ARCHIE PANJABI ARCHIE PANJABI ARCHIE PANJABI: Aside from Lost, Idol and all the shows we cover on a regular basis, a lot of shows we don't normally discuss have also concluded their runs of late.
I know we're planning on doing season-ending grades for some of them in the coming days (Matt has a thing for Castle and USA hour-longs; I have a thing for the subject of this post as well as the rest of her CBS show, The Intriguing Investigator Who Works At That Law Firm With Nurse Hathway), but today feels like a good day to open up the floor and let y'all talk about the other shows that you've been loving this season, and for which the rest of us ought to do some catching-up during the summer.
Well, it's been said many times over here, but I'll do it again: Justified, Justified, Justified. If you aren't watching it and you at all enjoy crackling dialogue, Tim Olyphant badassery, and/or various and sundry of Olyphant's co-stars from Deadwood in guest starring roles, then you've been missing out. And I'll second Matt on Castle, which is just a really enjoyable hour of light comedy/mystery.
ReplyDeleteI've been TiVoing this entire season of Breaking Bad to watch during the summer, which now enables me to avoid having to watch the Phillies go scoreless every night. I've managed to avoid spoilers so far, so do a fella a favor and don't spill the beans. (But feel free to tell me where it ranks as compared to the previous seasons.)
I'll second the love for The Good Wife. I wasn't always thrilled with it in the beginning, bt it found the balance between Alicia's personal life and work stories quickly, and has managed to intertwine them in a satisfying way. And the show is worth watching for Kalinda alone, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Christine Baranski and Gary Cole are absolutely brilliant together.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I need to pimp FNL here, but it's been amazing so far this season.
If you're not watching Nurse Jackie, you really must. The characters are developing beautifully, and I'd absolutely watch anything Eve Best and Merritt Wever are in from now on, especialyl if they're together. (Merritt was the PA in Studio 60 and the best thing about the show.) They've even managed to make Mrs. Akalitis more nuanced. It's wonderful.
I picked up and stuck with a LOT of new shows this year...I usually cancel passes to way more. Ditto on the Justified, Castle, Good Wife love. The blog often covers Community abd Modern Family but they're worth jumping on the bandwagon for if you have yet to do so. Agree with Marsha on my continued FNL love. I'm with Matt on his love of USA shows if they include White Collar. Leverage has a summer season coming up, and that show is good, mindless fun (plus Tim Hutton is on Twitter, tweets about good books & music a lot, & has tweeted back at me!!! SQUEEEE!
ReplyDeleteOh, and Parenthood was excellent this year and is worth catching up on. Geez, I watch too much TV.
Nurse Jackie, Modern Family, and Parenthood. All fantastic.
ReplyDeleteI love Castle, The Good Wife and Parenthood. Tuesday was the most DVR-clogging night of the season for me, with Idol, Good Wife, Glee and Parenthood all on one night. I'm watching Season Four of Friday Night Lights again after catching it last fall on DirecTV. I also really enjoyed the SoapNet series Being Erica, though I'm worried for its future now that its network is going to hit the scrap heap. I'm not sure if SoapNet is showing reruns of it this summer. The Lifetime series Drop Dead Diva actually was much better than its title suggests, and its second season is starting in a couple of weeks.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to spend the early part of the summer catching up on Season Two of Damages on Netflix. And I once again will try to get started on The Wire. I've tried doing that each of the last two summers, but have gotten bored on the first disc of the first season. I've heard it gets much better once you get past the first half of the first season, so maybe I'll give it one more shot.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Christine Baranski and Gary Cole are AMAZING. So hot. Such a deep well of excellent actors playing interesting characters. Political thriller, legal procedural, soapy romance, it has something for everyone. I hope they can maintain the balance of storylines as well as they have this first season. If they do, this one is going to be on for a long time.
ReplyDeleteWhite Collar is among the USA hourlongs I enjoy (along with In Plain Sight, which has changed in an interesting way this season--normally procedurals run toward non-work storylines as they age, and this one has improved dramatically by running away from the non-work storylines).
ReplyDeleteWe'll talk about this more next week when I put up something fuller, but I am excited for the Smokey/Cary combo of evil next season.
ReplyDeleteEck! Sorry for rushing it. Looking forward to a fuller alott5ma discussion of the show!
ReplyDeleteI won't going into spoiler country, but Breaking Bad is the absolute best show on television right now. Season 2 was a big improvement over season 1, and Season 3 is even better than season 2. Bryan Cranston is as good as the two consecutive Best Actor Emmy wins he deserved. The supporting cast of Aaron Paul, Dean Norris, Anna Gunn and Bob Odenkirk do tremendous work, too. If nothing else, it may be the most cinematic and best looking show on television after Lost. Albequerque is a great setting for this story.
ReplyDeleteI'm weeks behind on Justified and Treme, but looking forward to catching up on both in the next few weeks. Unlike Breaking Bad, where there is a good amount of suspense and surprise, Treme feels like it works even if you're spoiled about the plot, because it's mostly character.
I recently stumbled across The Life and Times of Tim on HBO and it's very funny. I'm also catching up with Bored to Death, which may not translate the further you get from Park Slope, but it's got a cool literary/food co-op Brooklyn noir feel.
Summer catchup plans include Damages season 1, Generation Kill, Deadwood (halfway through season 1). I may start in on the Daria DVD set. My next big TV catchup is The Shield, but I doubt that's happening this summer.
Not a rush at all. I'm just saying there's a broader discussion to be had in a separate, focused post.
ReplyDeleteBeing Erica got a 3rd season, at least on the CBC (I don`t know about SoapNet). I never got around to watching the second season, was it good?
