakowski, and freaking Jon Hamm (I laughed so hard when he showed up). I could never get into 30 Rock despite my love for Tina Fey, but I think this show takes her humor and makes it more…sweet? Optimistic? In any case, this is one of my new favorites.

Bloodline

I was so disappointed in this show, not because it’s awful but because I feel like it should have been so much better. It’s by the creators of Damages and is also full of flashbacks and flash-forwards,  so I was expecting more from the show and its end-of-season revelations than what we got. It’s got a fantastic cast- Kyle Chandler, Linda Cardellini, Sissy Spacek- but the best performance is by Ben Mendelssohn, whom I’d never heard of before I saw this. And the route they decide to go with his character is…disappointing, to say the least. I didn’t bother with Season 2.

Garfunkel and Oates

I’ve posted before about how much I love Garfunkel and Oates, so I’m sad that their show only lasted one season. It’s cute and funny, although the way they insert the music videos for their songs into the episodes can be a bit awkward.

Freaks and Geeks

This was as good as I’d heard. It’s sweet and funny, and although it takes place before I was even born, the characters feel like real people and are super-relatable. Also, the parents are awesome- as the Snark Ladies would say, they definitely score high on the Sandy Cohen Eyebrow Scale of Non-Negligent Parenting.

The Neighbors

Heh. This is on Hulu and is created by Tommy Wiseau of The Room fame, so…that should give you an indicator of its quality. And it’s mildly amusing at first- people fighting over a live chicken, a princess who is moving into an apartment building for some reason- but it gets old fast.

Fargo

I’ve seen both seasons of this show, and contrary to popular opinion, I liked the first one better. It’s rare for a show to take the tone and setting of a movie and recreate it so well with original characters. The acting is great as well- I was particularly impressed with Allison Tolman in Season 1.

Friday Night Lights

I liked this, although it’s not the favorite that it seems to be for so many other people. Eric and Tami Taylor are both awesome, as is their marriage. How did their daughter turn out so awful? I also don’t get what the big deal is about Tim Riggins- he’s fine, but he doesn’t do it for me. I prefer sweet Matt Saracen, although for the life of me I can’t figure out what he sees in Julie Taylor.

Making a Murderer

Everyone was talking about this a year ago. I remain unconvinced of Steven Avery’s innocence, although I think there was enough reasonable doubt that he shouldn’t have been convicted. And I definitely think Brendan Dassey’s conviction was based on a series of misunderstandings.

Master of None

I love Aziz Ansari- I was a big Parks and Recreation fan and I enjoy his standup- so I was really excited for this show. The first episode is actually the weakest one, but the second episode is the Emmy-winning “Parents,” co-starring Aziz’s real parents, which is excellent and way more indicative of the show’s overall quality. There are also some really poignant episodes about dating that really resonated with me. I wasn’t crazy about how the season ended, but I’ll definitely be watching when it comes back for Season 2.

The People vs. OJ Simpson

This was EXCELLENT. I’m kind of shocked at how good it was. The OJ Simpson trial was going on when I was 10-11, and while I remember it, I wasn’t following it closely. So there was a lot I didn’t know- i.e., I didn’t realize that Robert Kardashian was OJ’s close friend before the trial, or that there was someone else in the Ford Bronco during the chase. Or that his nickname was Juice (this cut of David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian saying “Juice” over and over is hilarious, especially since he’s usually saying it at a really serious moment). But the pacing is just right, the casting is excellent, and wow, Sarah Paulson made me feel terrible for Marcia Clark. I just wanted to tell her, “At least you’ll still be alive in ten years! Cochran and Kardashian won’t!”

Fuller House

I wasn’t expecting quality, just nostalgia, and that’s exactly what I got.

The Path

I started watching this because I love Aaron Paul. It’s about a family in a Scientology-like cult, and it’s a decent show that always seems like it’s on the verge of being great but hasn’t quite gotten there yet. Season 2 just started and so far I’m a bit underwhelmed, but I’m sticking around to see where this season goes.

Stranger Things

Another show I liked but didn’t love. I’m not usually a big sci-fi person, but this, with its 80s setting and kid protagonists, was fun. One of the kids is played by Gaten Materrazzo, whom I know from when he played Gavroche in Les Mis on Broadway.

