Best Television Episodes of 2009
Hell of a year for TV. Hell of a year.
In case you're wondering, here's my judging criteria:
1) Effectiveness as an individual episode (with an emphasis on writing/acting/artistic achievements within the given episode)
2) Effectiveness as a part of a season/series narrative (with an emphasis on writing/acting/artistic achievements fitting into the season/series as a whole)
Let's roll...
12. “Landing At Point Rain” -- STAR WARS THE CLONE WARS (2x05, 11/4/09)
Plot summary: Anakin, Ahsoka and Ki-Adi-Mundi lead a landing party to destroy a droid factory that Poggle the Lesser has rebuilt on Geonosis, but things go terribly awry when Separatist gunners shoot down the Republic ships. Despite heavy losses, Anakin and Ki-Adi-Mundi must rendezvous in time to destroy the enemy factory before it can begin production.
From my full review here:
[T]his past week's episode, was quite simply, their best episode to date, and mainly because it was a non-stop 22 minute orgy of death and destruction, an animated version of (I shit you not) "Day of Days", the D-Day episode of HBO's BAND OF BROTHERS, WE WERE SOLDIERS, and THE LONGEST DAY. [...] Season Two of CLONE WARS has been revisiting planets from the prequels to great effect, and in revisiting the action climax of the second film, actually manages to top that sequence in terms of action and carnage, and for the first time in this show, managed to communicate the horrific cost of a full scale battle like this (I even got the sense that the Republic forces might not survive this engagement).
11. “Hungry Man” -- DEXTER (4x09, 11/22/09)
Plot summary: Dexter continues to try to understand The Trinity Killer by talking to his family; he discovers that Arthur Mitchell may not have the perfect mask after all. With Dexter out on the prowl, Rita gets a little help with her busy household from her handsome next door neighbor, but his motives may not be all that honorable. Debra continues to investigate the Trinity Killer and may be getting a little too close for her own safety.
Thanksgiving is the designated holiday to depict family dysfunction in movies and TV, and this marvelously twisted episode, Dexter’s seasonal “top of the roller coaster” episode was a squirm-inducing entry into the Twisted Turkey Day genre.
From Matt Fowler's review at IGN.com
A few hours before I watched "Hungry Man" I was actually thinking about the creepy, perverse nature of Dexter and how it had gotten a bit diluted over time. That's not to say that the series hasn't remained a top notch show, but as the character of Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) has made emotional strides to become more "proto-human," the series has evolved with him and made different things the focus of his interest. Family. Children. The dream life. If you look back to Season 1 and how outlandishly morose it was and how it had a real nasty bleeding heart at the core of it, you might begin to wonder if that type of horrific glee could ever be re-captured. Low and behold, as soon as Arthur Mitchell's (John Lithgow) wife, Sally, said, "Do you think Rebecca could come out now?" I knew this episode as going to spiral into a whirlpool of dysfunctional hate and warped traditions.
It was fascinating to watch Arthur's family and how each of them have been horribly scarred their own way by his monstrous mania. Here, all along, we thought that he was the perfect husband when really he's been a foul creature that's been torturing his family for years - keeping them in a perpetual state of torment. It might feel like the show's flipped around a bit, or that things might have been presented in a misleading manner for us, but you have to remember that most of Dexter is presented to us through the eyes of Dexter. We're used to taking his narrative and his voice-overs as the status quo. If he saw, at a cursory glance, Arthur to be a loving husband and a dedicated family man then that's what we saw. Arthur's bi-polar trek over the past few weeks finally stabilized in this episode, and now with a new lease on life he seems more determined to hold his family at a noose's length more than ever.
10. “Grilled” -- BREAKING BAD (2x02, 3/15/09)
Plot summary: With Walt and Jesse trapped with Tuco, Marie and Hank comfort Skyler over his disapperance.
I watched this one on my laptop in a movie theater while waiting for the film to begin, and was utterly riveted (unlike the Michael Bay flick that followed). Tense as hell, you’ll never think of a bell in the same way again.
From Tim Goodman's review at The San Franscisco Chronicle:
There are images and there are images. To me, one of the great TV images in 2009 is Uncle Tio ringing that damned bell. As a TV critic, I live for days when television writers come up with something like that. So they sat around the room and they concocted the mute uncle with the sinister look, the dead, half-asleep eyes. But all the time you know he's ten times as dangerous as anybody in Walt or Jesse's world. How to make a slobbering old TV watching fool become menacing? Well, clearly, a bell. Let me take this moment for a very deep bow. Well played, "Breaking Bad" writers. Well played. Ding.
Here's how "Breaking Bad" can go on for a long time. Just have whole episodes like this, where the day seems to go on forever and the danger seems to be insurmountable. If the writers can craft one truly great extended scene that, in terms of time used, barely takes up half a day in Walt's dwindling life, I'll take it. So the notion that you're held captive and you're about to be driven off to Mexico to make meth around the clock while your wife thinks you're missing and your unborn baby has no father is one that resonates with any character. It says, "This is bad. Do something."
9. “Torch” -- RESCUE ME (5x13, 6/30/09)
Plot summary: After dealing with a particularly horrific accident on the job, Tommy questions his feelings in a dream sequence with his dead father, brother and son, and Jimmy Keefe. Meanwhile, Sean has an unwanted visitor at the hospital; and Lou has a very-much-wanted visitor to his apartment.
Perhaps the series’ best use of the “ghosts” yet, “Torch” had particularly evocative staging for the "clean up" scene (a powerful reminder that less is indeed more). Bravura, stage-like performance by Denis Leary.
From Todd VanDerWerff's review at The A.V. Club:
“Torch” is one of the best hours of Rescue Me ever and one of the better hours of TV drama I’ve seen in a while. Everything in the episode, from its central device, to its comic relief scenes, to even plotlines that I normally roll my eyes at, works. It’s a great examination of the show’s central character and just why we find him so compelling to watch, even when the show in question is kind of wandering all over the place. It’s a dark and gritty hour that doesn’t flinch from looking at some real ugliness, and that’s to its credit. If I could, I’d almost leave it at that. If you’re a fan of Rescue Me or have ever been a fan of Rescue Me, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.
