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TOP 10 SHOWS OF 2011: DOWNTON ABBEY (2010-)

Sometimes, it feels as if all the men I have ever danced with are dead. I just feel so useless, wasting my life while they sacrifice theirs. - Lady Sybil Crawley

Half of the world, including most of my fellow Tumblrites, saw the second season of this wonderful Edwardian period drama in 2011. We Americans had to wait until Jan. 8, 2012 for it to premiere (unless of course you were too impatient-like me-and watched it online as it aired across the pond).

At first I thought my love for this miniseries-turned-hit-show stemmed from my wanting to have been born in another time and place, something I’ve often lived out via the works of Jane Austen and the rest of the Classics. Then I blamed it on my love of history. But I realized that while both of those certainly contributed to my initial interest in the show, the real reason I love Downton Abbey so much is because Julian Fellowes created an authentic world rich with interesting characters, both in the Crawley family and in the people who work in their household. I often like to think of it as the British answer to Mad Men.

I am too young to have ever seen the original Upstairs, Downstairs, and I’ve never seen the updated version either (though both are now definitely in my Netflix queue), but I understand it was a major influence on Downton Abbey. I have to say though, I am glad that I hadn’t seen it prior to my viewing, because it meant that I could watch this show without having anything to compare it to (as I’ve seen several critics do).

The first season was obviously widely successful and led by the power and grace of Maggie Smith. The Dowager Countess anchored what turned out to be a wonderful cast of characters, but what stood out most often were her one-liners. I think at times she seemed to overshadow the rest of the characters in the first season, because she stole every single scene she was in. I found myself wishing for more fruitful and thoughtful stories for the rest of the actors, especially the trio of daughters. I definitely cared more about the men and women downstairs in that first season. The plight of a rich family’s line of succession was not the most interesting of stories for me, and believe it or not, I actually didn’t even have an opinion on Matthew Crawley during that entire season.

Season two took on a more ambitious round of stories as it spanned most of the The Great War (I have a history degree so I can get away with calling it this without being pretentious, I swear). By integrating the men and women of Downton into the events occurring in the rest of the world, Julian Fellowes opened up his characters, gave them depth where they were lacking and made them more accessible to the audience. During the first season it seemed that aside from the mentioning of the sinking of the Titanic in the first episode, the characters were sequestered away and existed mostly in their own little Downton bubble. Season two definitely changed that.

Matthew, Thomas and William all went to France to fight in the war. And while war seemed to give Matthew a new sense of purpose (he was more than just a solicitor and the heir to Grantham estate), it brought out Thomas’ insecurities and showed his cowardice. This was a character we’d spent several episodes loathing for his pompous attitude. He’d spent so much of his time on screen trying to cut others down (William and Bates, mostly) because he felt that he was better than they were. But as was the case with most men in the trenches, Thomas eventually realized that he was just a man, no better than any of his fellow soldiers. And he took the coward’s way out by holding up a lighter and getting shot through the hand.

While the young men were off fighting the Germans, the Earl of Grantham was having a midlife crisis, brought on by the fact he was too old to serve in the war. I don’t think it exactly helped that Cora found herself very busy running Downton once it became a convalescent home. I enjoyed seeing both of these characters adapt to their new situations in life. The story was no longer about the heir to the fortune, but about how war changed everyone, not just the men in the trenches.

My favorite change from the first season to the second though was the evolution of the three daughters, Lady Mary, Lady Edith and Lady Sybil. Mary, though still in love with Matthew, decided to move on and became engaged to a rich newspaper man as Matthew was now engaged to Trinity Ashby a wonderful young woman he’d met when home on leave. While season one Mary was selfish, season two Mary had matured; she was more interested in being her own person and was less focused on who she’d marry.

Lady Edith had matured as well. She was out of the Ruin Mary business and first found purpose after learning to drive, and then again when attending to the wounded soldiers convalescing at Downton. She was the woman all of the soldiers depended on when they needed one thing or the other. She also spent some time putting her driving skills to use doing somewhat manual labor.

And Lady Sybil, the only daughter with a story I liked in the first season (helping Gwen secure a job outside of Downton as a secretary), grew even more selfless over the course of the second season. She was interested in politics and women’s suffrage and took the most active role of the three sisters when she became a nurse and aided the wounded men who came in to the local hospital.

