2013 - The Other Shows I Watched

Let's see. I've done a top 10. I've followed that up with my top 10 runners up. Seeing that I don't know where to stop, I might as well go over the rest of what I watched this year. There were an abundance of good shows and I'd hate for me to not have a my say on a the ones I bothered to invest time into.
I've divided the shows into groups and ranked them within those groups. Originally, I came up with rankings from top to bottom. The daily variation killed that though.

New and [Hopefully] Improving

Orange is the New Black - Everyone lost their shit over this show. I enjoyed it, but I was a little let down. Perhaps with fewer expectations, I'd've responded a bit better to it.

The Crazy Ones - The pilot had Kelly Clarkson. No show has ever endeared itself to me so quickly. It is still settling in but I've liked what it's done so far.

Back in the Game - Perhaps I'd invest in ranking it higher if it had a future. I'll miss it, but it figured itself out a lot faster than most new shows this season.
Legit - A little gem of a show. It's so rough that I have a hard time placing it higher. There's some funny stuff here and I really like Jim Jeffries after watching this.

House of Cards - I'll give it this. It's bingeable as hell.

Trophy Wife - It's a nice new show. Still figuring itself out and getting better. Not there yet. It ended the year strong with the Christmas episode. Very strong.

Agents of SHIELD - It is starting to come into its own. I'm still mainly watching for the potential of what it could be.

Maron - It's pretty obvious that Marc Maron is new to doing TV acting. There's room to grow and it will get a chance with a second season.

The Michael J Fox Show - This show has been a bummer so far. While not bad, exactly, if Michael J Fox wasn't the lead, there'd be no chance I'd still be watching.

The Bridge - I love the atmosphere and cast, hate the story. Thankfully, story is the easiest of the three to fix for the second season.

R.I.P.
The Office - It ended pretty strong. Everything leading up to it was so disappointing though.

Go On - It died with a whimper. I would've liked to see what a second season would look like but that cast was too unwieldy.

Don't Trust the B... from Apt. 23 - Once it got cancelled, I didn't watch the last batch of episodes. That's on me. It still doesn't mean the show was great or that I miss it much.

Chugging Along
Saturday Night Live - As it always is, there's a mixed bag of episodes. For every Melissa McCarthy, there's a Vince Vaughn. A could more stand out episodes and I'd be ranking this a lot higher.

The Mindy Project - This was like watching 6 different shows. There were some very good episodes and few shows could as reliably make me laugh. Inconsistency is its biggest enemy.

How I Met Your Mother - My god, the Farhampton Inn is killing me. And, last season gave us even more Ted being in love with Robin and Ted dating Abby Elliott. "The Time Travelers" and a couple appearances of the mother have not been enough to save it. Hopefully, they can really stick the landing with the end of the season.

Community - This certainly was the Britta of Community seasons. I thing people overstated how bad it was, but not by much.

The Walking Dead - The Governor killed 2013 for me. Anytime I started to like something going on, he ruined it.

Wilfred - Solid season. At this point, I've accepted that it has limited upside.

Suburgatory - Hurt by both a lack of episodes in 2013 and wild shifting of focus. Week to week it changed dramatically.

Recent Pickups
Parenthood - Only 4 episodes of season 4 were in 2013 and all of this god-awful election arc was. I really wanted to put this on a list since I started watching it this year and loved the previous seasons. Alas, I couldn't justify it.

The Newsroom - Aaron Sorkin can't help himself. This is a very frustrating show. Despite that, I couldn't stop watching. Great cast.


Biggest Disappointments

5. Burn Notice 

There was a time when this would've made my top ten list. Alas, the show got stale and went on a couple seasons too long. They toyed with a new structure for the last season, with Michael being a mole for the bad guys. Sadly, they ended up trying to introduce too much with precious little time, so the finale was rushed when all I think anyone really wanted was a fun sendoff for Michael, Same, Fi, Jesse, and Madeline. I hate putting it on this list. they forced my hand.
4. Californication

This has always been a fun show that takes delight in being as wrong as possible. On paper, this season had all that, but it was all pretty listless. It's reminiscent of the last couple seasons of Weeds: Everyone involved seemed bored. Maggie Grace should never be used to breath new life into things.
3. Nashville

 

Full disclosure, I stopped after season 1. I've heard that season 2 has been much better. Regardless, season 1 was disappointing enough that I'm not going out of my way to catch up. This has been one of those few shows that promised something in the pilot that I'd've much preferred. It burned through plot too quickly and almost always went big over small when given a choice. I often repeated that this might not be a bad show as much as it's not for me.

2. Dexter

Somehow this isn't the worst show I've watched this year. That's pretty remarkable. The season started off okay and couldn't've ended in a worse place as far as I'm concerned. There was no "Nebraska" this year, although the finale was atrocious in its own right. I don't even know where to be. Dexter leaves Harrison with his serial killer girlfriend in a foreign country instead of, you know, with his siblings in, I want to say, Orlando. Dexter had the lamest of psuedo-reveals when he kills Big Bad #57 in the prison. Deb dies. I don't know who was thinking that was a good idea. Dexter becomes a lumberjack in Canada. Then there's the realization in the end that he isn't a sociopath murderer. In fact, he cares too much about the people he loves, so that's why he fakes his death: to get out of their lives. Bah! Maybe this was my least favorite show in 2013.

1. House of Lies

I don't get it. I want to like this show. Don Cheadle is a great actor and pulls off this character as well as anyone. Kristen Bell is damn near perfect in general. Ben Schwartz has near infinite goodwill built up for playing Jean-Ralphio. It's a show about bad people, not trying to be good which is normally a sweet spot for me. The simple fact is that I don't find it funny, at all. I can barely find a chuckle in the whole season. I wish I could point to something in particular to say what I hated so much but I can't. I wish all of the people involved would move onto something else because I am so ready and willing to like something they are working on. Not this though.

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As you can see, that makes 3/5s of my Disappointment List from Showtime. I went back and forth on whether or not to get rid of Showtime this year. After all, it's where I get Shameless. Homeland, while not perfect, is still quite good. Masters of Sex is one of the new shows I've been most interested to watch this season. The batting average is too low though.

Better luck next year, am I right?