Nick Bryan

tv review

Best Of 2015 – TOP TEN TV

by

Time for a blog post I look forward to writing every year – the Top Ten TV shows of 2015. This is the fourth time I’ve done this, so I decided to put the previous three years into a spreadsheet to see if I could spot any trends. Did I succeed? Stay tuned to find out. And if you want to read them yourself for trends, here is 2014 and this is 2013 and (over on The Digital Fix) lastly is 2012.

Caveats? Well, this is my opinion, based entirely on the effect a show had on me rather than any scale of objective critical quality, as shown in last year’s placement of True Detective. (Never even got round to watching season two.) And unlike my other recent top tens, this is going to be entirely shows that aired this year, since I watch enough TV to make that possible.

Lastly, this was fucking hard. Loads of great TV this year and a lot I thought was obvious top ten material ended up being edged out.

Right, let’s get on with it.

#10 – The Walking Dead

When putting together this list, I wondered how dominated by comic book adaptations it would end up, and we’re certainly starting off there – albeit a long-running horror show rather than superheroes. The Walking Dead’s quality has been up and down faster than the sad lives of its characters over the years, but since around season four, it seems to have found a level and stuck to it.

It’s not going any higher than this, as it still sometimes produces rambling episodes where characters talk in boring abstracts about the state of everything, but most of this year’s stuff has been good and exciting, some cool playing around with time and space in the start of season six, and I think it deserves the recognition. Well done, zombies.

Stats Corner: this is the first time The Walking Dead has appeared on this list since the first one in 2012 – took a while  to conclude the run of good stuff wasn’t a fluke. Did namecheck it in the honourable mentions last year though.

#9 – FlArrow (aka Flash & Arrow)

First (but not last) superhero show of the day! And there’s two of them – in order to reduce comics domination, I’m cheating by combining Flash and Arrow into one FlArrow entry. But I’ve always watched these shows in order as a single entity, and the increased cross-continuity between them lately as they set up their next spin off (Legends of Tomorrow, coming in January) only makes that leap easier.

This year saw some fun back-and-forth. Flash launched with a bright, endearing first season that made the concurrent Arrow storylines look a little stodgy, only for the balance to flip back in the latter half of the year. I think current Flash is having a difficult-second-album stumble, just as Arrow recaptures some form.

They’re not perfect, but might be the best effort yet to capture the mainstream superhero comics experience on television, complete with pointless crossovers and increasingly meaningless “death”. Interested to see where they go, hope the third show won’t prove to be one too many.

Stats Corner: again, only a quick honourable mention last time. First superhero show(s) ever to appear on these charts.

#8 – Game of Thrones

A drop for Game of Thrones after riding much higher in previous charts – what happened here? Honestly, I intended to put it somewhere in the top five, but other stuff kept getting ahead of it.

This particular year of Thrones included a lot of memorable storylines, as well as long-awaited hard advancement as Tyrion and Daenerys met up, Arya became proper scary, Cersei finally saw consequences to her actions and Sansa… well, Sansa just kept suffering, you can’t have everything. And Jaime and Bronn went on pointless holiday.

It was well-acted, steady drama, most scenes were watchable. With the notable exception of that lame Jaime/Bronn storyline, it was still among the better things on TV. It just no longer quite felt like one of the very best, to me.

Stats Corner: From #3 to #4 to #8. Sad times. Then again, it didn’t appear at all in 2012 for some reason, so it’s still up on that.

#7 – Daredevil

And back to the superheroes. Daredevil (or Marvel’s Daredevil if you’re #brand #conscious) is the first of Marvel and Netflix’s street-level superhero series, showing they can do something other than the broad Whedon-esque banter-action tone adopted for most of the movies and TV stuff beforehand.

For this first effort, it’s a fairly straight one-man gritty urban vigilante show, starring Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer with enhanced senses who fights crime by night. And has no superpowers to directly help him in fights, so he gets beaten up. A lot. Seriously, his superhero alias could  easiy be Bloody Pulp.

