What's most interesting to me here is how wide-ranging this selection is. When picking my top movies for 2014, I leaned heavily toward megabudget franchise pictures (many of which, to be sure, were really good). Part of this is because I usually only go to the movies for big-screen spectacle, and part of this is because quite a few indie flicks are in and out of cinemas before I have the time to see them. Heck, part of it might even be that I just have really pedestrian tastes in movies.
My TV list, though, is much more eclectic, and there are plenty of shows I saw this year that I could have included and didn't (The Knick, Mad Men, True Detective, Orphan Black). It's tough for me to find a thematic through-line for these picks. Here's a go: although tonally they're as opposite as can be, Hannibal shares with Bob's Burgers a curiosity and creativity about food (cue obvious joke that "Bob's burgers" could mean something very different in Hannibal). But where's the connection between, say, The Colbert Report and The Affair? Or Game of Thrones and Brooklyn Nine-Nine? What is it about this group of shows that draws me in?
I'll admit I don't have a tidy freshman-essay generalization. The closest thing I've got is that all these shows are curious about the meaning of something: what it means to be an American, what it means to have power, what it means to be family, what it means to be oneself. They investigate these questions in vastly different ways and come up with different answers, but I think that's part of the attraction. The TV ecosystem is incredibly rich and vibrant right now, so much so that I don't even mind coughing up the extra money for my (admittedly outrageous) cable bill (and Netflix, and Amazon Prime).
So anyway, here are ten shows, some old favorites and some new discoveries, that I found myself addicted to this year.
10) The Colbert Report. Stephen Colbert kept on doing what he's always done right up until the final moments of the final episode, and for that, I'm thankful. There were some wonderful moments with the show this year -- the interview with Smaug tickled every nerd bone in my body -- but nothing tops December 18's musical final farewell. Colbert's character tackled American braggadocio not by insulting it but by inhabiting it, so fully and so outlandishly that the observer had no other choice but to acknowledge how ridiculous it was. I look forward to what he'll do on CBS, but I'll miss his nightly delivery of truthiness.
9) Game of Thrones. This was a big year for this heavyweight, what with the Purple Wedding and the fateful smackdown between the Viper and the Mountain and Daenerys discovering it's not all fun and games to liberate a nation. The ill-considered sibling sexual assault was a strange, unfortunate moment in the storytelling this season, and bizarrely appeared to have no repercussions in the rest of the season. Otherwise, though, the show had some of the show's most satisfying moments to date. Watching Tyrion tell everyone in King's Landing exactly what he thinks of them is never not going to be a pleasure to watch, but the show's most interesting choices were its odd-couple pairings: watching Arya and the Hound wander around and snipe at each other was incredibly entertaining, and I'm hoping for more Brienne/Podrick adventures to come.
8) Orange is the New Black. We still have to deal with Larry -- who has never felt more pointless and boring -- but season two of OitnB largely got away from its focus on privileged WASP Piper and was so much better for it. We finally get backstories for some of Litchfield's other inhabitants -- Suzanne's (aka "Crazy Eyes") was probably the one that most broke my heart -- and continue to investigate not only what got these women where they are now, but who they've become since then. There is simply no other show out there that pays so much attention to so many diverse women. Also: Lorraine Toussant is terrifying and magnificent and if she doesn't win an Emmy, I'll eat my hat. Or would, if I had an edible hat.
7) Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I was initially leery of Brooklyn Nine-Nine because I've never found Andy Samberg very funny (the odd Lonely Island song excepted). Nevertheless, the writers of the show managed to turn his grating narcissism into a comic foil for some of my favorite new characters on TV: Rosa (Stephanie Beatriz) and Captain Ray Holt (Andre Braugher). In addition to strong, generally consistent humor, the show delivers a talented, diverse cast that I'd like to see become more the norm on network TV. In particular, the show's matter-of-factness about Captain Holt's sexual orientation is refreshing and affirmative without veering into clumsy preachiness (I am looking at you, Aaron Sorkin). Rather than trumpeting "LOOK WE HAVE A GAY NOW ISN'T THAT PROGRESSIVE?" the show chooses the (much wiser, IMO) course of just playing it, ahem, straight. Of course a Black man is gay and a police captain and married to a white professor (AND AWESOME). And your point is?
