Something Resembling an End-of-2009 List, Part 1: The TV List

Well, we're in the final week of 2009, and around this time, everyone and their mothers plunk out assorted 'best of' lists for the year. So, I'm going to succumb to the trend and talk about what 2009's brought us (and by us, I mean 'me') in terms of pop culture. To that extent, I plan on producing three such lists. What you're reading now will detail the very best in television for 2009. Sometime next week (or the week after), I plan on typing up a list of home video highlights for the year. And by mid-January, I should hopefully be able to provide a list of the best movies of '09. Why will this list take so long? Well, some awards-season movies don't make it to Sioux Falls until early-to-mid-January, so I have to wait in order to take everything in that would qualify for said list.


So, here are the ten best things that I saw on television this year. Here are the ground rules:
1) I'm not a big fan of ranking stuff, so the following items are presented IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER.
2) Before you ask... I have an HBO subscription only; no Showtime or Starz. That means I won't get around to watching Dexter vs. John Lithgow until the Season 4 Blu-ray comes out in August of 2010. Sorry in advance!

With those in mind, please enjoy, and let the complaining begin. :-)


Archer: The pilot

In September 2009, after the fifth-season premiere of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, FX provided an ultra-secret sneak peek at their upcoming animated comedy, Archer, about a 007-esque super-spy with serious mommy issues. In retrospect, I'm very disappointed in how FX handled this; had more people known that FX was going to air this, then I have no doubt in my mind that the buzz on Archer would have gone through the roof. With rapid-fire dialogue that was incessantly clever, a rather naughty sense of humor, and some inspired riffs on the life of the secret agent, Archer quickly ascended to my "Can't Wait" list. Plus, there's something about hearing H. Jon Benjamin's voice eminating from the body of a James Bond-like animated character. (No matter how many times I'll hear it, the Jenga line in the opening sequence slays me every single time.) The series premieres on January 14th; tune in and see exactly what I'm raving about. :-)

Breaking Bad: Season Two


As much as I enjoy Mad Men (and don't get me wrong, the last three episodes of Season 3 this year were explosive), I will argue to the death that AMC's real gem is Breaking Bad. The show's first season (slightly truncated by the writers' strike) was some great viewing, but this year is truly where the series kicked it up several notches. Now that The Shield is no longer with us, Breaking Bad has effortlessly replaced it in terms of white-knuckle intensity and moral quagmires. The show's freaky imagery, from the haunting recurring image of that pink teddy bear to seeing Danny 'Machete' Trejo's severed head on a tortoise, is bold. But more than anything else, Breaking Bad gives us TV's best acting performance, bar none, from Bryan Cranston. As his high-school chemistry teacher cements his reputation the meth kingpin of the Southwest, he ends up falling further into his own personall hell... and watching him get there is a sight to behold.


Dollhouse: Episode Six onward


When Joss Whedon's fourth TV series Dollhouse premiered on Fox on Valentine's Day weekend, it had to contend with numerous stories of production troubles, including massive behind-the-scenes tinkering on behalf of the network. But, once the Fox-friendly episodes were aired and out of the way, what we started to see was a rather inventive series that really started to make the most of its premise that humans could be programmed to be, well, anyone. A game cast of regulars (as well as guest appearances by Whedon alumni such as Alan Tudyk, Amy Acker and Summer Glau) have worked very hard to make the most of the show's concept, and the stories and twists have increasingly delved into the moral implications of tinkering with humanity. In particular, the six most recent episodes that were burned off this December were absolutely phenomenal, which makes me somewhat sad that there are only three episodes left, which will air in January. Heck, I've even got a Dollhouse poster hanging on my living room wall now... and probably now more than ever, I can defend its presence. :-) (Note: For Firefly fans who haven't tuned into Dollhouse, you really should. Although it's not as fun as Firefly, it's well worth the watch, especially if you enjoy seeing Firefly cast members - like the two I've mentioned above.)


Eastbound and Down: Season One

It's always a risk to center a TV series around a brutally unlikeable character. Sometimes, it reaps big success (obvious example: House). More often than not, however, TV audiences don't learn to appreciate these types of characters, which leads to a miserable failure of a run. Which brings us to Kenny F***ing Powers, a disgraced former baseball star who brashly clings onto his past fame, even as he takes a rather humiliating job as a middle school gym teacher. In the hands of star Danny McBride and creator Jody Hill, they make Kenny Powers an incredibly repugnant has-been... but that's also where the show generates much of its humor from. The entire season is a twisted riff on the road-to-redemption arc, which takes us to some horrifying places (for example, the batting showcase at Will Ferrell's auto dealership). Plus, the glimpses at Powers' past life (including the instant-classic excerpts from his audiobook You're F***ing Out, I'm F***ing In) are well-executed, too. I'm very curious where this show will go in its second and final season, due spring 2010. (Note: Shortly after season one finished airing, co-creator Jody Hill gave us the similarly-themed Observe and Report, which really crashed and burned at the box office because of its unrepentantly dark humor.)

