Silicon Valley doesn't get the love it deserves... Should be higher!
Shame you couldn't get into Atlanta.
Every year I promise myself to finally rank it higher because I do agree but then there'll always come so many comedies along that just move and touch me much more
Great set except for Lady Dynamite, i'm sorry but it doesn't even come close to The Comeback, anyway i didn't enjoy it, i couldn't tolerate the lead and that scene doesn't help her case. Maybe i'll give her another shot someday. I have yet to watch Please Like Me.
Great set except for Lady Dynamite, i'm sorry but it doesn't even come close to The Comeback, anyway i didn't enjoy it, i couldn't tolerate the lead and that scene doesn't help her case. Maybe i'll give her another shot someday. I have yet to watch Please Like Me.
Oh, The Comeback ***** on it! But it was a great delight like Penk said, not sure if you'd enjoy it on another watch it doesn't seem like everybody's cup of tea. On the other hand, it took me some episodes to get into it tbh.
*Never thought that 'Kimmy' was going to upgrade like this in its second season. Always found the first one to be overrated, despite being the cause of some truly funny memes. But the second season's exploration of Kimmy's psychological felt as natural a progression as they come.
**Anna Camp always makes everything better!
***So does Lisa Kudrow!
****So does Tina Fey! But at least she also wrote parts of the first season. However, her starring as Kimmy's problematic, alcoholic psychologist doesn't just make for many funny punchlines but ends up in some surprisingly astounding, touching moments of friendship-bonding in which both help each other through their own weird kind of self-therapy.
*****I realize this was still bumpy way too often but their discovered revelations really hit home to me at times and resonated deeply to me. Kimmy's intentful choice of still looking at everything from a bright side despite finally being able to admit her own weaknesses, cutbacks and shortages is a note we all could learn from nowadays.
******Should try and work out its supporting characters a bit more, especially now that Kimmy has been allowed to be such a complex and deeply conflicted person.
Best Episodes: "Kimmy Gives Up!"; "Kimmy Walks Into A Bar!"; "Kimmy Meets A Drunk Lady!"; "Kimmy Meets A Celebrity!"; "Kimmy Finds Her Mom!"
‘Search Party’ is one of the few late-year gems that always come around every now and then and manage to surprise you at a time in which it seems that the battle for the yearly TV olymp has been settled already. The surprise novelty always plays a factor in how well those shows are received but ‘Search Party’ actually really is unique, inimitable and singular – even in this time of peak TV.
On the surface, ‘Search Party’ is a light and clever social satire about Brooklynites and our modern hipster generation wrapped up in a mystery premise that succeeds at making this comedy not only wildly entertaining but exceptionally thrilling even.
However, ‘Search Party’ is really so much more than that. It surprisingly treats its characters with dignity and respect when most shows would have way too easily fallen into their own traps and turned their characters into overwritten caricatures. Its mystery plot isn’t only a tool to create tension for the audience but much more so to invoke the same within its main characters. Using Dory's obsession of finding a missing co-student she used to go to college with as an (admittedly unsubtle) metaphor to not only escape her every-day life and relations but also infuse her own life with some meaning and importance works marvelously and is eventually the catalyst for some of the most frustrating, gut-wrenching revelations all year.
Structured so that Dory's character journey exponentially builds up to an always inevitable disaster as the mystery premise unravels in front of our and her eyes, ‘Search Party’ ends on one of the most haunting and devastating images of the year – a visualization of the distressing emptiness that lies in our endeavors and dreams which we hope will help define us and tell us who we are when in the end they only mirror how isolated our most inner selves are and how after everything the only way to invoke change is to confront yourself.
Best Episodes: "The Riddle Within The Trash"; "The Return Of The Forgotten Phantom": "Password To The Shadows"; "The House Of Uncanny Truths"
#8 - Jane the Virgin
*This was a big year for 'Jane the Virgin' and a stellar one at that. Jane got married and finally had her first time. Jane isn't a virgin anymore! And that episode dealing with what comes after is one of the most sensitive, witty and affecting episodes about the first time. Did anyone really think they wouldn't be able to handle this one?
