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Post by Jeremy on Dec 18, 2019 20:05:29 GMT -8
My #7 show is, in terms of episode count, the longest show on the list. Probably would have been higher if the last few dozen episodes were as good as the first hundred.
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Post by otherscott on Dec 19, 2019 8:19:47 GMT -8
I counter your network show with what I believe will be the only network show on my list:
Number 7: Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Parks was actually a few spots higher in the first draft of my list. It was Jeremy's best show of the first lustrum of this decade, of course, and has so many diverse strengths. It is terrifically funny, it has an underpinning sweetness about the whole thing, like drinking a child size soda from the Sweetums factory, and it has maybe the best cast of characters of any show on this list, both in terms of the major characters and the wacky minor characters. Very few shows have the flexibility to have well rounded, well developed characters like Leslie, Ben, Ron, April, Andy, etc while also having characters that light up the screen every time they are on like Perd Hapley, Jean-Ralphio, and the various Tammies (particularly the one played by Megan Mullally).
The show can execute plots and episodes with competency at worst and with tremendous creativity at best. The show did have a darker Season 5 and a weaker Season 6 than the few that had come before, but then Season 7 came out at just the same level of quality as Season 4 had. If you want to aim for how to create a perfect sitcom, Parks and Rec is your goal.
I don't know if I want to get into the reasons why it's not top 5, or even top 3. The first reason is that for me, sitcoms have an inherent disadvantage of sometimes pulling stuff off reaching for humour and not always finding it. And that's not the sitcoms fault, it's just that they are appealing to a lot of broad and different sense of humour, and not everything they try is going to appeal to everyone. So sometimes episodes and plotlines miss for me completely, even if they may hit for something else.
The other reason it dropped a bit was because of how anti-middle America the show had a tendency to be at its worst. It's a picture of a small town in middle America, but its made by "coastal elites" and the show takes a pretty dark view at times of that average middle American. Sometimes it has a tendency to present "here is our heroes and here are the hick goofballs they have to struggle to overcome." At the time that just seemed like a plot device - kind of an SNL level exaggeration of stereotypes intended for humour, but as I've learned more and more about the state of America in the past 5 years, it feels like a show that's throwing gasoline on the fire of the divide that is breaking America at the moment. There's parts of Parks that actively make me uncomfortable today - it's a weird reversal of the typical "sitcoms not holding up" that you typically see.
That doesn't take too much away from the fact that Parks is still a terrific and terrifically funny show, and well deserves a place in any list of top 10 shows of the decade, and one of the top sitcoms of all time, full stop.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 19, 2019 20:17:51 GMT -8
I still hold Parks in very high regard, despite the way the show's portrayal of Middle America looks now. I'll probably go into more detail when I write about it. In the meantime, my #6 show has more than one significant Parks connection! Don't you love all these transitions?
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Post by otherscott on Dec 20, 2019 7:51:23 GMT -8
Speaking of transitions, did you say that you had a 2 season, single perspective show in your number 6 spot? That's a coincidence!
Number 6: Atlanta (FX)
We are into the section of the top 20 where there are absolutely no complaints about any of these shows, they are all pretty much functionally perfect from here on in. Atlanta is a special, special show. The show covers so many aspects of what makes a show great, and is able to encompass all of them. Humour? Absolutely, who can forget the club owner disappearing into the wall to avoid paying Earn. Character development? Yep! Over the course of the two seasons so much crap happens to both Earn and Alfred that it changes how they look at the world, and how they feel about each other, both in positive and negative ways. Storytelling? "Teddy Perkins" is practically a half hour long movie, just a thrilling tale that led the viewer through beginning middle and end. Thematic strength? There's no better show about both economic and racial divides in America than this one.
And most importantly, the show is just so formally adventurous. Jeremy mentioned this in his review, but I think it needs to be restated how each episode acts moves into different genres and are told in completely different ways while still maintaining the essence of the show. Let's go through the best stretch of the show, in season 2, and look how the episodes progress through each other:
"Helen" - Relationship drama about Earn and Van "Barbershop" - Slapstick comedy about Alfred and his hairdresser "Teddy Perkins" - Horror "Champagne Papi" - Party drama "Woods" - Escape thriller "North of the Border" - Episode that starts comedic and moves into tragedy by the end "FUBU" - Flashback tragedy
There's such a range the show goes through formally, yet it maintains the sense of offbeat humour and weird moments throughout that make the show what it is. The show is extraordinarily flexible, yet never loses it's tone. It never sacrifices either character for theme or theme for character.
It's a brilliant show. I've been leaning towards the spot being high, but now I've almost talked myself into it being too low. But number 6 is nothing to sneeze at, this is a great show and one of the absolute highlights of the decade.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Dec 20, 2019 9:24:58 GMT -8
I counter your network show with what I believe will be the only network show on my list: Number 7: Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Parks was actually a few spots higher in the first draft of my list. It was Jeremy's best show of the first lustrum of this decade, of course, and has so many diverse strengths. It is terrifically funny, it has an underpinning sweetness about the whole thing, like drinking a child size soda from the Sweetums factory, and it has maybe the best cast of characters of any show on this list, both in terms of the major characters and the wacky minor characters. Very few shows have the flexibility to have well rounded, well developed characters like Leslie, Ben, Ron, April, Andy, etc while also having characters that light up the screen every time they are on like Perd Hapley, Jean-Ralphio, and the various Tammies (particularly the one played by Megan Mullally). The show can execute plots and episodes with competency at worst and with tremendous creativity at best. The show did have a darker Season 5 and a weaker Season 6 than the few that had come before, but then Season 7 came out at just the same level of quality as Season 4 had. If you want to aim for how to create a perfect sitcom, Parks and Rec is your goal. I don't know if I want to get into the reasons why it's not top 5, or even top 3. The first reason is that for me, sitcoms have an inherent disadvantage of sometimes pulling stuff off reaching for humour and not always finding it. And that's not the sitcoms fault, it's just that they are appealing to a lot of broad and different sense of humour, and not everything they try is going to appeal to everyone. So sometimes episodes and plotlines miss for me completely, even if they may hit for something else. The other reason it dropped a bit was because of how anti-middle America the show had a tendency to be at its worst. It's a picture of a small town in middle America, but its made by "coastal elites" and the show takes a pretty dark view at times of that average middle American. Sometimes it has a tendency to present "here is our heroes and here are the hick goofballs they have to struggle to overcome." At the time that just seemed like a plot device - kind of an SNL level exaggeration of stereotypes intended for humour, but as I've learned more and more about the state of America in the past 5 years, it feels like a show that's throwing gasoline on the fire of the divide that is breaking America at the moment. There's parts of Parks that actively make me uncomfortable today - it's a weird reversal of the typical "sitcoms not holding up" that you typically see. That doesn't take too much away from the fact that Parks is still a terrific and terrifically funny show, and well deserves a place in any list of top 10 shows of the decade, and one of the top sitcoms of all time, full stop. I agree with most of what you wrote there (except for the final season, which I view as the same quality of Season 5-7 due to its sugary sweetness), but I still won't count it among my favorites of the decade or of all time. It just has very little staying power for me.
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Quiara
Grade School
Posts: 775
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Post by Quiara on Dec 20, 2019 10:54:02 GMT -8
The greatest takedown I've ever read of Parks & Rec showed up in, of all places, Dissent Magazine: www.dissentmagazine.org/article/already-greatGenuinely curious what Jer thinks of this, given the extended comparison to West Wing the author makes.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 20, 2019 12:20:36 GMT -8
That's a pretty great article. Not necessarily for the West Wing references (P&R is so often referred to as a spiritual successor to TWW that Aaron Sorkin may soon start demanding royalties), but because it frames Parks and Rec in a pointed "then vs. now" perspective.
At the time it went into production (early 2008 or thereabouts), all the pieces made sense for the moment. It was a hopeful show about a liberal politician in Middle America, played by the woman who was just coming off an acclaimed stint as the former Democratic frontrunner on SNL. It wasn't cynical to the opposition, necessarily - at a time when Bush was leaving office with historically unpopular numbers, and Obama was elected in a landslide, Schur and co. assumed the country as a whole was moving left, and they geared their show to reflect that.
Compare this to The West Wing, which went into production during the Clinton impeachment and spent a lot of time distinguishing Bartlet from the real-life President as a moral figure. The politics on The West Wing have dated a lot in the last twenty years, but that's mostly do to the shift in America's political tone - the government systems and procedures the show wraps itself in are mostly unchanged. (This also helps explain why the show remains nostalgically popular two decades later - it's the same story as the real world, but in a much glossier package.)
Parks and Rec, I suspect, won't age quite as well, because it was very much tethered to the Obama era. Scott raises a good point in noting the show's "coastal elite" perspective, but I don't think the problem was that the show painted a hateful picture of Middle America. No, the problem is that Parks and Rec is a liberal's fantasy of what Middle America should be - a place with nice fields and independent businesses, but also easily accepting of progressive policies. And it was produced during a time period when many Hollywood folks figured that the red center of the country was going to increasingly support left-leaning ideas.
Obviously, in the years since P&R ended, those Hollywood folks have realized this isn't the case. And the current state of politics has caused a lot of people to shuck their former optimism. Which is probably why P&R, hilarious though it may be, will be viewed more as a product of its time than many of the shows around it.
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Post by Incandescence 112 on Dec 20, 2019 13:02:47 GMT -8
Speaking of transitions, did you say that you had a 2 season, single perspective show in your number 6 spot? That's a coincidence! Number 6: Atlanta (FX)We are into the section of the top 20 where there are absolutely no complaints about any of these shows, they are all pretty much functionally perfect from here on in. Atlanta is a special, special show. The show covers so many aspects of what makes a show great, and is able to encompass all of them. Humour? Absolutely, who can forget the club owner disappearing into the wall to avoid paying Earn. Character development? Yep! Over the course of the two seasons so much crap happens to both Earn and Alfred that it changes how they look at the world, and how they feel about each other, both in positive and negative ways. Storytelling? "Teddy Perkins" is practically a half hour long movie, just a thrilling tale that led the viewer through beginning middle and end. Thematic strength? There's no better show about both economic and racial divides in America than this one. And most importantly, the show is just so formally adventurous. Jeremy mentioned this in his review, but I think it needs to be restated how each episode acts moves into different genres and are told in completely different ways while still maintaining the essence of the show. Let's go through the best stretch of the show, in season 2, and look how the episodes progress through each other: "Helen" - Relationship drama about Earn and Van "Barbershop" - Slapstick comedy about Alfred and his hairdresser "Teddy Perkins" - Horror "Champagne Papi" - Party drama "Woods" - Escape thriller "North of the Border" - Episode that starts comedic and moves into tragedy by the end "FUBU" - Flashback tragedy There's such a range the show goes through formally, yet it maintains the sense of offbeat humour and weird moments throughout that make the show what it is. The show is extraordinarily flexible, yet never loses it's tone. It never sacrifices either character for theme or theme for character. It's a brilliant show. I've been leaning towards the spot being high, but now I've almost talked myself into it being too low. But number 6 is nothing to sneeze at, this is a great show and one of the absolute highlights of the decade. Completely agree. It's one of those rare shows that has incredibly high ambitions yet practically lives up to all of them.
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Post by otherscott on Dec 20, 2019 14:35:58 GMT -8
Parks and Rec, I suspect, won't age quite as well, because it was very much tethered to the Obama era. Scott raises a good point in noting the show's "coastal elite" perspective, but I don't think the problem was that the show painted a hateful picture of Middle America. No, the problem is that Parks and Rec is a liberal's fantasy of what Middle America should be - a place with nice fields and independent businesses, but also easily accepting of progressive policies. And it was produced during a time period when many Hollywood folks figured that the red center of the country was going to increasingly support left-leaning ideas. Obviously, in the years since P&R ended, those Hollywood folks have realized this isn't the case. And the current state of politics has caused a lot of people to shuck their former optimism. Which is probably why P&R, hilarious though it may be, will be viewed more as a product of its time than many of the shows around it. So I disagree a little with both this point and the article referenced on the idea that Parks presents a picture of what Middle America should be. There’s elements of that with the people working in the Parks department, but it wasn’t reflected in the town. Season 5 and 6 are a two episode stretch of Leslie getting rejected by her Middle America represented town for reasons that were deliberately insane. It’s showing people who are representing conservatives rejecting Leslie’s reasonable ideas for ridiculous reasons - it was turning them into a joke. And yes, the show takes the perspective that good triumphs in the end because the reasonable people will eventually outweigh the weirdos (since 2016 hadn’t happened yet) but the portrayal of the average Pawnee citizen going to those town hall meetings always seemed troubling to me.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 21, 2019 16:40:55 GMT -8
See, the depiction of Middle America as backwards and clueless is nothing new to television. Shows like Green Acres and Newhart were doing it decades ago. "Lol, those rural folks sure are dumb!" is a message almost as old as the TV industry itself.
Parks is a little different from those older shows, I believe, in that while they usually take a fish-out-of-water approach (normal city guy moves to the country and has to contend with wacky neighbors), Parks insistently focuses on homegrown characters who are more liberal than the townsfolk around them, and (despite some hiccups) delivers the message that Leslie and her team can successfully implement their progressive visions into the world around them. That's very much an Obama-era sentiment, markedly different than how Middle America was portrayed in 20th-century TV.
That's not to say Schur and co. didn't depict a lot of the Pawnee folks as stupid (they certainly did); I'm just saying they did it from a very in-the-moment (and thus easily dated) perspective.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 22, 2019 20:26:20 GMT -8
My #5 show is up, don'tcha know! This has been an exhausting project, but we're on the last leg. Time to send things out in style.
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Post by otherscott on Dec 23, 2019 11:40:59 GMT -8
I don't have a clever transition, so I'll just say this. There is one show in my top 4 that Jeremy has seen every episode of that is not in his top 20. There is one show in Jeremy's top 4 that I have seen every episode of that is not in my top 20. Futher, they are both 4 season shows from the same family of networks, and premiered about a year apart. I'll just never know why Jeremy liked TURN: Washington's Spies so much.
Number 5: Bojack Horseman (Netflix)
I will be really curious how Bojack is looked at in 5 years or 10 years time. It premiered to exactly zero fanfare and eventually picked up critical love over its first season. If it premiered in 2017 or 2018, it's hard to say whether it would have caught on at all. It might have stayed a cult curiosity as overburdened critics would not have had time to go back and give it another chance. It has a high place in your best of decade lists, if you counted every critics list it may come out as a cumulative number 1 (especially since so many of them discounted Parks, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. That should make it one of the best shows of all time easily, but how much of that is because of timing and running for many seasons in an era where shows tended to have only one or two good seasons in them? On the other hand, there's hundreds and hundreds of streaming shows, and Bojack is basically the consensus best streaming show that ever aired. That's gotta mea something too.
What about the Emmys? To say Bojack was ignored is an understatement. Not only was it not competing in the Outstanding Comedy Series sandbox it very much deserved to be in, but there's a tailor-made category for Bojack called best animated series. How many nominations for that did Bojack get to this point? ONE. For season 5 (my personal At it lost to the thirtieth season of The Simpsons. And lest you say "oh the Emmys just takes kid shows as nominees for best animated program, Rick and Morty won a couple years back. That is an astonishing fact, and possibly even more of a black mark on the Emmys than those lack of nominations for The Wire. At least the Wire wasn't missing nominations in a category called "Most Realistic Police Drama".
No one reading this needs me to tell them how and why Bojack is great. It manages to couch a brilliant story about depression and self destructive behaviour in an animated comedy full of animal humour, puns, and unnecessary alliteration. It's phenomenal.
How phenomenal will this show eventually be looked as being? Where is its place in history? Only time will tell, but I'm very curious to know the answer.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 23, 2019 17:16:32 GMT -8
Yep, I can guess what your top 4 shows are, with the only mystery being the order of 2-4. (I've juggled my own top shows, though I think I've finally settled on the appropriate order.)
The Emmys have always had a bias against animated shows in major categories - The Flintstones and Family Guy are the only cartoons ever nominated for Outstanding Comedy. What's more, the Best Animated Program award is given to individual episodes, because the voters don't care enough to watch full seasons. The snubbing of Bojack thus isn't too shocking, although that doesn't make the rejection of "Fish Out of Water" sting any less. (The fact that it has fewer Emmy nominations than American Dad is just... ugh.)
Also, since you brought it up: Bojack is actually not aggregated as the most critically-beloved show of the decade, at least not according to Metacritic. No, looks like The Leftovers has the most love, with The Americans and Fleabag close behind it. (As of the moment, Bojack ties for eighth place with Parks and Rec.)
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Post by otherscott on Dec 23, 2019 19:14:46 GMT -8
Fleabag?!? And you accused me of recency bias, geez.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 23, 2019 19:30:06 GMT -8
Oh, you're certainly not the guiltiest of it. There's no way Fleabag would be in the critics' Top 3 had it aired 5-6 years ago. Fortunately, my #4 show has no recency bias at all! (Unless you count that movie...)
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