A guide to the best Christmas TV episodes

The Christmas season is here, and you know what that means: TELEVISION. Because that's what everything means!

Seriously, Christmas specials are one of the key components of the Christmas season for me. There's something about the characters from my favorite shows indulging in yuletide cheer and getting festive that just...gets to me. So I've compiled a list of some of my favorite TV Christmas episodes. These are the episodes I typically have on repeat this time of year, so please enjoy them and do not shatter my soul by saying they suck.

Community - "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas"

Community might be the show with the best track record for Christmas episodes - gas leak year aside, every Christmas episode the show produced was a classic, from Season 1's heartfelt and down-to-earth "Comparative Religion" to Season 3's nightmare-inducing Glee parody "Regional Holiday Music". But I have a special place in my heart for "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas", which is not only my favorite Community Christmas episode but one of my favorite pieces of Christmas pop culture in general. "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" is simultaneously exploding with cheer and deeply depressing - which, to my mind, are the only two emotions that should ever be used when depicting the Christmas season. It follows Abed as he has a serious psychological breakdown after his mother tells him she won't be visiting him for Christmas anymore - he begins seeing his entire life as if it's a stop motion Christmas special where his only task is to find the true meaning of Christmas. The way his perplexed and worried friends put aside their hesitations and join him in his Christmas wonderland of delusion is completely heartwarming in a way that makes me tear up every time I watch this episode, and it also delivers perhaps the best "meaning of Christmas" I've ever been given: "the meaning of Christmas is the idea that Christmas has meaning." "Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas" is basically all of my tender, cynical, and painfully nostalgic about Christmas all wrapped up into a funny, heartwarming, slightly devastating and just all around beautiful half-hour of television. 

30 Rock - "Christmas Special"

30 Rock's approach to holiday cheer is to cynically expose some of the darker aspects of the holiday while mixing in few doses of the genuine pathos and comfort that the season can bring, which is exemplified well in plotlines like Colleen ruining Liz's Christmas to prove to Jack that she's not so screwed up after all, or a montage of Jenna and Paul dressed up as 2 "black Swans" singing O Holy Night. But the episode that nails this balance best is Season 3's "Christmas Special", which finds Jack accidentally running over his mother with his car and having to care for her through the holiday season. The entire episode is about people whose Christmases aren't lining up how they wanted them to and the ways they deal with it - Liz being left in the dust by her family this year results in her overcompensating with a Letters to Santa program, and Jack's unexpected holiday with his mother leads to him forcing the TGS crew to put together a live Christmas Eve special where he can make up for all of the Christmas Eves spent playing piano as his mother went to town on a random dude in their living room. But it's this haphazard special that leads to Liz helping Jack realize that the reason her mother spent Christmas Eve putting out was so that him and his siblings could afford presents that year. It's the mix of sick, sweet, disturbing and heartwarming that 30 Rock portrayed so well in its Christmas episodes.

Parks & Recreation - "Citizen Knope"

"Citizen Knope" is more of a Christmas-adjacent episode than a full out Christmas episode, centering around Leslie's adventures as she deals with her suspension from city hall after the fallout of her relationship with Ben. But it still uses the season of giving to build a seriously heartwarming plotline in which the entire Parks departments gets together to show their support for Leslie and offer to take over her terminated City Council campaign, doing so in the form of an elaborate Gingerbread house. That's the entire spirit of Christmas distilled in one plotline right there, and it's also the spirit of Parks & Rec, whose shiny optimism that comes out of even the most unfortunate circumstances is a perfect fit for the Christmas season.

Bob's Burgers - "Christmas in the Car"

Bob's Burgers is a show that often puts our beloved Belcher clan in dire circumstances and than uses off-beat humor and surprising acceptance to get them out of it, and "Christmas in the Car" does that with a little Christmas sprinkle. The Belchers set out on Christmas Eve to find a new tree after their old one dies and wind up on a seemingly life-threatening chase by a giant Candy Cane truck. Of course, in typical Bob's fashion, everything gets a warm and mushy ending when Bob and the truck driver come to an understand and exchange dutch babies. Don't worry, it'll all make sense if you're a Bob's Burgers fan.

American Dad - "Rapture's Delight"

American Dad is sometimes unfairly accused of being a rip-off of Family Guy, which is totally unfair because it's way better than Family Guy has ever been. While Family Guy has devolved into a lazy conveyor belt of shock humor, American Dad at its best is a completely surreal, absurdist animated comedy that goes to weirder depths than nearly any non-Adult Swim show I've ever seen. "Rapture's Delight" is the perfect example of that, as it takes what seems like a normal Christmas episode and turns it into a story about the rapture, the antichrist, and Armaggedon. The extent the show commits to this is impressive enough, but the way they managed to interject the typical Christmas show sentiment without losing a touch of the extreme absurdity and darkness of the rapture is what makes this a true Christmas classic to be enjoyed through the ages.

Doctor Who - "A Christmas Carol"

Doctor Who airs a Christmas special on Christmas Day every year, but none of them are really true Christmas classics - if they're not dealing with a regeneration (as many of them do) then they're typically bland and watered down byproducts of the show itself, often placing easily marketable concepts and guest stars over anything resembling actual quality. (Remember the one where Kylie Minogue rode the Titanic?) But the one exception to this is 2010's "A Christmas Carol", the best Christmas special the show has ever produced by a long shot, and an episode that truly does feel like the holiday classic a Doctor Who Christmas special should aspire to be. The episode is a takeoff of, yes, A Christmas Carol, centering around the Doctor trying to change the childhood Christmases of an evil and powerful man named Kazran Sardick who is tasked with saving Amy and Rory's lives by releasing them from the cloud they're trapped on but refuse to do it. Doctor Who is at its best when it's able to mix its ambitious sci-fi concepts with deep-rooted human emotion, and this special truly shines in that regard, as the Doctor's travels through Sardick's past tap into some really heartbreaking and heavily nostalgic Christmas feelings for pretty much anyone who's ever been a child on Christmas before. Not every Doctor Who Christmas special meets the mark, but this one is so good it makes up for all of the other ones.

South Park - "Woodland Critter Christmas"

You know what this is. It is the most beautiful, fucked up, disturbing, horrifying Christmas special to ever air. Yes, I love Mr. Hanky too, but this is a work of dark art and it needs to be seen by all. 

Best TV of 2014

With a vast array of television shows to choose from each year, it seems a little bit redundant to declare each year the "best one" for the medium. And yet, every year it's hard not to do that, as the huge amount of content available to us produces so much amazing material that you have to get excited about it. The past few years of television have felt especially vital, too - they've been years of change, both in the television shows we consume with old stalwarts like Mad Men, 30 Rock, Breaking Bad, and Parks and Rec either ended or ending soon, to the way that the consumption of television is rapidly reinventing itself. This list features shows from network television, cable, and streaming services - a variety that would've been unthinkable even five or six years ago. So here I break down the top 20 shows that best captivated my interest this year. I went with 20 because there was so much good stuff on this year that I felt too bad leaving anything out. I know I'm indecisive, okay?! LEAVE ME ALONE.

ONE NOTE: I didn't put Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on this list because I always forget to categorize it as a TV show and not just, like, a way of life. But rest assured I love it. It's the best news-comedy hybrid on television right now, which is not nothing in a world with The Daily Show and the swan song of The Colbert Report. SORRY, JOHN OLIVER, but I love you anyway. Oh, and the same can be said of The Chris Gethard Show, which I also love but forget it's a television show and not just a hangout with some old, weird friends. I LOVE YOU TOO, CHRIS GETHARD. I LOVE EVERYTHING. Actually, I'm hoping to do an individual piece on The Chris Gehtard Show sooner rather than later so I'll give it the love it's due then. Until then, enjoy this list, if you want to!

20. Parks & Recreation

Now in its sixth season, it's only natural that Parks & Rec has lost some of the element of surprise from the time when it was a transcendent and refreshing spin on the old workplace comedy chestnut. But although this past season was probably the show's weakest, it still managed to be a funny, entertaining and consistently delightful half-hour, and considering the amount of affection we've stacked up for these characters over the years, that's enough to keep enjoying our time in Pawnee. Especially impressive was the shows' finale, which changed up its game quite considerably for its upcoming final season and proved that maybe it did have a few more tricks left in its bag after all.

