Top TV of 2012

As December rolls around, you'll see most websites and publications start to roll out their best-of lists. The only thing that I'm remotely qualified to semi-thoroughly rank is TV shows, so I thought I would dip my toes into the world of entertainment writing.  The great part about the golden era of TV in which we find ourselves is that there is such a diverse selection of quality shows.  This makes it kind of hard to rank them.  Thus, I will begin this post with the disclaimer that this is all highly subjective.  Feel free to vehemently disagree with me - your ability to do so is one of the best parts of the internet (per the request of Matt Van, you're now able to comment without logging in, so feel free if you would like to).  Also note that a lot of the write-ups will contain SPOILERS, so don't read the section on a show if you're waiting to catch up on it.  Now that that's all out of the way, on with the list!  But first a few runner-up sections:

Shows that might have been on the list had I watched them

Boardwalk Empire
Game of Thrones
Suburgatory
Bob's Burgers
The Good Wife
American Dad
Southland
The New Girl
Parenthood

There are not enough hours in the day to watch every show that I would like to, so a few good shows that get a lot of buzz will probably never find their way onto my TV.  If there's one of these shows in particular that you love and think I'm stupid for missing out on, let me know.

Shows that might have been on the list, but I haven't seen their 2012 efforts:

Treme
Homeland
Girls
Luck
South Park

Yep, I've never had premium cable, so everything from HBO and such has to wait for me.  I'm fairly certain Treme would have made the list and would have been pretty high, because it is an awesome show.  The others I am less certain about, but based on what I've read and heard and seen from previous years, they would have stood at least a fighting chance.  I'm currently going through Luck on the old Netflix queue (yep, we still get the DVDs), so that will not remain unwatched for long.  As for South Park, I literally always forget that it's on, and never care enough to catch up with it.

Shows I watch that weren't close to the list:

The Office

Oh, Dunder Mifflin.  I am glad there is finally an end date in sight, because it's forced the plot to stop wondering around aimlessly, but it still misses the mark just as often as it hits it.  It's easy to forget that this show was consistantly great as recently as season 5 (the Michael Scott paper company arc), and that they could produce an episode as moving as Michael's farewell just two years ago.  Since Greg Daniels is back in charge of the show, I am hopeful that they will go out on a reasonably high note, but time will utilmately tell whether my hopes come true or not.

How I Met Your Mother

Speaking of wondering around aimlessly, here is HIMYM.  The constant teasing of the mother storyline was good for a while and was still interesting up until a couple of season ago, but now it's just a drag on the show.  Furthermore, the whole Robin and Barney will they/won't they is rough, because we already know they're going to at least attempt to get married (and we've known for a while now!)  The saving grace is that all the actors are still great even as the material gets weaker (the material can still be pretty good though - see last season's "Ducky Tie").  I definitely am in on HIMYM until the end.  Hopefully for the show's sake, that means I only have to watch it until May.

House

House, from what I saw of it, went pretty far downhill in its final seasons.  I only caught the finale this year, and it was boring, trite, and pretty much a poor recycling of everything that made the show great in its early years.  At least Hugh Laurie and Robert Sean Leonard are free to do other things now.

Modern Family

Here is another show that is coasting on its initial success.  Yes, it's still enjoyable to spend a half hour with the Pritchetts and the Dunphys, and the amazing Ty Burrell still deserves all of his Emmy nominations, but nothing of note has really happened on the show since the first season.  Gloria's pregnancy has opened up some interesting avenues this season, but the show fails to capitalize meaningfully on them far too often.

