Favourite TV Shows 2010 - Favourite Episodes 10-1

So here we are, my list of my 10(11) favourite episodes of television from 2010. Ranging from 10 minutes to 2 hours, these were, in my opinion the finest episodes that the medium of television produced between 1/1/2010 and 31/12/2010.

10. Sons of Anarchy - 'NS'

Despite the unevenness of the third season of Sons of Anarchy the finale was an absolutely superb way to end the season. 'NS' was a culmination of three seasons worth of story-lines, most notably all the drama involving Stahl and Jimmy O'Phelan. Yes the central drama to the show surrounding Clay and Jax still remains but the outside forces which had plagued the show for three years were wiped out in one tremendously suspenseful episode. When the club finds out that Jax has turned snitch you being to legitimately wonder how on earth SAMCRO is going to get out of it and then the double bluff is revealed. Maybe it was a little too neat an end, with SAMCRO ultimately taking very little fallout (beyond the 14 months in prison) but this episode makes the list purely for the scene where Opie shoots a weeping Stahl in the back of the head to avenge his dead wife Donna. Beautiful scene and a perfect way to end a season which was plagued by disappointments.

9. Adventure Time - 'What is Life?'
'What is Life?' was the first episode of Adventure Time that I ever watched and from that a magical friendship was born. Think Spongebob Squarepants but instead of being underwater it's set in a post apocalyptic world where quite literally ANYTHING can happen. The world of Adventure Time is wonderfully surreal and despite what could just be a funny concept the characters are legitimately well written and relate-able. 'What is Life?' focuses on Finn the Human trying to out prank his friend Jake the Dog by building a Never Ending Pie Throwing Robot (NEPTR for short) and here things go off the walls. What kind of kids show would have a robot where only one of his wheels works causing him to go round in circles and then ask his master 'Why do you forsake me?'. Or the pies which contain boysenberry....and poison. Or the balloons who fulfill their BLOOD OATH, cheer and then happily float up to the mesosphere in order TO DIE. Yes Adventure Time has enough jokes for adults to appreciate it but it's also wonderfully colourful so that kids don't get bored. Whilst there are many other episodes of Adventure Time I'd recommend to people ('The Eyes' is fantastic, as is 'Tree Trunks') 'What is Life?' is a fantastic place to start.

8. Parks & Recreation - 'Sweetums'
There were many episodes that I could have chosen from the second half of Parks & Recreation's second season such as 'Telethon', 'Freddy Spaghetti' and 'Park Safety' but I went with 'Sweetums' for two reasons. One being the fact that we got an amazing public forum, where once more we get to spend time with the amazingly insanely stupid residents of Pawnee (hell and Ron's face when he looks under his chair expecting to find a prize is golden as well) but the second reason is of course DJ ROOMBA. This ingenious idea takes an already great episode and raises it to amazing levels. It might not be a very Ron heavy episode, but it's an episode that uses all of the ensemble well, which lead to some of the very best episodes of Parks & Recreation. It's also helpful that we get to see the entire Parks department suffering from a sugar rush, because sometimes people being stupid is just funny dammit!

7. Terriers - 'Change Partners'
Whilst the pilot episode of Terriers was fantastic, it took until 'Change Partners' for me to realise was going to be something special. The episode starts quite low key with Hank looking for a bank loan to pay for his new house which then spins off into him being offered a job into looking into the bank manager's wife and whether or not she is cheating on him. And this is where the episode kind of gets fucked up. Particular needs to be made of Olivia Williams' fantastic guest role as the wife and playing her exasperation at the weird fetish her husband has of making her live out this faux-lifestyle of infidelity. By the end of the episode we realise that Olivia Williams' character Miriam has never actually been unfaithful but is driven to actually sleep with Hank by the end of the episode. This sets off the chain of events causing the bank manager to commit suicide and Hank to, instead of helping, forging his signature so that he can pay for his house. It's a fantastically dark moment and one that could have made the lead character seem unlikable but Donal Logue's performance just makes him so damn likable as Hank. Then as a cap to an already fantastic episode, we end with a shadowy figure crawling into Hank's attic whilst he's not looking. Utterly gripping stuff.