**Thankfully, 'Jane the Virgin' once more proved that it's a show built to last despite all the odds of its premise speaking against it. Its subversive, soapy nature could derail any minute yet its third season has been inarguably the best one so far as it remains an ongoing depiction of female immigrants and their differing views about cross-generational issues, the value of being a mother, the fusion of different cultures and the positively uplifting values of faith.
***It's also one of the most visually gorgeous shows on air right now, using bright, vivid color palettes to bring its genre to life and always emphasize on the internal life of its characters.
****Gina Rodriguez is just brilliant at this point and still finds new ways to not only outdo herself but also be the undeniable heart of this show.
*****You won't find a better narrator on TV than this one!
******Just wanted to shoutout that Hitchcock episode.
I just love Jane The Virgin, the way it elevated itself from a guilty pleasure to an original comedy is amazing. it's just heartwarming, funny and brilliant, you'd think the 22 episodes a season would make you lose interest but it's completely the opposite. Chapter 44 was my fav, that wedding special was really touching.
Ever since ‘Girls’ has transcended into something much more confident and finally settled on what kind of show it wanted to be back in season three it also started to smartly revolve more around its most stimulating anchor Hannah rather than only half-heartedly trying to juggle four different stories of four different girls into one episode all the time (– even though whenever those overlapped the show could be brilliant). Since then it seems inevitable that ‘Girls’ isn’t only a show about growing up and figuring out how individuals want to fit into their own lives, but also about the bittersweet realization that comes with it that we sometimes grow apart from our old friends and don’t fit into each other’s lives anymore; that it can be more hurtful to keep holding onto something that’s long gone instead of just letting it go.
In its very beautiful standalone episodes (something ‘Girls’ has always excels at) “Japan” and “Panic in Central Park” the show further managed to provide some of its other protagonists with their long-needed and much-deserved focus. Youngest Shoshanna could leave all her problems in New York behind when she had moved to Japan, serving as a surrogate for the audience’s own secret hopes and dreams of an exciting new life which we imagine to mystically answer our call for happiness. Of course, it won’t and no amount of dressing up in Hello Kitty costumes or visits to Japanese hot tubs can change that Shoshanna still has to cope with strong self-identity problems and a permanent depression. But her time apart does move her further into understanding both her struggles and herself and how to deal with them. The same applies to Marnie’s central showing who has always looked for happiness and comfort in committed relationships to create the illusion of a structured and functional life. Yet, Marnie has never been more sympathetic than after her dreamy Central Park night adventures with her ex conjuring the realization that she’s not only grown above and past her ex and current husband, but that she’s already comfortable enough with herself that she doesn’t need a man – or anyone for that matter – to determine her happiness for her anymore. As Marnie finally doesn’t despise herself anymore, the audience doesn’t either and another one of the girls is one step closer to the elements of adulthood.
There is so much more to be talking about with ‘Girls’ and thankfully over the years it’s become mostly deeply insightful and relatable stuff instead of the usual perverse but weirdly natural stunts Lena Dunham is typically known for. After five years, ‘Girls’ continues to mature in all the right ways alongside its memorable characters and creator. But it also never forgets that its somewhat different season structures and episodic experiments, that resemble the chaos of the show’s character’s internal and external lives so much, are what has always set the show apart and made it captivating from the jump.
The last shot of the season is ‘Girls’ protagonist Hannah sprinting towards freedom, being symbolically liberated from her old, selfish and egotistical self that has always caused her deep sadness. She runs along to Frank Sinatra’s ‘Can’t Take My Eyes off You’ reminding us that it’s going to be “quite alright”. It’s an ending that serves at once not only as a beautiful reminder that ‘Girls’ finales could always be stand-ins for the final chapter as well but that the show - and its characters with it - are hurtling towards a more self-assured and encouraging future; one that might lack the messy but necessary revelatory parts of self-discovery but makes up for it with a reassuring and fulfilling confidence – even if that eventually means cutting ancient ties with your former self and basic integral parts of a former life.
