George Hatza's top TV 2011: The best programming responded to the times (Reading Eagle)

George Hatza's top TV 2011: The best programming responded to the times

George Hatza

The world in transition: If there was a theme this past year among television's best programs, this would seem to sum it up. The 10 series/TV movies/miniseries I have chosen as the best of the year all follow central characters who are confronting change in various forms. They are terrified, angry, empowered, grieving, victimized but not complacent. They fight back, some more quickly than others. This metaphor, if you will, speaks with shrewd insight to the age in which we live. Life in this country today is a fearful thing. Despair runs rampant. The nation is divided perhaps more than at any time since the Civil War. Yes, these shows are about terrorists, impending war, hurricanes, crime, disease, mental illness, specters, dirty politics, greed and betrayal. But they also are about building a life in a time when two steps forward always are followed by one step back. In order of preference, the following are the best in television for 2011: 1. "Homeland" - This Showtime series starring the magnificent Claire Danes as bipolar CIA agent Carrie Mathison is riddled with paranoia. A Marine POW, Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis), returns heroically from Iraq years after being given up for dead, followed by rumors that he was "turned" by terrorists. Byzantine twists lead to enigmatic dead ends. Is Carrie just nuts, or is Brody about to trigger doomsday? This cable thriller boasts the perfect mix of unpredictable action and rich character psychology. It is never anything less than riveting. 2. "Downton Abbey" - Masterpiece Classic on PBS does what no one else can do, which is to re-create impeccably another time and place. In this dazzling miniseries, returning this month as a regular series, a wealthy British family on the eve of World War I clings to traditions despite crumbling class distinctions that lead to sometimes subtle, sometimes explosive class warfare. Sound familiar? The acting is brilliant (e.g., Maggie Smith), but it's the writing and direction that carry this addictive melodrama to something approaching perfection. 3. "Treme" - Set in the cultural jambalaya of New Orleans, this HBO series about Hurricane Katrina's aftermath continues to startle with its spicy blend of jazz and liquor, violation and corruption, pride and prejudice. The police and public officials betray the population while couples betray one another. The sharp schism between those unaffected by the flood and those still trying to put roofs over their heads proves as heartbreaking as it is infuriating. Location and plot merge seamlessly. 4. "The Big C" - The shocking conclusion of this Showtime comedy's second season still resonates. We watched in awe when Cathy Jamison (the amazing Laura Linney), in the fourth stage of melanoma, finished a marathon. What she found at the end of the race was not what fans of this quirky, intelligent, funny and affecting series would have expected. And that is what makes the series so special. The wit is all in the language, how the characters cloak their anguish in biting humor. 5. "Boardwalk Empire" - It's the roaring '20s, and boy, are they howling in Atlantic City in this epic HBO drama series. Prohibition is in full force, and thus so is crime, as gangsters in fancy suits with names like Capone and Rothstein and Darmody and Luciano and Horvitz battle for control of the booze black market. Blacks want in on the action as well, which leads to all sorts of violence. This Jersey melting pot is run by the wealthy Enoch "Nucky" Thompson (a terrific Steve Buscemi), politician and crook, who has met his match this past season in the deceptively demure Margaret Schroeder (Kelly Macdonald), his mistress, whom he married in the season finale. If this series has taught us anything, it's that the women don't need guns and fists to get what they want. Their methods are much more sinister and surreptitious. 6. "Dexter" - Now in its sixth season, this ingenious crime series about a Miami police forensics expert and serial killer (the insanely underrated Michael C. Hall) - who ritually murders horrific criminals he believes have escaped justice - keeps getting better. This season it's all about religion and the End of Days as a fanatical Christian artist and killer re-creates biblical tableaux from Revelation leading up to the apocalypse - using his corpses. The plot works on a literal level, but what it suggests is what keeps the series powerfully fascinating. 7. "American Horror Story" - Leave it to FX to come up with something as genuinely terrifying as this. What's so surprising is that it was created by the team who fashioned "Glee." It's gruesome, sexy, disturbing and ultra-violent. A haunted house in Los Angeles is filled with ghosts; just who is dead and who is alive is often a mystery. But one thing is certain: Whoever moves in is changed forever, and there's no escape. Jessica Lange plays the matron of the proceedings, pathologically seeking revenge and power in a world gone mad. She and her cohorts all seem right at home. 8. "The Good Wife" - With the best acting on network TV, this CBS legal/political series is all about who is in control. It takes place in Chicago, of course, where a mother-in-law can wield as much power as a state's attorney. Personal lives spill into the professional realm and vice versa, with the result that no one has any secrets. Julianna Margulies, in her best role yet as lawyer Alicia Florrick, vacillates with heartbreaking yet chilling ease between the courtroom and the bedroom, the office and the home. And Archie Panjabi, as the law firm's mysterious investigator, may just be the most intriguing character on the tube. 9. "Justified" - Once again, FX inhabits territory no one else would dare to touch: the backwoods of Kentucky where meth and perverse sex are a way of life. Timothy Olyphant, as U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, gets his strength from his white cowboy hat, not to mention his guns. In the second season, all hell broke loose in a battle with a clan of dealers led by the devious Mags Bennett (a great Margo Martindale). The final two episodes proved a spectacle to behold. Ah, that heady mix of poverty and greed, with a splash of bloody violence, has made America what it is today. 10. "Mildred Pierce" - Kate Winslet's towering performance in this daringly reconceived miniseries (based on the 1945 Joan Crawford melodrama) provided just the right amount of can-do Yankee ambition to wring the sentimentality out of the original sob story. The irony is Winslet's British. You'd never know it, though, as she pulls herself out of Depression-era poverty into postwar wealth only to be deceived by her handsome lover (Guy Pearce) and her devious daughter (Evan Rachel Wood). "Mildred Pierce" is about the hypocrisy of the American Dream. However, as much of the country knows all too well these days, dreams can be shattered. The trick is to find the right one, and in this version, Mildred does. Five runners-up worth honorable mention: ABC's riotous "Modern Family," Showtime's outrageous "Shameless," Fox's inventive "So You Think You Can Dance," Showtime's edgy "Nurse Jackie" and Comedy Central's hilarious, audacious and smart "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart." Contact George Hatza: 610-371-5075 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 610-371-5075 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or ghatza@readingeagle.com.

