Franklin & Bash – TNT

Yet another hour-long legal show isn’t too appealing, but seeing that it starred Mark-Paul Gosselaar was enough to have me want to check it out. Saved By The Bell’s Zack will be an obligatory mention until the day he dies, despite a multiple-year stint on NYPD Blue, but it was his impressively good turn in the much underrated Raising The Bar that’s made me interested to see what he does next. And this is perfect, teaming him up with Robot Chicken’s Breckin Meyer, in what turns out to be a buddy team with automatic chemistry. The pair bounce off each other so effortlessly that you wonder if they’re being given space to improvise their constantly funny dialogue.

The premise is pleasingly dumb. Two maverick lawyers working for a small, unsuccessful company, get hired by a giant firm under the leadership of a gloriously scene-chewing Malcolm McDowell. So yes, they bring their wayward ways to a firm that usually plays by the rules, etc, etc. But it’s really not about the cases, which over the first six episodes they’ve inevitably won – rather it’s about the spaces in between, the silliness, and most of all, the banter. So of course judges look sternly at them and warn that any more of their antics and they’ll find them in contempt, but for once it doesn’t matter. In fact, the writers have the good sense to often let the judges enjoy the spectacle.

Reed Diamond plays an excellent straight man as the pair’s main foil, along with an ensemble cast without any weak points. A few critics are making the stupid mistake of approaching the show as if it’s trying to be serious legal drama, confused when the cases are cartoonish or outright unrealistic. But that’s the point – this is a comedy, and an incredibly funny one. Few recent shows have had me skip back to watch a moment five or six times in a row, just to enjoy someone’s perfect (not quite literal) spit-take or superbly delivered off-the-cuff remark. The highlight of these so far came after Meyer delivered some faux-old man grumbling about loud rock and roll music, when Gosselaar mumbled in kind, almost to himself, simply, “YouTube.”

Love Bites – NBC

After yet another horrendous year for NBC, it was par for the course that their only decent scripted drama fell in the summer. Love Bites shouldn’t be any good, and perhaps it’s understandable that network would have been shy of it as a concept, but it turns out to be really decent. It’s also pretty unusual – enough to, I suppose, make it tough to market. Rather than an ongoing drama, it’s actually pretty difficult to define precisely what it is. Each episode is made up of three or four “short stories”, related to matters of love, romance, relationships, or the lack thereof, often with no connecting consistency. Some characters recur each week, others don’t. Sometimes they cross over in surprising and unimportant ways, mostly they’re scattered around various parts of the United States with almost nothing in common.

It turns out this interesting format is a result of behind-the-scenes issues, as a show intended to be the rather tedious sounding idea of two women’s romance problems after all their friends were married, became a collection of vignettes that only vaguely intersect. After a series of disasters, with most the cast now working on other projects, it’s unlikely that it will reach beyond the nine episodes that have been made. But again, that seems perfect, really. Greg Grunberg is a regular, while Jordana Spiro – who was so horribly screwed over by TBS – was meant to be in it but never got the chance. Instead it stars some strong guest appearances, including Zach Braff, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Cheryl Hines, Donald Faison, James Roday, and Beau Bridges, playing one-off characters in stories neatly told in fifteen minutes. Which means it ends up being something unique and interesting, pretty much despite NBC rather than thanks to them.

Happy Endings – ABC

Okay, Happy Endings isn’t brilliant. But it’s surprisingly good for a sitcom that’s been dumped in the hot months. Rescuing the gap left by (I think) the complete failure of Mr Sunshine, it started in April and aired 12 episodes. And thanks to the endless genius of ABC, they were in the wrong order. Yet somehow despite that it managed to do well enough to get picked up for a proper run in the Fall season. Even though they have stories based around estranged relationships with fathers, and people needing the Heimlich manoeuvre in restaurants, it also feels free to completely let go of reality and go just plain strange. And that’s where it hooks me in. One character buying a nerf gun leads, somehow, to action movie, bullet-time sniper scenes. Penny only being able to speak Italian when drunk leads to a surprisingly dark scene of accidental cruelty. And all of that’s in one episode. Also, it stars Scrubs’ Eliza Coupe, which is a fairly simply win. And the use of the phrase “sexnose” for penis.

Oh, and the fight dance at the end of episode six is a piece of choreographic mastery.

Wilfred – FX

I’ve never seen the Australian original, so watching the first episode of the US remake I really had no idea what the plot was about. It’s reasonably surprising to discover a show in which the plot revolves around a man who sees his neighbour’s dog as a man in a dog suit, who starts telling him what to do. Elijah Wood plays the man, and the original Aussie actor, Jason Gann (from the excellent Mark Loves Sharon) plays the dog. It’s like Darren Aronofsky and Goran Dukić made a sitcom.

USA’s Entire Output

The USA network is on fire this summer. And Psych hasn’t even started yet! You’ve got:

White Collar: Everyone should be watching this show! FBI agent and master criminal solving white collar crimes, while one tries to commit his own and the other tries to catch him. But it’s brilliant! Watch this!

Burn Notice: Even though Michael Westen is no longer burned, the series continues on and continues to be excellent corny fun. Shining with the bright light of Bruce Campbell, five seasons in I’m pretty much an expert in how to be a spy thanks to all that narration. And I still love it.

Royal Pains: Why a show about a doctor working in the Hamptons should be even worth filming is hard to explain. How it’s such a sweet, entertaining show I cannot explain. But it is, as a sort of medical drama meets… a comfortable green hillside. It’s daft, the previous season featured Henry Wrinkler, and almost 98% of every episode appears to be dedicated to an offensively clichéd plot about the Indian character and arranged marriages. But still, can’t miss an episode.

And then there’s Covert Affairs and Suits, both extremely watchable.

A sad truth is that as RPS has scaled up, my time for watching television has gone way down. The backlog of shows I love is hurting me just to look at. But fortunately the convenient 20 minute length of sitcoms means they can still sneak in. Which has allowed me to see what I think may be the best pay-off in sitcom history.

This year the two best in the format are unquestionably Community and Cougar Town. The former has embraced such a depth of unreality that it’s been free to feature claymation, while the latter has found a groove none could have expected from the name and opening few episodes. I can imagine many would bounce off Cougar Town at the concept, but it’s allowed itself such a charming collection of characters, and so refreshingly, no turmoil. It’s decent people having a good time, without constantly lying to each other or falling in and out of love. The representation of a working, real married couple is pretty much unique. (There’s no forgiving anyone who complains about the title, since the show itself features a complaint about it every episode.)

But I’ve brought you here to bring up one particular moment in each.

An episode of Community recently had Abed completely change personality on his birthday. At the end of an extraordinary episode, he explains that he had a moment of complete terror after being asked to appear in the background of an episode of Cougar Town. The episode was gently mocking of Lawrence’s sitcom (on a different, rival channel, note), and I wondered if the closing titles would feature Abed’s appearance on the set of the other show. When it didn’t I wasn’t surprised – how could it, with NBC and ABC not exactly likely to work together – but still a little disappointed.

Jump ahead about four weeks, and Cougar Town’s season two finale airs. Rather sadly the show seems to have been forced to feature Subway rather prominently for a couple of weeks, which feels a touch tawdry. But during a scene with two characters having a conversation at an outdoor table, there in the middle ground… is Abed.

It’s such an extraordinary pay-off to a joke. A set up on one show on one channel in one month. The punchline in another show on another channel in the next. And as Abed described it, he panics mid-scene, and runs off the set, catching the attention of the regular characters for a moment.

Which is to say, watch Cougar Town and Community.

Matt Smith is absolutely fantastic. Stephen Moffat was born to be in charge.

“Box falls out the sky, man falls out a box, man eats fish custard.”

Moffat remembered that Doctor Who is a programme for children to watch, and designed to scare them. The opening ten minutes, a series of slapstick and extremely silly lines, were like a rebirthing for the series. A reminder of what it was about – not grimacing, innuendo and snogging, but alternating between laughs and being frightened.

The story is coherent, pleasingly daft, and not resolved by waving the sonic screwdriver at things. That in itself was incredibly refreshing. In fact, rendering the screwdriver inactive had to be a statement that Moffat did not intend to continue such lazy writing.