Standout Episodes: "Ann and Chris", "Galentines' Day II", "Moving Up"

19. Black-ish

In a season that has made a strong case for the idea that cable has completely replaced network as the go-to for good comedy on TV, Black-ish has remained an important "except for...", as it's the only new network comedy this season that shows any sort of promise for the future of the medium. But Black-ish didn't earn the distinction of the seasons' best new comedy by default - it's a hilarious and creative family sitcom, one that balances social issues and family hijinks better than any show has managed to do in probably decades. Not only that, but the Johnsons are just a genuinely awesome family, the kind of TV family that you look forward to spending some time with every week. Shows like Black-ish are perhaps the last remaining argument for the worth of the network sitcom. Also, it's just really funny.

Standout Episodes: "Crazy Mom", "The Prank King", "Black Santa/White Christmas"

18. Archer

At the beginning of its fifth season, Archer unexpectedly blew the lid off of its entire premise, ditching the spy agency that had been so kind to it in the past four years and sending its characters on a crazy quest as newfound cocaine dealers. While the season didn't quite live up to the tall order that its premiere set up, it was still a reinvigorated season for the show, with a lot of interesting twists on character dynamics that were beginning to feel a little bit stale. As it heads into its sixth season with a return to the status quo mixed with some new surprises,  Archer feels like it's in solid hands, and it can thank some of the experimental done by Archer Vice for it.

Standout Episodes: "White Elephant", "Baby Shower", "Arrival/Departure"

17. New Girl

In the second half of its third season, New Girl showed some signs of losing its way. The Jess/Nick relationship, while entertaining, was beginning to push the other members of its ensemble out of the picture, and the show seemed to be struggling to balancing it with all of the other changes it integrated in the third season, such as the addition of Coach and new endeavors for Winston. Luckily, the show seemed to realize this and quickly course corrected in its fourth season, which might just be the most consistent season of the show yet, even if it doesn't reach the heights of the all-timer that was Season 2. Still, Season 4 of New Girl has managed to be a reliable dose of well-executed farce week after week, with a sprinkle of the characterization that made the show jump out in its early seasons. It may not be the world beater it once seemed to be, but damn if it isn't still one of the funniest shows on TV.

Standout Episodes: "Basketball", "The Last Wedding", "Background Check"

16. Community

With Dan Harmon back at the helm, 2014 was a comeback year for Community after the deep trenches of the gas leak year. While the show has definitely begun to feel like a late-in-life sitcom at times (see also: my Parks & Rec write-up) it still manages to pump out episodes that rank among the most daring things I've seen a half-hour sitcom attempted, and given how much experimentation the form recieved this year, that's actually a pretty big statement. The 5th season also turned out to be the final one of the show's run on NBC, as it moves to its new home on the internet next year, where it has always seemed destined to be. As long as it continue to pump out ideas as fresh and hilarious as commemorative sperm jars and MeowMeowBeenz, I'll support it wherever it goes.

Standout Episodes: "Cooperative Polygraphy", "Bondage and Beta Male Sexuality", "App Development and Condiments"

15. The Middle

Year after year, everyone forgets about The Middle when it comes time to do year-end lists, despite the fact that it has been one of the most consistently great network sitcoms for at least four seasons now. The show continuously manages to breath new life into the family sitcom format, portraying characters who are unique both for the form and for television in general, and by not pulling any punches when it comes to its honesty about the Hecks' financial situation and almost constant sense of conflict. As its characters age, The Middle is finding more and more ways to dig comic honesty out of the world of small-town America characters its created, and it's only continuing to be an absolute joy to watch.

Standout Episodes: "Major Anxiety", "The Sink Hole", "The Christmas Wall"

14. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

After a strong start last fall, Brooklyn Nine-Nine solidified its place this year as one of the best ensemble shows on all of television, with a cast that completely pulls its weight in every direction and an array of characters that are diverse not just in their ethnicity but in their approaches to the world in general. The second season of the show has done a great job of deepening the roots between these characters and examining their bonds while beginning to experiment a bit with longer-term plotting, even successfully toying around with the idea of romantic arcs (though not going too far in that direction yet, thankfully). Like Black-ish, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is proving the strength of a show with a great group of characters that you look forward to spending 22+ weeks a year with.

Standout Episodes: "The Bet", "The Road Trip", "The Pontiac Bandit Returns"

13. Louie 

After a too-long hiatus, Louie returned this year with its more ambitious season yet, a season that almost completely abandoned the shows' previous structure of short, contained stories and instead focused on developing longer and even feature-length arcs. Still, the shows' sense of hard truth and deep-rooted emotional turmoil continued as Louie explored his relationship with the various women in his life, from his daughters to longtime companion (and new girlfriend?) Pamela to his past relationship with his own mother. While this was arguably Louie's most inconsistent season yet, what it lacked in consistency it made up for in sheer ambition. 

Standout Episodes: "Model", "So Did the Fat Lady", "Into the Woods" 

12. Transparent

The first great show to be produced by Amazon Prime, Transparent - not unlike fellow streaming exclusive Orange is the New Black  - uses its niche delivery method to tell a story that would struggle to get attention from a major television network. In this case, it's the story of Maura Pfefferman, a transgender woman who has recently settled upon officially making the transition late in her life. Transparent's groundbreaking story of Maura alone was enough to make it one of the most captivating shows of the year, but the way it used Maura's revelation to deconstruct the rest of the Pfefferman clan's assumed gender and sexuality roles only added to the fact that this was one of the most intriguing new shows of the year.

Standout Episodes: "The Wilderness", "Symbolic Exempar", "Best New Girl"

11. Nathan for You

Nathan for You was one of the strangest and most delightful pieces of pop culture I consumed this year, constantly keeping me on the edge of my feet more than most drama series are capable of doing. The shows' unique mix of cringe comedy, mockumentary, and reality show spoof continuously come together to produce some of the most hilarious television I've ever seen. In Season 2, the show began to hit on points of genuine pathos, as it gradually turned into the story of desperate inclusion for its lonely host. There's absolutely nothing on television like Nathan for You, which is what makes it something you absolutely need to watch.

Standout Episodes: "Souvenir Shop/E.L.A.I.F.F", "Dumb Starbucks", "Daddy's Watching/Party Planner"

10. Doctor Who

It's hard for me to remain unbiased with a show like Doctor Who, a show that appeals so directly to each and every one of my personal preferences, but I don't think it's my bias speaking when I say that this season was one of the very best seasons the show has done to date. Peter Capaldi as the 12th Doctor has brought a new energy to the character, one that gets down to the anger and ache that always exists under the surface but is finally being brought out to the light. And also adding to a great season was Jenna Coleman, whose character Clara rebounded from some spotty characterization last season to become a really great antidote to the smarmy darkness that Capaldi brought to the table. The show used this perfect pairing to create a season that constantly put the very fabric of the show into question and reinvigorated the series to heights I wasn't even sure if it was still possible to reach. Capaldi is thankfully signed on for another season, and hopefully he can keep pushing the show into uncharted and exciting territory. 

Standout Episodes: "Listen", "Kill the Moon", "Flatline"

9. Review

2014 was full of great, alternative comedies that ripped apart the sitcom structure and created something new and meaningful out of it. Out of all of the shows, the one that went to the most delightfully weird places was Review, a show about star reviewer Forrest MacNeil and his quest to review everything that his shows' viewers throw at him. Review would be great even if it was just the satire of critics that it appeared to be on the surface, but it soon became a dark, morbid tale of a man destroying his entire life for the sake of a silly television show, become one of the funniest shows of the year, as well as one of the saddest, darkest, and most disturbing. If 2014 is remembered as the year alternative comedy came to dominate the cable airwaves, Review will be a proud, strange and beautiful artifact of that movement.

Standout Episodes: "Pancake, Divorce, Pancakes", "Best Friend/Space, "Road Rage/Orgy"

8. Veep

After two seasons of portraying Selena Meyer as a comically inept narcissist, Veep took it to the next level this year by portraying her as something truly disturbing: a possible presidential candidate. This gave the show an added levity to its already near-constantly firing machine of beautifully crafted insults and nihilistic political humor, as all of the massive and terrifying fuck-ups Selena and her team encountered now actually mattered. It also allowed the show to cover some heated topics like abortion and equality with its trademark dark humor that doesn't even try to fix anything but instead points out just how massively screwed up it all is. With a surprise twist at the end of the season, the next season of Veep proves to be even more of a depressing, hilarious and painful journey to political turmoil for Selena Meyer. 