Oprah and other fond farewells, plus 2011's Top 10 (actually 13) best shows: The year in TV (Cleveland.com)

Published: Sunday, January 01, 2012, 6:00 AM

By Mark Dawidziak, The Plain DealerThe Plain Dealer

 

Kiichiro Sato, APOprah Winfrey ended her long-running daytime show in May.

The year that was was a television year defined by high-profile departures. Indeed, "Auld Lang Syne" could have been the theme song for the last 12 months.

There was also enough quality TV happening that it's hard to limit a best-of list to just a Top 10. But 2011 was no stranger to challenges -- and the challenging.

Fond farewells
The longest goodbye belonged to the queen of daytime television, Oprah Winfrey. She said farewell to her syndicated daytime show, turning full attention to getting the struggling OWN cable channel on track.

There were other seismic shifts on the syndication front. Regis Philbin wrapped up a 28-year daytime stint, leaving his talk show "Live! With Regis and Kelly." Mary Hart left "Entertainment Tonight" after a 29-year gig. Winfrey, Philbin and Hart logged a combined 82 years on their signature shows.
News divisions also saw big changes. Jim Lehrer stepped down as anchor of the "PBS NewsHour."

Meredith Vieira left NBC's "Today" show. Katie Couric relinquished the "CBS Evening News" anchor chair after just five years.

Keith Olbermann parted company with MSNBC. Glenn Beck left Fox News.

Breaking up is hard to do? Maybe so, but it sure happened with great regularity in 2011.

Scripted prime-time shows were not immune to the bye-bye blues. Steve Carell resigned from NBC's "The Office" after seven seasons. And Laurence Fishburne left CBS' "CSI" to concentrate on movie and theater roles.

But the noisiest departure of last year unquestionably was Charlie Sheen's carnival split with "Two and a Half Men."

Daytime viewers bade adieu to the soap opera "All My Children," which ended a 31-year ABC run. Prime-time viewers said goodbye to such long-running quality series as "Friday Night Lights" and "Rescue Me."

