When September comes around in the United States and February arrives in Australia, TV fans are stuck with a dilemma: how can one person possibly watch all the television they want to? How can you take chances on all the promising new shows while keeping up with your old favourites? Being a couch potato can be awfully hard work in the Golden Age of Television.
A few months down the track, it’s becoming clear which shows are working out and which aren’t. If the premieres you took a chance on didn’t exactly set your heart ablaze, here are some new shows that have lived up to their promise that you could seek out and catch up on, as well as some returning favourites that have hit their stride this season.
Shaun Micallef’s Mad as Hell
From its humble first season Friday night slot, through to its current prime position in ABC’s Wednesday night line-up, Mad as Hell has developed an audience, a unique voice and razor-sharp political satire. There’s been no shortage of material available for Micallef this year, and he’s clearly relished every opportunity to latch onto and point out the absurdities and hypocrisies of our political situation. Late last year, Peter Green asked on Daily Review where Australia’s Colbert was. Although there mightn’t be the audience to turn Mad as Hell into the same kind of institution, Shaun Micallef is surely the closest thing we have.
House of Cards
Political drama House of Cards became the first web-only series to score Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Starring Kevin Spacey at his vengeful best as Frank Underwood, the series is now into its second season. Critics have fallen in love with the near-Shakespearean tale of ambition and power, and the series has already been picked up for a third season.
Rake
If the American version of our legal dramedy Rake left you disappointed, you needn’t worry. The original is delivering in its third season, with more depth and a plot that continues to twist, turn and comment on local politics and business. By starting out the season with anti-hero Cleaver in prison, the writers have managed to push the character into new dramatic and comedic territory. The first six episodes of the third season are all up on ABC’s iView, so you can catch up before it finishes in two weeks.
True Detective
An integral part of Matthew McConaughey’s career renaissance (the “McConaissance”), the first season of True Detective traces two detectives’ hunt for a serial killer over the course of almost two decades. McConaughey stars alongside Woody Harrelson, but the second season will feature a new duo, with rumoured stars including Brad Pitt.
Looking
It was branded the gay Girls and then even the gay Sex and the City, but the tone of Looking and its style of storytelling set it well apart from those shows. Looking follows three gay men in San Francisco as they play, work and try to work their way through relationship and sex problems. The show has been met with plenty of criticism, with some calling it indulgently slow and many complaining that the leading trio are just too darn pretty to be taken seriously. But it’s a show that’s defined by a moody and stark naturalism that’s becoming a major force in television drama.
Bob’s Burgers
Bob’s Burgers is the quirky little cartoon that could. A lo-fi sitcom about a cheap family burger joint, it’s full of the kind of memorable, broadly drawn characters that made The Simpsons and Family Guy hits. The critics weren’t quite on board with the show in its first season, but since then it’s carved out its own niche and become a modest hit. Perfect late-night comfort comedy.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine
A charming new sitcom, Brooklyn Nine-Nine picked up and a torrent of glowing reviews and this year’s Golden Globe for Best Television Series – Comedy. Vulture said: “It’s mostly a lighthearted riff on cop shows, and buddy cop films — the kind in which officers banter about this and that, then chase down a perp or pop off a few rounds, so you don’t think they’re all talk.” It stars Andy Samberg and Andre Braugher as NYPD cops and a classic odd couple.
Line of Duty
Jed Mercurio’s Line of Duty became BBC2’s best-performing drama series in a decade when it premiered in 2012. British police dramas aren’t always as dark as you’d hope, but this series deals with counter-terrorism units and police corruption, and is a truly enthralling ride. The first season is currently airing on ABC1 in Australia on Friday nights, but there’s a second underway in the UK.
The Spoils of Babylon
A six-part miniseries spoof of epic “TV events”, The Spoils of Babylon had all the ingredients to be such an event: an all-star cast (Will Ferrell, Tobey Maguire, Kristen Wiig, Tim Robbins and Jessica Alba), a brilliant premise and some of Saturday Night Live’s best and brightest as creatives. It attracted strong reviews in the US, but failed to make any impact with audience numbers. It starts this week on ABC2, so it could just win a few Australian fans.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
It’s difficult to think of many series that have had the kind of obsessive cult following that RuPaul’s Drag Race has attracted. For the uninitiated, it’s basically America’s Next Top Model meets Project Runway, but much funnier and surprisingly heart-warming. And all the contestants are drag queens competing to be “America’s Next Drag Superstar”. After three episodes, it seems clear that this season’s contestants are living up to the high standards set in recent years. Australian queen Courtney Act is one of the early front-runners, giving local audiences somebody to root for.
Five that have jumped the shark
Here are a few shows that have been around for a while now and aren’t quite meeting the mark. Surely it’s time for these shows to be put to rest.
Downton Abbey
The ratings for Downton have remained consistent over its four seasons – it’s comfortable and unchallenging viewing, after all – but the writing has nose-dived and not even Maggie Smith’s wry line-readings can save it. The show attracted an almighty storm of controversy for gratuitously using a graphic rape scene as a major plot point. More than 400 viewers complained, but they were dismissed by Britain’s regulatory body Ofcom, which found the scene to be contextually justified.
Glee
There was a time when Glee wasn’t completely terrible. It was very brief, but I promise, there was. Glee really jumped the shark after its first 13 episodes. What was once a charming high school musical style comedy, with a little heart, became a completely vapid, celebrity cameo-filled pop-fest. You mightn’t have even known it was still airing, and if you did, surely you’ve switched off by now?
So You Think You Can Dance Australia
Channel Ten’s solution to its ratings problem? Bring back a mildly successful format that already felt a little outdated when it went off the air in 2010, change very little and chuck Paula Abdul on the judging panel. The ratings have been disastrous for Ten, dropping to 313,000 last Sunday night (almost as low as 2012′s Everybody Dance Now). Ten has thrown SYTYCD a lifeline and shifted it to Thursday nights, but it’s unlikely anybody will be watching.
Grey’s Anatomy
Yes, there are still new episodes of Grey’s Anatomy being made, and they’re still airing on Channel Seven. What started out as an ER for a new audience has now gone the way of the original ER, which itself limped through until it reached 15 seasons. Grey’s is slated to run for two more years, with both Patrick Dempsey and Ellen Pompeo signed on for an 11th and 12th season. But with the number of disasters the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital faces, surely they’d want to get out as soon as possible?
Homeland
Even President Obama loved Homeland back at the start! Remember the excitement and trepidation in every episode of season one? Do you remember when that excitement died? It was around the time Homeland failed to follow the upwards trajectory it had set for itself and instead began rehashing story lines from The O.C. with Dana. Everyone’s favourite character. I think we all missed the memo explaining the change from thriller to teen drama, and the follow up memo advising us to switch channels.