[...] But good God did this episode belong to Tommy, locking himself in the back room of the bar and watching that video of his kids that Mickey gave him last week. Seeing his son again, Tommy took another swig from his bottle and was visited by the ghosts of his son, his brother, his father and Jimmy. It was another decidedly stage-y sequence for the show (though I was quite taken with the cinematic lighting in the scene, which kept it all very hushed and spooky), but it was one of the better uses of Tommy’s ghosts in quite a while, and it both redeemed the fact that the show has spent so little time focusing on the death of Connor (which should have been a lot more horrifying for Tommy than it seemed to ever be) and a lot of Tommy’s swagger.
(Set up for this clip: The crew has arrived on scene at a multi-vehicle traffic accident, and veterans and probies alike have been highly affected (vomiting, turning away in disgust) at the sight of a dead child thrown from the car (not shown on screen). They are discussing covering up the body parts from traffic-goers when the clip begins)
8. “Come, Ye Saints” -- BIG LOVE (3x06, 2/22/09)
Plot summary: The entire family heads east on a pilgrimage to Cumorah, New York, the location of a Joseph Smith shrine.
I love BIG LOVE when it’s not focused on the Juniper Creek nonsense, so this episode, focused solely on the family, was like Manna from Utah.
From Amelie Gilette's review at The A.V. Club.
In addition to being thoroughly juicy, last night's episode was a great one. In a dense, thorny show like Big Love, where even the subplots have subplots, it was a refreshing change of pace to spend fifty-five minutes almost entirely with the Henricksons-no compound intrigue, no Home Plus, just a short flirtacious phone call from Ray the DA, and only a smidge of Bill's casino business, mostly for comic relief (It's strange to hear someone say "You want Tony Orlando? You can have him!" without a hint of exasperation). What started off as almost a FDLS-version of Vacation-kids playing with dead grandma's ashes! Margie & Ben catching each other naked!-with Bill as Clark Griswold leading his family on a harrowing pilgrimage to his version of Wally World, the Hill Cumorah pageant, gradually became a true test of faith, at least for Barb and Bill. And as the Henricksons wound their sizable caravan across the country from Sandy to New York state, the show expertly traveled from comedy to drama along many different paths.
7. “Dead is Dead” -- LOST (5x12, 4/8/09)
Plot summary: To atone for sins of the past, Ben must attempt to summon the smoke monster in order to be judged.
From my mini review here:
The bill has also come due for crafty ‘ol Ben, and sociopath that he’s been since his miraculous resurrection, it was his secret heart that saved him from Smokey’s judgment in the end (and the Hume family as well). As a direct sequel to one of last season’s best episodes (“The Shape Of Things To Come”), “Dead is Dead” was almost by default one of this year’s best shows as well, although at this point any Ben-centric episodes is solid gold. Chalk it up to Brian K. Vaughn at the typewriter.
6. “Tomorrow Blues” -- FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (3x13, 1/14/09)
Plot summary: In the third season finale, Eric and his contract are up for discussion. Lyla and Tim talk about their future together. Mindy and Billy's wedding day has finally come. Tyra waits for some hopefully happy news about her waiting list status.
From my full review here:
I didn’t envy the hurdles writer/show runner Jason Katims had this week; he had to construct an episode that served as both a season finale, as well as a potential series finale. It had to be conclusive enough to wrap up the stories of most of its characters, and yet some how be open-ended enough in case FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS completes that Hail Mary pass and gets a fourth season pickup. In both cases, Katims succeeded, writing yet another heartfelt goodbye to his characters in what seems to be a season full of great ones.
5. “Gina - Week Six” -- IN TREATMENT (2x30, 5/18/09)
Plot summary: Paul turns the tables on Gina by questioning her about her relationship with her parents.
Byrne and Wiest at the absolute top of their game. Rule number one: Don’t fuck with Gina. She’s better and smarter than you. Directed by Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler!)
From Alan Sepinwall's review at What's Alan Watching?
What's usually so wonderful about Dianne Wiest's performance as Gina is the extreme control she displays in front of Paul -- both how she manipulates him where she wants him to go, but how she keeps her own emotions buttoned up tight. While Paul is obviously more demonstrative with Gina than he is with his patients, it's more of a matter of degree; it's not stunning that the guy who occasionally loses his patience with the likes of Luke and Bess might explode even more when outside the confines of his role as a therapist. So to see Gina finally, after two seasons of goading from Paul, lose it and unload on him... amazing. I usually take meticulous, near-transcribed notes of these episodes, but when we got to Gina's outburst, I put the computer down, except to jot down an occasional line or two, because I didn't want to miss a second of this when I might be otherwise distracted by making sure my notes were correct.
4. “Belonging” -- DOLLHOUSE (2x04, 10/23/09)
Plot summary: We learn more about Sierra's connection to Rossum and the twisted trail of deception, obsession, and murder that led her to the Dollhouse.
DOLLHOUSE hit its second season stride here, and never looked back. Brilliant use of both the series’ history and future. Perhaps the fact that it wasn't Echo-centric helped.
From Todd VanDerWerff's review at HitFlix.com
It’s too bad that Fox all but signed the death warrant for “Dollhouse” this week, too, because this was easily the show’s best episode since “Epitaph One” (or “A Spy in the House of Love,” if you pretend “Epitaph” doesn’t exist for some reason). The momentum the series has been building since “Man on the Street,” outside of one or two clumsy episodes, finally feels like it’s coalescing into something, living up to the potential the story has always had to be about the fluid nature of identity and the ways corporations oppress us all. One of the episode’s earliest shots encapsulates neatly everything that makes this show worth paying attention to, as the spurned playboy Nolan is told by his desired one, Priya, that she would never love him, and then the set dissolves around him, resolving into a new one, one year later, as Priya - now Sierra - rushes into his arms and kisses him, programmed to desire him and only him. Just as Sept. 11 spurred a bunch of shows about what Americans were willing to put up with in the name of personal safety, “Dollhouse” feels like one of the first great shows of the economic meltdown, one of the first shows to question the line between what can be bought and what is morally defensible.
3. “Service” -- SONS OF ANARCHY (2x11, 11/17/09)
Plot summary: The rest of the club finds out what happened to Gemma and plot their revenge on Zobelle and Weston. Opie learns the truth about Donna's murder from Tig and the club deals with the fallout. Opie goes after Agent Stahl for her role in Donna's death. Jax learns something about Zobelle and LOAN. Chibs comes clean with the club about his dealings with Agent Stahl.