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to catch up on Breaking Bad this summer. I'll do a post on Cougar Town at some point.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite new shows have already been mentioned -- Modern Family and Justified. Also really love Glee and The Good Wife. Right now my husband and I are catching up on Dexter, though we have to wait until August for the DVDs of season 4. We're considering Breaking Bad next -- either that, or Battlestar Galactica.
ReplyDelete"Love" is too strong, but I really enjoyed FlashForward, especially after the hiatus, when it seemed that the new crew figured out how to pull the threads together and make it all make (some) sense. I am sad to see it go, because I think it had real potential.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It was much improved and that finale was killer. RIP.
ReplyDeleteI believe SoapNet did renew it for a third season as well, so I guess that will likely be the last one that airs on SoapNet before it goes off the air. I liked the second season, but I preferred the first season.
ReplyDeleteI do like that actor as Cary much better than I ever liked him as Logan on Gilmore Girls.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't get into Parenthood. Watched 3 eps or so, then they started piling up on the TiVo and I had no real interest in watching. So I didn't. Too bad - I like so many people in that cast.
ReplyDeleteLifetime is running a marathon of Season 1 of Drop Dead Diva sometime soon, which I'm planning to Tivo -- I have heard other good reviews of the series.
ReplyDeleteI feel bad about it, but I gave up on Treme after week three--I'm totally down with and agree with the "New Orleans is weird and important, and Katrina changed it in ways we can't really comprehend" angle, as well as much of Simon's political agitprop about racial/economic injustice, but it felt like work watching it more than entertainment (aside from the music, though even that, it felt like you needed annotations to fully understand who all these people were and why they were important). I watch TV to be entertained, and having John Goodman yell at me "THIS IS A TRAGEDY!," while well acted, felt less like entertainment and more like going to a bad Noam Chomsky lecture.
ReplyDeleteI stopped at the same point and to some degree for the same reasons, but with the caveat that I'll try it on DVD, because my experience with The Wire was that the ability to watch a bunch of episodes in just a few days helped my understanding to reach the necessary critical mass for me to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteMy love for David Simon and the City of New Orleans can not compare to my general disinterest in jazz and Treme's stilted pacing. This is show that is supposed to be about the personal rather than the political, but these people are not that interesting. I have about 5 sitting in my DVR and can't imagine getting to them any time soon.
ReplyDeleteOn topic, I had never watched and episode of Glee until 3 weeks ago. I have now seen the entire season. It is wildly entertaining, if inconsistent.
Enjoy The Good Wife, but loathed the finale because it offered such a false cliffhanger. There is only one choice Alicia can make that allows them to follow through with the obviously story arc and keep Silas from Deadwood, Lila Garrity's Season 2 Radio Preacher boyfriend, and Alan Cummings on the show.
FNL and the rest of Justified will be the bulk of my summer viewing.
I really liked Parenthood, but I thought the season ender was kind of lame. But Lauren Graham is great, Peter Krause is great, and I am looking forward to seeing what they do with their second season.
ReplyDeleteMe too - part of it was being backlogged on other shows at the same time, but I figured there was probably another reason I couldn't manage to find the time for it. DVD will have to suffice.
ReplyDeletei highly recommend justified and the good wife as well. we will also be watching burn notice this summer, along with white collar on usa. they both take the place of castle as a summertime hour of fun, light entertainment. anybody know if covert ops will be another good edition to usa's lineup? and then there's rescue me...which i'm not sure i can/want to watch.
ReplyDeleteI mentioned this before, but I watched one episode of "The Good Guys" and found it extremely entertaining. Colin Hanks is wonderful to watch in a comedy.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I tried to mention it earlier, but I think my comment got eaten... The entire series of The West Wing is on sale today for $99.99 on Amazon (gold box deal of the day). Knowing the love of TWW around here, I thought this might interest some people...
ReplyDeleteBeing Erica Season 2 just wrapped up last night here and I am so excited to hear there is a third season. Doctor Who is awesome and we're nearly at the end of Season 3 of The West Wing so The Wire Season 1 is next on the list. Happy Memorial Long Weekend!
ReplyDeleteBored to Death films in my neighborhood. I've been meaning to catch up on it, if only to support the local filming industry. So I'm glad to know that it's good. I haven't heard any buzz at all about it!
ReplyDeleteYou're either going to love or hate Bored to Death. The Zach Galifinakis bits are funny, and Danson continues his late-career renaissance, but the Schwartzman stuff is very hit or miss and a little cutesy for its won good.
ReplyDeleteTotally agreed, Matt. I'm enjoying In Plain Sight a lot more this season. I still have the last three or so to catch up on from my DVR, but the lack of Brandi and Jinx this season has been fantastic - the most enjoyable part of the show has always been the work parts, especially Mary with Marshall. (Although I do miss Eleanor this season.)
ReplyDeletei have to agree on Breaking Bad. There is just something about conflicting characters like Walt that are so riveting. The same goes for Don Draper on "Mad Men" and Nurse Jackie. I just find the show so well done and it is more like watching a movie every week than a television show. I feel that shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men, fall in the category of art tv rather than regular television. By that I mean they are so innovative in presentation, story and plot, and characterization that other shows just don't compare.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Modern Family is also a masterpiece. It is one of the few shows that I can watch and just laugh the whole way through but it also doesn't ram its style down your throat like some sitcoms do. I love how the show takes a stereotype and completely challenges the audience's ideology about what those stereotypes represent. I think my favorite characters are Gloria because she taks the whole notion of the typical gold digger to the level of an intelligent non-judgemental woman, and also Cameron because even though some of his characterizations are typical, what you think you see is not what you get. And I also love how it makes me laugh and cry in one episode. Just awesome.