Best Television of 2014

Upper Echelon:
Getting On
The Americans
Adventure Time
The Eric Andre Show
Transparent
Hannibal
Last Week Tonight
Broad City
Game of Thrones
The Roosevelts

Also Great:
Orphan Black
The Knick
The Affair
Nathan for You
How to Get Away With Murder
Veep
Review
True Detective
Louie
Fargo
Inside Amy Schumer
You're the Worst
Married
Black Sails
Silicon Valley
Jeopardy
Frontline
Bill Moyers

with reservations:
black-ish is maybe as good as a standard network sitcom coloring within the lines is gonna be i guess
regular show has kinda burnt out on me but is fun once a month
mad men turned into a hate watch
30 for 30 is very uneven these days
justified and masters of sex both tanked this season but i'm bound to try them once more this year
survivor's guilt is maybe as good as a standard cable sitcom with sexploitation is gonna be i guess

Still need to watch/catch up on:
Boardwalk Empire
Outlander
Penny Dreadful
The Missing
Worricker
Over the Garden Wall
High Maintenance
In the Flesh
Happy Valley
Rectify

i have to have watched upwards of 250 hours of narrative television this year, wtf
i thought i was busy

yeah i don't get it

(literally, haven't tried to make the antenna work in 2 years plus)

anyway

http://www.slantmagazine.com/features/article/the-25-best-tv-shows-of-2014

1. The Leftovers
2. Mad Men
3. Last Week Tonight
4. The Americans
5. Hannibal

Other shows I've watched include True Detective, Boardwalk Empire, and Danish series 1864, which definitely was the most entertaining in it's batshit incompetence. And that can't be it, I think, so I'll prob post a completely different list in a few days.

nothing about How To Get Away With Murder is great aside from Viola Davis and her wigs

best shows I watched this past year:

black-ish
Doctor Who
Orphan Black
Attack on Titan
The Middle
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
New Girl
The Goldbergs
Modern Family
Game of Thrones

Still need to watch/catch up on:
Boardwalk Empire
Outlander
Penny Dreadful
The Missing
Worricker
Over the Garden Wall
High Maintenance
In the Flesh
Happy Valley
Rectify

I'd prioritise High Maintenance and Happy Valley out of this list. Rectify too if you haven't seen any of it. If it's just S2 it can definitely wait

H2GAwM is my first shonda rimes experience and it's been thoroughly enjoyable. I have been told repeatedly it's a downward spiral. It's a lot of fun so far.
i may cave and buy high maintenance this week. Setting up tivo for in the flesh and happy valley now. Maybe i should try watching gotham and the flash?
i watched the first two eps of rectify s. 1 and it's great but I feel like i need to be prepared to have a go at it.

#1-20:
The Americans
Transparent
Mad Men
Hannibal
The Good Wife
Girls
Adventure Time
You’re The Worst
Louie
The Leftovers
Review with Forrest MacNeil
Last Week Tonight
Olive Kitteridge
Over the Garden Wall
Orange Is the New Black
Jane the Virgin
Fargo
Broad City
Rectify
Game of Thrones

I watch a lot of television but not much that's airing currently. I didn't see much that really thrilled me this year, but here's pretty much everything I did see, loosely ranked:

True Detective
Parks and Recreation
Louie
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Review with Forrest MacNeil
Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories
Doctor Who
Orphan Black
Fargo

Still haven't watched the current seasons of Eric Andre or Nathan For You. I'm sure they'll rank highly once I do. And I know it's from last year, but I feel that I should make special mention of Broadchurch because it had some great performances but was otherwise a waste of time (which is pretty much how I feel about Fargo, as well).

Oh, stick Maron somewhere in the middle there, too.

re: Justified, I just had to submit that list for a poll, and 95 shows got at least one vote btwn 26 people. I don't even think Justified was one of them.

Broadchurch was pretty much amazing right up until the last episode, which fell flat to me (but not flat enough to ruin the show).

