A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

Rated:

For the second in our series of roundtables looking back at the TV season, we consider things that either were underrated or were too seldom discussed. Hint: None of these involved Melissa Rycroft.

Phil: I'm not sure it is truly under-appreciated (couple of Emmys, big kudos to the senior lead, Mrs. Bullock and others supporting), but it has gone un-discussed around these parts: I have been sucked into Breaking Bad. They made it easy to catch up on the first season during the run-up to the second season premiere and I have watched every episode enthusiastically down the stretch. The finale is waiting on the DVR when I get back from this trip. The amazing thing about the show is that it has managed to remain humorous while slowly raising the stakes surrounding each character's transgressions, difficulties, and compromises. It's hard to do real justice to the darkness and absurdity without dissuading potential viewers. Folks will just wind up thinking, "but I don't WANT to see a methamphetamine addict crushed under the ATM machine he was foolish enough to steal but too foolish to pry open, even if it is a murderous act of his skanky heroin-addicted wife that is thereafter humorously attributed to one of the show's hapless and harmless (but for being a meth dealer) protagonists." That's what I'd be thinking, if it were described to me. Turns out I do very much want to see exactly that, the severed head of a Mexican Mob informant riding a turtle through the desert, and much, much more. Perhaps the highlight this season for me personally was when the junior protagonist explains to the senior protagonist that, in their business, he doesn't need a criminal lawyer, he needs a criminal lawyer. Very well acted, and believable in a moment-to-moment way even when implausibly plotted. Side effects may include an nagging urge to shave one's head, desensitization to half-screen promotional animations for In Plain Sight, and actual occassional (perhaps semi-regrettable) viewing of In Plain Sight (which, let's face it, is for girls).

Adam: Can we please start discussing Michael Emerson as one of tv's best character actors? I have no idea what he'll do after LOST -- can he be a romcom lead? -- but if he doesn't win an Emmy in these last two years, something is wrong.

Bob: Among under-discussed shows, 24 comes to mind, which I still watch. I would describe the season that ended recently as diverting, but not resoundingly good. The show was resoundingly good in its first season and has been uneven in subsequent seasons. Because of the DirecTV deal, we did not discuss FNL as much this season as we used to do, but I found this season very enjoyable.

Isaac: The supporting cast of Chuck gets not enough love. Sure, it gets plenty of love from a few people, but really, not enough mainstream love. Ryan McParlin takes a character that in most hands would be a complete fratty douchebag and instead turns him into a stout, charming lug. Josh Gomez is terrific in a role with an impossible job description: bridge the gap believably between the cartoon world of the Buy More, the action world of Chuck's spy life, and the humanity of Chuck's real world, while adding some pathos of his own. As for Jeffster!, well, duh, Jeffster! And I'll second Bob's mention of FNL -- because of its weird split season, it flew under the radar. The Smash sendoff and the finale were pantheon-level, though. In a season of awesome surprising renewals, FNL's was the best.

Matt: Let's distinguish between shows that are underdiscussed here and those that are underdiscussed in the mainstream media. Sure, I could toss out things like Alan Tudyk's performance in the last couple of episodes of Dollhouse, pretty much the entirety of the cast of Friday Night Lights, or the wonder of Adam Baldwin's grunts, but those get enough attention here. I'll offer up a pair of shows we've rarely talked about and that don't get a ton of critical love, or even love from gossips like Ausiello, though: (1) "My Boys"--We talk a lot about how HIMYM is, in some ways, the new Friends, but this arguably shares a little more of the traditional sitcom DNA than does HIMYM, and the performances are all big fun. Sure, some of the characters can be one-note, but Jim Gaffigan in particular consistently brings the funny, and the character are pretty much all people who you actually like and want to hang out with even despite douchebag intervention. And by largely abandoning serialized stories this season and leaving the utterly implausible "PJ is a sportswriter!" plotlines, it's gotten even more solid. Sadly, it won't be back for a full a year. (2) "NCIS"--In the endless wasteland of CBS's alphabet soup of police procedurals, this is the only one I've picked up watching on a regular basis. Yes, the mysteries are often either ones you figure out immediately or ones that follow the "Oh my god! The bad guy is suddenly chasing us!" model made popular by Sue Grafton, but it's not about plot. It's about characters, who are genuinely likable. Indeed, in a lot of ways, it's a family drama with Mark Harmon as the father figure, Michael Weatherly and Cote De Pablo as the squabbling teenagers, Sean Murray and Pauley Perrette as the dorky kids, and David McCallum as the grandfather. While other CBS shows try to hip themselves up--the de-geeking of the CSI franchise is notable in recent years and the backdoor pilot of NCIS: LA lacked any charm whatsoever, in part because the characters were all "awesome!"--this one keeps it on the level.

Kim: I was genuinely shocked a few weeks ago when I heard that Without a Trace had been cancelled -- both by the fact of the cancellation itself and by the media silence surrounding the cancellation. This for a show that was garnering 12.5 million viewers per week and consistently landing in the Nielsen top 20, after having endured several timeslot shifts to help CBS bolster underperforming nights. Without a Trace had a great cast (Anthony LaPaglia! Marianne Jean-Baptiste! Poppy Montgomery!) and compelling storylines, not to mention a big fat Bruckheimer budget -- reportedly around $3mm per episode. In the current "give Jay Leno 1/3 of all NBC primetime programming hours" environment, I guess the cancellation of an expensive eight-year-old procedural shouldn't come as that much of a surprise, but it's odd to me that the show will end its run much as it lived it -- without a trace.