What I've Been Watching (or Not Watching)

 We're getting to the end of the year (and the end of the decade, which doesn't seem possible), so I'm at work now on putting together my "Best of" lists for 2009 and the 00s.

 And in some respects, this entry is sort of a trial run for the end of the year list, as I try to formulate my thoughts on what I consider 2009's best shows.

  

• One of them is Parks & Recreation. What started off last year as a half-assed Office clone has turned into TV's best and most charming sitcom. (The year's two critically acclaimed newcomers -- Modern Family and Community -- are also funny, but to me don't measure up.) If you're not watching, P&Ris a mock-documentary about mid-level bureaucrat Leslie Knope (played by Amy Poehler, above) in a small Indiana city. Like The Office's Michael Scott, she can be remarkably un-self aware. But unlike Scott, she's far easier to root for. Another way the show has borrowed from The Office (in a good way): it's fleshed out its supporting cast in such a way that you begin to know and like these characters after just a few episodes. (My favorite -- and everyone's -- might be Leslie's deadpan boss Ron Swanson. I think the moment I was completely won over by this show might have been the episode that revealed Ron had a side job as a beloved jazz musician named "Duke Silver.")
• I can't really berate people for not watching P&R because I wasn't a viewer until last week. No, I'd spent the previous weeks, like a masochist, watching FlashForward in the vain hope that it would become somewhat compelling, or even marginally interesting. Maybe in a few weeks, somebody will write to me and say "Oh, it's gotten a lot better in the past few weeks." Fine. I'll watch it in one big chunk on DVD. (That's how I watched the first season of Heroes. I'll bet if I'd seen it week-to-week, I would have gotten pretty bored.) As for FlashForward: great, great premise, lousy execution. I barely cared about the characters or the story by last week, and when I realized the plot was about to turn on a card game, that was it for me.
• Wow, this whole blog could be about Thursday night TV. I don't normally blog about Supernatural, because it airs at the same time as Fringe/The Office, and I usually wait to watch it Friday night or Saturday with my girlfriend. But it's always been a fun show, and has only gotten better in its last two seasons, as the writers introduced God, angels and the devil into the show's mythology. It's as scary as the X-Files, and (almost) as clever as Buffy. And these days, it doesn't feel at all like a show in its fifth year.
• Finally, a confession. In the past few months, my girlfriend has gotten me hooked on Hell's Kitchen. Normally, I hate these kind of contest shows. I hate the meanness, I hate the confessional camera scenes.  I hate the way reality TV has conditioned the people who appear on it to act like people on a reality show (hence the endless, endless repetitions of "I didn't come here to make friends, I came here to win.") But I am fascinated by Gordon Ramsay and the show's awestruck hero worship of him.  Also, as Megan says, it's just fun to watch him yell.

 Tom Coombe

Comments

[Brian Callaway]

I disagree on two moderate points 1) While P&R has gotten much, much better, Ron is my least favorite character - don't know why, he just rubs me the wrong way. And 2) P&R is really good, but there's no way it's better than "Modern Family" - that show makes me laugh out loud like "30 Rock" did a couple of years ago.