Best TV of the Decade: #12 - Looking

#12 - Looking
Aired 2014 to 2016 (2 seasons and a movie) on HBO
Created by Michael Lannan and Andrew Haigh
Currently streaming on HBO

For a brief introduction to this countdown, click here.

Looking told a story about three gay men (named Patrick, Dom, and Augustine) and their circle of friends, family, and lovers.  It did so in an intimate manner with a purposefully small scope, largely devoid of many of the trappings typical of "Prestige TV."  For this or whatever other reasons it did not inspire a massive following or an outpouring of critical praise.  It was unceremoniously cancelled after two seasons.  So you're probably wondering why this show - which has largely disappeared from mainstream consciousness - is on this list.  The short answer is that it does what I like most about TV better than almost anything else.  For the long answer, let's dig into what exactly that means.

Different people like different shows (duh).  This variance in preference is often considered simply a matter of personal taste.  While that is sufficient for a casual analysis of why your buddy doesn't like Rick and Morty as much as you do, a comprehensive understanding of critical thought requires a little more legwork.  I find that when I do spend time trying to discern why other thoughtful people have wildly different opinions about what we watch, the reason almost always comes down to what they most value in narrative fiction.

In particular, I find there to be three primary axes along which people's proclivities lie.  The first axis is the creation and realization of memorable characters.  We revere titans like Tony Soprano and Don Draper less because of the specifics of what they did and more because of how their inherent natures are brought to life through consistent characterization married with superb acting.  The second is a sense of thematic focus and purpose.  More than just being the "so what" of the story, the impetus to say something about the world through one's chosen medium is the very driving force of art.  The final axis is the story itself.  Quite simply, it's what puts the narrative in narrative fiction.  While virtually every connoisseur of the medium will find value in all three of these aspects, most (with some introspection) will be able to zero in on what's most important to them.

My primary love is the last one I listed - storytelling.  While I often highlight a show's thematic resonance when first describing/praising it to others, my favorite shows invariably have a compelling narrative.  From a practical standpoint, it's what keeps me coming back to a show.  It's also what keeps me focused - as someone with ADHD tendencies, a well-constructed story helps ward those off.  I also think that my relative inability to tell a good story makes me extra-impressed when others do it well.  My brain tends to think at a 30000-foot level and/or wants to get to the punchline, so seeing a story that avoids those impulses pulls me in.

Even with this understanding, it's not necessarily clear how that translates to me liking Looking as much as I do.  You would think I would like it because it's great at storytelling (spoiler alert - that's right), but that's its least obvious strength.  When I mentioned the show's small cast, you probably thought that show must spend a lot of time meticulously focusing on what makes them tick (it does).  And when I mentioned that the orientation of the three lead characters, you most likely assumed that the show ruminates on nearly every implication of what it means to be a gay man in modern America (it does).  But I would argue that the only reason it's able to do these things in an effective manner is because its deft storytelling enables it to do so.

Let's Get Another Wide-Angle Shot 

There's a lot to be written about what Looking does well at what we traditionally think of as storytelling - plotting, pacing, maintaining intrigue, etc.  And while I'll get to that, it would be a disservice not to start with some of the more subtle ways it goes about its business.  Specifically, the show is one of the very best at taking one of fiction writing's most well-worn bromides (show, don't tell) to heart.  By advancing the story as organically and evocatively as possible, Looking is able to elevate its simple premise to greatness.

How does Looking do this?  One of the most obvious ways is its commitment to embracing its surroundings when the moment calls for it.  To give you an idea of this, I've pulled a few of the most notable examples.  For one, here's Augustine about to deliver some news that will end his relationship with Frank:

And Patrick, Dom, and Dom's longtime friend and roommate Doris on the way to her father's funeral:

And an out-of-focus and practically invisible Dom and Doris about to have a critical talk for the future of their friendship:

And finally our three leads reflecting on a pivotal set of events from the night before:

This practice bolsters the story in a number of ways.  Most obviously it makes use of the unique and beautiful scenery of the Bay Area to give us something that's exceedingly pleasant to look at.  This invokes not only a firm sense of place, but also gives us yet another reason to be drawn in and keep watching.  The wide shots also serve to remind us of the universality of these pivotal moments, and in doing so connects humanity to nature.  When Doris and Dom discuss their future, there's almost certainly others having similar moments in between the flickering lights of the city in the distance.  As Augustine ends his relationship, the waves continue to erode the coastline one grain of sand at a time.  And the trees in the last shot tower above our trio, in permanent reflection of how they've been shaped by the world around them.  The story of Looking is small and intimate and yet also reflects our understand of the world as a whole.

Most importantly, the scope of these scenes serves to connect the viewer to the mindset of the characters.  In each of these instances circumstance has led one or more of the cast to reflect on their lives, their choices, or their very place in the world.  This process of introspection can lead to an alienating, almost out-of-body experience where you feel like you're watching your own life unfold in front of you.  Pulling the camera back is the most simple and yet effective way to communicate this while also highlighting the importance of the moment.  And when you're telling a small-ish story as Looking is, this sort of nuance and attention to detail is crucial to making something memorable and resonant.

And Now for a Close-Up

Looking also excels at telling by showing in less grandiose ways.  In particular, the show understands how subtle movements of the camera tell a story.  The past decade has given us numerous shows in the same vein as Looking, but very few marry the movement of the camera to its actors' expressiveness as well as it does.  This level of craft allows the viewer to absorb the story more organically, much as one would observe non-verbal cues in their own interactions with others.

One of my favorite examples of this comes from "Looking for Truth," an episode in the middle of the second season.  In it, Patrick reconnects with his ex Richie (they broke up at the end of season one) when he helps him pick up an ice cream truck Richie bought.  Over the course of the episode, we spend time with the places and people of Richie's past, which helps shine a light on perhaps the most enigmatic character in Looking.  The most revealing moment comes in his cousin Ceci's body shop where she reveals something that highlights how head-over-heels the otherwise reserved Richie was for Patrick when they were dating.  In that sequence the camera pans from (1) the reveal to (2) Patrick contemplating what that info means to him, and then to (3) Richie revving the engine in (what we rarely see from him) unabashed joy.

This sleight of hand works in a number of ways.  First, it gives us a little exposition in a relatively painless way - an underrated strength of the show in general.  It also puts us is Patrick's mind for a second and helps us to process this information as he is doing the same.  And it also reminds us (in more ways than one) that underneath his stoic exterior, Richie is a great guy who just wants to be happy and love someone.  None of this sounds revolutionary in and of itself (and to be clear it isn't), but there aren't many shows that accomplish so much and advance the story this effortlessly.