Best Episodes: “Japan”; “Queen for Two Days”; “Panic in Central Park”; “I Love You Baby
*Marketed as a female 'Louie' and is a lot of that, especially with Louis himself having co-created the show, but Pamela Adlon has very different and focused things to say about her own experience as a mother, celebrity and comedian. It's almost as confident as 'Louie' was, not only because both of them have worked together on that show before.
**'Better Things' felt strangely poetic and timely as a depiction of the relationship between her mother and her three female children and the unimitable, powerful bond shared by women. It's the kind of story we deserved and needed this year and thankfully Adlon's series was more than up for that challenge.
***"Future Fever" honestly hit too close to home when Adlon's biggest daughter confesses to feeling out of place, lost and afraid of the future. An already resonating episode was driven home when her mother finds just the right words to comfort her daughter, and in proxy, all of us youngsters who still haven't found their place in this world.
****Really manages to capture the volaitlity of the highs and lows of family dynamics and how the most terrible moments often come right after or before the great ones that make parenthood, or being part of a family, such an undescribable experience to begin with.
Best Episodes: “Woman Is The Something Of The Something”; "Future Fever"; "Scary Fun"; "Only Women Bleed"
Insecure
*Oh damn, was I ready to love this from the start and did I end up loving it every bit as much as I had hoped to.
**Solange being the musical director of 'Insecure' kind of made it even 100x better than it already was, didn't it?
***Broken *****!
****But for real, this managed to transcend its observation of what it means to being a black young woman into something far more universal about what it means to figure out one's own life after having settled in for way too long in a way too comfortable groove. The answers are terrifying and exciting but always essential in redefining and reshaping one's life into something that feels more determined and self-baring at the same time.
*****Issa's friendship with Molly fit into that progression very nicely and thankfully(!) helped both climb to an even stronger and moer aware level of their relationship.
******The guys are super hot.
Best Episodes: "insecure as ****"; "Racist As ****"; "Shady As ****"; "Real As ****"; "Broken As ****"
Veep
*I'm always forced to rank this high because 'Veep' always manages to upstage itself yearly. I don't know if it was the series' best season yet, it wasn't my personal favorite, but you'd be hard to argue that at least two to three of its episodes this year weren't its very best yet.
**Despite the original showrunner's departure from the show, who was so gifted at writing all those infamous insults and has done so before for the British classic 'In the Loop', 'Veep' remained as consistent as ever and surprisingly also as vulgar and snappy.
***The way 'Veep' mirrored Selena's slow realization about her losing campaign and the resulting loss of her presidency with the loss of her own mother, whom she despises, was heartbreaking but thrilling and evidence that even this far into the show this comedy still finds different ways to add new layers to its characters.
*Another one of the year's most amazing surprises about a witty, ironic woman who continues to make snappy remarks to us, the audience, that insult and tear apart her life, friends, relationships and even herself. Eventually adds multiple dimensions once it delves into why she's adapted this bleak humour as a tool to escape her life and the truth and mask those through h
**Despite an incredibly dark core, 'Fleabag' is one of the funniest tv shows of the year. I dare you to watch this and not laugh at least once during the first scene already.
***I mentioned Mackenzie Davis had a great year in TV, but so did Olivia Colman who dishes out another fun turn as the spiteful, greedy and insensitive stepmother but was just as good earlier in the year in 'The Night Manager'.
****Also builds a wonderful relationship between two sisters who are nothing alike but can't help but always stick to each other due to a shared past and similar desires for each other.
*****Phoebe's performance is out of this world and she's the sole reason 'Fleabag' works in the first place.
******Me @ everyone:
Best Episodes: "Episode 4"; "Episode 5"; "Episode 6"
Girls was fine, never cared for Shoshanna until the Japan episode, her pairing with Aidy Bryant was entertaining, Hannah managed to be less annoying this season which was good and the Charlie/Marnie centered episode was brilliant.
