I know I haven’t posted in a while, but I thought it’s the time of year to reflect on the best of the year. So I’m going with some Best of posts if I can be bothered to keep writing them. And after the best TV episode of the year last night I thought it was a good time to do TV. And this is going to be British shows, so despite loving shows like Fringe, Big Bang Theory, Glee, Supernatural, etc. I’m not going to put any of them in there.
Drama
Luther
Luther had a decent start last year but really picked up the quality this year, the second series was great stuff. The show itself seemed like it might not come back with a fairly lackluster audience for the first series but when they picked it up for 2 specials it seemed like a gamble, then they expanded it to a 4 episode series and they were really on to a winner.
Following on from the first series with Luther in a strange friendly relationship with the killer he’d spent much of the first series trying to catch. Then the story expanded with him taking in a young woman and trying to rescue her from life of drugs and sex for money. With Luther’s trademark insight in to the darkness he pursues and sometimes crossing the line in order to get the job done, it’s not as clichéd as it sounds, OK it is, but it works.
Downton Abbey
Unexpected for me, I watched the first episode last series and didn’t really get in to it, but on the recommendation of a friend I picked up the Blu-ray set of both series and really enjoyed it. It’s a show full of bitches, male and female, toffs and servants alike, barely a likeable character amongst them, but at the same time the interactions are a lot of fun, the storylines span months, even years, from the sinking of the Titanic through to the end of World War 1 and the Spanish Flu outbreak, playing out against the loss of tradition and the very real possibility of the loss of the title and land for the toffs, and the associated jobs for the servants.
There are characters I actually hate in this show. Which shows how good it is because it takes something to get me invested enough to not be indifferent to the characters.
The Fades
Now this was a new series that started on BBC Three. The premise, a teenage boy has disturbing nightmares about the end of the world, then he begins seeing dead people, the Fades of the title. He discovers that he is part of a group of people called The Angelics who have the power to see dead people and various other powers, including the ability heal injuries, and it is their job to fight the menace of these “fades”.
While there was a few problems with the show, things that weren’t fully thought out or fleshed out, for the most part it was really well done. Lots of geeky references and full of interesting ideas, even if they were really the most well played in the show. It’ll be really interesting to see, if this is picked up, where it goes in the future.
This Is England ‘88
Now to the show that made me think to do this. This is England, a brilliant film, This is England ‘86 a fantastic continuation, This is England ‘88 kept up the tradition and really was some of the best TV in years. It’s a hard premise to sell, I mean it’s basically just a bunch of young northerners living their lives in the 80s, the ups and (mostly) the downs.
There’s utterly fantastic acting, the writing is so real. Tears, laughs, depression, love, life, all run through This is England in spades. Woody, Lol, Shaun, Trev, Gadge, Milky, Kelly and Smell, a wonderful cast of characters who you believe have a life that goes on when you’re not looking at the screen.
Be prepared for hard to watch scenes, heartache, inappropriate laughs and floods of tears while watching, so not for the easily depressed, but really wonderful TV that deserves much recognition and to continue for as long as they can make such brilliant stories.
Misfits
Now in to it’s third series Misfits has continued to be funny, irreverent and filthy despite losing, arguably, it’s biggest asset. The series managed to introduce a new character, a whole new set of powers and get them back in to community service with flair and keep it entertaining at the same time. With the introduction of new powers and Rudy they’ve managed to keep it fresh and the fucked up situations the ASBO 5 keep managing to get in makes it not only funny but one of my favourite shows on the air. Here’s looking forward to the end of this series and the upcoming series 4.
Honourable mention
Outcasts
Now I know this wasn’t to the taste of a lot of people, it was slow, nothing happened, it was a mess, are just some of the criticisms levelled against it, but you know what? I’d argue it wasn’t as slow as people think, it is true it was a bit of a mess, things didn’t quite work as well as they should have and it could have been made to work better. But it should have been given a bigger chance.
The story was of a colony of humans on a habitable planet many light-years from Earth where they were trying to make a fresh start of it after ecological and social disaster on Earth. The people of this new planet are trying to make a fairer more eco-friendly place but the usual corruption is sinking in and with the last transport from Earth coming in outside influence is trying to twist the people against the people in charge.
The show really did improve in it’s 8 episode run and really did have a lot of potential there, if only it had been allowed a chance to grow in to itself.
Black Mirror
Charlie Brooker has a twisted sense of the world and an interest in the geeky, so when he decided to do a sort of Sci-Fi anthology of techological what-if stories I have to say I was very interested. So far the first 2 have been on and I’ve really enjoyed them. The first a story of a Princess being abducted before her wedding and the demands being posted on Youtube so everyone knows about it and the government can’t hide it or spin it the way they want it. All they can do is react. Wonderfully twisted, could have done with a bit more flesh on its bones.
The second a “sarcastic future” in Brooker’s own words. Every surface is an interactive video screen, people power the world by cycling for merits and spend those merits on everything from buying clothes for their virtual avatar and their processed food, to a pentalty for not watching the adverts which flash up on their screens at random. And for a chance to get away from this you have to buy your way in to being on a “X-Factor/Britain’s Got Talent” type show.
I hope there’s a future in this show because it reminds me of shows like Twilight Zone and Outer Limits but with a British, slightly absurd twist on the format.
Comedy
Spy
Sky upped their original content quota this year and one of the things to come out of it was Spy. With the guy from Dirk Gently, her from No Heroics, Citizen Smith himself and him from Horrible Histories it was surprisingly good. It was kind of a British version of Chuck without any super computer in the head and an annoying little shit of a kid. Well worth checking out.
Psychoville
Well the second series of Psychoville picked up where the first left off. As wacky and dark as ever it managed to kill off most of the cast and replace them with equally strange characters. Funny, twisted, dark and original Psychoville deserved to continue but unfortunately this was the last series, at least it went out while still good and I hope the guys continue on to new projects that I like as much as this.
Rev.
On the second series now, Rev. is the story of Reverend Adam Smallbone, moved from a small village parish to an inner city London parish. With a small but loyal congregation with a CofE school in his parish he has to liaise with the headmistress, who he seemingly fancies, interact with the inner city kids who are likely to tell him to fuck off and an ambitious lay reader who wants to become a vicar himself. It follows his crises of faith, his conflicting love for his wife and doing his job and the ridiculous situations he gets in with the local junkie asking for money and the drunk regularly leaving his porn around the church. It may not sound laugh a minute but it’s good stuff.
Mongrels
This BBC Three comedy is in its second year, a puppet show with a cast of various animals, Dogs, Cats, Pigeons, Foxes, all talking, singing and dancing of course. With shades of Family Guy in its knowing nods towards popular culture and slightly surreal humour at times. With songs like “I’m going to murder Justin Bieber”, “F**king Chickens” and “I’m a C**t” it’s not for everyone but I get plenty of laughs out of it.
Best of the rest
So there’s other stuff like Him & Her, Educating Essex, Living with the Amish, Frozen Planet, Everything & Nothing, Wonders of the Universe, Russell Howard’s Good News, Beaver Falls but this post is getting a bit long now and I want to wrap it up. So overall I think this has been a good year for TV and I’m sure there are other shows I loved that I’m missing but that’s the shows that came to mind.
Any recommendations of shows I missed?