Showing and Telling

We've established that Looking uses the camera to maximal effect, but I have yet to talk about the meat and potatoes of storytelling.  The most obvious aspect of this is the basic mechanics of plotting, but just as important is the choices that are made in revealing information about what we haven't seen.  We're only spending a matter of hours with any given TV character, so they're all inherently ciphers.  What brings them to life and truly tells a story about them is filling in the specifics of what informs them and motivates their actions, even if we haven't directly experienced it as they have.  Doing this in a way that is evocative while avoiding cliche is perhaps the most artful aspect of the televisual medium.

As you might guess, Looking excels at this, too.  While the show drops in on the main characters behaving and acting as you might expect based on a simplistic understanding of their traits, it does a lot of work after that to make them three-dimensional and real.  Nowhere is this more apparent than in Patrick's series-long journey from a shy/reluctant relationship novice to a self-assured and confident adult.  This transition is compelling enough in and of itself, but what makes it great is how it's told as a balance between the push of external forces and his own introspection and agency.

This dichotomy is a constant thematic presence in the show.  I am tempted to dig into the most noteworthy example of this - Patrick's fight with Kevin at the end of the second season.  But my personal favorite bit of storytelling on this front comes from a seemingly insignificant scene from the penultimate episode of season one, "Looking for a Plus-One."  The episode is centered around Patrick's sister's wedding and his failed attempt to introduce Richie to his family (Richie bailed after a fight started by Patrick's insecurity).  The key moment comes during the reception, when Patrick is chatting with his mother (played wonderfully by Julia Duffy of Newhart fame).  He blames her for Richie's absence, and while it becomes clear that she's not blameless or perfectly supportive, she makes it known that ultimately, Patrick is doing this to himself: 

“Patrick, I know I don’t say everything you’d like me to say all the time, and I know I had problems when you first told us. But I’ve come a long way. We can’t help wanting what’s best for you. And I don’t think you can blame me for Richie. If he’s not here, that’s on you, sweetie.”

In that moment we learn so much: what Patrick's relationship with his mother is like, how he's internalized her criticisms (both real and imagined), and what he needs to do to grow as a person.  It's a wonderful bit of storytelling that's par for the course for Looking.

Ultimately, this is what Looking is.  It doesn't have a labyrinthine plot, it doesn't do anything particularly novel, and it never tries to be a complete chronicling of what it is to be gay in America.  It's just a straightforward tale that masters almost every aspect of its craft to tell the story it wants to, where the big moments feel small and the small moments are everything.  And that makes it one of my favorite things of the decade.

Best TV of the Decade: #13 - Treme

#13 - Treme

Aired 2010 to 2013 (4 seasons) on HBO
Created by David Simon and Eric Overmyer
Currently streaming on HBO

For a brief introduction to this countdown, click here.

Treme is a moving story about a sprawling cast of New Orleans residents trying to rebuild their lives in the wake of Katrina.  It is an essential statement on both the promise and failures of America and it earns that praise on its own merit.  That said, Treme never received the same level of attention or presumption of greatness showered upon David Simon's other work.  It's only logical then, if also a bit ironic, that the best way for me to praise Treme is to highlight its similarity (and sometimes, superiority) to these other series.

It's All in The Game

Let's start in the obvious place: Simon's magnum opus The Wire.  Its portrayal of systemic dysfunction and its effect on humanity encompassing every level of a semi-fictional Baltimore was underappreciated in its time, but has come to be known as one of the pillars of the "Golden Age of TV."  There's a lot of reasons for this, the most critical of which is the way it gradually looped in every bit of civic life into its narrative.  The Wire is great in part because it leaves no stone unturned in depicting the decay at the heart of our communities (to quote the great Lester Freamon, "all the pieces matter").

With Treme, Simon and crew seem to realize that they can't (and shouldn't) try to replicate this exact formula.  The Wire drops us into a relatively "normal" urban situation and uses that to tell more generalized stories about society, whereas Treme is the story of a very specific place and time.  Treme does cover some of the same matters when relevant (police corruption, bloodthirsty developers, etc.) but grounds itself first and foremost in the personal desires and conflicts of its characters.  This style of storytelling allows the show to cover more ground without getting bogged down in too many details.  For example, we don't really get a full look into the deterioration of New Orleans' schools, but Antoine's stint as a music teacher gives us enough to get the gist.  As Treme is a show that successfully balances between big and small storytelling, this sort of approach is crucial to its success.

The most illuminating contrast between the two series, however, is the subtle differences in the way the shows use violence as a thematic element.  To be clear, neither show is violent in the way we typically think of American entertainment - there are few if any gratuitous depictions of death or other violent crime.  But whereas violence is an ever-present threat in The Wire (even though it flips the cliche on its side, it is fundamentally a cops-and-robbers show), the majority of violence in Treme simmers just beneath the surface, waiting to lash out in the rare but impactful moments.  Moreover, Treme makes it a point to ruminate on the more subtle and systemic forms of violence that are often unremarked upon.  Big Chief suffers from COPD and cancer, likely as a result of poor working conditions, both pre- and post-Katrina.  The NOPD works to close ranks and threaten Toni and Terry as they work to uncover evidence of horrible abuses of power following the storm.  And the larger collapse of civic life leads to skyrocketing violent crime rates, which claim multiple victims from the show's cast of characters.  This all serves to underline a central tenet of Simon's work - when the institutions we depend on fail, it affects us all in ways far more profound than we often perceive.

TV is Supposed to Be Enjoyable

The simplest case for Treme's greatness is its superiority to the currently-running series, The Deuce.  That show focuses on the changing world of sex work and other late-night industries in 1970s New York.  The Deuce invokes a natural comparison as the two seasons that have aired are the most structurally similar to Treme of anything within the Simon oeuvre.  Both series feature season-long story arcs (of course), although none are as all-encompassing and self-contained like the investigations of The Wire.  Certain plots do resolve within a single season, but the majority of stories are effectively series-long journeys.  In Treme, virtually every character has a primary focus that permeates every season, such as Davis' musical exploits, Toni's investigations, and Janette's culinary career.  And with The Deuce we focus on Candy's dream of becoming a director and Vince's futile attempts to carve out a straightforward and non-corrupt life.  The upshot of this slice-of-life storytelling style is that it leaves room to spend time with the characters actually enjoying themselves and living their lives.  This in turn creates a sense of place and specificity that's hard to accomplish otherwise.

So what's the key difference between the two?  In a word, density.  Treme has roughly a dozen main characters and many of their storylines overlap, which leaves plenty of time for the lengthy musical numbers and other such diversions.  These interludes allow for the narrative to breathe and help the viewer take in the culture and people that make this barely-fictionalized version of New Orleans a city worth saving.  The Deuce takes this basic formula, but essentially replaces the music with extra plot lines and characters.  This leads to an unwieldy amount of story that, at least in the more transitory episodes, feels more like homework than entertainment.  This doesn't mean The Deuce is a bad show.  Instead, its failures illustrate just how hard it is to make this storytelling dynamic work to achieve a greater purpose.

