Tag: Mad Men

The Best TV of 2010 – A Repeat Viewing Part 1

The beginning of another year brings the inevitable, innumerable “Best of…” lists, highlighing every topic imaginable found in the previous year – from tweets to fleeting celebrities. So with that gentlereaders, I present my own contribution to the interwebospheres with the Best TV of 2010. More than just a simple compilation of series names, I’ve divided my choices into categories that delve a little further into why praise is so deserved and with hopes to bring those uninitiated into the dedicated viewer fold for any or all of these fine examples of television. First up, the overall best episodes.

These are 30 or 60 minutes that encapsulated everything that makes these shows great – acting, writing, et al. Of course it’s easy to place Mad Men and 30 Rock in this category and they both can do no wrong (usually), but even these stellar shows will rise above the high bar they’ve set for the rest of television.

SELF-CONTAINED GENIUS

Mad Men, “The Suitcase” – Coming in at the mid-point of a so-so fourth season, this episode is, I dare say, the drama’s finest as it showcased the amazing dynamic of its two strongest characters. Giving the bulk of time to just Don and Peggy as they try to tackle a new campaign for their client Samsonite, which was really just a device by writers to setup an all-nighter of cocktails, confessions and a chaste “sleepover,” allowed the acting prowess of Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss to shine most brilliantly and should guarantee them both their first Emmy wins.
Community, “Modern Warfare” – “Come with me if you don’t want paint on your clothes.” One of countless amazing lines found in this late-freshman year episode, the premise – campus-wide last-man-standing paintball game – seemed on the surface only a gimmick to pile on as many action movie cliches as possible. It ended up not only giving us a lot of clever “Oh that’s from…” moments (Spanish teacher Senor Chang as a John Woo movie-type villain is mind-blowingly brilliant), it was able to further develop and be true to the characters at the heart of the show – keeping an edge, being honest about relationships, without getting too schmaltzy – which makes Community one of my favorite new obsessions.

30 Rock, “Gentlemen’s Intermission” – From Liz’s father Dick Lemon in search of an extra-marital dalliance to Jack’s need for someone’s DIHC (that’s Drive, Intelligence, Humility and Chaos) in order to be fulfilled as a mentor and Tracey’s decision to make sure he leaves an obituary that doesn’t include a submarine DUI, this episode contained everything that makes 30 Rock stellar: quotable lines (“Albino ninja!”), absurdity (Tracey’s all-giraffe basketball team the New York Necks), a little low-brow humor (“She’s got just the right amount of DIHC for me. I hear it and I don’t care.”) and a perfect storyline for Jack & Liz, the greatest on-screen couple that will never fall victim to “will-they-or-won’t-they” sexual tension syndrome. Plus we get to see Liz completely fail at “seducing” her father dressed as Tootsie.

2010 62nd Annual Primetime Emmys Post-Show Recap

As stated in a post regarding last year’s Emmys, me and awards show have a love/hate relationship – I love them and they seem to hate me, or rather me and the collective viewing audience. Uninspired would best describe  them of late, but Academy of Television you actually kept my rapt attention this year. It might be because I didn’t watch them live, but the pace overall for the Emmys telecast was brisk, peppered with many worthy laughs and filler moments that weren’t completely eyeroll-inducing. I credit a lot of this to the stellar hosting job executed by current Late Night helmer Jimmy Fallon. From the amazing Glee-ful opening with four of the hot show’s stars, Tina Fey, Jon Hamm, Joel McHale and more joining him in belting out a Springsteen classic, through his moments introducing the various genres with the help of nominees Amy Poehler, Stephen Colbert and Julianna Margulies in the audience and even the “Shows We Lost” montage he never failed to entertain.

Naysayers can say nay about his time on Saturday Night Live – his were never peek performances like Will Ferrell, usually breaking character first and unable to deliver most of his lines laugh-free – but I was always a fan and thought he had his best years behind the Weekend Update desk. It also didn’t hurt he pulled duty next to my Fey-vorite.

He’s also no slouch when it comes to the melding of music and comedy, which seems to be all the rage these days thanks to belle of the TV ball Glee. My first memory of Fallon was his dead-on impersonation of Adam Sandler, another SNL alum known for wacky comedic songs, and a couple of years into his stint on the seminal sketch show he released an album with a track I still frequently revisit, “Idiot Boyfriend.” Just try not to smile at the hilarious video below co-starring then-up-and-coming-now-It New Girl Zooey Deschanel.

Knowing Jimmy had the ability to MC as shown by the success of his talk show’s first year it wasn’t a surprise when he was tapped to take the reins of the Emmys hosting gig, but I had further confidence he would deftly lead the telecast by the sheer merit of his work back in 2002 at the MTV Video Music Awards. That opener still sticks out as one of the most memorable beginnings to an awards show of all time and had yet to be topped on my list of favorites until Fallon, Fey & the Glee gang’s “Born to Run” performance.

