Read on for the ten best and worst television shows of 2014
2014 TV Winners and Losers
by Brandon Wolfe
2014 was a surprisingly great year for television, with an unusually large crop of incredible new series debuting alongside a handful of rejuvenated returning favorites. But as with everything, you take the good with the bad, and there was still plenty of bad this year. Here are my picks for TV’s ten biggest winners and losers of 2014.
Winners
1. Fargo (FX)
The year’s biggest surprise. There was no reason to expect anything from Noah Hawley’s ten-episode interpretation of the Coen Brothers classic. It seemed like the most thankless of tasks; at its best, it could only wither in the shadow of the film. But the show’s best turned out to be much better than anyone could have guessed, matching the humor and tone of the film while staking out its own unique ground. It helped that it was impeccably cast. The very British Martin Freeman disappears completely into the skin (and Minnesotan accent) of hapless insurance salesman Lester Nygaard, a henpecked schlep who embraces the ice-blooded sociopath within. And newcomer Allison Tolman was a real find as tenacious flatfoot Molly Solverson, a beacon of goodness in a world of snow-covered evil. But it’s Billy Bob Thornton’s performance as hitman and agent of chaos Lorne Malvo that truly brings down the house. Thornton’s deadpan sarcasm has never been put to better use, nor has his ability to convey chill-inducing fearsomeness. Hilarious, heartwarming, terrifying and always unpredictable, Fargo is in full compliance with the best television has to offer.
2. True Detective (HBO)
Matthew McConaughey as Detective Rust Cohle gives one of the most hypnotic performances an actor has offered in quite some time, in any medium. Prone to philosophizing floridly about the cynicism of man and his insignificance in the universe (occasionally while whittling figures out of beer cans), Rust could have come off as a pretentious windbag, but McConaughey’s haunted demeanor makes the character endlessly magnetic. He is aided by a game Woody Harrelson, portraying Rust’s partner, flawed hothead Martin Hart, who is eternally, often hilariously irritated by his other half’s disaffected worldview. The bond forged between these two men – always hostile, yet ultimately redemptive on both sides – was the beating heart of a show that dropped us deep into a fetid pit of darkness while offering only the faintest suggestion that the light would win out in the end. True Detective was the most gorgeously directed thing to air on a screen of any size this year, making the backwoods of Louisiana look like the most beautiful place you’d never want to be. This is detective noir at its finest and the upcoming second season’s cast and crew have a whole lot to live up to.
3. Sherlock (BBC)
The long-delayed third season of the BBC’s detective yarn was met with a mixed reception. Some were annoyed by the show’s nose-thumbing approach to revealing just how Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch) survived that seemingly fatal fall from atop that building. Others were put off by the season’s method of putting the mysteries on the backburner in favor of placing stronger focus on the complicated relationship between Sherlock and his confidante, John Watson (Martin Freeman), feeling like the show was engaging in fan service rather than proper storytelling. These complaints turn a blind eye to the fact that the unusual relationship the two men share is every bit as crucial to this series as any of its head-spinning whodunits. Besides, the season’s third and final installment offered up a twisty mystery as engrossing as any it had handed us previously. Cumberbatch’s Sherlock remains one of television’s most fascinating heroes. It’s just too bad Cumberbatch and Freeman are so busy appearing in everything under the sun that we have to wait so long for new cases.
4. Silicon Valley (HBO)
Mike Judge has made a career out of finding hilarity in the more mundane aspects of society and human nature, as well as in watching schmucks get into situations well beyond their grasps. Here he focuses on a gaggle of software designers bumbling their way into the big-business world of the tech industry and his comedy track record remains spotless. Silicon Valley could have easily been a collection of obvious nerd jokes that The Big Bang Theory hadn’t gotten to yet, but Judge doesn’t take the easiest road. He gets laughs by examining the competitiveness between these man-children and the ways that their pettiness and social awkwardness get in the way of their million-dollar career plans. Rarely does a sitcom ever emerge as fully formed as this one did. Straight out of the gate, the cast was perfectly locked into their grooves, with every member of the ensemble adding something to the mix. The standouts were T.J. Miller as arrogant big-talker Erlich Bachman and the late Charles Evan Welch as oddball tech giant Peter Gregory. Season 2 will definitely suffer a bit from Welch’s absence, but given how strong Season 1 was, that’s likely to be the only suffering it does.
5. Hannibal (NBC)
Given that it’s a network-television adaptation of characters that have no business being on network television, Hannibal shouldn’t be this good. And for awhile, it wasn’t. Its first season certainly wasn’t bad, but was a bit too much of a procedural. CSI with more ghoulish art direction. But in its second season, Hannibal sprang to life, casting off its case-of-the-week routine and fully embracing the ghastly, Grand Guignol weirdness we expect from Dr. Lecter. The season played out as a breakneck rollercoaster of insanity and, more than perhaps any other show airing right now, it exuded the sense that anything could happen in any given week. This is TV without a net, taking chances and breaking all the rules. How the hell is this on NBC?