And then there were the sad goodbyes for those iconic TV stars who died in 2011. That roster includes Peter Falk ("Columbo"), James Arness ("Gunsmoke"), Harry Morgan ("M*A*S*H") and Andy Rooney ("60 Minutes").

FX"Justified," starring Timothy Olyphant, was at the top of the 2011 heap.

The Top 10
It's always difficult limiting this annual list of notable overachievers to 10, particularly when you consider how much class a handful of cable channels have contributed to the ever-expanding TV landscape. So you'll notice that, on few of these, I cheated, sneaking in an extra title or two. Even with such overt fudging, I sure wish I had a few more spots.

1. "Justified" (FX): Even if AMC's "Mad Men" had aired original episodes in 2011 (which it didn't), "Justified" might still have claimed the top spot. U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) and his crew raised their already impressive game in the second season, electrified by Margo Martindale's Emmy-winning portrayal of Kentucky crime matriarch Mags Bennett. Lightning doesn't strike twice? It has for Olyphant ("Deadwood") and Walton Goggins ("The Shield"), who have found sensational roles in another searing cable drama.

2. "Downton Abbey" (PBS): Set in a Yorkshire country house and airing on the PBS series "Masterpiece," this sumptuous British drama recalled the addictively witty delights of "Upstairs Downstairs" and "Brideshead Revisited." Writer and executive producer Julian Fellowes created a richly detailed world for a cast that includes Maggie Smith, Elizabeth McGovern, Hugh Bonneville and Siobhan Finneran. All return for the second season, which begins at 9 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 8, on WVIZ Channel 25 and WEAO Channel 49.

3. "The Middle" and "Modern Family" (ABC): Comedy is far from dead, and ABC consistently demonstrates the point with this hilarious one-two Wednesday-night combination. "Modern Family," featuring Youngstown native Ed O'Neill ("Married . . . With Children") rightly picks up award after award (including the last two Emmys for best comedy), but it shouldn't overshadow the wonderful work being done on "The Middle," starring Bay Village native Patricia Heaton. Two family comedies with loads of heart.

4. "Breaking Bad" (AMC): The fourth season had its logic lapses and its uneven episodes, but the powerhouse performances, particularly three-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston's portrayal of increasingly dark Walter White, remained the mightiest draw to this ambitious drama about the heart and soul of a decent man being consumed by evil. Having taken the once-sympathetic Walter from high school chemistry teacher and cancer patient to drug kingpin and murderer, executive producer Vince Gilligan has said that the fifth season will be the last.

5. "Damages" (DirecTV): With the move from FX to DirecTV for the mystery drama's fourth season, there was significantly less buzz surrounding this marvelously sly show. Too bad. Glenn Close was typically brilliant (and scary) as master manipulator Patty Hewes, and John Goodman was a more-than-formidable opponent as Howard T. Erickson, the private military contractor at the center of a wrongful-death suit. With help from the likes of Judd Hirsch, Fisher Stevens and Griffin Dunne, the legal series successfully reinvented itself yet again.

6. "Community" (NBC): It's past time that this series got full credit for being one of the best lunacy courses on television. Although never nominated for anything when award shows roll around, the community-college comedy is often goofily innovative and genially eccentric. It also boasts one of the most able ensembles in the prime-time ranks, including Joel McHale, Danny Pudi, Gillian Jacobs, Chevy Chase and East Cleveland native Yvette Nicole Brown. Even NBC's executives, who put the show on hiatus last month, don't seem to realize what they have.

7. "True Blood" (HBO), "The Walking Dead" (AMC) and "American Horror Story" (FX): This terrific terror trio has upped the guts-and-gore factor in the cable realm, but each of the three leading supernatural series has served up some memorably chilling moments. Each has had its share of hey-wait-a-minute moments as well, and "True Blood" is probably the best of them. But the vampires of "True Blood," the zombies of "The Walking Dead" and the oddball ghosts of "American Horror Story" have pushed horror to haunting new heights on TV.

8. "Homeland" (Showtime): "Dexter," although still a pretty high-octane mixture in a year when the bloody formula seemed slightly off, may not have been the best series on Showtime in 2011. That distinction has passed to this nuanced and intricately plotted suspense thriller about a troubled CIA analyst (Claire Danes) who is convinced that a rescued Marine sniper (Damian Lewis) was turned by terrorists during his eight years of captivity in Iraq. There are nits to pick with the complex structure, but Danes, Lewis and Mandy Patinkin are mesmerizing.

