On "Best Of" Lists and the Nature of Television

"Top of the Lake" will make my Top Ten but is it really "television"?

Well, it’s that time of year again: when critics and commentators of all stripes start compiling their “Best Of” lists for the previous year.  I’ve always thought this an odd pursuit for television, however.  Not the idea of ranking the best shows, mind you, but the idea that we need to do this in December.  After all, the television season doesn’t run from January to December.  It runs from September to May.  You could extend that out from September to August if you’d like or even go crazy (like the Emmys) and call it June to May.  Sure, there are a few exceptions.  South Park, for almost its entire existence, would run the first half of its season in March and April and the second half in October, November, and December.  TNT has taken to running a few of its dramas during the summer and winter months.  But no matter how you slice it, the vast majority of television series will begin their seasons in or after September and end their seasons before the next September rolls around. 

This isn’t just an academic discussion, but has a real impact when writing about the last year in television.  For example, how do I treat 30 Rock, which had a marvelous final season that culminated in one of my favorite series finales this past January, but which only aired five episodes in 2013 (making it ineligible for the Golden Globes at least)?  I could easily put those five episodes up against anything else aired this year, but without the context of the first eight, do they have the same impact?  Or what of The Returned (Les Revenants), which aired in France in 2012 before coming to the United States a few weeks ago?  Do I judge Downton Abbey by the season three episodes that aired on PBS in January or by the season four episodes I may or may not have found a way to watch this fall that haven’t yet aired in the United States?  Am I even capable of ignoring the new episodes I’ve seen and judging the show solely based on the older ones?

Obviously, writing for an American audience is going to make some of these decisions easy, in that I’m only going to consider shows that aired in the United States during 2013, but the current nature of television causes even more problems.  For example, what do I do with Top of the Lake?  Here’s a show that I’m pretty sure would be a no-brainer to end up in my Top Ten, but the AV Club isn’t even considering it for theirs, owing to its nature as a miniseries and not an ongoing series.  Or what of Black Mirror, a British show that has aired two trios of episodes over the last two years, but which aired all of their episodes in the United States for the first time this year?

This is all a roundabout way of saying that the inherent subjectivity of naming the best (or favorite) television of the last calendar year has been rendered even more incomprehensible by the rapidly changing nature of the medium itself.  As an example of the chaos that is 2013 Top Ten lists, I took a quick look at three critics’ lists (HitFix’s Alan Sepinwall, Time’s James Poniewozick, and Slate’s Willa Paskin) and counted 19 different series, with only four shows appearing on all three lists.  And one of those four shows won’t even be on my list because I just haven’t had the time to watch it yet. 

So what do we make of this new paradigm?  Clearly those proclaiming the end of the Golden Age of Television are wrong.  We may no longer be in the age of “Great Important Television,” but we are most definitely in the age of what Sepinwall calls “Too Much Good TV.”  What is most astounding to me is that, while the “great” shows of the 2000s were largely borne from the same cloth (dark character dramas often fronted by white, male anti-heroes) the era of “Too Much Good TV” is defined by its variety.  Are you looking for a police or legal procedural?  Southland and The Good Wife will welcome you in.  Are character-driven period dramas more your thing?  Try Mad Men and Masters of Sex on for size.  Do you like your period dramas to have more action?  Boardwalk Empire and The Americans will be there with guns a-blazing.  Maybe you’re more in to science fiction and fantasy.  Orphan Black will quench your thirst for the former and Game of Thrones for the latter.  Or maybe you don’t even like dramas.  Maybe you just want to escape with some comedy.  Well Parks and Recreation and Key & Peele will make you laugh all night long. 

Television has never been this deep, broad, and good.  And it’s that depth, breadth, and quality that is going to make me eschew the typical Top Ten process.  Sure, I’ll end up writing a Top Ten piece.  But I’m not going to limit myself to that one list.  Instead, I’m planning also to highlight the shows that, while they may not end up as my ten favorites, are too good to ignore.  After all, isn’t that the entire point of such exercises: to inform your readers of the shows you think they would enjoy as well?

So over the next couple of weeks, expect three “Best of” articles at this site.  The first will look at the new shows and recently canceled/ended shows that didn’t quite make my Top Ten list but still put up great years.  The second will look at the still airing shows worthy of consideration and will also highlight the handful of critically-acclaimed shows that are on my “to watch” list but which I just haven’t gotten around to yet.  And the third will be my Top Ten of 2013 list, because ranking things is apparently just what we do at the end of the year.  I hope you enjoy.