Top Chef

A lot of the criticisms of season 9 of Top Chef deal with the seemlingly unpleasant characters (namely Sarah and Lindsay).  I believe that those claims are largely unfounded, as I think they happened to just be occasionally snippy, and as a result got a bit of the "villain edit" that is common in reality programming.  The true issues with season 9 stemmed from the nature of the competition itself.  There were quite simply too many stupid challenges.  Whether it was staying up all night to cook barbecue, forcing the contestants to bike to the Alamo, or having a quickfire on a ski lift, the competitors had to do a lot of things not related to cooking.  Then of course there was the ridiculously pointless "Last Chance Kitchen," where Nyesha cooked her ass off and still couldn't get back on the show (Remeber that she got eliminated because of a dumb team elimination).  The one episode where everyone got to actually cook a dish themselves ("Fit for an Evil Queen" - the one with Charlize Theron) showed how good the show can still be if they get rid of all the stupid stuff and just let talented chefs be creative.  Hopefully they remember that for this current season (thus far it's been half good and half bad).

Don't Trust the B in Apartment 23

While all of the other shows in this section are previously good shows nearing the end of their runs, Bitch 23 (as I like to call it) is on the other side of its life cycle.  There's a lot of promise here, but the show needs to find its feet a little bit (more viewers couldn't hurt, too).  It doesn't help that a lot of the first run episodes from this season were actually meant to be part of last season, which leads to some unevenness.  Krysten Ritter's title character rides the line between cartoonish stereotype and actual sympathetic human fairly well, but the show needs to find a more consistent tone before I can consider it among the best shows on TV.  It doesn't hurt that James Van Der Beek is always around doing James Van Der Beek things.

Shows I watch that just missed the list:

Children's Hospital

Probably the funniest show that has ever taken place in Brazil.  That is all.

Archer

For some reason, I've never loved Archer quite as much as one would think I would.  It's got everything from hilarious one-liners to great voice actors to diverse plotlines that mix farce and action with a nice dash of long-term character development.  The third season really topped all their previous acheivements as well (especially with the Burt Reynolds episode).  I'm looking forward to when Archer starts up again in January.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia

I've really liked what they've done this season with all of the meta takes on seasons past.  There hasn't been much of an actual decline in the show, it's just gotten pushed out of the way by shows that have become better (or ones that have had great years).

30 Rock

30 Rock's final season has afforded it the opportunity to refocus in order to come to a hopefully satisfactory conclusion.  As a result, we've gotten the sharpest material about Liz Lemon and company since probably season 3.  They seem to have abandoned the interesting plotline concerning Jack's plan to sabotage NBC, but in its place have been some wacky misadventures concerning the presidential campaign, Kenneth's parents, and Liz's love life.  It's easy to forget how fresh and superior this show was when it was first on, and I'm glad it's been able to recapture some of that before it bows out.

Show that would have made the list if it didn't get cancelled:

Work of Art: The Next Great Artist

I briefly considered expanding the eligibility period for this list to a year ago today to allow for Work of Art (the season 2 finale was in December), but that seemed like cheating (had I cheated, it probably would have ended up at #9, FWIW).  At the same time, I felt I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the best freaking reality/competition show I've ever seen.  The nature of the challenges was pretty ho-hum and occasionally stupid (a la Top Chef).  But wow, those contestants.  The world of art must be a fun place because if these are the people they can put on TV, just imagine the people that they can't.  In the first season, there was the oddly manipulative Miles, and in season two we had the hilariously snarky Sucklord.  Of course, there was this contestant, too.  And those are just the highlights...pretty much every contestant had some sort of awesome quirk (except for season one winner Abdi, whose "quirk" was that he was the nicest person ever).  Contestants weren't the only strength of this show, though.  The combination of China Chow's awkwardness, Jerry Saltz's insightfulness, and Simon de Pury's dandyness made for a great set of judges.  Finally, John Teti's reviews on the AV Club were a perfect companion piece to the wacky antics on the show.  Hopefully, this show finds a home for a third season.

The List

#10 - The League

For its first three seasons, The League was an eminantly quotable, yet ultimately discardable half hour of television.  They have never been able to completely ditch the fantasy football premise, which always seemed to drag the show down.  They also have always seemed to focus their episodes on building to bizarre finishes that sometimes weren't worth the effort (prime example: the time Andre started lactating).  This season the show has finally settled into more of a relaxed groove, and a result, there isn't a show on TV with quite as oddly realized of a universe.  For example, in a recent episode "The Tailgate," the show introduced an alternate group of friends (led by Ken Marino as "the seed") so specifically and delightfully defective that they were finally able to match the casual anything-goes tone they've always been aiming for.  I may be overrating the show slightly by putting it in the top 10, but I feel it's at its peak now, so I'm fine with it.

