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: Louie - Season 4

In many ways, Louie Season 4 seemed more like a collection of short films than a season of television. After the standalone first few episodes, the episode consisted of a six-part romance story, a 90 minute leap back to Louie's childhood, and a three-part arc with Pamela to cap it all out. Louie has always felt like something very different for television - previous seasons of the show were marked by how each story seemed to stand on its own and occupied only as much time and space as Louis CK needed them to. So it's nice to see that, even four seasons in, Louie can continue to push television to new and surprising limits.

But what made this season such a compelling television season, despite its short film limits, was the way it played with consistent ideas through-out each episode. The season seemed intent on fleshing out the women in Louie's life and analyzing how he communicates with them. "Model" and "So Did the Fat Lady" showcased two fairly random women that take an interest in Louie and traced the unique ways why each relationship is, more or less, doomed to fail. "Into the Woods" takes us back to Louie's childhood to see Louie's relationship with the first important woman in his life - his mother. The "Pamela" episodes take everything we learn about Louie through the season and turns it into a satisfying finish. And at the center of all of this is the gigantic "Elevator" arc, which takes the deepest look at Louie's life by putting a budding new relationship up against his relationship with his ex-wife as well as his daughters.

All of this gave Louie some of its most powerful material yet, whether it be the twisted dreamlike reality of "Model" to Vanessa's painfully perfect monologue about the unfair treatment of overweight women or the great flashback scene with Louie and his wife. And having an overarching narrative gave all of these scenes an extra sense of purpose that really elevated (NO PUT INTENDED) the season as a whole. And if some parts of the season didn't quite work - I thought the Pamela arc was a little shaggy and muddled on the whole - it still all came together to create one of the most thoughtful seasons of television of the year. I'm really interested to see where Louis CK takes it next, whenever and however it might return.

Final Grade: A-

Louie - "Into the Woods"

There are some episodes of Louie that take a while to sit me. I would guess that's pretty much natural with a show like Louie, a show that's constantly pushing the format of television to greater and greater heights - and weirder and weirder places. For a lot of its running time, I wondered just what the hell "Into the Woods" was doing. It seemed to be a short film about why you shouldn't smoke pot in middle school randomly plopped into the middle of what's been a very carefully constructed season of television, and while I enjoyed it for basically all of its running time, I wondered what purpose it was serving to the shows' narrative as a whole. And hell, maybe it wasn't serving any purpose! Maybe Louis CK just felt like telling this story and didn't give a damn about taking a break from the narrative he had set up for the season thus far. That may very well be part of it, and considering the show we're dealing with here, it'd be par for the course and completely acceptable, in my books.

But the more I think about it, the more I realize "Into the Woods" lines up pretty directly with Louie's narrative arc this season. It is, ultimately, a story about how Louie's turbulent adolescent relationship with his mother is paving way to how he's dealing with a nearly parallel relationship he's experiencing with his daughter. In a season that has been marked by Louie's relationships with the various women in his life and the trouble he has communication with them, it's incredibly interesting to see all of this traced back to his relationship with his mother as a child. That's influencing his relationship with his daughter, but it's doing so in ways that may very well be the opposite of how we might expect them to be. Instead of making Louie's mistakes force him into hypersensitivity over his discovery of his daughter smoking weed, it influences him to be open to her - both because his mother wasn't, but more importantly, because he wasn't open to his mother, a woman who obviously cared about him and was seriously hurt by his actions.

But I don't think all of this story is just about Louie's relationship with his mother and daughters. A good portion of it is just a good old-fashioned story about what it's like to be a boy on the cusp of being a "man", and I don't know that I've ever seen an episode of television that deals with the strange mixed messages you receive at that age as well as Into the Woods does. Louie is told it's time for him to step up and start "being a man", but when he actually has to do that, he really has no fucking clue. And the fact that it all feels so big and cinematic - right down to Jeremy Renner kissing a cat! - only adds to the power of the story, even if it's about a seemingly far away event in Louie's life. While previous seasons of Louie were mostly just about Louis CK doing whatever the fuck he wants to do, this season seems insistent on showing us just how every element of Louie's life has impacted who he is today. It's an incredibly interesting departure for the show, and I can't wait to see where it all ends up next week. 

Louie - "Elevator" overall review and "Pamela (Part 1)"

Last weekend, following the tragic events caused by the crazed misogynist Elliott whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is-and-no-I-don't-feel-like-looking-it-up-because-he's-scum-and-doesn't-deserve-it, a movement spread like wildfire around social media, in which women spoke up against the deep fears and tensions they are forced to put up with on a daily basis simply because they were given a sex organ upon birth that required as such. Now, if you have spent any time on the internet, you know about this movement, and I don't need to waste anytime explaining this - unless this is 3,000 years in the future where there's no such thing as gender anymore and you're reading this on your toenails. In which case, hi! How's Saturday Night Live this year?