It’s straight-faced noir, a little slow-paced, sometimes gets lost in rambling subplots, arguably doesn’t fully kick off until the main baddie appears a few episodes in. But still, as someone who’s been reading mature-reader-superhero-comics for most of his adult life, Daredevil was hard to turn down. Great acting and atmosphere, good show, bravo, well done. Would have been higher on this list if it hadn’t been outshone by its follow-up series, which we’ll get to later.

Stats Corner: Not applicable, really. First ever Marvel show on these lists.

#6 – Orphan Black

You may be pleased to hear we’re now leaving comic-land for a while, with Orphan Black. BBC America’s clone-tastic sci-fi didn’t feature in last year’s Top Ten because season two…. I don’t know, it didn’t resonate as much with me? Felt like it lacked a clear plot, instead just played in the sandbox without much direction. Lots of exciting/heartwarming moments, but also a bit of meander.

This season really worked for me, though. The newfound male Castor clones put the story back into gear, there was a threat and a goal alongside enjoyable depictions of the many clones interacting, with the usual great acting by Tatiana Maslany behind it.

Orphan Black seems like a show that risks falling into gibberish conspiracy land with every season, but this was another year they avoided that pitfall and made an exciting story too. Cool.

Stats Corner: Debuted on #7 in 2013 before taking last year off, so this is its highest placing yet.

#5 – Last Week Tonight

As with Game of Thrones, spent a while trying to place Last Week Tonight. However, unlike its HBO stablemate, the problem was that the first positions didn’t feel high enough. John Oliver’s late-night news-satire show kept its momentum going this year, making even the driest issue seem funny and important.

I can’t mention Last Week Tonight in 2015 without linking to Oliver’s barnstorming report on televangelism, one of the best things I saw this year and probably pushing the show a place or two up the chart by itself. Yes, it’s twenty minutes long, but they’re such good minutes.

It’s sunk a bit from last year, because it’s mostly just consolidated existing success and perhaps run a little low on major internationally relevant topics to cover, but it’s no less slick and hilarious and I couldn’t put it much lower when I look forward to it so much every week.

Stats Corner: One of the first non-fictional shows to appear (last year, alongside Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle which hasn’t yet returned), Last Week Tonight hit #3 in 2014.

#4 – Doctor Who

This is the highest placing Doctor Who has ever managed in this chart. I like this show a lot, but try to sneak some objectivity in too and there’s no way I could pretend all of the last three years deserved to be top five. This time, though, with their ninth series, they cracked it.

This was Peter Capaldi’s second year as the Doctor and whereas last year tried to work the abrasive grimness a bit too hard, series nine was dark without being aggressive, keeping the fun alive along with the angst. Not every episode was a winner (come on, this is Doctor Who), but there are only two or three that weren’t either good or great, and that’s a feat they rarely manage. And the solo-Capaldi episode Heaven Sent is one of the best they’ve done in years, a stone-cold Moffat time-bending classic up there with Blink and Day of the Doctor.

The Christmas special was also a highlight of its type, managing a hard handbrake turn from fun caper to heartbreak with skill. So yeah, I’ve got no problem sticking it up at #4. This has been an impressively polarising run, with reactions going all the way from “Stunning return to form!” to “More utter garbage!” but I’m on the good side. Which is fine by me, reckon I enjoy that more.

Stats Corner: Who is the only show to appear in all four of these charts, stats fans, and its prior positions were #6, #8 and #7. So yeah, big jump this year. Hope they keep it up.

#3 – Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

From one somewhat polarising show to another – Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was a comedy created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock. Apparently rejected by the US networks before Netflix picked it up and you can kinda see why – this sits in a weird void – not enough clearly signposted jokes to be a sitcom, probably too flat-out silly to be a “comedy-drama”.

But in the new world of streaming TV, it’s gone straight to the viewers and they seem to have embraced it. The breezy charm alongside surprisingly edgy humour (mostly about race and abuse survival, but they hit a range of topics) is a difficult needle to thread and the fact that it mostly works is amazing.

A lot of that is thanks to the acting of Ellie Kemper, who somehow makes Kimmy’s fish-out-of-water forever-happy nature likable rather than insufferable.

There are weak spots (some of the subplots starring Titus are a bit uninspiring), but the finale brought it all together brilliantly. I find it very hard to not like this show, and it’s great to know there’s a second season coming.

