Well hello.
The year is over. No more of it for you humans. I've talked about my favourite little moment of the year - Jodie Whittaker revealing herself to be the new Doctor Who - here. But there was a lot more great TV this year.
Here are the things I've been watching on TV this year. It has been, for the most part, really good. There's some rubbish, too, obviously. I've included some gripes, in case you think I'm just drunk and in love with everything I see.
There are no spoilers here. I'm just passing opinion, and will not reveal anything which counts as plot information.
The Big Bang Theory
This was the year I officially gave up on this show. It's not been great for a while, but now I'm watching with a sense of increasing tedium. I literally count the seconds, sometimes, to see if they ever have the nerve to run a scene for more than a minute and a half, before panicking and cutting to something else. (They never do).
The problem that's hit the show is that sitcoms just aren't meant to last this long. The joy of a sitcom comes - for the most part - from the interactions of mismatched people. These characters are all incomplete in some way, and their incompleteness manifests itself through hilarious bickering.
When a show goes on for a while, the characters have to develop and grow. When they grow, the initial dynamic is fractured and the whole point of the sitcom is lost. Big Bang has done quite well to ride this wave - mainly through the introduction of interesting and reasonably well drawn female characters - but on the whole it now looks tired and repetitive.
Catastrophe
I love it when you come to a series late, and find out there's loads of it for you to watch. Such was the case with Catastrophe. What a fantastic discovery.
It's basically about a couple who get accidentally pregnant after a one night stand, and have to work out how to proceed. Which was all I knew before I watched it, and it didn't sound like any fun. Well, I was wrong. It's incredible.
It's laugh out loud funny, for a start. Rob Delany and Sharon Horgan wrote it and play the main couple, and they are incredibly talented in both respects. The supporting characters are very enjoyable and painfully real - they tread the delicate line between sitcom-funny and real-life-believable.
You'll find yourself talking about everyone in this as if they are real people. It's deep, dark, sad and funny and you should watch it now.
Detectorists
A wonderful and surprising show that is hard to classify. If you've seen it, you'll be nodding in agreement, and smiling, and wondering whether to go and give it another watch. If you haven't seen it, you'll be wondering what the fuss is about.
It doesn't sound great. Two metal detectorists - played by Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones - wander through their days, taking pleasure in the debris they unearth in local fields and chatting about TV. There are some elements of the traditional sitcom - romantic interest, misunderstandings, humorous oddball characters on the periphery. But on the whole it's a gentle, largely uneventful piece of work that takes its time to draw you in.
Draw you in, though, is exactly what it does. There's real love in the writing and the characters we meet are beautifully drawn. The main pair are subtle, human creations - flawed and funny, yearning for better but enjoying their lot regardless. They are surrounded by a gaggle of almost-typical sitcom bit players - one is a bit daffy, another selfish and vain, another bluff and prone to misunderstanding - but each one has surprising and gently sketched out depths. There are moments of sheer wonder and total joy. And the cinematography might be the best I've ever seen in comedy.
The Handmaid's Tale
Lots has been written about this show, so I won't go on for long here. Suffice to say, this vision of a future world, run by religious nutters, where strong women are crushed by weak men, seems almost too apt for this ridiculous year.
Brilliantly written, acted and shot. Instantly iconic. Worthy of much discussion. This is why they make television.
Master of None
Series One of this show is pretty good - a sort of small screen Woody Allen movie, reflecting the experience of Dev, a second generation Asian American trying to find his identity in New York. Aziz Ansari, who created the show and plays Dev, is an engaging and likeable presence and the world he lives in feels real and relevant.
Series Two, which I watched this year, is better. Which is to say, it is a magnificent achievement in storytelling, suffused with love and wonder, taking television into the realm of art.
It's still a comedy series, at heart, with a through line following Dev's romantic entanglements and day-to-day tribulations. But there's a bold, adventurous spirit to the way this story is told. Themes are as important as characters, here.
So one episode follows various background characters, detaching itself from one narrative to follow another as someone passes by and drifting through the night on the back of their different stories. Another episode flits between Dev's various experiences of Tinder dating, making insightful commentary on the way romance has yet to catch up with technology. One standout episode takes us through several years of Thanksgiving Days, observing how a black, gay woman might navigate her family relationships as the years pass, and cultures and attitudes shift.
