sprite writes
broodings from the burrow

June 1, 2011


2010-2011 tv season
posted by soe 1:39 am

Back in early October, I wrote about what we were watching/planning to watch on tv. I thought I’d offer an end-of-season wrap-up to share what made the cut and what didn’t:

Favorite show: Castle. We didn’t miss a single episode. Strong writing. Solid characters. A season finale cliffhanger. What more can be asked for?

Runner up: Bones. Similar accolades. We were watching both new episodes on Hulu (Fox reception gave up the ghost mid-year.) and first-season episodes on NetFlix, which may explain why we still have two episodes to catch up on before our season is truly complete. (No spoilers, please!)

Favorite comedy: The Big Bang Theory. I was delighted when we regained CBS aerial coverage, enabling us to watch this still funny nerdfest. Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch made excellent additions this season as geeky girl scientists.

Favorite musical: Glee. There was the to-be-expected sophomore slump in the first half of the year. The writers seemed to want to try to provide some narrative continuity and fill in some of the gaping plot holes I complained about last year, but surprisingly it was to the detriment of the show. The second half of the year was definitely superior. Also, too many single act episodes. Darren Criss made an excellent addition to the cast and I hope his character returns next year. I liked the story arcs with Brittany as a major player and was disappointed that Quinn’s story seemed to be neglected this year. I’m always a fan of any time Chris Colfer or Amber Riley start singing and hope to hear more of them next year. And if you haven’t seen the penultimate episode of the year yet, please do make sure you check it out on Hulu immediately.

Favorite new show: Blue Bloods. The cast is tight and I enjoy family-centered dramas like this. We didn’t catch every episode, and particularly fell off at the end of the year, but are really glad we caught most of them.

Still pretty good: The Mentalist. Enjoyable when we catch it, but never something we seek out on the internet. The writing has gotten predictable, so I’m glad the writers seem to be moving the show along in its narrative.

Chuck also fell into this category in the latter half of the year, when my workdays started getting longer, making it less likely I’d be home by 8 to catch the start of the show. I’m glad they’ve given them a final half season to wrap things up, and it feels like it’s finally a good time to allow them to do that.

Sorry to see it go: The Good Guys. I really liked this quirky buddy cop comedy, but apparently I was in the minority.

Favorite mini series: Sherlock Holmes. If you haven’t seen this four-story modern interpretation of the world’s favorite detecting duo, quickly get yourself to the library, video store, or NetFlix (where it’s just been added as a streaming option). The casting is phenomenal, the writing is tight, and the adaptation is pretty much perfect.

Best of NetFlix: Dr. Who. We’re two Doctors behind the current iteration and having a blast.

Also, in addition to watching back episodes of Bones as noted above, I’ve quite enjoyed having access to the first season of Numb3rs, which I’ve missed having on tv.

Lost interest: Raising Hope. I liked it while Fox was coming in, but when we lost the network, I had no interest in tracking down episodes on Hulu.

What were you watching this year that you recommend? What failed to hold your interest for 22 episodes?

Category: arts. There is/are 2 Comments.



Ugh. I can’t stand Mayin Bailik’s character on BBT. Ugh. We don’t need an annoying female Sheldon, thank you every much.

Hmm. So the second half of Glee this season got better? I have up months ago because it was just…boring. Maybe I should find the last few episodes..

Comment by Jenn 06.01.11 @ 4:50 am

This year was full of cancellations for us. We lost Caprica, which was a shame.

Stargate Universe tried to be like BSG, failed, and only succeeded in alienating Stargate fans. It was cancelled before it managed to grow its beard.

No Ordinary Family never managed to be as good as Heroes. Some of the family’s problems were just badly written.

The Cape never rose above mediocrity. It wasn’t bad enough to be bad, but it wasn’t good enough to be memorable.

The Event started interestingly enough with lots of action and weird sci-fi stuff, but stumbled along the way. When the plane vanished from the sky in the opening, the audience stared and wondered what happened. With a larger scale use of the same technology in the finale, the reaction was more like “physics doesn’t work like that. You just destroyed Earth.”

V was less hokey than the original, but ultimately not good enough to hold up.

We tried to watch Undercovers but the husband and wife duo had so little chemistry and such inconsistent petty flaws that we ended up deleting a bunch of unwatched episodes from TiVo before the networks cancelled the show.

Comment by Grey Kitten 06.01.11 @ 10:55 am