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Pop culture dispatches from the Great Lakes

Downton Abbey

Alex & Becky Talk About the 2015 Emmy Nominations

July 17, 2015 by Alex Bean Leave a Comment

Alex and Becky watch a lot of TV. Probably too much. But that means that they sort of know what they’re talking about when the annual Emmy nominations come out. For reference’s sake, Becky has seen most of the programs we talk about here. Alex has seen some of them. He may be talking out of his ass a lot more.

Comedy Series

Will Win: Right off the top, it’s worth noting that this might be the strongest set of nominees for Outstanding Comedy Series in Emmy history. The voters done good! They can follow up on that by giving this award to anything not named Modern Family. ABC’s mainstay has won this award every year since it debuted, which would make it six if it triumphs again. There’s a chance that it happens, since it’s the only series in this lineup that we would call “traditional.” But five seems like (more than) enough and its relative lack of other nominations points to the voters agreeing. We think Amazon’s freshman dramedy Transparent is in the best shape to finally take the crown.

Should win: Speaking of Transparent, it’s a really great show! Problem is, it’s not very funny. It’s essentially a half-hour drama that is handled with a light touch, which is enough to be called a comedy. Still feels weird to us, but we won’t yell if it wins. Our personal pick is another new show: Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. We love its screwball energy and the wonderfully committed performances from its regular cast. Worth giving a shout-out to Parks and Recreation, which got its second Series nod for its outstanding final season. It’d be great to see Pawnee get some long overdue recognition.

WTF?: Modern Family needs to be stricken from the ballots. It stopped being even passably entertaining in its third season and its Emmy success has gotten more grating every year since then. Another win would be deadening. [Read more…]

Posted in: Arts, Emmy Awards, Game of Thrones, Mad Men, Television Tagged: Amy Schumer, Downton Abbey, Drunk History, Emmy Awards, Game of Thrones, John Oliver, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, Mad Men, Parks and Recreation, Transparent, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Best TV of 2011-12: Honorable Mentions and Individual Citations

July 3, 2012 by Alex Bean Leave a Comment

TV cannot be more charming

I watched more great TV in the past season than I can ever remember doing before. This is a big, bold statement, essentially saying that the best of TV in the past 12 months stands up to the best of any other such period, ever. But, hey, I lead with it, so I stand by it. If you want to be on the bleeding edge of what is current, great, and vital to American popular culture right now, turn on your TV (or download lots of videos off the Internet, as I too often did).

So, without much ado I want to get on to the listing and such. There will be two distinct parts to this article: first, the list of my picks for the top ten programs that aired from June 2011 to June 2012. Each show will get a brief write-up arguing my case for it, and the top two will get another, longer article devoted to them soon. I will also call out what programs deserve an honorable mention, and those that I missed and should not have — you can all take me to task for that. After that I will go through and list of some of the individuals or specific episodes that deserve a special mention outside of the list. Enjoy!

[Read more…]

Posted in: Lists, Television Tagged: Amy Poehler, Archer, Children's Hospital, Christina Hendricks, Community, Craig Ferguson, Downton Abbey, Girls, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Jim Rash, Jon Stewart, Justified, Louie, Louie C.K., Luck, Mad Men, Parks & Recreation, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, The Late Late Show, Timothy Olyphant, Veep

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