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SAM EMERSON / HBO |
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D E A D W O O D
( H B O )
The pay-cable king's stab at the Western got attention, in the post-Janet era, mainly for its relentless profanity. (People were shocked that a townful of crooks and drunks in a lawless territory talked naughtier than in all those historically scrupulous Hays Code-era movies.) The language did deserve attention, but for the mesmerizing dialogue—half Biblical, half barroom—that David Milch (NYPD Blue) used to render his characters' greed, brutality and nobility. Deadwood's poetry was best expressed in Ian McShane, who gave TV's performance of the year as saloon keeper Al Swearengen, a thoughtful villain of Shakespearean complexity. There was plenty of bad and ugly in Deadwood, but this expansive retelling of America's origin myth was good indeed.
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L O S T
( A B C )
The polar bear sealed the deal. Plenty of entertainers would have stranded a cast on a desert island (Sherwood Schwartz and Mark Burnett, for starters). Others would have had the plane-crash survivors discover that the island contained menacing secrets. But only creators J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof would have had the castaways attacked, in the middle of a tropical jungle, by a polar bear. That kind of so-bizarre-you-have-to-buy-it twist hooked us on Lost; what keeps us were the equally surprising revelations of its characters' backstories. (Terry O'Quinn, in particular, shines as a paraplegic office drone whose ability to walk, along with his self-respect, is miraculously restored in the crash.) A gritty survival story plus a sci-fi mystery plus a character drama plus a story of a society starting from scratch—Lost is a teetering Dagwood sandwich of pop culture genres and references, and every week, it leaves you hungry for more.
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S I G N I F I C A N T O T H E R S
( B r a v o )
Bravo is cable's "arts" network, which today means a steady schedule of reality shows about hairdressers, makeovers and poker-playing celebrities. That's the only explicable reason that this gem of an improvised sitcom got almost no attention while Matt LeBlanc got magazine covers for riding Joey Tribbiani into pitiable middle age. The tautly intercut story of four yuppie couples in counseling—they speak into the camera for their sessions, making you their therapist—is simultaneously unsentimental and disarming as it teases out their every whine, self-deception and indiscretion. In the second season, currently airing, a man returns to couples with his sister-in-law, with whom he had an affair that his wife found out about at her mother's funeral. "And what we want to do," she says, brightly, "is we want to build on that positive foundation!" That's what I call love. |
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T H E A P P R E N T I C E
( N B C )
Some people complained that Donald Trump's Survivor-in-Manhattan had nothing to do with a real workplace, where cooperation is more important than backstabbing. Which is probably true, if your workplace is Santa's Workshop. For the rest of us, The Apprentice is just ridiculous enough to be entertaining, and just close enough to reality to be involving. (If my editor is reading this, I'm referring to my previous jobs—I swear!) Getting ahead by sucking up to a vain, mercurial boss? Check. Learning that doing a good job is less important than making sure someone else gets the blame for a bad job? Check. All this, plus Trump dispensing pseudo-wisdom ("Know Your Enemy") and playing the most amusing pretend businessman on TV. |
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R E S C U E M E
( F / X)
When you admire someone, you put them on a pedestal. When you love someone, you point out their flaws and call them on their crap. Denis Leary loves firemen—his firefighter cousin died in a 1999 blaze—and he brings his tough love and jagged-edged humor to a searingly funny drama about a New York City firehouse after 9/11. The terror attack killed 343 FDNY firefighters and made the survivors, briefly, into national heroes. But mostly, Rescue Me says, it simply intensified their usual lot: the same qualities that make them brave and determined on the job can make them bullheaded and self-destructive on their own time. Its firemen (and all but one are men) are often belligerent, sexist and homophobic, and the show sometimes comes too close to embracing their POV for comfort. But Rescue Me respects its characters enough to show their failings, and it respects us enough to make our own judgments.
