Television Review - 2015 (Part 1)

I'll make my first (real) post here about television shows that I've watched over the course of the past year.  Some of these shows are ones that have been around that I've just gotten into, others are new seasons of shows that I've been watching for awhile.

Just for fun, here's a (possibly not comprehensive!) list of shows that I regularly watch on a weekly basis (or binged this year) that won't be mentioned elsewhere in the post, simply because they're not in my top five TV experiences of the year, nor were notably dipping in quality.

Modern Family
Suits
Top Chef
Parenthood
Silicon Valley
The Big Bang Theory
The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Deadwood
House of Cards (kidding, that show is bad enough to deserve its own hate post, and yes, I'm aware that I'm saying this three shows below admitting to watching The Big Bang Theory every week)

In this first of several installments, I'm going to look at a few shows that took a serious dip in quality this year.  The next post will be a list of my favorite five television experiences from 2015.

Trending Downward

Archer

Archer is one of my favorite comedies I've ever had the pleasure of watching. The first three seasons of Adam Reed's spoof of the spy genre were damn near perfect. The show revolves around the world's greatest secret agent, Sterling Archer, who's really just a mish-mash of various spy characters (James Bond, Ethan Hunt, Austin Powers, etc) that you've seen elsewhere. He (and, well the entire cast, really) is written such that he always has the perfect line to deliver, making the dialogue witty, smart, and fast-paced.  I highly recommend watching this show, but now in its later years, they appear to be reaching for storylines.  Archer has mostly played within the rules of reality (despite some incredible temptations not to in the past -- particularly the two-part conclusion of season three set in space), but that's slipped in the show's sixth season, which has included aliens and a shrinking machine.  That's shit straight out of the last season of Family Matters, and I'm not optimistic about season seven.  It might be time to call it quits on Archer if there's not a significant rebound in the cards.

Orange is the New Black

Netflix's story about a woman being sentenced to a year in a women-only prison was fascinating for the first two seasons. Orange is the New Black features an extremely deep cast of acting talent and, perhaps in recognition of this, is not firmly focused on its main character, Piper Chapman. The storytelling is unique in that each episode features the pre-prison backstory of one of the inmates at Litchfield Penitentiary, so over time, nearly all the characters become fully fleshed out and you really start to understand what makes each one tick. Eventually I stopped watching this show someplace in the middle of season three, primarily because Piper became really damn unlikable and her relationship with fellow inmate Alex (That 70's Show's Laura Prepon) had more or less been stripped of whatever intrigue it originally presented. Furthermore, the storytelling method of focusing on one character per week became a little tedious over time because it further diluted the screen time of characters you'd like to see more of (and yes, when you have a cast that big, some are significantly more compelling than others). Many may still like this show, and there's good reason to do so, but I've decided I'm finished with it.

The League

I suppose that it's weird to suggest a show is "trending downward" at the end of its run, but here we are.  The League used to be comedy at its finest, featuring smart humor with witty characters that hit all levels of the "weird" scale, all tied together with the underlying theme of a competitive fantasy football league. Unfortunately, the show's writers fell in love with the most unrealistically eccentric of them all, a fellow by the name of Rafi. By the end of the show's run, Rafi was basically urinating (figuratively, but sometimes literally as well) all over every other episode, and the mere sight of him was enough for me to want to throw the remote at the TV.