It was certainly a shame that Moffat has been left a legacy of a world perfectly used to being attacked by aliens, and disappointing that he chose not only not to reset this (surely it could be done so simply – reprogramme some alien device to undo the knowledge of the Doctor, and all related subjects, from humanity’s minds) but to further it. I guess the damage is done, but I had rather hoped Moffat would not wish to perpetuate this situation.

Once again Moffat’s deft skill with picking on those things that frighten children was displayed. Cracks in bedroom walls – surely the obsession of every child at some point during a scared, sleepless night. Mysteriously appearing doors in houses – certainly a topic that plagued my own childhood dreams. And then the idea that something monstrous can only be seen if you focus incredibly hard on your peripheral vision. Absolutely brilliant. And then those teeth – those brilliantly chilling teeth – guaranteed to be the subject of a few thousand nightmares this evening. Exactly what Doctor Who should be doing.

Matt Smith was absolutely terrific. Eccentric, continuing Tennant’s abandon, but in a way that’s completely his own. It’s unclear why we were shown his clutching at one of his hearts on a couple of occasions, being warned he wasn’t cooked yet, when that led nowhere. But otherwise he was set up as an interesting Doctor, cocky and strangely blasé. His Odo-like face is fascinating, as 900 years old as it is 27. And Karen Gillan’s Amy Pond is by far the most potentially interesting assistant in years.

It’ll be interesting to see if Moffat has larger plans in place for his arc. Silence is falling, we’re told. Hopefully this means something that’s not only well planned, but also interesting enough to warrant a season’s build-up. Something Davies routinely failed to do in a way that was beyond inept. It was disturbing that he was unable to recognise the success of his Bad Wolf motif to such an extent that when asked to explain how it was resolved, most people will say, “Er, something about the Rose/TARDIS thing, right? I dunno.” And then after that they became so dull as to barely be noticeable, culminating in the prophecies around Donna that were apparently building up to her making a phone call and then falling unconscious. If this falling silence is going somewhere, I shall be extremely happy.

Things bode well. With Moffat writing six of the thirteen episodes, and Gatiss back writing a Dalek episode, at least half should be splendid. The interesting choice of Simon Nye writing another should at least be aiming for comedy. Goodness knows what fist of it Richard Curtis will make, but I’m sure it shall be celebrated as a masterpiece no matter how bloody tedious the result may be. Hey, maybe it’ll be fun. Who knows.

RTD is dead, long live Moffat.

If you read nothing else in this post, please watch the video under Leverage. It’s four minutes that won’t be wasted.

How To Make It In America – HBO

To describe it this sounds like every first-year student TV writing project. Two guys who live on the edge of a criminal lifestyle, yet somehow hanging out on the elite New York partying scene, swearing at each other and attracting all who pass by. Yet the delivery changes a lot. The cast is strong (Luis Guzmán being reliably menacing alongside the younger, prettier crowd), and it’s occasionally aesthetically inspired. The direction is smart, and with a fantastic soundtrack (helpfully documented on the show’s site), its presentation helps cover gaps the perhaps not stunningly original themes may leave. The second scene of the first episode, pulling back to reveal Victor Rasuk standing on the back of a bicycle ridden by a Hasidic Jewish boy, outlines the smart wit. “Stay strong, He-brew.”

It’ll be interesting to see if the guys-struggling-to-keep-up-with-the-scene story is strong enough to sustain. In terms of story theme it feels like it falls halfway between the astonishing Bored To Death and the atrocious Entourage. There’s a tendency for the characters to speak in speeches, which feels a shame in a show that would benefit from a more naturalistic delivery. The heavy script of Bored To Death works so well because it’s so spectacularly refined, but here it seems to be holding things back somewhat. People don’t say, “He who hesitates masturbates!” and then twinkle their eyes. And perhaps they didn’t need the drunk guy shouting to his ex-girlfriend from the street scene immediately. Or someone complaining about being woken up and pulling the pillow over their head… But wow, the soundtrack helps me forgive a lot.

In Treatment – HBO

Season 1 of In Treatment was probably one of the most masterful television programmes ever made. Season 2 started off matching it. I didn’t finish it. I had to stop. Its hopeless misery combined with something I struggle to cope with: impending doom. Impending doom is something I find very off-putting in all formats – it’s about the inevitable awfulness that’s to come and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. I recognise this as my own madness, but watching In Treatment was putting me on the verge of an anxiety attack (this isn’t hyperbole) and it was healthier to stop. I fully plan to go back to finish it, because good heavens, I don’t think there’s a better written or performed programme on TV. But only when I’m feeling remarkably upbeat and comfortable, and thus emotionally prepared to get through it. I’m not sure I could pay the programme a higher compliment than this.

John Safran’s Race Relations – ABC Australia

I think I have far more to say about this show than fits in here. It’s extraordinary. I just haven’t worked out if it’s a brilliant statement on race and relationships, or the most horrendous thing I’ve ever seen. Safran is a 37 year old (although looks ten years younger) white Jew living in Australia, trying to work out whether he should settle down with a nice Jewish girl like his mother always wanted, or follow his desire for Eurasian girls. Along the way he tries to understand racial divides of many sorts, by some really quite troubling first-hand experience.

He’s been making these part-documentary, part-comedy shows for years, each using his affection for pranks as a basis for making arguments on various topics. How relevant or appropriate you think the stunts are, and whether they achieve anything close to a statement on the topics for you, will likely define whether you think him a genius or scumbag. So for this series, well, how do you feel about his visiting an Israeli sperm bank to make a donation, then getting his Palestinian cameraman to provide the sample? Then repeating the same in reverse in Palestine, this time smuggling his own Jewish seed into the vaults. Or blacking up and hanging out with unwitting members of a New York militant black organisation, and then preaching in a predominantly black church. Or stealing the underwear of ex-girlfriends and Eurasian celebrities in order to perform an experiment. Or getting off with their mums. Or getting crucified, including having nails driven through his hands and feet. And it goes on. (Like digging up his mother’s grave to perform a Kabbalah prayer, for instance.)

There’s an enormous amount of squirming to get through an episode. His willingness to subject himself to hideous humiliation is extremely uncomfortable. For me, when the humiliation occurs to others (which is extremely rarely, to be fair), the discomfort becomes too much. Watching him in Thailand, dressed as a Eurasian woman (one of his exes, more disturbingly) and going on a date with a local amorous man, getting paralytically drunk and making out with him, then sleeping in the street outside – no one’s better for it. Goodness knows if any of it’s real – I hope it’s not. The blacking up in episode 2 is… it’s probably the most terrifying thing I’ve seen. But it’s hard to find too much complaint with a man who attempts to gas David Irving in a radio studio.

Kids In The Hall: Death Comes To Town – CBC

The news that the Kids In The Hall were to reunite on television was hard to know how to take. The sketch show finished in 1994, with the ultro-flop movie Brain Candy released in ’96. Despite reunion tours and live shows over the last decade, it’s still 16 years since they were last on TV. I adored the original show back then, and I still do. The DVDs take up a lot of space on my shelves. Discovering KITH was one of those watershed moments for me, switching on Channel 4 one night aged 14/15 and seeing comedy delivered in a way I hadn’t experienced before. It was unquestionably hit and miss. Deliberately so, it seemed. Many sketches were just thoughts, whims, without any perceivable direction. And none of their sketches ever reached a conclusion. They were the sketch comedy equivalent of a song that fades out rather than comes to a prescribed ending, each scene dissolving into mumbled lines while the audience whooped to let the viewer know it was over. Also, while men playing women wasn’t anything new for sketch comedy, playing them convincingly was. Despite knowing almost no one who watched it, everyone seems to remember Mr. Tyzik crushing people’s heads from his deckchair. I’m not quite sure how this character permeated a generation’s consciousness without anyone ever actually watching it.

It was my Python. I was born three years after Flying Circus finished, and it wasn’t usefully repeated until my later teenage years. Kids In The Hall caught me at just the right moment, similarly peculiar and uninterested in following traditional sketch form. And importantly for a kid my age, showed me gay characters in an unmelodramatic way – something British TV certainly wasn’t doing.

Toward the end the sketches grew longer, less stage-based and more often shot on film. It was clear they were interested in the single-camera format. Which gives me an excuse to put in this longer sketch from season 4, that highlights most of the things described above, and also shows off Mark McKinney’s range (playing the preacher enemy, one of the Sex Girls, and the director at the start):

So what to think about their getting back together to create a new show, single camera, and without an audience. Clearly as a huge KITH fan it seemed like brilliant news. But then should you ever go back? In this case, well, possibly not.

