I still am a big TV Junkie, but I admit there is just too much TV to really keep up with these days. So with shows appearing on all kinds of online services, and shows getting cancelled left and right, I don’t commit to a new series very often. While I have my old favorites like “The Walking Dead” and “Ash vs. Evil Dead” and while I buzzed about my favorite show of the year, “Stranger Things” earlier in the year, I managed to squeeze in time to watch a few other new TV shows that I had a very good time with. These are five shows I kept up with adamantly and plan to return to next year.
What were your favorite TV shows in 2016?
Honorable Mention: Channel Zero, Daredevil, The Walking Dead, 60 Days In
5. Search Party
TBS
The way TBS aired the entire season in one week and then shoved this all on one day as a “binge watching” opportunity, I was fairly certain “Search Party” would be forgotten. Thankfully with TBS renewing it we can soak in the absurdity and idiocy even more. My main draw for “Search Party” was the gorgeous and insanely talented Alia Shawkat, but “Search Party” allows for a weird and oddly entertaining experience that involves a group of really obnoxious millennial yuppies. There are also a ton of cringe inducing moments of dark comedy, including a weird candle light vigil and sing along, and main character Dory (Shawkat) being berated by Chantal’s mother and brother during a wake. The finale leads to a revelation I hope we see more of in the second season. I’ll be coming back for more, since Shawkat is an always charming and criminally underrated character actress.
4. Better Things
FX
Frequent Louis CK collaborator Pamela Adlon stars in what is a very unique semi-autobiographical chronicle of her life with her daughters. Adlon is Sam Fox, a single mother still reeling from a bitter divorce. She struggles to cope with impending middle age, while also balancing her love life, her professional life as a character actress, and as a mom for three very difficult daughters. A lot of episodes find Sam at her wits end, and constantly fighting with her trio of daughters, all of whom are finding their way in the world, and are often incredibly petulant and obnoxious. “Better Things” finds its niche in a formula like “Louis CK” where things just happen, and there really isn’t a premise. One episode literally begins with Sam trying to move a table down to the garbage, and ends with her and her daughters having chicken dinner with a group of Mexican laborers in their driveway. Adlon is a bold mix of sexy, and witty, and the show is consistently entertaining.
3. The Detour
TBS
Created by Jason Jones and Samantha Bee, “The Detour” is like a correct reboot of “National Lampoon’s Vacation.” Where in the cinematic reboot was considered a misfire by most, “The Detour” fixes that with a large macguffin and plenty of black comedy. Jason Jones and Natalie Zea are hilarious as two dysfunctional parents that alternate between yuppy guardians of two kids, and hardcore stoners. The cast of four do a great job playing off one another, all the while Bee and Jones write in some fun obstacles on their road trip including urine hurling truckers, a strip club mistaken for an ice cream parlor, weird auto mechanics, a really awful hotel, a very racist theme restaurant, and a weird arc involving a millionaire and his underage Russian bride. Funny, weird, gross, and fun, I’m glad TBS brought it back for a second season.
2. Sweet/Vicious
MTV
I’m hoping MTV brings this series back for a second season as it’s a very out of the box drama thriller. In a year where almost a dozen men have been let off the hook for rape and molestation, “Sweet/Vicious” is the show we need right now. When college student Ophelia realizes there’s a masked vigilante running around her college beating down men and women accused of rape, or complicit to rape, she begins investigating. When she learns seemingly non-threatening sorority sister Jules is waging a war on rapists in secret, the two team up and begin stopping sex predators. Slick, exciting, and filled with commentary about double standards, the screwed up justice system and college politics, it’s an often great drama thriller.
1. Speechless
ABC
The ABC Network has been very good about contributing to diversity on television with a lot of hit sitcoms with great substance and complexity, involving minorities and homosexuals. “Speechless” sets the spotlight on a family whose oldest son JJ lives with cerebral palsy and incapable of caring for himself or speaking. Along the way we see how their family comprised of overbearing but well meaning mom Maya, very laid back but caring dad Jerry, their inadequate middle son Ray and tough youngest daughter Dylan, live with this situation, and how they work together to overcome a lot of really terrible situations.
There’s also the excellent Cedric Yarbrough as Kenneth, JJ’s helper and literal voice who learns first hand what JJ’s life is like and learns to love the family very gradually. I also love how disabled character JJ, as played by Micah Fowler, is not depicted as this magical, all knowing, plot device everyone cries over, or a gimmick. JJ can often be like every teenager. He can be selfish, self-centered, rude, and obnoxious, and even lies to his family in one episode so he can get drunk during a party. “Speechless” tackles a very little explored facet of America, and it’s filled with charm, heart, top notch acting, and a lot of laughter.