Television Review - 2018

Because I made an effort to review every show that I watched in 2018, I'm going to be able to structure this year's TV review post a little differently and cram it all into one. In the past, I've broken out reviews of my five favorite viewing experiences of the year into separate installments, but since I don't have all that much new to say, I'll simply rank them and link those reviews here.

Here are all the shows that I've watched during 2018. I completed the most recently concluded season of the show (and only the most recent season of the show) unless otherwise indicated. The crop is a little thinner this year because Cheers and The Americans both took a very long time.

• Everything Sucks! 
• Cheers (Seasons 5-11)
• The Good Place (Seasons 1-2)
• Atypical (Seasons 1-2)
• Barry 
• Ozark (Season One)
• The Americans (Full series, Seasons 1-6)
• The Big Bang Theory
• Jersey Shore Family Vacation (Seasons 1-2)
• BoJack Horseman
• Better Call Saul
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• South Park
• Top Chef (Okay, I forgot to review this)

Here are the shows I watched last year that have dropped off the list due to no new episodes:

• You're the Worst (returns in January)
• The Sopranos
• Master of None
• High Maintenance
• Rick and Morty

Here are the shows that fell out of the rotation since last year, or that I am 100% sure I will not be continuing, with an explanation:

1. Silicon Valley - We watched an episode or two of this, but rumors of its decline in quality along with the departure of T.J. Miller's Erlich Bachman character from the show stunted our enthusiasm, and we've just sort of stopped watching it.

2. Billions - I can't actually say we stopped watching it -- in fact, we watched the third episode of Season Three after a long hiatus last night. We might complete Season Three next year if that momentum sticks, but I think it's just decent, and the repeated power plays and backstabbing make it feel a little too much like House of Cards and Suits at times. The characters on Billions lie somewhere on the spectrum between the boring, 1-dimensional ones found on House of Cards and the highly entertaining but caricature-like ones on Suits, so it's walking a tight rope.

3. Ozark - I can't stress or repeat myself enough on this point, and it's actually cathartic to say it out loud every so often. The Season One finale episode of Ozark was so unbelievably terrible that I'm dropping the show out of principle, even if it definitely had its moments along the way. There's only a handful of TV episodes I've ever seen that I'd slap an "F" grade on, and adjusting for expectations (Ozark was otherwise decent-to-good), it might be the most disappointing (not to mention repulsive) single installment of a show I've ever seen. It's close between that and the How I Met Your Mother finale.

Finally, here were my Top Five Viewing Experiences of the Year:

5. Barry (Season One) - I'm giving this the slight edge over Season Four of Better Call Saul in a year in which I just happened to watch a lot of great TV. In the end, it's probably because Barry was a completely new experience and toed the line between comedy and drama perfectly.

4. Atypical (Seasons 1-2)- The second season wasn't quite as strong as the first, but overall, but Atypical is rife with strong characters and presents an interesting look at a family whose son (and series main character) is on the autism spectrum.

3. BoJack Horseman (Season Five) - BoJack Horseman might be the best actively-running series on TV and delivered another consistently stellar slate of episodes in 2018. It was something of a bounce-back from Season Four, in which there were a few amazing episodes scattered among weaker (for BoJack) installments.

2. Cheers (Seasons 5-11) - This is the best live-action sitcom I've ever seen and it delivered consistent laughs all the way up until the finale, which is one of the greatest episodes of television of all time.

1. The Americans (Full series, Seasons 1-6) - What a ride. FX's period drama is firmly in the "best of all-time" discussion. When I finished watching the show, my reaction was, "Well, I know The Wire is better, but what else?" As far as other completed dramas are concerned, I know there's Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Mad Men (which I don't love but is critically acclaimed) to reckon with. I'd certainly put The Americans somewhere in that group.

The Americans (Season One)

Modern TV is replete with antihero sagas and The Americans is yet another show to contribute to that ever-growing pool. Season One aired back in 2013 and the show has just completed its run. Naturally, given my proclivity to pick up things 5-10 years after they gain a foothold in the culture, 2018 was the perfect time for me to check out this show.

The Americans is a period drama set in the early 1980s during the Cold War. Elizabeth (Keri Russell) and Philip (Matthew Rhys) Jennings are the mother and father of two kids and own a cozy house in the suburbs. The catch? They're both KGB spies that have managed to hide this fact from their teenage daughter Paige and younger son Henry. The series juxtaposes their KGB activity (which involves murder, intimidation, deceit, extreme violence, sex, torture, and a whole lot of hand-to-hand combat) and mundane activities around their house and hanging out with their neighbors, who are none the wiser.

That last bit is particularly important, because their new next-door neighbors, the Beemans, include an FBI agent. Stan Beeman (Noah Emmerich) reveals his occupation when the families first meet, and the look on Philip's face is absolutely priceless. Despite Stan's initial suspicions, he and Philip become good friends, as do Elizabeth and Sandra later on in the season. Stan's a key man at the Bureau in charge of trying to track down Directorate 'S' KGB spies, and little does he know that the Jennings next door are exactly the man and woman that he's trying to catch.

Over the course of the season, Philip and Elizabeth meet their new handler, Claudia (a.k.a. "Grannie"), played by Esteemed Character Actress Margo Martindale. Their relationship with her is very complex, as she's extremely mysterious and they're never sure whether she gives a damn about either of them, whether she's just following orders, or whether she's got an agenda of her own independent of what's coming from Moscow. For Philip, Claudia may as well be a proxy for Moscow itself, as it's revealed as early as the first episode that he's not as beholden to the motherland as Elizabeth and he questions much of what they're doing over the course of Season One.

At it's core, The Americans is a show about relationships and how our lives -- whether we're spies in a foreign land or not -- relentlessly test how we feel about one another. As one might expect from an espionage show, the theme of trust is examined constantly, and it's not tied to the highs and lows of typical human relationships. Elizabeth and Philip were an arranged couple, so part of that relationship is going to be fake to some degree, but at the same time, their love for their children is completely real and everything they've been through on their mission forges a strong bond between them. Their marriage is a facade, but it has plenty in common with a real one.

There's a ton of action in Season One of The Americans and the compelling plot moves at a very brisk pace. There's some nits to pick in there (in particular, the murder of a minor character motivates another to reconsider their loyalties, but the relationship between the two was woefully underdeveloped, so much so that the change-of-heart barely makes sense), but it's certainly a very good show, and everything I have heard makes me pretty stoked to plow ahead with the rest of the series. At six seasons, it's going to be a bit of a marathon, but most likely a fun one.

Season One Grade: A-*

*if you're curious as to why nearly every show I've reviewed this year has a very high grade, I've made very little progress on lesser ones, and those I've finished (e.g. Top Chef) often don't merit a writeup. I promise that reviews of worse shows are coming, so get excited!