In case you couldn’t tell by the synopsis, “Service” contained jaw dropping payoffs to at least four major plotlines and was so gut-wrenchingly intense I forgot to breathe at certain points.
From Alan Sepinwall's review at What's Alan Watching?
One of the trademarks of "The Shield" was watching Vic and the strike team dig themselves a deep hole and somehow find a way to climb out. Most of the time, though - the final few seasons obviously excepted - the escapes were external and plot-based. Vic would find a patsy, or figure out a way to blackmail someone with influence, and the problem would go away (sometimes permanently, sometimes not).
It's not surprising, then, that Kurt Sutter would spend a lot of time on "Sons of Anarchy" on the SAMCRO members painting themselves into corners, then searching for an escape route. But what's been so remarkable about the episodes this season, particularly last week's and tonight's, is that the escapes (and in some cases, the additional jeopardy) are coming internally, out of character rather than plot.
[... I]n the interest of time and equality, I will just say this: everyone in the cast (everyone) was at the top of their games this week.
2. “Niagara” -- THE OFFICE (6x04, 10/8/09)
Plot summary: The Dunder Mifflin staff head to Niagara Falls for Jim and Pam's wedding, with the understanding that her pregnancy is a forbidden discussion topic, but Jim's slip of the tongue prods Michael to attempt damage control.
From my full review here:
That. Was. Adorable.
And hilarious. And poignant, and awkward, and everything else that THE OFFICE does well. After the last two ho-hum episodes, I was concerned that they'd bungle what would probably be their biggest episode to date. Fortunately, I was dead wrong...
[...] But finally it comes down to the happy couple, and given that we've witnessed their romance from the beginning and rooted for them for the entirety of the series, this was a well-deserved and well-earned happy ending (shallow note: Jenna looked positively beautiful in that dress) for TV's best matched couple. The scene where Pam cries over her torn veil, and Jim cuts his tie (shades of the WEST WING's "Game On") was about as good as it gets, and proof that those two actors are criminally underlooked at the Emmys.
And the best episode of 2009 was....
1.“Sometimes A Great Notion” -- BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (4x13, 1/16/09)
Plot summary: Both the humans of the Colonial fleet and their Cylon allies fight against the emotion of overwhelming despair as they try to understand what happened to the 13th Tribe. Dee reconciles with her husband Lee Adama despite being devastated about the recent discovery. Kara finds a puzzling and disturbing clue regarding her identity.
How's that for whiplash, from the funniest and happiest episode of the year, to the bleakest and most soul-crushing one. The quality bar got set very early in the year (and very, very high), and never got topped.
From my full review here:
Holy fucking shit.
No, really, HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
I feel like I just got downloaded myself, as a cascade of memories, emotions and questions blew through me, washing away the past while energizing the future. Remember that this could have been a series finale if the strike had ended filming on Season Four; if that had happened, I would have been even more infuriated than if the series had ended at “Revelations.” Here’s what happens when you get what you ask for: answers that create even more questions (this is what happens on LOST almost every week these days).
“Sometimes A Great Notion” was over the abyss and fully into the blackness. GALACTICA has never been shy about confronting some truly dark themes and character choices, but the claustrophobic, Level Ten creep factor events in this episode went so far beyond previous installments, even “33” and “Pegasus”, that it was a quite the shock even to my jaded system. If my only major complaint about “Revelations” was that the characters had a distinct lack of emotional responses to the myriad plot developments, "SaGN" delivered those reactions in devastating amounts. This was one of GALACTICA’s best episodes ever, and it’s only the first of the mid-season…
But don't just take my word for it (Big, big, BIG spoilers ahead if you haven't seen the show):
From Alan Sepinwall's review at What's Alan Watching?
As much as I love to speculate on the nature of the Cylons, the prophecies, the opera house and all the other stuff that Ron Moore promised he'd get back to, what really grabs me about the show (as I discussed in today's column) is its humanity, the way its characters react to situations the way you imagine real, contemporary people might.
How would you react if you had been living a horrific existence for years on end, and the only thing keeping you going is the hope of one day finding this wonderful place called Earth -- and then that hope gets taken away when Earth turns out to be ruined? I like to think I can handle myself well in a crisis, but I could very easily see myself committing suicide like Dualla, or curling into a fetal position like Roslin, or getting drunk and trying for a suicide-by-Cylon-cop like Adama. This is a brutal, brutal development on what wasn't the happiest show to begin with, and I'm glad team "Galactica" (led here by writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson and director Michael Nankin) didn't flinch from that.
From Christopher Oldaker's review at Airlock Alpha.com
The problem with watching any episode of "Battlestar Galactica," let alone a season premiere or finale, is that you're pretty much shooting yourself in the foot for the rest of the night -- at least, as far as television watching goes.
Don't count on finishing the night off with a rerun of "Stargate" or finally getting to that "Law & Order" episode that's about to delete from your Tivo. It just isn't going to happen. It's much more likely that you're going to be sitting in front of your blank television screen for quite some time thinking long and hard about what the frak just happened before your eyes and what it all means. Everything else will feel empty and unfulfilling in comparison.
After such a long and painful mid-season break, I'd completely forgotten about this phenomenon and thus was left a little shell shocked when the closing credits of "Sometimes A Great Notion" suddenly rolled. "Well ... how the hell do you follow that up?", I asked myself. You just have to sit back for a moment, let it all sink in.
What Worked
... Pretty much everything. I'll be the first to admit that I'm definitely a Galactica fanboy, but I'm not completely blind to it's faults. There are some subplots I have a hard time swallowing and there have been a few moments that still make me cringe on repeat viewings, but honestly, there wasn't much of that going on here. Even the melodramatic moments were handled with such sincerity and honesty that it was easy to believe that these characters reactions were all genuine to the situation they were experiencing.
Michael Hogan and Edward James Olmos' acting chops. They went there and I commend them for that.
The backstory. Flashbacks didn't bog down the story, exposition was kept to a minimum.
Leoben. Nothing says "game changer" like Leoben leaping back like a scared schoolgirl.