Outlander

I haven’t read the books, but I’m liking the show so far, although there were definitely some episodes that didn’t hold my interest. Caitriona Balfe is fantastic, and I’m completely unspoiled as to the books, so I’m interested to see where this goes- there are so many possibilities when it comes to time-travel plots.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I caught up with this before the most recent season started and it’s great- funny and sweet. It reminds me a bit of The Office without the mockumentary component in that it’s about a bunch of goofy coworkers who pull pranks on each other and has a cute romance between the two most normal characters. And Andre Braugher is hysterical as the chief.

No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency

The safari in Botswana motivated me to try this, especially since our safari vehicle was called “No. 1 Ladies’ Safari.” This is based on the book series and ran for just one season on HBO. I think it was a good show on the wrong network- HBO is all sex, violence, and antiheroes, while this is just a sweet dramedy about two women running a detective agency in Botswana. I love the characters at the center of it, played by Jill Scott and Anika Noni Rose, and it’s really nice to see something that showcases Botswana, one of the most stable countries in Africa, in a positive light.

Catastrophe

I did not expect to enjoy this Amazon sitcom as much as I did. It’s a funny and kind of unexpectedly romantic show. The premise is that after a man and a woman have a fling while he’s in London from Boston on business, she gets pregnant, and he decides to move to London to be with her and try to make things work. But this isn’t Knocked Up– they’re adults with their lives together, and they genuinely enjoy each other’s company. And I enjoy them, too- the male lead is actually one of my favorite characters in any of the shows I’ve seen lately.

One Mississippi

This is one of those comedies-that’s-not-really-a-comedy that SNL made fun of recently. I mean, the premise has the main character returning to her hometown after her mother’s unexpected death and confronting her past, which included childhood sexual abuse. But while it’s not that funny, despite starring Tig Notaro, it is very well-done. I like that it doesn’t fall into too many cliches- it would have been really easy to go the culture-clash route, with the liberal lesbian in a small Southern town, but it stays away from that and keeps characters well-rounded.

Mr. Robot

The first episode got my attention right away, but by the end of the first season I’d lost interest. It may partly have been because I was spoiled, but I also ended up finding it kind of tedious- the whole “F Society” thing gets old fast. Rami Malek’s jawline, though.

The Crown

This is great- engaging and extremely well-acted. Claire Foy is fantastic, and I would never have cast John Lithgow as Winston Churchill myself,  but he knocks it out of the park. I found myself Googling things to see what happened (I’d never heard about Princess Margaret’s engagement that wasn’t, so that was sad to watch)

A Series of Unfortunate Events

This is based on a book series, which I have not read. There was also a movie that came out in 2003 that was based on the first three books, but they never made sequels. So I enjoyed seeing this, which is more detailed and apparently closer to the books. Neil Patrick Harris is great as Count Olaf- more sinister and less goofy than Jim Carrey was in the movie, and everyone else is well-cast. Including Patrick Warbutton- freaking Puddy from Seinfeld!- as Lemony Snicket.

The Good Place

Whoa. I don’t want to give too much away, so let’s just say that there is WAY more going on in this show than meets the eye. When it premiered, I was hesitant because I thought the premise- a woman who was a terrible person in life dies and is mistakenly sent to “the good place” in the afterlife- sounded kind of dumb. But it’s from the creators of Parks and Recreation, which I love, and stars Kristen Bell, whom I also love. So I gave it a chance, and it turned out to be anything but dumb. It’s actually really twisty and deep- but it is a sitcom, so it’s also very funny. Seriously, the first season just ended and it was only 13 episodes, so you have plenty of time to catch up on it before next season.

I have had an absolutely crazy month, and there’s a lot I could tell you about. Like the trip to Grand Cayman, a fantastic oasis in the middle of a lot of really terrible things. And how I found a short-term sublet in Cambridge that I moved into as soon as I got back from the trip. And how much dealing with the aftermath of the fire has sucked—having to search for a new longer-term apartment, which I’ve yet to find, and how there are lots of really important things that people don’t bother telling you in the aftermath of a fire (example: the stuff that you were told is still in your apartment has actually been boxed up and is sitting in a warehouse in Saugus). And I will talk about that in future posts.