6. Doctor Who - 'The Time of Angels'/'Flesh and Stone'
Steven Moffat might just be my favourite TV writer currently still making TV shows. Whilst I quite often find the standalone episodes of Doctor Who to be somewhat lacking, a Steven Moffat script is almost always guaranteed to be fantastic. and the same can be said of this two-parter. Whilst maybe not scaling the same heights as 2007's fantastic episode 'Blink', 'The Time of Angels' and 'Flesh and Stone' serve as a fantastic reminder that the Weeping Angels are probably the best creature that Doctor Who has introduced since it came back in 2005. Along with the Weeping Angels, Moffat also brings back another of his fantastic creations with River Song from his own 2008 two-parter. Over the course 90 minutes Moffat slowly ratchets up the tension and questions and whilst some were disappointment I thought it was fantastic. With story beats that wouldn't pay-off until 'The Big Bang', Moffat showed all the writers of Doctor Who how to conceive a two part story and that he is quite definitely a genius that everyone should pay attention to.

5. Party Down - 'Steve Guttenberg's Birthday'
Party Down ran for two terrific seasons and this episode might just be it's crowing achievement. Maybe it's just because I've always been fascinated by the work that goes into screen writing but Martin Starr and Christopher Mintz-Plasse working together on an horrific screenplay was a fantastic idea. The two completely different read througha were hysterical in their own ways. From the over the top scientific vocabulary that littered the first draft to Henry's amazing overacting during the second, there was almost always something to love about this episode. And that's discounting how weirdly lovable Steve Guttenberg's house is. Filled with crazy memorabilia, thousands of DVDs, a home cinema, a fountain filled entirely with water from a iceburg and of course the picture of a guy fucking a porcupine. Party Down shall be missed, but I'm glad that it lasted long enough to give us the comic genius of this episode.

4. Lost - 'The End'
I've written far too much about Lost over the years so I'm going to make this a short one. Have all the issues with the final season you want. Have all the issues with the final 20 minutes as you wish. But those first two hours of the Lost finale were pretty incredible. Everything that came to represent Lost over it's six years came crashing together in one hell of a satisfying way to way to send of the Island in style. From the sentimentally moments of bringing back nearly every single significant character that appeared over those six years, to Jack Bender's fantastic direction or Michael Giacchino's award worthy score. 'The End' was a microcosm of pretty much everything that made Lost so great. Maybe the trip into theology at the end rubbed people the wrong way, but it was an apt ending to a show which was so much about the characters and their relationships. It might not be the best finale for a TV show ever, but it's a damn good one.

3. Community - 'Modern Warfare'
During it's first season was a very funny show about about the lives of a group of people who went to a Community college. Occasionally it would dip into meta references of the larger plot at hand (mostly given to the audience by Abed) but I don't think anyone expected something as amazing as this. In it's first season on the air Community brought to the table a pantheon level episode of television. Something that will through the ages as one of the greatest episodes of television ever. 'Modern Warfare' was a quite literally a perfect pastiche of so many fantastic action movies. With overt references to films such as 'Die Hard', '28 Days Later', 'The Matrix', 'Hard Boiled', 'Scarface' and 'The Warriors' this episode was a smorgus board of geeky references. It managed to nail the cheesy lines of dialogue ("Check mate bitches" whilst shooting a member of the chess club in the back) and overall feel of action movies with aplomb (thanks to the sterling work of director Justin Lin). 'Modern Warfare' is an episode for the ages, and the fact that it's only number 3 on my list shows just how strong the remaining episodes truly were.

2. Breaking Bad - 'One Minute'
Another series which could have had so many different episodes on this list, from 'Fly', 'Half Measures' and 'Full Measures', Breaking Bad Season 3 was one of the best seasons of television that I have ever seen. But if everything I saw on television over the last 12 months stuck me it was the titular One Minute of this episode. I have never been so tense whilst watching a television series than when I was watching Hank fight for his life against the cousins. Not only did it come as a surprise that such a big moment was coming so early in the season but also the fact that there is legitimately no way to know who is going to make it out of the shoot out alive. Of course one scene does not a great episode make, but the ever brilliant Aaron Paul gave one of his best monologues on the show to date (a feat in itself) and Dean Norris proved that he was more than ready to take on the increased role that was being demanded of him. Topped off by fantastic direction by Michelle MacLaren and beautiful cinematography by Michael Slovis and you have yet another pantheon episode of television.