Anyway, the movement is sparking a lot of much needed debate about gender roles and equality in a country that likes to pretend it's fixed everything when everyone really knows that's far from the truth. This is aligning up quite nicely with this season of Louie, which is a season that seems to be about Louie's connection with the women in his life and, on a deeper level, the complicated relationships and distance between men and women in general. Louis CK has always had his thumb on issues of feminism (how many times have you seen his "women dating men is like men dating bears" stand-up act circulating around in the past week?), but this season is not only covering the issues of feminism but shining a big, intrusive flashlight onto the ugly corners of gender inequality. It's a season that has been painfully funny in some parts, deeply touching in many, and almost always kind of uneasy. This was certainly present in the terrific standalones "Model" and "So Did the Fat Lady", but it's the "Elevator" arc that brought all of these layers to the forefront of the show.

"Elevator" began in its first few parts as seemingly a sort of male fantasy. Louie has connected with Amia, a woman who he obviously has some sort of biological attraction to but literally cannot become emotionally attached to, due to their language barrier. It is basically the ultimate "manic pixie dream girl" story- Amia and Louie are free to simply wander around the city, not having to be bogged down with things like feelings and disagreements and words or conversation at all. This is all in stark contrast to what's happening with his daughter and, more importantly, his ex-wife. Janet has the power of words - to hurt Louie, to bring him down, to make him feel inferior, to remind him of their once promising past, to remind him of everything that could've been, to remind him of everything they weren't supposed to be, and just to simply remind him. His life with Amia is one where he can escape all of that and just be. Amia can't hurt him, she can only give him strength. He doesn't even have to understand her. But that's not a relationship. That's not what forming a connection with another human being is. And there's a point, right when both Janet and Evanka call Louie out for not going all the way with Amia, when Louie realizes that Amia is just as important as him as any of the women he can actually speak to were. And after he has sex with her and she feels immediate regret, it's clear that his relationship with Amia is a human relationship after all. That leads to the quite beautiful final installment of the "Elevator" arc, which finds a natural disaster forcing Louie to mend his connection with Janet using less communication than usual (because she's too freaked out to even speak correctly) and finds him putting a bow on his time with Amia by, for the first time, listening to her. The final point of "Elevator" seems to be "hey, women aren't here just to please you, assholes. They're people, too, and you need to sit down and work out your shit with them and respect them, because human relationships aren't magical and easy and perfect."

It seems like an obvious point, but then situations like the one in the tense and surprisingly pitch-black "Pamela (Part 1") arise, and you realize just how far off we really are. "Pamela (Part 1)" purposely uses one of Louis CK's famous pro-feminist stand-up bits to prop it up (one that's particularly well-known considering he performed it on SNL a few months back) and then turns around and has Louie come nauseatingly close to raping a woman he considers a friend by the end of the episode. I'm going to wait to see how the entire "Pamela" arc plays out to say too much about this one, but the contrast of that scene and the following one, where Louie attempts to teach his daughter how to safely navigate Manhattan, seems to suggest that even the "good" guys out there, the ones that know rape is wrong and would "totally never do that #NotAllMen"), have the capability of devolving into violence. It's a damn uncomfortable position to take, but what is Louie if it's not purposely shoving our face into truths we'd rather ignore? 

Louie - "So Did the Fat Lady/Elevator"

Out of all of the extraordinary things that Louie does, what I may love best about it is how it uses its flexible formula and small but dedicated viewing audience to cover topics and viewpoints that simply can't exist in any other forum. Louis CK himself has always done this with his comedy act, unveiling parts of the human consciousness that simply have to be left shaded in any other light other than the light of gritty stand-up comedy. But on Louie, this gets taken to a new level. Never before has that been more apparent than in the first of the pair of episodes that aired last night, "So Did the Fat Lady". The episode allows the voice of a subset of people that is not only rarely given a voice in media, but rarely has anyone care that they don't have a voice - overweight women.

The idea that fat people are "discriminated" against is an idea that completely pisses a lot of people off. It's true that the plight of the fat woman is not on par with the plight of other subjugated minorities. But it's also true that the idea of a "healthy body weight" is so ingrained into our society that people who fall out of that ideal - particularly women who fall out of that ideal - are simply treated like shit. All of the time. Think about it. Think of all of the times you've heard someone negatively comment on someones' weight. Think of all of the times you've heard someone make a really shitty fat joke and no one even batted an eye. In many ways, overweight people are the last people we're allowed to discriminate against without being called racist or homophobic or what have you. For whatever reason, it's okay to treat them like lesser beings. Of course Louie wouldn't find someone like Vanessa sexually attractive! Why would he? Sure, she's a nice, funny, seemingly smart and charming woman that seems to mesh quite well with him, but she's...fat. It's harsh. But it's an unfortunate reality, and Louie is a show that is always sure to make you realize just how unfortunate our reality can be. And that's what's so amazing about "So Did the Fat Lady". It takes all of the preconceptions we have about body weight and its (mis)conceptions and just tells them to FUCKING STOP. It gives Vanessa a platform to just stop and say everything she's feeling but isn't allowed to say. It takes all of the shameful thoughts that both parties in the situation are thinking and lays them right out there. Actually, it doesn't lay them right out there, it smashes your face into them. This show has a way of just making you sit with the most uncomfortable human emotions a television show could possibly make you experience and then turning that into some kind of strange, empowering knowledge about the human experience. There is so, so little like it. And when it takes a little appreciated stance like this and uses that talent to just tell everyone to get the fuck over themselves and stop baselessly judging people based on superficial observations - all while including himself in the group of people he's trying to knock sense into - it's powerful in a way hardly any TV show, or any art in general, can manage to be.

