I am a film guy, not a tv guy, but I find some series (usually on dvd) particularly engaging specimens of long-form cinema. This is obvious with European imports like Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage, Kieslowski’s Decalogue, the Italian Best of Youth, or British literary adaptations such as Bleak House. But they also appear on American screens. I’ve recently pitched the best one now running, Friday Night Lights -- it’s too late to hop into the third season, but go back and start with season one on dvd. Same goes for Mad Men, the other superb ongoing series, now between its second and third seasons.
For the moment I will be missing the episode-to-episode pleasures of the soap opera format, where you get to know the characters so well you live their lives with them. Everybody’s got to have their stories. Two series that I have watched quite devotedly have just ended.
Battlestar Galactica wrapped up the whole series as well as the fourth season, though it will have multiple afterlives. Not a moment too soon; in fact several too late. The show was always an odd mix of the awesome and the awful, frequently bobbing along on hot air, but it did not truly “jump the shark” till the very last hour, in which everything bad about the series was magnified into ludicrousness and I wound up hooting at the screen, an entertaining experience in its own right but not the way for a program to go into that good night. It made me reconsider the hours I had put into watching it, despite the occasional topical gems like the sequence where the polytheistic humans were insurgents and terrorists against the occupying monotheistic Cylons. The characters and dialogue were frequently flatfooted, but at other times gave you something to think about. Critical acclaim brought me to the series late, but having seen it through to the end, I will not add to the chorus of recommendation.
Big Love ended its third season on a resolving note that certainly implies a fourth, and makes me look forward to it. This is not one of the HBO series I take seriously, but do find continuously entertaining, like Entourage or Six Feet Under or Rome. Well written and acted, if overly sudsy, these are characters I have bonded with and I want to see how their lives work out.
The opposite is true for the new Joss Wheedon series, Dollhouse, on which I gave up after a few episodes, despite its lineage from one of my all-time favorites, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy now slots at #3 on my life list, behind Freaks and Geeks, whose one truncated season is a must-see on dvd, all the more so when you’ve seen what Judd Apatow and the gang have gone on to subsequently, redefining movie comedy for the 21st century.
What I would call serious HBO shows, like The Sopranos or Deadwood, also count among the best -- but for me The Wire is #1 forever, without a doubt. If you haven’t been convinced to watch it yet, then nothing I can say at this late date will turn the trick. I will, however, offer a plug for the David Simon-Ed Burns follow-up miniseries, Generation Kill, now on dvd. Spend seven hours with Recon Marines at the tip of the spear driving toward Baghdad, and it will indelibly color your understanding of the American fiasco in Iraq.
So queue any of these up on Netflix for guaranteed viewing pleasure (double your money back -- since two times zero is zero). And get on the bandwagon for Mad Men and Friday Night Lights, while keeping an eye out for the next great tv series.
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