Here's part two of my annual TV commentary, this time for the 2010-2011 season. Each review is pretty spoiler-ific for each show's respective season. So unless you've seen every episode of, say, Glee's second season, don't read it. Enjoy!
The Good Wife CBSThroughout season two of The Good Wife, I was in awe at how ridiculously well-executed nearly all of the scripts were. This is how you do a great procedural, CBS. To be fair, The Good Wife isn't even a procedural. It has standalone cases every week, sure, but those cases are for the most part extremely well-observed and authentic, fascinating legal mysteries that expose the tricks of the law and the methods lawyers and law firms themselves employ to get the right kind of victory. But, outside of the legal cases, The Good Wife is seeped in rich, layered character drama that feels more at home on a cable network. It's the characterization that made the series' second season so powerful.
Julianna Margulies has always been great, but the subtlety she gave to Alicia this year, the shades of angst and regret and humor that she decided to put into her character as she began to open up both at work and at home, were truly great to watch. The year was driving home to an inevitable conclusion for Alicia, with her increasingly pleasant life about to shatter at the seems with more revelations about Peter's infidelities and a personal betrayal she had no idea existed. It was in her friendship with Kalinda that added a lot of weight to the season's final episodes, since it was this betrayal that was so much more affecting than anything her husband had ever done to her. Both characters are fascinating, and I loved Kalinda's various exploits this year, too. From her atmospheric power-play battles with Blake to her various bisexual dalliances with all of her seemingly bisexual contacts around the city. Cary, a character who was kind of superfluous and one-note last season, was given added depth while working for Glenn Childs, his rivalry with Alicia as well as his blossoming friendship with Kalinda both great to see unfold. The entire ensemble is fabulous, right down to the guest stars. Alan Cumming made a huge impression this year, eclipsing the fact that his boss (Peter) was barely on the show. Grandma Jackie is a real piece of work, while I continue to love the recurring work of folks like Michael J. Fox, Mamie Gummer, Martha Plimpton and Tim Guinee. Even America Ferrera managed not to be shrill and obnoxious during her cute recurring gig.
The Good Wife has always been a lot like an elaborate chess game, with office politics, sexual politics and then actual politics all being dissected via wonderful character interplay and great writing. This year has been remarkable for the show, balancing a dozen varying stories and carefully utilizing them for all they're worth. Season two ended with just the right amount of open storylines for the future, making season three even more tantalizing Just drop the religious daughter hoodoo and the show will be perfect. A+
Favorite Character Alicia Florrick
Favorite Episode VIP Treatment was a Good Wife standard, with a race against time to secure an important case, only this time it was punctured by the mystery of whether or not a hotel masseuse had actually been sexually assaulted by a famous Nobel prize winner. The ending, in which the woman chose not to pursue the case in order to protect her family, was incredibly moving. In general, the whole story was very prescient, too.
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Mad Men AMCA major 'thing' (I wouldn't necessarily call it a problem) that has been evident on Mad Men for its past two seasons is that the storylines have become a lot more scattered than they were previously. There have been fewer attempts to engineer true, thematic story arcs lately, instead focusing seemingly at random on certain characters in certain episodes. Season three was brought down a notch by that feeling (characters like Peggy and Joan were sometimes bereft with little to do), but season four, while maintaining that scattered structure, didn't feel as tonally all-over-the-place. There's always that problem with Mad Men that the characters are so layered and deep that you wish you could spend more time with them, but that's pretty much the one problem that's desirable when it comes to TV. I'm not begging to see more of Horatio Caine or whoever, but the characters on Mad Men are so powerful you wish you could spend every day with them.
Season four saw Don once again defined by the women in his life. His relationship with Peggy was beautifully explored in the masterpiece that was The Suitcase, he reflected on his past in the midst of Anna's terminal cancer and eventual death, and he became romantically entangled with two very different new characters. I always believed Don's relationship with Faye was akin to a patient/therapist deal, and not at all anything truly romantic. Unfortunately, Don ended up devastating her after he got what he wanted from their fling, Faye under the impression that what they had was real. Out of nowhere at the end of the season, Megan, a character who had become this nurturing omnipresence throughout the season, suddenly married Don. I'm still unsure of her motives, but her vulnerability, her compassion, her ambition and her mothering qualities essentially combine all the greatest aspects of Don's favorite women. You completely understand what he sees in her.
