Enlightened: Season One (2011)

Laura Dern plays Amy, a character who got fired from her job, has a nervous breakdown, and earns a reputation for being a crazy woman. She goes off to Hawaii to a rehabilitation program for a summer and comes back reformed and a changed person, now she's ready to change the world around her. Unfortunately, changing the world around her proves to be an especially difficult task. First of all, as nice as she is to people, they can't seem to see her as the new person she is and continue to reprimand her for her past behavior. Second of all, changing the world takes sacrifice, especially financial sacrifice. Lastly, no one else seems to be interested in changing the world with her, and she can't do it by herself.

My Favorite Television Shows of 2011

Everyone knows by now that television is now a completely serious and important art form. While many desire to compare film and television, I think that television has now reached a point where it no longer needs to be compared to film because it is now a distinct art form that has its own advantages, and this was well displayed in this years crop of television.

My list of my five favorite television shows (with the next five in unranked order) represents the diversity of styles that television now offers. Not only did we get smart versions of familiar genres, but we also got a show that delivers some of that incredible tension that only television can induce, and also a show that highlights perfectly a singular point-of-view of an auteur.

Because I believe that season by season judgement is the best way to judge television shows, I only counted the shows that had seasons that ended in 2011, which also means I tried my best not to consider the ongoing seasons of shows like Parks & Recreation when judging the season that ended in 2011. There also a couple of shows that I did watch that I feel I may have had merited serious considerations if I had watched them. The most notable of those are Treme and Justified (currently catching up with that one). I've also included links to the original reviews of the shows if they have been written about previously. For the shows without links, reviews are probably forthcoming.