Stats Corner: Nothing, really. Yes, Netflix shows are quite well represented on this list.

#2 – Hannibal

For the third year, Hannibal scores highly on this list, but fails to make #1. And this was the final season, so its day will never come. Bummer.

There’s been the usual hopeful gurble about a continuation in some form, but it fell quiet quickly and lead writer Bryan Fuller has moved on to an adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, so that might be it. Still, at least they went out on an uncompromising rush of ideas, heading to Europe for some weird experimental storytelling in the first half of the season, then going back into serial killer busting territory for the tail end, adapting the Red Dragon story with Richard Armitage as the titular bastard.

I considered giving the top spot to Hannibal just because it won’t get another chance, but the experimental weird shit at the start got in the way of the storytelling a little. I always applaud trying oddness in mainstream TV, but still, gotta maintain critical standards. Nonetheless, the final half of the season got the balance right again, and the final episode felt like a good and proper ending, so here it sits at #2. Goodbye, Hannibal. I was a big fan(nibal).

Stats Corner: #2 in 2013, 2014 and now 2015. Consistent.

#1 – Jessica Jones

Yeah, maybe you thought we were done with the comics adaptations but here they are again, swiping the #1 spot at the last minute. The second series in the Marvel/Netflix street-superheroes project after the afore-mentioned Daredevil, Jessica Jones is more of a super-powered noir.

Krysten Ritter stars as Jones, a PI struggling with her traumatic past. Said past was inflicted on her by mind-controlling superprick Killgrave (a very creepy David Tennant) and, of course, it’s only a matter of time before she has to confront him again.

Featuring noir tropes, dark humour, often-unsympathetic main characters, an interesting and diverse cast, urban fantastical stuff, a willingness to go full grim when need be, a nuanced handling of difficult topics, glossy-yet-grimy production and a few fun nods to comics continuity, I thought Jessica Jones mostly nailed it.Like a lot of these one-story-stripped-over-13-episodes series, there’s a bit of sag in the middle. They could’ve done a bit more with her detective agency to fill that space, bring in some non-Killgrave cases for some worldbuilding.

Hopefully that’ll happen in season two – admittedly, they haven’t confirmed that’s happening yet. That’s kinda worrying considering Daredevil had a second run confirmed within two weeks of the first being released. But considering the huge amount of good reviews out there, it seems inevitable. Hopefully they’re waiting for the holidays to finish.

So yeah, best show of the year is a comic adaptation. Who’d have thought it? Very excited for at least two more series from this initiative in the next year (Luke Cage and Daredevil s2).

Notable Omission

Since I’ve been talking about continuity from previous lists a lot, I’ll cop to this – last year’s #1, Orange Is The New Black, isn’t here because I didn’t get round to watching the 2015 season yet. Sorry. Do feel a bit bad about this, probably more so than is necessary. I blame the lengthy period of no internet inflicted on me while moving house.

Honourable Mentions

As I said at the start, it’s been a tricky year to narrow down due to the sheer bloody volume of good TV – and that’s without even watching last year’s #1. So this section could get long if I let it, but I’ve tried to restrict myself to a few highlights.

First and foremost, yes, Agent Carter. This came painfully close to getting #10, I’m still a little in two minds about it, but I think I enjoyed The Walking Dead slightly more. Still, a great solid action series, pushed even higher by the greatness of Hayley Atwell as Carter herself. Oh, and its sister show Agents of SHIELD had a decent year too.

I also enjoyed Better Call Saul, the lawyer-focused Breaking Bad spin-off. It never felt essential and iconic in the same way the original did, more like a fun appendix for existing fans to savour, but it’s a very well made one. I’m there for season two.

Lastly, I’m going to throw Once Upon A Time a prize. Yes, there’ve been times when I’ve wondered why I even still watch it, but this year’s episodes – especially the opening half of season five – have been great. The writers finally located an area of the mythology they haven’t yet drilled to death, and explored it in interesting, dramatic ways. Woo.

I’ll make myself stop here – although the BBC adaptation of my #1 book Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell is also well worth your time. But yes, must stop typing, still have to proofread this and ram in some pictures, all before going out tonight.

