Best TV of 2010

Once again, here are my favorite shows in the past year. I can never pick just 10 so there are more than that. Oh well! There are other shows that I love a lot, but they either didn’t have a stellar year or I don’t watch the shows as quickly as I watched all of these so I figured they aren’t my absolute favorites.

#1


Breaking Bad
Channel: AMC
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul, RJ Mitte, Dean Norris, Betsy Brandt

The reason I love the show is that it goes to really dark, messed up places and somehow gets out of jams or deals with them in unexpected ways. Walt’s wife found out he was making and selling meth. That didn’t go over too well when she kicked him out, even though he refused to leave his own house for a while. Jesse was pissed at Walter. When they fight, it is hilarious. They both don’t want to do anything with one another, until they realize they need each other. Finally, when things get really scary for them both, the season end’s on an awesome cliffhanger.

#2


Mad Men
Channel: AMC
Starring: Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Elisabeth Moss, Jared Harris, Robert Morse

Don Draper wondered at the beginning of the season who he really was. He was dealing with being recently divorced, seeing his kids in his tiny apartment, when he wasn’t getting really drunk and sleeping with hookers. As he spiraled downward, the series had its best episode when he forced Peggy to spend her birthday night in the office with him to work on an ad campaign since he didn’t have anything better to do so why not ruin someone else’s evening? It was an episode that centered around just Peggy and Don, and was excellent. Then after that episode, Don started to mature a little bit and dated a real woman instead of twentysomething ditzes. Towards the end though, he really wanted a replacement for what the kind of wife he wished Betty had been and compulsively married again. Beyond the Don drama, the show is still the same kind of awesome of the 60s with people coming back from a long lunch to inform their secretary to not have anyone interrupt them for an hour because they need to take a nap.

#3


Sherlock
Channel: PBS
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, Rupert Graves

It is Sherlock Holmes if he lived today. It was a miniseries that consisted of three 90-minute episodes and were more like three awesome movies. The best one of the three is the first one, which isn’t surprising since it was written by Steven Moffat, who is one responsible for the latest Doctor Who on the air right now. It is smart, fast-paced and stars a guy with the most ridiculously awesome name of Benedict Cumberbatch. I highly suggest people watch this and if you like it at all, and are not already watching Doctor Who, watch that too since you would love that as well.

#4


Doctor Who
Channel: BBC America
Starring: Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, Arthur Darvill, Alex Kingston

It was a tough challenge to bring in a new doctor after David Tennent left, but Matt Smith had made the Doctor his own. He’s a dork with a bow tie, who is also a fan of a fez every once in a while. This past season, the Doctor’s companion was a pretty young thing, like usual, but this one had a fiance who actually started to travel with the Doctor too. The Daleks, the best sci-fi villains after the Borg, got a make-over with goofy colors, but they are still awesome. An episode with Vincent Van Gogh was pretty interesting. We also got to revisit the super creepy Weeping Angels in a two-parter that was as freaky as the original “Blink” episode where they were introduced.

#5


True Blood
Channel: HBO
Starring: Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Sam Trammell, Ryan Kwanten, Rutina Wesley, Alexander Skarsgard, Kristin Bauer, Nelsan Ellis, Deborah Ann Woll, Chris Bauer, Todd Lowe, Jim Parrack, Carrie Preston

The season was almost all awesome. Bill was kidnapped. There was a lot of sex dreaming of Eric and Sookie and she did finally kiss him in real life. Tara started dating a vampire, Franklin who was so filled with drama, I couldn’t wait for him to be on screen. Then there was Russell, the Vampire King of Mississippi, who had his own drama mess and he also gave the best ending of any episode ever. There were some really stupid plot lines like Sam’s hick family or Jason dating a woman who looks like a 12 year old. That was made up though by Alcide arriving to the scene and removing his shirt often. Yummy!

#6


Fringe
Channel: FOX
Starring: Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Blair Brown, Jasika Nicole

The team found out how to get to the alternate universe, which caused havoc when they went over there, but the wrong Olivia came back, leaving the one from this world trapped. It was awesome seeing Anna Torv playing two different Olivias, but it was even better seeing John Noble playing two different Walters. He is such an awesome actor. The past few episodes of this year ended with some cliffhangers so I can’t wait for it to come back. Too bad FOX is trying to kill it by moving it to Fridays. Let’s hope the fans follow!