Standout Episodes: "The Choice", "Alicia", "Debate"

7. The Americans

In Season 1, The Americans was a gripping spy thriller, an unprecented role reversal that took a deeper look into what we always perceived were the "bad guys" in the Cold War. In Season 2, the show took a leap and became not just a spy thriller (though it was still very good at being that) but an analysis of what its characters value, how much they value it, and a test of how far they were willing to go to preserve it. Kicking off with a gruesome murder in the season premiere, constant fear crept around the surface of The Americans this year as Phillip and Elizabeth began to wonder whether their career was putting their childrens' wellbeing at stake. It all cultivated in a huge, unprecedented twist in its season finale that will make the shows' third season answer some very, very tough questions.

Standout Episodes: "Comrades", "Behind the Red Door", "Martial Eagle"

6. Orange is the New Black

It was going to be nearly impossible for Orange is the New Black to top its first season, a total surprise that burst onto the scene and practically made us rethink the way we all watched television. And yet...Season 2 somehow managed to, or at the very least, managed to match it. The second season expanded upon the shows' already giant universe, filling in the backstories for beloved characters like Taystee and Suzanne while simultaneously giving shades to characters that fell under the radar in the first season but came into prominent fruition in Season 2, such as cancer patient Rosa - nearly an afterthought in Season 1 that wound up being one of the key heroes this year. Between the addition of Vee and the divide she placed in the prison to the continuing saga of Piper and Alex to the isolation of Red from her prison family to the shocking dismantling of our perceptions of Morello to the strange friendship of Healy and Pennssatucky, Season 2 continued to do its job of making each and every inmate at Litchfield feel like a fully-rounded person that truly matters, and that mindset is what separates Orange from nearly anything else on TV.

Standout Episodes: "A Whole Other Hole", "You Also Have a Pizza", "We Have Manners, We're Polite"

5. Rick and Morty

In a year of amazing comedy, Rick and Morty was a true highlight, a show bursting at the seams with creativity. Centered around the Back to the Future-esque adventures of grandfather Rick and his grandson Morty as they travel through time, space, and reality, Rick and Morty blended comedy and hard science fiction more successfully than any show this side of Futurama. Week after week, Rick and Morty took us to heights that seemed more ridiculous, more exciting and more amazing than anything we'd seen before, all while grounding itself in some genuinely moving family drama. That kind of balance is so incredibly hard to pull off, but Rick and Morty did it with aplomb, making me extremely eager to see what the show can come up with next.

Standout Episodes: "Lawnmower Dog", "Rixty Minutes", "Close Rick-counters of the Rick Kind"

4. Mad Men

Thanks to AMC scheduling tomfoolery, Mad Men only aired seven episodes in 2014, but those seven episodes were something of a revelation. After the turmoil of last years' finale, Season 7 dealt with an exploded status quo - one that spelled out a dark end for our "hero" Don Draper. And yet, these seven episodes turned out to be more than just Don's death knell. They were the start of what I'm sure will be a doozy of an ending, a collection of episodes that brought together seven seasons worth of relationships and put a magnifying glass to them, showing which relationships were true and once were sprinkled with the artificiality that the characters of Mad Men treat as a second language at this point. The final absurdist scene, featuring a dead Bert Cooper singing to Don about how "the best things in life are free", brought everything this season was to a close: strange, surprising, a little disturbing... and yet somehow making perfect sense.

Standout Episodes: "A Days' Work", "The Strategy", "Waterloo"

3. You're the Worst

Romantic comedy is an old chestnut at this point, so that only makes it even more surprising just how excellent You're the Worst turned out to be. By putting its leads together in the pilot and slowly deconstructing all of the expected romcom tropes, the show was able to focus in on its characters and create two people that we didn't just want to see get together, but that we just wanted to see, because they were both relatable, funny, and well-drawn characters. You're the Worst also benefited from being more than just Jimmy and Gretchen's story - Lindsay and Edgar served as supporting characters that gawk at the idea of just being supporting characters, demanding that Jimmy and Gretchen treat them on their own accord. Additionally, characters like Becca & Todd, Allan, and a special bookstore cat added to the mix to prove that You're the Worst wasn't just about Jimmy and Gretchen's relationship, it was also about the comical, screwed up world that they both inhabit, which only added to the richness of their compelling hook-up. Renewed for a second season, I'm really excited to see where You're the Worst will take that world when it returns next year.

Standout Episodes: "Sunday Funday", "Finish Your Milk", "Fists and Feet and Stuff"

2. Bob's Burgers

Another year, another string of amazing episodes with the Belchers, my favorite TV family with some of my absolute favorite TV characters. Bob's Burgers continued to deliver total acceptance in form of warm, weird, occasionally gross but always hysterical comedy, and this season saw the show produce some of its strongest and most creative ideas yet, from the My Little Pony spoof The Equestranauts that had some interesting things to say about cartoon fanbases, to a Working Girl/Die Hard musical entitled Work Hard or Die Trying, Girl, to a new and improved(?) use for baked beans. As you can see, I love a lot of television shows, so it means something when I say there's no show whose world I look forward to joining more than the loving and twisted world of Bob's Burgers.

Standout Episodes: "Mazel-tina", "The Equestranauts", "Dawn of the Peck"

1. Broad City

I've mentioned several times what an amazing year this was for comedy, and I don't think there's a show that represents that better than Broad City, which was the show I laughed at the most in 2014 and also introduced me and the rest of the world to the comic stylings of Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, whose humor offers a worldview that differs from anyone else's making television - both in terms of how upfront and honest it is about the struggles of young women in a big city (what other show would coin the phrase 'pussy weed'?) and in terms of just how beautifully, amazingly strange it is at every turn. The humor of Broad City is unlike any other - it's surreal yet grounded in some deep-rooted truth, it's smart and yet unafraid to appeal to its dirtiest impulses, and most importantly, it's just so fucking funny. This year in TV will be remembered as the year so many unique comic voices received a platform to share their stories, and the year that television proved there wasn't one specific way to tell a comedy story. And there's no better show that exemplified all of that than the fearless breath of fresh air that was Broad City.

Standout Episodes: "Working Girls", "Destination Wedding", "The Last Supper".

THERE'S MY LIST. Have a wonderful holiday season and watch all of these shows if you haven't. DO IT NOW.

Season Review: Doctor Who - Season 8

 

Doctor Who Season 8 had a lot to prove. It had to prove that its new doctor, Peter Capaldi, was the right choice for the job. It had to prove that it had learned from the criticism and concerns surrounding the show's weak seventh season and could produce a better, tighter product. It had to prove that Steven Moffat, showrunner of Doctor Who, wasn't burned out and was still capable of producing material at the level of his earlier seasons (and his work during the RTD era of the show). It had to prove that Clara wasn't a mistake of a character and could actually be a relatable human being rather than just a concept. Now, this wasn't necessarily a perfect season. There were a few weak episodes (looking at you, Robot of Sherwood) and some head-scratching decisions, as are expected with pretty much any given season of Doctor Who. But this season surprised me in that it managed to prove every single one of my above points, and managed to make me feel completely comfortable about the direction of the show.

Doctor Who Season 7 had many problems, but the biggest one was its unwillingness to ever ground itself in anything even remotely resembling human emotion (other than the genuinely heart-wrenching exit of the Ponds). Doctor Who is a show that can float into whimsy so easily that it's important to have a human anchor at the helm, and each of the previous modern series companions did a good job of providing that anchor. But the show refused to let Clara serve that same purpose, never allowing her to escape what she was introduced as: the "Impossible Girl", the woman who the Doctor saw die - twice - and then magically came back. After this "mystery" was finally solved (Clara cloned herself to save the Doctor in a story that seemed to exist only to solve that very mystery), the show was too caught up on the 11th Doctor's upcoming regeneration to really give her the time of day that she deserved. So it was a relief in Season 8 to see the show spending so much time getting down to just who Clara really is, outside of an enigma. We learned a lot about her - her personality (turns out, she's a little obsessive and controlling but very passionate about the things she loves! Who knew?), what she meant to the Doctor, and what the Doctor meant to her. This allowed Season 8 to be rooted in the human emotion that keeps the show strong even when it's flying off the rails, which it tends to do, because it's Doctor Who.