And this is probably the last blog post of 2015, unless I have some huge productivity spurt, so Happy New Year! Hope it goes well for you.

Belated Veronica Mars Review II – Third Season and a Movie

by

A month or so back, I blogged about finally watching the first two seasons of teen-detective drama Veronica Mars and said that I’d be back once I’d seen the final season and film continuation to let you know the whole enterprise stood up.

Well, I’m a man of my word and thought this would be a nice break from the current run of self-promotion on this blog (If you like Veronica Mars, why not try my teen-girl-featuring fun-yet-grim crime books!) so here is the follow-up post. The first two seasons of Veronica Mars were excellent, the first one especially is regarded as some kind of modern classic, how can they top that in the next-one-and-movie?

Be warned, we’re going straight into plot-review territory this time, so beware spoilers.

Season Three – The College Years

The murder weapon here was clearly Photoshop.

This season, Veronica Mars and many of her supporting cast go to university (or college as they confusingly call it in America). Fans of Buffy The Vampire Slayer may have trepidation about this move, as the one season of Buffy where they dealt with her going to uni was… not their finest hour.

The good news is: Veronica Mars manages to engage with higher education without making half the cast feel like hangers-on or engaging in weird season-long storylines about dull robots. Unfortunately, it’s still the weakest of the three seasons.

I’m still very much a fan of the perky, smart-arsed tone of the whole show, the whole crime-beneath-every-surface aesthetic and the immensely likable central cast (especially Kristen Bell, Enrico Colantoni and Percy Daggs III). A lot of the standalone episode mysteries work really well – university gives them a different and wider campus to draw on, whereas by the end of season two they seemed to be slightly struggling to make the high school setting keep working. A few of their attempts to engage with adult issues feel a little hamfisted, but at least that’s in keeping with the theme of teen-to-real-world transition.

There’s also a move towards shorter story arcs instead of the longer ones they’ve previously used, and although I can see the appeal (less padding, less obvious red herrings), they lead off with a Mystery Rapist storyline which never entirely works. None of the suspects seem that well developed, the investigation never feels quite concrete, perhaps because network TV prevents them from really diving into the nitty-gritty of sexual assault.

Also, the dividing of characters into clearly defined tribes, standard fare in the high school setting, starts to feel odd and limiting as they try to venture into less clear-cut subjects. Our supporting cast for the Mystery Rapist plot include cartoonishly boorish frat boys, OTT man-hating feminists and two other people. Spoilers: none of the broadly drawn caricatures dunnit.

Also, the many scenes in which angry feminists are portrayed as a tedious, irrational obstacle to reasonable, sensible Veronica play oddly in the farflung future of 2015 where feminism is more mainstream. Also, while we’re on gender – although the show definitely has a strong, developed female lead, most other female characters are a bit one-note. Mac has her moments but is barely in it for much of the season.

Duncan, come back, I’m sorry I was so mean!

The good news is, the second story arc is a straight-up murder mystery and back in this familiar territory, Veronica Mars shines like the star it was born to be. It’s not their most complex case, but it’s only five or six episodes long and is tidy, well-paced, twisty and good.

After that, the weird trail-off ending of a show that clearly didn’t get much time to prepare for its own death. There are five good if lightweight standalone episodes, including a particularly excellent Paul Rudd guest appearance, and then it just kinda stops.

Said final coda also gets Veronica together with Piz, a boring character. He’s played likably enough by Chris Lowell but lacks any remarkable motivations or backstory and seems like a minor roadblock in the ongoing Veronica/Logan saga. No objection to them trying to wring drama from Veronica’s love life but this attempt felt too half-hearted considering it was the pay-off for a whole season of set-up. God, it’s like Duncan all over again. (Or Riley, if we’re continuing the Buffy-season-4 comparisons.)

And then cancellation! And then (nearly a decade later) the movie! But first!

Season Four – The Alternate Reality FBI Years

I watched the short DVD feature trailing an averted fourth season timeline for Veronica Mars in which they fast-forwarded uni and picked her up as a rookie FBI agent. Well, that’s one way to deal with Kristen Bell increasingly looking older than nineteen.