What Treme Misses (And Why That's Probably Fine)

The previous comparisons are all good and valid, but I've saved the best and most revealing for last.  Treme is set in the aftermath of a specific historical event, so it only makes sense that the most meaningful parallel would do the same.  In this case I'm talking about Show Me a Hero, the 2015 miniseries about federally-mandated housing integration in late-80s Yonkers, New York.  Like Treme, the series features a larger struggle for justice amidst a climate of both passive indifference and outright malice.   And the two series feature characters with strikingly similar purposes:  Toni's advocacy for victim's of police violence in Treme is not dissimilar from Mayor Wasickso's (played by Oscar Isaac, btw) effort to build public housing.

But there's a crucial difference.  Show Me a Hero builds to its climax by spending some of its time with characters living in poverty who end up as participants in the housing lottery in the series' final hour.  This serves to not only put a human face on the still-existing problem of housing scarcity, but also underline the inadequacy of these half-measures when some of the characters don't hear their number called.  Treme...does not do this.  We get occasional glimpses into the lives of the poor, but all the main characters are comfortable enough.  Many are well-to-do or building successful careers while others are at least supported by rich family members.  The only semi-poor character is Sonny, and he is 1) is a while male, and 2) at least for the first season or two, an asshole.  And even he finds his way towards stability and prosperity relatively quickly!

Ultimately I don't think this is a flaw.  And upon reflecting on why exactly the show wouldn't need to feature an in-depth examination of extreme poverty, I actually think it's illuminating in ways both intended and unintended.  The most obvious point is that for all its clout, HBO is still a boutique network largely aimed at bourgeois liberals.  Even though this implicit bias isn't generally a feature of Simon's work, he's not above occasionally succumbing to it.  Another thing to remember is that the show is not as singularly focused on systemic failure as Simon's other works.  The creative process and its relationship to local culture is just as much a primary theme of the show, and it would be nearly impossible to construct this dual narrative if the characters were always struggling to get by.

All that said, the most critical implication of the minimization of poverty in Treme is shockingly simple - the city-wide calamity of Katrina led to a disproportionately high rate of displacement for poor residents.  From a working paper on the matter:

"Although we would expect poorer New Orleanians to have stayed closer to the city to minimize travel costs and because they lacked cars, limited evidence suggests that many may instead have been forced to move further away from the city.  Poor families may also have faced challenges in reestablishing connections with displaced friends and neighbors because they could not afford the cost of traveling back to the city regularly or at all.  Another issue is that concentrated poverty neighborhoods in New Orleans are unattractive places to which to return, particularly for many poor people who experienced better neighborhood environments, job opportunities, schools, and amenities in their new locations.  A final issue is that low rates of homeownership place a significant barrier for residents to return to the city because of the difficulty of finding rental housing in New Orleans."

Simply put, those living in poverty were largely relegated elsewhere after the storm.  While we do see evidence of this in Treme, it's mostly relegated to the margins.  Indeed, much of the plotting that touches on this involves the absent poor (ie. Nelson's group buying up vacant homes), which tells the story of modern New Orleans as well as anything else.

This isn't to say you should automatically give the show credit for something it actively didn't do.  But when you consider the entirety of the effect of Katrina and the insufficient response from the government, it's hard not to feel that Treme did a superlative job of conveying it as well as one can through art.  Watch the show, read this post-Katrina research, and try to tell me that the show didn't capture a shockingly high percentage of everything to do with that era of New Orleans in at least some small way.  And because of the way it was told, it's clearly more entertaining and engaging than simply reading survey results.  Some critical aspects of the tragedy were made explicit and others less so, but it's clear that Simon and crew can be trusted to lend a human touch to a story of the very limitations of humanity.  And in that regards, Treme is one of his teams' finest works.

Best TV of the Decade: #14 - Parks and Recreation

#14 - Parks and Recreation

Aired 2009 to 2015 (7 seasons) on NBC
Created by Greg Daniels and Michael Schur
Currently streaming on Netflix

For a brief introduction to this countdown, click here.

Parks and Recreation is the only show in my countdown that strives to be a traditional sitcom.  As such, I think of it is as the best example of the form there is.  It succeeds at this not just because of sheer hilarity, but also because of how well it uses different forms of humor, and how it tweaks the mockumentary format to lay the perfect groundwork for its laughs.  It creates a memorable set of characters whose comic exaggerations work largely because they reflect the personalities of the people playing them.  Its well-conceived multi-episode story lines help the show (mostly) avoid the narrative traps that befall all other long running series.  The extended universe of the show transforms the setting of Pawnee, Indiana into one that is equal parts identifiable and surreal.  And most impressively, Parks' fundamental warmth and its focus on the primacy of interpersonal relationships gives us a more meaningful treatise on "what we owe to each other" than Schur's subsequent direct examination of the matter.

The one caveat to all this praise is that Parks is a show about politics and the government, and can't be properly evaluated without a thorough and honest examination of the message it relays about those institutions.  Parks ran concurrently with a political era where we were definitively disabused of all notions that vague allusions to hope and change were enough to transform our world into something better.  And the series ended just months before the subsequent era descended a golden escalator.  It doesn't take an advanced degree in political science to conclude that the naivety of the former laid some groundwork for the latter.  And it doesn't take a cynical mind to conclude that anything unapologetically espousing the former's worldview has little to say about the way forward.  So it would be pretty easy to just show you the following picture and dismiss Parks and Recreation out of hand.

The problem with this is that such a dismissal is just as simplistic of a statement as saying "I like the show because the bacon man is funny."  I'll admit up front that there are aspects of the show's politics that are undercooked and problematic, but a simple declarative appraisal of the show's worth is insufficient.  This isn't the same as The West Wing, where an otherwise solid drama is clearly undermined by its devotion to a cynical and toxic political mindset.  And while critiques of the characters' archetypal flaws are valid, that Ron Swanson has (inaccurately) become a poster child for libertarian weirdos does not mean that he (and the others) are devoid of nuance and worth.  After all, there exist people who unironically admire obvious condemnations of toxic masculinity like Walter White and Tyler Durden, but few would dispel their artistic merit as a result.  Ultimately, if you are going to engage with Parks and Recreation and its relation to our political moment, you'll need to wrestle with competing thoughts and accept that the show is more than just one thing.

The Show Has Its Cake

I hinted at this in the introduction, but it's worth stating explicitly: Any analysis of Parks and Recreation's political themes must begin with an acknowledgment that the show often behaves like a satire.  Virtually every tangential character is a comical exaggeration of some aspect of American society, and even the main cast displays farcical tendencies in most political subplots.  While it's clear that this treatment is intended to some degree, it's mostly the organic result of a comedy show focused on people who work in the government.  If you're not going to poke fun at an easy target, what are we even doing here?