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N I G H T Y N I G H T
( O x y g e n )
It was a good year for British imports and collaborations (see Nos. 7 and 8), but this darker-than-black comedy was the most delightfully alien to American sitcom sensibilities. Julia Davis wrote the six-part series and starred as Jill Tyrell, a dim, self-involved hairdresser who sees her husband's looming death from cancer as a chance to upgrade her life. She insinuates herself into a friendship with a disabled woman, then tries to steal her husband. (To win their sympathy, she pretends her own husband is already dead, then tries to hide the evidence when he maddeningly gets better.) Jill is captivatingly selfish and feral (she's more like a mildly intelligent wolverine in a miniskirt than a human being) and her baroque schemes to prey on her meek neighbors make for a hilarious comedy of bad manners. |
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T H E O F F I C E F I N A L E
( B B C A m e r i c a )
This list generally focuses on the best new TV shows of the year rather than returning favorites. But this departed British workplace sitcom, which led the TIME TV list for 2003, was so nice I had to name it twice—first, for its two six-episode seasons last year; now, for going out in style. In a year of mediocre send-offs for shows that lasted past their prime (Friends, Frasier, Sex and the City), this two-hour finale kept its cruel, awkward humor while ending on a note of sweetness (who was heartless enough not to want star-crossed coworkers Tim and Dawn to get together?). It even offered a believable touch of redemption and hope for boss-from-hell David Brent (Ricky Gervais). NBC is working on an adaptation for next year; if they can find the American equivalent of this comedy of quiet desperation, it'll be welcome on next year's list too.
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T H E G R I D
( T N T )
TV's dramatizations of the war on terror (Alias, 24) tend to be idealized, in both directions: evil-genius terrorists being foiled at the last second by even more brilliant good guys. In a mere six episodes, this story of American and British counter-terror spooks (shot on both sides of the Atlantic) told a mature, involving story that was both more complex and more realistic. Its interweaving stories of terror plots balanced derring-do with behind-the-scenes politics (within, and between, in the Western governments and in the Islamic terror groups), and showed the determination and weaknesses of both sides, all with a minimum of cliches and histrionics. (Even Dylan McDermott, The Practice's serial screamer, managed to rein in his performance.) Unlike most TV terror stories, the attacks were sometimes foiled only partially or not at all, but if the good guys didn't always win, the viewers did. |
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D W E L L
( F i n e L i v i n g )
It seems like there are fifteen million home shows on cable, but only one design aesthetic: a middle-of-the-road McMansion mishmosh with identical country kitchens, frilly window treatments, gaudy "great rooms" and chintzy throw pillows. Enter this offspring of the sleek modernist design magazine by the same name. Handsomely produced and knowledgeable, it reveals a world of innovative furniture and cool, contemporary architecture—from urban lofts to reclaimed barns to stunning glass jewel boxes—that you'd never know existed from watching Trading Spaces. And not an overstuffed Ikea couch in sight. |
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E N T O U R A G E
( H B O )
HBO specializes in intelligent, risky series that look at the dark side of American life (see no. 1, above). Entourage is not one of those shows. An amiable half-hour hangout with a rising young movie star Vince (Adrian Grenier) and his posse, this sitcom reveals that life in the shallow, soulless world of Hollywood is ... actually pretty good. Although there are industry jokes and cameos aplenty, this sitcom is ultimately less a satire of show business than a good-hearted and very funny tribute to male friendship and the transition from dumb adolescence to slightly-less-dumb adulthood. Jeremy Piven adds a needed dose of acid as an abrasive agent who wields his cell phone like an AK-47.
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T H E J A N E T J A C K S O N O V E R R E A C T I O N
Yes, an aging pop star's breast is inappropriate in a halftime show watched by millions of children. No, that does not mean that an elderly woman's breast in a surgery scene is inappropriate on E.R., a drama for grown-ups. After Janet and Justin's midfield fumble last February, opportunistic would-be censors picked it up and ran, badgering the networks into craven self-censorship and the FCC into heavy-handed fines. Some moral crusaders would have us believe that pop culture is too nefarious for them to use their own remote controls and instill their own values in their own children, unless they can dictate what we (and our children) can watch too. Nonsense. Conservatives habitually say that other people—the unemployed, criminals—need to stop blaming society and start taking responsibility for themselves. They're right. And they should hold themselves to the same standard. |
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