My Favorite Television Shows of 2012

The greats continued to be the greats this year. Only two of the ten shows I mention in this post are new shows (and one of them isn't even coming back for another season). So it's basically an opportunity to continue to shower praise on the shows I've already praised so much already. As always, I haven't seen every show, though one particular show I feel that I may have liked quite a bit had I gotten to it is Treme. Maybe next year.

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.

Filmcap: The week of Oct 9-16

Rumble Fish, Germany Year Zero, and the epic fourth season of Breaking Bad. Only three things this week, but they're all very top notch. Only one week after the long Deadwood Season three post, I come back with an even longer post that is almost as long The Tree of Life post, but still not quite. The review of Breaking Bad has no detailed spoilers at all, and there are some statements about the trajectory of the show, nothing should be that bad. If you want to be completely pure of any and all spoilers, like some of the complex characteristics of Walt, then you may want to stay away. Otherwise I hope it will convince most of you to watch the show. For those who have seen the show, I point you towards the last paragraph for my thoughts on what the show is about on a macro level. 

Filmcap: The week of May 1-8

Yes I am still very behind on these, you should probably get used to that now. In this post I include a great TV show that I've now caught up with, a spaghetti western (right when "Community" had their spaghetti western episode), a Woody Allen film, and brand new superhero movie of cosmic proportions.