To Parks' credit, there aren't many areas of modern American governance that go unremarked upon.  The unfortunate primacy of boorish corporations in our daily lives is a favorite target of the show.  The Sweetums empire* rears its head multiple times, most notably when it tries to get the family failson elected to the city council.  Dennis Feinstein's cologne company serves little purpose other than to serve its owner's desire for power and wealth.  And the introduction of Gryzzl in the final season is a succinct commentary on how powerful tech companies will hide behind banal rhetoric while doing whatever they want.  Furthermore, the characters' interactions with the media holds up a mirror to how modern iterations of TV news tend towards the sensational rather than the informative.

*Leslie in earnest after Sweetums wins the vote to take over the parks' snack bars: "You know what?  We did our job.  We informed the public.  That's all we can do."  Whatever you want to say about the show's political leanings, it's not authoritarian in the slightest.

There's plenty of other mockery as well.  The elected offices of Pawnee are filled with charlatans (Dexhart), out-of-touch old-timers (Milton), and power-tripping assholes (Jamm).  The series is often critical of normal bureaucracy as well - in "Summer Catalog" we see how all past directors of the parks department are cynical careerists, the library and parks departments hate each for no real reason, and meddling from higher-ups often leads to work slowdowns.  And the lampooning of Ron's libertarianism is the show's sharpest knife, as it's strongly implied that he is just a man of means who wants to be left alone and has grown his simplistic views of the world out of that basic desire.

All of this serves to build a comprehensive satirical worldview, but the obvious critique is that the vast majority of this commentary is high-school debate level pablum.  Virtually every one of the satirical concepts I've mentioned is expressed in a set of supporting characters that are one-dimensional beings created seemingly only to prove a point.  While this approach allows the show to make simplistic condemnations of specific behavior, it doesn't really lend itself to anything beyond surface-level readings.  Companies left to their own devices will use whatever power they have to enrich themselves, television news will chase the lowest common denominator, bureaucracy serves to drain the life out of government work - these may all be correct observations, but that's mostly where the show's insight ends.  And lest one argue that it's asking a lot of a network sitcom to cut deeper, don't forget that the medium has a pretty rich history of doing just that.  Parks' commentary may be factually sound, but it fails to incisively speak truth to power.

...But Tries to Eat It, Too

More to the point, all this critique of the show's satirical bent is rendered irrelevant when you contrast that aspect of the show with how it treats Leslie Knope as a paragon of political virtue (if you don't believe it does this, watch her final speech in "The Debate").  This isn't to say that Leslie is ever portrayed as perfect or that the show doesn't make some jokes at her expense.  But none of these mild critiques of her go-getting style ever actually chip away at her relentless facade of positivity or stop her from accomplishing more and more.  That might make the show sound a bit insufferable (and maybe it is!), but I would argue that this apparent veneration of Leslie Knope actually works as a compelling thematic force.  The reason for this is simple - the positive effect she has on the world is grounded in a set of principles that are consistent, well-formed, and relevant to today's world.

The most notable of these themes is also the most obvious: public servants should, uh...serve the public.  Whatever Leslie's faults, the show makes it clear that her undying goal is to devote herself to making her fellow citizen's lives better.  As a parks department employee, Leslie spends her time on projects large (replacing the pit with a park, the Harvest Festival) and small (picking up trash, building a ballpark).  In her brief stint as a councilwoman, she uses her marginal increase in power to focus on the same type of things (ie. lengthening pool hours).  As part of the National Park Service, her work with Gryzzl simultaneously creates a national park (with former Sweetums land, no less) and revitalizes a downtrodden part of Pawnee.  And the show ties a bow on this in the finale, when Leslie and crew work with the drunk from the pilot to repair a swing.  This commitment to portraying Leslie as unabashedly committed to her duties is a refreshing reminder of what the everyday goals of government can and should be.

There's a second aspect of Leslie's behavior that is highly relevant to our post-Gamergate world: Her refusal to give in to bad-faith actors or apologize for following her convictions.  This key tenet stands in direct contrast to how most people in power today respond to malevolent forces.  As I re-watched portions of the show I was shocked at how consistently this was portrayed as one of Leslie's primary virtues:

• In "Pawnee Zoo," Leslie refuses to resign when religious groups condemn her for marrying two male penguins.
• In "Christmas Scandal," Leslie calls Councilman Dexhart's bluff when he claims they've been having an affair.
• During her campaign, Leslie refuses to fire Ben as her campaign manager when he punches a boorish man at one of her campaign events ("Bowling for Votes").
• And in the show's clearest display of its ethos, Leslie ends "Pie-Mary" with a rant against every gender-related issue she's encountered during Ben's campaign.

To be fair, such a streak of unapologetic behavior could be taken as a negative or self-righteousness in a different context, but it's clear that Leslie is correct in all these situations (here's where the show's simplicity is a good thing).  Furthermore, when she does legitimately screw up ("The Trial of Leslie Knope"), she's willing to own up to it.  Leslie Knope's determination to live her morality is an earnest beacon of hope amidst TV's obsession with the anti-hero, and it's one of Parks' biggest strengths.

Making a Cake is Hard

So if Parks is less of a satire and more of a story of the triumph of one woman against all odds, why does that description still ring a bit hollow?  The easiest answer to this question comes from the show's predecessor, The Office.  As great as that show was, it suffered a bit from the lack of clarity around what exactly its version of Michael Scott was supposed to be.  While Parks was more consistent in its characterizations, there's still enough inconsistency to poke holes in any sweeping assertion about what Leslie Knope is and what she represents.

The most obvious example of this is how the show re-invented itself in between its first two seasons.  The Leslie of season one was not endearing, only semi-competent, and lacked a coherent vision of governance.  And even as the show improved into its second season, it took some time for her to become Leslie f'in Knope (if you watch "Pawnee Zoo" again, you'll see how she was pretty reluctant to take up the mantle of gay rights, even though she was clearly supportive).  Some of this development can be construed as the character of Leslie growing over time, but it's mostly that the creative team self-admittedly took a while to figure out what worked best about the show.

What's a little more worrisome is some of the unevenness in Leslie's character once she begins running for city council in season four.  Her basis for seeking office is consistent with her primary ethos of helping people.  When Bobby Newport asks why she's running, she replies "I want to improve the lives of the people I love in the greatest city in the world."  This sentiment would remain her primary message for the rest of the campaign.  While there is nothing inherently inconsistent about this stance, it's a pretty vague platitude for a woman who regularly creates entire binders full of project plans about much smaller matters in the parks department.  Furthermore, what policy objectives we do see are often unclear and contradictory.  When we see a young Leslie in her home videos from "Campaign Ad," she mentions policy specifics such as "a progressive tax on residential properties."  But then one of her very first initiatives as a member of the council is to push for an extremely regressive soda tax.

To be fair, there's a couple rebuttals to this.  The first is that any show that runs for seven seasons is going to inherently have inconsistencies.  Time passes, the creative team adds and subtracts people, and the world itself changes.  And even if none of that was true, perfect continuity should not be the most important goal of any show, especially a sitcom.  This doesn't mean that over-reliance on retcons is a good thing, but they're an acceptable imperfection if the end result is that the story benefits more than it is harmed.  In the case of Leslie Knope's story arc, the only significant casualty of these missteps is a little less thematic clarity, which is far from a fatal flaw.