6. Billy on the Street (Fuse)
The setup is so simple yet so deceptively brilliant. Comedian Billy Eichner takes to the streets of New York armed only with a microphone and his explosively abrasive personality and proceeds to accost passersby with random questions, unconventional quiz games or just unrestrained shrieking about celebrity gossip. The result, while perhaps not for all tastes given what a powder keg Eichner can be, is frequently the funniest thing on television.
7. Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Parks and Rec is the Old Faithful of comedy. It remains so predictable as a source of sunshiny hilarity that it becomes easy to take its greatness for granted. After the first half of the season seemed to go out of its way to knock indefatigable hero Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) into the dirt week after week, systematically stripping her of her hard-won political career, the second half made up for all of that, thrusting us ahead three years into a future where Leslie is the mother of triplets and now heads up the entire Midwest Regional office of the National Parks Service. That future will be explored in the show’s upcoming final season, but the future that’s really unclear is the one beyond that, where we will have to face life without our Pawnee pals around anymore.
8. Community (NBC)
Community is the cockroach that television just can’t kill no matter how hard it tries. But, you know, an amazing, hysterically funny cockroach. After a limp fourth season produced without series mastermind Dan Harmon behind the wheel, Community came roaring back to life upon Harmon’s improbable return to his baby. The time away did him some good, it seems (the show was starting to go a bit off the rails even in the Harmon-led third season), because Community was better than ever this year, peeling off fantastic episodes one after the other (long live Meow Meow Beanz) while also facing significant cast turnover with the departures of Chevy Chase and Donald Glover. Now the show has slipped the noose yet again and will debut its sixth season on Yahoo next year after being axed by NBC. That just leaves the matter of that fabled movie. Bring it.
9. The Walking Dead (AMC)
The astoundingly popular zombie series spent its first three years on the air as a perfectly watchable show, but never more than that. The characters always seemed thin, the storylines went in circles and there was never the sense that any of it really added up to a whole lot more than watching zombie skulls bashed in in creative ways. But a funny thing happened to The Walking Dead midway through its fourth season. It got…good. All of a sudden, those characters whose names we could barely remember even after several years started gelling, and the things they were up to got curiously involving. It happened so quickly and without warning that the boost in quality didn’t even fully sink in until the currently-airing fifth season started unfolding. Now, for the first time, The Walking Dead is starting to feel like something that actually merits airing on AMC. A special shout-out to Melissa McBride’s Carol, who went from glorified background scenery to the show’s most compelling character so abruptly and forcefully that our heads are still spinning.
10. 24: Live Another Day (Fox)
When 24 called it a day in 2010, it wasn’t a moment too soon. Actually, it was about four or five years too late. The show had devolved into a repetitive cycle of regurgitating the same handful of tropes over and over to the point of self-parody. But those four years away made everything old seem new again, and Live Another Day played out like a band reuniting to belt out their old hits. Yeah, we’ve seen it all before, but reconnecting with ol’ Jack Bauer proved to be a welcome dose of nostalgia. What also helped was the fact that the event series only had to fill up 12 episodes instead of the usual, well, 24, removing the need for the excessive padding that weighed down the show during its original run and making it fleeter on its feet. This revival made a strong case for Jack Bauer living additional days.
Losers
1. Crisis (NBC)
Centering around a hostage situation where the children of some very powerful people are being held captive as a means of collective vengeance, Crisis was an insipid pile of nonsense. Taking 24 as its obvious inspiration, the show gave us a bunch of flat characters running around, attempting to conjure up urgency in the service of a ridiculous plot that made zero sense. This is the sort of network tripe that gets people to renew their cable subscriptions.
2. From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series (El Rey)
Robert Rodriguez’s inaugural series for his newly-launched cable network answered two questions no one ever asked: What would From Dusk Till Dawn be like without Quentin Tarantino’s witty script and what would it be like if every scene in the film were stretched out to a full hour? The answer to both: Pretty damn bad. This was as pointless an exercise as they come, essentially the movie-to-TV Goofus to the Gallants that were Fargo and Hannibal. When Rodriguez makes his inevitable Machete TV series, count me out.
3. Tyrant (FX)
Producer Howard Gordon has had a lot of success with television series concerning the Middle East and perhaps this was one too many. A hilariously whitebread American family heads to the fictional nation of Abuddin because the patriarch, Barry (the lifeless Adam Raynor), is the estranged son of the dictator who runs the place. When daddy drops dead during the visit, Barry’s volatile brother takes over, with Barry deciding he wants to play an increasingly active role in his country’s affairs. There’s something potentially worthwhile in this premise, but rather than explore what it means to oversee a country in the throes of social upheaval, Tyrant wants to be a nighttime soap opera along the lines of Dallas instead of something compelling and insightful, wringing overcooked melodrama out of every scene. FX is responsible for some of the best shows on television, but everyone drops the ball from time to time.
4. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC)
Marvel’s first foray into the realm of television has shown some signs of life in recent weeks, but it’s still far from out of the woods. However, assessing 2014 as a whole, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a bust. In sharp contrast to the innovative, smart, breathlessly entertaining films Marvel is making these days, this show is dull, plodding and without a single character possessing enough of a pulse to get behind. It played out like some chintzy syndicated show from 1994 rather than an extension of the cinematic universe we can’t get enough of. Its only merit has been occasionally laughing at its ineptitude in the fleeting moments when we can actually stay awake.
5. How I Met Your Mother (CBS)
Rarely has a sitcom ever left the stage as clumsily or as unsatisfying as this one did. From the unfathomably miscalculated decision to have the entire season play out over an endless wedding weekend to a finale that seemed almost calibrated to kick the fanbase in its teeth as hard as it could with disappointment, HIMYM displayed a fundamental lack of understanding of what story it was trying to tell or what anyone might have wanted from it. At least its talented cast is finally freed up to do better things.
6. The Leftovers (HBO)
Damon Lindelof possesses a creative mind that is all set-up and no follow-through. He can tease out mysteries and pose tantalizing questions like nobody’s business, but when it comes time to show his cards, he’s got nothing. So The Leftovers seemed like a good fit for him. Here’s a show that discloses right up front that there are no answers to its mysteries, so don’t bother waiting for them. While this would seem to let Lindelof off the hook, allowing him to focus on the lives and interactions of those left on Earth after a portion of the population is taken in a Rapture-like event without having to reach a “put up or shut up” endpoint, Lindelof still fumbles the ball. Unlike Lost, which always crackled with life and personality, the characters on The Leftovers are a dreary, miserablist lot who never get up to anything of much interest. The result is less a show than an opportunity to people-watch a bunch of mopes. Hard pass.
7. Gotham (Fox)
What was Gotham City like when it was just Jim Gordon patrolling the streets, before the Dark Knight and his colorful adversaries took over the asylum? That’s a fair question, and if you have to create yet another police procedural, that’s a good jumping-off point. But Gotham is a show that doesn’t have its head screwed on straight. The characters, the dialogue, the storyline of a complicated mob war, it’s all pitifully rote, as if the mere fact that these blah characters have iconic names were all it took to make the show inherently interesting. It’s not. More than that, the inclusion of a preteen Bruce Wayne as a regular character makes it seem like the show doesn’t know whether it wants to be a cop drama or Smallville, not seeming to realize that those two tastes don’t taste great together.
8. Doctor Who (BBC)
The undying franchise that itself crosses time and space hit a wall this year. The series has always been a bit (wibbly) wobbly, creatively, but the thing that has kept it airborne is how entertaining each incarnation of the Doctor has been. Under David Tennant and, to a lesser extent, Matt Smith, the character was a lovable eccentric, brimming with giddy, infectious enthusiasm. But then new Doctor Peter Capaldi came in and declared fun-time over. The Doctor being a crusty old goat is hardly a new development in the show’s 50-year history, but it is new to the post-2005 revival and marked a jarring shift in how we take in the character. Matters were compounded by the fact that the storylines this year were even more hopelessly convoluted and nonsensical than usual, and that current companion Clara Oswald (Jenna Coleman) feels like a third-generation copy of previous, better companions Rose Tyler and Amy Pond (the less said about Clara’s deathly dull subplot with boyfriend Danny Pink, the better). Time for another regeneration.
9. Sleepy Hollow (Fox)
Genuine, palpable chemistry between two actors is a rare and wonderful thing. Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie have it as Ichabod Crane and “Leftenant” Abbie Mills. Too bad they don’t have it on a better show. After a solid start in Season 1, Sleepy Hollow wound up collapsing under the sheer weight of its absurd mythology, as well as the constant need for ceaseless exposition to explain said mythology. Frankly, it’s just not worth all the nonsense you need to sift through to get to Ichabod getting amusingly befuddled by an iPhone.
10. Justified (FX)
When Justified cooks, which it did consistently in its second-through-fourth seasons, it’s possibly the most entertaining thing on television. The colorful dialogue, the one-of-a-kind characters, the simmering tension, it’s all fantastic. But the show lost its rudder in Season 5, offering up a year where it clearly didn’t know what it was doing or where anything was going. So lost in the woods was it that we spent two or three episodes in the middle where cucumber-cool hero Raylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) was planning to leave for a romantic getaway at a point in previous seasons where that would have been unthinkable. The show became a mishmash of dead-end story threads, inconsistent characters, and love interests and femme fatales that amounted to nothing. We also had Michael Rappaport and his horrible attempt at a southern accent for a main villain, a man the show couldn’t decide was a crafty mastermind or a dumb cracker. Season 5 still had that old Elmore Leonard cadence, and Olyphant’s Raylan and Walton Goggins’ Boyd Crowder couldn’t be uninteresting characters if they tried, but the year was a shapeless mass. Let’s hope the upcoming final season has more clarity of purpose.
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