And yet even with all of that, Fellowes still found plenty of time to dedicate to the stories of the staff, which included a promise of love for Mrs. Hughes, a health scare for Mr. Carson and even Mrs. Patmore, more tormented love for Anna and Mr. Bates, and an interesting story between Daisy and William, not to mention a pregnancy.

Yes, season two definitely enlarged the world and scale of Downton Abbey. And I cannot wait to see what Fellowes has cooked up for season three, which premieres this fall.

TOP 10 SHOWS OF 2011: BREAKING BAD (2008-)

“I am the one who knocks.” - Walter White

Every season after the credits roll on the Breaking Bad season finale I think to myself, “Holy fucking shit, self. How can they possibly A) get out of this, and B) top what they did this season?” But every year when the show returns, Vince Gilligan and his amazing writing staff do it again and again.

This season we saw, yet again, stellar performances from leads Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul (and if you try to tell me Aaron Paul is still a supporting actor on this show I will fight you, he’s just as much a lead now as Cranston… which should make for an interesting Emmy Awards this year). But we also saw a calculating, perfect performance by Giancarlo Esposito as drug lord and chicken man, Gus Fring.

Every episode seemed to be better than the last and I constantly found myself shouting, “There it is! There it is! That’s the scene that’s going to win [insert actor’s name here] the Emmy!” Whether it was Walt lying in his metaphorical grave underneath the house while his screaming turned to insane laughter after finding out Skyler gave their money to Ted to save his (and her own) ass, or the scene in which he pulls Jesse’s gun to his head while trying to convince him Gus was behind Brock’s poisoning, I think it’s safe to say that Emmy has Cranston’s name already engraved.

As I said earlier, I think Aaron Paul should submit himself as a lead actor in this year’s Emmys, but if he doesn’t, I think there’s a great possibility of these two repeating their victories from 2010. Paul didn’t even say a word in the first 40 minutes of the season premiere but I think he could submit that episode and still win all the awards. His downward spiral after killing Gale in the premiere left me brokenhearted and wanting to reach into my screen and just hold him and tell him everything was going to be all right. I hated seeing him turn back to meth, but I hated even more when Gus was the one to save him from himself and not his surrogate father, Walt.

Paul seems to be one of those actors who can do it both ways: he can communicate without saying much at all (the season premiere), or he can ramble off this long speech  that leaves you going, “Holy freaking shit.” Season three had a lot of Jesse speeches, and Paul delivered them well, but this season we only saw a couple of those speeches. His two best scenes however, were a mixture of both. I’m thinking of course about his scene at his former NA anonymous meeting (‘Problem Dog’). Jesse shows up to his former meeting looking for someone to hold him responsible for killing Gale. He’s struggling with killing a man and not having to face any sort of consequences. He, of course, puts it in the context of killing a dog, though. “If you just do stuff, and nothing happens, what’s it all mean?” Paul’s entire performance in that scene blew me away, even more so than the second instance I was thinking of, which was the scene at Walt’s house in which he confronted him and accused him of poisoning Brock with the ricin cigarette. Both scenes were stellar and rewatching them just now had my pulse racing.

I was on the edge of my seat during every single episode this season. Whether I was worrying about Gus taking a box cutter to Jesse, or trying to figure out just how long Walt had until Hank discovered he was Heisenberg, my heart was pounding out of my chest every Sunday night. And only on a show as amazing as Breaking Bad can you have an episode that makes you actually feel bad for the villain. But it happened. And then seeing Gus get revenge on the Cartel had me cheering.

It’s hard to say that this season topped any of the ones that came before it (because every single season has been phenomenally written, directed and acted - not to mention that cinematography!), but I can definitely say that I am chomping at the bit for the final season to start this summer. I can’t wait for Jesse to finally see the truth about Walt. I want him to find out about Jane, I want him to find out that he was actually right the first time about Brock’s poisoning, I want him to realize that he doesn’t need Walt and most of all I want him to be the one to take Walt down (because after Walt’s “I won,” to Skyler after killing Gus, it’s only right for the show to end with his downfall, right?) I don’t know how the show will ever top Tio Salamanca’s bell ringing bomb, but I cannot wait to see how they try.

