Thursday, October 14, 2010

Rank and Phile

Didn't get home from work until 11:15 last night and that, combined with my weird sleep hours (and lack of sleep hours) to begin with doomed the prospect of a post last night. It's gotten tougher to be consistent with the crazy sleep stuff going on.

Anyways, there's a writer for the SF Chronicle that ranks his favorite TV shows every week. Since I haven't been to a movie in a couple of months -- The Expendables was the last I saw in the theater and I'm expecting Harry Potter to be the next -- TV seems to have become my area of focus of late, if it wasn't already. So I'm ripping off the idea. I'll start by doing a current ranking of my top ten non-reality shows on TV as they stand right this second. Maybe it means you miss me railing about what a disaster tonight's 30 Rock live episode was, but it was a live episode of a sitcom, so what else did you expect? Sure, it's the same people who are able to put on SNL each week, but, hello, it's the same people who put on SNL each week.

Top 10 Currently Airing Scripted TV Shows as of October 14, 2010:
  • 10. Grey's Anatomy -- Yep. A lot to be said for consistency. You know what you're getting week in and week out right now. Wouldn't be surprised to see this drop off at some point.
  • 9. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- Only a couple of episodes so far this season, but they've been really, really good. This show is probably the epitome of consistency.
  • 8. House -- It would usually be ranked higher, but it's in a pretty bad formulaic rut right now after a very strong season last year. Still enjoyable, but hasn't quite found its groove yet.
  • 7. Boardwalk Empire -- I've only seen the first two episodes and I've heard it gets even better (for instance, the third episode is apparently strong on Michael Kenneth Williams), but it's already very good. Incredible visually and the potential for greatness is there.
  • 6. Community -- I was more excited for this than maybe any other returning show besides Dexter and the first few episodes (before tonight's relative miss) were really, really funny. How I Met Your Mother has been the best character development sitcom for years, but Community is challenging it.
  • 5. 30 Rock -- When it's on, no sitcom besides Curb comes anywhere close. Tonight's live fiasco aside, it has been on this season.
  • 4. Dexter -- The usual great lead performance that is now taking the show to new places.
  • 3. Terriers -- The pilot episode wasn't good, it was great. Each episode after has gotten better and better. I want to just gush and gush and gush about how great this show is. There is a serious chance that this could be #1 soon.
  • 2. Sons of Anarchy -- The second season of this show is one of the great seasons of any show and the third season has built from a slow beginning. It looks like it's about to get really, really good with SAMCRO finally leaving Charming to fight on someone else's turf, which is a nice plot device.
  • 1. Mad Men -- No need to sing this one's praises. If the second season of SoA was one of the great ones, this fourth season of Mad Men belongs in the rarified air of The Wire and the first season of Friday Night Lights. The only thing knocking this out of the top spot is the fact that with the season finale coming this Sunday, it won't be currently airing anymore.

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