TV Timeout

Not only is football back in full swing, but so too is the fall TV season. Many of our favorite shows have unveiled their season premieres in the past week (The Emmy’s were also on Sunday) and most people can’t keep their thoughts to themselves, so I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of Facebook posts about them. Rather than annoy you with meaningless drivel in the minutes after a show airs (Who watches shows live anymore anyway? It’s called a DVR people) I’ve instead chosen to simply list my current Top 10 favorites. Not all of these shows are currently airing new episodes, but, in my opinion, they are the best of the best.

Before all of you clowns that watch 6 hours of singing competitions on a weekly basis freak out I should tell you that I did not consider reality television shows (If I did The Challenge would definitely be in the mix). In order to make my list the show not only needed to be scripted out by very talented writers, but also acted out by real life actors (my apologies to Family Guy, South Park, etc.). I also didn’t include late night shows, political programs, or hybrids of the two (my apologies to The Daily Show, Colbert Report, etc.)


10.) Episodes (Showtime)- I’m probably the only person in America that watches this show about a British couple who move to the United States to write a television show that stars Matt LeBlanc as a hockey coach. Trust me when I tell you that the dialogue is filled with sharp, biting intelligent humor. It’s honestly one of the best written shows on television and I crack up every time I watch this show, but I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.

9.) How I Met Your Mother (CBS)- This used to be a top 3 show for me, but it’s fallen off considerably in my opinion. Episodes are very hit or miss nowadays. In fact, here’s my buddy Frank’s CNN.Com recap (please click the link) of the season premiere.

"After watching the season premiere of "How I Met Your Mother" on Monday, I realized that I'll most likely find the mother of my future children before Ted Mosby does (Vegas actually has me going off at 4-to-2 odds).

Then again, all I have to deal with is fate, chemistry, luck, mathematical probability and guys who have great abs, like Robin's new boyfriend.

Ted, on the other hand, has to deal with a show that refuses to get to the point.

Monday's season premiere, "Farhampton," picked up right where we left off - sort of. At first, everything happened in the future ... and then in the past ... and then in the future again? Honestly, I don't know. I get confused watching "Survivor."

But what I do know is that we were once again given an episode with a lot of interesting plot points that - thanks to "HIMYM" being its own spoiler alert - didn't go anywhere.

Going through last season's greatest "possibly-The-Mother" hits of Victoria, The Slutty Pumpkin, Robin and somehow Victoria again was at times as burdensome as actually talking to one's own mother (just kidding Ma, love you!). I mean, sure, it served the show's ultimate purpose, but it overshadowed some of the other intriguing occurrences.

For example, the plotline of Marshall and Lily having a baby (also known as a "greatest middle name of all time" nominee, Marvin "Waitforit" Erickson) and Barney getting engaged were all just footnotes in the search to get to The Mother of all "HIMYM" answers.

And now, at the start of a fresh season, we get an episode with more footnotes:

"Lily and Marshall are soooo tired that they're basically under-the-sea zombies! Hilarious, right?" [Don't care, get to the Mother.]

"How about Ted sitting at a train station in the future where we see a woman with a yellow umbrella who could maybe, possibly be the Mother?" [Blank stare.]

See what I mean?

The explanation Victoria's runaway groom, Klaus, gave to Ted on how Victoria is "almost the thing you want but not quite" was fitting. It was a great moment, but it's also pretty much what "HIMYM" is right now. It's "almost the thing you want but not quite."

Yet, I still hold hope that we'll find that "lifelong treasure of destiny" sooner rather than later.

8.) 30 Rock (NBC)- The best way to describe 30 Rock is occasionally wacky, but always incredibly witty. Despite having what I think is a very good memory I struggle to remember many lines as I’m walking out of a movie theater, but the writing in 30 Rock is so impressive that I routinely remember plenty of lines from each episode. Alec Baldwin, a notorious liberal, playing an uber conservative in Jack Donaghy is almost as impressive as Neil Patrick Harris, a homosexual, playing a womanizer in Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother.

7.) Dexter (Showtime)- I could do without the inner monologues about “The Dark Passenger” and the visions of his dead father, but the show is still an absolute thrill to watch. There’s a new villain every season and even though you know that Dexter will end up killing him/her, it’s a 12 week suspense filled journey with twists and turns that you never expect. This villain per season formula makes it incredibly easy to distinguish specific episodes, plot lines, etc.

6.) Veep (HBO)- A situational comedy set in the second highest political office in the country? Yes, please. I almost watched all 8 episodes of Veep in one sitting (despite what you may think, I don’t have that much free time). Julia Louis-Dreyfus is incredible and the Emmy she won the other night was very well deserved. I can’t think of another actor/actress who has become synonymous with a character that they’ve played that has been able to have such success in a future endeavor. As great as she is on the show, Tony Hale (formerly Buster Bluthe in Arrested Development) might be even better.