The artsy stuff. One of my favorite aspects of Galactica is the show's ability to be very writerly and literary without beating the audience over the head with it. It's ripe with symbolism and metaphor, but poignant moments aren't always emphasized by overwrought string crescendos. Water is frequently used to symbolize death in the Galactica universe -- from Searider Falcon, to the stream that separates life and death, to Adama's drowning of Hera in the river on Kobol in Baltar's vision, to Lee's near brush with death in "Resurrection Ship" -- and Adama's story about foxes treading water down the river is another example of this ongoing metaphor. It's little flourishes like this that really give the series infinite replay value and enough source material to fuel geeky debates until the end of time.
From Todd VanDerWerff's review at The House Next Door:
Battlestar has always been one of the best-directed shows on TV. Since TV direction tends to consist of a long series of establishing shots, mid-shots and close-ups, this may not seem as impressive as it should, but the one-two punch of season 4.0’s closer “Revelations” and this opener to season 4.5 should point out just how far the direction here is ahead of most other dramas on TV (really, only Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Lost - where solid direction often saves clumsy scripts - can compete). The lingering shots of a natural world struggling to be reborn in a ruined, apocalyptic landscape are both compositionally beautiful and subtly foreshadow the episode’s final revelation (that Tigh (Michael Hogan) and his wife Ellen (Kate Vernon) planned the rebirth of their race over 2,000 years ago amid said apocalypse). In particular, the shots of the waves washing over rocks on the beach bring a peaceful quality to the desolation and find a matching point in the dialogue, with a long story Adama (Edward James Olmos) tells about hunted foxes swimming out to sea to die.
The episode was also a solid reminder of how well Battlestar uses lighting to make its points. Every critic in the universe has already spoken about the choice to film Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) building a funeral pyre for the body she discovered that seems to be her entirely in silhouette against a sky growing dark grey with twilight, but I’ll pile on as well. It was a bold piece of filmmaking, both in how it wordlessly played out and in how much it left to the audience to draw from suggestion, and it closed with another beautiful shot of Starbuck watching the body burn, the wind blowing the fire in the opposite direction from her, as though even the flames didn’t want to be in the same space as her (earlier, even Leoben (Callum Keith Rennie), the one guy who’s been the most constant shadow to Starbuck, wanted nothing to do with her when the two discovered the wreckage of the Viper that contained the body). The lighting in the scene where a drunken Adama and his son, Lee (Jamie Bamber), discuss why Dualla (Kandyse McClure) would kill herself was also beautiful, making excellent use of a key light tilted down from the ceiling over Dee’s body, medicine cabinets adding an eerie glow behind the two men hunched over the corpse. The scene was written so well that it probably could have gotten by with lighting that washed everything out, but the choice here offered a rather haunting effect, and the scene was better for it. Battlestar has never been awarded for its direction or cinematography, but the choices of director Michael Nankin and DP Stephen McNutt throughout this episode were uniformly strong (another favorite: Adama walking down the halls of the Galactica in Steadicam, on his way to confront Tigh).
From Jamahl Epsicokhan's review at Jammer's Reviews:
But I've still not gotten to the real meat of "Notion," which is in watching things go to hell in a handbasket on Galactica. Take, for example, Roslin burning the Book of Pythia and skipping her cancer therapy. Basically, she has given up. She is broken. She curses the fact that Adama ever listened to her about Earth, about anything. Mary McDonnell's performance is devastating. Roslin's emotional state? "Dire" might be the word.
Then there's Dee. The sudden refocus on Dualla and Lee and their relationship had me initially perplexed: Is her sudden prominence here a setup because she's the final Cylon? No. Something else entirely. Her action here represents the ultimate act of surrender, while at the same time the ultimate act of taking control of what may be the only thing she, or anyone, has any control over -- the ending of her life. In the show's most truly shocking moment that I didn't see coming, Dee puts a gun to her head and pulls the trigger. It's all the more jarring because she seems so happy just before she does it.
This works as raw shock value, but it works for reasons beyond that. It works because it rings true psychologically and because it says something about hope and loss, about limits and the human ability to cope. This series is not afraid of killing off prominent characters, and in this case it has chosen its moment aptly. This woman has decided she has simply had enough. She's done.
The fallout's fallout: Lee and Adama in the morgue, pondering why Dee would do this. Adama is unabashedly drunk (and it's a brilliant performance; Edward James Olmos nails the confluence of emotions as filtered through a believable alcoholic haze). He offers Lee a drink. Lee refuses, and look at that steely resolve in his eye. Alcohol is not going to be his solution. Then again, there are no solutions.
Then there's that superb shot that follows Adama through the corridors on his way to Tigh's quarters, as the ship spins utterly out of control. People huddle in the hallways in despair and apathy. Two men are in a fight, and Adama doesn't even acknowledge them. "FRAK EARTH" is spray-painted on the wall. The best word here, again, is "dire." If this is not Galactica hitting bottom, I fear what we may see in upcoming episodes.
This leads to the hour's dramatic showpiece, where Adama attempts to commit suicide-by-Tigh. It's a masterpiece of depicting the entropy of the fleet via the microcosm of these two old friends. The cavalier sense of drunk Adama ("Sit down, Cylon!") is entertaining in its weird, offbeat way (mostly because you can enjoy the rawness of the performance), but it quickly turns into a very tense, painful, dangerous, sad situation. Adama says awful things to Tigh, and ultimately turns his bile toward Ellen, the one subject he knows will provoke a reaction in Tigh. He wants Tigh to shoot him. Olmos goes all-out in a performance of unfiltered ugliness. Just look at that mug, for crissakes.
And how about that Tigh? Once again, this guy's the epitome of awesomeness, taking the higher road in the interest of the fleet and talking sense into Adama when he most needs it. I wanted to cheer him. If an argument needs to be made that Adama and Tigh's friendship should survive Tigh's outing as a Cylon, that argument is right here, because Tigh has this guy's back when things are at their bleakest. Adama hits bottom, Tigh talks him through it, and there's a sense that maybe, for now, the corner has been turned. Adama subsequently makes a speech to attempt to bring some solace to the fleet.
Also sure to check out Jacob Clifton's elegant, epic SaGN episode summary over at Television Without Pity!
+++++++++++
Thanks to the cast and crew of all the shows mentioned above. Let's hope next year is as good as this one was!