Death Comes To Town unapologetically borrows from The League Of Gentlemen. It’s a provincial Canadian town populated by people played by the five members of the troupe, following the events following their mayor’s death shortly after learning they would not be hosting the 2016 Olympics. Death has, shockingly enough, come to town, and has a few people’s souls to collect while he’s there.

It’s certainly true to the KITH format. They play most of the characters, they’re mostly caricatures, and it’s paced extremely slowly. However, each episode feels a little empty. I think what’s revealed more than anything else is how valuable the audience was on the ’90s show, providing both someone for the troupe to perform to, and some punctuation for the viewer. While they’re not aiming for big laughs, the cameo appearance of McKinney’s Chicken Lady would have been a lot more meaningful and entertaining if there’d been the inevitable chorus of cheers as she appeared.

But more importantly they don’t go far enough in any direction. Where League of Gentlemen was grotesque, this is extremely mild. Even the incredibly slow-burning plot of the gay man in love with the mayor who’s dug up his corpse and is attempting a life of marital bliss is somehow extremely forgettable. And I’m having a good deal of trouble working out exactly what Death is doing, or why. It does show off the skills of everyone involved. McKinney is unsurprisingly the best, but Scott Thompson’s range is quite phenomenal. It’s just hard to shake the idea that they’re spreading enough plot for one episode across two or three.

Legend Of The Seeker – Various

Based on The Sword Of Truth novels by Terry Goodkind, this is the only trad fantasy left on TV (unless I’m mistaken). Following the adventures of Richard, the Seeker, a young man who is imbued with enhanced instincts and sword-fighting skills, accompanied by the wizard of the First Order Zeddicus Zu’l Zorander and Confessor Kahlan (and currently a Mord’Sith called Cara), they, um, wander about fighting stuff.

It’s fun writing all that nonsense. This is mostly played very straight, but thanks to executive production from Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert there’s just enough of a Xena/Hercules vibe to keep it light, although never ironic. (And of course this means Ted Raimi has appeared twice now. Still no sign of Bruce Campbell, but surely it can only be a matter of time? He must miss the flight to New Zealand.) The first season was about fighting Darken Rahl, an evil ruler who controlled vast armies, determined to take over the whole of the land. Season 2 has him in the Underworld, still causing trouble, but in a much more ambiguous way that leaves the crew more open to stumbling into more varied situations. They’re technically following some magic compass thing now, to stop the Satan-alike from using everyone’s dead bodies to start an army, but despite travelling for squillions of miles to follow this they’re still always a day’s walk from anywhere they’ve been before. I’d love to see someone trace the route they’ve taken this season on a map.

Other brilliant things include that Zed says, “This is a DARK and TERRIBLE magic!” every week about every magic thing he ever encounters. And Kahlan will confess (putting her hands on someone’s throat which makes their eyes turn black and then they become her devoted slave forever) someone every week, who will then be conveniently killed later so she doesn’t have to have him follow her about. Oh, and they’ve take the Pushing Daisies approach to the Will They Won’t They, by setting up a situation where if Kahlan sleeps with Richard he’ll be confessed and therefore not able to save the world any more. Except this appears to be only a challenge to the writers to find excuses for them to cop off and get away with it. Last week Kahlan was bodily split into two halves of her personality, one half unable to confess, so they ran full pelt to the nearest grassy spot.

They’re spending decent money on each episode ($1.5m, apparently, which is a hefty chunk for a show that’s made as a first-run syndication, meaning it’s not on any fixed channel – ABC pays for it, but doesn’t air it), and the fights are often very splendid. While serious, it avoids being po-faced. I like it far more than I probably should.

Leverage – TNT

Season 2 of the techo Robin Hood has been given an advantage by the show’s weak link, Gina Bellman, being away on maternity leave, replaced by the far superior Jeri Ryan. The band of thieves help to right a wrong by scamming the rich to make money for the poor, using elaborate cons that require constant improvisation as twists and turns arrive from each angle. Season 1 was a far tighter run, however. Season 2 has had some really disappointingly dull episodes, alongside some splendid ones. However, one episode in particular makes up for any other that’s lacking: their open, bold reveal of all the scams and tricks used by so-called mediums. It should be shown in schools as the most spectacular lesson on how cold reading, and hot reading, work – a step by step breakdown that explains it all with even more clarity than James Randi’s eloquent lectures. Parker was cold read by the medium, who talked about her brother who had died on his bicycle, which she had taught him to ride. Well, here it is:

It’s never been done so well. And then the rest of the episode is about getting spectacular, fair revenge on this dreadful man. And yes, that was Luke Perry.

Lie To Me – FOX

This is another show, like Castle, that has really found its feet in its second run. The first season was a fun show, but felt extremely laboured. Tim Roth is an expert at detecting when people are lying via recognising micro-gestures. And because of this he can solve all murders and prevent terrorists from blowing up the world. In the first season it was so tortuous as they created a super-sized version of the scrap of science behind it all, making it ludicrous. “Did you see that?! Stop it just there!” cries Roth, as they freezeframe the gurning criminal contorting his face into a cartoon grimace. Yes Mr Roth, we all did. Season 2 has been far more relaxed, focusing on the far more interesting aspects of the show – primarily Roth’s being a cock and always right. Unlike House, Roth’s Dr. Cal Lightman always has a good reason for being rude to people, provoking the emotional response he needs, or whatever. But it’s still fun to watch his Quasimodo lurching and grumpy right-being. Plus it had a song.

Sorry to end on that, but it had to stop somewhere.

I’m reposting this piece about Psych written about a year and a half ago as it’s no longer online elsewhere. Giant Realm briefly had me writing about TV (one day, somewhere, I’ll get a regular gig writing about TV for a magazine or website that won’t immediately close down) before they pulled their entire blog. This is the unedited version, because the edited was so comprehensively translated into American that it often didn’t read like me.

And I should add in the interests of balance, this week’s episode of Psych was awful. Fortunately, last week’s was one of the best ever.

At the mention of its name, the reaction people give to Psych tends to be, “That show? Really? I saw maybe one episode – it seemed alright.” I want to put that right. I want to convince you that Psych is the most entertaining show on TV this summer. I will use a collection of silly names, and a pineapple.

The show’s conceit, to put it mildly, is contrived. Shawn Spencer (James Roday, Miss Match) is the son of a retired cop, who spent his childhood having observational skills drummed into him by his forbidding father. As an adult he’s kept his hyper-observant talents, but no job for longer than three months. That’s until his habit for solving crimes by watching the local evening news caused the police to become suspicious. Needing a way out to prevent his being arrested, he invented the story that he was a psychic, convincing the officers and detectives by throwing out a few ‘hot reads’ based on all the stuff his eagle eyes had spotted. Well, convincing all of them but one, the surly Detective Lassiter (Timothy Omundson) remaining heavily sceptical.

Realising the potential for this, and being asked by the (interim) police chief (Kirsten Nelson) to help out on a case, Shawn ropes in his childhood best friend, Burton ‘Gus’ Guster (West Wing’s Dulé Hill), and forms the private detective agency, Psych. So far, so much nonsense. But that’s the key. This is about nonsense, from top to bottom to either side. It’s a celebration of being silly, loosely draped over a fond parody of procedural crime drama. Embrace the nonsense, and you won’t be able to resist the show.

Created and overseen by Steve Franks (er, writer of Big Daddy, but ignore that), Psych’s ensemble cast (also including L.A. Law veteran Corbin Bersnen as Shawn’s dad, and Maggie Lawson as Detective Lassiter’s junior partner, Juliet O’Hara) are given a joyful freedom to improvise within the structure. And fantastically, they’re all competent and confident to do that. In fact, many of the series’ best running gags have begun as off-script moments.

So a typical episode: There’s a flashback to the 80s, as we see little Shawn and Gus up to some childhood shenanigans, which will reflect on that episode’s theme. Cut to the present day, and Shawn and Gus stumble upon a crime, often a murder, either by coincidence or being called in by the police. Shawn then scans the scene, takes in all the vital information, and cracks irreverent comments in inappropriate surroundings. Gus huffs and puffs in the background, and complains that he should be at work, or runs outside to be sick. Then Shawn drags Gus along on his entirely illegal methods of investigation (breaking into places, reading private documents, that sort of thing) and then later has a “psychic vision” for the police that legitimately leads them toward what he’d illegitimately found. Ploughing through a few suspects, and a row with his dad, eventually Shawn will pip the cops to the post, and present his Poirot-meets-Seann William Scott accusatory speech. The criminal fesses up, and Lassiter groans. Cue gags for epilogue.