The buzz and ratings after Sunday both suggest that Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman aren’t the only song-and-dance men to call on if you want to have a successful live show telecast.

Not to forget about the awards part of the show, Glee took home a couple of high-profile wins with Jane Lynch nabbing Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy and Ryan Murphy getting Best Director for the top-notch pilot episode. Mad Men continued its drama domination with their third-straight year of trophies for both series and writing, and freshman favorite Modern Family went away a big winner with Best Comedy and Writing for its pilot as well as a pleasant surprise with Eric Stonestreet taking home a Supporting Actor in a Comedy trophy for his phenomenal work as Cam in the ensemble sitcom. An additional surprise win in an acting category went to Aaron Paul getting a much-deserved statue for his supporting role along-side fellow winner and co-star Bryan Cranston for AMC’s needs-to-get-more-recognition drama Breaking Bad.

Major category winners:

Comedy

OUTSTANDING COMEDY
Modern Family

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Jim Parsons (The Big Bang Theory)

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Edie Falco (Nurse Jackie)

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Eric Stonestreet (Modern Family)

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Jane Lynch (Glee)

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Betty White (SNL)

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Neil Patrick Harris (Glee)

OUTSTANDING DIRECTION IN A COMEDY
Ryan Murphy (Glee)

OUTSTANDING WRITING FOR A COMEDY
Christopher Lloyd and Stephen Levitan (Modern Family)

Drama

OUTSTANDING DRAMA
Mad Men

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Kyra Sedgwick (The Closer)

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Archie Panjabi (The Good Wife)

OUTSTANDING SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA
Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad)

OUTSTANDING WRITING IN A DRAMA
Erin Levy and Matthew Weiner (Mad Men – “Shut the Door, Have a Seat”)

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA
John Lithgow (Dexter)

OUTSTANDING GUEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA
Ann Margaret (Law & Order: SVU)

OUTSTANDING DIRECTION IN A DRAMA
Steve Shill (Dexter)

Variety, Music or Comedy

OUTSTANDING VARIETY, MUSIC, OR COMEDY SERIES
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

OUTSTANDING DIRECTION IN A VARIETY, MUSIC OR COMEDY SPECIAL
Bucky Gunts (The Winter Olympics)

OUTSTANDING WRITING IN A VARIETY SHOW
Dave Boone and Paul Greenberg (The 2010 Tony Awards)

TV Movie, Miniseries or Dramatic Special

TV MOVIE
Temple Grandin (HBO)

MINISERIES
The Pacific (HBO)

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A TV MOVIE, MINISERIES OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL
Al Pacino (You Don’t Know Jack)

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A TV MOVIE, MINISERIES OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL
Claire Danes (Temple Gradin)

OUTSTANDING DIRECTION IN A TV MOVIE, MINISERIES OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL
Mick Jackson (Temple Grandin)

OUTSTANDING ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A TV MOVIE, MINISERIES OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL
David Strathairn (Temple Grandin)

OUTSTANDING ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A TV MOVIE, MINISERIES OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL
Julia Ormand (Temple Grandin)

OUTSTANDING WRITING IN A TV MOVIE, MINISERIES OR DRAMATIC SPECIAL
Adam Mazer (You Don’t Know Jack)

OUTSTANDING REALITY SHOW COMPETITION
Top Chef

Breaking Bad – Getting Away With it Since 2008

Today I would like to celebrate the programming prowess of AMC – it’s so much more than a channel showing classic american movies.

If you’ve got your finger on the pulse of entertainment buzz you should already know of, and be avidly watching, AMC’s first breakout original progam Mad Men. I would like to now boldly declare that cool cat Don Draper isn’t the only compelling character ruling the airwaves – he’s got stiff competition in the form of  an Albuquerque  high school chemistry teacher. “Wha, wha, what?” you may be asking yourself. Stay with me, there’s more to the story. This particular teacher shaping young minds by day has a moonlighting gig: cooking and dealing crystal meth. Meet the shades-of-grey “hero” of Breaking Bad, Walter White.

Bryan Cranston imbues Walter with the same kind of intense, nuanced bad guy gravitas that James Gandolfini brought to Tony Soprano which has netted him two well-deserved Emmys in the process and deftly made Breaking Bad a show worthy of taking up The Sopranos mantle. The crux of the series is not only following but ultimately feeling for someone introduced as an innocent everyman who chooses to navigate down a conscience-corrosive road of crime all the while maintaining a deluded end-justifies-the-means attitude.