In case you're wondering, here's my judging criteria:
1) Effectiveness as an individual episode (with an emphasis on writing/acting/artistic achievements within the given episode)
2) Effectiveness as a part of a season/series narrative (with an emphasis on writing/acting/artistic achievements fitting into the season/series as a whole)
Let's roll...
12. “Landing At Point Rain” -- STAR WARS THE CLONE WARS (2x05, 11/4/09)
Plot summary: Anakin, Ahsoka and Ki-Adi-Mundi lead a landing party to destroy a droid factory that Poggle the Lesser has rebuilt on Geonosis, but things go terribly awry when Separatist gunners shoot down the Republic ships. Despite heavy losses, Anakin and Ki-Adi-Mundi must rendezvous in time to destroy the enemy factory before it can begin production.
From my full review here:
[T]his past week's episode, was quite simply, their best episode to date, and mainly because it was a non-stop 22 minute orgy of death and destruction, an animated version of (I shit you not) "Day of Days", the D-Day episode of HBO's BAND OF BROTHERS, WE WERE SOLDIERS, and THE LONGEST DAY. [...] Season Two of CLONE WARS has been revisiting planets from the prequels to great effect, and in revisiting the action climax of the second film, actually manages to top that sequence in terms of action and carnage, and for the first time in this show, managed to communicate the horrific cost of a full scale battle like this (I even got the sense that the Republic forces might not survive this engagement).
Click to view11. “Hungry Man” -- DEXTER (4x09, 11/22/09)
Plot summary: Dexter continues to try to understand The Trinity Killer by talking to his family; he discovers that Arthur Mitchell may not have the perfect mask after all. With Dexter out on the prowl, Rita gets a little help with her busy household from her handsome next door neighbor, but his motives may not be all that honorable. Debra continues to investigate the Trinity Killer and may be getting a little too close for her own safety.
Thanksgiving is the designated holiday to depict family dysfunction in movies and TV, and this marvelously twisted episode, Dexter’s seasonal “top of the roller coaster” episode was a squirm-inducing entry into the Twisted Turkey Day genre.
From Matt Fowler's review at IGN.com
A few hours before I watched "Hungry Man" I was actually thinking about the creepy, perverse nature of Dexter and how it had gotten a bit diluted over time. That's not to say that the series hasn't remained a top notch show, but as the character of Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall) has made emotional strides to become more "proto-human," the series has evolved with him and made different things the focus of his interest. Family. Children. The dream life. If you look back to Season 1 and how outlandishly morose it was and how it had a real nasty bleeding heart at the core of it, you might begin to wonder if that type of horrific glee could ever be re-captured. Low and behold, as soon as Arthur Mitchell's (John Lithgow) wife, Sally, said, "Do you think Rebecca could come out now?" I knew this episode as going to spiral into a whirlpool of dysfunctional hate and warped traditions.
It was fascinating to watch Arthur's family and how each of them have been horribly scarred their own way by his monstrous mania. Here, all along, we thought that he was the perfect husband when really he's been a foul creature that's been torturing his family for years - keeping them in a perpetual state of torment. It might feel like the show's flipped around a bit, or that things might have been presented in a misleading manner for us, but you have to remember that most of Dexter is presented to us through the eyes of Dexter. We're used to taking his narrative and his voice-overs as the status quo. If he saw, at a cursory glance, Arthur to be a loving husband and a dedicated family man then that's what we saw. Arthur's bi-polar trek over the past few weeks finally stabilized in this episode, and now with a new lease on life he seems more determined to hold his family at a noose's length more than ever.
10. “Grilled” -- BREAKING BAD (2x02, 3/15/09)
Plot summary: With Walt and Jesse trapped with Tuco, Marie and Hank comfort Skyler over his disapperance.
I watched this one on my laptop in a movie theater while waiting for the film to begin, and was utterly riveted (unlike the Michael Bay flick that followed). Tense as hell, you’ll never think of a bell in the same way again.
From Tim Goodman's review at The San Franscisco Chronicle:
There are images and there are images. To me, one of the great TV images in 2009 is Uncle Tio ringing that damned bell. As a TV critic, I live for days when television writers come up with something like that. So they sat around the room and they concocted the mute uncle with the sinister look, the dead, half-asleep eyes. But all the time you know he's ten times as dangerous as anybody in Walt or Jesse's world. How to make a slobbering old TV watching fool become menacing? Well, clearly, a bell. Let me take this moment for a very deep bow. Well played, "Breaking Bad" writers. Well played. Ding.
Here's how "Breaking Bad" can go on for a long time. Just have whole episodes like this, where the day seems to go on forever and the danger seems to be insurmountable. If the writers can craft one truly great extended scene that, in terms of time used, barely takes up half a day in Walt's dwindling life, I'll take it. So the notion that you're held captive and you're about to be driven off to Mexico to make meth around the clock while your wife thinks you're missing and your unborn baby has no father is one that resonates with any character. It says, "This is bad. Do something."
9. “Torch” -- RESCUE ME (5x13, 6/30/09)
Plot summary: After dealing with a particularly horrific accident on the job, Tommy questions his feelings in a dream sequence with his dead father, brother and son, and Jimmy Keefe. Meanwhile, Sean has an unwanted visitor at the hospital; and Lou has a very-much-wanted visitor to his apartment.
Perhaps the series’ best use of the “ghosts” yet, “Torch” had particularly evocative staging for the "clean up" scene (a powerful reminder that less is indeed more). Bravura, stage-like performance by Denis Leary.
From Todd VanDerWerff's review at The A.V. Club:
“Torch” is one of the best hours of Rescue Me ever and one of the better hours of TV drama I’ve seen in a while. Everything in the episode, from its central device, to its comic relief scenes, to even plotlines that I normally roll my eyes at, works. It’s a great examination of the show’s central character and just why we find him so compelling to watch, even when the show in question is kind of wandering all over the place. It’s a dark and gritty hour that doesn’t flinch from looking at some real ugliness, and that’s to its credit. If I could, I’d almost leave it at that. If you’re a fan of Rescue Me or have ever been a fan of Rescue Me, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.