But the reason this works, the reason this is the show that should be filling your empty months of television’s summer wasteland, is because this is simply the framework to support that episode’s daftness. Each episode is themed. Perhaps it’s spoofing a particular television programme, like season 2’s opener, American Duos, tearing American Idol a new one, with the most cruel and hilarious mockery of Paula Abdul’s, er, tiredness and confusion. Nevermind Tim Curry as a Simon Cowell-like, spitting venomous bile while someone is incessantly trying to murder him. Or perhaps it’s their recent tribute to The Goonies, with Steven Weber as Shawn’s treasure hunting uncle, brilliantly titled “The Greatest Adventure In The History Of Basic Cable”. (Actually, I want to throw a couple of other episode titles at you, because, well, they’re brilliant. “Meat Is Murder, But Murder Is Also Murder,” for instance. Or how about, “Woman Seeking Dead Husband: Smokers Okay, No Pets”? Their Latino soap opera episode, “Lights Camera… Homicido”? But I don’t know whether, purely for its literal simplicity, “Gus’s Dad May Have Killed An Old Guy” can be beaten).

Each episode contains an array of running jokes. Shawn introducing Gus to a stranger is always best, and one of the gags that began as an improvised moment by James Roday when he said, “Hello, I’m Shawn Spencer and this is my partner, Gus ‘Sillypants’ Jackson.” The writers picked up on it, and it’s inescapable. “My name is Byron Bojangles III, this is my partner, Shutterfly Simmons.” After breaking into hospital changing rooms, emerging in a white coat: “Hello, I’m Dr. Howser, and this is my personal candy striper, Nicknack.” Forced to work alongside his father in this season’s “Disco Didn’t Die. It Was Murdered!”, (a ludicrous tribute to 1970s cop shows, including the most remarkably dumb excuse for having them dressed up in appropriately ‘hip’ clothing), he exasperatedly interrupts Shawn’s attempt with, “Yeah, yeah, that’s his partner Methuselah Honeysuckle, which makes me Old Scratch Johnson.”

I’m not winning you over with silly names? How about a never-explained love for the pineapple, the pleasingly-shaped fruit making a cameo appearance in every episode, no matter how strained? No? Dammit. Well, try this: Psych has to be the only show on television in which the two heroes run away at the merest sight of danger. Both are complete cowards, pegging it the moment something unusual happens. The gusto they put into their fleeing is worth the show alone.

I’m not sure it can be done without just watching it. And I implore you to give it a go. The cast are so strong, and confident enough with their roles to be able to try to throw each other in the middle of a scene. Outtakes prove that rarely is the same line delivered twice in following takes. The guest stars are increasingly fantastic, the most recent featuring the permanently brilliant Jane Lynch. The themes are increasingly rich, the second episode of the current run (“Murder?… Anyone?… Anyone?… Bueller?”) built around every John Hughes movie ever, including Shawn’s performance of all the dances from that awful scene in The Breakfast Club. Oh, just watch it, please!

This is what it comes down to: Good television writing is to be treasured. That it happens to be a show with the most ridiculous conceit of all, and one that frankly doesn’t make much sense by season 3 where he might just as well tell the police he isn’t a psychic, what with a proven record of over 30 arrests based on his observational skills, isn’t a reason to roll your eyes at it. It’s a reason to realise the writers totally get that, and love it. They mock conventions of television constantly, Shawn once thanking Gus for “nutshelling” the story so far. It’s self-aware, bubbling over with enthusiasm, beautifully scripted, and with a stunning cast. It just happens to be ludicrous. And that’s great. And that’s why you should love it. Final proof. Watch this utterly irrelevant trailer.

(Not embedded because the USA network is so ASTONISHINGLY stupid that they’ve prevented embedding on A TRAILER FOR THEIR PROGRAMME.)

The Amazing Race – CBS

Well, what’s to say. Eleven teams of two in a race around the world. It’s such a huge idea, and it’s still working sixteen seasons in. Perhaps what I like best about the global scale racing nonsense is that the best teams tend to win. Stupid people go out first, unpleasant people then follow, and generally it’s the nice lot left to win at the end. And if you don’t love Phil, there’s something wrong with your DNA.

Burn Notice – USA

Season one of this programme was confused. After a horrible pilot it quickly ditched a few ideas, found a groove, but didn’t really know whether to take itself seriously. By season three it really knows what it wants to be. Light-hearted, while dealing with life or death situations. The gimmick – that burned spy Michael Weston narrates giving advice to the audience for how to be a spy in various situations – still works. And it seems to trust Bruce Campbell to be Bruce Campbell a lot more. The most recent episode featured Campbell doing the most fantastic spoof of CSI, openly playing for laughs, as is more frequently the case. The theme now is for Weston to have a long-running nemesis whom he must work for/against in the hope it will get him closer to learning who burned him, while taking on weekly cases for the seemingly infinite number of friends of friends in trouble. This means we get to see him trying juggle both situations, and inevitably his chain smoking mother, while teaching us how to bug a car or break into a guarded office. It’s so silly, and thankfully it now knows it.

Caprica – Syfy

I’m still not sure what I think of this four episodes in. Boy, they weren’t kidding when they said Dynasty with robots, were they? It doesn’t make a lot of sense bearing in mind the channel it’s on. Were this on ABC, I could see the sense in trying to establish soap opera plots between warring families and so on. But it’s on the Sci Fi channel (no matter how idiotically they choose to spell that), and I’m not convinced that your average drama viewer really wants there to be an eight foot robot with the soul of a teenage girl trapped inside it. In fact, I feel like I’ve just talked myself out of watching it.

Dexter – Showtime

How could I have forgotten Dexter? Well, mostly because its run had finished by the time I wrote the last post. After a disappointing third season, season 4 really brought it home. Season 3 couldn’t figure out what to do with Dexter, and ended up meandering wildly while really only repeating patterns. The arrival of John Lithgow changed everything. Dexter had someone to look up to. A serial killer who’d been working for decades, and one who managed to maintain a family – Dexter’s dream. With Rita having had their baby, and her previous two kids now thinking of Dexter as their father, he struggles to calculate how to maintain this and allow his dark passenger time to hunt and kill.

* And then of course he learns the truth. The moment Lithgow erupts at his wife, roaring at her that she’s a “CUNT!”, is astonishing. It’s like a rock being thrown at a stained glass window, shattering and falling to the ground, the bare reality of the horror revealed. Dexter’s moment of realisation, that this man is no one to look up to but in fact his next worthy victim, is extraordinary. And then it becomes a fantastic cat-and-mouse chase, Dexter racing not only to kill his new enemy, but also to beat his sister before she solves the crimes. It still has some absolutely terrible dialogue – for such an original show the writers really do love to lapse into the most ghastly cliché. And the final twist, which I can’t bring myself to spoil (or believe really happened, for that matter – can’t it just be a dream?) means season 5 is going to be… it’s going to be traumatic.

Family Guy – FOX

I think I said most of what I have to say about this the other day. But I also think people are talking nonsense with the constant cries of Not As Good As It Used To Be! I remember people saying this after season 1, then it was season 3 when its quality fell, and now it’s maintained that it was great up until season 5. It’s still great. Sometimes. Sometimes it’s pretty average. As has always been the case.

Glee – FOX / E4

Wow, I was watching this, then got a few episodes behind, and suddenly it’s an international phenomenon with multiple songs in the charts and everyone’s discussing it everywhere non-stop. Which is odd, since I was convinced it wouldn’t find an audience. My reasoning being, it was too dark, too clever, and too mean-spirited. The pilot was on TV before the Summer, which was another strange moment. And then POW! Biggest thing ever. So it shows how much I know. Although since I gave up around episode four or five, I think it was declining pretty fast. What I liked about it was that it seemed to be mocking the High School Musical movement. It seems to have become the High School Musical movement. If it’s managed to do this while remaining as cruel and cynical, then I’m delighted. But I’m not sure I’ve the energy to find out.

