Top TV Shows of 2008

Traditionally, I'd write a top five or a top 10 list for whatever. Actually, really it would just have to be an interval of five, that's all that really matters. However, this year in television six shows stood out above the rest in my book, so I'm going to stick with six. No more, no less. Below are my six favorite TV shows of 2008.


1. How I Met Your Mother

This combined with the number two show makes me say a euphoric "thank god it's monday!" every week, as it is the perfect way to start the week. It's part Seinfeld, part Arrested Development, but take out the cold, emotionless centers and replace them with heart and realistic relationships. This really feels like a sitcom designed specifically for me.

Kudos to my boy NPH for this as well. He may get all the publicity, but he deserves it. No one on television is funnier than Barney Stinson. No one.


2. Chuck

I love the rest of the shows on the list, but the character of Chuck (brilliantly played by Zachary Levi) is the guy that every nerd wants to be, meaning I relate to him and envy him while watching his antics on television. That's a unique and alluring combination. I find myself grinning uncontrollably while watching this show, as Chuck, Casey (Adam Baldwin), and Sarah (Yvonne Strahovski) go off on another wild mission, from saving the world from a satellite by beating the old arcade game Missile Command while listening to Rush's "Tom Sawyer," to defeating rogue CIA entities embodied by ex-girlfriend and Michael Rooker, to surviving the average day in the Buy More.

In terms of hour long shows, this has the most consistency and one of the most balanced and diverse casts on television. It's the best thing that Josh Schwartz has ever done, yet no one realizes it.


3. Battlestar Galactica

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Well, not really. Battlestar is still the best show on TV, it's just this year was the year of the comedy and Bstar Glac only provided me with 10 new episodes this year due to the writers strike and other ridiculousness. It did provide the single best episode of the season (the action packed and gut wrenching finale) and some of the best performances (when did Saul Tigh become the most dynamic character on television?), but it just didn't provide the product necessary to take number one.

However, there's a fairly decent chance I'll fall apart as a human being when the series finale airs some time in 2009. January 16th, 2009, you're too far away!


4. Dexter

Dexter and friends threw down another incredible season full of pitch black humor, tense drama, and buckets of blood, and they didn't lose a step from the first two remarkably great seasons. While the structure changed somewhat, losing the season long killer mystery for the most part, the show did not lack in awesomeness.

Why?

The cat and mouse awesomeness between Jimmy Smits' character Miguel Prado and Michael C. Hall's Dexter Morgan. You never really knew who was the cat and who was the mouse, but for the first time in the series, you never really knew for a fact that Dexter was going to make it through unscathed. He met his match, and he met it in his first real friend. Perhaps the two best performances on TV this year were featured here with Smits and Hall absolutely bringing down the house every episode. Incredible work.


5. Lost

Lost was freaking awesome this year. A huge return to prominence, featuring a change in structure from time to time, answers, and significant forward movement. Everything has been said about this show already, so I don't need to say much here. However, I do want to say the number five ranking here isn't to say it wasn't a great season (it was), it just means the other shows were truly exceptional.

Although, I did not like the season finale (I know, I'm the one).


6. Entourage

In the year of televisions most unlikely comeback, after two abysmal seasons (sad but true), Entourage got back to basics and provided us with its single best season. It was back to the hijinks with the crew, the wheeling and dealing by Ari (and his put upon assistant Lloyd), and the mix between the good life and the bad that comes with it that this show should be all about.

More shows need to realize that when they go astray, just get back to basics. Entourage did, and it's better than ever.

Slices of Fried Gold - 9/8/08

So I'm looking to start some new blogging traditions. I started some a while back (lists on Mondays, reviews of new albums on Tuesdays, reviews of new comics on Wednesdays, plus the Weekend Edition) but now I think I'm going to get back on it. I'm going to start up a recommendation segment on Mondays, and I'm going to call it "Slices of Fried Gold." Get it? Like my blog title? God. I'm good.

No less, I'll recommend three to five things (or more if I'm feeling saucy) that I've been enjoying quite a bit lately in the world each week. Here we go!

Music: Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours

I went from not having listened to this band a month and a half ago to blaring this album over and over to the number of 221 listens in that period of time. I'm quite the fan. I've pretty much been digging anything electro pop lately, and this is about as good as it gets when it comes to that tasty little genre.

Incredibly dance-y, remarkably easy to sing along to, and just a blast of an album.

This is a definite contender for 2008 album of the year for me.

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Comics: 100 Bullets by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso

I picked up the first trade for this last year, read it, liked it a good amount and asked for more for Christmas. My wish was granted, as I received four more trades. Awesome right? Yeah, except I didn't read them until recently. Now I can't get enough, as this brilliantly intertwined crime opera by Azzarello and Risso is an incredible study of morals, the interconnectedness of life, and the human condition.

Plus, there are all kinds of cool gangsters, shady organizations that control the United States, secret agent types that are the ultimate badasses, and so much noir goodness that James Ellroy looks at this book in awe.

One of the best books on the market today and another reason why Vertigo is the greatest publisher out there.

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TV: Entourage season 5

After seasons 3 and 4, I was ready to let this show go. With Medellin, Walsh, and pretty much everything else growing tiresome, I didn't have much patience left. Early reviews were out as well, and it sounded like more of the same. I went into the premiere with much trepidation and was ready to pull the plug at any time.

Surprisingly, I loved it. It's like they remembered what made this show awesome, and then focused on putting that formula back in place. Welcome back guys.

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Online show: Dr. Horrible's Singalong Blog

I waited with much anticipation at midnight as Joss Whedon released the first episode of this online show a while back, enjoyed it, then promptly forgot about it for quite some time. Tonight, I loaded it all up on my 360 and watched it - and it was fantastic. Funny, surprisingly touching, and full of strangely great music. Plus, a cast featuring my boys NPH (Neil Patrick Harris for the uninitiated) and Nathan Fillion? How can you go wrong with that?

If interested in watching, make sure to click the link because it takes you to the whole series on Hulu. Gotta love the Hulu.