TOP 10 SHOWS OF 2011: JUSTIFIED (2010-)

I don’t want you to speak anymore, cause once you start lying to me there’s gonna be a river between us with no bridge to cross. - Raylan Givens

As was the case with Sons of Anarchy, I came late to this wonderful masterpiece and I don’t even have an excuse for why that’s true. Once again, it probably came down to a lack of time in my already busy schedule. But I made room for it at the end of October and I watched both seasons in the span of about 4 days.

Raylan Givens, US Marshal and modern day gunslinger. He’s one of the angriest men I’ve ever seen (to quote Winona in season one), but it’s also obvious that the world he grew up in, which we saw more of this season, played a role in shaping the man he is today. Raylan has a strong desire to do what is right by the law (and usually by the laws of human nature), even if all the signs are telling him it’s dangerous and stupid. He’s a good man, but he’s also not against taking action if he thinks it’s justified. He’s intelligent and sexy and stubborn as hell. But there’s something about the way he wears that hat and those boots and the way he can lean on a door jamb that makes you just love him. And boy, do I love that Kentucky man.

Being from Ohio, this show has a soft spot in my heart simply for being set in my part of the country and not in some town in California or some odd and charming town in New England or the Pacific Northwest or the Deep South. No, it’s a show set in Kentucky and aside from making it look like Lexington and Harlan are practically neighbors, I think the producers do a great job at portraying Kentucky (unlike just about any show that’s ever been set in Ohio, including Glee).

But that’s not why I really love this show or why it’s on this list. It’s on this list because in its sophomore season this show somehow managed to be even better than its stellar debut. This season had a more set trajectory than the first. It had a story to tell and it did it well. By delving deeper into Raylan’s back-story and by introducing us to the Bennett family and all their rotten drama, we got a well-planned, well-executed second season for this drama. And for that I am eternally grateful (as I’m sure Margo Martindale is as well, seeing as her role as leader of the Bennett clan won her an Emmy).

This season we learned a lot more about our protagonist, but we also learned more about his sometimes ally, usual enemy, Boyd Crowder. We got to see another side to Boyd and I cannot explain how happy I am that the writers realized it was best not to kill off Walton Goggins’ character in the first season. And I’m not just saying that because I often find myself in a trance wondering how Goggins’ gets his hair to look like that. It’s because he adds something to the show that I can’t quite place. He could have easily been a one-note character, but the writers took him and developed him and made him into a very interesting and rather complex man.  Not to mention his relationship with Ava made him a more relate-able character. That being said, I cannot wait to see what hell he raises in season three, which premieres Jan. 17.

Season two also brought us a reconnected Raylan and Winona and it was nice having more of Natalie Zea around, but I hope she gets her own story this upcoming season and doesn’t just exist in and around Raylan. Because as much as I love these two together, I think she has the ability to hold her own on this show. The Justified writers do a great job of rounding out and developing strong characters and I hope it continues for Winona as it did more with Ava in season two.

The writing, the characters, the actors, the entire world they’ve created - there isn’t a thing about this show that I don’t love and think is perfect. I’ve been dying for season three to start since I realized Mags poisoned herself at the end of “Bloody Harlan,” and I desperately hope more people will tune in on Jan. 17.

TOP 10 SHOWS OF 2011: Sons of Anarchy (2008-)

“Benefit of an end date. Nothing more dangerous than a guy who knows he’s already dead.” -Clay

It was hard for me to choose a quote to summarize this year in SOA, but I also have a confession to make: for all my love and all my obsessing over this show, I didn’t even start watching it until this past April.

I do that sometimes; I don’t get around to watching shows I really should be watching because of the other shows I find myself watching, sometimes out of misguided loyalty, and sometimes because a girl just needs shows that don’t give her high blood pressure every single week.

But I have never been happier to have come upon a show this late in the game. Sons of Anarchy, for all of its weaknesses (don’t look at me like that, not even Buffy was perfect all the time), is probably one of my all-time favorite shows. There are few shows that have hooked me the way this one did when I first started watching it after it became available on Netflix Instant. I watched all three of the seasons that had aired in the span of one week. A week in which I also worked full-time. I still don’t know how I managed it, but I did. And I’m glad.

