THE GREGARIOUS MISANTHROPE'S TOP TEN TV SHOWS OF 2014
Everyone's posting their Top Ten of 2014 lists, so here's my Top 10 TV Shows of 2014. Note that only one of these shows is on network television, a bona fide sign that nearly everything worth watching is behind some kind of pay wall. What that means for the future of TV I can only guess.
1. True Detective (HBO): Haven't been so captivated by a show since Deadwood. Even the slightly flubbed ending couldn't ruin it for me. I fell in love with the atheist anti-natalist ramblings of Rust Cohle: Matthew McConaughey deserved the Emmy for his mesmerizing performance (sorry/not sorry, Bryan Cranston). Woody Harrelson provided a perfect counterpoint as Marty Hart, the bluff family man whose heart was just as full of darkness as his partner's. Despite some flubs in the finale, I have to pay True Detective my highest compliment: I envy those who have never seen it because they can watch it for the first time. It was that good.
SIDEBAR: Based on all the Yellow King/Robert Chambers/Thomas Ligotti/HP Lovecraft fanwanking around True Detective, TV is ripe for a real show about the Cthulhu mythos, though. Networks take note.
2. Orange is the New Black (Netflix): There is no better ensemble cast on TV right now. Dare you to watch this and think that women in prison are so different from you and those you care about. I love the supporting characters more than the ostensible protagonist, and this season rightly focused more on them rather than Piper. This season followed a satisfying arc, though I hope Jenji Kohan accepts viewer feedback and stops spending valuable air time on Larry and Polly, who everyone despises.
Despite their myriad offenses, you will love all these characters. Well, maybe not Vee...
3. Louie (FX): The most intense, blackest comedy on TV right now. Louis CK bravely broke from traditional comedy formatting with several mini-movies, one of which was entirely flashbacks. This show is the pinnacle of cringecore TV, depicting the loserish heart of a middle aged man with unflinching honesty and intensity. I have nothing but admiration for his work this season.
Witness this Fantastic rant by Sarah Baker in the episode "So Did the Fat Lady." This is representative of the incisively painful comedy Louis CK delivered this season.
4. Hannibal (NBC): This show transcends the crappy movies with Anthony Hopkins. Mads Mikkelsen is a bespoke, precise, magnetic Hannibal Lecter who will scare the living daylights out of you. You will not see anything more daring, graphic, or visually lush anywhere on TV, either now or in years past. The sick chemistry between Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy, who plays Will Graham, is better than most romances gracing the screen. The most disturbing and horrifying shit is on display here, and it's NETWORK TV.
Oh yes, this is Hannibal Lecter cooking a dude's leg and eating it, and looking sharp while doing it.
5. Rectify (Sundance): Slow, soulful show about Daniel Holden, a man wrongfully convicted of rape and murder who is exonerated by DNA evidence. But to his hometown, and some of his family, he is still guilty. Season Two picks up after Daniel is violently assaulted by the murder victim's brother, and depicts his continued persecution and the heartache of his family. This show requires patience and careful viewing. The acting is full of nuance and the story is heartbreaking and beautifully told. You owe it to yourself to watch this.
From the first episode of Season 2, a conversation between Daniel Holden and his former cellmate, who is now dead. This gives you an idea of Daniel's personality and the quality of the acting. Start with Season 1 though, if you're not currently a fan.
6. Fargo (FX): An absorbing story that pays homage to the original while telling its own baroque tale of crime and punishment in the great white north. Martin Freeman plays schlubby Lester Nygaard, who gets in touch with his inner psychopath with the help of Lorne Malvo (Thornton gives us an ice cold psycho with a twisted sense of humor). But my favorite character on the show is the dogged Molly Solverson (Allison Tolman). She is, as Lester Freamon from The Wire would say, natural police.
The first seven minutes of Fargo. It's a wild ride from here.
