Alright, now that our time with Dick Whitman has ended let’s update the list. As always, just one man’s opinion:
1. The Wire – And still the Champion of the World!!!!! Time has made Season 4 (the kids) even more impressive and Season 5 (tying up character arcs, but…the newspaper?) more of an albatross. As a whole though, still the most impressive. The city of Baltimore was the central character and the story was basically how the system is rigged, and for some reason, feels like I can turn on the TV and still see something very similar to that in the real world…
2. Breaking Bad – Actor bias here, but only a little I think. As a character study of how one person changes and the ripple effects, it was close to perfect still. We knew it ‘in the moment’, but time has justifably made the respect for the writing and long term planning of Gilligan (and the details!) that much stronger.
3. Mad Men – And here we are. Again, hard for me to put into words. Still processing obviously. I don’t know, something about the story of a man with rural roots, who takes on a new name and identity and cleans himself up, parlays his style and natural looks into access to beautiful women and an upscale life, but his unstable youth makes him a terrible husband and an absent father in spite of his best intentions, but in middle age he becomes a quasi-Buddhist in California and the implication is his biggest million dollar idea is still in front of him…
(woo, hold on, got something in my eye…)
(Editor’s Note: Malik stared at himself in a mirror and cried for three and a half hours before finishing this post.)
Sorry about that, what was I saying? Oh yes, I loved ‘Mad Men!’ Good show!
4. The Sopranos – The student surpassed the Master! Still the show that spawned so many of the others, but time is not doing this show that many favors. If anything, the last shot of that show has made every ‘great’ showrunner since say ‘This is my baby and how the story ends, but I have to end this in a way that makes my loyal audience angry and confused.’ So there’s that.
5. Gotham – I keed! I keed!
But seriously, there should be at least one comedy right? Is ‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ too old school now? Was ‘Parks and Recreation’ too small? Do we count ‘the Office’ even though most of us stopped caring as soon as Michael Scott left? Maybe it’s ’30 Rock’? (By the way, ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ is a worthy successor in its own way.) At the moment, ‘True Detective’ still has a chance. Maybe it’s ‘Friday Night Lights’ if we all throw out that one disastrous storyline in season 2.
Lot of good TV we’ve gotten the past 10 years plus. But tonight is for Don Draper. I’ll be having a Coke tomorrow.
Cheers!