There are standout moments that have stayed with me all year, which I'll not spoil here. But one of them, featuring a cab ride, lives in my heart in a way that TV rarely manages.
Rick and Morty
This felt like a weird, left field discovery when I first watched it. An oddball piece of non-conformist television which seemed like it was made for me and people like me. The premise was delightfully insane, the jokes were smart and geek friendly and the concepts underpinning the show were so bold that it could only ever appeal to a small group of like minded fans.
Then, it turned out to be massively popular - the stuff of T-Shirts and memes and slogans in everyday conversation. Dammit. I was almost cool, for about 90 seconds. Of course, its popularity immediately became a problem. Once you have a big enough fandom, you will have a chapter of that fandom that is desperate to be a loud, stupid dickhead about everything. Ugh.
Thankfully, the show itself remains an astonishing and daring piece of television. There is darkness and provocative material, sure. But unlike, say, South Park and Family Guy, there's always a point to it, beyond being shocking and 'adult'. Rick and Morty glistens with moments of art and beauty and intelligence and horror. It shows us aspects of the human condition and of the culture we have created, all from the craziest angle possible. People are wonderful. People are jerks. Sometimes they seem to be both at once.
It's also one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Fans don't deserve something so good.
Twin Peaks
How could they possibly succeed in making another series of Twin Peaks? I could only see two ways of doing it, and both would be a disaster.
Number one - try to make it seem the same. Well, that's no good. The point of Twin Peaks was that it redefined how to do television. So if you make it the same, you've missed its point.
Number two - try to make it different. Well, that doesn't work either. How would that be Twin Peaks? Despite all the ways in which modern television has learned from the original series, there is still a unique flavour to those early episodes, and that's the flavour we want. A weird, dark flavour. A thump of the heart that accompanies those opening, ascending bass notes of the theme.
So. Turns out they didn't do either. Or maybe they did both. It's hard to be sure. They certainly did something.
You may have worked out by now that I have no idea how to describe the sheer impact of this series using normal human words. Good spot. All I can say is, I truly loved this year's new episodes of Twin Peaks. They were playful. Terrifying. Funny. Confusing. Sad.
And revolutionary. Find someone who has seen the new series, and just say, "Episode 8". Or, if you are feeling brave, "Got a light?" Watch their face. See how it flickers with fear and wonder. See how their mouth sort of smiles at a happy memory, while their eyes dart around in case the fabric of the universe comes apart around them.
It's very good. Or should that be doog yrev?
The Walking Dead
I've been with The Walking Dead since the comics began, over a decade ago. And for the most part I've loved this TV show. When others said it was too slow, I found pleasure in watching a story that takes its time to explore a post-zombie world. While people were saying it was too reliant upon gratuitous violence, I was laughing hysterically as Daryl whipped a chain through three zombies at once, sending their heads flying.
This year, though. Sheesh. What on earth has happened to the writers? How can they be sitting in the writers room, looking at their plans, and thinking, "This is excellent television that people will enjoy"?
This last season - season 8, I think - has been utter garbage. Having set up the threat of Negan and his massive army of Saviours (a plot thread I had been really enjoying), this series proceeded to piss it all up the wall.
The timeline is all over the place, as if they've decided to show the season in a completely random order. The geography of the world makes zero sense, with no logic to how the various places relate to each other spatially. As a result there is no clear communication of what the stakes are, or where people are going, or what they will do when they get there.
The base story material is fine. This is just an exercise in narrative incompetence that takes the show's success for granted and, as a result, fails to consider how the audience might be feeling at any given point. An abject failure.
So, that's my TV review of the year. Obviously, I'm being very selective, because your time is precious and anyway, I have to make a shelf. Other TV shows I could have mentioned fit into three basic categories:
They Sucked, but I can't be bothered saying why
Iron Fist, Electric Dreams
They Were Fine, but didn't inspire any strong feelings
American Gods, Luther, Luke Cage, Preacher, American Horror Story
They Were Great, but in similar ways to those already discussed, so all I'd do is just say very similar things
W1A, Black Mirror, Westworld, Better Call Saul, Fleabag, Fargo, Uncle, Game of Thrones, Star Trek Discovery, Stranger Things, The Trip, Motherland. Doctor Who.
So there you go. Watch those. Or don't. It's your life. But the good news is this: TV is bloody brilliant at the moment, and we are very lucky humans. Except when we're watching Iron Fist.
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