VAGUE SPACE

2012-2013 Season in Review Awards

Best Comedy

Modern Family (ABC)
Nurse Jackie (Showtime)
The Office (NBC)
Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Veep (HBO)

The final season of The Office did something pretty wonderful.  It made me start to watch again a show that I had long since stopped caring about and made me actually care about the characters again.  This was a year in which some long-running series I used to love, or at least like, ended (30 Rock, Weeds, iCarly) and others that I used to watch regularly I no longer had time on my schedule for (South Park, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory).  But the one least likely to matter did, when The Office made the surprising but brilliant choice to "break the fourth wall" of their faux documentary and make that the focus of the second half of the season (honestly the only half I actually watched).  That was good enough to finish in the top 5 comedies of the year, edging out the disturbing but often riveting Girls.  The other four shows include three nominees who have been in the Top 5 for years, including the last 3 winners in both this category and overall (Nurse Jackie in 2010, Parks & Recreation in 2011, and Nurse Jackie in 2012).  The new show is Veep, which has been pretty wonderful in its second season, displacing a show that was a fixture for so long but may be finally getting long in the tooth (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia).  And oh yes, I did finally watch the last two episodes of former staple Weeds some 9 months after they aired and they were really quite good.  Oh well.  Hopefully next year has some new blood.  Slim pickings left in the comedy world now.  Oh wait, Arrested Development is premiering on Sunday.  Yeah, I think we already know next year's winner.

TV Madness Round 3 - The Active Shows

1 - Curb Your Enthusiasm vs. 9 - Modern Family
4 - Parks and Recreation vs. 5 - Nurse Jackie

Curb has a 6-4 lead over current favorite Modern Family in the voting, while Parks & Rec is dominating against Nurse Jackie, 9-0.  That matchup is a little surprising, although despite the fact that Parks & Rec barely gets ratings on NBC for unknown reasons (too funny?  Americans are busy watching the horribly unfunny "Two Broke Girls"?), it still dwarfs the ratings for a show on Showtime, even an award-winning and popular one like Nurse Jackie.  I do love Nurse Jackie, and it was the Vague Space show of the year of 2010, but I also love Parks & Rec, which was show of the year in 2011.  Honestly I could go either way but I'll give the win to what the crowd is supporting, a show that is just non-stop hilarity from start to finish for the 4 year length of the show, Parks & Recreation.  In the other matchup, we have Curb, which has been around since 2000 or so on HBO, and Modern Family, only in its third season.  They have been 3 brilliant seasons (although not quite as good as the first three seasons of Parks & Rec or Nurse Jackie, in my opinion), but it's not going to beat Curb.  Pretty much every season of Larry David's show has featured bunches of episodes that were instant classics, particularly in the first 4 or 5 seasons.  But even in later years, including this past Season 8 that was rather weak by comparison, the show still has moments of absolute brilliance that no other show on the air today can match (ie. Bill Buckner at the shiva).

Winners:  1 - Curb Your Enthusiasm vs. 4 - Parks and Recreation (vote below)

2010-11 TV Season in Review Nominees

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.

2009-10 TV Season in Review

I have to say that despite my lack of time this year to watch a whole lot of television -- or perhaps because I didn't have time to waste it on guilty pleasures that have populated my lists in years past (The Real World/ Road Rules Challenges, The Hills), this has been one of my favorite television seasons in recent memory.  I'm pleased with every single one of the shows in my top 10 and would recommend them to anyone, even as the season winds up in the coming weeks.  I had a hard time even keeping my list to a recommended 10 as there were a couple shows that had solid seasons (The Office, The Big Bang Theory, South Park, 30 Rock) that didn't quite make the list.  In fact, I also excluded HBO's The Pacific, a great 10-part miniseries on World War II, mostly because I've only made it through 3 or 4 episodes so far, but also because I didn't want to bump any of the following shows from the list.  The top 10 has comedies, dramas, reality shows, and several shows that seem an oddly wonderful combination of the three.  There are network shows, cable shows, and pay cable shows.  But mostly, it was just a great season for television.  Maybe it's good that I couldn't watch more of it.

