Finally finished wrapping Christmas presents! Can’t believe it’s almost Christmas when its going to be in the 70s here tomorrow x_x Next up in this batch are 5 comedies, 3 dramas and 2 reality shows:
The Top 220 TV Shows: 160-151
160) "Between" Netflix
This Canadian export is a show about a town where everyone over the age of 22 dies due to some mysterious disease. There was a whole of of teen angst, mediocre acting and not many questions got answered. The show was very moody, dark and featured a lot of former Degrassi actors lol. The premise pulled me in, but it was nothing to write home about by any stretch of the imagination. It got renewed for season 2. We’ll see if it gets better now that it’s found its voice.
159) "Life in Pieces" CBS
Life In Pieces is CBS’s attempt at a Modern Family type show where the focus is on all different members of one family. Its broken up into four short stories. This is the biggest problem I have with the show. Having 4 short stories in a 22 minute block doesn’t really work. I talked about it earlier that a cartoon with lots of characters that work on their own can work. Hence Looney Toons/Wabbit. Having it be a scripted live action comedy, you don’t have enough time to connect to the story and they move onto the next one immediately. It just doesn’t work. Though I will say that the episodes have gotten better since the pilot, but still forgettable.
158) "The Jim Gaffigan Show" TV Land
Jim Gaffigan was piloted a few years back as a multicamera pilot, CBS gave it another pilot, made it single camera, and then passed. Then TV Land picked it up. Jim and his family live in New York and he tries to navigate life as a father, husband, friend and a stand up comedian. Ashley Williams, who played Victoria on How I Met Your Mother plays his wife and I’m glad she’s back on TV. The show was renewed for a second season and we’ll see what other situations Jim gets himself into.
157) "Falling Skies" TNT
Last Year: 113
This alien drama came to a conclusion this year. The humans made their last stand against the alien invaders and
surprise humanity lives!
The whole season seemed to be rushed, disjointed, and not very good. After they boxed themselves into a corner with the whole Lexi storyline, they couldn’t really recover. Lots of people died, lots of people lived. Overall I’d call the final season pretty disappointing. Why they felt the need to turn Pope back into a jackass villain over the death of someone we didn’t really get attached to baffles me. But hey at least
he died and I enjoyed that very much
. While never a very strong series, I will miss it next summer. Hopefully more sci-fi fare pops up!
156) "Foodie Call with Justin Warner" foodnetwork.com
My list, I can do what I want with it. While not a full TV show, which he really should have, this web series follows Justin Warner, the Season 8 winner of Food Network Star, as he takes normal everyday food items, and some not so normal, and applies them in very unique situations. For example he makes hot ice cream, wasabi marshmallow spam s'mores, deep fried deviled eggs and basil sorbet. This is just the type of cooking Justin impressed everyone with on Food Network Star and makes him truly stand out in a growing sea of food personalities. He has had celebrity guests featured on the series and he even did an episode surrounding Splatoon (and he’s a lover of all things Nintendo so of course he’s awesome). His new cookbook is out now and features even more crazy awesome dishes I would love to try some day. Look out for random easter eggs hidden in the book too! I’ll keep watching Foodie Call as long as they make episodes!
GIVE HIM A SHOW ALREADY FOOD NETWORK
155) "Teen Titans Go!" Cartoon Network
Last Year: 130
Along with Regular Show, I still love Teen Titans Go!, I just watched fewer episodes this year. While it won’t ever reach the levels of greatness that Teen Titans reached, its still fun, cute and easy to jump in whenever you want. The gang fight all different villains, HIVE, and have it out with each other usually over silly situations. While not as deep as some other cartoons get these days, I’ll keep watching and enjoying it though!
154) "The Great Food Truck Race" Food Network
Last Year: 137
Another year, another great season of The Great Food Truck Race. This year, they went back to the basics and didn’t go as crazy with tasks and surprises along the way. it got too overly complicated. And they went back to the teams all being existing Food Truck operators instead of inexperienced teams who could win their own Food Truck. I hated the front runners that were at the top all along. The true underdogs, who I rooted for all season won. I honestly didn’t expect it but was so happy when they won the season. Suck on that Waffle Love lol. Hopefully it will be back again next summer.
153) "Looking" HBO
Last Year: 86
Looking returned for more drama and comedy about a group of friends and lovers navigating life in San Francisco. Last year, I talked about the show being slow, and this year remained quite boring. I was hoping that promoting a few of the smaller characters to bigger roles would help, but it didn’t do much. Its also hard to enjoy a show when almost every character is pretty unlikable. The ratings also tanked after losing the direct Girls lead in and HBO gave it a movie wrap up which will air sometime next year. I might be the only one, but I kind of hope Patrick ends up alone because Kevin was a tool and Richie was too good for him.
152) "The McCarthys" CBS
Last Year: 132
This CBS comedy got pulled from its timeslot late in its run and had the final 4 or so episodes burned off in the summer. While not a bad comedy, it never really separated itself from the crowd and never took off. I enjoyed the family and laughed a lot more than I did with The Odd Couple. The cast was the best part of the show and hopefully they can all show up on my TV again sometime soon
151) "The Night Shift" NBC
Last Year: 117
The Night Shift is a medical drama about the staff at a hospital in Texas working the overnight shift. In its second season, it found its voice and even featured a cameo from Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden. What I enjoyed about the show was that it frequently featured war veterans and active servicemen as patients due to its proximity to a base. The biggest issue for me is that the show sometimes feels like it could be a comedy. The acting isn’t the best, and some of the delivery of lines is just off. It tries to be a good balance of drama and comedy, but it doesn’t mesh well. It can also be over the top. I was pretty surprised NBC renewed it for a third season for midseason after they picked up two new medical dramas. Chicago Med, which I didn’t watch, is already doing better and will almost certainly get renewed. That puts this show’s chances in jeopardy unless they put the show back in the summer when expectations are lowered. And the other medical drama Heartbreaker seems like a terrible Grey’s Anatomy rip off and I don’t expect it to do well at all.
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I thought I would finish this earlier, but I got distracted watching the I Love Lucy Christmas special tonight oops lol. Hopefully now I can get more than one of these out a day! But chances are I’ll get busy since the holidays and all. The Top 220 TV Shows: 150-141 will be up next!
x1000 I Loved that season so much even though the ending was shocking for me