When I lived outside of Roscommon as a kid in the early '80s, on the dusty dirt road known as Pere Cheney Road -- named for the 1800's lumber town, long since abandoned -- there was such a thing as television. Our TV set, antennas perched atop a plastic proxy for solid wood, had CBS and PBS in strong signals on VHF, along with intermittent contact with NBC, as well as ABC on UHF. In other words, the stories that television brought into my life were scarce and precious. And as banal as they often were, I longed for the days when I could have more.
Well, those days are here, and holy shit.
When I look back at the "television" I watched in 2019, from network fare to premium channel content to streaming chunks, my first big takeaway is "be careful what you wish for." As a consumer resigned to dip into lands of make-believe while the climate crisis revs its global engines, there's just not enough hours in the day to watch everything that might resonate. So you stake out your territory, shoot your shot, and hope that something sticks.
If you're unlucky, you've invested your time in something that misses the mark. The second half of Season 5 of Arrested Development -- a show that started in 1999 (!!!) -- was a tired slog that stranded good actors with plotting and dialogue that couldn't match them. And just because you can make good-not-great second seasons of Big Little Lies and The End Of The Fucking World doesn't mean you should, as each suffered in comparison to their first outings. (Please take note, Watchmen.)
In record industry terms, here's what sold for me. Your mileage may vary.
Gold Record: Zone Blanche S2 / High Maintenance S3 / The Deuce S3 / Better Things S3 / The Righteous Gemstones S1 / The Kominsky Method S2 / Undone S1 / Bonding S1 / Easy S3 / On Becoming A God In Central Florida S1 / True Detective S3 / After Life S1 / Black Summer S1 / I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson S1 / Love, Death & Robots S1 / The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S3
Platinum Record: Sex Education S1 / A Black Lady Sketch Show S1 / Euphoria S1 / Year Of The Rabbit S1 / What We Do In The Shadows S1 / Brooklyn Nine-Nine S6 / Mr Inbetween S2 / Mr. Mercedes S3 / Barry S2 / Perpetual Grace Ltd. S1 / Back To Life S1 / Russian Doll S1 / Mindhunter S2 / Legion S3 / Big Mouth S3 / Stranger Things S3 / Glow S3 / The OA S2 / One Day At A Time S3 / The Mandalorian S1
Diamond Record: Watchmen / Chernobyl / Santa Clarita Diet S3 / Mr. Robot S4 / Years And Years / Fleabag S2 / Orange Is The New Black S8 / Dark S2
The first episodes of Fleabag and Chernobyl are pretty strong high points for (respectively) comedy and horror, but multiple episodes of Mr. Robot and Watchmen are straight killers. (And then there's the time-twisting mind-fuck that is Dark. And the five episodes of Rick & Morty where 3.6 are joyously fantastic and 1.4 are kinda sorta meh. And The Good Place and so on.) I'm sure I could write about each show and each episode and each set piece, but the internet is full of great writers, so it's hard to bother with it all. I'm just full of "television" and lists and Peppermint Bark Oreos, so that will have to do.
Well, those days are here, and holy shit.
When I look back at the "television" I watched in 2019, from network fare to premium channel content to streaming chunks, my first big takeaway is "be careful what you wish for." As a consumer resigned to dip into lands of make-believe while the climate crisis revs its global engines, there's just not enough hours in the day to watch everything that might resonate. So you stake out your territory, shoot your shot, and hope that something sticks.
If you're unlucky, you've invested your time in something that misses the mark. The second half of Season 5 of Arrested Development -- a show that started in 1999 (!!!) -- was a tired slog that stranded good actors with plotting and dialogue that couldn't match them. And just because you can make good-not-great second seasons of Big Little Lies and The End Of The Fucking World doesn't mean you should, as each suffered in comparison to their first outings. (Please take note, Watchmen.)
In record industry terms, here's what sold for me. Your mileage may vary.
Gold Record: Zone Blanche S2 / High Maintenance S3 / The Deuce S3 / Better Things S3 / The Righteous Gemstones S1 / The Kominsky Method S2 / Undone S1 / Bonding S1 / Easy S3 / On Becoming A God In Central Florida S1 / True Detective S3 / After Life S1 / Black Summer S1 / I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson S1 / Love, Death & Robots S1 / The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel S3
Platinum Record: Sex Education S1 / A Black Lady Sketch Show S1 / Euphoria S1 / Year Of The Rabbit S1 / What We Do In The Shadows S1 / Brooklyn Nine-Nine S6 / Mr Inbetween S2 / Mr. Mercedes S3 / Barry S2 / Perpetual Grace Ltd. S1 / Back To Life S1 / Russian Doll S1 / Mindhunter S2 / Legion S3 / Big Mouth S3 / Stranger Things S3 / Glow S3 / The OA S2 / One Day At A Time S3 / The Mandalorian S1
Diamond Record: Watchmen / Chernobyl / Santa Clarita Diet S3 / Mr. Robot S4 / Years And Years / Fleabag S2 / Orange Is The New Black S8 / Dark S2
The first episodes of Fleabag and Chernobyl are pretty strong high points for (respectively) comedy and horror, but multiple episodes of Mr. Robot and Watchmen are straight killers. (And then there's the time-twisting mind-fuck that is Dark. And the five episodes of Rick & Morty where 3.6 are joyously fantastic and 1.4 are kinda sorta meh. And The Good Place and so on.) I'm sure I could write about each show and each episode and each set piece, but the internet is full of great writers, so it's hard to bother with it all. I'm just full of "television" and lists and Peppermint Bark Oreos, so that will have to do.
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