Top 10 TV Shows of 2014

Here's some caveats before I get into my top 10, because I certainly haven't seen everything that has aired this year:

- I live in Canada. There are some shows, like Transparent and Review that simply have not become available in Canada through any (legal) form yet, so they have gone unwatched.
- I do not have any pay cable channels. As a result, there is no Game of Thrones or Girls or Boardwalk Empire on this list. There is one exception to this, which we will get to, because it was available on DVD before the end of the year.
- I give up on shows fairly quickly, so if a show got considerably better over the course of the year past the initial reviews and my initial impressions, I don't typically try to catch up. For that reason I don't watch shows like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I also only got into serious TV watching around 2011, so shows that started earlier than that (such as The Good Wife) may be unwatched as well.

So, this is by no means an exhaustive list. But without further ado, here is my top 10 shows that aired in 2014. I watched enough of about 25 shows to be considered for this list.

First, honourable mentions this year go to The Killing and House of Cards.

10. Survivor
Yes, really. I'm just as surprised as you are. I'm not sure what bug infected me that I started watching Survivor again this year, but I quickly became obsessed with it. No other show this year did I spend more time obsessing over the ins and outs of what was really going on. The combination of trying to figure out the best strategic moves as well as how to deal with people in the game has not yet really gotten old for me. Plus, this year's two seasons both gave plenty of food for thought, as they were two of the least straight forward and most unpredictable seasons ever. It's completely unlike anything else on this list, but I don't look forward to any other show more, nor did I discuss any other show as much. Seriously, look at my Disqus comments since I joined. They are literally 95% Survivor comments. So I had to put it on the list, and this was the place for it.

9. The Walking Dead
This is an odd one for me. All at once, somewhere halfway through the previous current crop of episodes, a bunch of critics including Andy Greenwald of Grantland and Todd Van Der Werff of Vox posted columns about how The Walking Dead had finally gotten good after years of being mediocre. Meanwhile, I've thought Season 5 has been business as usual for the show, which for the longest time I've been more positive about than the general community, particularly through Season 2. Comes onto the list this year after not even getting an honourable mention last year for two reasons:
1. Three stellar episodes this year. When The Walking Dead  is at its best, it is one of the top shows on TV, no exaggeration. It hit those highs this year with "After", "The Grove" and "Self Help".
2. The baseline for the show has improved. In previous years, when The Walking Dead was bad, it was quite awful. This year, the Walking Dead had no episodes that I would give any worse adjective to than tepid. I still would like to see better consistency from the show, but having no episodes reach the lows of some of the later Season 3 episodes or the Season 4 midseason finale is a nice step.

8. Fargo
Considering how many great shows I haven't seen, putting Fargo this low on the list is practically trashing it compared to the general critical community. Voted the number 1 show of the year by the critics polled for hitfix.com, it is beloved. And the show is pretty great at multiple things. It has possibly the best command of tone of any show on this list, effortlessly switching between dark comedy and heroic drama. It's that tone that is the biggest tie between it and the movie, and being able to pull that off makes the project a worthy sequel to the movie. It also has one of the top 3 characters on TV, Molly Solverson, played wonderfully by previously unknown Chicago theatre actress Alison Tolman. Martin Freeman also gives a great performance that is nothing like either Bilbo Baggins or John Watson. And while I have fairly major problems with the character concept, Billy Bob Thornton is having a lot of fun and chewing a lot of scenery as Lorne Malvo.

However, the problem is that the degree of heightened reality that the show employs doesn't work very well for me. I find that it removes the character just enough from my world that they become tougher to dig into and really explore in proper context. For instance, there is no exploring to do with Lorne Malvo. He's a cartoon character who is evil incarnate and nearly unstoppable for most of the run of the series, and he sucks everything around him into his vortex of ridiculousness. I find it hard to scrounge for something worthwhile among the carnage he creates. Still a pretty good show, and I'll be looking forward to next year, especially with no Malvo to be seen.