The second rebuttal is that Parks is a show where a definitive understanding of the characters is not something it seeks to achieve, and thus should not be held to that standard.  While we have a good idea of who Leslie Knope is and what she stands for, there's rarely a moment in the show where we get inside her head.  We also rarely see her in a reflective state where she's not reacting to those around her.  Part of this is because of how the show uses its flavor of mockumentary - rather than use the style as a confessional device for its characters (a la The Office), it's mostly a visual method to deploy its goofy sense of humor.  But the main reason for this is that once again, this is not what the show is or what it wants to be.  Episodes are rarely centered on personal growth and development, instead focusing on the interpersonal dynamics of its relationships and/or farcical parables about working in city government.  Parks may have laid the groundwork to develop a rich set of characters, but it rarely uses that to do straightforward character study.

In Conclusion, Baked Goods are a Land of Contrasts

Thus far I've concluded that Parks is a satire but a weak one, puts Leslie on a pedestal but not really, and isn't really designed to be a incisive examination of its characters.  But if I'm calling it one of the finest programs of the decade, it must be something beyond just incredibly enjoyable.  So what is it?  The most instructive answer to this comes from one of the series' high points, "Leslie and Ron," where the titular characters are forced to overcome a dispute of unknown origins.  Over the course of the episode, we learn that Ron's anger stems from a time Leslie blew him off for lunch because she had to travel for her job.  Leslie realizes she had been a bad friend and feels as ashamed as we've ever seen her.  If this were merely a one-off oversight where an otherwise perfect Leslie Knope had slipped up, it would be a nice dramatic touch in a mostly comedic series.  But a closer inspection of the series as a whole reveals this to be a culmination of its primary ethos - that friendship and caring for others is the most important trait of humanity, and the ultimate cause of success in our lives.

Once you start watching the show with this in mind, it's obvious that this is the unifying theme.  Much like in "Leslie and Ron," the behavior that Leslie later regrets is rarely related to her work and instead almost always concerns her actions towards her friends.  Whether it's when Ron usurps her for "woman of the year," the brief period where she tries to stop April and Andy's shotgun wedding, or after she forgets Jerry's birthday, it's clear that the only thing she will apologize for is when she isn't the kind of friend that she strongly expects herself to be.  This is never underlined more clearly than after her fight with Ann (in the appropriately named "The Fight") when she sums up the lesson at the end: "We need to remember what's important in life: Friends, waffles, and work (...) and work is third."  Leslie clearly views her vocation as an opportunity for good, but does her best not to let that overshadow her true priorities.

This brings us back to the city council campaign.  When viewed through this prism, it becomes a much more simple and coherent political statement than anything previously proposed.  Her friends joining her campaign simply because of what she's done for them isn't pie-in-the-sky optimism; it's just payback for what she's done for them.  Her seemingly vague campaign platitudes about caring about the people of Pawnee aren't really vague at all.  She's walked the walk by literally making caring about people her job, and considers elected office the next step of that journey.  Caring about others isn't just important to Leslie - it's her main philosophy and guides everything she does.

So if Parks really is just a goofball show about being a good friend after all, does it still hold up as something worthy of adulation?  I would answer with a resounding yes.  The story of Leslie Knope offers a compelling narrative of her fundamental ideology, which is an aspect of political thought that is largely ignored by pundits.  Failing to center Leslie's appeal around her policy or likability is not only not a weakness, but an affirmation that the best public servant is one that strives constantly towards their ideals.  Parks is not a perfect political treatise, but it succeeds at making a case for an optimistic view of the world, and that's a good thing.

The Decade of TV

The term "Peak TV" is a hokey cliché at this point, but behind the artifice lies a kernel of truth.  Prior to 2010, television was a self-contained medium with a small number of outlets for artistic output.  In the decade since, everything has changed.  The number of scripted series more than doubled.  Entirely new streaming platforms appeared out of thin air and quickly matured.  The very definition of what is TV began to come into question.  And a character created for TV became president.  Past decades gave us some all-time great shows and the future will give us...something.  But the way TV as a whole reflected the ongoing change in our society is something will likely never be replicated.

Part of this change is that television is something entirely different than what it was ten years ago.  The era of The Wire and The Sopranos led to an expansion in both the depth and breadth of television.  But for all the variety on the air today, nearly all of it lives in the shadows of those past greats.  This leads to our present situation where there are more good and worthwhile series than one can possibly watch, and yet very few great or essential ones.  As part of this realization, I resolved to watch less and stop doing my typical year-end countdown.  But I still have a lot of thoughts about what I do watch and want to write about that.  This means that I have spent 2019 counting down my favorite shows of the past ten years*.  There are 14 shows that made the cut, and they are a representative collection of every strength the televisual form has to offer.  I do not make any assertion that this is some sort of definitive list of what must be watched or what is "best" whatever that means - it's simply a collection of what I consider to be the most intriguing, thought-provoking, and enjoyable things that aired in the past decade.

*Many series spanned the past two decades.  Rather than maintain a firm cut-off at 2010, I am simply giving more weight to shows by the decade they ended.  As a result, there's only one show on my list that hasn't concluded as of 2019.

Before starting the list in earnest, here's a few notes on the shows I considered for the list that ultimately didn't make the cut:

The Perils of Autobiography

At the time it aired I very much enjoyed Louie, the vehicle for disgraced comedian Louis CK.  Yet, it probably wasn't good enough to make the list on its own merits, and when you consider that a lot of his work seems to serve as apologia for his bad actions, everything is poisoned and can't be seriously considered as something worth anyone's time.  In a similar vein, Transparent was both a masterclass in efficient storytelling and an unflinching portrait of the LGBTQ world that is undone by its fundamental flaws (ie. casting cis actor Jeffrey Tambor as Maura) that seem to be the direct result of its creators' cluelessness.  If you're looking for a semi-autobiographical half hour that is both good and non-problematic, stick with One Mississippi.

It's Satire!

The long-term narrative goals of television don't always mesh with the no-holds-barred nature of satire (which is often best deployed in more ephemeral mediums).  So while Veep, Silicon Valley, and Catastrophe have to wage that internal conflict constantly, they all do a great job sending up our most sacred institutions of politics, capitalism, and family, respectively.  Black Mirror benefits from its anthology format, as the best episodes ("White Bear," "Hang the DJ," and "The National Anthem") are able to transcend the surface-level interpretation to incisively critique more universal aspects of our society.  One of the best satires though was the most specific: American Vandal used our recent fascination with true crime to both shine the light on why this obsession is less than healthy and tell a lot of really good dick jokes.

