Here are some disclaimers: I pretty much only watch comedies, so you can consider this a list of the best comedies of 2012. I do watch some dramas (okay, mostly just Mad Men), but I'm not as well-versed in them as I am in comedies. Also, I chose 12 because...I felt like it. Besides, 2012! Get it? Okay.
Anyway, here are the 12 comedies you should've been watching in 2012, according to me.
12. South Park
2012 wasn't really South Park's strongest year, but it still managed to churn out a ton of pretty damn fantastic episodes that easily rank among the show's best. For a show that just ended its 16th season, that's no small feat, and when you compare to other aging cartoons like The Simpsons and Family Guy, the show's continued strength becomes even more impressive. There are probably dozens of factors as to why South Park remains a viable entertainment option while other cartoons have fallen prey to the DVR delete button, but I'd attribute it to the fact that the show is still interested in pushing itself and its characters to places they haven't been before. In this year alone, the show turned itself into an action reality show for half an episode, put its own spin on "shipping", and even questioned its own influence on morality. As long as the show can keep churning out similarly fresh ideas, it should have no problem remaining the reigning champ of long-running animation on TV.
Highlight Episodes: "Cash for Gold", "Cartman Finds Love", "Raising the Bar"
11. Suburgatory
Suburgatory was a show that I was pretty torn on last year. I loved so much of the cast and felt it had tons of potential, but the whole "city dad moves his troubled daughter to the SUBURBS!!!!" angle seemed so trite, and the show wasn't really putting any new spins on it. Luckily, the show downplayed that aspect of it this year, turned its homebase Chatswin into less of a demonic Stepford Wives-esque world and more of a lovingly bizarre Pawnee/Springfield type setting. But what really made the show stand out - aside from America's favorite family, the Shays - was the way it was able to take Tessa's maturation into adulthood and relationship with her father seriously. The show was by far at its best when it was dealing with Tessa trying to reconnect with her long-lost mother and figure out just where exactly she came from, and how that affected who she is today. Suburgatory still stumbles into over-the-top territory a bit too often, but when it's at its best, mixing its off-beat humor with serious emotional depth, it's easily one of the most compelling shows on television.
Highlight Episodes: "The Motherload", "The Wishbone", "Krampus"
10. Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23
Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23 was easily one of the year's most surprising new shows. Its high level of quality wasn't necessarily what was surprising, but rather the fact that an ABC sitcom was allowed to go to places as dark, disgusting, and downright weird as Apartment 23 - or, more affectionately, Bitch 23 - went over the course of the year. The fact that a network that refuses to even air the show's actual title somehow gave the green light to a scene that prominently featured a main character blatantly masturbating in a bathtub is a television miracle in and of itself. Unlike some other shows that highlight their raunchiness, though, there's a lot of talent that goes into Apartment 23, and what makes the show as great as it is is not necessarily its raunchiness, but its excellent performances (especially by surprising comic genius Krysten Ritter), truly unique style of humor, and its way of taking old sitcom plot points and turning them in completely bizarre directions that somehow make total sense in its world. There's nothing else quite like it on TV, especially live-action TV. Unfortunately, that very well might lead it to an early demise, but even if Bitch 23's reign is a short one, the fact that it even happened at all is a pretty amazing achievement.
Highlight Episodes: "It's Just Sex", "A Reunion", "Love and Monsters"
9. Ben and Kate
Few shows have developed an online following as quickly as Ben and Kate, and with good reason - in the time where most sitcoms are figuring out just what the hell they're trying to say, Ben and Kate had already established one of the best comic ensembles on TV, with each character bringing something truly unique to the show's warm, pleasant rhythm. Ben and Kate's strength lies in its authenticity - the show's stakes aren't that high and it never digs all that deep, but it's formed a bunch of misfit characters whose problems and personalities feel real, down-to-earth, and extremely relatable. That's probably why its small but dedicated audience clung onto it so quickly, other than the fact that it's boasting some seriously excellent comic performances from just about every member of its cast. Unfortunately, as dedicated as they are, Ben and Kate's audience does remain very small. Here's to hoping 2013 brings around some kind of turn in fate for the show, because its created such a pleasant world that would be a lot of fun to hang out in for a few more years.
Highlight Episodes: "Kate's Birthday", "Scaredy Kate", "Reunion"
8. The Middle
If there was one comedy underdog in 2012, it was The Middle. Sure, the show's ratings are higher than any other show on this list. But in terms of acclaim and general fanfare, The Middle has slipped quietly under the radar - and that's a bit of a shame, as it's slowly turned into one of the most realistic family comedies in several years, and just a really great sitcom on the whole. It's understandable that the young folks of the internet wouldn't be interested in a family show that airs on ABC and stars Patricia Heaton, but the show has done an excellent job of painting an accurate picture of what it's like to be a family on the brink of economic turmoil - and considering the age we live in, the one where everyone is running around yelling things like "DEBT CEILING!" and "FISCAL CLIFF!" all the time, its message has become incredibly poignant. Still, the show's slow but steady march to greatness needs to be partially chalked up to the Hecks themselves - a flawed but endearing bunch who all have pretty big problems but are able to get past them and become a functional and even loving family unit anyway. With the show going into syndication next year, let's hope people who wrote it off as family-fluff will catch an episode in between Seinfeld re-runs and discover one of the strongest, funniest family sitcoms of our time.