[...] But good God did this episode belong to Tommy, locking himself in the back room of the bar and watching that video of his kids that Mickey gave him last week. Seeing his son again, Tommy took another swig from his bottle and was visited by the ghosts of his son, his brother, his father and Jimmy. It was another decidedly stage-y sequence for the show (though I was quite taken with the cinematic lighting in the scene, which kept it all very hushed and spooky), but it was one of the better uses of Tommy’s ghosts in quite a while, and it both redeemed the fact that the show has spent so little time focusing on the death of Connor (which should have been a lot more horrifying for Tommy than it seemed to ever be) and a lot of Tommy’s swagger.
(Set up for this clip: The crew has arrived on scene at a multi-vehicle traffic accident, and veterans and probies alike have been highly affected (vomiting, turning away in disgust) at the sight of a dead child thrown from the car (not shown on screen). They are discussing covering up the body parts from traffic-goers when the clip begins)
8. “Come, Ye Saints” -- BIG LOVE (3x06, 2/22/09)
Plot summary: The entire family heads east on a pilgrimage to Cumorah, New York, the location of a Joseph Smith shrine.
I love BIG LOVE when it’s not focused on the Juniper Creek nonsense, so this episode, focused solely on the family, was like Manna from Utah.
From Amelie Gilette's review at The A.V. Club.
In addition to being thoroughly juicy, last night's episode was a great one. In a dense, thorny show like Big Love, where even the subplots have subplots, it was a refreshing change of pace to spend fifty-five minutes almost entirely with the Henricksons-no compound intrigue, no Home Plus, just a short flirtacious phone call from Ray the DA, and only a smidge of Bill's casino business, mostly for comic relief (It's strange to hear someone say "You want Tony Orlando? You can have him!" without a hint of exasperation). What started off as almost a FDLS-version of Vacation-kids playing with dead grandma's ashes! Margie & Ben catching each other naked!-with Bill as Clark Griswold leading his family on a harrowing pilgrimage to his version of Wally World, the Hill Cumorah pageant, gradually became a true test of faith, at least for Barb and Bill. And as the Henricksons wound their sizable caravan across the country from Sandy to New York state, the show expertly traveled from comedy to drama along many different paths.
7. “Dead is Dead” -- LOST (5x12, 4/8/09)
Plot summary: To atone for sins of the past, Ben must attempt to summon the smoke monster in order to be judged.
From my mini review here:
The bill has also come due for crafty ‘ol Ben, and sociopath that he’s been since his miraculous resurrection, it was his secret heart that saved him from Smokey’s judgment in the end (and the Hume family as well). As a direct sequel to one of last season’s best episodes (“The Shape Of Things To Come”), “Dead is Dead” was almost by default one of this year’s best shows as well, although at this point any Ben-centric episodes is solid gold. Chalk it up to Brian K. Vaughn at the typewriter.
6. “Tomorrow Blues” -- FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS (3x13, 1/14/09)
Plot summary: In the third season finale, Eric and his contract are up for discussion. Lyla and Tim talk about their future together. Mindy and Billy's wedding day has finally come. Tyra waits for some hopefully happy news about her waiting list status.
From my full review here:
I didn’t envy the hurdles writer/show runner Jason Katims had this week; he had to construct an episode that served as both a season finale, as well as a potential series finale. It had to be conclusive enough to wrap up the stories of most of its characters, and yet some how be open-ended enough in case FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS completes that Hail Mary pass and gets a fourth season pickup. In both cases, Katims succeeded, writing yet another heartfelt goodbye to his characters in what seems to be a season full of great ones.
5. “Gina - Week Six” -- IN TREATMENT (2x30, 5/18/09)
Plot summary: Paul turns the tables on Gina by questioning her about her relationship with her parents.
Byrne and Wiest at the absolute top of their game. Rule number one: Don’t fuck with Gina. She’s better and smarter than you. Directed by Richard Schiff (Toby Ziegler!)
From Alan Sepinwall's review at What's Alan Watching?
What's usually so wonderful about Dianne Wiest's performance as Gina is the extreme control she displays in front of Paul -- both how she manipulates him where she wants him to go, but how she keeps her own emotions buttoned up tight. While Paul is obviously more demonstrative with Gina than he is with his patients, it's more of a matter of degree; it's not stunning that the guy who occasionally loses his patience with the likes of Luke and Bess might explode even more when outside the confines of his role as a therapist. So to see Gina finally, after two seasons of goading from Paul, lose it and unload on him... amazing. I usually take meticulous, near-transcribed notes of these episodes, but when we got to Gina's outburst, I put the computer down, except to jot down an occasional line or two, because I didn't want to miss a second of this when I might be otherwise distracted by making sure my notes were correct.
4. “Belonging” -- DOLLHOUSE (2x04, 10/23/09)
Plot summary: We learn more about Sierra's connection to Rossum and the twisted trail of deception, obsession, and murder that led her to the Dollhouse.
DOLLHOUSE hit its second season stride here, and never looked back. Brilliant use of both the series’ history and future. Perhaps the fact that it wasn't Echo-centric helped.
From Todd VanDerWerff's review at HitFlix.com
It’s too bad that Fox all but signed the death warrant for “Dollhouse” this week, too, because this was easily the show’s best episode since “Epitaph One” (or “A Spy in the House of Love,” if you pretend “Epitaph” doesn’t exist for some reason). The momentum the series has been building since “Man on the Street,” outside of one or two clumsy episodes, finally feels like it’s coalescing into something, living up to the potential the story has always had to be about the fluid nature of identity and the ways corporations oppress us all. One of the episode’s earliest shots encapsulates neatly everything that makes this show worth paying attention to, as the spurned playboy Nolan is told by his desired one, Priya, that she would never love him, and then the set dissolves around him, resolving into a new one, one year later, as Priya - now Sierra - rushes into his arms and kisses him, programmed to desire him and only him. Just as Sept. 11 spurred a bunch of shows about what Americans were willing to put up with in the name of personal safety, “Dollhouse” feels like one of the first great shows of the economic meltdown, one of the first shows to question the line between what can be bought and what is morally defensible.
3. “Service” -- SONS OF ANARCHY (2x11, 11/17/09)
Plot summary: The rest of the club finds out what happened to Gemma and plot their revenge on Zobelle and Weston. Opie learns the truth about Donna's murder from Tig and the club deals with the fallout. Opie goes after Agent Stahl for her role in Donna's death. Jax learns something about Zobelle and LOAN. Chibs comes clean with the club about his dealings with Agent Stahl.