"Reality" TV

Much like those true crime narratives, I've never been much of a fan of reality/competition TV.  But one show straddled the uncanny valley perfectly and that show was Work of Art: The Next Great Artist.  No show laid out the inherent conflicts (reality vs television, competition vs individualism, art vs commerce) as well as it did.  And it didn't hurt that Bravo managed to find a cast full of delightful weirdos that were game to play along.

Flawed but Great

Orphan Black's near-perfect first season was a distillation of everything great about sci-fi; nevermind the bloated mess that came after.  The Girlfriend Experience had one amazing season and one awful season.  The Knick might be the best use of visual storytelling in the history of the medium, but did so in service of a story that mostly lacked originality or intrigue.  Hannibal was the most disgustingly audacious and beautiful thing to air on network TV.  Mad Men is a great rumination on the successes and failures of the American ethos that disappeared up its own behind a little too often.  The Americans always left me a little cold, but stuck to its guns and managed to tell one of the most complete, human stories about the Cold War.

The Most Difficult Omissions

These shows should probably have made the list, but I had to cut it somewhere.  Fleabag weaved a very peculiar and specific story, pulled the same "trick" twice, and ended on its own terms.  Every series should be so lucky.  BoJack Horseman is both funny and profound, but where it really shines is in how it executes its "gimmicky" episodes better and to greater effect than any other show.  When the show bears its heart on its sleeve in "normal" episodes, it can feel slightly clinical and less than artful.  When it filters its message through parables (ie. BoJack chasing the lost seahorse in "Fish Out of Water"), it becomes one of the best artistic statements on depression and finding one's place in the world.  Atlanta tells the story of black America in a way as captivating and revealing as possible.  I am probably slighting it because it's only had two seasons thus far - blame our stupid base-ten counting system.  And finally, Justified pays the ultimate respect to Elmore Leonard by following all-time great character Raylan Givens as he battles his past by going up against every possible iteration of small-town crook.

THE LIST:

#14 - Parks and Recreation

#13 - Treme

#12 - Looking

#11 - Nathan For You

#10 - Better Call Saul

#9 - Community

#8 - Enlightened

#7 - Twin Peaks: The Return

#6 - Review

#5 - Eastbound & Down

#4 - Party Down

#3 - Breaking Bad

#2 - Rectify

#1 - The Leftovers (essay coming...sometime)

Top TV of 2018

This is somehow the sixth year I have done a top-25 countdown for television.  It is also the last.  Fear not, as I still like television and will keep writing about it.  That said, I find that the concept of an authoritative take on the entirety of TV is not as worthwhile as it once was.  As we enter the Gilded Age of TV and beyond, there is simply too much content designed for an increasingly diverse set of viewers for an eternally busy man to cover semi-comprehensively in his spare time.  The fun byproduct of this is that this list is probably the goofiest one yet.  Since I can't possibly watch every potentially deserving series, I've focused more on things that tickle my specific nerves.

Any show not listed below falls into one of three categories: I watched it and thought it was fine/bad, I never considered watching it, or I didn't get around to it.  If you care enough to ask about a show that's not in here, I will tell you which category it was in.  And now for a few shows I did watch that just missed the list:  Comedy Central continued to crank out some worthy comedies with Corporate and Detroiters (RIP).  Netflix did so too, with GLOW and The End of the F***ing World.  Some legacy comedies like It's Always Sunny and Bob's Burgers still hold up.  Killing Eve found a worthy spin on a lot of the typical globe-trotting assassin tropes.  And the second installment of German spycraft Deutschland 86 was a treat.

#25 - Homecoming (Amazon)

Let's start the countdown with a show that is a perfect illustration of both the pros and cons of modern TV.  On one hand, the show is beautiful to look at, features great acting, and is slyly suspenseful at times.  On the other hand, it basically jams two hours of story into five hours.  I suspect that the problem of bloat will be reduced as streaming services mature, but for now we'll continue to get a lot of perfectly good shows like this one.  There are worse fates.

#24 - Nannette (Netflix)

Nannette is a fascinating hour of comedy if only for the amount of conversation and criticism that it inspired.  And while I find a lot of the criticism to be worthwhile, I feel that it often misses the point.  Yes, Nannette is rightfully read as a condemnation of the patriarchal comedy industry, but it is first and foremost a personal story about Hannah Gadsby's lived experience.  Her act of "quitting comedy" is not explicitly a call for all to do so, but rather a diagnosis of how her profession re-inflicts the damages of past trauma.  That isn't to say that her story can't serve as a jumping off point for discussing larger issues.  Just don't make the mistake of over-generalizing one person's extremely unique and precise story.

#23 - The Good Place (NBC)

My reluctance to rank The Good Place in previous years stemmed entirely from problems with the text of the show.  Namely, it often spelled out a moral/ethical quandary and then attempted to resolve it the span of one sitcom episode.  While I appreciate a show willing to explicitly deal with matters of philosophy, this was at times a rather unartful way of doing so.  This complaint of mine remains, but three seasons in the show has covered so much ground and reinvented itself so many times that there is now a rich subtext to explore.  It also doesn't hurt that the third season (mild spoiler) returned its subjects to Earth, which added a modicum of emotional resonance to their moral journies.  There's a lot more to say both good and bad about The Good Place, but at this point it's clear that it belongs in a list of TV's best shows.

#22 - Dear White People (Netflix)

The second season of Justin Simien's playful but incisive look at modern racism wasn't as fresh as the first - It didn't help that the added mystery angle wasn't particularly compelling.  But Dear White People has built a cast of characters and an atmosphere that is nonetheless worth your time.  And one of the best episodes of the year is a welcome addition to the pantheon of great interpersonal arguments.

#21 - Baskets (FX)

When we last saw the Baskets clan (at the end of a fantastic second season), they were sharing a rare moment of clarity by coming together to take over the local rodeo.  It turns out that this level of relative stability led to a bit of staleness, both for the characters and for the story itself.  But even a slightly disappointing season of Baskets has enough clowns, California vistas, opera mishaps, and Arby's employees to make it worthwhile.

#20 - Love (Netflix)

My personal interaction with each season of Judd Apatow's Love followed the same pattern: Wait a while to finally start watching and then binge it and then feel stupid for waiting because it's awesome.  The third and final season took that to the extreme as I waited several months and ended up liking it the best of all.  Every storyline reached a satisfying conclusion, with the best part coming in the penultimate "Anniversary Party," where Gus shares the realization that his more subtle neuroses are just as damaging to their relationship as Mickey's obvious problems.  This was the rare time where highlighting the theme of a show worked, because 1) it counteracted the "women be crazy" subtext the show sometimes peddled in, and 2) it was actually the logical conclusion of everything that came before it.  In the end, Love was a true Apatow production in that it was a big shaggy (and slightly problematic) dog that ended up being warm enough to draw you in.