Summer TV Reviews

As we begin to embark upon the  fall television season, which has me excited for tonight's premiere of the 5th year of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, I wanted to write a quick review of what was easily the best summer season of television series in a long time, maybe ever.  There were a half dozen or so shows that I made appointment viewing in the past couple months, and with True Blood's wacky and somewhat disappointing finale Sunday, only Entourage remains as a summer series that is continuing into fall.  But Ari and the gang are nearly over, so without further ado, here are my rankings of the top series in the summer of 2009 (that I watched).

1. Nurse Jackie (Showtime)  This new show that followed Weeds on Monday nights seemed a little shaky to me at first, but I was paying $10 a month just to watch Weeds so I stayed with it, and I couldn't be happier.  Edie Falco of Sopranos fame plays the eponymous star of the show, a night nurse at a New York City hospital who (1) has a massive prescription drug habit, (2) is cheating on her husband with someone from the hospital, (3) has two young children, the oldest of which has anxiety issues similar to her own, and (4) constantly bends the hospital rules to preserve all her secrets and to provide better nursing for her patients.  So yeah, she's really fucked up.  Like really, really.  But as played by Falco -- who is absolutely brilliant in the role -- she's also incredibly likable and vulnerable and even sometimes hard to watch as she digs herself further into self-made traumas that only dramatic actions can get her out of.  When she can't get her wedding ring off in an episode late in the season (no one but her closest friend at the hospital, a hilarious but also well-rounded doctor character played by British actress Eve Best, is aware that she's married, including her lover), she has her doctor friend cut it off and then, in a painful scene to watch, ends up smashing her finger in the bathroom with a hammer for an excuse for her husband about what happened to the ring.  The show is a half-hour long, but in the mode of Weeds, it's not a comedy, nor is it a drama -- it's certainly far from melodramatic -- but there are funny parts, some outright hilarious; there are serious parts; there are amazing parts; and mostly, it's just about these flawed people living their flawed lives, and failing, but holding my interest in a way that no new show has captured my interest since, well, True Blood last September.  By the end of the season, I would watch the taped episode of Nurse Jackie before the taped episode of Weeds.  Which makes it #1 in my book.

Su-Su-Sucio

Weeds brought some of the funny back in last week's episode, as Nancy could only play Esteban's dutiful slave for so long and had her fun when the hard-nosed Cesar gives up on babysitting and lets the more easily swayed (and less English-speaking) Sucio deal with Nancy's daily grind.  Nancy eventually realizes that she can twist Sucio into making her life a little easier, although he does have a nasty habit of pulling a gun on each of her family members as they return home from various places, back to Nancy's flock.  But by the end, Nancy has Sucio so under her thumb (as she eventually does with all men) that she convinces him to shower -- finally -- which does not end well for Sucio. 

Jennifer Jason Leigh is back this week as Nancy's estranged sister Jill and in between her renewal of sack time with brother-in-law Andy, we get some interesting insight into the man-controlling ways of Nancy, which began at least way back in her youth, when she used a teacher's crush to get good grades before the lovelorn professor got shipped off for lusting over a 14-year-old student.  We also learn that Nancy was always criminally self-centered and selfish, as she fled town in the midst of their parents' divorce and left Jill to deal with not one, but two lengthy death watches for their mother and father.  Jill was the responsible sister who handled all the funeral arrangements, while Nancy was out being Nancy, or at least a younger, less drug dealery, version.  But Nancy has no time for Jill's pity party (or for her relationship with Andy), especially after Sucio's mid-shower mishap left blood on the patio and a Mexican henchman missing and Nancy, Andy, Shane, and Jill on the run -- again -- from whoever wanted her (or at least Sucio) dead.