Sadly, although Bell throws in her usual charm and there are a couple of fun scenes, it skews a bit too standard-FBI-procedural. I imagine I’d have watched if it existed, but didn’t feel like what I want from this show.

So, let’s move on to what they eventually did instead.

Veronica – The Mars-tian Picture

Photoshop allowed out on bail. Don’t leave town.

Back in 2013, a massive Kickstarter happened and Veronica Mars – The Movie was born. Of course, it starts with Logan coming to her and confessing something, because that’s how everything happens on this show. Has anyone counted up how many times Veronica Mars cliffhangered out on Logan starting some admission to her?

But I digress.

The movie drives Veronica into full-on noir territory, opting for the ‘She’s almost outta the game but gets pulled in for one last job!’ structure. There’s some fan-friendly touring of main and supporting cast, along with a nice little mystery and exciting resolution. It’s a sweet but not self-indulgent, exciting, funny send-off to the whole affair and makes up for the non-ending to season three.

Hell, even Piz didn’t annoy me that much, mostly because he was clearly undercut from the start, representing a boring life for Veronica to turn her back on. He was a bit flat still, but played his role just fine.

My continuity nerd aspect is annoyed we didn’t get any token lines to tie up dangling plots. Most specifically: season three ended with Keith and Vinnie running against each other in the sheriff election. Both those characters were in the movie – would it have killed them to throw in a line of dialogue saying what happened? Also, wasn’t Keith facing evidence tampering charges?

Oh well. It was a conclusive, atmospheric, slick ending, I’m glad they got to do it. There’s set-up for a possible continuation too, and if they swung a Veronica Mars revival TV mini-series similar to the X-Files, Heroes and 24 ones we’ve had lately, I’d be well up for that. But if this is the end, at least it was good and fitting.

And another show crossed off my shoulda-seen-that list! Back to slowly making my way through Battlestar Galactica!

Veronica Mars seasons 1 & 2 – Belated TV review time!

by

Veronica Mars is a US TV high school crime show from the mid-2000s, in which a teenage girl in the crime-ridden town of Neptune solves a load of mysteries – both smaller ones to help out her classmates and big-time criminal incidents involving gangs, murders and the like. Helpfully, she’s the daughter of a local private investigator, so she knows the business. I’ve long been aware that this is a very well-regarded show, and as a fan of Buffy, I’d probably like it, but only just got round to watching properly.

I’ve now seen the first two seasons – the third will follow, along with the recent Kickstartered film continuation, but considering this are mammoth 22-episode American network TV seasons, I figured I can probably find enough to say about the first 44 eps to fill up a blog post.

So, let’s investigate this detective.

CRIME CRIME EVERYWHERE (ho ho I referenced a poem)

You can practically smell the mid-2000s.

Make no mistake, this is a strange show to get thrown into. The weird combined aesthetic of standard high-school drama and noir crime show leads to some weird disconnects. No, you’re not hallucinating, there really is a random motorcycle gang hanging around, their leader goes to school with Veronica and this is absolutely normal.

Still, the show commits to its dual aesthetic, giving Veronica a wry narration that doubles as a teen-drama diary-style monologue and the grim neo-noir internal thoughts of a PI. After the first ep, the crime keeps bubbling beneath the surface, so much so that you might wonder if there was constant gang activity at your secondary school as well and you were just too wrapped up in yourself to notice.

The dialogue is very much Buffy-esque super-clever-teenager style, with all of them (especially the main character) jabbering at high speed and referencing more pop culture than many TV shows’ entire Wikipedia pages. This conversational style has been used in TV and film for enough years by now that you know if you find it annoying. I love it, and Kristen Bell delivers the shit out of the quicksmart wisecracks.

It’s true that some of the case-of-the-week mysteries get a little formulaic. You can guess whodunnit a lot of the time simply because the regular cast is so large, there’s only room for one or two thinly sketched suspects. Still, they come up with a great range of high-school-based mysteries for Veronica to investigate, all while regular plots jog along in the backdrop.