But so much of Season 8's success has to be lent to Peter Capaldi, who immediately shattered any doubts about his capabilities as the Doctor by just nailing the role from basically the very beginning. Capaldi gave the Doctor a sinister edge that hasn't been at the forefront of most recent incarnations, making the show notably different from what it was during Tennant and Smith's long-running and (deserving) beloved tenures. This allowed the show to play with some of the formulas that became prevalent over the modern era of the show and even dating back to the classic era - episodes like Listen and Murder on the Orient Express toyed with the very concept of a monster and analyzed what defeating them really meant, in a way Doctor Who doesn't routinely go to but generally is wildly successful when it does. He was able to handle both the humor and the tragedy of his character with aplomb, and much of the season's darker material would be lost if it weren't for his capabilities. I'm really excited to see what else the show has in store for him, because this season proved that he could do whatever the show threw his way. 

Now, yes, there were some weird pockets of this season. The Robinhood episode Robot of Sherwood was pretty dire, as was the similarly flaky In the Forest of the Night. The show spent a bit too much time assuring viewers that this was still the Doctor they know and love even if he happened to be kind of old, and there was the occasional pratfall of getting overly complex that Moffat tends to fall into. But by and large, this was the best, most consistent season of Doctor Who in many years - and arguably one of the strongest seasons the new show has produced. This is a show that can turn into something else on a whimsy, which is part of what I love about it - but I'm hoping it sticks with this vibe for a bit longer, because I'm really, really digging it.

Final Grade: A-

It's November so let's go ahead and make judgements on TV shows

 

We're right at the start of November sweeps, a period of time where networks apparently are supposed to try to draw in big ratings for their affiliates but mostly don't bother and just keep churning out the same ol' shit, except for maybe taking that embarrassing low-rated sitcom off the schedule.  But November sweeps is also about the time where you can start to make some judgements about the shows you decided to pick up this fall and decide just what, if anything, you're getting out of them. So let's jump right in!

Black-ish - Black-ish was basically the only new comedy this fall I had any faith in, and it hasn't disappointed me whatsoever. In fact, it's actually exceeded my expectations and fears - I had some worries that the show would water itself down after its surprisingly pointed pilot and become Just Another Family Sitcom, but over the past few weeks it's managed to nicely balance its fresh voice with the burdens of being a family sitcom on ABC. Similar to The Middle, Black-ish keeps its network television audience comfortable by never veering too far away from sitcom convention, but also keeps itself relevant and interesting by peppering in some unique jokes and gags that you wouldn't necessarily expect from a wholesome family comedy, such as the horror movie framework the show used for its Halloween episode,. The show has also managed to present us with some welcome twists on cookie-cutter family sitcom characters - while the pilot mostly presented Rainbow and Andre's marriage as your typical "crazy father and down-to-earth wife" pairing, the show has given Rainbow a unique personality of her own, making her off-beat and strange in ways that differ from what makes Andre off-beat and strange. She's no longer side-eying Andre and saving him from making a fool of himself - she's joining right in on on his ridiculous displays herself. (The best example of this is when Rainbow learns that Andre has put a camera in every room, including the fridge - at first she's a little perplexed, then seconds later she inquires: 'do we have any grapes?') Even the kids on Black-ish, often a weak point on family sitcoms, are coming into their own, developing personalities that allow them to exist as more than just plot devices and ways to make viewers marvel at their cuteness. Black-ish is not quite a perfect show yet (the show could still resist sitcom convention more than it does) but it's surprisingly fully-formed for a show this early in its run, and is one of the shows I most look forward to watching every week.

Marry Me - Marry Me still hasn't really figured out what it wants to be outside of "Happy Endings but without most of the cast", and that comes down to the fact that it has yet to establish a presence for anyone in the cast other than its two lead characters. That's not really unexpected for a show four episodes into its run, but the problem is that Marry Me is already sort of functioning like it's in its third season - it's not really giving us plots that get us to know any of the characters better, and leaves the work to its jokes to make us connect with these people. While those jokes are generally quite good (there's usually at least one line that makes me laugh uncontrollably each week), jokes alone aren't really enough to get me to understand who a character is. Marry Me desperately wants to be the kind of show you watch because you love the characters and will watch them do anything, but it's not doing the work it needs to get to that point. I'll keep watching because the show is genuinely funny most of the time, but it's not at the level of funniness it needs to be if it's going to completely disregard character work altogether. (Also, less Gil, please. He's playing the same character he does on Broad City, except everyone on Broad City realizes he's terrible).

Benched - Speaking of Happy Endings alumni, Eliza Coupe is starring in this new USA comedy, and although there have only been two episodes so far, it's shaping up to be one of my favorite comedies of the fall. That's not saying much at all, but there's some real promise here, with a killer cast (Maria Bamford! Oscar Nunez! Jay Harrigan!), a fairly good premise, and....well, you heard the Eliza Coupe part, right? Benched feels, in many ways, a lot like a network sitcom - it doesn't have the heir of experimentation that have aided many of the years' great cable comedies like Broad City, Review and You're the Worst, but it feels like a good network sitcom, the kind networks were making 4 or 5 years ago but now just make Bad Judge and think it's enough. Benched could stand to be a little funnier (it feels like it's requiring its actors to do most of the legwork right now, which isn't a terrible decision when you have actors as hilarious as these ones, but they'd be better served with really great writing) and its premise comes with a lot of cliches that the show doesn't do enough to subvert, but that's all basic early sitcom stuff. This has the makings of a show that could be something special, and I'm really hoping it realizes that potential, because a great sitcom with this team behind it would be mind-blowing. The biggest thing holding Benched back might be its network, which strangely announced it was abandoning comedy a few months ago (despite renewing its comedy Sirens) but promises this show has its full support. It better, USA. What else are you going to air, some procedural about beautiful and boring cops? (Yes, that's exactly what we're going to air, USA would probably reply).

Mulaney - Mulaney has actually significantly improved upon its pilot, attempting to give itself at least a bit more direction and experimenting with the idea of actually having a plot rather than just being bits of recycled stand-up pieces. Unfortunately, it hasn't really improved to the point where I feel sadness about the fact that it's pretty much doomed to cancellation at this point (its order has been cut and it fell to a 0.7 rating this week, AKA the number that got Manhattan Love Story and A to Z cancelled). The show has bits and pieces that work (I really enjoyed Nasim Pedrad's character doing a Little Shop of Horrors homage about a potential new apartment in the shows' third episode) but it still fails to make any sort of an impact on the whole, feeling at times like a collection of scenes that are supposed to parody the idea of a sitcom rather than being, you know, an actual sitcom. Part of me wonders if Mulaney would've been better off on a cable network like FX or Comedy Central, where it would be free to play with the form without having to worry about being a multi-camera sitcom on a major broadcast network. As of now, it feels like an unsuccessful compromise of being a mainstream show and an experimental analysis of the form of a sitcom. It's a tricky balance to pull off - Community, which more or less attempted the same thing, managed to pull it off successfully by just being both being really good at both sides of the equation and understanding when it was time to get weird and when it was time to ground itself. Mulaney seems like it's always attempting to do both at the same time - its scenes are generic and unimaginative but they're delivered like they're tongue-in-cheek, which doesn't satisfy the need of being a good experiment or a good sitcom. So I can't say I expect much more out of Mulaney, but hopefully it can at least send John Mulaney and the rest of this talented cast to a place that does a better job of complimenting their skills.

And now, while we're here, we may as well check in on some returning shows, right?!