Highlight Episodes: "The Guidance Counselor", "The Second Act", "Christmas Help"
7. Veep
Veep is one of those shows where there was basically no way it could have gone wrong. The Thick of It creator Armando Ianucci creating an American political satire with Julia-Louis Dreyfus playing a frazzled vice president? With Buster Bluth and the girl from My Girl playing her cronies? That sentence alone would be enough to make my "best of 2012" list. The best thing about Veep, though, was its ability to mix razor-sharp satire with extremely strong comic characters. The fun of Veep lied not nesseccarily in its big statements about American politics - truth be told, there weren't really many of those - but in the way it took seemingly powerful, all-important people and brought them to human levels, having them nonchalantly toss around phrases like "fuckload of bread" and...well, various other spins on the F word. It brought a weirdly human level to the annoyingly un-human world of politics, even as it was having its characters make some classically despicable political moves. And of course, so much of Veep's magic comes simply from having a bunch of talented people working in a room together. Sometimes, that's really all you need.
Highlight Episodes: "Frozen Yoghurt", "Catherine", "Tears"
6. Parks and Recreation
2012 was a big year for Leslie Knope. Not only did she embark her on one of the most extensive fictional political campaigns in TV history, she got engaged to her Game of Thrones-loving boyfriend Ben Wyatt and was awarded with the seat of City Council. But if I'm being completely honest, I enjoyed Parks and Recreation the most this year not when it was telling big, grand stories of triumph and victory, but when it was telling smaller, more intimate stories, like Leslie learning she'll have to compromise a bit to be successful in politics, but can still stick to her roots - or April subtly showing she's grown to care about her job and the people in it. Not all of the beats the show hit during the campaign arc worked for me, and there were times where I felt like the story was taking the show off the rails a little bit. But the show always brought itself back around with the small, subtle character details that made it stand out in the first place. Parks is an aging show now, but it's built enough love and respect for its world and the people ingrained in it that it'll have us following them no matter where the show takes them. And that's pretty much exactly the place a veteran comedy show should be. No matter what happens, we'll always treasure the time we get to spend hanging out with the Parks Department in Pawnee.
Highlight Episodes: "The Comeback Kid", "Win, Lose or Draw", "How a Bill Becomes a Law"
5. Louie
I almost think Louie can't be ranked against the other comedies on this list, because what it's trying to do is so radically different from what any show on TV is trying to do. Louie has absolutely no concern with story, or character, or really anything that usually makes TV what it is. Instead, Louie is simply 22 minutes of Louis CK telling amazingly crafted short stories where he lets us in on his view of the world. The show doesn't just disregard continuity - it snarls in the face of it. Character development, storytelling - none of that has any place on Louie. It's a little jarring the first time you sit down to watch it - but it eventually reaches a point where everything is just so damn beautifully crafted that you stop caring about any of those things. And then it gets to a point where you actively enjoy the fact that you can sit down, watch an episode, and have no idea where it's going, because any sort of storytelling convention is completely out the window. You like that you're actually caught by surprise when the end credits pop up. It's a really unique and interesting new spin on the television format, and it'll be interesting to see if it winds up being a trendsetter or an outlier. Either way, Louie is something that's incredibly rare in pop culture - something that's never been done before.
Highlight Episodes: "Miami", "Daddy's Girlfriend (Part 2)", "New Year's Eve"
4. Community
Community had a turbulent 2012. It started the year on a forced hiatus with no announced end date. Then, its creator, the beloved Dan Harmon, was fired right after NBC announced the show would return for a shortened fourth season that would be buried on Friday nights. Right before its planned return date, NBC delayed the premiere until early 2013 - and if that wasn't enough, the troublesome Chevy Chase quit the show just before production on Season 4 ended. All of this turmoil seemed to cause a lot of people to forget that Community actually produced a fairly great run of episodes in 2012. Despite a few missteps, the show carefully put together an emotionally satisfying arc that dug deeper into its misfit study group than ever before, using Ken Burns-style documentaries, 8-bit video game spoofs, and Law & Order homages to tell a really excellent story about how far these people have come since we first met them, how much they've had an affect on each other, and how the influence they've had on one another will stay with them forever. Community's future may be uncertain, but its fans can at least take comfort in the fact that the three excellent seasons it did air were able to build to such an excellent, moving character study. Hopefully Season 4 will continue down that path- but even if it doesn't, and even if 2012 will go down as the end of an era for the show, it'll be an era that ended on a high note.