6) Black Mirror. I have no idea when this originally aired because it's a British show, and they do television very differently over there. It's one of my top picks because of its interest in uncovering the darkest elements of what it means to consume media and technology, and because it is unafraid of going balls-to-the-wall crazy in pursuit of its ideas. I won't forget the Peculiar Request to the Prime Minister in episode 1 any time soon.
5) The Affair. It's quiet, focused almost entirely on only two characters, and content to explore the vagaries of human perception and emotion (mostly) without relying on exotic locales, special effects, or elaborate conceits. (Which is not to say I have anything against those things, because...Game of Thrones.) It's fascinating to track the subtle differences in the story depending on whether we're seeing it from the perspective of Noah (Dominic West) or Alison (Ruth Wilson). Is Alison a seductress who wears skimpy sundresses and lures a married man into bed? Is Noah a put-upon father who's meant for greater illustriousness than he's met with? Doubtful. The Affair doesn't present viewers with any definitive version of "the truth," and although other shows this year also questioned that notion, none have done it better.
4) Bob's Burgers. I love the quirky and genuine heart of this show: despite their many quarrels and confrontations, all these characters love each other as much because of their peculiarities as despite them. 2014 delivered two of my favorite episodes of the series so far, "The Kids Rob a Train" and "The Equestranauts." This show isn't afraid of the truly wacky: what other show would stage a showdown between a be-horsed Bob and a fanatic
3) Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Definitely the sleeper hit of the year for me. Oliver's spots on The Daily Show were usually funny, but I wasn't convinced that he could helm a show of his own. Color me incorrect, because Last Week Tonight has emerged as a satirical news show that's actually willing to engage in shockingly solid original reporting: its reveal of the many Miss America scholarship falsehoods was fantastic, as was its exploration of exactly what good state lotteries do for public education (hint: not damn much).
2) Hannibal. I have to willfully restrain myself from pointing out the logic traps and implausibilities of this show, a process which has admittedly gotten easier since I binge-watched the first season on Netflix earlier this year (I was a latecomer). Hannibal doesn't care whether a legal or psychological procedure is actually plausible or not; it cares whether it feels appropriate. No other show on TV can match the elegant, meticulous grand guignol of Hannibal; even Mad Men's thematic and visual precision doesn't operate quite at this level. For giving me goosebumps every damn episode, this has to be one of my picks for the year. Let the 2015 chase begin!
1) Transparent. I avoided this one for a long while because I was so nervous about its subject matter and acutely aware of the position of privilege that I, a cis woman, would approach it from. Gender is an enormously complex, intensely personal concept, and it's incredibly difficult to get it right in stories -- especially when you're talking about transgender individuals, who face a staggeringly high rate of violence and oppression and ignorance. It would be so easy for a story like this to be a Lifetime movie-of-the-week pity fest, but pity comes from a place of superiority, and Transparent doesn't; it empathizes, and demands you to do so as well. What I love most about this show is that it tells a complicated, touching, personal story of a trans woman without forcing her to become a totem for All Trans People. Transparent respects Maura enough to let her be human, with everything that that means, rather than an always-righteous, ever-suffering, and ultimately hollow victim. I understand the argument against casting a cis actor as a trans person, particularly when (as OitnB's Laverne Cox demonstrates) there are many fine trans actors (many of whom appear throughout the show), but Jeffrey Tambor so perfectly inhabits Maura, imbuing her with both vulnerability and strength, that it's hard to imagine anyone else in the role. This is fantastic television, and I am in for as many seasons as they've got.
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