7. Penny Dreadful (Showtime): Yes, this show has vampires, Frankenstein's monster, a werewolf, a medium, and Oscar Wilde's Dorian Gray. My expectations were low, but the show won me over. The luminous Eva Green was born to play Vanessa Ives, a tortured Gothic anti-heroine who channels monsters and demons from both within and without. There hasn't been a more epic depiction of possession since Linda Blair, so she better get an Emmy nomination. Artful and at times terrifying-- I expected this show to be a derivative joke, but I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. Nice comeback for Josh Harnett.
My review of Penny Dreadful in Broad Street Review.
Here's the official trailer. Eva Green's performance is what puts this show over the top.
8. Vikings (History Channel): My uncritical fun favorite--not even a guilty pleasure because I feel no guilt. Ragnar Lothbrok (played by former underwear model Travis Fimmel) is a bad ass Viking reaver, but so is his ex-wife, Lagertha, now an earl in her own right. It could have fallen victim to soap operatic love triangle nonsense, but instead of that, it shows a respectful relationship between Ragnar's first and second wives. This isn't serious TV, though it's a lot better than I expected. Came for the hot guys with swords, stayed for the kick ass women and rollicking violence. What's not to love?
Shirtless hot Vikings fighting in water. What more can a girl ask for?
9. The Missing (STARZ): This grim, wrenching tale of a father's odyssey to find out the truth about his lost son is the stuff of nightmares. But it's so well done that I am white knuckling it to the conclusion. The Missing flashes from 2006, when five year old Oliver Hughes is abducted, to 2014, when his father Tony finally makes some breakthroughs on the cold case. James Nesbitt's depiction Tony's often unhinged fury has the ring of truth for me. If my kid went missing, that crazy person would be me, with similar disastrous results. The ending hurt my soul: you've been warned.
James Nesbitt's eyebrows should have their own Emmy category.
10. Transparent (Amazon Prime): Jeffrey Tambor is excellent as trans woman Maura Pfefferman who has to come out to her self-absorbed, dysfunctional kids. There is no canonization of anyone here, not even Maura, who is by turns wise and selfish in her journey to finding herself. But all of the Pfeffermans are flailing about, trying to figure out who they are, and their narcissism isn't helping. This is another show that makes me cringe as I watch the characters treat themselves and each other badly. Maybe I like cringing... this list certainly makes it seem so.
Mort Pfferman finally has a name for his real identity: Maura, given to him by Bradley Whitford in drag.
HONORABLE MENTION: Orphan Black (Syfy): Season Two fell of a bit from the quality of Season 1, but the fact that this show did not crack my Top 10 tells you how much great TV was on offer this year. Tatiana Maslany plays Sarah Manning and her many clones. Her acting alone elevates this show from sci-fi camp into the realm of serious TV, though at times the plot twists were silly. Worth watching if you like tough, clever female anti-heroes and can suspend some disbelief for the sake of an overly complex but often absorbing plot.
Tatiana Maslany has been sadly unrecognized by the Emmys, which only seems to give awards to people who've already gotten them. It's a shame, because she's giving one of the best performances on TV.
Best Standalone Miniseries: Olive Kitteridge (HBO). I suppose True Detective and Fargo are technically miniseries, but they're actually chapters in an anthology, while this is an extended movie.
Enough hair splitting. In any case, Olive Kitteridge was my favorite TV miniseries of the year. My love for Frances McDormand goes way back, and she knocks it out of the park with her portrayal of the title character. Olive might have been just a foul-tempered shrew, but McDormand humanizes her. I can almost imagine myself turning out like Olive: a bitter old teacher with a heart of tarnished gold, whose pathological bluntness alienates everyone.
Notably not on this list: The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and Breaking Bad. Because I'm tired of shows that unreflectively depict violence and sexism, and which showcase fan service over the truth of the characters.
Yes, Breaking Bad was a great show, but I hated the final episode so much that I can't put it on my list. I'm probably being unfair about that, considering how great "Ozymandias" was. I wish "Granite State," with some modifications, had been the final episode, but the writers lacked the courage to have Walter White meet the a fate as grim as the rest of the show. I wanted him to go out in ignominy, but instead he got a glorious death. You don't have to agree with me (no one does, it seems) but hey. It's my list.
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