So thoughts?  Comments?  Just want to tell me that my blog sucks?  Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @TyTalksTV.

The Sound of Music Live! Review - How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?

Carrie Underwood tries very hard in NBC's "The Sound of Music Live!"

Allow me to begin by giving Carrie Underwood a great deal of credit.  She has balls.  She took on one of the iconic roles in all of stage and screen: Maria von Trapp, a part that won Mary Martin a Tony in 1960 and Julie Andrews an Oscar nomination in 1966.  The Sound of Music itself took home the Tony for Best Musical and the Oscar for Best Picture in the years in which it was nominated.  This is a role that has transcended theatre and even film to become ingrained in our cultural consciousness.  Hell, Jaguar has built an entire marketing campaign around “the hills are alive with the sound of XFR-S”  And to not just take on the role, but to perform it live with, let’s face it, real actors, takes balls.

And, to tell the truth, she wasn’t terrible.  She wasn’t Julie Andrews by any stretch of the imagination, but really, who would be?  Underwood actually surprised me on several occasions with the lyricality of her voice.  While I wouldn’t exactly refer to her rendition of “The Lonely Goatherd” as “yodeling,” she kept enough lightness in her voice to not just survive the song, but actually make it fun and entertaining.  There were only a few parts (most notably her “Mis” in “Do-Re-Mi” and one line near the end of “The Lonely Goatherd”) where her singing wasn’t quite up to par.  The fault there, however, belongs more to her background as a country singer than to her talent, because when she able to focus on vocal technique, she was actually quite good.  But when she had to multitask and put her voice on autopilot, her lack of classical training showed as her vowels flattened and her tone grew nasally.  That didn’t happen often, though, and for the most part she sang the part of Maria far better than I had expected.

While she may have sung the part well, the same can’t be said of her acting.  She wasn’t flubbing her lines or missing her marks or anything, but the best that can be said of Underwood’s acting performance is that it was nonexistent.  Her face was expressionless throughout much of the show.  Her speaking voice rarely varied from a “what’s my next line” monotone.  She had no chemistry with Bill Moyer’s Captain Von Trapp leading me to wonder what on earth made the Mother Abbess believe that Maria was actually in love with him.  There was even a moment when Maria mistakenly calls him “Reverend” but Underwood’s delivery was so flat that it was impossible to tell whether this was the character’s mistake or the actor’s.

It was especially difficult to watch Underwood muddle through because the supporting cast was filled out with superb broadway veterans, most notably Audra McDonald as the Mother Abbess, who absolutely ran away with every scene she was in and seemed to be putting on a master class with Underwood any time the two were left alone together.  Her performance of "Climb Ev'ry Mountain," in particular, sent chills down my spine and clearly brought Underwood to real, literal tears.  Likewise, Laura Benanti and Christian Borle shone brightly as Elsa and Max, at times making me wonder what Von Trapp saw in the bumpkin that would make him want to stop hanging out with the obviously much more fun and lively Nazi sympathizers.  Wait…I think I may have answered my own question.

The supporting cast also all brought a sense of vivacity and liveliness to a stage production that could have easily felt dead on television.  And it was impossible to ignore that this was, in fact, a stage production broadcast live.  The lavish sets were able to brighten most scenes, but the fact is that all live, scripted broadcasts tend to look and feel like soap operas, and The Sound of Music was no exception.  Additionally, the need to keep everybody’s microphones on left a soft, dull white noise lingering over the entire production.  Still, it was obvious that a great deal of time and money (a rumored $9 million) went into creating a production that went off largely without a hitch.

That a live televised production of a stage musical was performed this well is something of a small miracle, let alone the fact that it was a smash hit, drawing in 18.62 million viewers (peaking at over 19 million) and a 4.6 rating.  Basically, The Sound of Music put up three straight hours of ratings rivaling The Big Bang Theory on a night when NBC has, at least once this season, finished in seventh place, behind the other three networks, NFL Network, TBS, and Univision.  For even more perspective, that’s the best non-sports rating NBC has gotten for a Thursday night since the ER finale in 2009 and the most non-sports viewers they’ve had since the Frasier finale in 2004.  I don’t think even NBC predicted a reception (in viewers at least if not critically) like this.