Highlight Episodes: "Pillows and Blankets", "Digital Estate Planning", "Introduction to Finality"
3. Happy Endings
Happy Endings was the true underdog of 2011, starting off as a generic mid-season replacement that no one cared about only to rapidly and unexpectedly develop into one of the fastest, funniest shows on the air. In 2012, Happy Endings cemented itself into the hearts of comedy lovers everywhere, continuing its delightfully wacky antics and joke-a-minute dialogue while simultaneously adding new comic layers to its dizzying array of hysterical characters. The show has little goal other than to make you laugh and smile for 22 minutes, and it hits the mark perfectly every single time. As the show continues on, though, it's begun to develop its own distinct personality - a perfect example is the fact that it has practically invented its own language through the weird iterations and shortenings of words that its characters use. Watching an episode of episode of Happy Endings is almost like entertaining another universe - a universe where just the way everyone talks is hilarious, and where you're constantly surrounded by people who would be the "funny one" in any other group of friends. Other shows may make you think more or have better developed character arcs, but there's no show on TV right now you're going to have more fun watching than Happy Endings.
Highlight Episodes: "The Butterfly Effect Effect", "Cocktails & Dreams", "No Ho Ho"
2. 30 Rock
Most sitcoms limp their way to the finish line. Truth be told, trying to mine comedy out of the same characters for years upon years gets to be pretty difficult. But the very best comedies figure out a way to keep the momentum going despite their age, to keep you laughing and loving their characters right up until the end. 2012 was 30 Rock's last full calender year, but it can sit proudly up with the show's prime years as a fine example of the show at its very best. So how? How does a show keep such a high standard of quality after having so many episodes behind it? In 30 Rock's case, the answer came from two different factors - a willingness to go deeper and darker with its humor than it ever had before, and carefully plotted character arcs that brought its characters to their crescendo as 30 Rock neared its sunset. The best example is Liz Lemon, who the show has put through hell on her quest to "have it all" - which only made her first stable relationship, the first time she found someone who actually accepted her, her decision to finally fulfill her dream of having a baby, and her long-awaited marriage even more satisfying. There's still a few more episodes of 30 Rock left, so it remains to be seen if the rest of the show will wrap up as nicely. But either way, 30 Rock is going out with one of its best seasons and one of the strongest final seasons of a sitcom I can remember - and one of the best comedies of our times deserves nothing less.
Highlight Episodes: "Leap Day", "Stride of Pride", "Mazel Tov, Dummies"
1. New Girl
No comedy had a more exciting 2012 than New Girl. The show debuted last fall to huge numbers, but most critics wrote it off due to its obnoxious advertising campaign and middle-of-the-road pilot as a soulless Zooey Deschanel star vehicle. Most comedies likely would've been completely fine with this, ranking in their huge numbers and carrying on. But despite its rocky beginnings, it was always clear that New Girl wanted to be something more than that. And in 2012, the show rapidly turned the corner - it brought out the talented members of its comic ensemble, toned down Deschanel's performance while simultaneously bringing out the best in her, and started working its way toward being a comic character study of a bunch of weird, lost 30-somethings who have nothing to rely on but each other. The show slowly started to earn back all of the people it had lost by churning out strings of excellent episodes that no one would've ever believed the show was capable of when it first started. This can be attributed to many things - creator Liz Meriweather's dedication, some truly excellent writing, but perhaps most important is the the chemistry between the show's ensemble, who - much like their characters - each have their own unique vibe and personality that they add to the show's whole. Watching New Girl grow from a troubled young show with a lot of potential into a legitimately excellent comedy has been pretty incredible, and while maybe the show isn't technically the very best comedy on TV right now, the journey it took me on this year was more rewarding than any other show this year, and that's why it's getting top honors on my list.
Highlight Episodes: "Normal", "Fluffer", "Eggs"
Notable mentions:
- Archer - Admittedly, I've just started watching this and haven't made it to the show's 2012 offerings yet. But considering I assume I'll be all caught up by the time next year rolls around, I would be pretty surprised if it didn't end up high on my list in 2013, unless it has a terrible year or something. Because man, I am loving the shit out of it.
- Saturday Night Live - SNL is like a totally different TV experience for me, so I didn't rank it among the other comedy shows on my list, because it'd be a weird comparison. The show's quality fluctuates so much from week-to-week and operates on such a different standard that I think it'd be difficult to really rank on a list like this. But don't worry, I still love it.
- Raising Hope - Poor Raising Hope suffers with me because there's just too much good TV on Tuesdays, but when I do happen to watch it, I usually really like it. Hopefully I will discover it on TBS in like 2 years and fully appreciate it or something.
- The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Soup - Again, like SNL, these shows are kind of a different type of TV viewing for me, but I enjoy them all very much.
- Mad Men - I'm not nearly caught up on all of my Mad Men, but I really enjoy what I what I do see of it, and it's a show I'm planning on sitting down and watching from start to finish sometime hopefully soon. It's definitely a landmark TV show and one that is doing some pretty amazing things.
Well, there we have it. This was a pretty incredible year for TV, honestly - lots of amazing stuff all-around. I feel like 2013 is going to bring a lot of change, but hopefully things remain just as good, because having TV be so great is pretty fun, right?
No comments:
Post a Comment