The State of Television in 2011: A Top 5

Television has long been catching up to film in quality. It offers a unique format to tell a story, and in recent years authors have finally been taking advantage of it. David Lynch showed that it was possible, if not yet feasible, to run a show with artistic merit with Twin Peaks; but it wasn't until the early 2000's, with The Sopranos, that television really came into its own. Since that illustrious show broke open the floodgates, directors like Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann have been a part of creating wonderfully detailed pilots. I would argue that since the year 2000 television has gotten better every year... until last year. Mad Men, the best still running show right now, had no episodes air in 2011; Modern Family got stuck in a rut that everyone should have seen coming and despite still featuring a stellar cast seems to be telling the same stories over and over; and new shows like New Girl (starting to hit its stride in 2012) and The Killing have been completely underwhelming.

Is this the start of a new downward slide in quality? Or just a blip in the slow march towards cinema's death? While the death of cinema might be premature, I'd say that this is an anomalous year, a momentary blip in the sloooooooow transference of the moving image from the movie theater to our living rooms. Networks, having yet to figure out how to make money off the 20-somethings, have increasingly looked to capitalize on the aging baby boomers. CBS in particular being the poster boy for releasing backwards programing, that is soon to be reviled. NBC, on the other hand, looks more like a cable channel in terms of ratings than the network powerhouse of old which featured behemoths like Cheers, Friends, and Seinfeld. Yet, in this age of re-watching and catching up on cult shows of the past, it's programming seems set to be influential for years. In the midst of this transition and dip in quality there were some good shows to be seen. Naturally, I haven't watched everything, in fact I haven't even watched everything that's supposed to be great, but out of what I have seen this is the best of 2011 in television:

Top 5 TV Shows of 2010

The real story of the last 10 years in entertainment is the rise in quality of television. Sure, there were sporadic bursts of genius before the new millennium (Twin Peaks, Seinfeld, and of course I Love Lucy) but finding 5 good shows in any particular year would have been a challenge. Now though,there are at least 10 good shows, of which I haven't seen several (most of Treme, Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad) but what I did see convinced me that in many ways any show in the following top 5 could compete with any mainstream film released this year.

The Death of Cuteness (and a Bonus!) Essential 5: Pushing Daisies

Cuteness is perhaps most commonly seen, in the world of film and television, as something to be grown out of. The sickly sweet ending is akin to picking your nose and overtly sentimental dialogue to using a sippy cup. There seemed to be a brief moment, though, when all this was starting to change. The early years of this decade saw Wes Anderson at the height of his powers, Amelie at near Pulp Fiction levels in college dorm rooms, not to mention the near rabid fanbase of "Gilmore Girls." So what happened? Amelie's reputation has never been lower, Wes Anderson's films (while still well-respected) have been making less and less money at the box office, and shows like "Wonderfalls" and "Pushing Daisies" can't bring in any viewers.

The Glee Monster Revisisted

Glee is everywhere, its music is among the bestselling anywhere and the show's ratings have never been higher. While I have ranted against it previously (and plan to do some more of it in a bit), I do genuinely respect one aspect of it's conception, and that is the bravery and sheer balls it took to make it a musical. The strength of musicals has always been that they are able to simply and directly convey the inner thoughts of a character, that which is so easy to describe on page but so difficult on stage and on film. Musicals have long been an interest of mine; I count some of them as all-time favorites (Singin' in the Rain, Love Songs, and  Top Hat), and a great many others as disappointments... should have beens.

Essential 5: Angel

Buffy the Vampire Slayer was so successful that Joss Whedon was able to expand the universe with a spin-off show. That show, Angel, replaced much of the campy teenage vibe with dark fantasy. He killed off main characters, added moral ambiguity, and in the process created a show which added to the so-called "Buffyverse," yet is also capable of standing on it's own merits. I would actually argue that season 5 of Angel is as good as any single season of Buffy.

A Twin Peaks Corollary

Twin Peaks is almost certainly my favorite show and besides that it's one of the most important ever produced, opening the way for prime-time strangeness (of a lesser degree) from shows like The X-Files and the recently finished Lost. I usually tackle my favorite shows on this site with my "Essential 5" series (basically an excuse to exercise my love of lists), and although I could come up with the five most important episodes of the series pretty easily, they wouldn't make any sense out of the context. The denseness of its mythology is staggering. Its practically the anti-Tarantino, drawing us to images within the work instead of to references out of it (not to say it doesn't do that too). So all I can do is recommend that the series should be watched from the beginning (the Pilot, leave the movie Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me till after the series finale) and offer up some oddities and references that help understand the show.