1. Mad Men - 'The Suitcase'
Despite Breaking Bad having the (marginally) better season, it wasn't going to go down without a fight. 'The Suitcase' is the kind of episode that only a serialised show can do. Working off of three and a half years worth storylines and plot threads, 'The Suitcase' ties everything together seamlessly within one night of the lives of Don Draper and Peggy Olson. Anger is vented, truths are revealed and tears are shed. With quite possibly the performance of both Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss' lives, 'The Suitcase' is a absolutely stunning episode. After the death of Don Draper's closest friend, the only person in the world who the knows the whole truth behind Dick Whitman, he has no one left to turn apart from Peggy, the girl who all those years ago thought that she would have to sleep with her boss as a natural part of her job. The only man who knows the whole truth about her own hidden pregnancy, the man who gave her such a high placing job in Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Almost four years worth of angst came rushing out over the course of one 40 minute episode and it's amazing in the level of catharsis it is able to give. Maybe Mad Men reached its peak in this episode, but it's not a peak that much else on television will ever be able to reach.

Favourite TV Shows 2010 - Top 5 Dramas

This is where things get really interesting. If you read my blog regularly, then you'll know that most of passion towards TV is directed towards the more dramatic serialised shows, and it should come as no surprise that all of these shows are exactly that. Whilst I do sincerely love Community and Parks & Recreation, the passion I have for these shows far exceeds them. I might not have seen shows like Treme and Boardwalk Empire and The Pacific may have been fantastic, but the 5 shows I have selected here were my favourite dramatic shows of 2010.

Onwards with the list!

5. Sons of Anarchy

Sons of Anarchy was a show that I actually watched in its entirety this year, so technically this ranking is all 3 seasons of the show (I know, I promised I wouldn't do that again). So whilst if I had ranked this based purely on Season 3 it might not have made it on to this list at all (it wasn't awful, just very deeply flawed) but looking at all 3 shows as a whole, it's utterly fantastic. The show focuses on a biker gang in the Californian town of Charming. It might look from adverts as just an excuse for some guys to get all testosterone-y at each other but it's actually more interesting than that. The show has a lot of similarities with Hamlet, what with the show focusing on Jax Teller, who's father was murdered (?) and now his father's best friend is married to his mother and ruling the Sons of Anarchy, so of course there's a lot of tension between those two. The show touches on themes of family and duty and all kinds of morality themes that make it more interesting to watch. But that's not all, Sons of Anarchy has a sense of "shit is going down" that almost no other sh ow on TV (apart from maybe Breaking Bad) can even match, over three seasons shit ranges from the death of Donna, Gemma being raped and the Irish stealing Jax's baby. Whilst the Jax baby arc in Season 3 was handled badly (mostly because of artificial roadblocks in the story and the fact that the new characters had almost no time to grow), Sons of Anarchy still has the power to punch you gut as you watch these things happen to the characters. Whilst Season 3 wasn't all that great a season, Season 2 was absolutely superb and I regret not having watched it then. Don't be turned off by the fact that Sons of Anarchy looks like a homoerotic mess, it's an incredibly compelling and often fantastic TV show that finished with a terrific finale this year and will hopefully recover in Season 4.

4. Lost

If you've been reading my blog or actually know me, then I think you know what my feelings are towards Lost. It will foreve r be my favourite television show ever, it's the show that got me hooked on TV in the first place, the inspiration behind this very list. Without Lost I have no clue what I'd be like today. Maybe less nerdy? Probably not to be honest, just nerdy about different things. But Lost was a special show for me and 2010 was the year that it's last ever episode aired and it's final remembrance might be here (although probably not). I'm going to miss Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Ben, Hurley, Jin, Sun, Desmond, et al. for years to come. It feels weird to me now being in January and not having any new episodes to look forward to. It's been 7 months since the last (fantastic) episode of the show aired and still the emotional resonance of that episode is with me. I was sat ther e at stupid 5 o'clock in the morning crying my eyes out as I said goodbye to some of my favourite fictional characters ever. No, Season 6 of Lost wasn't the greatest season of television ever (hence why it's at 4), the flashsideways won't play as well on second viewing and there were a few narrative dead-ends, but that's Lost in a nutshell. Not every question was answered, but when it came down to it, the focus on the characters was all anyone really watched for and the sixth season delivered on little character moments throughout, making Lost one of the finest shows of the year, but one of the finest shows ever.