7. Happy Valley
Even as I'm writing this post, I'm still playing around with my rankings. I originally had Happy Valley in the 5 hole, but I moved it down as I was writing the blurbs for the next two shows. Happy Valley  is pretty flawless, and does a good job not being exploitative or misogynistic with a kidnapping case, something almost every other show falls into. It does a great job sketching out its main character in Catherine, who feels so much like a real person, and can hit the emotional moments and absolutely wreck the viewer when it is aiming for them. I highly recommend it. It doesn't have uniqueness of many of the other shows on this list, which is why it dropped as there's not as much about it that sticks with me, but it is extremely well executed, compelling, and does some great character work.

6. True Detective
It was a great battle between anthology series this spring, as everyone was picking a side between Fargo  and True Detective, and it had to be one or the other. At the time of airing, True Detective had all the accolades and buzz surrounding it, and Fargo was the much smaller show airing later that so many assumed was much better. This was not the side I thought I'd be taking, especially after about 6 episodes and this show seemed to be running out of steam. But the much maligned finale brought it all together for me, that this show was never about the Yellow King or murder mysteries involving antlers. This was a show about a broken man, Rust Cohle, who was so damaged by the loss of his daughter that he just couldn't be a person any more, and instead decided to be this philosophy touting piece of cardboard that didn't really resemble a human being. To watch the little pieces of the real Rust come out among the acting, in his dedication to a case he pretended wasn't important in the grand scheme of things, before finally emerging in that wonderful speech in the finale was compelling and some of the best character work of the year. The show is flawed, the case wasn't that exciting and it took the flashback and interrogation room form as well as some spectacular directing to tie us over while the show built its foundation, but there was some really fascinating work under the surface. It's a show that missed the boat on the cable antihero era and therefore seems a little tired, but there's something new and different about it nonetheless.

5. The Americans
This is, bar none, the most morally complex show on television right now. There is no other show that is so dedicated to making us care, and care deeply, about people who routinely kill and ruin the lives of innocent people as part of their daily life. It is committed to showing the toll it takes on them, and the acting of those characters is fantastic. And this season, by centring the season so much around Phillip and Elizabeth's children, it turns that around. It puts a new set of innocents in the path of the wreckage of their jobs, but this time it's innocents that they love more than anyone else in the world. Choosing their undercover life fighting for a theoretical sense of patriotism and right and pitting that up against the things that affect them on a more real and emotional level was a brilliant play for this show and paid major dividends.

I just wish I could feel the show like some of its biggest proponents can. It's just that Phillip and Elizabeth are just so far misguided and so inhuman at times that I just can't drum up the empathy for them that I need for this show to fully succeed and take me through the slower stretches. The good episodes of the show are fantastic, but there are enough dragging ones that I simply can't justify putting it higher, especially since I'm so much more invested in the main characters of these four shows above it.

4. Hannibal
At this point, there's not much left to say about Hannibal that hasn't already been said. The number 1 show at the AV Club, with a finale that I would consider probably the best episode of television this year, the psychological dance between Hannibal and Will Graham this year was nothing short of a masterpiece. The way Will embraced his darker side to lure Hannibal in to ultimately trap and catch him was both brilliant and tragic to watch, as Will struggled with the difficulties of empathizing with serial killers like never before. And that finale left everyone, including the viewer, as an absolute wreck. A fantastic season of a fantastic show, one I'm not sure of how it continues to exist, but we get a Season 3 and I couldn't be happier.  And I almost forgot to mention the best cinematography on TV.

3. Rectify
As far as concepts for a television show go, there are few that have as much depth and complexity as a man getting off of death row 19 years after being convicted as a 16 year old, and having to find his place back in the world again. There's something so bittersweet about the show, a sense of joy and loss mingled with one another, forcing you to put yourself in Daniel's shoes and feel along with him. And the show lives up to that concept, as Daniel's character is even more than you expect. This season, he's shown to be just weird enough and off-kilter enough that you wonder whether his time in prison completely distorted a normal human, or whether he was already a weird dude and death row just exacerbated the problem. And if it's the latter, was he strange enough that he did commit the crime he was convicted of?

I've heard many say that it's not important whether Daniel committed the crime or not, but I disagree. Learning whether Daniel is capable of murdering his girlfriend is essential to learning who Daniel is, and what kind of person he is. And that is ultimately what the show is about. And it's so intellectually and emotionally stimulating to try and parse that out.

