Actually, while I was making this list I realized I didn't love a lot of TV this year, but I did watch a ton of it and since I'm stuck in an office building on Wilshire until 5 o clock today, fuck it I'm making a list. Go ahead and argue with me in the Facebook comments and call me an idiot for not liking The Leftovers.
10. GLOW
I watched the entire season of Glow after being at a warehouse party until 5 o clock in the morning the night before. During that five hours I ordered pizza from Domino's two separate times, ate an entire party size bag of Kettle brand Jalapeno chips and threw up once. It was a great day. When the season was over I watched all of Wrestlemania 17 on the WWE network, honestly I'm shocked this didn't make it higher on the list.
Anyway, Alison Brie is probably my favorite working actress in 2017 and I have a soft spot for any period piece that has at least a tertiary connection to cocaine. Marc Maron was phenomenal, Chris Lowell's Bash was shockingly accurate to every trust fund burn out I know, and I'm a sucker for any show set in LA because it's the best city in the world.
9. Riverdale
In 2004, I bought the OC season one DVDs on a Black Friday special. I started watching the following Sunday, skipped school Monday and Tuesday and finished the 27 hour season early Wednesday morning. Since then I have watched the first season probably 10 times all the way through, tried multiple times to start an OC podcast and once hit the earthquake button in an elevator at Manhattan Beach studios to trap an OC producer in there and forced him to tell me stories from the set.
I'm not as much into Riverdale but Camila Mendes is a bigger star than Mischa Barton and Rachel Bilson combined. She plays Veronica Lodge, one of the main love interests of the show's protagonists Archie Andrews and she steals every scene she is in even if she isn't central to the plot at that moment. If you gave up on the CW when you turned 18 (or 30) give it another shot. The show is sexy, fun, and often times silly. They took an old comic and turned it into the next great teen soap, in fact the biggest shocker of the series is that it isn't written by Josh Schwartz.
8. 13 Reasons Why
Look guys, spoiler alert. This list isn't going to include Handmaids Tale. Sex slavery is just something that goes a little too far for me, but teenage suicide? SIGN ME THE FUCK UP. Honestly, it's shocking that anyone was able to get this show made, but I think it had a lot to say about bullying and the angst of being a teenager. I think we look back on that time in our lives with rose colored glasses and think how great it was, but guess what? IT WASN'T.
Barstool ran this poll yesterday: Would you rather live life 8-18 again or 18-28? The answer is 18-28 easily because during that period of time you get lots of one night stands, lots of Taco Bell without getting fat and you discover alcohol and MDMA. I would rather die than live 13-15 again, just a bunch of me sitting by the phone hoping someone would invite me to do something. That's what makes 13 Reasons why so tragic; Hannah was so close to living 18-28.
7. Ozark
Fun fact! My extended family owned a condo in the Ozarks for 15 years when I was growing up and I loved going there. It is so delightfully tacky, it's the Branson of large lake communities. There are probably 45 mini golf courses (the cool ones, with ramps and gimmicks and shit) 18 Go kart tracks and 17 floating restaurants that you boat up to and then leave completely fucking trashed because BUIs aren't a real thing.
You can imagine my horror then when I realized the show doesn't shoot on the actual Ozarks. Whatever, it's a decent enough Breaking Bad rip off. While watching the pilot I realized how much I love a show when someone gets thrown off a building as an extreme act of brutal violence, it's so metal. Think Martin Sheen's death in The Departed, The Comedian in Watchmen or DB Woodside in Romeo Must Die. Anyway, fun show! That Jason Bateman can sure direct.
6. Love
Welcome to Dave's Hollywood corner, I will now tell you a story about Love that you can use at abrs to impress your friends. Love was co-written by real life married couple Paul Rust and Lesley Arfin. They conceived of the show as a starring vehicle for themselves. Finally Judd Apatow got his hands on it and told them that he could get it made at Netflix, the only caveat was that Lesley had to be re-cast, this made her irate but she went along with it because creating a TV show is hard. Anyway, she was such a jerk to Gillian Jacobs on set that Netflix BANISHED HER from set season 2. Also Lesley might be a racist so maybe creating a show isn't all it's cracked up to be.