New Girl  - New Girl has been having a surprisingly excellent rebound season, managing to dust off the messiness of last year and start fresh by basically just simplifying itself to being a show about five funny people. This "back-to-basics" approach is one that plenty of shows that flame out attempt to regain their composure, but most wind up just giving everyone a sense of whiplash as they veer from messy and complicated territory into a show that's basically just the same show it was in its second episode. New Girl has managed to avoid that by never keeping its characters more complicated emotions far away, even when the show itself travels into silly, go-for-broke farce territory. The shows' most recent episode, "Background Check", was a great example of this - a bottle episode that stranded the entire cast in the loft for 20 minutes in basically real time, it brought out both the most wild and the most sincere in all of its characters. The show may not be hitting the heights it was in its first two seasons, but it's arguably more consistent then ever, and seems to finally be on solid ground.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Brooklyn Nine-Nine has become sort of a "turn off your brain" show for me, which is not all meant to be insulting - in fact, it's a compliment that I've given some shows I seriously loved in the past, shows like Archer and Happy Endings. What I mean by this is that it's a show that is almost entirely focused on its comedy, allowing me to just sit back and get myself immersed in its ridiculous world, then simply enjoy the ride. Every episode has me laughing more consistently than nearly anything else on TV, and when the show does attempt to raise the stakes and analyze its characters' psyches a bit, it does so surprisingly eloquently - proven especially by the Gina/Boyle affair, which was both some really hilarious absurdity and surprising advancements for both of their characters (who arguably got the least progression in Season 1, other than like, Hitchcock and Scully...who I still can't tell apart). So while a show like Brooklyn seems like one that would be a nightmare to closely analyze week in and week out, it's a show that I really love just sitting back and hanging out with.

Doctor Who - I'm going to do a post about the full season after it wraps up next week, but I would like to take this time to say how much I am really, really enjoying this season. Peter Capaldi is fantastic. Jenna Coleman is fantastic, and the show has done the near impossible task of turning Clara into a legitimately interesting companion. Having a female Master is fantastic. Doctor Who has the tendency to totally fuck up its finales so I'm not going to make any definitive statements just yet, but this is shaping up to be a contender for the best season of new Doctor Who yet.

With that, let me end with the news that you were probably reading this post for, because you read every post on the internet hoping it will give you the answer - Galavant has a premiere date, and it is January 4. Life finally has meaning again.

TV Roundup - 9/23 to 9/28

So I've experimented in the past with doing episode-by-episode reviews, and while I enjoy doing episodic reviews sometimes, the truth is that I don't always have a lot to say about every episode of every show. But I still feel like I should write a little something about where I stand with a bunch of the shows that aired in the past week. So here's a thing: each week I'll attempt to do a quick summary of some of the highlight episodes of the past week that I didn't get around to doing a full-length review for. Let's see what happens!

New Girl - New Girl's second episode was not as strong as its premiere, but it was still a pretty fun episode of television, with two storylines that found a good way to utilize everyone in the ensemble. One of the weaknesses of Season 3 was that the strong Jess/Nick focus often left other characters in the dust, so it's refreshing to see an episode where everyone in the main cast gets at least one moment to shine. And this episode also did well by mixing up the pairings a bit: Schmidt/Jess is a combo we haven't gotten in quite some time, and running CeCe loose with the guys rather than keeping her as Jess's sidekick was a good way to dig into her character a bit more deeply than the show typically does. New Girl may not be the world beater it once was, but it feels like it's on solid ground right now, so let's hope it stays that way.

The Middle - The Middle returned for another year in much the same way it has in previous years, which is not a bad thing. This is one of the most consistent shows on television, always delivering the right note in a way that's familiar but still continuously endearing. The show can get away with some of the "more of the same" feel in a way that say, Modern Family can't because it actually does take the effort to gradually change and mature its characters, and that was well on display in this week's premiere, where Sue simultaneously gets her braces off and seems a little bit more weary of the world and Axl begins to confront the fact that his dad is aging and he's not quite sure how to handle it. This is pretty heavy stuff for an 8:00 family sitcom, and that The Middle handles it with the warmth and strength that it does demonstrates why it's still the go-to family show on television.

Doctor Who - I'm actually two episodes behind on my Doctor Who reviews, but that's mostly because I didn't have all that much to say about last week's episode, which was a perfectly solid Doctor Who story that felt a bit inessential to the shows' central themes but still managed to be a good time overall. I have a lot more to say about the most recent episode, though, which was right up there with "Listen" as my favorite episode of this season so far. Sending the Doctor off into Muggle World is almost always a guaranteed good time, but this episode went even further than that and analyzed just what it means to be a companion of the Doctor. It also contained some surprisingly deep-rooted analysis of some of the Doctor's flaws and prejudices, including his apparent distaste for soldiers and his current hesitance to accept anyone that isn't Clara. We're about halfway through this Doctor Who season, and I have to say that I'm surprised at how successful it's been in terms of being an intricate analysis of just who the Doctor is - really is.

Saturday Night Live - SNL kicked off its 40th season in mostly uninspired fashion. There were some decent sketches - the Good Neighbor team continues to bring forth some of the most delightfully weird material SNL has ever seen, the show's skewers of the NFL were pretty damn solid overall, and new cast member Pete Davidson has some real skills that I'm ashamed to admit to because he's younger than me, but overall it was not the strongest of season openers, and it mostly wasted the extremely likable and game host it had in Chris Pratt. The new Weekend Update team in particular was a little bit painful - I'll give Michael Che some time to settle because he's had success on The Daily Show, but man, Colin Jost is just...not suited for this role, is he? Still, SNL premieres often feel like they're shaking off the cobwebs, so hope isn't nearly lost yet. Last season was a pretty rough one, but there's enough talent in this cast and writing staff that they should be able to pull it together.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine - Over the course of the year, I had sort of forgotten about Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which ended its run seemingly ages ago. I really enjoyed the shows' first season, but it never quite wowed me in the way that some of the excellent cable comedies that premiered this year did almost immediately. And yet, this premiere reminded me of just what a solid, funny and overall incredibly entertaining show Brooklyn really is. The cast is truly a hit list of some of the finest actors working in comedy today, and the shows' go-for-broke attitude leads to some of the fastest and smartest comedy currently on network television. This wasn't a perfect episode - the main plot with the mobster sort of just petered out, and a lot of the romance stuff felt shoehorned in (although I'm actually a fan of the totally absurd Gina/Boyle pairing), but it felt fresh and funny enough that it gave me hope Brooklyn could go on to not just become the best comedy on network television (though it'll have to battle it out pretty hard with Bob's Burgers, which returns next week) but could hopefully duke it out with some of those cable comedies to become a contender for TV's funniest show. It's not there yet, but it's so close.

Oh, and there was also a Family Guy/Simpsons crossover. I won't comment on that, because that way, I can go on pretending like nothing happened at all. Trust me, the healing process will be better this way.

Doctor Who - "Listen"

"Listen" is an incredible episode of Doctor Who, easily the best episode of the season so far and probably the best episode in several seasons. It reads very much like a summary of everything Steven Moffat has done on the show so far, an episode that gets to the basis of fear and where it comes from and attempts to analyze it under a microscope in an attempt to gain a better understanding of not only the Doctor, but ourselves. On a surface level, you could say the episode succeeds because it utilizes many of Moffat's strongest abilities - digging into the effects of time travel and deeply analytically horror stories (the two components that made "Blink" an episode for the history books), but what makes "Listen" so incredible is the way it wraps so many of the series' defining statements into its story and manages to make them prevalent without making them overly obvious. It's the definition of a landmark episode, and no episode has felt quite that way since "The Doctors' Wife", which aired over three years ago, (Although I would probably accept an argument for putting "Day of the Doctor" up to that level, as well). 

There's so many components to "Listen", which is a story that admittedly flirts with the idea of being a bit too complex for its own good, something that has sunk many of Moffat's stories in recent years. What starts off as a seemingly commonplace monster story, where the Doctor attempts to analyze the monsters that we're all afraid are hiding under our beds by taking Clara to the childhood bedroom of Danny Pink and coming face-to-face with a monster itself, quickly becomes something much more than that - something that challenges the very idea of a monster story. In many ways, this episode calls back to "Midnight", another episode that started off as a seemingly typical monster story until it completely flipped the switch by having everyone in the episode view the Doctor as the monster. "Listen" argues that the very idea of a monster story is somewhat fabricated, a manifestation of our desire to be afraid of something. It purposely never reveals to us what was hiding under Danny Rupert Pink's bed, because that's not what "Listen" is about. "Listen" isn't about the thing you fear - it's about the fear itself, the idea of being afraid of something, and the idea that being afraid is a key part of what it takes to carry on. If we're afraid of something, there's a reason, and that should drive us to analyze just what we're afraid of and why. The Doctor lied in his bed as a child completely petrified of everything, and now he deals with that by trying to uncover everything he can about the universe.