Weeds Season 5

Oh Nancy.  Let's see -- in season 1, she was selling pot to her neighbors in rich, suburban Agrestic, California, relieving their stress for living within their "little boxes" while making enough cash to keep her family in suburban "bliss" after the untimely death of her husband.  In season 2, she started growing her own (pot), but ran into all kinds of problems with her business, forcing her to hire security -- a Mexican gang selling other drugs.  She also had a fling with a DEA agent, while fucking her partner Conrad, and using her feminine whiles to get out of all kinds of increasing troubles that somehow didn't scare her away from her chosen "career".  By season 3, she was knee deep into new issues with a black gang run by U-Turn, who basically enslaved Nancy until he was shot dead by Conrad, a few months after the Mexicans (I think?) put the hit on her DEA agent boyfriend.  The DEA captain was onto her, though, and she ended up burning down her entire neighborhood (or at least the Mexicans did) and fled to the southern border to -- well, continue to spiral down into a drug-infested hell.  And she dragged her two teenage sons and brother-in-law with her (and Kevin Nealon's Doug, just because he's funny) to try to start a new life working at a maternity store front for a tunnel that brought in drugs, weapons, and other assorted things between Mexico and America.  Finally, after 4 seasons of complete and utter loss of sanity and morality and plain-old common sense -- all in the pursuit of -- something? (wealth, not really; power, maybe; a thrill, definitely), Nancy finally came to her senses at the close of last season when she realized the "other assorted things" coming from Mexico were kidnap victims from Russia being sold to Americans.  But when she told the DEA captain about the tunnel, she didn't reveal the mastermind behind the plot, who happened to be her boyfriend, Esteban, the mayor of Tijuana.  Unfortunately, that withheld information was not going to save her when Esteban's henchmen snapped a picture of her and the DEA captain together, and we closed last season with Nancy driving to Mexico with the thought that her luck had finally run out.  We also witnessed a heart-wrenching phone call to a cookie delivery company when Nancy was trying to buy a gift for her eldest son's 18th birthday but realizes how horribly badly she's failed her family after her husband's death and comes to the understanding that perhaps they will be better off with her dead.  But she did have one last ace up her sleeve -- Esteban's baby was in her womb, and she hoped he would spare her life because of that.

2007-08 Season in Review

An abbreviated disaster of a television season is receiving an abbreviated disaster of a blog post from me, due mostly to the fact that there was basically one good prime time show on television and a bunch of massive disappointments.  The writer's strike was obviously a factor and most of the returning shows -- really, all except one -- did not return to anything close to their previous heights.  The Office was probably the biggest disappointment for me.  After shooting from nowhere to my #1 favorite series in last year's season review, the show seemed to be decidedly less funny, with decidedly less memorable lines than last year.  It was still my #2 favorite show of the year, which kind of gives you an idea of how disappointing the season was overall.  But I guess it is what it is.  Read on to see the full list.  And believe me, a top 10 was a difficult number to reach.  Even with a 50" plasma screen television.

Weeds Party

Well I was finally able to watch the second season premiere of Weeds, thanks to MSN.com's video section (and a tip from LegFuLenny).  The episode still hasn't appeared on iTunes and I still haven't shelled out for a month's worth of Showtime, so this might be the last episode recap for a while, assuming that the producers aren't going to give away every broadcast free on MSN.  But for what it's worth, it was a solid debut to the second season, not quite living up to the tremendous heights often set during its debut season, but good enough for some strong summer entertainment.  And more than a few laughs.

• Nancy: "Was she on drugs?"
• Conrad: "My mom never did a drug a day in her life.  She was a drunk."

• Download Band of Horses - "Weed Party".mp3
• Download Elvis Costello - "Little Boxes".mp3
  
  • The love it-or-hate it opening song "Little Boxes" is getting covered by a different artist in every episode this season, starting with this version by Elvis Costello.

Weeds Season Finale

You will have no contact with her, whatsoever.  I mean, if you see a white girl on television, you change the channel.

Heylia's admonition to Conrad after she discovers he beat up the security guard who stole from Nancy on last week's show leads to a major overhaul in Nancy's budding pot business (no pun intended) in the season finale of one of the funniest, freshest, and most interesting shows to arrive on television in a long time.  It truly has been a great series, and my only wish is that it had been on HBO, instead of a network that doesn't even own the rights to Showtime.com.  That way people might actually know what I'm talking about.