Amazing character development plus the high stakes inherant in dealing with the dangerous underbelly of drug trafficking makes for a series that cannot be missed. Take six minutes to watch a recap of the last two years bringing the uninitiated viewer up-to-speed for tonight’s explosive season three premiere.

Could Don Draper sell this?

Mad Men enters a new realm of the pop-culture pantheon very soon that its creator, Matthew Weiner, says has surprised even him: Mattel plans to bring out versions of Barbie and Ken styled after four Mad Men characters.

Part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults the set would not be the first dolls modeled after a TV series, among them I Love Lucy and The X-Files, but this set of dolls will be the first licensed for a line Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection. Available in July 2010 there will be 7,000 to 10,000 copies of each doll to be sold in specialty stores and on two Web sites, amctv.com and barbiecollector.com.

The characters to become dolls are Don Draper, the show’s leading man; his wife, Betty; his colleague at the Sterling Cooper agency, Roger Sterling; and Joan Holloway, the agency’s office manager who was Roger’s mistress. That two dolls represent a relationship outside wedlock, and Don Draper’s propensity for adultery, may be firsts for the Barbie world since the brand’s introduction five decades ago. For the sake of the Barbie image her immersion in the Mad Men era will only go so far: the dolls come with period accessories like hats, overcoats, pearls and padded undergarments but no cigarettes, ashtrays, martini glasses or cocktail shakers.

2009 61st Annual Primetime Emmy Winners

61st Primetime Emmy(R) AwardsOh, awards shows. You and I need to have a serious discussion because I can’t stand being the submissive in this kinky little relationship of ours anymore. Finding myself continually coming back to you each time with a deluded excitement that maybe this will be the year you surprise and thrill me, and after half an hour I cannot stay glued to my seat. Yet I stick with you to the bitter end, bad taste in my mouth with a sense of “meh” and “well, I could’ve just checked the IMDb live winner update feed.”

While this seems a backlash of a post, please read as a request for awards telecasts to step up the entertainment and for the various academies to change up the voting habits – not that I don’t love my 30 Rock or Mad Men (congrats to wins not only for best show in their respective categories, but writing too!) – because sitting through 3 hours of “announce list of nominees, open envelope, read winner, not-amusing-nor-poignant acceptance speech, rinse, repeat” gets a little taxing and I think more of us would welcome some upsets, blunders and outbursts once in awhile.

Tonight’s major category winners:

Drama Series: “Mad Men,” AMC

Comedy Series: “30 Rock,” NBC

Actor, Drama Series: Bryan Cranston, “Breaking Bad,” AMC

Actress, Drama Series: Glenn Close, “Damages,” FX Networks

Actor, Comedy Series: Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock,” NBC

Actress, Comedy Series: Toni Collette, “United States of Tara,” Showtime

Supporting Actor, Drama Series: Michael Emerson, “Lost,” ABC.

Supporting Actress, Drama Series: Cherry Jones, “24,” Fox.

Supporting Actor, Comedy Series: Jon Cryer, “Two and a Half Men,” CBS.

Supporting Actress, Comedy Series: Kristin Chenoweth, “Pushing Daisies,” ABC.

Miniseries: “Little Dorrit” PBS.

Made-for-TV Movie: “Grey Gardens,” HBO.

Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Brendan Gleeson, “Into the Storm,” HBO.

Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Jessica Lange, “Grey Gardens,” HBO.

Supporting Actor, Miniseries or Movie: Ken Howard, “Grey Gardens,” HBO.

Supporting Actress, Miniseries or Movie: Shohreh Aghdashloo, “House of Saddam,” HBO.

Directing for a Comedy Series: “The Office: Stress Relief,” Jeff Blitz, NBC.

Directing for a Drama Series: “ER: And in the End,” Rod Holcomb, NBC.

Directing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Series: “American Idol: Show 833 (The Final Three),” Bruce Gowers, Fox.

Directing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special: “Little Dorrit: Part 1,” Dearbhla Walsh, PBS.

Variety, Music, or Comedy Series: “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Comedy Central.

Reality-Competition Program: “The Amazing Race,” CBS.

Writing for a Comedy Series: “30 Rock: Reunion,” Matt Hubbard, NBC.

Writing for a Drama Series: “Mad Men: Meditations in an Emergency,” Kater Gordon and Matthew Weiner, AMC.

Writing for a Variety, Music, or Comedy Series: “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” Comedy Central.

Writing for a Miniseries, Movie, or Dramatic Special: “Little Dorrit,” Andrew Davies, PBS.

Host, Reality or Reality-Competition Program: Jeff Probst, “Survivor,” CBS.

Original Music and Lyrics: “81st Annual Academy Awards: Song Title: Hugh Jackman Opening Number,” ABC.