3. Terriers

Terriers will go down as one of the most damning cancellation of any show on TV in 2010, in a year we lost fantastic new shows like Rubicon, Party Down and old favourites like 24 and Lost, Terriers still hurts the most. In a single season, that is sure to go down as one of the greatest 'one and done' series ever (a pantheon also hosting Freaks & Geeks and Firefly), Terriers did what so many shows strive for over their entire runs. It created an entire world, it created a stable ensemble of likeable and memorable characters, it was written to perfection and just worked in a way most shows don't. Luckily Terriers tells a complete story, so in years to come people will be able to pick up the box-set and just enjoy what exists of the show. This isn't a Firefly where once you reach the end you want to know more, Terri ers ends on a logical point and whilst you'd love to spend more time with Hank and Britt, it still feels like an end for the show, even if it's not the end that you or the showrunners would have wanted. If Terriers did come back, who know's if it would have been able to maintain that lightning in a bottle, which I guess is the only consolation that fans of the show can hold onto. Terriers wasn't the flashiest show on TV in 2010, it was about scruffy looking people who aren't necessarily leading man material but are just damn likeable. It was funny, light-hearted but it also knew how to punch its audience in the emotional gut, like the culmination of the third episodes 'Change Partners' or Hank consoling Katie after she cheated on Britt. The show was just superb, a show I'm going to try and force onto as many people as I can (if it ever gets aired in the UK) because it's just that good.

2. Mad Men

Mad Men, 2009's best show, aired it's best season in 2010, and yet somehow finds itself at the 2nd spot in my list. Season 4 of Mad Men was a very different season for Mad Men, most noticeably for what the show was doing the charact er of Don Draper. This year he was a wreck, nothing was coming easy to him (not once did the show have one of the famous Don Draper pitches of the past) and he was falling more and more heavily onto drinking. He was sleeping with the wrong people, making the wrong decision and was just an all round wreck. Season 4 of Mad Men essentially became a character study into the mind of Don Draper. It takes a lot for a show to put it's leading man into such a low place but Mad Men Season 4 did it so well. The character of Don Draper was completely broken down, ever single element including Dick Whitman. In the end we don't know whether Don marrying Megan in the last episode will actually be a good decision in the long but knowing Matthew Weiner, it's sure to be interesting. But away from Don the show was still doing interesting things, Betty was no longer such a huge character because of the divorce and Kiernan Shipka as Sally Draper really stepped her game up in Season 4 to fa ntastic levels. Then of course the normal fantastic performances from the entire cast (shout out to Elisabeth Moss and John Slattery). Mad Men is still one of the best shows on TV, and Season 4 was easily the show's best season so far. If you haven't been watching, do yourself a favour, Mad Men is nuanced and just an all round fantastic show, but still was not the best show of 2010.

1. Breaking Bad

HOLY FUCK. That is the reaction I had to entirety of Season 3 of Breaking Bad, last year Breaking Bad was the show that came closest to taking the crown from Mad Men with a fantastic second season I didn't think it could top, of course I was wrong. Creator Vince Gilligan came back in 2010 and delivered with one of the greatest television seasons ever, the season that finally allows Breaking Bad to throw it's hat into the ring of all time greats. Most of the praise for the show probably comes off as hyperbole, but believe me when I saw this show is fantastic in every single way. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul are two of the best actors working on television currently, the show proves that television really is a visual medium with Michael Slovis's photography and the writing is of the highest calibre. The show constantly leaves the audience guessing where exactly it's going to go, which helps when the show is written with almost no long overarching plan, creating a sense of spontaneity that just drips from the show. This is a show that could just list reams and reams of moments off, the end to 'One Minute' and every single monologue for instance, but that's not experiencing the show. This is a show that should be watched by as many people as possible, Breaking Bad (along with Mad Men) is the current benchmark for what can be done with the medium of television. It allows for far more interesting and nuanced characters and performances than films can ever dream, long form narratives to progress over time rather than be wrapped up in 2 hours. Breaking Bad wasn't just the finest achievement that the world of television had to offer in 2010, it's also fast becoming one of the finest offerings the medium has ever given us.