House – FOX/C5

* I’ve heard people argue House is nicer this season. I dispute this. After the end of season 5, with his complete nervous breakdown, the writers had multiple directions to head in. I rather dreaded they’d pick the easiest – reset status quo. House gets out of the psychiatric ward, gets hold of pills, everything’s back the way it was and we carry on. It would have been fine, since the way it was was bloody excellent. But it would be a lame decision. Another terrible idea would have been a redemption pathway for House. They didn’t do that either. Instead they picked the best route of all.

House clean from opoids is still a dick. He’s also a far more interesting dick. He’s gained dimensions. He very occasionally feels guilt. He understands that doing something will upset someone else unfairly. He does it anyway. So people are suggesting this means he’s now a nicer person. No he’s not! Now he’s doing the unbelievably cruel things to his friends and colleagues while able to empathise with the pain it’s causing.

More than ever the patients are purely background detail for the real focus of an episode. The only equivalent I can think of is Homicide: Life On The Streets, where the murders were not the episode’s arcing theme, but rather the excuse to see the cast interacting. And thank goodness. I don’t know whether it’s an in-joke on the show to have House discover the real cure for a patient at 38 minutes into an episode, but I don’t think there’s been an episode in two seasons where it hasn’t happened in that minute. Even in the most recent episode – the Cuddy special that didn’t feature an on-screen patient of any sort – still managed to have the resolving discovery happen minute 38. Because this is a programme about how House treats his staff and friends, and it’s utterly excellent. If it became about anything else it would fall to pieces, and the team behind it seem very wise to this.

How I Met Your Mother – CBS

This hasn’t been a good season for HIMYM. It’s fantastic that it’s reached a fifth year, despite never receiving the confidence boost from the network of being recommissioned before the end of its current run. But this season has lacked for the rich ideas that made it stand out previously. In fact, it’s only been able to refer back to previous running gags (goat, slap bet, etc) rather than start any of its own. It’s still charming, often funny, but the spark is missing.

It came back in force for the glorious 100th episode, which not only had Tim Gunn appear as Barney’s personal tailor, but also the spectacular Suit Song, along with its gigantic choreography. It was a wonderful episode, and one that seems to have pointed things back in the right direction since. Which is very promising. But I think time is running out for revealing the titular Mother. We’ve been to her apartment, met her housemate, seen her umbrella, and we know she was in the lecture hall Ted wasn’t supposed to be in. But guys, you’re incredibly lucky to get five seasons, and you simply aren’t going to get ten. Reveal the mother now.

Human Target – FOX

I’ve only seen the first three so far, but this is gloriously silly fun. Appearing to compete with 24 for overblown situations, it’s about a private-for-hire bodyguard who protects people in the most dangerous situations. A 300mph train, an on-fire 747, and, er, a party. The star, Mark Valley, looks as though he were carved by the same sculptor as Steve McQueen, and does a fine job of looking confident and sturdy.

Thankfully it’s very aware of its silly high concept, boosted by Chi McBride (Pushing Daisies) and Jackie Earle Haley (Rorschach in the Watchmen movie) both in comic roles. If they can keep the budget to maintain the scale, this will hopefully remain a fun action-movie-as-television series.

There have been other programmes that have taken this “no taboos” rule to more effective and more shocking places, such as the astonishing Wonder Showzen, and Drawn Together. But these were on cable. Family Guy is on at primetime on Sunday nights on Fox. Having been cancelled twice by the network, it’s proven itself fairly invincible, and with McFarlane’s new contract breaking all records they know they’re not going anywhere. And to embrace this the most recent episodes having been pushing things further and further, including as many digs at Fox as they can cram in. Last Sunday’s was particularly shocking. At least, I thought so at first.

The story focuses around Chris, the dimwitted teenage son, asking a girl with Down’s syndrome out on a date. Immediately you can make some pretty strong arguments pointing out how non-offensive this is, as Chris has absolutely no problem or concern about her disability. He’s attracted to her, and wants to go on a date with her. It’s only Stewie (the baby) who thinks there’s anything strange about it. But there’s no point in persisting with that, because it absolutely is offensive. It’s all out, hell-for-leather offensive. In fact, see if you can spot any joke they didn’t manage to get into the following truly gob-smackingly offensive song:

However, what happens next is of interest.

Chris goes on the date, and the girl is a jerk. She’s rude, selfish, unfair and manipulative. He has a horrible time, because she’s a douchebag. And I’d argue that this might just be the most inoffensive portrayal of a disabled person in television history.

Writers fall over themselves to ensure that anyone with a disability is heroic. Just being alive makes them brave! Those poor dears. Even the mighty Steven Moffat fell apart completely when putting a paraplegic character into Press Gang. It’s the precise opposite of equal opportunities. It’s patronising, and it’s embarrassing. Family Guy did an awful lot better.

There’s a larger question about the “equal opportunity offender” position to be asked. For instance, Family Guy does jokes based on gross racial stereotypes. It doesn’t do this because it believes that Asians can’t drive, or black people can’t swim, or whatever racist meme they’re picking up on. It does this because making jokes based on such notions are so ludicrously offensive. The presumed intention is not racism. It’s shock. The question is, how is an outside observer supposed to distinguish between a joke about all black people being criminals, and a joke about saying that all black people are criminals because you shouldn’t? And if that distinction isn’t apparent, is there a distinction at all? In a few decades will we look back on the days of Family Guy, Drawn Together, The Sarah Silverman Program, and so on, and see it as any different from the unironic racism on display in 1970s sitcoms?

The argument is that they’re offensive to everyone, not picking on any one group or minority. And that’s true. No one goes un-mocked, whether deaf, old, Latino, white, gay, disabled or murdered in gas chambers. To treat one group (by whichever choice of grouping you might pick) as special is offensive. To say, “It would be fine if McFarlane only picked on white middle class Americans” would be the highest hypocrisy.

But at the same time I’m tempted to believe McFarlane is a sociopath. The jokes will upset people. And not always people who deserve to be upset. (Plus I gave up watching another of his shows, American Dad, because the volume of homophobic jokes led me to wonder if he really did have a problem with gay people. And because it’s not very funny.) No rape victim deserves to be mocked. But Family Guy mocks rape victims. It mocks rapists too. And it mocks people who are offended by jokes about rape.

This particular episode has come to more attention because Sarah Palin has spoken out about it. And not out of the blue. She has a son with Down’s syndrome, and the episode makes a direct reference to her. The teenage girl with Down’s explains that her mother is the former governor of Alaska. It’s a reference that really doesn’t make much sense – Palin has a baby son, this was a teenage girl. But it was a deliberate provocation of the lunatic far-right politician. I’m not sure what the purpose of the reference was, but it was presumably simply just to be another shocking thing to say. One that, I’d argue, didn’t work particularly well. There’s a million reasons to mock Palin, but her having a disabled son doesn’t seem like it’s one of them. But when you have no rules, no boundaries, no taboos, such reasoning doesn’t apply.

Which leaves me confused about what I think. I find Family Guy very funny. I’d be a hypocrite to say otherwise. And a big part of that is being astonished by the things it says and shows. But then I also would never wish to apply its principles to my life. I believe in satirising and mocking those who are deserving. But then to make such a statement I’ve apparently appointed myself arbiter of who deserves to be mocked – a ridiculous position to put myself in. Family Guy doesn’t act in such a moralising and hypocritical way as I. So no, I’ve no fixed position on this at all.

But for one. I believe it’s okay to be offended. As a white, middle class, 30-something male perhaps I’m in too luxurious a position to make such a statement. But am I now once more applying the same patronising attitude? It’s okay for me to be offended because I’m white and middle class enough to be able to handle it! I’m turning into Chris Morris’s character on Brass Eye: “But what about people less middle class, less educated than me? Builders or blacks for instance?” So let’s go back to the beginning: I believe it’s okay to be offended. I get my fair share of mocking, often cruel, for being a Christian. I see jokes about Jesus or my faith that offend me. My response isn’t to call for the perpetrator to be silenced. It’s to be offended for a moment. It’s not a nice feeling. I live through it.

There’s a difference between being offended and being persecuted. And when we, as a society, treated offence as persecution, we belittle persecution.