But first, I want to talk about Mad Men.

I caught up with this show just before the second season started (and then blogged about it). Since then, it’s become one of my all-time favorites. I was Joan for Halloween one year. A few times, my friends and I have gone to see it at Noir, a hotel bar that shows Mad Men when it’s on and actually looks like something out of the show. I’ve often said that it’s a show for English majors—you can really dig into the language of it, the symbolism, and the character development and find a lot of layers to it. And even though the characters do a lot of really awful things, they retain a strange bit of likeability that leads you to root for them anyway.

WARNING: DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MAD MEN FINALE.

Which is why I’m glad that in the end, in Matt Weiner’s words, everyone was “a little more happy than they were in the beginning.” For the most part, I liked the finale a lot, and although I know I’m quite late on this (like I said—it’s been a CRAZY month), I wanted to share my thoughts on it.

I did not see the ending with Betty coming. There was a lot of speculation that someone would die, and I heard Don, Megan, and Roger mentioned as possibilities, but not Betty. Even though she’s often a difficult character, I’ve never been among the Betty haters—back in 2009, I wrote a whole blog post defending her. Back then, I said that Betty didn’t quite know what to wish for and wasn’t quite sure how to be anything but a suburban housewife. In Season 7A, we saw her snap at Henry after an argument, “I’m not stupid! I speak Italian!” And then the first time we saw her this season, we saw that she’d decided to go back to school to study psychology, perhaps inspired by her own experiences. The sad thing is that she DID figure out what she wanted, but just a little bit too late. I know the moment that touched most people in the penultimate episode is when Sally reads Betty’s goodbye letter (that letter was so true to character, by the way—she’s concerned about how she’ll look at the funeral home first, but ends it with some genuinely loving words to Sally about how it’s a good thing that she marches to the beat of her own drummer), but for me, it was when Henry asks her why she’s still going to school, given her diagnosis, and she replies, “Why was I ever doing it?” She has the saddest ending of any character, but in the end she’s found a purpose she didn’t have at the beginning and is, indeed, just a little bit happier.

Henry Francis was always incredibly boring, but I can’t say I wasn’t a little bit moved when he broke down crying after telling Sally about Betty’s illness. He didn’t have much personality, but he did really love Betty and seemed to be a good stepdad.

Sally is definitely the most likeable character on the show, and we don’t know much about her future after the show ends except that she seems to be stepping up to be there for her brothers. Kiernan Shipka is such a great little actress—she made Sally really fascinating when she started off as a little kid who functioned mostly as a background character. I hope there are all kinds of great things in store for Kiernan in her post-Mad Men life.

I think Gene Draper said about two words in the finale and that’s the most he’s ever said. He was about seven by the end of the show, too, but he was always the afterthought of the Draper kids.

Pete, oddly enough, might have had the happiest ending of anyone. A lot of people really hate Pete, and while he can definitely be awful, he hasn’t really done anything that other characters on the show haven’t done. I think it’s his lack of the charm that someone like Don has that makes him so unappealing. Despite that lack of charm, though, he was married to a really awesome woman—it’s partly because she’s played by the fantastic Alison Brie, but Trudy was always one of my favorite minor characters. So when they split up, he lost the best thing in his life. It wasn’t that their marriage was unhappy so much as that Pete was unhappy. In the scene with his brother, when Bud’s only explanation for cheating on his wife is that their father did it, too, it dawns on Pete that he’s been doing everything he thinks he’s supposed to do and what he needs is something new. So he leaves advertising, leaves New York, and heads with Trudy and Tammy into a new life he’ll make for himself.

I really did not think that Roger and Megan’s mother would last, and maybe they won’t. I kind of would rather have seen him and Mona get back together, but I guess having two characters reunite with their exes would have been a bit of a stretch.

I’m surprised that Megan’s departure from the show after she and Don divorce was so complete. A million dollar check, and…that’s the end of Megan, along with most of Don’s furniture. It’s a far cry from being murdered by the Manson Family, as the conspiracy theory suspected she would. If the departed Television Without Pity and its successor Previously.tv are representative (and I’m not sure they are), a lot of people really hated Megan. I did not, although I think Jessica Pare is one of the weaker actors in the cast, but I did think she had outlived her usefulness on the show and am glad she took a backseat this season.

