Lisa Kudrow defeated the Friends curse creatively very quickly after Friends ended. The show was initially skewered for the most part, but it developed a good reputation over time and eventually came back for two more seasons about a decade apart.
Category: Television
Ranking the Abbott Elementary Seasons
Abbott Elementary is a very critically successful show and is winning lots of awards. I was hesitant to check out the show due to the fact that a show about teaching in a United States city is something I have been doing for a long time, and I just assumed the show would annoy me more than entertain me.
Ranking the Shrinking Seasons
We live in a really fucked up world. Paramount and Apple are spending a shit ton of money to put Harrison Ford and Kurt Russell in pure slop streaming television instead pooling resources together to make an amazing original adventure movie about old badasses going on an adventure. The world sucks.
Ranking the seasons of The West Wing
The West Wing is one of the most infamous dramas in television history. Actual people in politics saw it as inspirational to be a do-nothing liberal. Liberals outside of politics used it as comfort food. And Aaron Sorkin used it (for four seasons) to work out his issues with women in public. There is something for everyone.
The show is a tremendous cultural artifact. It captures how pre-9/11 there was possibly a genuine off-ramp for how the country could operate in the world but that there was an insidious white male supremacy strand in the country that needed to be addressed. But that both of those ideas fell by the wayside due to Islamaphobia and our open World Police status. Despite this status as a cultural artifact, the show is so much of an unintentional reflection of this country. And this country sucks. So this show sucks (except when it doesn’t).
Ranking the Industry Seasons
Industry seemed like the fakest show in all the world. In August I heard about this supposed “season 3” of this show that no one ever heard of before and was reportedly good. I was very suspicious. A trusted friend though assured me it was worth watching, and I was shocked to discovered that Industry was in fact an Actually Good show.
Ranking A Song of Ice & Fire Television Seasons
Game of Thrones was a genuine cultural phenomenon. Given how badly it ended, you might forget there was a point when it was perfectly fun genre television. I would even say it’s worth going back and watching some of it. And shockingly enough, the spinoff shows are intriguing so far. Find out which seasons were worth the time.
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Ranking the Mad Men Seasons
I watched the show week to week while it was on the air, but I never rewatched it once. There was just so much going on with this show, and it was so rich. They truly do not make things like this anymore. And they probably never will again.
Ranking the Safdie Brothers Projects
Still Need to Watch: The Pleasure of Being Robbed
The Safdie Brothers have split up, and your boyfriends are very upset about it. Anyway, this living, breathing column will track all the nonsense they get up to as best as possible in the years to come. There appears to be a lot of mystery behind their split and speculation runs rampant. I am not entirely sure of what to make of the split, but I hope there is plenty of work from both of them to explore in the years to come.
Ranking The Shield Seasons
It took me a long time to finally watch The Shield in full. A decade-plus ago I had dipped my toe in the waters but did not get in. I heard all the praise from all the credible sources. I knew I had to get to it. And I finally did this year. I am delighted to report that the show is as good as people say.
Ranking the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Seasons
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an iconic show that has been running for more than half of my life. It is a bit daunting to ever go back and watch a show that has been running for this long, but I finally committed after years of false starts. It was as good as I could have hoped for.
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The Reel World 