So where do we go from here?  Certainly, if television history has taught us anything, it’s that when a network finds a success they ride that horse into the ground.  But for once, I’m actually excited about that prospect.  It’s clear that there’s an audience for live theatre that doesn’t want to buy $100 tickets and flights to New York.  Just look at the success that the Metropolitan Opera has had broadcasting its performances live to movie theatres.  Certainly, there’s a portion of the audience who were watching because of Carrie and Underwood and there was likely another portion watching just in case some disaster befell the production (after all, 13 million people watched a guy walk a tightrope for twenty minutes to see if he'd fall into the Grand Canyon).  But as anybody who was on Twitter or Facebook last night can tell, there’s a certain visceral feeling that comes from communally enjoying (or hate-watching) live television that can’t be found in normal programming. 

So expect event television to become a much bigger piece of the network landscape  It may not necessarily come in the form of live musicals*, but the networks need shows that will attract viewers from all walks of life.  And even though The Sound of Music wasn’t a rousing success, I can’t think of that as anything but wonderful.  Television needs variety.  Hell, variety has its own Emmy category.  It also needs galvanizing events (beyond sports) that will bring viewers together.  The Sound of Music wasn’t perfect, but it signaled good things for the future of television.

*Though might I suggest following up The Sound of Music with Wicked starring Kristin Chenowith and Idina Menzel or, if you’re still looking for a classic, West Side Story.

A couple of spare thoughts - 

Good lord this show needed a live audience.  I was stunned when there wasn't any applause after the opening number and, while it's not exactly a funny musical, there are a handful of jokes, and they all fell completely flat without any audience laughter.  

And while Underwood wasn't great, she was much, much better in her scenes with the Von Trapp kids.  They brought a liveliness out of her and made her seem much more present in their scenes.

So thoughts?  Comments?  Just want to tell me my blog sucks?  Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @TyTalksTV.

Ratings Roundup Midseason Review - CBS: The Steady Stalwart

"The Big Bang Theory" continues to dominate for CBS

We’ve reached the end of November Sweeps, so it’s time to start taking stock of where the networks stand on the season as we enter the winter break.  Over the next four weeks, I’ll be using the Ratings Roundup column to offer my mid-term grades for each of the four broadcast networks.  First up: CBS

CBS has a reputation for stability and not taking chances.  Their long history of spinoffs and reboots would seem to confirm this reputation, but every couple of years CBS will make a big move to either try to break into a new night or solidify an existing property.  In 2010, the network saw an opportunity to break NBC’s grip on the mantra of Thursday night’s “Must See TV” and moved a promising comedy entering its fourth season to the top of the Thursday lineup.  That move set the television world atwitter because it involved moving Survivor, which had held down the Thursday at 7:00 timeslot for almost a decade at that point, but which had steadily been losing steam since its early seasons.  That comedy, however, was The Big Bang Theory, which has since exploded to become the number one scripted show on network television, sitting behind only The Walking Dead as the number one show on all of television.  And you could easily argue that it’s the most valuable property because of its ability to draw a reasonable number of viewers even in repeats, which the vast majority of series can’t do anymore.

After a couple of years of trying to launch new comedies after The Big Bang Theory, and after Person of Interest turned into a hit of its own at 8:00 on Thursdays, CBS decided it was time to lock down Thursday night once and for all by moving the down, but still solid comedy Two and a Half Men to follow Big Bang.  It was a successful move and helped to make CBS the most-watched network on television’s most valuable night.

This year, CBS decided to take yet another chance on Thursday nights, by moving Person of Interest to 9:00pm on Tuesday, where the network had struggled mightily for the better part of the last decade.  In its place, CBS decided to expand its Thursday comedy block to two hours, debuting a pair of new comedies in between veterans Big Bang and Two and a Half Men.  The network’s fate didn’t necessarily hinge on these changes, but it was definitely the biggest move of the year, and so is deserving of the most scrutiny.

After the first ten weeks of the season, the experiment can only really be called a mixed success.  At this point last year, POI’s Tuesday predecessor, Vegas, was pulling 18-49 ratings in the mid-1s, on its way to being moved to Fridays at midseason and replaced by The Golden Boy which, likewise, was unable to even occasionally get its ratings above 2.0.  Person of Interest, in contrast, has averaged a 2.08 rating on Tuesday nights, allowing CBS to finish first or second in the night every week, even in spite of good competition from NBC and ABC in the forms of The Voice and SHIELD.