One of the biggest surprises of this season was how Meredith, the ditzy secretary who steals every scene she’s in, suddenly became competent in the months between Seasons 7A and 7B. (Although still dumb enough to think that Roger was serious when he said he wanted something translated into pig latin.) She was brought into the office action a bit more this season, and we learn more about her—she was an army brat, she doesn’t seem to have made friends with the other secretaries. And she did say something strangely wise in the finale: after mentioning that she hopes the absent Don is in a better place, Roger protests that Don’s not dead, to which she replies, “There are a lot of better places than here.” Stephanie Drake, the wonderful actress who plays her, has retweeted me twice, which made me happy, and I hope sometime soon we’ll be seeing her in places that are better than McCann Erickson.

I do have to say, though—I think the show missed a lot of opportunities to do more with Dawn, the first black secretary the firm hired. The few times she did get a storyline, she was always interesting. This Salon article sums up the wasted potential nicely.

And I always hoped we’d find out what happened to Sal, but no such luck. C’est la vie, I guess—sometimes you really never do see people again.

I’m so glad that Joan played a bigger part in Season 7B after it seemed like she had nothing to do in 7A, and Christina Hendricks, who sometimes makes me question my sexual orientation, was effing fantastic all season—I really hope she finally gets her Emmy, which she really should have gotten back in Season 5. I think Joan might actually be the character who changed the most over the course of the show. Back in Season 1, she was kind of bitchy to the secretaries she managed, using the small bit of power she had as a weapon, and reveled in the admiration of the office men. But gradually, that desire to be admired for her beauty morphed into a desire to be valued for what she can contribute at work. In Season 1, she thought that as office manager, she’d attained the highest position available to her as a woman—and by Season 3, she’d abandoned it in favor of marriage to a doctor, something she’d always thought she wanted. By the end of the show, she was a single mother fighting back against sexual harassment and not only starting her own company, but giving up a relationship with a rich man to do so. As awesome as I thought the idea of Harris Olson was, it’s really fitting that Joan ends up naming her company Holloway Harris: her maiden and married names. She’s in a financial position that lets her do whatever she wants, and she chooses to make her way on her own, in a company where she answers only to herself.

I was disappointed at first that Peggy didn’t take Joan up on her offer to join her, but the more I thought about it, the more it made sense that she didn’t. Joan’s path at McCann Erickson was so clearly blocked that she really had to leave, but as we see in an early finale scene when Peggy successfully fights her way back onto an account she was taken off of, Peggy’s learned how to find her own way at McCann Erickson. When Pete, in one of the most genuinely nice speeches he’s ever made, tells her that by 1980 she’ll be a creative director and people will brag that they worked for her, we have no reason to doubt his prediction. After that awesome scene where Peggy strolled into the office with her sunglasses, cigarette, and Japanese painting like a boss, we felt like whatever happened with Peggy at work, she’d be okay. But her love life was the big question mark, so I’m thrilled that after seven seasons of picking the wrong men, she ended up with the perfect one for her. Yes, the Peggy and Stan ending was a little rushed, but I didn’t mind their rom com-esque declarations of love over the office phone. Peggy might not need a man in her life, but she certainly wants one, and with Stan, she has someone who not only loves her but understands and appreciates her as well. I feel like the two of them will have a healthier relationship than any other two people on this show. (Side note: the finale aired the night before Christina and I left for Grand Cayman. We were staying in a hotel near the airport, and I was watching this on my laptop with headphones, since the hotel didn’t get AMC and Christina wasn’t caught up with the show. She didn’t know what was going on, but she saw my giddy reaction to the Stan/Peggy scene, and I can only imagine what she thought.)

Peggy’s other important relationship, though, has always been with Don, and I did love that phone call between them. Their relationship is complex and he often treated her badly, but there’s still a lot of mutual respect and admiration there. I like that on the phone call, she pleaded with him to come back, reminding him about working on Coke—and that, combined with the hippie retreat, is likely what lead to Don’s ending.