As many of you know, this is a show I’ve written a lot about in these last eight months (I’m sorry I’m not sorry for cluttering your dashboard) but it bears repeating in that Kurt Sutter is a mad maniacal genius and I bow to his storytelling skills and greatness. The fact that he made me care at all about this motley crew of biker outlaws (and the women who love them) is a testament to his vision and skill. I might complain here and there about things that tick me off, and I might have been upset that Clay lived to see season five after everything he did this year to save his own ass, but I believe in Kurt Sutter and I believe in his ability to tell this story. For every episode or thing that leaves me a little unsatisfied, there is an episode like “Hands” that breaks that down and makes me forget why I was ever upset in the first place. Because when Sons is good, it’s good. And I know that every episode has the ability to be great.

This season almost gave me heart palpitations, my blood pressure was through the roof every week as I wondered how anyone was going to make it out alive. And yet, despite the nonstop intensity of the drama on this show, it bears mentioning that a show steeped in the very misogynistic world of bikers is a show that broke my heart several times through out the season with its heart. Jax proposing to Tara, Jax saving Tara, basically anything that had to do with Jax and his love for Tara reduced me to a bumbling wad of idiotic girl squealing. And I’m not the least bit embarrassed to admit it.

And then there was the time I was nearly in tears as I watched Juice’s (failed) attempt to hang himself. I shed a silent tear as Kozik was blown apart. I was shaking for ten minutes as I waited for Clay to ultimately kill Piney, and I was  actually a big ball of tears when Opie found Piney dead in the cabin (and then I was very in to Opie’s revenge.)

For me this show is not just about the drama. It’s not about how badass of a motherfucker these men are at times (though, I’ll admit being drawn to the violence - shut up, it’s sexy … when it’s on screen), it’s about how this group is a brotherhood - even if some of the men had forgotten that and used it for greed. This show, despite my complaints and despite what some critics have said, is definitely one of the best shows currently on television. The writing is solid and the acting is out of this world (I still don’t know how anyone could dismiss this fact). I hope that one day the rest of the world finally decides to look past the motorcycles and realize this is a great story about family, both conventional and unconventional, about love, and about sacrifice. I can’t wait for it to return next fall.

TOP 10 SHOWS OF 2011: Friday Night Lights (2006-2011)

You may never know how proud I am of you. — Eric Taylor
You changed my life, Coach. — Vince Howard

I have a theory that Friday Night Lights changes the lives of everyone who experiences it. If I could have, I’d have bought the complete series for everyone I knew this Christmas because it deserves and needs to be seen by all.

Friday Night Lights wasn’t one of the best shows of 2011. It wasn’t one of the best shows of 2010 or 2009 or 2008 either. It’s not even one of the best shows of the last decade. It’s one of the most best shows in the history of television.

Saying goodbye to the men and women of Dillon, Texas felt a lot like I was saying goodbye to my friends. It felt a lot like I was losing a group of people I’d known my entire life. And I think that is one of the reasons the show succeeded. The writers of FNL created and developed these characters in a way that made you feel like you knew them, made you care about them. And it worked so well because in reality, you probably do know someone like sweet and shy Matt Saracen. You probably know a girl like Tyra Collette who overcame all the obstacles placed in front of her and found success, and I think it is blasphemous for any woman to have never have known a man like Tim Riggins.

Saying goodbye to these characters was heartbreaking not only because I get overly attached to fictional characters, but also because I knew that another show like this would probably never exist. No other show could possibly come close to how realistic, how beautiful, and how breathtaking this show was. And after thinking about it for a long time, I realized how great that actually is, what that actually means.

It means Jason Katims created a world so wonderful, so beautiful, so real that nothing else will actually compare to it in the grand scheme of things. It will be remembered for being the show that portrayed the most realistic marriage on television. It will be remembered for the way it made you feel good and yet made you cry at the same time. It will be remembered for its inspirational speeches and unforgettable mottos as much as it will be remembered for its poignant silences. It will be remembered for its triumphs and its losses, just like a real football team. But this show, as we all know, was about more than football. It was about the men and women of Dillon, Texas. It was about coming together as a community and having something to rally behind and to count on. It was about life and the relationships we make and the people who help us along the way. It was about dreams and it was about love.

The show may have ended, Kyle Chandler may have his Emmy for the way he perfected the role of husband, father, coach and mentor to the young adults of Dillon, Texas, but in my mind this show will never truly be over. No, in my mind I still feel like those young men are still playing football, still growing up, still figuring out their lives in Dillon, Texas. And even without Coach Eric Taylor there to protect them, to teach them, to mentor them, they’re still going to grow up to be the greatest of men. Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose.