You know what?
I was excited when I talked about 2012 in movies and games. It’s harder to act excited about TV. 30 Rock is ending, Community is getting
screwed over, Cartoon Network threw DC Nation up in the air so fast that
episodes got shown on iTunes before they aired on TV. And some great new shows got cancelled. Nevertheless, I can easily find 10 great
episodes that aired.
10 (tie).
The finales of MasterChef Season 3 and Amazing Race Season 21: Reality
shows are a guilty pleasure of mine, but when I like the contestants and the
challenges enough, they do become genuinely good, and sometimes surprisingly
inspiring. In MasterChef, Christine had
the disability of being blind, but still managed to come out on top. And Amazing Race had a season full of
backstabbing and stupid alliances, but the Beekmans came from being at the back
of the pack several times to winning it, and they had fun the entire time.
9. Modern
Family, “Bringing Up Baby”: This is one of those odd cases where I want to
praise the 4th season of Modern Family, but there’s no great episode
I can pinpoint for it. Its season premiere,
though, easily set up some of the big changes for the show, with Gloria
pregnant again and Haley going have to college.
The unique set-up of actually starting at the end of the 3rd
season and only time-skipping ahead at the end of the episode was also a nice
touch, and a solid start to a hilarious season.
8. Gravity
Falls, “Double Dipper”: Disney’s animated programming has long been head
and shoulders above its live action, and Gravity Falls is the latest in shows
that appeal to kids of all ages. This episode
provides both a nice example of the sci-fi/fantasy that drives the show, with
Dipper cloning himself using a magic copier with results that go wrong as it
gets lampshaded all the way. And there’s
also Mabel meeting her rival, only Mabel is completely oblivious to that fact. Using the standard animated plot set-ups
while also playing with them is what makes Gravity Falls so fun.
7. Arrow, “Lone
Gunmen”: Leave it to DC to constantly just twiddle their thumbs in the
movie division, and then deliver some awesome TV shows. Arrow’s take on Green Arrow balances being a show
of millionaire playboys and the standard drama that entails with plenty of
heroic action. Lone Gunmen introduces a
nice take on Deadshot, has some great action sequences, and it answers the
question of “When is his bodyguard going to learn his identity?” with “RIGHT
NOW” when some shows would’ve dragged that out for a full season. This is a show that moves and keeps you
excited.
6.
Community, “Virtual Systems Analysis”: Curses to NBC. Season 4 of Community still hasn’t started
yet, and most of my favorite Season 3 episodes were back in 2011. It would be a shame to leave it off this
list, though, and while its parodies of video games, heist films, and Ken Burns
documentaries are all tempting, Analysis is what makes the list for me. Abed and Annie go inside the Dreamtorium and
constantly switch between acting out as the various cast members, but it’s the
scene of Abed in the locker that reminds me why this show is great: for all its
cartoonish comedy, it suddenly turns around and hits you with an emotional
moment. It’s a silly show that still makes
you feel for the characters.
5. Once Upon
a Time, “Skin Deep”: Speaking of making you feel for the characters, OUAT
is a show that makes you feel for the villains.
Just when you think a character is truly evil, it suddenly dives into
their backstory and changes everything.
Skin Deep goes back to Rumpelstiltskin in the fairy tale world and shows
a twist on the tale when Belle is captured in his castle and forced to work for
him. The tale as old as time is still happens,
and ends up not only adds new twists to the show, but also gives the quirky,
giggling trickster another level of depth.
4. Last
Resort, “Eight Bells”: I was not surprised at all when Last Resort was
cancelled. Disappointed, yes, but did
anybody really think an intelligent, politically charged thriller was going to
last? And while the dense plotlines are
what gets this show its praise, Eight Bells is a great example of its thrills,
as the submarine crew have to pull off a dangerous mission in order to save
their captured members. It’s tense and
doesn’t have the perfect happy ending, which makes it all the better.
3. Bob’s
Burgers, “Tina-rannosaurus Wrecks”: In a block controlled by Simpsons and
Seth MacFarlane, Bob’s Burgers ends up being the choice cut. Its sometimes realistic, sometimes absurd
plots come together here when a driving lesson for awkward daughter Tina ends
with her hitting the only other car in an empty parking lot. From there, the family gets roped into an
insurance fraud scheme, they completely fail at faking the kids’ deaths, and
the show proves that nothing is too ridiculous for them, while still feeling
strangely grounded next to its contemporaries.
2.
Bunheads, “Movie Truck”: At first I assumed Bunheads was the kind of show
my mom would watch on her own. By the
third episode I was watching thanks to it just being purely hilarious. Its hour-long comedy format lets it set up
scenes and just have them run until they are damn sure every joke has been
done. When thinking of the episode to
put on this list, I wanted to chop them up and put together the scenes of
Michelle in the coffee shop and the awful play Blank Up It’s Time and everything. But I had to keep going back to Movie
Truck. It features some great moments
like the girls trying to get the perfect seating arrangement in the movie truck
and Michelle and her friends passing around a bottle of alcohol, only to reveal
that one of them has just been spitting back in it. Three words get it on this list, though:
Mountain of Arms. It’s the B-movie fan
in me that reveled in the characters’ descriptions of this movie where a killer
cuts off people’s arms to make a mountain of arms, with the final ironic twist
that he has to chop off his own arms to finish the mountain. Perfect.
1. Awake, “Turtles
All the Way Down”: Awake tried its best to balance its fairly normal cop
show premise of solving crimes each week, with its high concept that the main
character keeps switching between two alternate universes depending on whether
his son or his wife died in a car crash.
Apparently this was too much for audiences, since the show didn’t even
get a full season. Each episode is
excellent, building up new twists to the conspiracy that caused the main
character’s crash while also adding rules for how the worlds work. Series finale Turtles is the masterpiece. The conspiracy goes into high gear,
characters die, and the two worlds fall apart completely. Everything the show said about how things work
was apparently done just to create moment after moment of “Wait, what?!” It’s trippy.
It’s unique. It’s perfect.
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