It does bother me that in the end, the question of Don’s role in his kids’ lives after Betty’s death is still unresolved. The ending’s implication is that he goes back to New York and advertising and creates the famous Coke commercial, but what that means for his relationship with his kids is less clear. But although Don’s ending is not what I expected, it makes sense and I kind of like it. He’s struggled with his identity through the whole show, and when he finds enlightenment at the retreat, I think one thing about himself becomes clear: he’s a really good ad man and always has been. But now he’s an ad man who’s found some inner peace and can use some of that to sell Coke. The pilot had him inventing another real slogan—“It’s toasted,” for Lucky Strike—but while that grew out of a cynical place, an attempt to differentiate a product from its competitors when, in truth, they all cause cancer, the Coke commercial, for another less-than-benign product, comes from someplace more genuine. He tells Rachel Menken in the pilot, too, that “what you call love was invented by guys like me to sell nylons,” but while he uses his experience in California to sell Coke, the peace he’s found is real. I think he really has lost at least some of the cynicism he had at the show’s beginning. And Emmy committee, I am going to be so disappointed in you if you don’t FINALLY give Jon Hamm the award he’s deserved for years.

I hope someday another show comes along that has as interesting characters and is as well-written and well-acted and as made for analysis as Mad Men, but it’s hard to imagine. I’m thinking I may have to rewatch the whole thing now, knowing how it ends.

I bought a Roku a little over a year ago and that was a really good decision. I hate watching TV on my laptop (I know, what a terrible problem), so streaming things on my TV was a welcome change. I joined Netflix, have sporadically paid for Hulu Plus, and bought whatever I couldn’t get anywhere else on Amazon Instant Video.

And thus began a dangerous new era of binge watching. I made a list of shows I hadn’t yet seen but wanted to and still have a lot more I want to see. But here are the shows I’ve watched since the advent of the Roku:

Parks and Recreation

I love it and I like it. I can’t believe I wasn’t already watching this show. This show is wonderful, and not just because Amy Poehler is hilarious. (One of my biggest regrets about college is that I didn’t see Amy, a fellow BC alum, when she came to campus my senior year—I’m not a huge SNL fan and at the time I didn’t really know who she was.)

I’m glad I stuck with it, because the first season actually isn’t that great. It’s created by the same people who did The Office, and I think at the beginning the shows were a bit too similar. Leslie kind of comes off as a ditz in Season 1, but as the show goes on it’s clearer that she actually is very smart and capable—she’s just a bit naïve and doesn’t always go about things the right way. But it starts to hit its stride in Season 2, and with the addition of a couple of new characters, Season 3 becomes even better.

It’s not only funny but also really upbeat, happy, and sweet—the constant making fun of Jerry notwithstanding (it’s okay, apparently, because he has a great home life and a wife played by Christie Brinkley), the characters are all nice people. I am not ashamed to say I cried when Ben and Leslie got engaged and then again when they got married. Rashida Jones has left the show now, but I really loved Leslie and Ann’s friendship. There’s one episode where Mark, Leslie’s ex-fling she still has feelings for, asks Ann out. Ann says no out of respect for Leslie and tells Leslie about it in the interest of honesty. Leslie is grateful, but eventually tells Ann that she can date Mark if she wants to. It’s exactly the right way to handle a situation like this, but I can’t remember any other show doing it—most shows would have turned it into a catfight. Ron Swanson, too, aside from being hysterical, is unique among TV characters for being a hyper-masculine, meat-loving Libertarian who also respects and appreciates strong women. Other shows could take lessons from the way Parks and Rec does feminism.

Plus, it gave us Lil Sebastian and his memorial song, Galentine’s Day, and “Treat yo’ self.” And also, much like me, Leslie Knope has a special love for waffles with lots of whipped cream on top. I didn’t realize until I saw this show how much I was needing a waffles-and-whipped-cream-loving character in my life.

The X-Files

I didn’t watch the whole show, just some of my favorite episodes out of order. It does hold up, I have to say. Speaking of Gillian Anderson…

The Fall

I love her, so I was excited for this British show about a serial killer in Belfast. Gillian stars as the detective trying to solve the case. Unfortunately, the first two episodes just didn’t draw me in, so I didn’t watch the rest.