#19 - Bosch (Amazon)

When you hear the wailing saxophone theme from BOSCH bumping out of the television speakers in the other room. pic.twitter.com/D3VCWHPL55

— David Roth (@david_j_roth) September 12, 2017

You're damn right I'm ranking Bosch.  I formerly liked the show as both a mindless companion to late-night baby feedings and an ironically fun throwback, but now I unapologetically and earnestly love it.  And while there's still a good deal of campiness to the proceedings, well, Brian Grubb already said it best:

"Bosch is a great lazy weekend show. It’s not overly heavy, it’s not meant to make you question the meaning of life, and you don’t need to visit multiple message boards to figure out what happened. It’s a good show about a detective who catches bad guys and sometimes drinks scotch at night while listening to jazz and staring out at Los Angeles from his multimillion-dollar glass-walled home. That’s what Bosch is about. And it is better than you probably think it is."

#18 - Big Mouth (Netflix)

The first season of Big Mouth was both hilarious and a surprisingly poignant tale about the pitfalls of adolescence.  This year's follow-up season was....mostly the same.  But when your laugh per minute ratio remains ridiculously high, and you add a few interesting wrinkles (David Thewlis' Shame Monster and the Planned Parenthood episode) that's more than enough to make the list.

#17 - The Deuce (HBO)

The second season of David Simon's latest slice of Americana has a lot of the lived-in qualities and the broad spectrum of characters that adorned his last great series (Treme). Still, The Deuce falls a little short of that level of greatness.  The difference is that where Treme featured lengthy musical numbers that served to both enrich the atmosphere and take the edge off of the more dramatic storylines, The Deuce just adds more and more story simply for the sake of completeness.  In spite of that, the whole comes together well enough, and the thrill of witnessing the process of Candy's film going from a good idea to a major success is one of the most viscerally exciting things from the year in television.

#16 - One Day at a Time (Netflix)

Normally, saying that the second season of a show was as good as its first would be damning with faint praise, but Norman Lear's throwback sitcom remains such a minor miracle that it feels like the best compliment I can give.  The seemingly innocuous multi-cam format lets the viewer's guard down enough to deliver a knockout blow of emotion, time and again.  And this isn't without a greater purpose: the cumulative effect of these stories culminated in one of the year's best episodes "Not Yet," which is as touching of a tribute to the power of family as I've seen.

#15 - The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu)

I would normally expect to trust any show debuted at #3 on my list, but I had some worries about how The Handmaid's Tale would live up to that lofty ranking.  The first season took us through the entirety of the source material, so the show would now fully stand on its own, and would have to do so with an increased length of 13 episodes.  Furthermore, critics seemed to sour on the show as it went on (I watched after the season finished), and were even fully quitting the show because of plot holes.  So I was pleasantly surprised when the show exceeded my (admittedly lower) expectations.  The middle of the season suffered from bloat, largely because the flashbacks (which are critical to the whole structure and thematic resonance of the show) briefly disappeared, giving us extra time to wallow in the misery of Gilead.  But when the show was able to match the level of gripping drama and absurdly good acting from the first season, it was (almost) as good as ever.

#14 - Barry (HBO)

Barry is somehow both another hitman show and another show about trying to make it in showbiz.  And sort of a cop show with a little bit of a love story thrown in.  And it's funny.  The ingredients suggest that Barry can't possibly have anything original or coherent to say, but then it proceeds to do so by telling its own version of a very small and darkly comedic story.  And underlying all that is a morality play that hits home precisely because of its simplicity and subtlety.  Bill Hader's titular character isn't a "bad guy" but he is a bad guy who can't stop doing bad things for reasons entirely within his own volition.  This focus makes Barry one of the best studies on the nature of evil since Hannibal.

#13 - High Maintenance (HBO)

Where other shows suffer from adding length to their seasons, High Maintenance shined.  The web-series turned TV series added a little more heft to the storyline of its main character (the unnamed drug-dealer, known only as "guy"), but didn't let that crowd out the stories of his far-flung clientele that give the show its richness.  The first episode "Globo" is a series highlight, as a wide swath of New Yorkers react to an unnamed piece of recent bad news (but you know what it is).

#12 - BoJack Horseman (Netflix)

Five seasons in, BoJack remains ridiculously good at its high-concept episodes.  Whereas most shows struggle to integrate the gimmicky nature of such installments with the larger themes of the show, BoJack does so with aplomb (it helps that the show itself is kinda gimmicky).  The monologue of "Free Churro" highlighted how BoJack's relationship with his mother shaped his life (and showed how Will Arnett's voicework nails the quieter moments, too) while "The Showstopper" used its storytelling device to bring the seasonal arc to a head.  There isn't an all-timer like season 2's "Escape From LA" in this batch of episodes, but that's an absurd standard that only highlights how great the whole show is.

#11 - Lodge 49 (AMC)

Two parts Northern Exposure and one part Twin Peaks, Lodge 49 is a throwback to the shaggy dog style of drama that's been underused in the so-called "Golden Age of TV."  The format fits its peculiar set of characters well, but works even better in service of the shows overarching message of how late capitalism works to strangle people's desire to meaningfully connect with others.  A more buttoned-up drama might have bungled it by underlining this theme too heavily, but in the half-supernatural world of Lodge 49 the malevolent forces in our society are just one of many external forces working against our protagonists.  The finale did a great job of closing off some storylines while also opening others, so I'm excited to see where it goes from here.

#10 - The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (FX)

The most enigmatic and ambitious series of the year is also the most easily misunderstood.  Those expecting the titular event to be the climax will be surprised when it happens almost immediately.  And we end up spending too much time with the assassin (Andrew Cunanan, played beautifully by Darren Criss), who is little more than a cipher that serves the story best when he's allowed to exist in service of the other characters.  But peel back the misdirection and the minor narrative missteps, and you're left with an authoritative parable of how the AIDS crisis impacted gay men's very way of life.  In this way, each of the dead is less a victim of Cunanan and more a victim of our society's violent repression of homosexuality.  In an era where the architects of this pain are lauded, it's as vital of story as can be told.

#9 - Brockmire (IFC)

The first season of Brockmire was an incredibly goofy, slightly aimless, and ultimately disposable look at a comedic exaggeration of a baseball lifer/substance abuser, played with the perfect amount of half-winking seriousness by Hank Azaria.  This year it morphed into something almost completely different as Brockmire's earnest road to recovery became the center of the show.  With this change came more of a focus on the interpersonal dynamics involved in such a journey, as entire episodes tended to narrow the focus to Brockmire's efforts to repair individual relationships (Becky Ann Baker's turn as his sister is probably the best guest spot of the year).  It's hard to believe that a throwaway comedy turned into one of the most moving stories on TV, but that's 2018 for you.

#8 - The Tale (HBO)

Like almost all social movements, #metoo has inspired and will inspire meaningful art.  What writer-director Jennifer Fox's depiction of her own story of abuse shows us is that the most impactful of that art will come from a place of lived experience.  It's not difficult to objectively understand how our faulty memories and our tendency to romanticize the past obscure the trauma that others place upon us.  But what makes a film like The Tale necessary to a deeper, more human understanding of the problem is to put us face to face with that cursed process, with personal details both familiar and heartbreaking.

