My Top 20 Favorite Shows of 2015

20) Fargo (FX)
Season 2
Created By: Noah Hawley

Thoughts: I have no doubt that Season 2 of Fargo will end up being #1 on many people's year end list, but for me, the FX show almost didn't crack my Top 20. However, I started comparing it against other shows for this last spot (Catastrophe, You're The Worst, Community) and I realized no other show in competition with Fargo made me tune in every week to see what fascinating and exciting new adventure was awaiting me. I absolutely believe that season 1 of Fargo- as a result of better and more interesting characters (both main ones like the ones played by Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Freeman, and Allison Tolman, but also the minor characters like the ones played by Glenn Howerton and Kate Walsh)- is better than this current season, but that shouldn't take away from my enjoyment for what Noah Hawley and company created in 2015. Also, please give Bokeem Woodbine all the awards.

19) Mr. Robot (USA)
Season 1
Created By: Sam Esmail

Thoughts: When Fargo's Noah Hawley spoke with Andy Greenwald to promote his show, he never referred to his product as a "show"- he always referred to it as a movie. Television shows have become more serialized than ever nowadays that they basically are 10-13 hour long movies. This concept couldn't be more true than with Sam Esmail's great, of-the-times masterpiece Mr. Robot. Esmail starting writing a script for his new movie that was so long that he just decided to make it a television series. Season 1 of USA's amazing new show about a schizophrenic hacker trying to take down the fictional E-Corp was just Esmail's first act. If this is just beginning, then I can't wait to see what's in store for Seasons 2 and 3. Also, check out Sam Esmail's interview with Andy Greenwald, but only after you've been on the exhilarating roller coaster that was Season 1 of Mr. Robot.

Click here to read my thoughts on how Goodfellas influenced Mr. Robot's voice over

18) Other Space (Yahoo!)
Season 1
Created By: Paul Feig

Thoughts: I originally came to Other Space thanks to Yahoo! airing the sixth (and hopefully final) season of Community, but I stayed thanks to Paul Feig's (you know, the guy that brought us Freaks and Geeks and Bridesmaids) simple yet hilarious new show. While I don't expect Yahoo! to air a second season of Other Space thanks to the massive amount of money they lost trying to get into the television game, I still enjoyed the 8 episode first and final season. The premise of the show is straight-forward, a small group of 20-something's in a Star Trek -esque Star Fleet Academy get lost in space and attempt to get back home; however, the success was in the execution. The humor works thanks to the relationships the show was able to give us from the get go, and it turns out those actors you see in commercials are actually great when given a larger opportunity.

2014 Weekly TV Recap (June 8 - June 14)

CURRENT SHOWS AIRING

Sunday June 8

Game of Thrones (HBO), Episode 9 "The Watchers on The Wall"

GRADE: A-

Brief Description: Historically, penultimate episodes of seasons of Game of Thrones have been the best episodes the show has ever done, and that includes the show's best episode, "Blackwater" (the second to last episode of Season 2). The penultimate of season 4, "The Watchers on The Wall" had a lot to live up to. Unfortunately, it failed to meet those expectations. While having a giant action sequence set in one location is normally the key to a fan-fucking-tastic Game of Thrones episode (see: "Blackwater") there's a second part to this equation. The action has to involve characters we care about. The star of "Blackwater" was Tyrion Lannister, the show's best character. The star of "The Watchers on The Wall" was Jon Snow, a character I wouldn't shed too many tears over if he died. For the past 4 seasons, the scenes involving The Wall were always some of the least compelling parts because the danger never seemed immediate. We knew The White Walkers and The Wildlings were a threat, but certainly aren't even close to the threat that Stannis Baratheon was to King Joffrey in Season 2. Even if Mance Rayder's army did win the battle this week, so what? It would still be another season before they took over Westeros (if they could). The stakes felt significantly lower in "The Watchers on The Wall" then they ever felt in the prior penultimate episodes, which in turn affected the overall quality. That's not to say this episode was complete garbage, Quite the contrary. It was an action-packed episode that gave us wonderful little moments (Sam reuniting with Gilly, Ygritte's death) along with incredible and mind-blowing action sequences. It was a non-stop thrill ride that ended too quickly and didn't feel like an hour had passed. Hence the "A-" grade. However, it should have been more. Especially considering Game of Thrones is currently the best show on television.

Halt and Catch Fire (AMC), Episode 2 "FUD"
GRADE: A-

Brief Description: Halt and Catch Fire already has the reputation of being one of AMC's vastly inferior products and being a show that feels reverse engineered from other AMC shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men. In fact, it seems like you're legally not allowed to talk about the show without mentioning that the Lee Pace and Scoot McNairy characters are analogous to Don Draper and Walter White, respectively. But for all the AMC comparisons, no one seems to be mentioning Halt and Catch Fire in its own right. I really like this show a lot, and I'm going to continue watching for the rest of the season. We find out here what Joe MacMillan's play actually is- to engineer a computer that's twice the speed for half the cost. That notion didn't really appeal to me all that much, as it doesn't feel, as Joe puts it, "The thing that gets you to the thing". Building another computer doesn't seem all that revolutionary and I sided with Cameron about her anger towards the project. On the other hand, Joe's idea at the end of the episode, to build a portable computer IS revolutionary, and we obviously know from history and living in 2014 that that truly is the future of computers. That does feel like "The thing that gets you to the thing". However, what really sucked me in and the reason I want to stick around for the entire season is the corner "FUD" immediately puts itself into. Instead of attacking Cardiff through the courts, IBM attacks their wallets. IBM steals almost all of Cardiff's clients in one fell swoop that it leaves the company with almost nothing, and thereby will stop the production of Joe's new computer. It's a ballsy and daring play to create a status quo of this show and then immediately destroy it. You have to assume that Cardiff or Joe or somebody soon will find money to keep this project going, but this move IBM just pulled seems like the type of move that would immediately destroy a company, and I have no idea just how the show will pull Cardiff out this mess. 

Tuesday June 10

Fargo (FX), Episode 9 "A Fox, A Rabbit, and A Cabbage"

GRADE: A-

Brief Description: Admittedly, this episode was probably an "A" or an "A+" but it's only an "A-" because of my own personal viewing experience. For starters, I normally watch Fargo as one continuous episode, but I watched "A Fox, A Rabbit, and A Cabbage" On Demand, which means commercial breaks and this episode works better when you watch it during one continuous sitting. Also, I watched the first half doing other things, and watching anything distracted goes ruins your enjoyment of the show. That's my fault because I missed a tense filled episode. It goes to show you that a little music can go a long way. Sometimes it worked to the show's disadvantage (once Lester was at his home in Minnesota I knew he was safe) but often times it worked to its advantage (when Lester and his wife initially get to the Las Vegas elevator/ Malvo and Keith Carradine's conversation in the diner). But really, there is only one thing to talk about in this episode, and that's what a fucking horrible human being Lester Nygaard is. Despite his arrogance testing Malvo and later Deputy Solverson, sending his wife in to die at Malvo's hand is unforgivable. Lester has done some pretty terrible things during the course of these 9 weeks, but he still remained a protagonist in some respects, analogous to Jamie Lannster in Season 3 of Game of Thrones. But after what he did to his wife, here's hoping he dies in the series finale next week.