Moone Boy

I heard of this show after reading this Slate article about it, and it piqued my interest right away. Chris O’Dowd, Ireland, feminism—all things I like. It’s a cute family sitcom set in Ireland in the late eighties/early nineties and while it’s not something that would ever become an obsession, it’s enjoyable and, with only six episodes per season, goes by quickly.

Orange Is the New Black

I’d heard so many good things about this show, and in anticipation of seeing it, I read the memoir it’s based on. I wonder if I would have liked it more if I hadn’t read it, because after seeing the first season (still haven’t seen the second and I’m not sure if I will), I came to the conclusion that I like the idea of this show better than the show itself. It’s all about women, it tells a lot of interesting and diverse stories, it sheds light on America’s incredibly flawed prison system, and the acting is universally fantastic. And yet…it doesn’t do it for me. Maybe it’s because I had read the book and was bugged by how many things had been changed for dramatic purposes and how both Piper and Larry come off on the show—Piper Chapman is really bratty, while the real Piper doesn’t come across that way to me at all, and all you have to do is read this article by Larry Smith to see how different he is from Larry Bloom. There are also a lot of details that are inaccurate—Piper should be in a minimum security federal prison, which means she’d never be incarcerated with someone in for violent crime, like Pennsatucky. But the main reason I can’t get into it, I think, is that as interesting as all the characters and their stories are, there’s no one I connect to personally and nothing I can really relate to. I think the one time I had a flash of recognition was when Piper tries to explain how people misinterpret “The Road Less Traveled” to blank stares– that’s totally the kind of thing I would do. But– and I do realize this says more about me than about the show– I had a really hard time relating to virtually anything else that happens.

Breaking Bad

Wow. I don’t like Family Guy, but this clip here? There’s a lot of truth to it.

It only took me about two-and-a-half weeks to finish this show. I kept finding myself thinking, “Okay, I’ve got this much time…how many episodes of Breaking Bad can I get in?” And when it was over, all I wanted to do was talk about it and tell everyone else to watch it. It’s like a fifty-hour movie. Previously, I knew the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, from when he used to write for The X-Files, and he was famous in the XF fandom for his attention to continuity as well as how he always snuck references to his girlfriend Holly into episodes. He does both of those things on Breaking Bad, too—lots of little things you’ve forgotten about come back later and turn out to be important, and Holly references get in here, too!

The acting is just incredible. Bryan Cranston does an amazing job keeping your attention as a regular guy becoming increasingly evil—even when you can’t sympathize with him anymore, you still want to know what will happen to him. But Aaron Paul as his sidekick Jesse Pinkman is my favorite part of the show. Even when he does terrible things, Jesse quite never loses his humanity, and he’s the character I remember most. My second-favorite character, though, is Skyler, a character a lot of people inexplicably hate. I agree with everything Anna Gunn wrote in her New York Times op-ed—I’ll give you that she’s a little annoying in the pilot, before she actually has a good reason to be mad, but after that, I completely understand why she does everything she does, and nothing she does is as bad as what Walt and Jesse do.

Seriously. I haven’t seen The Wire yet, but I do feel compelled to recommend Breaking Bad to everyone I know.

House of Cards

…I don’t like this show. At all. I think I’m the only one. I saw the first three episodes and could not get into it. I’m fine with unlikeable characters (I did just rave over Breaking Bad, after all), but from what I can tell, there’s not a single character with even one redeeming quality on this show. It’s just way too cynical for me, although it’s not hard to believe that there are people this awful in Washington. What I have the hardest time believing, though, is that Frank is a Democrat from South Carolina.

I have seen a gif of the death at the beginning of Season 2, though, and I did enjoy that. But that’s it.

Veep

While I’d never call this a favorite, it is very funny in a cringe-y way. Julia Louis-Dreyfus is fantastic as the incredibly narcissistic vice president and the rest of the cast is great, too. Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe I’d like House of Cards if it was rewritten as a comedy.