Better Things was great as well, you've perfectly described my favorite episode "Future Fever"
Insecure was a highlight as well, it's refreshing and funny, both Issa and molly have flaws they're complex, unsure of their choices, dumb and frustrating at times but endearing and natural. Truly perfectly written real characters.
*No, it wasn't quite as good as its landmark second season that was arguably one of the greatest seasons a comedy's ever produced before. However, YTW's third season still managed to expand its themes and be a continued exploration of why its ensemble have become 'the worst' in first place.
**The last four episodes are (almost) the best streak of comedic episodes this year if it wasn't for my #1.
***Honestly, any show being able to produce an episode with three separate long-lasting tracking shots that actually have thematical purpose and perpetually build up the suspense to an inevitable, devastating heart-to-heart deserves a spot in this list.
****The final scene is the most heart-breaking thing I had to deal with all year and I refuse to even think about it once. Really, why do they have to be the worst?
*****Anyway, Aya Cash is still terrific as the depressed lead and the show finds new ground now that it throws Gretchen into situations in which she has to deal with her mental illness for good and learn how to live with it.
******How does You're the Worst keep finding new ways to contextualize and enrichen its characters? Last season's central storyline about depression and Gretchen's resulting frustrating breakdowns might have been the show's peak but its sensitive introduction of a life with PTSD symptoms and a new angle to a grief-story about fatherhood are still impeccable.
*******I don't fully understand why its third season went by so completely overlooked by many despite such a widely acclaimed second one. Yes, it wasn't quite as strong or centered as last year, but considering that even its second season only truly elevated itself halfway through and seeing as how the last few episodes this year were nothing but exceptional, it's still kind of puzzling to me. But maybe I just relate too much to being the worst myself.
Best Episodes: "Twenty-Two"; "The Last Sunday Funday"; "The Only Thing That Helps"; "Genetically Inferior Beta Males"; "The Seventh Layer"; "The Inherent, Unsullied, Qualitative Value of Anything"; "No Longer Just Us"; "You Knew It Was A Snake"
*There was no comedy better than 'BoJack Horseman' to me this year. I'm still shocked at how it's settled into such a confident, craftful show after an often hazy and flat first season.
**This hits too close to home because it takes some of the most frightening but daring questions some of us have about life. Who is BoJack, stripped off of his fame, wealth and career really? Why isn't he able to love, and most importantly, incapable of receiving the love given to him? Instead BoJack goes believing he really is the worst of them all and unloved, further driving himself down a vicious, tragic downward spiral of depression, drugs and alcohol.
***This comedy is bold enough to ponder about whether anyone really is able to change but its final minutes of a distressed BoJack witnessing a herd of free, liberated horses roaming about and truly being themselves seems as good an answer as we'll ever get. At the end of the day, it always boils down to self-realization and awareness, or so the show argues and I believe in BoJack's journey towards that destination.
****It continues to be a unique, animated version of 'Mad Men', not only because its lead characters are so alike but even in many of its episodic choices. "Best Thing That Ever Happened" has "The Suitcase" written all over it but is somehow still very much its own thing.
*****One of the sharpest, most carefully built-up seasons in recent mind as BoJack's Oscar campaign pretty much sets him up for a hollow victory or loss in any case and will eventually be the trigger for his escape away from the life that's plagued him with all these struggles and consequently away from himself.
******I have no idea how these two very different halves worked so well with each other and actually enrichened the series but it's a proof that 'BoJack' is one of the very best series around. Even its strengthened focus on intimate and interpersonal relationships this year speaks for its interests truly laying in the pain and sufferings of all of its characters, not just those of BoJack's.
*******'Fish Out Of Water' is the year's best bottle episode that doesn't only encapsulate all of BoJack's struggles but is also a brilliant metaphor on the superfluous nature of language and how communication and connection can be two very different things.