9. "Rescue Me" (FX): The easy play on words here is that the fiery cable drama went out in a blaze of glory. Easy to say, perhaps, but not easy to pull off, considering the heights this series reached over its seven-season run. It was a wildly irreverent, moving and thoughtful final season, though, and Denis Leary's series about New York City firefighters went out on just the right note (with the Pogues' "Dirty Old Town") -- and near the 10th anniversary of 9/11.

10. "Boardwalk Empire" (HBO): Still uneven in its second season, the Roaring '20s drama nonetheless remains an intoxicating brew about Prohibition and the price of power. Atlantic City kingpin Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) regained control of the town and beat the legal rap against him, but it would be a stretch to suggest that all is right with his volatile world. The series certainly set itself challenges for the third season, killing off such popular characters as Angela (Aleksa Palladino), the Commodore (Dabney Coleman) and Jimmy (Michael Pitt).


http://www.cleveland.com/tv-blog/index.ssf/2012/01/oprah_and_other_fond_farewells_plus_2011s_top_10_best_shows_the_year_in_tv.html

Couch Potato: Top TV performances of 2011 (Burg)

Credit: Showtime photo

Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin did their typical great work in Showtime's "Homeland," the best new series of the year

 

In a world full of corruption and some pretty awful people on "Game of Thrones," Sean Bean’s Ned Stark was a genuinely good, decent guy. And we all know how things ended up for him. Credit: HBO photo

Emmy winner Margo Martindale's Mags Bennett was one scary, yet likeable, villain on "Justified." Credit: FX photo


Steve Carell was great in his final season on "The Office." Credit: NBC photo

Credit: Showtime photo

Damian Lewis has been incredible on Showtime's freshman drama "Homeland." His former POW is tortured, fascinating and, quite possibly, evil. Yet you still feel for him.

By: Casey Gillis |
Published: December 20, 2011 Updated: December 20, 2011 - 4:05 PM

 

Next week, we’ll be bringing you our lists of the best movies, music and TV of the year.

But before we do, I give you my top TV performers of 2011.

It’s a motley crew of actors, many of whom I’ve loved for years (see: Mandy Patinkin); others, like “Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke or “Justified” villain Margo Martindale, are new to my couch potato radar.

Several were nominated for Golden Globe and SAG awards just last week, but more weren’t, to my horror. I hope they consider this a consolation prize.

Damian Lewis, Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin, “Homeland”
Three reasons why this Showtime series is the best new one of the season. Lewis left me guessing about his motives every week (will we ever really know if he’s good or bad?); Danes is scarily good as an increasingly unhinged CIA agent (her character annoys me, but you can’t deny the acting skills that are on display there); and Patinkin is, well, Mandy freakin’ Patinkin. He brings so much to all of his roles, but usually in the quietest, most subtle ways.

Sean Bean, Emilia Clarke and Peter Dinklage, “Game of Thrones”
In a world full of corruption and some pretty awful people, Bean’s Ned Stark was a genuinely good, decent guy. And he got his head chopped off. I can’t remember the last time I was so shocked by a piece of television, and it wouldn’t have affected me as much as it did if Bean wasn’t so good.

I’ve also included Clarke because she believably went from a quiet, scared little girl to a force to be reckoned with (what a splashy first role for a newcomer!), and Dinklage because he simply was Tyrion Lannister.

Mirielle Enos, “The Killing”
This show started out with such promise but quickly went off the rails. Through it all, Enos nailed everything she was given. I believed her, even when I didn’t believe the show.

Margo Martindale, “Justified”
It’s hard to top “Justified’s” season one bad guy, Boyd Crowder, but Martindale’s Mags Bennett fit the bill. She was a tough mountain mama who would do anything for her boys, which made her one scary foe for Raylan Givens.

Nick Offerman, “Parks and Recreation”
Offerman could’ve shown up on this list last year, and I’m sure I’ll want to include him next year, too. Ron Swanson is one of the best characters on television right now, comedy or drama, and Offerman is just perfect in the role. I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing it.