5.) Breaking Bad (AMC)- What’s impressive about Breaking Bad is that it started as this semi-realistic story about a high school chemistry who starts cooking meth to pay for his cancer treatment, but things escalated very quickly and the show hasn’t lost any of its luster. Some plot lines are so ridiculous nowadays (the train episode), but they still have you on the edge of your seat. I also hate over 50% of the characters on the show, but I’m still hooked.

4.) Homeland (Showtime)- All you really need to know is that it swept the 3 biggest awards at the Emmy’s on Sunday Night (Best Drama Series, Best Actor/Actress in a Drama Series). Homeland is about a bipolar CIA agent who has a hunch about a military war hero. If you liked 24 you’ll love Homeland. There’s a lot of interrogations, theories, escaping from impossible situations, and the usual plot twists and episode ending cliff hangers.

3.) Modern Family (ABC)- I don’t think anything will ever live up to the first season, which is an incredible re-watch, but Modern Family continues to churn out laugh out loud moments week after week. I could do without their insistence on projecting a heartfelt family moral message at the end of every episode (this isn’t Full House), but the characters are about as indelible as they get. Phil, Manny, Cam, and Dylan (in that order) are simply hysterical.

2.) Mad Men (AMC)- I’ve written about Mad Men a lot in the past and even though this most recent season wasn’t one of the best the show is still amazing. I hate time period pieces. Give me a show/movie about the present day over a time period piece (past or future) any day of the week, but Mad Men is different. For starters, it gives kids our age a glimpse into the world that our parents grew up in. If that doesn’t at least mildly intrigue you than I can’t help you. The show is serious in that it deals with real world problems (or at least the major issues of the day in the 60’s) and isn’t looking for any laughs. It’s a drama in the best connotation of the word. It’s also smart and beautifully written. Some people find the show slow and boring, but they’re also the ones going to the movie theater to see Abraham Lincoln slay vampires and Kevin James as an MMA fighter.

1.) Parks and Recreation (NBC)- A comedy about a small (fictional) town government bureaucracy that continues to get funnier year after year. It used to be the only Thursday night comedy on NBC that I didn’t watch and now it’s my favorite show on television.

Here’s what Grantland’s Andy Greenwald had to say after last week’s season premiere:

“In programming, recapping, and basic automotive care, the squeaky wheel always gets the most attention. This is a shame, particularly so in the case of Parks and Recreation, the smoothest-running comedy on television. While all of its neighbors are lassoing headlines for being badly rated, badly in need of euthanasia, or merely being bad, Parks is in the midst of a nearly unprecedented run of excellence. Real talk: Since figuring itself out in its second season, Parks has strung together dozens of episodes of such high quality and remarkable consistency that it hearkens back to the golden age of NBC’s Thursday nights.”

Here’s a sample of a fantastic Q&A with head writer Michael Schur done by GQ:

"GQ: We were talking earlier about making sure your show has a beating heart underneath, that the characters all love each other. Do you ever have a problem where you pull back too far? Where you're like, "This is too nice. I need these people to fight a little bit more." How hard is it to find that line?

Mike Schur: Well, it is very hard, and there's no comedy without conflict. That's one of the most basic truisms of comedy. The way our show has chosen to find that conflict is often by external threats—in other words, the core group of people are usually on the same team, and they're dealing with outside opposition. So instead of doing a bunch of stories where Tom and April hate each other, we do a story where April is running a pet adoption, and she hates the people who are not adopting the pets because she sunk a lot of work into the pet adoption and no one is showing up, and she gets really angry at the town, and then Tom shows up at her house and says, "Hey, you worked really hard, and that one little girl who adopted a puppy is really happy, and you should be happy about that."

Now, occasionally, for obvious reasons, you have to have your main characters in opposition to each other. Otherwise it gets really boring. I mean, Ron and Leslie, for example, have completely opposing worldviews. Ron is like a 19th-century libertarian who thinks that everyone should leave everyone else alone in all matters, and the government should be one guy sitting in a room, and his only power is he gets to decide who to nuke. That's his idea of perfect government. And obviously Leslie is an incredibly progressive person who believes that the government is the very fabric of a society and that it can do all these amazing things to help its citizens. So they come into conflict all the time, and we try to show in that relationship that as friends, as humans, they have a great deal of respect for each other, and they see the best in each other. Ron admires Leslie's work ethic, and Leslie admires Ron's integrity, so that even when they're fighting, you know that they still care about each other. There are ways to create conflict that aren't just, "These two people hate each other for this 30-minute show."

Week 4 NFL Picks

Browns +12 at Ravens
Patriots -4 at Bills
Vikings pick ‘em at Lions
at Falcons -7.5 vs. Panthers
49ers -4 at Jets
at Chiefs pick ‘em vs. Chargers
Titans +12 at Texans
at Rams +3 vs. Seahawks
at Cardinals -6.5 vs. Dolphins
at Broncos -6.5 vs. Raiders
at Jaguars +2.5 vs. Bengals
at Packers -7.5 vs. Saints
Redskins +3 at Bucs
Giants +2 at Eagles
Bears +3.5 at Cowboys

Last week- 6-9-1
Season- 21-25-2