TV stuff I enjoyed in 2016
Jan. 6th, 2017 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shapinglightI thought it was about time I made a couple of 2016 round-up posts, so I'll start with one about the TV shows I enjoyed.
First and foremost is Lucifer, the only new show in years I've fallen in unconditional love with.
More behind cut. No real spoilers.
As I've said before, I'm well aware Lucifer's not all that, and that if it weren't a mainstream TV series but a cable/streaming service series it might well have stuck closer to the original, much darker (and utterly brilliant) source material, Mike Carey's Lucifer comic book, and been a whole different animal. Also, as a general rule, I hate procedurals, and even in Lucifer (the show), the procedural element can be pretty dull at times. But all that said, I still love it. I love the characters, the actors playing them, the humour, the supernatural element that's grounded in mundanity (very BtVS). I can't wait for it to come back from hiatus.
I'm also crossing my fingers that the writers don't decide they need to up the stakes by introducing a 'Chloe gets raped' plot or something similar.
I enjoyed Amazon's The Collection (about a Paris fashion house just post-WW2) and thought Netflix's The Crown was excellent, but I'm struggling to think of other new shows I enjoyed. Luke Cage was okay, but the villain was dull and the story too meandering. I loathed Mr Robot (probably, I watched it at the wrong time), and was very unimpressed by what I did watch of Class (the Dr Who spin-off) before giving up on it. I haven't managed to watch all of The Night Manager yet (it was on air when I went away on my long holiday) but I plan to get around to it soon, and I don't know if it counts really since there was never going to be a season 2 anyway.
Of returning shows, my favourite by far was The Americans, which, IMO, has barely put a foot wrong in four whole seasons. Season 4 was no exception. I also liked season 6 of Game of Thrones much better than the previous one. There were some things I didn't care for - two characters I really liked were killed off in a way that struck me as off-hand bordering on wasteful - and of course it was still horribly violent, but I think going 'off book' has done the show some good.
Both the above series have two more (shortened) seasons to run. I'm really glad that everyone involved (in both cases) knows there's an endpoint and what they have to do to get there. Of course, they could still screw it up, but hopefully not.
Marco Polo season 2 was good too. At any rate, I enjoyed it more than season 1.
Then there are the series that ended, and since I'm way behind with The Good Wife (a whole two seasons) I'll just mention Ripper Street. I watched the last ever episode yesterday and though I can't say I enjoyed it because it was a complete downer in so many ways, I thought it was well-written, well-acted and beautifully filmed. Also, I'm still very impressed by how the production team on this show came back from cancellation by the BBC to give us three more series, and how they managed to round off the storylines of every single character. I could still wish that the show had ended after season 3, if only because that ended on a more hopeful note, but I still very much appreciate seasons 4 and 5.
This year, apart from the returning shows mentioned above, I'm looking forward to another season of The Last Kingdom, and to watching season 2 of The Man in the High Castle, and really, really looking forward to season 2 of Sense8 (haven't managed to watch the Christmas special yet either), cautiously looking forward to another season of Jessica Jones and hoping that American Gods will be as good as the trailer makes it look.
ETA: I completely forgot about Stranger Things. Yeah, that was pretty good.
Also, about the new series of The X-Files, which I didn't like at all. :(
ETA2: And about Westworld, which I was kind of ambivalent about. I liked Thandie Newton's character, but again it was excessively (unnecessarily) violent and a bit up itself.
First and foremost is Lucifer, the only new show in years I've fallen in unconditional love with.
More behind cut. No real spoilers.
As I've said before, I'm well aware Lucifer's not all that, and that if it weren't a mainstream TV series but a cable/streaming service series it might well have stuck closer to the original, much darker (and utterly brilliant) source material, Mike Carey's Lucifer comic book, and been a whole different animal. Also, as a general rule, I hate procedurals, and even in Lucifer (the show), the procedural element can be pretty dull at times. But all that said, I still love it. I love the characters, the actors playing them, the humour, the supernatural element that's grounded in mundanity (very BtVS). I can't wait for it to come back from hiatus.
I'm also crossing my fingers that the writers don't decide they need to up the stakes by introducing a 'Chloe gets raped' plot or something similar.
I enjoyed Amazon's The Collection (about a Paris fashion house just post-WW2) and thought Netflix's The Crown was excellent, but I'm struggling to think of other new shows I enjoyed. Luke Cage was okay, but the villain was dull and the story too meandering. I loathed Mr Robot (probably, I watched it at the wrong time), and was very unimpressed by what I did watch of Class (the Dr Who spin-off) before giving up on it. I haven't managed to watch all of The Night Manager yet (it was on air when I went away on my long holiday) but I plan to get around to it soon, and I don't know if it counts really since there was never going to be a season 2 anyway.
Of returning shows, my favourite by far was The Americans, which, IMO, has barely put a foot wrong in four whole seasons. Season 4 was no exception. I also liked season 6 of Game of Thrones much better than the previous one. There were some things I didn't care for - two characters I really liked were killed off in a way that struck me as off-hand bordering on wasteful - and of course it was still horribly violent, but I think going 'off book' has done the show some good.
Both the above series have two more (shortened) seasons to run. I'm really glad that everyone involved (in both cases) knows there's an endpoint and what they have to do to get there. Of course, they could still screw it up, but hopefully not.
Marco Polo season 2 was good too. At any rate, I enjoyed it more than season 1.
Then there are the series that ended, and since I'm way behind with The Good Wife (a whole two seasons) I'll just mention Ripper Street. I watched the last ever episode yesterday and though I can't say I enjoyed it because it was a complete downer in so many ways, I thought it was well-written, well-acted and beautifully filmed. Also, I'm still very impressed by how the production team on this show came back from cancellation by the BBC to give us three more series, and how they managed to round off the storylines of every single character. I could still wish that the show had ended after season 3, if only because that ended on a more hopeful note, but I still very much appreciate seasons 4 and 5.
This year, apart from the returning shows mentioned above, I'm looking forward to another season of The Last Kingdom, and to watching season 2 of The Man in the High Castle, and really, really looking forward to season 2 of Sense8 (haven't managed to watch the Christmas special yet either), cautiously looking forward to another season of Jessica Jones and hoping that American Gods will be as good as the trailer makes it look.
ETA: I completely forgot about Stranger Things. Yeah, that was pretty good.
Also, about the new series of The X-Files, which I didn't like at all. :(
ETA2: And about Westworld, which I was kind of ambivalent about. I liked Thandie Newton's character, but again it was excessively (unnecessarily) violent and a bit up itself.