TV Review: Tube tops

New viewing models take hold as television’s Golden Age rolls along

For television junkies, 2013 will go down as the Year of Netflix. The digital streaming platform came into its own and bested cable’s old guard by producing and distributing outstanding original content in a manner that catered to the new binge-watching norm. Water cooler conversation became about the lost weekends spent mainlining “House of Cards” and “Orange is the New Black,” whose entire first seasons were made available for viewing upon premiere. Meanwhile, HBO made its own contribution to this shift (and put another nail in the coffin of DVDs) by providing a deep well of catalogue titles through its on-demand web service HBO GO.

The following is not meant to be a complete representation of the year’s best television — I missed more than a few shows that might have competed for inclusion. Some blind spots in need of forgiveness: I’m woefully behind on “Boardwalk Empire,” which I hear has blossomed into something great. I haven’t seen a frame of “Getting On,” HBO’s comedy about aging, or Christopher Guest’s mockumentary series “Family Tree,” or FX’s cop drama “Justified.” Same goes for “The Good Wife” and “Sons of Anarchy” and “Modern Family.” I’m currently working my way through Jane Campion’s impressive “Top of the Lake” miniseries, but was unable to complete it before writing this column. Also missed were HBO’s two big movies — Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace biopic “Behind the Candelabra” and David Mamet’s “Spector.”

On the failing end of the spectrum, there were some especially disappointing misfires: Showtime’s “Masters of Sex” was a promising concept that turned out to be a stodgy, passionless slog. AMC’s “The Walking Dead,” which I’ve watched sporadically throughout its run, continues to be a deathly serious, boring rehash of Romero’s zombie apocalypse narrative. Fox’s Kevin Bacon/Kevin Williamson serial killer thriller “The Following” played like a parody of bad crime shows. The revival of “Arrested Development” (another Netflix move) proved incapable of living up to the nostalgic hype and expectations of its fanbase.

The worst thing I witnessed this year was the disastrous final season of Showtime’s serial-killer-as-superhero drama “Dexter,” a show I’ve loved and defended for years even as its slow decline became impossible to ignore or justify. The series finale — the ridiculousness of which I won’t spoil for you, even though you should never watch it — will surely go down as one of the worst in history.

But TV in 2013 certainly wasn’t all bad. These ten series proved yet again that the small screen is no longer the cinema’s silly stepchild, but a narrative force to be reckoned with.

1 // Breaking Bad
Closure, thy name is Vince Gilligan. The final season of the best show on television managed to be everything to all viewers. From the explosive climax of antepenultimate “Ozymandias,” the pulpy meth drama takes a hard left turn and goes quiet with the last two episodes, leaving Walter White and the audience ample time to contemplate just how far down the rabbit hole we’ve gone. Its concluding moments found the perfect balance between consequence and redemption, leaving most fans feeling a bittersweet mixture of mourning, exhilaration and perfect satisfaction.

2 // Mad Men
Anyone who says Mad Men has gone downhill or “gotten boring” is not to be trusted. Matthew Weiner has distilled what was at first a soapy parade of un-PC retro-porn into a model of literary elegance and restraint. As layered and complex as a classic novel, the show now demands a level of focus at odds with today’s short attention spans. There is no plot, only happenings. It’s all rich, complementary metaphor and razor-sharp subtext. The evolutions of Don Draper, Peggy Olsen and the supporting staffs of SCDP and CGC are as messy, confusing and (often) infuriating as the seismic cultural shifts occurring around them. The show demands discipline and patience from the viewer, but it’s immensely rewarding.

3 // House of Cards
Netflix redefined the parameters of television with this pedigreed mammoth: a pitch-black drama from director David Fincher, playwright Beau Willimon and actor Kevin Spacey about an Iago-like corrupt congressman who endlessly manipulates his way through the backrooms of Washington in his quest to end up in the White House.

4 // Girls
Lena Dunham is a force of nature, and people love to hate her. If she were a man, she’d be heralded as the heir apparent to Woody Allen. But she’s a woman who comes from money and artistic affluence, and has achieved an extraordinary level of success at just 26. She’s also not afraid to expose her imperfect body to the camera. So, the Internet calls her spoiled and coddled and fat and exhibitionist. But Girls is just too incisive, vivid and honest in its portrayal of millennial narcissism and sexual confusion for any of the ad hominem attacks to hold water. Love or hate the characters, it’s an exquisitely realized show by a writer who knows what she’s doing.

5 // Game of Thrones
Anyone looking to understand the abusive stranglehold Game of Thrones’ third season had on its viewers needs only to Google the video “Viewers React to Red Wedding.” The anguished, moaning cries of dozens of fans, secretly recorded by friends who knew what was coming, as they watch several of the show’s most noble characters slaughtered in a single scene is disturbing and hilarious, and a testament to the medieval fantasy’s storytelling power. 

6 // Homeland
After a promising but uneven inaugural season followed by a disappointing second run, Showtime’s CIA thriller finally got it near perfect the third time around with a finale that upended everything we’d come to expect from the show. The only question is how it can possibly continue from here.

7 // Veep
A funny, glib satire of American political ineptness, made by the same Brits responsible for “In the Loop” and “The Thick of It,” starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as an eternally put-upon vice president who just wants a little respect from POTUS. Call it the comic flipside of “House of Cards.”

8 // New Girl
Yes, it’s a vehicle for Zooey Deschanel’s manic pixie cuteness, with a worn Friends-like premise and relationship contrivances aplenty. But the thing about “New Girl” is that, despite its broad sitcom trappings, it frequently finds the sweet spot between honesty and optimism in its portrayal of 30-something relationships.

9 // Orange is the New Black
Netflix’s other big success story of the year featured some of the most complex, richly drawn female characters to appear on the small screen. Jenji Kohan (Weeds) took Piper Kerman’s memoir and used it as a springboard to explore race, class and gender couched in a comedy of prison manners.

10 // Eastbound and Down
The profane comedy of red state values and prejudices rebounded from its lackluster second and third seasons with a gut-busting fourth and final run. Danny McBride’s Kenny Powers is an American antihero for the new millennium — xenophobic, deluded and self-sabotaging at every turn, but somehow still lovable.

Honorable mentions // The Killing, American Horror Story, Master Chef, Hello Ladies, Portlandia