Of course, that fear occasionally manifests itself into something a bit more troubling, and "Listen" suggests that's what's truly driving the anger and the slight insanity of the 12th Doctor. More than any of the previous three episodes, "Listen" felt like Peter Capaldi's defining moment as the Doctor. It's now incredibly clear just who this man is right now - he's an insane man, which, sure, we've always known, but under 12 we're seeing it more than ever, and "Listen" clues us into why he's that way. Recent incarnations of the Doctor have hid their insanity. The scared, crying little boy has always been there, sure, but they've been uncovered by fezzes and bowties and "Allon-sy!" and leather jackets and suits and anger and giddiness and what have you. But that's what's different about 12: all of that is starting to be progressively uncovered. The 12th Doctor, underneath his stone-cold snark, is the closest we've seen the Doctor to being that scared little boy weeping in bed in a long, long time. And my guess is that he's about to learn - as is Clara, and as is Danny Pink - that it's okay to be that person sometimes. "What's wrong with fear? Fear is a superpower!", the Doctor calls out. He doesn't quite believe it, or else he wouldn't be trying so hard to defeat it. But this incarnation of the Doctor seems to believe it more than most, and that's what makes him such an anomaly. 

Doctor Who - "Robot of Sherwood"

Look, I'm going to be upfront with you guys here: I don't have a lot to say about this episode of Doctor Who. It was a light, fluffy episode that was obviously meant to serve as a bit of a comic relief in what's shaping up to be something of a darker season of the show. And that's fine! Every season of the show has at least one frivolous, carefree adventure - as it should, because this is a television show about a man who travels through time and space in a police box. Not everything has to be so self-serious. It wouldn't be Doctor Who if it was.

So "Robot of Sherwood" was...fine. It was not the best example of a "light adventure", and it was not the worst example of one. It had some parts that were very good, some parts that were hilarious, a ton of parts that were a slog to get through, and an ending that wound up wrapping everything together surprisingly nicely. It's pretty much everything you would expect a "The Doctor meets Robin Hood!" episode to be - there's some silly fight scenes, campy and over-the-top historical dialogue, and a moral that brings a surprising amount of depth to the idea of a fairy tale. It is, in other words, your standard "the Doctor travels to the past and meets a historical figure" episode (even if this one happens to be fictional - sorry, Robin Hood), a format that was a seasonal affair during the Russel T. Davies era of the show but has become less prevalent since Moffat took the wheels. The last one we've had was "Vincent and the Doctor" in 2010, which is one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who stories. In fact, I sort of thought "Vincent and the Doctor"was the perfect cap on those types of episodes, since it turned the format around by bringing some dramatic weight to the idea of the Doctor meeting an important and famed figure of the past. These types of episodes tend to play closely to the version of the show that's a kids' educational program, never really forming a coherent story around the figure or the time period they set foot in. "Vincent and the Doctor" really changed that, as it used the Doctor and Amy's time with Vincent Van Gogh to make some very powerful statements about artistry, legacy and creating your own story.

"Robot of Sherwood" sort of attempts to make similarly bold statements, but it doesn't commit enough to fully make the landing. Like Rusty last week, the show sets Robin Hood up as a parallel to the Doctor himself - Robin Hood is just a legend, or so the Doctor thinks, and there's no way anyone could believe this guy is real right? The Doctor assumes that he's a robot, just like several other people in the town have become, and we're meant to believe so, too - until a twist ending reveals that no, Robin Hood is real, but people stop believing that he really existed and thus, becomes no more than a legend, or a myth. This twist is not really as surprising as the show would like us to believe, but it works as a way to subvert our idea that the Doctor is always right and that we should always believe him. It also works as a nice way to point out that the Doctor himself could be constructed as a myth. That's all well and good, but it doesn't quite mesh tonally with the rest of the episode, which is trying so hard to be carefree and silly that it winds up sinking whatever lesson the episode is trying to teach. It's not that Doctor Who can't be carefree, silly and thought-provoking all at the same time, but "Robot of Sherwood" tries so hard to be silly and so little to say anything that at one point, you sort of wonder why it's bothering to say anything at all.

Doctor Who - "Into the Dalek"

Is the Doctor a good man?

This is the question our newly regenerated Doctor wrestles with through-out "Into the Dalek", and it's what the episode suggests will be a major running theme through the rest of the season. It's a question that the series has long dabbled in - after all, until "The Day of the Doctor", we were dealing with a protagonist who wiped out his entire species - and yet, the question has always more or less been settled on a hard "yes". This isn't to say that the series hasn't questioned the Doctor's true morality from time to time. Sure, there was the time war and the 10th Doctor losing his shit in "The Waters of Mars" and basically the entirety of Christopher Eccelson's run on the show, but even in its darkest moments, Doctor Who has more or less come down on the side of "yes" when it was forced to answer the above question. The most recent Doctors, despite having a fair amount of darkness pent up inside them, were figures that we could generally root for without having to question it much. The 12th Doctor, while not exactly a villain, is proving to be a figure that's more comfortable with his dark side, which makes him a figure that's a bit more skeptical of the idea of the Doctor as an all-saving prophet that brings good wherever he goes, even if he occasionally has to take questionable measures to get there.

So our current answer to the question of whether the Doctor is a good man or not is "I don't know", as Clara put it, but I imagine by the end of this Doctor's reign we may get a more definitive answer. If the 11th Doctor's era was focused on the mystery and specter of the Doctor, analyzing who he was and where he came from and the way he can have the people surrounding him give birth to a timelord baby that they've met several times already, then the 12th Doctor's era seems to be focused on analyzing his mind - what's in it, how it works, and most importantly, what it's capable of. And who better to help us do that then the Doctor's mortal enemies?

The fact that "Into the Dalek" actually remembers the connection between the Doctor and his Daleks, the fact that they hate each other because they're polar opposites but also because they're alike in so many ways, already makes it one of the new series' best use of the classic villains. Aside from the excellent "Dalek" way back in Season 1 (which this episode shares more than a few similarities with), most of the Dalek adventures in the new series treat them too much like typical bad guys, setting them up on a repetitive plot cycle - the Daleks invade somewhere, the Doctor fights them off, they go away. "Into the Dalek" smartly breaks this cycle by taking a single Dalek and jumping into it, in much of the same way we're meant to be jumping into the Doctor's mind through-out the entire episode. "Into the Dalek" takes the parallels between the Doctor and the Daleks and puts them right there in front of us. It might be too much if it wasn't so effective - the idea that the Doctor himself could make "a good Dalek" feels kind of earth-shattering, even if it's something we already kind of know. It's an interesting question not just of Doctor Who's built-in psych but of the morality of sci-fi and superhero adventures in general - we root for our heroes because we see them as the good guys, but aren't we really supporting them for doing the exact same thing the villains are doing?

All of this ties very nicely into the "soldier" runner, which extends from new character (and, assumingly, future TARDIS ride-along) Danny Pink to this week's gaggle of doomed zombies (every time the show introduces us to a group that the Doctor will be assisting for the episode, I immediately weep a little bit for them). Moffat hate may be super trendy on the internet right now, but "Into the Dalek" demonstrates some of the genius of a Moffat script (that, to be fair, he shared with Phil Ford), where he juggles a million balls in the air then somehow manages to tie them all together in a way that fits in a way that you would've never guessed. This is a skill that he seemed to lose somewhere around the end of the 6th season/beginning of the 7th season, so seeing it back here gives me a lot of hope for the rest of the season. And on a closing note - how great are Clara and 12 together?! They're like "Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy, Doctor Who edition". "Deep Breath" was a fairly solid start, but after "Into the Dalek" I feel extremely comfortable about where we're headed this season. Don't let me down, Peter Capaldi. 

Doctor Who - "Deep Breath"

 

"Here we go again."

After many months, countless hours of speculation, tons of Moffat complaining and so many pointless Tumblr wars, Doctor Who has returned with a brand new doctor at the helm. Peter Capaldi is now portraying the 12th doctor, replacing Matt Smith's widely beloved portrayal of 11. And as fantastic as Matt Smith was in the role...damn, is Peter Capaldi good.

Capaldi pretty much nails the Doctor right from the start, and why shouldn't he? He possesses just the right mix of comedy, drama and outright terror that's required for the role, and he also puts just enough anger to make you believe that this truly is a wearier, more world-weary version of the Doctor than we've been accustomed to lately. The 12th Doctor jumps from a lovable, sarcastic goofball to a genuinely terrifying force in a moments' notice, and Capaldi completely nails what could be a difficult transition. Sometimes it takes a few episodes for an actor to completely settle into their new role as the Doctor, but Capaldi's 12 already feels nearly fully-formed. He's a mysterious incarnation, someone who is far less earnest and trustworthy than his immediate predecessors and more obviously carries the weight of his past on his back. I'm incredibly excited to see where he's going to take us from here.

