Unpopular TV opinions

To be fair, all I remember from that episode is Troy and Abed dressed as Calvin and Hobbes (which, nostalgia blasts are my kryptonite), and Pierce sex-swing jokes, so I could be wearing some rose-colored glasses here.

We can all agree that "Conventions of Space and Time" was a disaster, though, right? Right?

That one made me so mad. It destroyed all of Annie's character development!

Why d'you think I do it?

I love that Nic Cage episode. Season 5 fell off hard after Donald Glover left, but the first half is just stacked with classic episodes.

*The first two series of Skins were some of the best British TV programming I've seen in the new millennium and it deserved to win a BAFTA TV Award for Best Television Drama (among many other acting awards; here's looking at you Larissa Wilson, Hannah Murray, and Nicolas Hoult!). 

*The first series of Broadchurch was a perfectly adequate murder mystery with a predictably splendid performance from Olivia Coleman that made it seem much better than it was. 

*The Killing (Danish version) was a crime drama that so frequently gave into its worse indulgences; it felt like a better acted, torturously longer subplot from an episode of Law & Order. Bron/Broen is the best Scandinavian drama of the past 16 years. 

I can't remember the last time I watched anything scripted on one of the major networks, aside from an episode here and there featuring an actor Wifemate knew in high school. (I really can't remember the last time I liked it so much I kept tuning in.) Nothing this decade, I' pretty sure. Comedies don't interest me much, I guess: 30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, and Community didn't get me to watch beyond one episode caught on cable. Never got around to Hannibal, The Office (U.S.), The Flash, or Arrow, doubt I ever will.

Exceptions I thought of while typing:
I actually watched all six episodes of the new X-Files, and was pretty unimpressed.
Wifemate liked what she had heard about Once Upon a Time and wanted to watch. We didn't make it past two episodes.
I think I gave The Muppets two episodes.
I actually like the half of Fresh Off the Boat that is about the adults, but the kid dialogue sounds like a writers' room.

I didn't care about the cat in The Night Of. It was a metaphor for Naz, fine, and the time when it escaped and cuddled up to John was pretty funny, but otherwise, so what.

The eczema scenes didn't bother me, even if there were too many. At least they served more narrative purpose than the cat.

The Night Of was just a poorly written procedural pretending to be worthy of being called "prestige" by the clever use of acting and good camerawork.

Watching the Night Of in retrospect may be a breaking point for me and prestige TV. A few years ago I decided to wanted to be up on the prestige TV conversation; I binged those well regarded HBO shows like the Wire and the Sopranos and their AMC and FX successors from Breaking Bad to Justified, I was in on the 'ground floor' of shows in the genre like Boardwalk Empire and the Americans. I found myself watching a hell of a lot of crime shows because a lot of prestige TV is crime TV, in spite of me never really liking crime shows - and for every show that rose above the genre to become something truly unique, like the Wire, or at least lots of fun, like Justified (which benefits greatly from being a Western at heart) there's a lot that straddle the line, like the Shield, which could get more than a little formulaic over its run. (Also: Mob shows, but I basically like mob shows, so go figure.)

But the Night Of, unfortunately wears its influence on its sleeve - it's a remake of a British show, and if there's one thing European television has far, far too much of, it's dour, tedious, self-important crime dramas (from an entire school of interchangeable Scandinavian shows - themselves endlessly remade in Europe and the US - to grimly moronic Canal+ French shows, to the RTE premering The Fall, which uses its star performances of Gillian Anderson and Jamie Dornan to paper over its meandering and redundant writing - there's a third goddamn season this month and that should have been over in one.)

I don't hate all of the shows in this genre, and some of them I've enjoyed and then soured on (and one - Quirke - provided enormous amounts of biting humour for me, for the few of you who may still remember.) But it's probably telling that the one I consider by far the best is Fortitude, which feels like all the intensity of the genre driven right off a cliff into weirdness with utterly no self awareness; like a Twin Peaks whose camp was utterly sincere.

A lot of people talked about the death of cinema this year, but there's never been a TV show that gave me an experience even close to the delirious cacophony of Guy Madin's Forbidden Room last year - TV, I think, needs to broaden and estrange its 'hit' shows, or I'd at least prefer it.

Oh, I loved that. All the awards to Sarah Paulson.

@matt1 I frankly didn't think Fargo was very good (hey - on topic!), so I'm pretty comfortable that warmed over fan fiction didn't win over American Crime Story. I would have been okay with American Crime, though, but this year overall American Crime Story was better than American Crime.

I'm glad Tatiana Maslany and Rami Malek won awards and don't feel that strongly about the rest of them.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of Fargo, and while there are still aspects I love about that season (namely Allison Tolman and Russell Harvard, who deserve so many big acting opportunities), I think it was largely because of the series having the audacity to adapt such an iconic film in the first place. Once that novelty wears off, there isn't much left. 

I tried on two separate occasions to watch the second season of Fargo, and while I like the cast and I like the period details, I can't make it past two episodes. The one-note jokes do nothing for me. 

Edgy.

Not read the Adlon reviews, but I recall the Louis reviews from both sides of the house as an endless series of blowjobs.

The AV Club, etc.