Um...oh, and then there was "Elevator". This was a really interesting and engaging episodes of Louie, as well, but it showcases the problem of FX's double-pumping method. It just couldn't compare to what came before it, even if it was still some really solid Louie.

But yeah, "So Did the Fat Lady", guys. Damn it.

Louie - "Back" and "Model"

LOUIE IS BACK, YOU GUYS. LOUIE. IS BACK. LOUIE IS BACK!

Seriously, there's just nothing on TV like Louie, and I am so glad we have it back on our screens. Something about Louie Season 4 feels renewed, not that the show was really in need of renewal. It's harder to notice trends in Louie than it is in most shows, since each episodes is almost its own distinct piece. And yet, I can't help but notice the way these first two episodes of the fourth season seemed just a tad different than what came before. Erik Adams of The AV Club pointed out that the show seems to be taking place in daylight far more often this season. There's kind of a brighter glow to these episodes, almost a dreamlike quality. Louie can gravitate from stark realism to total fantasy quickly and gracefully, but these episodes - particularly Model - really favored the second approach.

I quite enjoyed both of these episodes, but "Model" is one of the more fascinating episodes of television I've seen recently. Before we get to that, though, I have to give a few shout outs to "Back". "Back" seems like a collective welcoming us back to the world of Louie, complete with a meta joke about how Louie has aged two years at the start of the episode. (Is this the only time Louie has ever dipped into the wonderful world of meta jokes?). We get a bizarrely hilarious opening scene where garbage men invade Louie's bedroom, a typically sweet and funny story with his daughters, another fun poker night scene, and a classic Louie cringe-comedy scene where he goes to buy a vibrator and severely hurts his back in the process. This is surely one of the shows least tied to format in television history, but even it has patterns it falls back on time and time at this point, such as the cringe-comedy method where Louie gets himself into a humiliating situation and just keeps making it worse for himself.. It's not a bad thing, because Louis manages to put slight twists on it each time, and this particular storyline managed to weave nicely into the mortality-centric stand-up segments of the episode while brilliantly bringing the solution to Louie's back pains right back to the cause of them.

But it's really "Model" that wowed me, and it does so by putting some of the same twists on the "Louie goes on a date with a girl and totally fucks it up" formula that was first born way back in the shows' pilot episode. Actually, it puts a new twist on the entire concept of the male fantasy, the idea that any guy can sleep with the beautiful woman of his dreams if he just tries really hard to make her like him. "Model" is notably dreamy, and Blake's line that "maybe this isn't really happening" might just be true. The entire thing is filled with dream logic, from the cartoonish depiction of wealthy people to the fact that the one girl who actually liked Louie's set just magically steps outside for a smoke as he's walking out. "Model" analyzes the truth of the fantasies, and the entire "stumpy guy gets hot woman" concept that we see time and time again in media. If those kind of stories show us the sexy, optimistic side of male fantasy, Louie is presenting the darkest fears of it, the idea that you're just not supposed to be with this kind of person, the idea that fantasies are just fantasies. "Model" blends the line between the dream world and the real world in heartbreaking fashion. The truth is that Louie and Blake, despite the fact that they shared intimacy in a bed, are worlds apart, and nothing can bring them together. Not sex. Not laughs. Not tickling. We like to think anything is possible, but the truth is that we all occupy our own spaces, and if your space doesn't line up with another persons' space, it's going to go wrong. You're going to either punch someone in the face or get punched yourself. This all isn't happening. It will never. It can't. If we can accept that, we can at least have a pretty nice time with a down-to-earth waitress back in regular old NYC. Otherwise, we'll wind up in a jail cell in the Hamptons, wondering why we even bothered at all.

The 12 Best Comedies of 2012 (if you have the exact same taste as me)

Hello, everyone/no one! I haven't posted in a while, because holidays I'm lazy/was busy with finals then got lazy. But I decided, on this wonderful New Years' Eve, that while everyone else is getting drunk, I'd intoxicate myself with television feelings, like I do most other nights. So, I'll be posting my top 12 TV shows of 2012 and my top 20 TV episodes of 2012.

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?