And I'm even more excited knowing that he has a solid companion by his side. Clara's half-season with Matt Smith last year was something of a letdown - it had some incredibly enjoyable episodes, sure, and the 50th anniversary special remains a high point of the new series, but Clara and 11 weren't given enough time to properly click, and the show became too obsessed with the mystery behind the character that it lost sight of who the character actually was. As such, "Deep Breath" feels like a quasi-reboot of the Clara character, presenting her as a confident control freak that holds a lot of trust in the Doctor but isn't afraid to call him out on his shit. This contrasts nicely with the 12th Doctor, and it results in a dynamic that already feels natural and is a complete joy to watch even in its nascent stages. Jenna Coleman is also given some of Clara's weightest material yet, particularly during the several times where she suspects the Doctor has abandoned her. Sure, we all know the Doctor didn't actually abandon her, but the way Coleman plays the scenes allows us to completely feel her pain. It's always been clear that Coleman was better than a lot of the material she was being given, and it's nice to see her talents finally being properly rewarded here.

Capaldi and Coleman's strengths managed to hold together a script that was mostly pretty strong but also sort of faltered at times, particularly when the show felt the need to call attention to the fact that Capaldi is, yes, older. I get that a lot of Doctor Who fans are used to young, pretty faces and that the show probably needed to make those fans comfortable with Capaldi, but having Madame Vastra practically look at the camera and address them felt a bit too on-the-nose. (It also didn't help that Vastra, Jenny and Strax didn't really serve that much of a purpose in the episode outside of those scenes and maybe to provide more of a bridge between the last Doctor and this one). Besides, all the show really needed to comfort those fans was that excellent Matt Smith cameo, which did a fantastic job of explaining just what's a little bit different about 12 and also put a perfect bow on his time on the show. That scene nearly single-handedly made an episode that occasionally felt a little bit all over the place snap into focus, and it made me appreciate the episodes' somewhat languid pace and darkened tone. This is going to be a different show than it was before, so if this episode wasn't quite the sweeping adventure that "The Eleventh Hour" was, it's not supposed to be. This is a different Doctor, a Doctor who's a little bit more serious and a little bit more contemplative. With a great actor and a newly strong companion to help him along the way, I'm excited to see just how this all ends up.

Best TV of 2013

Hello, everyone! Due to some "oh no I never watched Breaking Bad let me binge through it so I don't look like an asshole when I make my top TV of 2013 list" related issues, my Best of 2013 post is a bit delayed. But that's okay! It's here now, and that's all that matters, right?

2013 was a pretty fantastic year for television, and it was an interesting year for my personal television habits. I've expanded my taste a lot this past year - previously I had mostly contained myself to the comedy genre, but that wasn't the case this year. There are plenty of shows on this list that I would've never dreamed could be on there in previous years. Why did I decide to finally expand my TV mind? Maybe it was because this was the year we lost 30 Rock and I needed something to vill the void. Maybe it's because Community was off and I needed something to fullfill THAT void. Maybe it's just because I was bored. I don't know! But I'm glad it happened. It lets me see TV in a broader and more interesting light.

Alright! Let's get down to it. But before we get there, I wanted to give a shout-out to....

30 Rock
30 Rock aired only four episodes in 2013, so it wasn't eligible for my list. But if it was? It would be a strong contender for the #1 slot. There wasn't a single episode of TV this year I enjoyed more than the final 3 episodes of the shows' run, which brought each of its characters to a perfect, well-earned conclusion. And all the while, it never stopped being the funniest show on TV. Farewell, sweet 30 Rock. We'll miss you. Well, we'll miss making new episodes. We're still going to watch you obsessively on Netflix, obviously.

Alright! And now for the...

Honorable Mentions

These shows didn't quite make my top 10, but they came very close. Therefore, they deserve mentions!

Parks and Recreation
2013 saw Parks & Rec comfortably settling into its middle age. Many times, the show felt like it was running around in circles, rehashing plots it had done better in its peak years. It also lost its usuallysharp focus, often seeming unsure of what left it could do with its characters (and particularly its protagonist, who seemed halted in her growth). But even though the storytelling left something to be desired, Parks remained a show that I was happy to spend a half-hour with every week. And at the end of the year, the show made the curious decision to recall Leslie from her City Council position and send her off on an unknown path. It was the most interesting narrative choice the show made in several seasons, and it provides some hope that Parks can re-emerge as a vibrant and compelling show once again. But even if it doesn't, spending time in Pawnee is sure to remain a simple pleasure for as long as the show airs.
Highlight Episodes: "Leslie and Ben", "London", "Recall Vote"

Archer
Archer remained an incredibly funny show in its fourth season. The cast was still aces, and the writing was still sharper than just about every other comedy on TV. But one important competent was missing - the element of surprise that always drove the show at its best. This is pretty natural - as a show ages, there's no way it can continue to bring the same thrills it did at its peak. But it was still incredibly funny and entertaining, which likely would've been enough to give the show a long and fulfilling future - even if it meant a little bit of coasting. Of course, as we all know now, that wasn't enough for Archer. They hit the reset button this year, sending us on an insane journey that recalls the fast-and-loose experimentation that drives the show at its best. I'm glad Archer wasn't content to settle into a groove, but Season 4 proves that Archer coasting still made for a pretty great time.
Highlight Episodes: "Live and Let Dine", "The Papal Chase", "Sea Tunt"

Happy Endings
Happy Endings spent most of 2013 in burn-off mode on ABC, which caused many people - including myself - to sort of forget about it come the end of the year. But when VH1 marathoned all of Happy Endings on New Years' Day, it reminded me how much of a perfectly crafted joke machine it was. Few shows on TV make me laugh as loudly and consistently as this one did, and I'm going to miss its delightfully insane characters and jokes that are fucking poetic in how perfectly hilarious they are. The marathon also reminded that Happy Endings closed out with a fairly strong set of episodes. They were just as hilarious as the show had always been, and for the first time, they successful rang some pathos out of situations like the end of Penny's engagement with Piece and Alex and Dave deciding to call it quits. I'll really miss Happy Endings, but at least it went out on a high note.
Highlight Episodes: "The Ex Factor", "The Marry Prankster", "She Got Game Night"

Arrested Development
Arrested Development's long-awaited fourth season was sort of a beautiful mess. On one hand, the excitement of seeing the Bluths back in action was matched by very little else on TV this year. On the other hand, the confusion of the shows' downright strange narrative style was also matched by anything on TV this year. Since the original recipe of Arrested Development was heralded for its innovation to the TV sitcom, the Netflix revival seemed to feel like it had to follow in its footsteps - but that caused the show to often forget about what made it work so well in the first place. Luckily, this wasn't always the case. Even though the narrative was convulted, the humor on AD remained mostly sharp, and the fourth season succeeded in providing a new wave of classic Arrested Development quotes. It may not have completely lived up to the shows' original run, but what could? At its best, AD Season 4 was still an incredibly funny and entertaining show, with some intriguing character work. That's more than enough to keep me hoping we don't have to wait another seven years to see the Bluths again.
Highlight Episodes: "Colony Collapse", "Senioritis", "Off the Hook"

Alright. That's that. Now let's get on to the Top 10!

10. Veep

Veep is one of those shows that could've simply repeated its first season for its entire run, and a good portion of its audience (possibly including me) would've been content. I mean, it's a bunch of hilarious people dressing up as politicians and cursing, and that's awesome. But I was impressed by the narrative choices the show made in its second season - rather than continuing to hammer the "Selina is useless" shtick, Veep made her an integral part of her administration in Season 2 after her nameless party received a particularly harsh setback in the midterm elections. This raised the dramatic stakes in ways that helped keep the show fresh and interesting. The season ended with an even more intriguing twist, suggesting that POTUS will not be seeking re-election and that Selena will attempt to fill his seat. That paves the way for a third season that could be quite interesting indeed, and will certainly continue to give us the classic, profanity-laced exchanges we've all come to crave.
Highlight Episodes: "Hostages", "First Response", "D.C"

9. Brooklyn Nine-Nine

Brooklyn Nine-Nine is the most promising new network comedy in several seasons (perhaps since Community?), and the reason why it's been so delightful can be boiled down to a few simple components: it has a killer ensemble cast, it has top-notch talent behind it, and it has an interesting set of characters that it's willing to dig into. Oh, and it's really, really funny - far funnier than any sitcom halfway through its first season has any right to be. The shows' only real blind spot is its protagonist - Andy Samburg does a fine job with Jake Peralta, but the show has yet to give us a reason why we should be rooting for such a self-absorbed, obnoxious character. But other than that? Just about everything on this show is fire right now, and I'm incredibly excited to see where it's going to go.