Of Terriers Season 1

Terriers finished it's first and potentially only season last night and now I'm here to review what has been one of my favourite TV shows of 2010. Terriers is absolutely fantastic, the lead actors had crazy amounts of chemistry and it had one of the best 13 episode runs of any television show I've ever seen. And today it was cancelled. Goddammit general public, why does this get to survive and complete trash get to continue. However this post isn't about me hating people not watching Terriers, but instead the wonderous single season that was Terriers.

If you don't feel the title has told you what the show is then you are not alone. One of the main reasons that people are saying that Terriers wasn't a hit was because no one really knew what the show was about and the title and cryptic advertising did not help matters at all. However the people who actually watched the show and stuck with it for all 13 fantastic episodes know exactly were treated to one hell of a ride. So here I go about to explain what exactly Terriers is about.

Terriers is (was) a show that centred upon the P.I enterprise of two men, Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue) and Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James), and the general ebb and flows of the business. They're two men who are a long way out of their league and even called "too small to fail" (*sigh* if only that were true of the ratings). Behind the scenes, Terriers had an all star writing staff made up of Ted Griffin (Ocean's Eleven), Shawn Ryan (The Shield), Tim Minear (Firefly) and Jed Seidel (Veronica Mars) who get to work their usual magic here. The show is a deft mixture of comic and serious moments, and is able to go between the two tones with ease. Even though a pervading tone of the show is the messiness of their operation, you still get sucked in and want to watch these two succeed even though it's clear they are completely out of their depth.

Much like shows of a similar ilk, Veronica Mars and Justified, Terriers swaps between procedural and serial plot lines, and even stories which appear to be stand alone have personal or even serial elements buried within the plot. Just like Veronica Mars did in it's first season the serial plot develops at just the right pace to keep you on your toes whilst also managing the thoroughly engaging one off plot lines. It took Justified, earlier this year, a few episodes to get the tone just right but Terriers succeeds at this from the very first episode. There isn't a single bad episode throughout the shows 13 episode run which is something that not many shows can attest to.

The main overriding plotline of the season focuses upon a large land grab happening within Hank and Britt's home town of Ocean Beach and whilst it isn't present it is still the driving narrative of the season. However every single episode advances the personal lives of the two main heroes, be it Hank's relationship with his ex-wife Gretchen (Kimberley Quinn) or his ex-partner in the police Mark Gustafson (Rockmond Dubar). The ex-partner storyline in particular leads to a fantastic episode of the series written by Firefly alum Tim Minear who wrote 'Out of Gas' for that particular show, and if you've that episode then you know the sort of thing to expect from that episode. The relationships between the characters are key to development of the show, from Britt and his girlfriend Katie or Hank's with relationships with the aforementioned ex-wife, ex-partner and his sister Steph (Karina Logue, Donal's real life sister). However of course the key relationship to the show is that between Hank and Britt.

Luckily their relationship is so good that it's easy to forget that these two are acting. Logue and Raymond-James have such clear chemistry that it just bubbles through in their acting. Be it from the brilliant dialogue or just the looks that they give each other, it's easy to tell that these two men are the best of friends who will have each others backs throughout whatever it is they get involved in, even if it puts them both in serious mortal peril. Character relationship as good as these two are rare, but when chemistry like this happens within a show that is already got such a great creative team, it makes the whole show doubly better.

I could wax lyrical for ages about what makes Terriers work, the chemistry, the great parade of actors, in particular Logue who is doing something akin to career best acting, the writing, the humour and the fact that the show isn't afraid to punch you in the gut (Alan Sepinwall's line). Terriers has great emotional heft that just makes the show work, you care about these guys and their fate and when something bad happens (and bad stuff does happen) you feel hurt. Terriers is one of those rare shows where everything clicked from the start, and sadly has the same story as Firefly (sorry Tim Minear). Even though Hank and Britt aren't the most advanced P.I's in the game you want to spend time with them all the same and the messy ways in which they achieve their goals. Terriers is the an absolutely fantastic one-and-done series, and whilst I'd love to have a second season, this first and only foray into the world of Ocean Beach was damn near close to perfection.

9.5/10