The Art of Criticism 5: The Written Word vs. The Moving Image

I think it's very possible that this last decade will come to be viewed as one of the most important in the development of the branch of the arts that includes movies, television, and youtube videos among others. That isn't to say that youtube is the equivalent of the printing press or that "The Wire" is the equivalent of Hamlet but its pretty undeniable that a huge leap forward has been taken. While for centuries the written word has been widely respected for its artistic merit in all sorts of forms (from a novel to a short story, and prose to poetry), the movies have dominated all discussion of artistry in the moving images. It is quickly becoming undeniable that movies, television, and short form video all constitute one of the most important art forms today. Vadim Rizov, in his recent blog entry "Why we need better television criticism", argues that because television has been seen as film's unimportant cousin for so long there are hardly any reputable television critics (not to mention the time commitment to watch all the important shows of the past as well as the present). Yet, television is becoming increasingly important and Rizov is onto something with his call for better criticism in that field.

Essential 5: The Office

Michael Scott:	There could be others. I need to know. I don't want to offend anybody else.
Dwight Schrute:	You could assume everyone is, and not say anything offensive.
Michael Scott:	Yeah. I'm sure everyone would appreciate me treating them like they were gay.

The Office started out as a remake of the British cult hit of the same name. From that (cough) auspicious start the show grew into a uniquely American pop culture phenomenon. Although it's currently doing its best sinking Titanic impression, the show was certainly, at one time, the funniest show on TV. Many try to defend the show's merit by referring to the way it attempts to subvert the American corporate culture or the mockumentary format but the truth is that both of those things have been done better elsewhere. What makes it a great show is the witty writing and even better delivery by a talented cast. It's easy to try to rationalize liking this show, when the truth is that it's simply well executed. The well made comedy is something that's been missing from Hollywood for a long time and it seems like, for the time being, it has rematerialized mostly on TV with this show, 30 Rock, and Arrested Development among others.

Essential 5: The X-Files

The X-Files is many things: a treatise on belief, a government conspiracy fable, a sci-fi monster of the week show, and a relationship drama. All of these elements make up one of the most important, and influential, shows of the nineties. When the show works its nothing short of compelling, yet it does sometimes feel dated and more than a bit hokey. The X-Files is strongest when the audience can most strongly identify with Agent Scully, the character that we, the audience, are most expected to identify with (not to mention Gillian Anderson's show stealing performance). Agent Mulder's beliefs are often based on evidence the audience never becomes privy to and thus, his role is put to best use as a sort of guide.

Essential 5: How I Met Your Mother

I do not enjoy Friends. I find most of its situations completely implausible and boring. When it ended in 2004, I was not alone in wishing it a bon voyage. Since then many shows have tried to recreate its success but most failed. The problem was that the simplistic core idea required some sort of vision to really make it worthwhile. Seinfeld was the result of a very definite worldview, Friends, though, just seemed to lead to empty plots and storylines. If Cosmopolitan Magazine were turned into a TV show, it would be Friends. That is why I was so pleasantly surprised by How I Met Your Mother.

Essential 5: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Essential 5 will be a semi-frequent feature here on The Crooked Frame. The idea is that there are best of lists for pretty much everything, but very little in the way of a guide for what are the most important films/episodes in any given genre, TV show, movement, etc. I want to create a starting point for people who are interested in watching something, but don't know where to start. For example, as of a few years ago I had never seen a western, so when I decided to tackle the genre I looked all over for some sort of starting point. This didn't work out so well because some of the films which are most important to understanding the genre aren't among the greatest films. Consequently, I skipped over essential viewing like Stagecoach (1939) and The Great Train Robbery (1903) and missed a lot of what later westerns were responding to. I will present the films/episodes in the order I think they should be watched (usually chronologically) and give a little commentary (no spoilers). 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is often derided for its cheesy dialogue, melodramatic plots, and ridiculous bad guys but that's missing the point. Buffy embraces everything inherent in being a genre, horror, vampire, teen, romance, gothic, feminist show. It explores so many different serious things in such lighthearted yet truthful ways that it's impossible to dismiss it once you give it a chance. The show is, on one level, incredibly satisfying with its simple monster of the week plots and harlequin romance arcs, but underneath has a lot to say about modern feminism and genre among other things.

Freaks, Geeks, and Glee: Highschool and Groupthink

I recently began watching Glee after reading several positive articles. I was intrigued by the possibility of a show which could channel the genre-bending of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the high school social critique of Freaks and Geeks. I made it to episode 3 before I had to stop. The show certainly has a lot going for it: some well executed melodrama, talented performers, and well executed musical numbers (even though they aren't really my thing, its easy to see that, for what they are, they're extremely well done). Glee, though, is not without its faults, and it isn't the hammy acting or the forced heavy handed messages that turned me off. It's the way that the show fails to really respect the fringes of society in the way that numerous other TV shows and movies have in the past.