Peggy became wonder-girl this year, and I think that shot of her cycling round and round on the Honda motorcycle sealed my eternal love for her. I loved her growth this year, in particular her association with the group of bohemian artist-types, and later her growing friendship with Joan. Speaking of Joan, she had the soapiest story of the year (her affair with Roger and her eventual secret pregnancy), and once again displayed her effortless charm, knowing perception and ruthless determination to remain powerful and respected (remember the story with the offensive doodle?). Christina Hendricks is a marvel on this show.
Mad Men is the greatest show around, and four years in it still features an ensemble of characters you wish you could see more of. I wish Betty had more to do in season four (her gradual breakdown was painful to watch), I love Lane and wish we could have seen more of his familial abuse and his relationship with Naturi Naughton's Playboy bunny, I would have loved to have seen more of Pete and Trudy's insanely cute marriage, and Sally's continued growth has been perfectly played so far. But what we did see this year, notably the gorgeous character growth for Don, Peggy and Joan, was incredible and some of the best-acted and most beautifully-written material I've seen in a long, long time. This show is an artistic masterpiece. A+
Favorite Character Joan Harris
Favorite Episode For its stunningly scripted dissection of Don and Peggy's relationship and the various 'roles' the two of them occupy in each other's lives (boss, friend, confident, mother, brother), The Suitcase was the highlight of a remarkable year.
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Nikita CWNikita was the surprise of the 2010-2011 season. It's a show that doesn't aspire to be art. The acting is pretty one-note. Some of the dialogue is clunky-as-all-hell. But damn if it isn't one of the most fun and exciting shows on the air. From a visual perspective, I was always surprised at how great the action sequences were, and the straight-up brutality of the show, especially for the CW. Good guys are slaughtered, there's torture, bullets to the head, main characters exterminated and melted in bath tubs. It's a crazily violent show at times, Nikita frequently whooping all kinds of butt all over the place. I also love the look of the show, from the sparse Manhattan loft that Nikita calls home, to the metallic dungeon that is Division. It has a gorgeous, cool visual style to it that reminds me of vintage 24 and Alias.
Maggie Q is ridiculously badass in the title role, far more powerful than the flat Peta Wilson in the '90s series. She nails the cool, icy tone that Nikita adopted following her escape from Division, and has created one of the few truly strong heroines on television today. She's supported by a great ensemble, too, notably Xander Berkely as the sleezy Percy, and the eternally sensual Melinda Clarke as the ambiguous Amanda.
Along with The Good Wife, Nikita has discovered that ridiculously difficult balancing act of juggling standalone action mysteries with serialized arcs, with Nikita repeatedly scuppering Division at every turn while always referencing back to some of the heavier story arcs. It was thematically a little repetitive, but the writing was always so consistently exciting that the show managed to overcome any potential hurdles along the way. I also really enjoyed the various plots and guest characters that flowed in and out of the year, notably Devon Sawa and Peter Outerbridge, whose respective characters both have some intriguing relationships with Nikita.
I was initially concerned about the CW's mid-season tinkering, but it didn't produce a whole lot of difference. Alex's flat lovelife was unsurprisingly tedious, but never entirely absorbed the rest of the show. The emphasis is still on Nikita, her mission, her fragile relationship with Michael, and the machinations over at Division. Season two seems especially promising, notably what is likely to be a heavier use of Amanda, one of the coolest and most underutilized characters in season one.
Far greater than I ever thought it would be, Nikita fills that Alias-sized hole in my TV viewing, being a show that's completely absorbing, frequently exciting, and inherently badass. A
Favorite Character Nikita
Favorite Episode There have been several episodes that exploded with various subplots and crazy levels of kickass, but the finale, Pandora, successfully tied up the entanglements of the entire season as well as setting up some intense arcs for next year.
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Next... Rubicon, Undercovers and The Walking Dead.
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