The show does very well with its supporting characters such as Ted and Amantha as well. It manages to make them both off-putting and downright unlikable at times while still maintaining their basic humanity. This is something many shows struggle to do with their main characters, much less their supporting ones.

Ultimately, this could have been my number one show this year if it had been a little tighter. The expanded 10 episode order this year meant it spent a little too much time with "Lezlie with a z" for my liking. But the highs were so high, and the finale was so good, that even disregarding the premise that is tailor-made for my TV sensibilities, this show fully earns this spot on the list.

2. Mad Men
I'll talk more about what makes Mad Men so great near the premiere of the final stretch of episodes, but suffice to say that it's a show that manages to cover the broadest range of topics with the most depth. After spending the last two years very invested in the societal changes of the 60s, this half season it dug deep into the technological changes that were on the horizon. It made the visionary of the show, Jim Cutler, into the primary antagonist and ended up with the two obsolete members of the agency dominated the final episode. And the fact that it had the men of past winning a victory over the ways of the future in the end showed how subversive and unique Mad Men can be. Plus, thematic material aside, those last two episodes were great and fully showed off possibly the best cast of characters on television. I thought this was a down year for the show. Yet it's still the show, and wasn't going to drop any lower than this.

1. Orange is the New Black
This has everything you could possibly want in a television show. It has the highest quantity of great characters anywhere, and makes you care about every single one of them (that aren't complete sociopaths). It tells diverse types of stories with a diverse cast, incorporating the experiences of people from all classes, races and religions. It can be hilarious, enough that many consider it to be a comedy. It highlights flaws in society, particularly the prison system. It's centred around women, something traditionally under-represented on TV. It points the finger at privilege, and makes the least likable and most out of touch character the one that is most similar to the majority of the audience (that would be our good friend Jason Biggs). It does standalone episode arcs, and they are brilliant. It does season long episode arcs, and they are brilliant. It incorporates flashbacks in ways that add to the characters without protruding too much into the main story.

In my mind, this year of Orange is the New Black was pretty much perfect in every way and I couldn't be happier to have it as my number 1 show of 2014. I'm honestly surprised that it is not the consensus choice for best current television show (or whatever) of people everywhere, that is how good I think this show is. If you haven't seen it, do whatever you need to watch it. It is amazing.

The Personality of a Killer - On Serial and The Killing Season 4

*The following has minor spoilers for Serial and major spoilers for Season 4 of The Killing. It does not assume you’ve seen/heard either of these, so if you don’t plan on watching The Killing, or don’t particularly care about spoilers, you should be fine.

Over the past couple of months, Serial has quickly become the most famous podcast ever to pod. It’s the relaying of the results of a real investigation by reporter Sarah Koenig into the murder of a girl named Hae Min Lee, and specifically whether the convicted ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed actually committed the murder. The first half of the episodes of the podcast were focussed almost entirely on the evidence Koenig had collected about the case, and parcelling it out in a natural form that arrested the reader and made them care about the results.

The podcast took a turn near the end of episode 6, “The Case against Adnan Syed.” Sarah had just finished laying out all the evidence that had accumulated against Adnan, and then her thoughts turned a different way. She wonders aloud how someone who acted like Adnan, and spoke to her like Adnan could be capable of this murder. But she also wondered if she was just being manipulated. The story has progressed in a similar vein ever since then, focussing on people and behaviours rather than hard evidence, because it seems the hard evidence for the case has pretty well dried up. It has become no less fascinating through this stretch, though.

Through this whole process, the listener had the opportunity to hear many parts of Koenig’s taped interviews with Adnan. And he literally says all the right things. With everything he says, my immediate reaction is “How can someone who had committed apparent cold-blooded murder speak like this?” But it’s not just how he speaks; it’s listening to how those who were in contact with him, both before and after the murder. He’s always presented by everyone as kind and caring and gentle, even by those who think he committed the murder. Anyone in contact with him says he was not overly upset about the breakup with Hae Min Lee, at least externally. This breakup was said by the prosecution to be the driving motive for him to commit murder.

Yet the hard evidence points to him, and it pointed to him enough that he was able to get convicted. And while I don’t believe that he should have been convicted, that there are more than enough problems with the prosecution’s case that there is reasonable doubt, if you asked me at gunpoint, I would say that Adnan Syed killed Hae Min Lee.