Best soundtrack of 2013, too

tv shows

detectorists hands down

I totally forgot about Justified. I just watched the entire series this year for the first time, which was mostly great. You can park this most recent season just above Fargo on my list, though.

i'll try broadchurch at some point i suppose.
i'm bummed that NO ONE ranks married, which i thought was excellent

leftovers was such a muddled depressorama that i walked after the first ep

I'd probably have a much higher opinion of Broadchurch if not for that last episode. If nothing else, Olivia Colman is amazing in it.

yeah what i heard was that the broadchurch british version implodes at the end and the broadchurch us version was an exact replica of the british version

as far as British gloomy crime shows go, The Fall > Broadchurch for me. (not yet gotten to Happy Valley)

I loved You're The Worst, but I think that's the only new show I watched this year.

inside amy schumer
mad men
game of thrones
enlightened
last week tonight
true detective
the eric andre show
tim and eric bedtime stories
second captains live

want to catch up on: top of the lake (saw first ep very impressive), silicon valley (i like mike judge)
orphan black sounds interesting

havent seen the new episodes of high maintenance yet, love that show

missing.
the fall.
detectorists.
orange is the new black.
agents of shield.
breaking bad.
and yes, i realise i'm in a crowd of one, but i loved the audio/visual excess of the peaky blinders.

First, I misread this thread's title as Bad Television of 2014. Then I briefly considered whether I ought to start a separate thread with that title. Then I quickly realized that 1) the amount of bad television out there is so overwhelming that there would be no place to start, and 2) people who watch bad television have forgotten all about it ten minutes afterward, so there would be nothing to talk about.

The resolution of Broadchurch is so completely out of left field that, afaic, it renders pretty much everything that came before pointless.

xpost so much good tv out there too, i cant keep up

Going Deep w/ David Rees was one of the most entertaining shows of the year. He might be my favorite eccentric tv personality since Joel Hodgson.

Y'know, I read the name of that show at some point and I think I assumed that it must've been a different David Rees than the one I'm familiar with. I'll have to check that out.

I thought Broadchurch was laughable. It's pretty amazing that David Tennant (who was terrible) managed to reprise his role in the American remake in between filming a second season of the original which airs next month. He's efficient if nothing else

Detectorists is fantastic, yes

I don't know if Comedy Central ever aired as many laugh-out-loud funny series as they did this year: Nathan For You, Kroll Show, Review, Key & Peele, Amy Schumer, Broad City. Would never have predicted it a few years ago

The resolution of Broadchurch is so completely out of left field that, afaic, it renders pretty much everything that came before pointless.

throw an "almost" in there and that's where I ended up, although overall I still really liked it, largely due to Olivia Coleman and Jodie Whittaker

1 Olive Kitteridge
2 Hannibal
3 The Americans

these 3 were perfect

I was never a big Louie fan but I thought his last series was quite unusual and brilliant and loved the twin 20 min format.

Fargo exceeded my expectations and The Knick lived up to the hype. Silicon Valley was a good laugh and as was Veep as usual.

Hm I didn't think much of the Americans first season and never planned on revisiting. was s.2 THAT good or is it just a crap year for tv?

It was a lot tighter than S1 but saying that I quite liked S1 as well.

only television that isn't letting me down is WWE and WWE is horrible right now

not sure there's been a single drama that's made me sit back and think "hm this is actually good" in any capacity.i need to just stick to comedies. i think i'd like eric andre.

I've said it before in multiple threads, but several Eric Andre bits have given me bigger laughs than anything in recent memory.

Ill give season 2 a shot xp

Enjoyed a lot:

Fargo
Doctor Who
An Honourable Woman
True Detective
Game of Thrones
Inside no 9
And, of course, Pointless

Enjoyed a reasonable amount:

The Americans
Hannibal
Louie
Mad Men
Boardwalk Empire

Loved season 1 of Orphan Black, but the second was a shambles.

Was the second series of Line of Duty this year? That and Happy Valley were the best things I watched recently.

(i think there needs to be a UK version of this thread. and yes, those two would be in mine.)

how do UK types see US television? What are the routes of access?