#7


The Good Wife
Channel: CBS
Starring: Julianna Margulies, Josh Charles, Archi Panjabi, Christine Baranski, Matt Czuchry, Alan Cumming

It’s a lawyer show, but that’s only a minor part of it. The best part is Alicia trying to figure out if she should forgive her husband for cheating on her and if she did still love him, while also  wondering if she still has feelings for her college friend, Will, who is now her boss. At one point, Will did declare his love for Alicia on her cell phone, but she never got to hear the message due to her husband’s campaign manager deleting it before she got to listen to it. Will thinks that Alicia didn’t agree with what he said and just wanted to remain friends. It’s a big ole love triangle where most people don’t realize what’s going on with it. It’s great. Beyond that, there is the very ambiguously investigator Khalida, who is very intriguing and excellent.

#8


It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Channel: FX
Starring: Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, Charlie Day, Kaitlin Olson, Danny Devito

The show is hilarious and doesn’t care who it offends. My favorite moments are usually with Charlie, but this season, they have been with Dee. There was the episode where she was dancing exactly like the inflatable dancing man that they put on car lots. It needs to be seen to be believed. Then there is the episode where the guys try to figure out who got Dee pregnant on Halloween night, where they all thought her costume was a bird, even though she was dressed as an angel. At one point, in a flashback, Mac didn’t even see Dee in a bird costume like other people did, but saw her as an ostrich that was yelling at him. I don’t even know what was said in the scene since I was laughing too much.

#9


Community
Channel: NBC
Starring: Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Chevy Chase, Yvette Nicole Brown, Danny Pudi, Donald Glover, Alison Brie, Ken Jeong

The show does awesome parodies of various film and television cliches. Late last season had “Modern Warfare” which sent up action movies to also fed into the tension that had been building between Britta and Jeff all season long. Plus, there was also paint guns shooting everyone. Then this season has had the awesome Halloween episode where everyone turns into zombies and the one where Annie and Jeff try to figure out the secret behind Night School, which had excellent classes like History of Something, Reading? and Learning!

#10


Modern Family
Channel: ABC
Starring: Ed O’Neill, Sofia Vergara, Julie Bowen, Ty Burrell, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Eric Stonestreet, Rico Rodriguez, Sarah Hyland, Ariel Winter, Nolan Gould

This is a great family show that doesn’t pander to the audience. The show actually went to Hawaii like many sitcoms before it had done, but it was actually funny and not corny. They also had great Valentine episode where Claire lost her dress on the escalator. This season had the Halloween episode where Mitchell dressed up for work before he realized his boss can’t stand people dressing up and he had to hide his Spiderman costume under his suit.

#11


The Walking Dead
Channel: AMC
Starring: Andrew Lincoln, Sarah Wayne Callies, Jon Bernthal, Laurie Holden, Emma Bell, Jeffrey DeMunn, Steven Yeun, Chandler Riggs, Lennie James

Zombies! It isn’t just running and shooting at them though. That would get boring fast. A sheriff goes to find his family when he wakes up in a hospital. His wife thought he was dead and has taken up with his deputy. When her husband finds her, she’s pissed at the deputy guy and they swear not to breathe a word of what happened between them. You know it will come out some day and that’s going to be a tad awkward. After thinking they found a nice place to hide from the zombies,they come to find them anyway so the group of people are on the move. They thought they could get answers at the CDC, but that didn’t work. The one surviving scientist did blood tests on everyone and did whisper something to the sheriff as they were leaving to find somewhere else to hide. What was it? Is it that his wife is pregnant? If so, uh-oh!

#12


The Big Bang Theory
Channel: CBS
Starring: Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, Simon Helberg, Kunal Nayyar

It took me a while to start watching the show. I started last season and had to catch up on all the old episodes. Jim Parsons is awesome. Sheldon is so rude and hilarious. Him and Penny together is comic gold. Late last season had the episode that showed how Sheldon and Leonard became roommates, which was excellent. I’m not so sure about Blossom being  his new girlfriend. She’s just not as funny as him, but I’ll see if she grows on me.

#13


Boardwalk Empire
Channel: HBO
Starring: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Kelly Macdonald, Michael Shannon, Dabney Coleman, Shea Whigham, Anthony Laciura, Stephen Graham, Aleksa Palladino, Michael Stuhl barg, Vincent Piazza, Paz de la Huerta, Paul Sparks, Michael Kenneth Williams, Gretchen Mol

It’s set in Atlantic City during the Prohibition, which means that gangsters are in control of all the alcohol. The first episode, directed by Martin Scorsese was awesome. The rest of the episodes haven’t lived up to that as much, but they are still good. It is just a tad slow at times. When they are awesome times, like a shootout in Chicago, it is impressive. It also made me like Michael Pitt and I haven’t been able to stand that actor since he was on Dawson’s Creek.

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