Parks and Recreation is ending tonight and that is sad, not because it hasn’t had a good run — it really has! — or because there aren’t other shows I love — there are! — but because it has been so, so consistently funny and positive and hopeful and aspirational. I don’t think I have ever watched any show that believes as relentlessly and tirelessly in the good of human beings as Parks and Recreation does. I have never seen better, more devoted friendships than the Parks Department. I have never seen a better situation-romcom than Ben and Leslie. And I have never had a fictional hero like Leslie Knope.
I have never loved television as fiercely as I have while watching Parks and Recreation. The characters on P&R have feelings and care about each other, they voice those things to one another, and they react genuinely and meaningfully to each other. These wonderful, diverse, complicated fictional people make me want to be an actual real-life better person. And that a television show can do that without being ham-fisted or saccharine makes me excited not only for what these people do next, but for what I can do with my own narratives.
Goodbye, Parks and Recreation. Goodbye, Pawnee. You will be so, so missed.
This here is the first post in a new series for 2015 where I talk about things I loved this month! Because I don’t spend enough time doing it at the end of the year. Obviously.
JAM: Because I have functioning ears and have also been alive for the last two months, my favorite jam is currently “Uptown Funk”. Bruno Mars is everything and it’s just SO GOOD. I love late 70s/early 80s era funk and “Uptown Funk” hits all the right notes of nostalgia and homage while still feeling really fresh and new and alive. Even with as much airplay as it’s been getting and as much as I’ve been listening to it on my own, I am still not sick of it. Also, the performance from Ellen was too much and Crystal won’t stop watching it at work and getting overly amped. AMAZON | ITUNES
“uptown funk†is the best best best late 70s/early 80s jam since like… “jungle loveâ€
ALBUM: This may seem seasonally inappropriate, but I think if you listen you’ll find that Low’s Christmas is actually wildly appropriate for January when it’s dreary and cold and Christmas is over and winter seems as though it will never end and you are going to be trapped in the cold and snow for so long that you transform wholly into some kind of frost creature. “Taking Down the Tree” is definitely my favorite here, but “Long Way Around the Sea” is also excellent. ITUNES
MOVIE: I only watched two movies in January — We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Maze Runner — and though Kevin was great, The Maze Runner wins for being more fun (Obbbbviously!) and also improving upon the weak-ass book that spawned it. I like Dylan O’Brien enough, but I thought the secondary characters were a lot more compelling and drove my interest more than I would’ve bet. I didn’t love it, but I was just amazed how much better it was than the book. That’s rare, so it’s worth noting. AMAZON | ITUNES
BOOK: I finally got the sequel to The Raven Boys on to my reading schedule last month and it was so, so gooooood. I would say The Dream Thieves is maybe even better than the first book? I continue to not like Adam as much as Maggie Stiefvater wants me to, but everyone else is genuinely awesome and complicated and interesting and Stiefvater continues to effectively and EROTICALLY exploit the female gaze in ways I love. I genuinely cannot wait until the third one comes up in my schedule. AMAZON
BATH & BEAUTY: I am allergic to traditional deodorants and since I quit wearing them in 2011, I have been on a quest to find a good “natural” deodorant that is 1. not a pain in the ass, 2. effective, 3. cheap, and as most of those efforts have failed, I have mostly accepted that I will usually just be a little smelly. I’m okay with it, Crystal is okay with it, and it’s better than getting huge growths in my pit follicles. Then I found Arm & Hammer’s Essentials and I don’t really smell bad anymore! It doesn’t have aluminum, it lasts all day and through even my long workouts, and it’s magical. The fresh scent is a little toilet cleaner-y, but that doesn’t really bother me and the unscented isn’t really — it’s sort of a light citrus-y smell. I’m in love. AMAZON
STUFF:Goodreads is my favorite uncategorizable thing I loved this month. I finally signed up at the start of the year so I could join the Reading Challenge in hopes that it’d help me hit my 50 book goal for the year and then I decided I’d write reviews of what I read all year too and it’s been really fun! I like seeing what everyone is reading — and how fast y’all read! — and it really has helped me keep up on my challenge. And I’m constantly adding things to my Amazon wishlist because I see other people reading stuff I haven’t heard of. It’s awesome, let’s be friends!
LMAO months later, I realize I forgot one of my most favorite categories: television. Thankfully, I only really watched a couple episodes of Brooklyn 99 and New Girl, so nothing all that new to talk about. Oops.
First of all, sorry for the brief hiatus? I had to travel! And I thought I would be able to work while I traveled! But it turns out that I didn’t even sleep while I traveled, so these posts are a weeeeeeee bit late. Apologies!
Second, I’ve been genuinely atrocious about watching TV this year. I am sure this is shocking with how much I’ve already talked about being culturally-delooped in the last twelve months, but it bums me out far more than my movie-watching falling by the wayside. Television is my favorite. Well, after books. And this list is proof that I have ignored my love for too long. I mean, I watched 237 episodes of TV this year. Last year, I had watched that many by the first week of March and had watched another 831 by the end of the year. I’m slipping. But on to the list anyway!
Parks and Recreation is probably my favorite show of all time. I’ve loved it for such a long time now that it obviously shouldn’t be on a list of shows I just discovered this year, but since its last season is about to air and it’s one of the only shows I watched and rewatched this year, it’s taking a spot.
Parks and Recreation is really important to me because it helped me understand that what I want from a sitcom is found-family and kindness and characters that are full and care about each other. Some instances aside1, Parks hits all of those points hard. Leslie Knope should be a hero to all human beings alive on earth and Leslie and Ben’s relationship is probably my favorite TV romance of all time.