#9 - Mad Men

The wife and I have been running through The Sopranos lately (we just finished season 3), and I'm amazed at all of the parallels between it and Mad Men.  Both series are character-driven studies of how a group of often despicable men go through their lives.  As a result of the character orientation of the shows (as opposed to plot oreintation), we drift through time more than most shows.  As a result, these shows are less concerned with documenting everything that happens to these characters and are more interested in showing us what drives the characters and how their minds work (the dream sequences we saw from Don and Roger this season were not unlike Tony's many dreams).  Mad Men seemed to be at its finest this season, as all of the major characters faced major crossroads in their lives.  Vincent Kartheiser's work as Pete Campbell was the highlight of the season for me, as he struggled with coming to terms with the differences between what he wants to be and what he has become.

#8 - Ben and Kate

Ben and Kate is a tremendous show that's able to mix hijinks and heart with amazing skill considering how early in its run it is.  Oscar winner Nat Faxon is predictably amazing as the titular Ben, and Lucy Punch's character BJ has become much more well defined (and as a result, funnier) since the pilot.  Because of it's low ratings, I'm not sure how long it will be able to continue its run, so I will implore you: WATCH THIS SHOW NOW!

#7 - Louie

Louis CK's third season of his kinda sorta autobiograpical show saw a few bumps in the road.  Specifically, there wasn't anything special about the first five episodes.  After that, the series rebounded to its previous highs (although I don't think this season saw an episode as good as "Eddie").  The second half of the season saw CK try some new things with both a longer dramatic arc (the "Late Show" story line) and a truly ridiculous episode ("Barney/Never", in which Louie and Robin Williams inform the employees of a strip club that their favorite client had died.  That's the least silly part of the episode).  The thing that makes Louie a truly unique show is how you have no idea what to expect from each episode.  Nothing illustrates this better than how the tweets from Fake Louie Episodes don't seem very unrealistic at all.  As I said earlier, this season seemed to be a step down from CK's previous work, so I'm glad that he's taking the next year off to recharge.  I can only imagine how tough it is to come up with the creative ideas necessary for such a good show on top of all of the duties that come with actually bringing it to fruition.

#6 - Happy Endings

Happy Endings is probably the funniest show on television right now.  I say that from a subjective perspective, but objectively no other show packs as many jokes, great line readings, and visual humor into 22 minutes as does Happy Endings.  The show does a great job of keeping a quick pace with almost a cartoonish sense of bounce to the proceedings, but the manic energy sometimes doesn't help when the show tries to land emotional moments.  In fact, I sometimes wish the show would be a little more consistently absurd, because the times when the characters are absurd provide some of the best material they have to offer.

#5 - The Daily Show

At many times throughout this election cycle it was easy to lose perspective.  While it often seemed like campaign tactics were worse than ever, it's easy to forget that this was a winning ad less than 50 years ago.  So while this may not have been as rough as earlier presedential races, it was certainly the silliest race in a while.  And for such a silly race, who better than Jon Stewart to get us all through it?  Segments with the news team were sometimes good (especially when the "reporter" in question was Wyatt Cenac), and contributors such as John Hodgman and Kristen Schaal were sharp as ever.  However, the heart of the show always resides with Stewart's perfect blend of sarcasm, goofiness, and visible sense of optimistic weariness.  While the satire of the show can often seem to blend into pessimism and negativity, Stewart is able to show how he genuinely cares about the state of the nation when he devotes parts of the show to worthy causes such as veterans benefits.  He's also improved his interviewing skills greatly to the point where the semi-formal chats will spill over into second and third segments on the web.  When he's asked about his place as a journalist, Mr. Stewart always reinforces his position that he's just a comedian.  In this day and age though, a good dose of comedy is what's needed to make it all the way through the news.