In case you couldn’t tell by the synopsis, “Service” contained jaw dropping payoffs to at least four major plotlines and was so gut-wrenchingly intense I forgot to breathe at certain points.
From Alan Sepinwall's review at What's Alan Watching?
One of the trademarks of "The Shield" was watching Vic and the strike team dig themselves a deep hole and somehow find a way to climb out. Most of the time, though - the final few seasons obviously excepted - the escapes were external and plot-based. Vic would find a patsy, or figure out a way to blackmail someone with influence, and the problem would go away (sometimes permanently, sometimes not).
It's not surprising, then, that Kurt Sutter would spend a lot of time on "Sons of Anarchy" on the SAMCRO members painting themselves into corners, then searching for an escape route. But what's been so remarkable about the episodes this season, particularly last week's and tonight's, is that the escapes (and in some cases, the additional jeopardy) are coming internally, out of character rather than plot.
[... I]n the interest of time and equality, I will just say this: everyone in the cast (everyone) was at the top of their games this week.
2. “Niagara” -- THE OFFICE (6x04, 10/8/09)
Plot summary: The Dunder Mifflin staff head to Niagara Falls for Jim and Pam's wedding, with the understanding that her pregnancy is a forbidden discussion topic, but Jim's slip of the tongue prods Michael to attempt damage control.
From my full review here:
That. Was. Adorable.
And hilarious. And poignant, and awkward, and everything else that THE OFFICE does well. After the last two ho-hum episodes, I was concerned that they'd bungle what would probably be their biggest episode to date. Fortunately, I was dead wrong...
[...] But finally it comes down to the happy couple, and given that we've witnessed their romance from the beginning and rooted for them for the entirety of the series, this was a well-deserved and well-earned happy ending (shallow note: Jenna looked positively beautiful in that dress) for TV's best matched couple. The scene where Pam cries over her torn veil, and Jim cuts his tie (shades of the WEST WING's "Game On") was about as good as it gets, and proof that those two actors are criminally underlooked at the Emmys.
And the best episode of 2009 was....
1.“Sometimes A Great Notion” -- BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (4x13, 1/16/09)
Plot summary: Both the humans of the Colonial fleet and their Cylon allies fight against the emotion of overwhelming despair as they try to understand what happened to the 13th Tribe. Dee reconciles with her husband Lee Adama despite being devastated about the recent discovery. Kara finds a puzzling and disturbing clue regarding her identity.
How's that for whiplash, from the funniest and happiest episode of the year, to the bleakest and most soul-crushing one. The quality bar got set very early in the year (and very, very high), and never got topped.
From my full review here:
Holy fucking shit.
No, really, HOLY FUCKING SHIT.
I feel like I just got downloaded myself, as a cascade of memories, emotions and questions blew through me, washing away the past while energizing the future. Remember that this could have been a series finale if the strike had ended filming on Season Four; if that had happened, I would have been even more infuriated than if the series had ended at “Revelations.” Here’s what happens when you get what you ask for: answers that create even more questions (this is what happens on LOST almost every week these days).
“Sometimes A Great Notion” was over the abyss and fully into the blackness. GALACTICA has never been shy about confronting some truly dark themes and character choices, but the claustrophobic, Level Ten creep factor events in this episode went so far beyond previous installments, even “33” and “Pegasus”, that it was a quite the shock even to my jaded system. If my only major complaint about “Revelations” was that the characters had a distinct lack of emotional responses to the myriad plot developments, "SaGN" delivered those reactions in devastating amounts. This was one of GALACTICA’s best episodes ever, and it’s only the first of the mid-season…
But don't just take my word for it (Big, big, BIG spoilers ahead if you haven't seen the show):
From Alan Sepinwall's review at What's Alan Watching?
As much as I love to speculate on the nature of the Cylons, the prophecies, the opera house and all the other stuff that Ron Moore promised he'd get back to, what really grabs me about the show (as I discussed in today's column) is its humanity, the way its characters react to situations the way you imagine real, contemporary people might.
How would you react if you had been living a horrific existence for years on end, and the only thing keeping you going is the hope of one day finding this wonderful place called Earth -- and then that hope gets taken away when Earth turns out to be ruined? I like to think I can handle myself well in a crisis, but I could very easily see myself committing suicide like Dualla, or curling into a fetal position like Roslin, or getting drunk and trying for a suicide-by-Cylon-cop like Adama. This is a brutal, brutal development on what wasn't the happiest show to begin with, and I'm glad team "Galactica" (led here by writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson and director Michael Nankin) didn't flinch from that.
From Christopher Oldaker's review at Airlock Alpha.com
The problem with watching any episode of "Battlestar Galactica," let alone a season premiere or finale, is that you're pretty much shooting yourself in the foot for the rest of the night -- at least, as far as television watching goes.
Don't count on finishing the night off with a rerun of "Stargate" or finally getting to that "Law & Order" episode that's about to delete from your Tivo. It just isn't going to happen. It's much more likely that you're going to be sitting in front of your blank television screen for quite some time thinking long and hard about what the frak just happened before your eyes and what it all means. Everything else will feel empty and unfulfilling in comparison.
After such a long and painful mid-season break, I'd completely forgotten about this phenomenon and thus was left a little shell shocked when the closing credits of "Sometimes A Great Notion" suddenly rolled. "Well ... how the hell do you follow that up?", I asked myself. You just have to sit back for a moment, let it all sink in.
What Worked
... Pretty much everything. I'll be the first to admit that I'm definitely a Galactica fanboy, but I'm not completely blind to it's faults. There are some subplots I have a hard time swallowing and there have been a few moments that still make me cringe on repeat viewings, but honestly, there wasn't much of that going on here. Even the melodramatic moments were handled with such sincerity and honesty that it was easy to believe that these characters reactions were all genuine to the situation they were experiencing.
Michael Hogan and Edward James Olmos' acting chops. They went there and I commend them for that.
The backstory. Flashbacks didn't bog down the story, exposition was kept to a minimum.
Leoben. Nothing says "game changer" like Leoben leaping back like a scared schoolgirl.