Highlight Episodes: "The Vulture", "Halloween", "Thanksgiving"

8. The Middle

It's rare that I get overly excited about a family sitcom, but The Middle is just that good. And unlike most aging comedies, it's only getting better. As the Heck kids grow up and begin dealing with things like graduation, college, and part-time jobs, The Middle is able to renew its comic energy by digging into these rites of passages and putting its own unique spin on them. But change isn't limited to the kids - the show made the wise decision to give matriarch Frankie a career change last year, and it's resulted in a surprisingly interesting story about people trying to re-invent themselves in their middle age. The way The Middle manages to consistently find fresh new challenges for the Heck clan is the key to its success, and it's what makes it continue to be the quietest great show on television.

Highlight Episodes: "Wheel of Pain", "Change is in the Air", "The Potato"

7. Mad Men

After a dynamic 5th season that experimented with the shows' form in incredibly interesting ways, Mad Men's 6th season first appeared to be a bit of a cooldown. It was still thought-provoking and genre-pushing, sure, but it didn't quite have the spark of the 5th season. And then, about halfway through, everything changed, and the season arc became clear: this is the beginning of the end for Don Draper. The season suddenly became the story of a broken mans' downfall, as we saw Don sink to depths we had never seen him reach before. Add this to a sudden status quo change that merged Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Pryce with one of its rival firms, and you have another great, intriguing season of television.

Highlight Episodes: "For Immediate Release", "The Crash", "In Care Of"

6. Orange is the New Black

The most surprising new show of the season may have been Orange is the New Black, a Netflix original series that came seemingly out of nowhere and blew us all away with its intriguing premise, refreshing characters, intricate character work, and unique storytelling structure. Of all of the things to love about the show - from all of the reasons I just listed along with its amazingly diverse cast and subtly effective social commentary - the single element that made the show work may be the way it challenged the way we view characters on television. The way it was able to take characters that started off looking like villians - such as Alex or Red - and turn them into truly sympathetic individuals was an amazing feat, as was their ability to do the opposite with a character like Healy. Of course, the best example of this may be Crazy Eyes (or Suzanne), who starts off the series as a terrifying wildcard and ends it as perhaps the most lovable character on the entire show. The show even achieves this goal with its protagonist, who goes from poor, helpless soul to dangerous anti-hero in a surprisingly natural way. After a year where it made such a splash, there's few shows I'm looking forward to in 2014 more than Orange is the New Black.

Highlight Episodes: "Lesbian Request Denied", "Fucksgiving", "Tall Men With Feelings"

5. New Girl

New Girl continued its momentum in 2013 by giving us one of the most compelling will they/won't they arcs on TV in a long time - the epic romance of Jessica Day and Nick Miller. I was originally completely against a Jess/Nick pairing, but the show did an excellent job turning me by basically just forcing me to accept it. In "Cooler" - quite possibly the shows' best episode to date - the series simply throws the characters together for a passionate kiss and refuses to give the audience time to process it all. And it worked! That episode kicked off New Girl's best run of episodes yet, fueled by the perfectly constructed Jess/Nick romance. But Jess and Nick aren't the only factors that made New Girl so compelling in 2013 - the show continued to dig deep into its characters and ask them tough questions about who they really were and what they wanted. This was perhaps most obvious with Schmidt, who was forced to hold a bit of a mirror up to himself and question how good of a person he really was. It didn't always work, and the show had a few rocky episodes this fall, but when it did, there wasn't much else on TV that could match its mix of top-notch humor and deep-rooted characterization.

Highlight Episodes: "Cooler", "Parking Spot", "Menus"

4. Breaking Bad

Breaking Bad's final eight episodes were some of the most upsetting and emotionally disturbing things to air on TV this year, but that only cemented just how fantastic the story they were closing out was. All of the characters we've grown to care about (except Walt, because he's a terrible, terrible human being) were put in the desperate, grim situations we've known were coming for them since Season 1 - and it was every bit as terrifying and emotionally draining as we knew it would be. The best example of the beautiful misery of Breaking Bad's final stretch episodes was the breathtaking "Ozymandias", a nauseatingly tense episode of television in which everything we spent the past five seasons fearing was going to happen, happened - in the span of about 10 minutes. While the finale was a mild disappointment that never engaged with the psychological questions that the show was able to at its best, the build-up to it was perfect enough that Breaking Bad's curtain call will certainly be remembered for years to come.

Highlight Episodes: "Blood Money", "Confessions", "Ozymandias"

3. Enlightened

(The picture represents Amy and Tyler's reactions to ranking above Breaking Bad).

Enlightened is gone too soon, but what a beautiful story it told while it was here. After a strong first season that created a compelling protagonist in Amy Jellicoe, the second season of Enlightened put things into the highest gear possible and told a no-frills story about realizing what you're capable of. It was one of the most powerful shows on TV, and it was also one of the most unique - very few shows ever wear their heart on their sleeves as much as Enlightened did, which is perhaps why it wasn't a show for everyone. But if you could get on the shows' wavelength, you were lucky enough to experience some truly powerful messages about human connection, all done with some of the most lovable misfits this side of Community. It's a shame that we aren't getting anymore Enlightened, but part of me thinks we don't even need any more. What we got is such a beautiful, self-contained story that articulated its message so well, I'm just glad it existed in the first place.

Highlight Episodes: "Higher Power", "Follow Me", "The Ghost is Seen"

2. Doctor Who

On a purely subjective level, Doctor Who is probably not the #2 show of 2013. The second half of the shows' seventh season wasn't its all-time best, hurt a bit by the decision to split the season into two separate parts (although the two specials - the 50th anniversary and the Christmas special - were fantastic). But damn it, I'm putting it here anyway, because I don't know if there's a show that aired on TV this year that made me as purely happy as this one. 2013 was the first time I watched Doctor Who, and I binged through all seven seasons of the modern incarnation of the show pretty fast. What I love about Doctor Who is how, despite its seemingly complex nature, its really incredibly simple: it's about a time traveler and his companion, traveling all through space and time. Sure, there's plenty of other mythology to it, but that one sentiment sums up the child-like glee that you get when you immerse yourself in the shows' world. It's fun. It's campy. It's often funny, it's often heartbreaking. It's Doctor Who, and while it sometimes slips up a bit, there's nothing remotely like it on television.

Highlight Episodes: "The Rings of Akhaten", "The Day of the Doctor", "The Time of the Doctor"

1. Bob's Burgers

Oh, Bob's Burgers. Is there any show on TV that accepts people from all corners of the Earth as much as this one does? Is there any show with characters as downright lovable as the Belchers? Is there any show that could come up with a line as brilliant as "they'll say aw, topsy at my autopsy?". No. No, there is not. Bob's Burgers has such a refreshingly warm comic tone that brings a much-needed change of pace not just to the Fox animation family, but to television comedy in general. The way it manages to take characters that would easily be the butt of the joke on any other show and turn them into sympathetic and beloved figures is what truly sets it apart. That and its wonderfully weird and consistently hilarious sense of humor, of course. Sure, other shows might have kept me on my toes more, but no show made me as excited to spend time in its universe this year than Bob's Burgers. The way it accepts its completely weird, off-beat characters with such open arms is the kind of thing that really melts the heart of internet losers like me all over the world. Here's to another great year with the Belchers.

Highlight Episodes: "Mother Daughter Laser Razor", "Topsy", "Christmas in the Car"

So there's 2013. It was a great year, but with the re-emergence of Community and Archer, the return of Louie, and a whole slew of promising new shows, I wonder if 2014 could somehow be even better. I guess we'll just have to wait and see! How FUN!