The cruellest thing that can happen to any children’s television programme is its ironic adoption by the student classes. Teens and twenty-somethings oh-so-knowingly put up posters of popular pre-school characters, but, wait for it, here they’re smoking a spliff, or taking a dump! How astonishingly clever and, let’s just say it, satirical. The system, the Man, is truly smashed to bits like someone took a bulldozer to a Sylvanian Families collection.

These wretched people misunderstand any magical programme they touch, ruining the gentle, repetitive loveliness of everything from The Magic Roundabout to the Teletubbies, Bagpuss to Bob The Builder. But this isn’t to say that adults shouldn’t be able to sit and enjoy the output of channels like CBeebies or Nick Jr. If capable of watching them without becoming enraged by the numbers of arms a presenter may possess, there’s much to be appreciated on exactly the level the creators intended. But sadly any programme that doesn’t treat its child audience as plankton, bothering to work hard at being thoughtful and involved, seems to be subsumed by the weed-addled idiots.

There is, however, one programme that knows exactly what the ironic pissants will do to it before they let loose their first nasally snort. One that has them beat from the start. Yo Gabba Gabba is the creation of indie hipsters Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz, and is quite possibly the most perfect under-five’s television programme if you don’t count Sesame Street.

Hosted by the result of a mad scientific experiment combining Ultimate Cool with Nerdiest Geek, DJ Lance Rock is the sort of bespectacled person at a nightclub who’s dressed like a complete dick, but surrounded by interesting women, and yet you don’t begrudge him at bit. Looking like Moss from The IT Crowd dressed as an orange Jimmy Saville, he begins each episode by unpacking a metallic case containing the show’s five main protagonists.

They are Muno, a one-eyed orange carrot-like creature covered in peculiar blobs; Foofa, which sounds like the name an embarrassed legal clerk from Surrey might give her vagina, and who looks disturbingly like something you might buy from Ann Summers; Toodee, a blue cat/dragon; Plex, a “magic robot”, who appears to be able to beam people into their colourful set, as well as store dirty biscuits in his tummy compartment; and Brobee, who looks like a fluffy germ with a ferocious monobrow.

The five are put down into the wide cardboard set that DJ Lance looms over, and then spring magically to life as we see them close-up, now actors in costumes. Lance, I presume, is some sort of deity to the Gabba creatures, whom they crudely worship in the form of songs and dances, celebrating their love for bugs, or declaring which foods are yummy. So far, so every other kids’ show on TV. But where Yo Gabba Gabba gains its broad appeal and cult status is through the indie influences that permeate every aspect.

Jacobs and Schultz were both young parents, sick of the vile, putrid noise that was pouring out of children’s TV channels like an endless soup of brightly coloured vomit, and decided they could do better. In their mind ‘better’ meant ‘bearable for adults’.

Hooked into the San Francisco indie scene (Jacobs was, and is, a member of the ludicrous ska band, the Aquabats), they realised they weren’t the only people they knew discovering themselves in their 30s with children who needed both supervision and distraction. Indie bands who had hit their peak in the early noughties were now having families – a whole generation of people still ostensibly cool were pulling their own faces off in horror every time the TV screen was filled with a purple dinosaur.

And so Yo Gabba Gabba was born. A programme for pre-schoolers that contains a slot where Biz Markie (of tuneless hiphop joyfest hit single, Just A Friend) teaches kids to beatbox. A programme where ultra-cool band The Shins sing a new song called ‘It’s OK, Try Again’. Where an animated sequence explaining how families are related is sung by beautifully sombre Mormon miseryguts, Low. Short stabs between segments feature references to early-80s videogames, meaningless to the target audience beyond the pleasure of moving colours, but a treat for watching adults.

The songs sung by the main cast are also hideously catchy. After visiting friends with an eighteen month old, I found myself singing about my fondness for bugs (creepy-crawlies rather than diseases) to anyone who came near for the next couple of days. Other tunes encourage trying new foods, not eating things you’ve dropped on the floor, and that if you fall down and hurt yourself, you need to get back up and shake it off (although I’m not sure if this applies to severe neck injuries).

The whole thing is consistently smart, but never, ever smug. There’s never a sense of sneaking a joke past the kids, but rather it’s just gloriously interesting, to whichever level you choose to apply yourself. And best of all, the sneering student who wants to look down on it is going to get a horrible fright when he sees Hot Hot Heat or The Ting Tings eagerly performing to the creatures, or skateboarder Tony Hawk leading everyone in a Dancy Dance, and he realises the show is laughing at him.

Forget notions that American television is somehow harmful to the under 5s. Yo Gabba Gabba is a festival of entertaining and educational scenes, coupled with surrealist counting sequences, films of children showing how much they like to dance, and tips on how to draw a cat. That the elements of each episode are remixed at the end by DJs like Mouse on Mars, Languis and Mike Relm, won’t mean anything to the audience it so clearly cares very much about, but offers yet another reason to sneak it on the Sky + after the kids have gone to bed.

Oh, and this is everyone’s favourite song from the show. And oh my goodness, this one is beautiful.

Archer – FX

After an enormous post-pilot hiatus, Archer finally starts its series proper. It’s the latest from Adam Reed (Sealab 2021, Space Ghost Coast To Coast), and follows the formula: fast-paced adult cartoon with little interest in coherence or human decency. On FX rather than Cartoon Network, it frees things up to be a little ruder, swearier, and more callous. And it works well. The brilliantly droll Jon Benjamin (Dr. Katz’s Ben) plays Archer, a secret agent of sorts, who isn’t quite incompetent but more simply hateful. His mother is voiced by Jessica Walter (Arrested Development’s Lucille), along with Aisha Tyler (CSI, I guess), the compellingly lovely Judy Greer (I loved her in the very short-lived Miss Guided), and SNL’s Chris Parnell. Two episodes in it’s unsurprisingly great, as you’d expect from Reed, and really quite fantastically wrong too.

Being Erica – CBC / E4

There is no girlier show that I enjoy watching, and this one’s astonishingly girly, and I enjoy watching it a great deal. Premise: 30 year woman visits therapist who sends her back in time to previous parts of her life to relive them, to see if she can change regrets. It’s very hard, once that’s been said, to convince anyone that this isn’t some Quantum Leap rip-off but with more mentions of tampons. It’s not. In fact, it’s actually a very sophisticated allegory for the process of therapy. Erica does not go back to change the past. (Well, she does once, and the consequences are big enough for a finale cliffhanger.) She goes back to change her understanding of the past. This may mean she handles a situation differently, generally to find out that the consequences are much the same. But rather than putting right what once went wrong, she instead explores the elements of her past that shape who she is today, and in analysing them understands herself better. With tampons. It’s smart. If always going on about weddings and baby showers.

Series 2 seemed to have a great deal more confidence in itself. The first series seemed to be constantly apologising for its science fiction. Series 2 has no such issues, introducing emo moper Kai as another time traveller, Drs. Fred and Naadiah alongside Dr. Tom, and even saw Erica go into the future as well as the past, along with other time-bending ideas. It also gave us some background to who Dr. Tom is, if not any answers as to exactly what he is. It was still marred by her constantly weeping sister, and certainly far too much time was spent faffing around in Erica’s day job at the editors (do I really care about the office bitching when she could be going back in time?). I still have to apologise to my penis before watching, but it’s my guilty girly pleasure.

Being Human – BBC 3

(covered here)

Better Off Ted – ABC

This came out swinging, and just swings harder and harder. Halfway through the second season and it’s the best comedy writing on TV. Set in the offices of evil corporation Veridian Dynamics, the stories follow Ted, morally ambiguous but entirely loveable senior employee and respected colleague of malevolent boss Veronica, optimistic but unmotivated Linda, and research scientists Lem and Phil. The double act of Lem and Phil is the stand-out feature, but with serious competition from every other character. Linda’s meandering dreams of some semblance of morality in the company, constantly thwarted by her own complete lack of ambition and energy, always ensure the programme never descends into saccharine chipper ways, while Veronica’s inability to comprehend the need for emotion is never corny or clichéd. Ted is a rock, but never simply “the good guy”. And there’s evil mould, killer pumpkins, racist water fountains and memos enforcing insults in the workplace. Most of all, it’s the volume of beautifully written lines, and the extraordinary timing of the patter. Which, it seems, may be partly down to improvisation from the fantastic cast, as this (incredibly foul/brilliant) outtake reel reveals (NSFW).