The artsy stuff. One of my favorite aspects of Galactica is the show's ability to be very writerly and literary without beating the audience over the head with it. It's ripe with symbolism and metaphor, but poignant moments aren't always emphasized by overwrought string crescendos. Water is frequently used to symbolize death in the Galactica universe -- from Searider Falcon, to the stream that separates life and death, to Adama's drowning of Hera in the river on Kobol in Baltar's vision, to Lee's near brush with death in "Resurrection Ship" -- and Adama's story about foxes treading water down the river is another example of this ongoing metaphor. It's little flourishes like this that really give the series infinite replay value and enough source material to fuel geeky debates until the end of time.
From Todd VanDerWerff's review at The House Next Door:
Battlestar has always been one of the best-directed shows on TV. Since TV direction tends to consist of a long series of establishing shots, mid-shots and close-ups, this may not seem as impressive as it should, but the one-two punch of season 4.0’s closer “Revelations” and this opener to season 4.5 should point out just how far the direction here is ahead of most other dramas on TV (really, only Mad Men, Breaking Bad and Lost - where solid direction often saves clumsy scripts - can compete). The lingering shots of a natural world struggling to be reborn in a ruined, apocalyptic landscape are both compositionally beautiful and subtly foreshadow the episode’s final revelation (that Tigh (Michael Hogan) and his wife Ellen (Kate Vernon) planned the rebirth of their race over 2,000 years ago amid said apocalypse). In particular, the shots of the waves washing over rocks on the beach bring a peaceful quality to the desolation and find a matching point in the dialogue, with a long story Adama (Edward James Olmos) tells about hunted foxes swimming out to sea to die.
The episode was also a solid reminder of how well Battlestar uses lighting to make its points. Every critic in the universe has already spoken about the choice to film Starbuck (Katee Sackhoff) building a funeral pyre for the body she discovered that seems to be her entirely in silhouette against a sky growing dark grey with twilight, but I’ll pile on as well. It was a bold piece of filmmaking, both in how it wordlessly played out and in how much it left to the audience to draw from suggestion, and it closed with another beautiful shot of Starbuck watching the body burn, the wind blowing the fire in the opposite direction from her, as though even the flames didn’t want to be in the same space as her (earlier, even Leoben (Callum Keith Rennie), the one guy who’s been the most constant shadow to Starbuck, wanted nothing to do with her when the two discovered the wreckage of the Viper that contained the body). The lighting in the scene where a drunken Adama and his son, Lee (Jamie Bamber), discuss why Dualla (Kandyse McClure) would kill herself was also beautiful, making excellent use of a key light tilted down from the ceiling over Dee’s body, medicine cabinets adding an eerie glow behind the two men hunched over the corpse. The scene was written so well that it probably could have gotten by with lighting that washed everything out, but the choice here offered a rather haunting effect, and the scene was better for it. Battlestar has never been awarded for its direction or cinematography, but the choices of director Michael Nankin and DP Stephen McNutt throughout this episode were uniformly strong (another favorite: Adama walking down the halls of the Galactica in Steadicam, on his way to confront Tigh).
From Jamahl Epsicokhan's review at Jammer's Reviews:
But I've still not gotten to the real meat of "Notion," which is in watching things go to hell in a handbasket on Galactica. Take, for example, Roslin burning the Book of Pythia and skipping her cancer therapy. Basically, she has given up. She is broken. She curses the fact that Adama ever listened to her about Earth, about anything. Mary McDonnell's performance is devastating. Roslin's emotional state? "Dire" might be the word.
Then there's Dee. The sudden refocus on Dualla and Lee and their relationship had me initially perplexed: Is her sudden prominence here a setup because she's the final Cylon? No. Something else entirely. Her action here represents the ultimate act of surrender, while at the same time the ultimate act of taking control of what may be the only thing she, or anyone, has any control over -- the ending of her life. In the show's most truly shocking moment that I didn't see coming, Dee puts a gun to her head and pulls the trigger. It's all the more jarring because she seems so happy just before she does it.
This works as raw shock value, but it works for reasons beyond that. It works because it rings true psychologically and because it says something about hope and loss, about limits and the human ability to cope. This series is not afraid of killing off prominent characters, and in this case it has chosen its moment aptly. This woman has decided she has simply had enough. She's done.
The fallout's fallout: Lee and Adama in the morgue, pondering why Dee would do this. Adama is unabashedly drunk (and it's a brilliant performance; Edward James Olmos nails the confluence of emotions as filtered through a believable alcoholic haze). He offers Lee a drink. Lee refuses, and look at that steely resolve in his eye. Alcohol is not going to be his solution. Then again, there are no solutions.
Then there's that superb shot that follows Adama through the corridors on his way to Tigh's quarters, as the ship spins utterly out of control. People huddle in the hallways in despair and apathy. Two men are in a fight, and Adama doesn't even acknowledge them. "FRAK EARTH" is spray-painted on the wall. The best word here, again, is "dire." If this is not Galactica hitting bottom, I fear what we may see in upcoming episodes.
This leads to the hour's dramatic showpiece, where Adama attempts to commit suicide-by-Tigh. It's a masterpiece of depicting the entropy of the fleet via the microcosm of these two old friends. The cavalier sense of drunk Adama ("Sit down, Cylon!") is entertaining in its weird, offbeat way (mostly because you can enjoy the rawness of the performance), but it quickly turns into a very tense, painful, dangerous, sad situation. Adama says awful things to Tigh, and ultimately turns his bile toward Ellen, the one subject he knows will provoke a reaction in Tigh. He wants Tigh to shoot him. Olmos goes all-out in a performance of unfiltered ugliness. Just look at that mug, for crissakes.
And how about that Tigh? Once again, this guy's the epitome of awesomeness, taking the higher road in the interest of the fleet and talking sense into Adama when he most needs it. I wanted to cheer him. If an argument needs to be made that Adama and Tigh's friendship should survive Tigh's outing as a Cylon, that argument is right here, because Tigh has this guy's back when things are at their bleakest. Adama hits bottom, Tigh talks him through it, and there's a sense that maybe, for now, the corner has been turned. Adama subsequently makes a speech to attempt to bring some solace to the fleet.
Also sure to check out Jacob Clifton's elegant, epic SaGN episode summary over at Television Without Pity!
+++++++++++
Thanks to the cast and crew of all the shows mentioned above. Let's hope next year is as good as this one was!