This seems so simple. You can’t trust personality evaluations when looking at murders. People who seem like outstanding citizens have committed them to the shock of everyone around. I know of these stories, you know of these stories. However, to this point, I’ve never had such an in depth look at a real person accused of murder that really doesn’t seem like the type. And it messes with your head badly. Adnan Syed is not a trained actor; he should not be able to pull off the role of the innocent victim of circumstance as well as he’s pulled it off. And that’s not only 32 year old Adnan who is speaking to Koenig and to the audience from his jail cell, but 17 year old Adnan was doing the same charming innocent victim bit back them. The judge at sentencing accused him of manipulating through his charm. It just doesn’t seem likely that the things Adnan says, and the way he acts both then and now are the actions of a perfectly rehearsed psychopath, or even the actions of someone who let their emotions run away with them to such a degree that they committed murder. This person committing murder seems like something off a TV show.

The Killing is an interesting place to turn when looking at Serial. It was one of the first television shows to try to pull off the “one case over a season of episodes”, a format Serial is sort of piggybacking off of. I watched Season 4 recently. The conclusion of the matter is the detectives find out that a son was moved into a trancelike state by his peers at his military school and convinced to kill his parents. He kills them and the rest of his family, including his young sister. Afterwards, he attempts to commit suicide by shooting himself in the head, but fails, and the impact of the bullet wound causes him to experience amnesia and forget the whole event.

It’s not a great season of television, and the case isn’t particularly groundbreaking, though it does have a nice hook to it. It has a cool roundabout narrative, where suspicion is initially on the son (Kyle), moved off of him for a while, before finally landing back at the place where they started, that the initial suspicion was correct. But the writers are very careful to make it seem that Kyle was not capable of murder, and they get to work on that almost from the moment he wakes up out of his coma.

There’s one scene in particular where the lead detective takes Kyle back to the house where the murders were committed. It’s a very emotionally charged moment, as Kyle immediately throws up upon seeing the blood stains and being walked through exactly what happened. He’s not in the role of the charming sociopath, he’s in the role of the normal person who doesn’t understand how he could have done something like this. There’s one point where the detective asks him point blank whether he could have killed his younger sister, even if it were possible with his parents, and Kyle says no, and there’s no doubt at all that he means it. There is no acting about it.

The writers of The Killing are positing that people who seem normal and grounded are capable of terrible things if they snap the wrong way, things they themselves wouldn’t have been capable of, and there have been real cases that have indicated that to be true. There’s no such thing as the personality of a killer, they can manifest many different faces to the public eye.

This is what is messing with my head so badly about Serial. Emotionally removed, and ignoring everything said by or about Adnan, he seems like the killer. And there’s ample reason to ignore all that stuff. There’s many times where you simply cannot tell someone is a killer by the way they act before or after an incident. But I’m wondering if TV is influencing me the wrong way in this regard. How many people are really like Hannibal Lecter, the charming sociopath? Or like Kyle, the normal kid who snapped? Maybe TV is making me think these types of things are way more common than they actually are. Maybe I should be paying more attention to the character references, both from my instincts from listening to him talk and the way the people around him refer to him. Maybe people just aren’t as good as acting as TV, which is built for dramatic purposes, makes you believe.

I’m stuck. I’m reluctant to see Adnan as a manipulative psychopath, because that seems such a rare and extraordinary thing to me that he would distribute absolutely no other signs of that to anyone. Is he a version of Kyle, someone normal who suddenly snapped on the person who broke up with him, and is just fighting hard to maintain his innocence because he can’t bear to see people think of him that way? Maybe, but how was he able to maintain so calm and collected between the breakup and the murder if it made him angry to that degree? Is he innocent? The facts just don’t seem to back that up.

How much can you know about a person, or believe about a person based on what they present to the public? TV and other fictional literature tell me you can believe very little, but they have an agenda of trying to be dramatically satisfying. There’s special real life cases that tell me you can believe very little, but they are special cases for a reason. Ultimately, I just don’t know, and that’s going to bother me. By far the most interesting thing about Serial is that it is real life, and real life is confusing and messy.