ANYWAY, the show is so easy to write that I decided to make it my spec for when I applied to all the minority fellowships this spring. (Yes I know I'm a white guy that just got back from Aspen but I thought maybe they would forget to check) My spec was about the four main characters going on an impromptu trip to Coachella and crashing an influencer event at the General Mills party. It was awesome! Except for the plot twist when I found out Love wasn't on the acceptable spec list 24 hours before the submission deadline.
5. Game of Thrones
All the best of lists I'm reading this year are leaving off the recent season of Game of Thrones because it was a down year. Instead critics are opting for wacky newcomers like Marvelous Miss Maisel. Really guy? You think some woman in a fun outfit trying to do stand up is better than fucking dragons roasting alive a guy named Dickon? They're wrong. Game of Thrones is the only appointment television in the country, the only show you must watch every Sunday at 9pm to stay culturally relevant.
Also Jon Snow and Dany fucked. That was cool.
4. American Vandal
If I would have spent a tenth of the time in college being creative that I spent trying to score invites to every top tier sorority dance I probably could have been Jimmy Tatro. But that's fine, now he has a hit tv show and I have a Zeta barn dance 2008 shirt. They're just as cool if you ask me. TV shows are finite, college popularity is forever.
The show, which is a mockumentary style prolonged dick joke over 10 episodes was probably the most surprising show of 2017 and as someone that listened through Serial twice I'm probably the target audience for a show making fun of bros, Oceanside and true crime. Give it a shot if you're looking for something different to check out this holiday season.
3. Big Little Lies
I'm just going to get this out of the way. I like rich people. I like doing rich things. I plan on marrying up. I posted seven times from Aspen because I wanted you motherfuckers to know that I ski and have a certain degree of family wealth. (Or at least a time share with enough points to get an off peak weak at the Hyatt Vacation Club!) I detest phrases like woke and privilege so if you give me a show about a bunch of rich white women sipping expensive wine in Monterrey I am ALL the way in.
The show which takes its story from an Australian novel (which I read because I'm interesting) is a snap shot of #firstworldproblems over seven extravagant hours of sunsets, 12 million dollar mansions and fake niceness. Reese Witherspoon is a completely believable bat shit crazy mom struggling to maintain her grip on reality, but the performance you stay for is Nicole Kidman. I was never a huge fan until this show, she is electric on screen playing a battered woman and I could now spend the rest of my life watching her awkward award ceremony cutaways where she nervously kisses Keith Urban.
2. Bojack Horseman
It was a weird year for Hollywood. Basically all of our fears were confirmed and everyone is a monster. And while comedies about people behaving badly are starting to run thin on their shtick (Always Sunny, You're the Worst, Curb) leave it to a talking horse to absolutely skewer an entire industry with the most biting satire of the past 20 years.
Raphael Bob Waksberg is one of the sharpest writers in Hollywood and in four years some may think that he is starting to lose a little speed on his fastball but Bojack continues to have one of the most interesting perspectives making it not only one of the best animated shows on the air but one of the best shows period.
Honorable Mentions: Mind Hunter, Red Oaks, Narcos, The Keepers
And apologies to the shows that I haven't watched yet...Black Mirror (Dec 29) (almost put it number 2 on trailer alone) Peaky Blinders (Dec 22) and Dark (Dec 15)
1. Master of None
Ok so after I found out Love wasn't an acceptable spec I had 24 hours to write one on the approved list, I chose Master of None. In my spec Dev and Arnold travel to Italy in a Planes, Trains and Automobiles influenced romp in order to stop Francesca's wedding to Pino. (Road trip movies are the best) I took 40 mg of Adderall and finished the final page 19 minutes before the application was due.
Master of None is the show that Girls wanted to be, it perfectly expresses everything it means to be a Millenial without all of the holier than though pretentiousness that made me want to throw myself off a bridge every time Lena Dunham opened her mouth. There is a scene in episode five of Master of None season 2 where there is a static shot of Dev in the back of a cab for five minutes bemoaning the fact that he didn't have the courage to tell a girl that he was in love with how he felt. It is a perfect scene, I've been in that exact moment for about the past two years. It's brutal. There are some rumors swirling that Aziz maybe isn't the greatest person IRL but this show is perfect and if it turns out he's a huge creep I'm burning down Los Angeles and moving to Aspen to spend the rest of my life as a ski lift operator.
Thanks for checking out my list guys, feel free to share your thoughts or make recommendations!
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