Jim Beaver, “Supernatural”
“Supernatural” is all about the Winchester boys. We know that. But they couldn’t do what they do with-out Bobby Singer, who has always been more of a father to them than their real one. He was perfect in the series’ last original episode of the year, as Bobby, fighting for his life from a gunshot wound to the head, faced some of his demons and fought like hell to get back to his boys.

Mark Pellegrino, “The Closer” and “Supernatural”
I’m not sure there’s any role this guy can’t play. He scared the bejesus out of me (and occasionally made me laugh) as Satan himself on “Supernatural.” He intrigued me as Jacob on “Lost.” And now he’s regularly cracking me up as Brenda’s lawyer on “The Closer.” Give this guy his own show already!

Seth Gabel, “Fringe”
It’s hard to fill the void of a fan favorite character like Joshua Jackson’s Peter Bishop, and that’s exactly what Gabel had to do this season. I’ve always liked the “Over There” version of his Lincoln Lee, and it was fun getting to know the “Over Here” version too.

Steve Carell, “The Office”
Carell couldn’t have been better in his final episodes of the NBC series, which makes his absence all the more glaring this season.


http://www2.the-burg.com/entertainment/2011/dec/20/couch-potato-top-tv-performances-2011-ar-1557806/

NY Magazine's Top 10 TV shows of 2011

Jihadi double agents, meth mayhem, premium-cable dragons, and dinosaurs that fail to entertain

1. Breaking Bad
Vince Gilligan’s perfectly plotted methodrama kept flying high four seasons in, as once-mild-mannered chemistry teacher Walter White continued his breakneck moral descent, a chilling trajectory that led to the year’s most memorable, and least hollow, “Holy shit, did that just happen?” moment. Tie-straightening will never be the same again.

2. Downton Abbey
If Jane Austen made TV, it would be something like the first season of Julian ­Fellowes’s British-import late-Edwardian costume drama, bursting with witticisms, romance, a class system, and, stealing her every scene, Dame ­Maggie Smith.

3. Louie
Louie C.K.’s perverse, thoughtful, low-budget FX sitcom feels like being in his peculiar head—where masturbation, heartbreak, the anxiety of fatherhood, and observations about duck vaginas jangle together hilariously. Plus it finally made Dane Cook seem cool.

4. Homeland
A post-9/11 drama with a nuanced worldview and ­national-security perspective, it’s also a thriller that actually thrills. And Claire Danes makes for an extremely convincing hard-nosed, potty-mouthed, mentally ill government agent.

5. The Good Wife
For the first half of the year, The Good Wife was the best drama on television, a realpolitik procedural obsessed with meaty current events and also a serialized drama with a clear-eyed perspective on the sordid things people are capable of.

6. Parks and Recreation
In its third season, Parks and Recreation’s already strong Amy Poehler–led cast got stronger with the additions of Rob “Stop Pooping” Lowe and Adam Scott. The series’s distinctive comedic style forgoes mean-spiritedness and humiliation to celebrate kindness and competence.

7. Friday Night Lights
When coach Eric Taylor, the most decent man ever to anchor a TV show, tried to teach his new football team “Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can’t Lose” in the series finale, his signature phrase still packed enough emotional gravitas to bring a tear to the eye.

8. Community
As of this month, Dan ­Harmon’s meta-sitcom Community will go off the NBC schedule. What a shame: There aren’t any other series with the guts or ambition to do a genre-exploding, episode-long homage to My Dinner With Andre that climaxes in an existential epiphany brought about by sudden-onset diarrhea.

9. Justified
Margo Martindale, as a backwoods matriarch, turned into TV’s most richly developed villain—on a show that has no shortage of great bad guys. ­Justifiedperfectly paced a season-long cat-and-mouse game that balanced genre staples with a consistent sense of humor.

10. Happy Endings
Proving yet again that in comedies it’s not concepts but chemistry that counts, what initially seemed like little more than a Friends knockoff developed its own fresh style by filling out its zany gang with heretofore unseen character types, like Adam Pally as an incidentally gay bro, and Damon Wayans Jr. and Eliza Coupe’s horny goofball marrieds.


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Sorry about the last one, Mods! Guess thats what happens when you make a post in the library instead of writing the essay that's due in tomorrow...

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