The Big Bang Theory – CBS

Okay, right, so I’m saying Better Off Ted is the best written, below Community is credited with being the funniest. TBBT’s award is: makes me laugh the most. It’s an odd distinction I realise, but it would be completely false to claim that the writing here is as smart as either of those two other shows. But I laugh so much harder at this one. It’s perhaps down to the performance of Jim Parsons as Sheldon Cooper, whose physical comedy is as funny as any of the dialogue. And it’s such lovely dialogue. The show is still true to its original theme – four genius geeks having the absurdity of their lives highlighted through the perspective of their regular-girl neighbour. It’s interesting that it hasn’t tried to make Penny a genius, or the four guys into more mundane normals. It shows confidence.

The other stand-out feature of TBBT is that there’s an audience. How I Met Your Mother technically has an audience, but one it doesn’t seem to want – it’s so quiet and uninvolved you tend to forget it’s there. But here they’re part of the show, and it’s much better for it. They’re there, not dubbed on, not watching it on tape later (which I have to assume is how Mother does it), and so the cast are performing to them. I love moments where someone has to give up on their next line because the laugh is much bigger than expected. It’s an all but dead art, and it’s so fun to see it still working so well here.

Bones – FOX

Oh, Bones. Bonesybones. You great big silly puddle of a show. The previous season appeared to be an attempt to break the world record for number of sharks jumped by a clumsy exploding clown car, leaving season 5 with almost nowhere to go. Expert forensic scientist Temperance ‘Bones’ Brennan and FBI Agent Seeley Booth continue to solve crimes by getting their friends to reconstruct faces from a piece of burned ash and a left toe, use computers from outerspace, and spend every non-work minute having coffee together. Meanwhile the rest of the cast take it in turns to snog each other. But after season 4 had Booth see ghosts, talk to cartoon characters and eventually dream an entire episode set in a nightclub, well, I can’t even end this senten

So with all glimmers of sense removed, there’s barely any pretence that they could care less about solving any crimes. Continuity was never exactly a strong point for the show (it seemed like the writers played an elaborate game of consequences, where one would show the next episode’s scribe only the last scene, and they’d have to guess everything else that happened), but now it really has nothing to offer but the “will they/won’t they” of Booth and Bones. And hell, that turns out to be enough. So long as Stephen Fry keeps showing up every few episodes, and Sweets keeps counselling Booth and Bones, I’ll keep watching. It’s beyond idiotic, and I love it.

The Border – CBC

It shouldn’t be able to get away with it. The self-assured pomposity of The Border is remarkable. A programme about Canadian border police, that’s somehow about fighting international terrorism, drug cartels, and prostitution rings. For a nation with so little gun crime, they sure have a lot of gun fights. And explosions. And brutal deaths. The sheer volume of peril faced by this group of special agents with seemingly unlimited power (the number of times they’ve defied the Canadian government I’m surprised they haven’t personally overthrown it) is terrifying. I’m scared to go there. The decision not to write Gray out of the show after his actions at the end of the last series has made most of this run seem a little peculiar. But now Grace Park is a regular cast member it’s hard to complain about anything else. Jonas Chernick’s Slade is still the best thing about it, and in series 3 it seems they’ve realised that too, giving him a much more major role, and allowing some phenomenally geeky jokes to get in. Ludicrous, but great fun.

Bored To Death – HBO

This was the best show of 2009. I forgot to mention it. Sorry about that.

The extraordinary Jonathan Ames takes his flesh-exposed confessional writing to television, writing himself as the lead role (played by Jason Schwartzman, no less) in a semi-fictional version of his life. In the show Ames has written his first novel but cannot get started on his ill-advised second, while writing articles for Edition (edited by a best-role-of-his-career Ted Danson) and recovering from the break-up of his relationship. After reading some Chandler and consuming much white wine he decides to place an ad on Craigslist advertising himself as “an unlicensed private detective.”

But rather than descending into a crime procedural, or anything so obvious, it’s always a programme about the robustness of Ames’ vibrant denial and peculiar desire for fun in the face of mundane reality. In fact, it’s so relaxed about itself that some weeks there’s no mention of the PI theme at all. It comes up, he tries to find missing people, or recover lost objects. But more often he’s attempting to rescue the pathetic Danson from what appears to be a life-long mid-life crisis, or prodding his friendship with Ray, played by (one of the greatest stand-ups) Zach Galifianakis.

Ames merits comparison with a 1970s Woody Allen, and each episode contains at least one line that is greater than many writers will come up with in their careers. (“I’ve always been intrigued by Stockholm Syndrome. It makes me think of my childhood.”) Schwartzman is as brilliant as ever, Galifianakis gets to use all his strengths and is used so sparingly that you crave each of his scenes, and like I said, Danson is better than he’s ever been. The guest casting is equally precise, with John Hodgman as a snivelly, spiteful critic, Oliver Platt as the editor of GQ, and Sarah Vowell in a tiny, perfect role as an interviewer.

It’s remarkably calm for a programme about man-children incapable of maturity. The Ames of Bored To Death is not quite as sexually ambiguous and confessional as the Ames of real life – the irony being it would seem less realistic if he were – leaving you sure that there’s no want for ideas and source material as it continues. The first series was only eight episodes, but a second series was immediately commissioned due to its deserved ratings.

Castle – ABC

I’m glad I stuck with this one. Obviously Nathan Fillion is a great reason to watch a show, but the first 13 episode run never really found its niche. Too similar to, well, every other crime procedural, it was the mismatched cop-and-X formula done with little more imagination than Fillion’s charisma to carry it. Season 2 is a complete change. Now there’s a sense of glee about the programme that’s intentionally inappropriate for solving murders. Castle literally jumps for joy at the discovery of a new dead body, and therefore more mystery solving fun. His stoic, glum cop buddy has significantly lightened up, her mopiness given motive (the unsolved murder of her mother) but her character embellished with mischief and an admission of fondness for Castle.

Castle’s an odd character for such a show. The Mentalist works because Patrick Jane is smug and untrustworthy. Bones works because Bones is (mostly – see above) incapable of empathy and inhuman in her mannerisms. But Castle has almost no unpleasant side to him. He’s grounded by living with his aspiring actress mother and calm, friendly teenage daughter. He gets one well with both, which is frankly astonishing for television – a dad who gets on with his daughter?! (And one of the best changes made in season 2 has been to tone down his mother, make her more supportive and less ludicrous.) His gleeful response to murder is distasteful, but infectious. His passion for solving crimes is adorable. And of course the will they/won’t they is a joy, with the pair now exchanging compliments as well as sarcasm. It’s sarcasm with a smile – it’s a lot easier to root for them. And with the most recent episode, it demonstrated an ability to be serious too, without being slipping into being boring. It’s a remarkably cheerful programme.

The only thing left to fix is the supporting police cast. The Mentalist made this mistake in its first season, leaving them anonymously in the background. Now all three are known and fun. You could change all the actors playing the cops in Castle and I’d never notice. It would perhaps be nice to give them some personalities.

Chuck – NBC

It lived! Oh thank goodness it lived. That we live in a world where Heroes gets recommissioned without thought, and Chuck requires a massive campaign for fans: well, something’s wrong. Also, it’s good to be right.

A lot of wrong people declared that Chuck’s Intersect v2.0 at the end of season 2 was a bad idea, as it would make him too powerful. Me, being a genius, I worked out they’d do exactly what they did. It only kicks in at certain moments, meaning Chuck is still a regular guy, but now he’s one who occasionally turns into a kick-ass superhero spy, but not on purpose. It’s lovely that it’s worry that prevents it from working. It forces Casey and Sarah to treat him differently. The humanity of this show is its greatest strength, and it still pulses with it. The constant theme is Chuck’s humanising those around him, more obviously with Sarah, and to some extent to Casey. The most recent episode demonstrated this really beautifully with Superman lookalike Shaw putting on his wedding ring. The Intersect v2.0 has proven to be a ton of fun, and the stories seem bigger, with more action, and despite the comical methods of putting all the players back where they were before they moved them all at the end of the last season, there does seem to have been development in a lot of the characters. And of course there’s the required WTWT? here too, and that’s being handled cutely, if without much originality. I’d like to see a bit more geekiness coming back into the main plots, but otherwise it’s a real joy that it survived for another run.