Veronica Mars

Rewatched in anticipation of the movie that came out in March. Upon rewatch, it was even better than I remembered. You should see it if you haven’t and rewatch it if you have. And also read the Snark Squad recaps of it.

True Detective

I don’t think it quite lived up to the hype, but this was definitely worth a watch. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are both great, and while I spent most of the show expecting a big twist that never came, I did end up finding the ending satisfying. Random side note: it takes place in Louisiana, but Woody Harrelson’s character is named Marty Hart—I REALLY think they should have saved that name for a show set in Boston.

Louie

I mentioned in a previous post that I don’t like stand-up comedy. Well, there’s always an exception—I’ve found that I actually do enjoy Louis CK’s standup a lot. His show, on the other hand? Not my thing. I saw a few episodes, including some that were supposed to be among the best ones, and I just did not find them funny.

The Americans

Is this the kind of thing that gets better after the pilot? If so, let me know, because although I’d heard that this was a great show, I saw the pilot and was not impressed. If you’re going to make me care about undercover Soviet spies in the 80s, you need to make them way more interesting characters than they are in this episode.

Homeland

Seasons 1 and 2 are fantastic. Season 3, on the other hand?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9gC1GiSDDA

Season 1, especially, is fast-paced and unpredictable and features fantastic acting (and an epic cryface) from Claire Danes and excellent work from Damien Lewis and Mandy Patinkin as well. Season 2 is almost as good. In Season 3, on the other hand, the lack of new ideas once the initial premise dried up becomes sadly clear, and I’m not even watching Season 4. Also, Dana Brody, the daughter of the Damien Lewis character, might be my least favorite character in the history of TV. She’s that annoying. I kept wishing SHE’D get blown up by a terrorist.

A Young Doctor’s Notebook

Jon Hamm and Daniel Radcliffe.

I repeat, JON HAMM AND DANIEL RADCLIFFE.

That’s all you need to know.

The Good Wife

Note to self: never start watching a network drama so late in the game ever again. This is currently in its sixth season, and since it’s a drama on CBS, it’s 22 hour-long episodes in a season. So it took forever for me to get caught up with this one, but it was totally worth it.

It’s funny, because while I think this is one of the best shows on TV right now, it goes against all of the popular wisdom about what works in this day and age. It’s on a major network rather than cable, it’s got a lead character who’s a good person rather than an antihero, and while it’s basically a serial drama, because it deals with court cases, it has elements of a procedural. But it does what it does incredibly well. Shows like Breaking Bad, House of Cards, Mad Men, Dexter, etc. all have terrible people at the center of them, but the titular good wife, Alicia Florrick, has quickly become one of my favorite characters because she’s refreshingly likeable without being Mary Sue-ish. The title is kind of ironic—she’s cast in the role of “the good wife” after her husband, a state’s attorney in Chicago, is jailed following a corruption and prostitution scandal and, after thirteen years out of the workforce raising her two kids, she has to go back to work as a lawyer. I can’t be the only one who’s seen real-life political sex scandals play out and been infuriated at how the wives are always forced to stand there supporting the husbands who’ve betrayed them, but Alicia is anything but a passive, wronged wife. She’s smart, excellent at her job, and a great mother to her two teenagers, but she also has a tendency to stress-drink red wine and has a penchant for comebacks like, “Die choking on your own blood, please.” And while you might not want her to remain married to her husband, their relationship is clearly very complicated and not as black and white as staying vs. leaving.

Alicia is far from the only appealing character on the show, too. I’m particular fond of Kalinda, the somewhat mysterious and occasionally violent in-house investigator at Alicia’s firm. Aside from the other lawyers at the firm, all appealing characters in their own right, the show has a fantastic lineup of recurring characters who play lawyers they go up against. Michael J. Fox is especially memorable as a shady but oddly charismatic lawyer, and I would totally watch a spinoff about Elsbeth Tascioni, a kooky attorney whom Carrie Preston won a Best Guest Actress Emmy for playing. Mamie Gummer, Rita Wilson, Matthew Perry, and Martha Plimpton have all had great guest roles. I also really like Alicia’s kids, who are written as much more well-rounded characters than dramas focusing on adults typically write teenagers—Homeland and Nashville should take lessons from The Good Wife’s writers.