Friday Night Lights: The 2009 episodes


I've grown to love Friday Night Lights because I think it comes closer to replicating the small-town experience better than any other series I've seen (or will ever see, for that matter). It's also a very grounded drama, and as a result, it hits some very high emotional peaks. The nine episodes that have aired this year exemplify this in spades. The first episode of 2009 was a bittersweet state championship episode; even though the episode was a bit more downbeat, the ending (Coach's pep talk, and Riggins' after-the-game moment on the playing field) was trememdous. The spring-centered second episode (the Season 3 finale) really displays the show's sense of community, and how the show delivers on so many levels without having to rely on football. This fall's Season 4 episodes have certainly relied on football to an extent, as Coach Taylor slowly works to raise up a football team from scratch; but, there's still lots of human drama, as displayed in the gutwrenching episode in which Matt Saracen tries to comprehend the death of his father. If you have DirecTV, it's well worth tuning in for the remainder of Season 4 in the weeks to come; otherwise, NBC will air Season 4 this summer.


Glee: The first 13 episodes

In making this list, I tried to think of the best new TV series of the fall. This season's new sci-fi entries (the V remake, Flashforward) have been quite poor, and of this season's comedies, I've found both Community and Modern Family enjoyable (although I easily think Community is the better of the two). But the first batch of episodes for Fox's musical-comedy-drama Glee have hit some astounding highs, so I'm giving it a spot on my list. Certainly, the idea of putting a musical on TV is very risky (anybody remember Hugh Jackman's Vegas-musical TV show Viva Laughlin?), and setting it in high school automatically invoked comparisons to Disney's High School Musical franchise. Fortunately, Glee is as far from High School Musical as you can get, thanks to the creative oversight of Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy. Nip/Tuck made it very evident that Murphy knows how to use music to maximum effect, and it shows in Glee's music sequences, which use astonishingly long camera takes (by television standards). With winning renditions of popular music (no original songs to be found here) and a wicked sense of humor (most of it courtesy of Jane Lynch's villianous cheerleading coach), Glee has set itself apart from the rest of this fall's new series. And sure, while I'm upset that I have to wait until April for the next batch of episodes, I have no doubt that I'll be entertained. (Plus, having Glee air after American Idol is a perfect scheduling fit.)

Lost: Fun with time travel

The penultimate season of Lost wasn't a complete success, in my opinion. Ultimately, I couldn't have cared less about the whole "We have to go back!" plot involving the Oceanic Six. Maybe under different circumstances, I would have liked it... but Season 5's on-the-island activities eclipsed it in such a way that it just paled. As Sawyer, Juliet, and the other Losties violently zipped back and forth in time, we learned much about the island's past... but when we finally landed in the 1970s, things really revved up. Our heroes did the unthinkable and joined the Dharma Initiative, and even though the show ascribed to a "whatever happened, happened" theory of time travel, there was always the slight possibility that they could potentially change history... and in the process, affect the entire series as we've known it. Given the season finale's explosive ending... well, there's still a chance that the final season of Lost may be markedly different from what we've been accustomed to... but alas, we won't know until February.


The Office: The Michael Scott Paper Company episodes


Sure, some people would rather rave about the hour-long Niagara Falls wedding episode from October... but these four episodes from April were amazing, especially considering the risks they took in shaking up the series as we've known it. The mere idea of having Michael Scott abandon Dunder-Mifflin to set up his own paper supply company could have been a jump-the-shark moment for the show... but instead, it became a very charming run of shows that saw several of our characters really work together as a team. It provided an easy way to work B.J. Novak back into the storyline (as he had spent the past several months filming Inglourious Basterds in Europe), and provided the perfect opportunity to see our beloved Pam Beesly advance her way up the corporate ladder. It all culminated in the epic negotiation episode (directed by Steve Carell), which provided an awesome and emotional payoff. Man, just writing about these episodes makes me want to get a plastic tub of cheeseballs right now.


True Blood: The Fellowship of the Sun

The second season of True Blood basically splits up into two parts. On one hand, we were forced to suffer through lengthy orgy sequences on a weekly basis, no thanks to local Maenad Maryann (Michelle Forbes). As one of the most inert and dull plotlines I've seen on a TV series this year, I was quite dismayed. However, the other half of the series - in which several of our heroes take on the anti-vampire Fellowship of the Sun church - was a shining example of True Blood's greatest strength: its engaging depiction of a world in which humans and vampires are forced to co-exist. These episodes gave us some of the show's most interesting characters, from conflicted preacher's wife Sarah Newlin to the mythical vampire Godric. The only problem with this plotline? It wrapped up in episode nine... which meant we had three more weeks of stupid orgies to sit through. Still, I'll take what I can get.

24: Day 7

When 24 premiered its long-delayed seventh season in January 2009, fans were well aware of the show's numerous struggles. For one, the writers toyed with (and scrapped) several ideas for the season's main plot, resulting in months of production delays. Then, Kiefer Sutherland was arrested for a DUI, which resulted in him having to serve a 48-day jail sentence. Finally, the writers' strike caused Fox to delay 24 for an entire year (allowing Kiefer to serve his jail time during the strike). Given all that, it's amazing that Day 7 of 24 turned out as seamless as it did... and it's downright miraculous how awesome the season as a whole played out. Part of the season's success can be credited to how the show played with its major tenets, specifically how the series' longtime love affair with torturing terrorists for information. Even areas which initially seemed ridiculous (like the resurrection of Tony Almeida, or the late-in-the-game appearance of Kim Bauer) were handled extremely well. It does set a very high level of expectations for the eighth-season premiere in January 2010... but I feel very confident that the show will turn out just fine.

Honorable Mentions: Saturday Night Live's hilarious non-sequitur "What Up With That?" sketches; Barney Stinson's video resume on How I Met Your Mother; the always-freaky cold openings on Fringe; "Bazinga!" and other assorted Sheldonisms on The Big Bang Theory.