They also spend a lot of time on the handling of race/class, more than many “adult” shows I’ve seen. Although they do it in a slightly standard high school drama boxing-people-off-into-tribes way, it’s interesting to see. Maybe more so nowadays, considering a lot of the annoyance around pop culture right now that shows and films won’t address these topics to even this degree.

And, yes, although there are a lot of clever tricks and crime show storylines, it’s still a teen drama which means love triangles, kissing, angst, but they usually punctuate it with shock crime twists and killings. Plus there’s some amazing mid-2000s fashion to admire – it’s like a younger Coupling. (In this way and no other.)

If you (like me) have not seen Veronica Mars and think you might like it, you probably will. It really is great for the most part, juggling loads of characters and plot points with aplomb. Very serialised, very ambitious, and I can confirm that the season-long arc storylines pay off well.

That completes the general review. I’m now going to talk about the actual plots and characters a bit more. This will feature spoilers (though I’ll refrain from revealing the major season-long whodunnits). Still, if you are considering watching the show and want to remain surprised, best stop now.

Season One – “Soap monster!”

She does this expression a lot.

The series dives straight into the heavy, soapy mythology, building confident, comprehensive, detailed montages in the very first episode. A lot of shows might’ve found a less personal mega-arc to lead off with and kept this story, which really unravels a lot of the major characters, until the second year.

But Veronica Mars dives right in and I think it pays off, getting us right on the character’s side with the terrifying rape/murder combined mystery and flashbacks to happier times.

I felt like Duncan never came into his own as a major character as a result of this structure, though. We started when he was already estranged from Veronica and the attempts to dive into his personality often felt shallow.

Again, this is a show with a massive cast and you can’t win them all – Logan’s rich-boy-angst was competing for space with Duncan’s and seemed to always win out. But yeah, I never ‘felt’ Duncan. To be truly honest: for some early eps, I struggled to tell him apart from brief love interest Troy.

The first season of Veronica Mars also hit the unavoidable problem of stripping a murder mystery across loads of episodes: seeming big reveals in the mid-to-late-mid-point of the season end up being obvious red herrings due to their placement in the running order, meaning we never cared as much as the characters. The Killing had a similar problem with ‘That can’t be it, there’s still eight episodes left!’ syndrome.

Still, the eventual ending was great and had a lot of impact, even if I did guess a major chunk of it one episode before the end. A lot of drama and charm, and Veronica’s relationship with her dad Keith was always so damn warm and likable.

Season Two – “Political animals!”

Sorry Duncan, but it’s not me, it’s you.

Perhaps to avoid ‘That can’t be it! pacing issues, season 2 attempted a bigger mystery than a mere murder. This was an epic conspiracy, layers upon layers, meaning they could unveil an individual character’s whereabouts or motivations and it could play into the ultimate storyline in a meaningful way rather than always needing to be a lie.

This worked a lot better at keeping the dramatic tension up, although it never felt quite as personal to Veronica. Also, due to the high level of the conspiracy, a lot of the story arc stuff had to be performed by dad Keith while Veronica focused on the high school mystery of the week. Sometimes seemed weird considering she’s meant to be the hero.

Nonetheless, it was a clever story with enough layers and moving parts to fill the space. I also always enjoy a show that obviously likes playing around in the world it’s created, giving bigger roles to pre-existing characters and bringing back old guest stars.

Yes, my lack of connection with Duncan made the chunk of the season when he was main boyfriend uninvolving at times. Still, this is dramatic television and misery/angst/love triangles are inevitable. I just waited it out.

And then the ending came along. They did a good job of selling it, even though I’d kinda spotted the main baddie reveal coming thanks to a number of hints along the way about that character’s true evil nature. Still, I wasn’t prepared for quite how evil they went with him, not to mention how carefully it was planned and woven into the pre-existing mythology. Gave the finale a real kick.

If I were told to pick my favourite out of the first two seasons, I think I’d struggle. The stakes felt higher in s1, the big conspiracy in s2 wasn’t as personal, but I thought they executed the second storyline better. Your mileage may vary. Feel free to vote for your favourite in the comments below.

And that seems a good note to end a blog post on. More on this very topic in… a month or two, probably, once I’ve seen the final season and movie.