They don't actually "see" it as such. They just read about it on the AV club

Our town criers recount the plots every Saturday at daybreak.

I think they get the info by telegram.

Would actually pay good money to hear a town crier recap Girls or Masters of Sex.

seriously though, how's US teevee disseminated? Do you have a US specific channel or do individual shows get bought by different channels?

Personally I get wind of shows that I think sound cool then acquire them through possibly less than official means. The majority of people I know seem to do the same. Various shows are bought up and aired by various cable channels, but who can keep track of that.

Also Netflix.

so kinda the same as us, except we have BBC America i guess
and PBS

Actually thinking about it Sky Atlantic seems to get most of the biggies atm (Thrones, Mad Men, Boardwalk etc).

Shockingly, Breaking Bad has never been broadcast on British television.

They showed S1 on the UK version of FX

Sky Atlantic has the rights for all the HBO shows now

I get all my US tv from illegal torrent sitez and I have a flash player plugged into the the tv. When I was a kid i dreamt of being a pirate, but not quite like this .....

The dye was cast when I was a kid, we always used to be hiding with the lights off when the TV license man was knocking at the the door.

i don't really get ranking current tv. like, there's not that much of it.

In no particular order, but dug all of them

Hannibal
Orphan Black
Doctor Who
True Detective
Married
The Leftovers
Mad Men
Game of Thrones
Broadchurch
The Fall

and: The Men In Blazers show :D

I'm so glad Sons of Anarchy is over for good this year. Last couple of eps have been good but man it was a fking chore this year to hatewatch

Forgot about 24:Live Another Day which was an ass-kicking return to form of sorts.

Perfect:
Detectorists

Runner-up:
Line of Duty

Flawed but worthwhile:
Orphan Black
The Bridge
Toast of London
Honourable Woman
Utopia

I watched I dunno, maybe 8-9 High Maintenance episodes, but part of me wants to hold out for DVD releases of the show from here forward.

two eps into Happy Valley (on Netflix in the US)
it is GREAT and very stressful to watch, I think I'm gonna keep this at an ep a night and not binge through it.

Maybe I'm the only person who liked House of Fools as much as I did, but that.

fyi all 'over the garden wall' is even better than they say

Okay Happy Valley is A++
Top of the Hill had better cinematography and director's eye, HV has better acting and better scripts

top of the hill, the 1989 cannell series or top of the lake, the atrocious jane campion absurdity with pretty backdrops

It is filmed in my area so perhaps that makes me hypercritical, but I still don't understand the love for HV. If you are impressed with this dross then check out Where The Heart Is, you will be more than whelmed!

xp

top of the lake i meant.
happy valley is better acted and written than most US cop shows which may be faint praise but i really loved the lead actress.

Yeah SL is good, she deserves a better vehicle imo.

there were some specific moments where her eyes light up and you see super clearly into her mind; it's a helluva skill

okay so if i was gonna watch the british or the us broadchurch which of those two is better

british

but also broadchurch is overrated as fuuuck, just saying

idk i enjoyed it

but i am a tennant apologist so

forks why don't u watch over the garden wall it is worth ur time i promise

it's by no means terrible but there has been a glut of so-so grimmer than thou crime series that have been way overhyped and that was one of them

I appreciated The Fall for at least doing away w/ the tiresome whodunit aspect

i am missing the first two eps of over the garden wall so i watched the third ep and it was so fucking twee that i couldn't handle it
like no offense and the character design is nice but wtf at this sub-pomplamooshit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4vryZTr6MA

fwiw that is the only song in the series sung by an actual child, hence its tweeness

for contrast, this Chris Isaak number is probably my fave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fMsowmxKzA

yeah forks start from the beginning and watch the whole thing. it's more weird than twee imo

at times it's practically miyazakiesque

well i'm short the first two eps!

holy shit they did a season 2 of The Fall?! fucking loved the first but thought it was a one off.

i think it starts to get really really good w/ the frog boat ep

u can't find a t0773nt or anything?

i'll get there.

I loved Broadchurch. High 5, VG.

hooray! we can be friends again :)

season 2 coming soon