I'm calling half-hour shows comedies and hour-longs dramas even though a show like Nurse Jackie is usually more drama than comedy (although not as much this year). But here are the nominations for 2011-12 TV Season in Review.
With all due respect to Girls and Veep, the new much-buzzed about HBO comedy block on Sunday nights following Game of Thrones, they are still too early in their careers (3 episodes in when I wrote this) to merit inclusion here but they are definitely starting out strong -- disjointed, too graphic (in the case of Girls), maybe a little too awkward (Veep) but both are very memorable and oftentimes awfully funny so I'm looking forward to what they will be doing in the coming weeks (and years... both have been granted 2nd seasons already). As for the actually nominated shows, I'll say some words here about the ones that aren't going to win -- Curb and Sunny are showing significant signs of age (Curb particularly) but can still put out quality episodes (the Pakistani chicken was this year). Life's Too Short was a frighteningly hilarious but short-lived BBC import (first season was only 7 episodes I believe, but it will be back for a second season) that featured some of the greatest laughs of any show this season -- Liam Neeson doing a comedy table read was frighteningly brilliant but also pretty much every perfectly embarrassing thing that Warwick Davis does was good. And of course I love everything Ricky Gervais does. Which leaves the battle for Best Comedy between 2011 Vague Space Show of the Year -- Parks and Recreation -- and 2010 Vague Space Show of the Year -- Nurse Jackie. Plus Modern Family and Louie. This battle will go down to the wire -- Parks and Louie are done with their seasons and Modern Family is about to be done but Nurse Jackie is only halfway through hers. We will find out the winner next week.
For this version of the annual Vague Space TV season review, I've decided to change the format a bit and make it similar to an Emmys or awards nominations process, with my panel of judges (the voices in my head) announcing the nominations first and the winners in a second post. Mostly, this is so that I can get two columns out of this one bit. But also because I found it really difficult to figure out which shows to include and which not to, particularly since many of my favorite programs appeared on the air last summer (True Blood, Weeds, Entourage) and haven't since. I can't even remember what happened on True Blood (something about werewolves?) so it's really tough to rank it among all the shows in my annual list, particularly against shows with new episodes airing right now. It's easier to just say True Blood is among the top 5 best dramas of the year and move on. Of course, this opened up another can of worms, particularly how to categorize the Showtime shows that will dominate these year-end awards -- Nurse Jackie and United States of Tara and Shameless, for instance. All are certainly more drama than comedy, but all are funny at times, and I know that Edie Falco won the Emmy for comedy actress last year so the Emmys consider it a comedy even if her character really doesn't do a whole lot that's remotely funny. But as a default, I'm calling half-hour shows comedies and hour-longs drama and moving on. It's not like anyone is still reading this introduction at this point anyway. Without further ado, click through for the nominations for the 2010-11 TV Season in Review.
What an amazing season this has been for HBO's True Blood. And this week's episode just blew me away -- Sookie showing off the superpowers she previewed for us at the end of last season in a final scene that had me shouting out loud and rooting for Sookie to take out the laughing menace that is the Vampire King of Mississippi. In the last couple episodes, we learned a lot about the history of the King's interactions with werewolves -- it goes back to viking times, where his werewolf minions (who don't have to be invited inside a house) killed Eric's parents, who were then the king and queen of "viking-land?" (Norway?) and extends through the Nazi era we saw a few weeks ago (Nazi werewolves!) up to today, where his gang of "evil" werewolves drink his blood to give them extra super-powers so they can brand and rape the dirtiest she-wolf they can rope into their clan with the promise of vampire blood. It all seems kind of sordid and low but also dangerous, dangerous enough that the leader of Sookie's new BFF Alcide's werewolf clan is scared shitless and just hoping to survive. So Sookie showing off her blinding light superpower to knock a werewolf back on his ass at the close of the last scene was pretty freaking awesome.