Community – NBC

Better Off Ted has the best writing, but Community is the funniest. My expectations were low – I didn’t think that McHale had the chops. I was spectacularly wrong. I adored the pilot so much I started it again the second it finished, and it’s barely dipped since then. The only disappointment is the lack of regular appearances by John Oliver, and the enormous over-use of Ken Jeong as Señor Chang. (He’s great, but he’s not as great as the show seems to think.)

Even though the sitcom nailed the characters from the first episode, it’s also allowed a lot of room for their best features and most effective stories to develop and evolve. The highlight of all of these is the friendship between jock Troy and Asperger’s nerd Abed. So strong has their double-act become that they generally get the credits to themselves for some deeply peculiar performances. (That’s until this week’s astonishing cameos, and a MASH joke that made me cough with laughter, took the glory.) Abed’s awareness that they exist within a sitcom could be handled really clumsily, but so far it’s been perhaps the finest part of the show. It’s not quite It’s Gary Shandling’s Show, but it adds a really interesting dynamic, and gives them an excuse to plunder some loved clichés without the need to be oh-so-desperately ironic about it. It seems so good that it would surely be cancelled after only six episodes, but it’s back after Christmas and going strong.

Cougar Town – ABC

Bill Lawrence’s decision to finish Scrubs and move on was the right one. Scrubs had managed to still be lovely after eight years, but was definitely on the wane. He so enjoyed working with Courtney Cox at the beginning of that eighth season that he created a new sitcom for her, and Scrubs was put to rest. Then Scrubs was recommissioned.

Bill Lawrence’s decision to carry on Scrubs was the right one. Enough changed (well, almost everything changed) that the show is reinvigorated, but more on that later. Cougar Town, meanwhile, seemed at first to be an unfortunate use of a lot of his attention. When it began it was very awkward, his need to have a group of friends who regularly interacted so contrived that it felt like watching a series of stage instructions rather than a script. But it’s improved every single week, and now at the mid-point of the season has become something quite lovely. Quickly abandoning the nonsense story of Cox being a “cougar”, wasting her time on men too young for her (something Lawrence stated he would be changing from the start, as it happens, despite the name), and removing the antagonism between most of the characters, it allowed for the six or seven regulars to naturally hang out in a variety of locations, and then the comedy can flow. Every character has had their extremely rough edges smoothed down, letting Lawrence’s best skills shine: affectionate banter between likeable people. It’s not as good as Spin City, and it’s leagues behind Scrubs (but then Scrubs was leagues ahead of most sitcomedy), but it’s become rather lovely.

Dollhouse – FOX

I’m not sure there’s room to list how dreadful this programme was. Room on the internet. A surprising number of people enjoyed the second series more. I put this down to Stockholm syndrome. (I’d like to stress that I thought of that joke before rewatching Bored To Death, so there. Which means I’d like to further stress that I don’t think my joke is one hundredth of Ames’ gag.) It doesn’t seem worth picking over the mess, but beyond the discovery of a wonderful actor and mimic in Enver Gjokaj, there’s nothing I remember fondly. Oh, apart from fancying Mellie. A bad idea from the beginning, and one that never found a reason to exist. The ending was so beyond idiotic that my eyes and ears fell off trying to endure it, and now it’s gone. I’m not sure which is more sad: Firefly’s cancellation, or Whedon making a programme I wish had been cancelled sooner.

Eastwick – ABC

Cancellations are always sad, unless it’s Dollhouse. None was sadder than Defying Gravity (which I’m leaving out since it vanished so long ago, but I still miss that awesome programme), but Eastwick was a pretty huge shame too. Being Erica was my girliest show, but this one came close. Rather than starting the Witches Of Eastwick over again, it took the smarter route of setting it 30 years after the known story from the film/book. A new group of three women make a wish at the fountain in Eastwick, and call forth Darryl Van Horne to bring out their natural witch powers. So in what form will he appear? How can he be anything other than Nicholson? And no, Christian Slater would not do. So when it turned out to be Paul Gross, star of the Best Programme Ever, Slings & Arrows, I squealed out loud like the pathetic man-girl I truly am.

Gross’s Horne was magnificent (snigger), pure evil yet silky smooth and endearing. The three witches were fun, the murderous storylines nice and dark, and I assumed it had enough soapy content that it would keep a broad audience happy. Maybe it was too long after the phenomenon of Wicked. Maybe its tone was too dark for the la-la-la crowds. Maybe I’m mad and it was rubbish. Still, I’m sad that it’s no more. And I’m especially sad that the final episode suddenly jumped weeks after a series of cliffhangers from the penultimate episode that it never resolved, and then ended with even more unfinished stories.

The final episode was different. (Spoilers follow.) Enough threads needed to be brought together that writer/creator Toby Whithouse was forced to begin with drama and stay there, and it was a dramatically better programme. Optimistically, the first episode of the second series managed the same.

It’s now the tale of a ghost, a vampire and two werewolves who live together, but it knew to be dark, threatening and often deeply cruel from the beginning. With the danger of the first series resolved, new threats needed to be introduced, and if the episode was particularly weak anywhere, it was here. Between watching Nina coping with her lycanthropy, Annie attempting to adjust to her slightly more corporeal form, George coming to terms with his having killed a man, and Mitchell’s malaise at realising he was no longer, well, under threat (“You’re a piece of deadly furniture.”), we’re suddenly faced with cutaways to some evil wizard’s castle. Well, an evil Christian’s laboratory. Being able to see what he’s up to, before he’s even been introduced to the characters, the story, anything, feels exactly like every bad cartoon. So we see him performing evil experiments on a werewolf, and it feels like we’re snooping on something that’s none of our business. By the time he is connected to the rest of the show, in the final scene, he’s even more ludicrous, shuffling around their empty house melodramatically quoting Old Testament references from the King James Bible to no one at all. Sigh.

There are other problems too. Russell Tovey playing werewolf George seems like he’s being given direction by someone who’s stumbled in from a 1970s sitcom about trousers falling down while vicars come for tea. He seems to be a perfectly good actor – his furious delivery of “FUCK YOU” in Nina’s face is probably the most effective moment in the episode – but for some reason most of the time he seems to be doing a lame impression of Lee Evans, stammering and jabbering idiotically when a scene calls for calm and severity. This was catastrophic in series one, this Some Mothers Do ‘Ave Em tedium ruining vast swathes of episodes. It’s more contained here, but sadly still appearing too often. Fortunately most of his scenes are tempered by Sinead Keenan’s Nina, who is just magnificent. (She was one of the few highlights of the most recent Doctor Who finale, as one of the completely pointless cactus people, but still completely engaging with about three lines and four tons of green make up.) She has a skill for facial expressions that had me watch her deliver lines three or four times in a row, just to enjoy the dexterity of the performance one more time.

Lenora Crichlow took ghost Annie on an interesting journey in the first series. She was the (deliberately) nauseating cheery one, whose story turned increasingly dark as she was forced to accept the awful circumstances of her own death. (A plotline that would have been hugely better if the so-called twist hadn’t been so glaringly apparent from the first episode as her moustache-twirling evil ex glowered menacingly into any camera he could find.) She seems to have been slightly reset here, back to optimism bordering on simple stupidity, and I guess that’s fine really. Her sobbing after a night of watching Nina’s suffering as a wolf justified any nonsense that was to come, and she delivered the best gag of the episode absolutely brilliantly:

George: Have you ever worked in a pub before?

Annie: No! But I’ve watched the Apprentice, and in the current job market there is less emphasis on experience, because at the end of the day… it is just about giving a hundred and ten percent.

Followed by an excellent exit, stage left.

Which brings up the other important point: Whithouse is a funny guy, and here having the jokes interspersed throughout makes them far more effective. Rather than wondering why there wasn’t a laugh track for half of each episode, so unrelentingly were they delivered before it was time to get gloomy, the humour emerges more naturally from the situations they’re in. (I’m very interested to see what he does with his episode of Doctor Who in a few months.)

I really hope the “everything’s okay again” ending doesn’t mean we’ll be back into that same state next week. It needs to stay dark, because that’s what it’s good at. It seems that none of the actors bar Sinead Keenan shine when trying to deliver jokes, but everything finds its groove when it’s all going horribly wrong. Although I’m not convinced Mr Bible Basher is quite the enemy to offer us much threat. We’ll see.