HBO
A brief selection of quality TV shows that JUST missed being included in UPROXX top ten list for 2014: Louie, The Americans, Rectify, The Good Wife, Shameless, Veep, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Silicon Valley. Hell, that could be someone’s seven favorite shows and you’d think, “Good job, person with good taste.” Unfortunately, and with all due respect to Jeremy Renner holding a cat, they didn’t make it — these 10 did, based on a 1-10 voting scale, i.e. if True Detective was a writer’s #1, it got 10 points, etc. Got it?
Well, grab a Lone Star and let’s go (best episodes tomorrow).
10. Mad Men
AMC
In seven episodes representing the first half of Mad Men’s final season, Matthew Weiner continued to churn out the smartest, densest, most layered show on television, perfectly melding late ’60s politics and culture to some of the most complicated characters in any medium. Don Draper worked toward redemption, Peggy acknowledged her spiritual soul mate in Don, and Ginsberg? Well, Ginsberg lost a nipple in one of the most darkly comic episodes of 2014. In the end, everything came together with touching perfection: Don quietly ended his relationship with Megan; the year’s most compelling new villain, Lou Avery, got his comeuppance; Sterling Cooper merged with McCann Erickson; and Bert Cooper got to watch the moon landing before he passed away. “Bravo!” In this season of Mad Men Don “did the work,” and in doing so, he finally realized that it’s not about the money. As Bert sings in the final scene of the half-season: “The best things in life are free.” — Dustin Rowles
HBO
“So, John, this news show you’re making… it’s gonna be on every day, right? You know, to take advantage of the short news cycles these days?”
“Nope. Once a week.”
“Oh… but you’re gonna do lots of short flashy bits on sexy much-discussed news topics to take advantage of the 18-35 demo’s disappearing attention spans and love of micro news outlets like Twitter. That’s obvious.”
“Nope. I’m gonna do huge commercial-free deep dives into topics like payday loans and the Miss America pageant’s charitable giving flim flam, and they’re gonna take up half the show, and people are going to love them.”
“They are?”
“They are.”
“O… kay. So you’re gonna put little teasers of the big segments on YouTube to entice people to subscribe to HBO to see the unabridged version, yes?”
“Nope. Putting the whole segments online.”
“HBO Go?”
“YouTube.”
“Jesus Christ, John. You really think this is going to work?”
“Yup. Spectacularly.” — Danger Guerrero
8. Review
COMEDY CENTRAL
I could say a lot about Review, about how early-season standalone episodes evolved into a tragicomic arc abut a man’s descent into madness, or Andy Daly and Jessica St. Clair’s stellar performances as the endlessly positive Forrest MacNeil and sympathetic Suzanne MacNeil, or why I’m never going to look at a pancake the same way, or literally LOL’ing at what happens to Fred Willard in the space episode, or the ingenious framing device of using a show-within-a-show to capture Forrest’s life experiences, or the existential meaning behind “there all is aching.”
But instead, I’m going to let the GIF do the talking for me:
COMEDY CENTRAL
Review is the cocaine of shows. — Josh Kurp
FOX
There’s never been a bad episode of Bob’s Burgers. Think about that. That’s 73 episodes of excellence, with no signs of slowing down. Every time Linda sings, or Tina moans, or Bob talks to an intimate object, or Louise yells at Gene, it’s still funny. But what made season four and what’s making season five feel so fresh is the expansion of the show’s universe. The majority of the plots still take place in and around Ocean Avenue, but lately, there’s been more Teddy. Tammy, too. And Zeke. And Big Bob. And my personal favorite, Regular-Sized Rudy. It’s Springfield, minus a monorail but with a “wharf horse.” Bob’s Burgers now is the closest thing we have to The Simpsons then, and don’t you four cheddar ’bout it. — Josh Kurp
HBO
I can’t really say that season four of Game of Thrones was any better or worse than the three previous seasons, since all of the previous seasons story lines always just kind of just mush together for me — but I can definitely say that it continued to be be solid as ever. Highlights of season four included the greatly anticipated purple wedding and oh so satisfying death of Joffrey, who died with a bratty look of disbelief on his face, to the introduction of a new fan-favorite character who was soon killed off in the most horrifying and tragic way possible, to the final showdown between the Wildlings and Night’s Watch. Oh, and not to mention the other satisfying death of the evil Tywin finally meeting his demise on the toilet, at the hands of his perpetually abused son. Although it could have used more dragons (there will never be enough dragons), it was overall a hell of an entertaining season, that’s for damn sure. — Stacey Ritzen