The Thursday side of the equation, unfortunately, has not held together so well.  Last year, during November sweeps, Person of Interest averaged a 2.95 rating at 8:00 on Thursday nights.  This year, the comedies are averaging 2.38, almost two-thirds of a  ratings point lower than the network averaged in 2012.  The Millers has been doing well, averaging close to a 2.8 rating, but most of that is likely due to it following monster hit The Big Bang Theory.  You’ll note that the one week when the show didn’t have Big Bang as a lead-in, The Millers drew only a 2.1 rating.  And while The Crazy Ones and Two and a Half Men haven’t been doing terribly, their recent ratings have been ahead of only Mom amongst CBS’s comedies. 

So the Thursday night experiment has had mixed results to date.  But how is CBS doing as a whole?  So far, I’m giving them a C+.  They’re currently in second place, but their problem is that they’ve dropped the most year-to-year of any network thus far.  Without the primetime AFC Championship Game or the Super Bowl, they’re going to be much closer to ABC and NBC and likely behind Fox, who is actually coming closer to last year’s numbers as we approach the end of the year. 

Looking at each night individually, it’s easy to see CBS’s weak spots: Friday and Sunday in particular and the 9:00pm hour in general.  On Friday nights, while Undercover Boss has been a legitimate Friday hit, Hawaii Five-0 regularly loses to Shark Tank and even finishes behind Grimm more often than not.  And Blue Bloods is the lowest-rated show on the network.  Obviously, Fridays are a struggle for every network, but Sunday night is quickly becoming another Friday night for CBS with The Good Wife and The Mentalist both drawing ratings on par with the Friday shows.  To be more specific, all of the Friday and Sunday scripted shows are averaging between a 1.39 rating and a 1.49 rating.  CBS has spent the last few years trying to lock down Tuesday and Thursday nights, but their biggest challenge moving forward is going to be figuring out how to repair their Sunday schedule.

The good news for CBS is that they are dominating on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights, typically winning every night in both total viewers and Adults 18-49.  The problem that success is causing, however, is that the network’s audience seems to be solidifying behind its aging hits while only tentatively tasting the new shows.  Four of the five highest-rated shows on the network are in their seventh season or later, with How I Met Your Mother ending this year and NCIS in its eleventh season and Criminal Minds in its ninth.  Aging hits aren’t necessarily a problem, mind you, but when you can’t develop new hits, they become an issue. 

Just look at the other broadcast networks.  Each one has a legitimate new(ish) hit, whether it’s Sleepy Hollow on Fox, The Blacklist on NBC or SHIELD and Scandal on ABC.  The closest thing to new hits that CBS has are The Millers, which is entirely lead-in dependent, and 2 Broke Girls, which had to be moved from its timeslot and protected by HIMYM because its ratings were falling so quickly this season.  And the one legitimate hit the network has launched in the last three years (Person of Interest) just saw its young audience cut by a third thanks to a timeslot change.

CBS isn’t exactly in dire straits.  They don’t have the schedule black holes that NBC and Fox have.  But their hits are aging, and they need to develop some new shows to eventually take their place.  Maybe How I Met Your Dad will be the next big hit.  I’d wager against it, but it’s not impossible.  Whatever shows the network finds, it needs to find them soon, or these precipitous ratings drops will only continue for the foreseeable future.

CBS Midseason Grade – C+

So  thoughts?  Comments?  Just want to tell me my blog sucks?  Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @TyTalksTV.

Masters of Sex Review: "Involuntary" and "Fallout" - A Matter of Time

Julianne Nicholson and Lizzy Caplan take cover in "Masters of Sex"

I have a problem with Masters of Sex.  It’s not a huge problem and it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the show, but it does affect my understanding of the characters, their motivations, and their relationships.  You see, Masters of Sex has a problem with time.  That is, there are very few markers indicating the passage of time.  For example, how long were Vivian and Ethan dating?  A few weeks?  Months?  Years?  How long has it been since the end of last week’s episode, when Ethan consoled Virginia, and the beginning of this week’s episode, where they’re dating, at least casually?  We get some clues.  Virginia says it’s been “weeks” since Bill offered her money for the study, but she only says that it took her weeks to realize why Bill had tried to pay her.  Other context clues indicate that it’s June, but it must be at least 1958 then, unless Libby managed to get pregnant, have a miscarriage, and then get pregnant again in a period of four months (the third episode takes place in February 1957).