#7 - Counterpart (Starz)

Note: This ranking/capsule only concerns the first season that began in December of 2017 and ended this year.  Blame Starz and its weird scheduling.

Earlier this decade, Orphan Black laid down a template of how sci-fi can use the concept of cloning as both a wry commentary on societal issues and a basis for a particularly exciting brand of thriller.  The debut season of Counterpart wasn't quite as thrilling or taut as Orphan Black's near-perfect beginning, but its added elements of dystopia and spycraft may serve to make for a more sustainable series over the long term.  Furthermore, JK Simmons' subtly detailed performance as the two Howards (as well as the other characters' "counterparts" in the shows' parallel worlds) served to highlight a different thematic note.  Instead of commenting more generally on how both nature and nurture combine to shape women's lives, Counterpart highlights how different responses to singular events can lead to radically divergent paths in life.  No show was better at purposeful world and character-building in 2018.

#6 - Better Call Saul (AMC)

Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould's Breaking Bad prequel is two shows in one by design.  Because Jimmy and Mike take very different paths to becoming the characters we know, separate narratives are all but required.  This worked fine until this year, when Mike's story began to lag behind in both momentum and thematic importance (Jonathan Banks is still great, though).  Regardless, the story of Jimmy's slow descent into becoming Saul is still worth the price of admission.  The attention paid to every detail of Jimmy's suspension and the toll it takes on Kim reinforces how the precision of storytelling in the ABQ universe is second-to-none.

#5 - American Vandal (Netflix)

The second season of faux-documentary American Vandal covers a lot of the same satirical ground as the first, but adds more than enough wrinkles to stay relevant.  Instead of working to exonerate a single character (season one's Dylan Maxwell), the show weaves its way through a much more complex situation (rest assured that it remains very funny...they are chasing someone called "The Turd Burgler" after all).  None of the new suspects match the story of Dylan in terms of pure tragicomic heft, but the added diversity serves to create a more complete tableau of American youth.  And the way the season ends with a (mild spoiler) cheesy lesson about the alienation of modern society is a wonderful sendup of basically every self-serious true crime documentary in existence.

#4 - The Americans (FX)

The final chapter of The Americans fell just short of being my favorite series finale of all time*.  That said, I don't think an ending has ever clarified precisely what its show was about as completely as "START."  The Americans was many things through the years - a spy thriller, a story about the ebbs and flows of a marriage, and a spry commentary on the socio-political climate of America in the Eighties.  But above all, the slow dissolution of the Jennings clan was a tale of how slavish devotion to a cause inevitably leads to alienation.  And The Americans pulled no punches delivering this message, as virtually every character "good" or "bad" ended the series in a place far from where they envisioned (sometimes literally).  In the end, the real Cold War was the friends we lost along the way.

*It's looking more and more likely that nothing will ever surpass the end of The Shield

#3 - Sorry For Your Loss (Facebook)

It's only appropriate that the website that makes everyone unhappy would bring us one of the best shows about grief.  Sorry For Your Loss follows a young widow (the terrific Elizabeth Olsen) and her family and friends in the aftermath of her husband's death.  This may sound like an extremely dour setup for a series, but it manages to both master and transcend its subject matter in many ways.  It does this in part by steering into the sad moments - instead of the neat and tidy anguish that peppers lesser tearjerkers, Sorry For Your Loss mimics real life and allows it characters to be nakedly, non-judgmentally barely rational in their moments of despair.  It also mixes in moments of joy and laughter during both times of progress and backsliding, showing how the march towards recovery is almost never linear in nature.  And most importantly, the show functions as a empathetic character study with no better example of this than the best half-hour of the year "17 Unheard Messages," the devastating examination of Matt's last days.

#2 - My Brilliant Friend (HBO)

Saverio Constanzo's adaptation of the first of Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan Novels is a number of things, all of them great.  On its surface, it's a straightforward yet intimate story of how two girls navigate the perils of their isolated working class neighborhood.  Going one layer deeper, it's a thoughtful rumination on the forces, both communal and individual, that subjugate women.  And from the perspective of the televisual craft, it's a masterclass in how top-notch direction and acting serve to create truly memorable characters.  But what sets My Brilliant Friend apart from the pack is its depiction of the unique friendship of Lenu and Lila.  Both girls use their superior intellect to belittle, push, and support each other, but what ultimately keeps them together through the years is how their special bond means that each of them is the only one that truly understands the other.  This not only gives the show its heart, but also leads to a "twist" in the finale so subtle and sweet that I feel dirty even calling it a twist.

#1 - Atlanta (FX)

True art in the televisual form necessitates and interplay between thematic purpose and an engaging story.  Almost nothing is simultaneously great at both.  Donald Glover's Atlanta is the exception.  The show's second season remained engrossing and fun, whether it was following along with the burgeoning start rapper Alfred during the longest haircut in television history or sidekick Darius navigating the house of Teddy Perkins (a Michael Jackson stand-in) to get a free piano.  All the while, the "Robbin' Season" motif served as a season-long allegory of how American society robs its black citizenry of their agency, dignity, and life.  The best compliment I can pay is that I briefly considered making something else #1, and then realized I would feel stupid, so I didn't.  Atlanta is the best.

Weekly Playoff Probabilities - FINAL

As always, explanation here, ranking below, thoughts after.

Rank	Team	POFF Prob	Change
1	Clemson	100.0%	0.9%
2	Alabama	100.0%	10.8%
3	Notre Dame	100.0%	0.0%
4	Oklahoma	45.5%	9.7%
5	Ohio State	24.9%	3.8%
6	Georgia	18.2%	-26.0%
7	Michigan	7.9%	0.3%
8	Central Florida	1.9%	0.4%
9	Washington State	1.7%	0.1%

Five years into the Playoff era, and my simple little model appears likely to have correctly "predicted" 19 of the 20 playoff participants (oops).  I would pat myself on the back, but most of the selections were so obvious that I could make an even simpler model that would perform pretty much just as well.

The weird-at-the-bottom, boring-at-the-top 2018 season held to form, as the four teams likely to make the Playoff started the season 1st (Clemson), 2nd (Bama), 4th (Oklahoma), and 7th (ND) in my Playoff odds.  We were essentially one weird night game at Purdue away from complete chalk, and thankfully my alma mater turned out to be the beneficiary.

As for where I'm at headed into year 6, I feel pretty good.  The one thing that bugs me is that the Michigan-UCF-Wazzu triumvirate at the bottom should probably have smaller odds, especially because it's way less likely that a 2-loss team sneaks in with all of the undefeated teams in place.  I have an idea that might mitigate this problem (basically adding in a chalkiness factor as another variable to my logit), but I'll have to play around with it in the offseason to see if it actually works.