Jace Lacob and Maria Elena Fernandez offer their picks for the best and worst shows of the year.
The stakes are even higher for scripted programming these days, particularly on the broadcast networks, where just a few airings are more than enough time to make a show a ratings hit or get it yanked off the airwaves.
Several of the fall’s newest offerings were dead on arrival—from Charlie’s Angels to Free Agents—and all eyes were on the mammoth-sized budget of Fox’s Terra Nova, which arrived as the network’s publicity-machine went into overdrive, which makes the so-so ratings that the show found this fall all the more head-scratching.
With no Mad Men on AMC this year (it’s slated to return in March 2012), there was an increased opportunity for the networks and AMC’s basic-cable rivals to make an impact on viewers outside of the shadow of Matthew Weiner’s period drama, but AMC’s The Killing largely turned viewers into a murderous rage and Hell on Wheels proved to be, well, hellish to watch.
Below, Jace Lacob and Maria Elena Fernandez offer up their picks for the 10 best shows of the year, which include a PBS period drama, a modern Western, and an espionage thriller, to name a few, and take a look at the flip-side, choosing five shows that they each found to be at the bottom of the barrel or in need of calling out. WARNING: For those of you who aren’t entirely caught up on the shows below, read with caution—there are many, many spoilers.
No comments:
Post a Comment