#4 - Justified

Coming into this season, I knew that it was unlikely that Graham Yost and friends would be able to top Margo Martindale's turn as the Bennett family matriarch, Mags.  Neal McDonough's work as the increasingly frantic Quarles wasn't quite as captivating, but the show didn't really miss a beat as it was able to continue building out the strange world of Harlan County.  No show on TV is better at quickly building interesting and layered characters (and since they often kill those characters off immediately, it's good that they're skilled at incorporating new ones).  Regardless of which characters are around causing trouble, I will always watch a show with Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins.  Their mix of antagonism despite similar beginnings provides the base on which the show stands.
 
#3 - Parks and Recreation

Todd VanDerWerff's recent article on Suburgatory recalled to mind a thought that I've often had.  Specifically, the headline which called a comedy a drama spoke to a dichotomy that I often fail to see.  I don't necessarily think there is such a thing as a "comedy" or a "drama," but rather a spectrum where those two concepts sit on opposing ends.  Both Parks and Rec and Communiy find themselves above some weighty dramas on my list, and a big part of the reason for this is that they are able to put their well developed characters into real dramatic situations that pay off just as well as more serious shows.  This year alone, Parks and Recreation has done three of its most memorable scenes: Leslie reading her closing remarks at the debate, Leslie voting for herself in the city council election (and subsequently winning), and Leslie and Ben's proposal.  The quality of these moments speaks to well Michael Schur and company have been able to construct a world, zany as it is, that feels real and honest enough to earn these moments.  You can certainly point to a few faults as the show ages (Andy is getting a little too dumb, Chris often doesn't have enough to do), but it's still one of the best shows on television.

#2 - Community

Since October 19th hasn't come yet this year, this ranking is based only on the back half of the most recent season.  While it is true that season three was not as consistently funny as previous seasons, there were still enough amazing episodes to justify placing the show this high on the list.  The high point of the season (and perhaps the series) "Remedial Chaos Theory" was aired in 2011, but 2012 still saw the ridiculous Subway arc ("Who were you, Subway?" is a line that makes me crack up every time I think of it), the blanket and pillow fort two-parter, and an even more clever flashback episode than last season.  If that wasn't enough, we got to see the inner workings of the surreal air conditioner repair school as well as the best Law and Order parody to date.  However, what truly makes Community a great show is that in addition to the humor, there is a real sense of purpose.  We've seen a lot of realistic, organic growth from the characters (especially Troy) as a result of their interactions with each other.  The heart of Community is just that, a sense of community that helps people and their society grow.

#1 - Breaking Bad

I said before the final season began that Breaking Bad had roughly a 15% chance of passing The Wire as my favorite drama of all time, and it's a testament to the strength of this season that that figure has at the very least held steady.  The first half of season five of Breaking Bad had the tall order of setting everything up for the final run of the show, which begins next summer.  Other than the uneven table-setting premiere, every other episode was A-level work from Vince Gilligan and company.  Even though we only got eight episodes in this run, the show managed to pack in as much as always, with the highlights including an incredibly creepy dinner, a strangely funny assassination montage, and a freaking train robbery.

One of my favorite parts of the show is how well the planning and foresight of the creators is used to create a maximum level of suspense and tension.  An example from this season is probably the best display of this.  The cold open of the premiere showed us Walt in the not too distant future.  He appeared to be nervous and perhaps slightly sickened.  He also had a fake license from New Hampshire and was buying a machine gun at a Denny's from everyone's favorite character actor, Jim Beaver.  This sequence served to cast a shadow over the precedings of the season.  No matter how good things seemed for Walt and company, there was always a sense of dread lurking not too far in the distance.  This was clearly on display in the end of the finale when the Whites and Schraders were enjoying a seemingly innocuous lunch by the pool.  Had we not seen future Walt, we probably wouldn't think anything of this scene, but instead it was filled with tension, causing the viewer to wonder if something terrible would befall them right then.  The ability to imbue such dread into such a placid scene is one of the truly amazing things about this show.  I'm excited to see the final payoff next summer.