The reason this is a problem, for me anyway, is that most of the emotional drama in this show is based on relationships and relationships change with time.  Did Scully scuttle Ethan’s permanent job at the hospital after he and Vivian had been dating for a couple of months or for more than a year?  It may not make a great deal of difference to the narrative of the show, but it certainly gives us a different understanding of Provost Scully’s character, depending on which circumstance he’s reacting to.  And it’s even more important given that we don’t see or hear from him at all in this episode.

Ethan’s breakup with Vivian and his potential firing from the hospital is just one example of the problems caused by the show’s tenuous relationship with time.  It’s not a deal-breaker in any sense, but it’s frustrating because everything else about this show is amazing.  I’ve backed my reviews down to every other week recently not because I’ve liked the show less, but because the themes and stories the show is playing with seem to work much better in episode pairs.  The two episodes preceding “Involuntary” both dealt with the problems created when sex and love aren’t paired.  Likewise, “Involuntary” and “Fallout” both deal with what happens when people lie about their desires.

Obviously, the biggest development is the breakdown of Bill’s and Virginia’s relationship, leading to her resignation at the end of “Fallout”.  As Virginia presciently points out, Libby’s pregnancy clearly reminds Bill of his duty to his wife and clues him in to the fact that he is not treating Virginia as a research partner but is, in fact, developing feelings for her.  The whole affair is predictable and sordid, but the fallout is devastating as Bill tries to pay Virginia for her work in the study, revealing that he truly doesn’t see her as a legitimate researcher, but as nothing more than an assistant.  And the way it all unravels to the acknowledgement that their relationship wasn’t just research but an actual affair is played fantastically by both Michael Sheen and Lizzy Caplan. 

But Masters and Johnson aren’t the only ones lying to themselves and others.  While the religious differences are the proximate cause of Ethan’s breakup with Vivian, the deeper problem is that he never really jumped into their relationship, she pushed him every step of the way.  Vivian is the one who convinced Ethan that she could handle a casual hookup and then she pushed him into a relationship.  After that, she basically moved in with him and became a pseudo-housewife without really even consulting him.  Ethan may have bought the ring, but it was Vivian who jumped on the proposal.  She’s been the driving force in this relationship the entire time and it took until Ethan was finally forced to change something about himself that he was willing to admit that he had never been chasing Vivian, she had been dragging him along.  It’s a brutal, but honest, end to a relationship I was really beginning to enjoy.

With only two episodes left this season, the status quo has very much been upset, with Virginia working for Dr. DePaul in her attempts to push through the proposal for regular gynecological exams for women, Bill alone in his research, and Haas apparently about to be let go from the university.  Masters of Sex isn’t a terribly plot-heavy show, but it’s capable of weaving stories that always leave me wanting more.

A couple of spare thoughts –

The whole business with the Civil Defense Drill in “Fallout” felt very out of place.  This isn’t a show, like Mad Men, in which real-world events play a prominent role.  Certainly, events like this would help my time-tracking problem, but it all just felt very out of character for the show and didn’t even provide a decent framing device, instead only serving to make sure that nothing that happened in the hospital was routine.

That Bill seemed so blasé to one of his subjects getting pregnant surprised me.  They must have known that this was a possibility (hell, a probability given the number of participants and the apparent failure rate of the period’s contraceptives).  One of the principle concerns of clinical research (nowadays at least) is that the participants must be made aware of any possible consequences from the study.  Clearly, that wasn’t the case here.  I’m not terribly interested in the fact Dr. Langham is the father (other than to snicker at his enthusiasm for the study given the number of times he’s apparently participated), but the show may yet get some leverage out of this storyline.

I’m beginning to like Johnson and DePaul as a pairing.  They’re far and away the strongest women on the show and I hope they stick together for a while.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Anne Dudek in the opening scene and then utterly dismayed that she got only one line.  It was a very confusing cameo.

Unless something momentous happens in next week’s episode, I’ll likely stick to the schedule I have for the last several weeks and just post a review after the season finale in two weeks.

So thoughts?  Comments?  Just want to tell me my blog sucks?  Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @TyTalksTV.