My day is better with Parks and Recreation and I am going to miss it so much
The only reason Broad City is this low on the list is because I’ve only gotten a chance to watch the pilot and though that may seem a narrow margin on which to stick it in my list of favorites, you must also consider that I’ve seen a lot of gifsets on Tumblr.
Okay, maybe that’s slim reasoning anyway, but Broad City has awesome, funny women! And great, painful awkwardness! And FRIENDSHIP. And great jokes. And a legit understanding of reality. And awesome secondary characters! And cameos! And that was just the pilot. How can you argue with any of that? You can’t. 2015 has Broad City‘s name all over it and I can’t wait to see more.
I know that The Goldbergs isn’t a show that someone childless and under the age of 40 is supposed to like. The Goldbergs isn’t cool or hip or edgy or ground-breaking. It’s a nice, kind, sitcom with narration done by the living embodiment of a douchebag2. It’s manipulatively nostalgia-laden, often to complete disregard for the actual timeline of pop culture and human development and it can be a little… You know, family sitcom-y. But every episode makes me feel good. It makes me laugh. It reminds me of my family who I actually like a lot. It, of course, reminds me of things I loved when I was young and it just, it never makes me feel bad.
The Goldbergs are not a chosen family, but they are family who makes the best of what they have by caring for and loving one another, even when they’re at their worst. The jokes can be… not great, but the heart of the family is what compels me to keep watching. Good people trying their hardest. Love it.
I started watching The Good Wife while I was sickly in the beginning of the year because all the seasons were on Hulu and I was spending a lot of time on the couch. I didn’t expect to like it because, well, it seems like it’s for old people. And it’s on CBS, so I questioned its quality. But I was really wrong on both counts.
It’s smart and is really funny and can be painful3 and it’s just super easy and enjoyable to watch. I think I finally gave in because of the constant chatter about it on Twitter because I figured, like always, “If these people I like like this, why am I not already watching it?”4 and it definitely deserves the praise it gets.
I did not plan to ever watch The Mindy Project. I like Mindy Kaling a lot5 and I wish I were 1/10th as smart and talented as she is, but the previews all made it just seem terrible. Like, legitimately awful. And even as I watched the pilot earlier this year, I tweeted about how painful the pilot was to watch. It was just… so bad. So much potential, but so badly managed.
the mindy project is awkward like new girl is awkward except that the LEAD isn’t awkward, every single person around her is
Thankfully, as I was advised, it got better. And even though I still watched those unbearable early episodes, it ended up totally being worth it. I love everyone’s weird interactions and their goofy exchanges and how hostile everyone can be even though they love each other. It’s got that found-family feel except it’s like everyone hates each other a little bit more than you should in a found-family, but it never gets so mean as to lose its heart. I love the Danny and Mindy dynamic6 because I always love when people who are going to date kind of hate each other.
Basically, The Mindy Project hits the things I love about sitcoms — friendship and found-family and lots of goofy, awkward laughs — but it’s like, the slightly meaner version of it. Plus, I love that it’s so excruciatingly awkward and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve gotten so much better at not only tolerating it, but loving it. I love Mindy Lahiri and I love her beguiling group of idiots.
1: I don’t like how the show often treats Jerry/Garry/Larry and it bums me out that a show with such a warm heart can be so weirdly and needlessly cruel, particularly when it feels so counter to what the show wants to be and do. But, you know, you can’t have everything.
2: Patton Oswalt is categorically terrible. That article doesn’t even really touch the surface of his embarrassingly stupid pond.
3: I haven’t even gotten to that point yet and I am already in deep and unending pain about it. I’ll never be ready.
4: This happens often. Currently, I am killing myself because I haven’t watched Fargo yet.
5: With the caveat that I think she tends to uphold a lot of stereotypes — gender and sexuality in particular — in her work that bum me out, but I find this often turns out to be true of comedians that I love and it is always more disappointing with the women because I expect men to be terrible. I’m reading Bossypants (FINALLY) right now and I keep groaning and lamenting that the people I love aren’t more perfect. LIFE.
6: I haven’t gotten to the fruition of that tension yet and I am not looking forward to it because shows almost always handle it so, so poorly. Looking at you, New Girl. Applauding you, Parks and Recreation.
I watched a lot of television this year. Like, a lot. Like, probably way way more than I have ever watched in my entire life before. I have a tendency to watch tv when I’m in bad or weird emotional places or when my anxiety is really bad or basically all the time. I like tv better than movies partially because it just keeps going. I love the moviegoing experience and I think it can be one of the most genuinely fun and satisfying experiences of human life, but because we live in a place that’s two hours from a decent theater but have an awesome television, tv won out hardcore this year.
My rules from last year still apply and, like last year, these aren’t all new shows. What can I say, I love having a complete story to mainline and talk incessantly about. Or at least one that I know won’t get cancelled in the middle of its first season.*
5. The Carrie Diaries [amazon | netflix | netflixt | the cw]
I hated Sex and the City. Like, a lot. I don’t like the narrow view of acceptable womanhood it offers or the way it handles queerness. I’m not a particularly fashionable person and I am too flat-footed to wear heels unless I’m just sitting down the entire time. I wasn’t at all interested in New York when it was airing and I thought the sex was boring and gratuitous. I’ve seen both movies in theaters — and enjoyed them enough, I’ve relaxed a lot as I’ve gotten older, to be honest — but it’s just never been a thing for me. I am not Sex and the City‘s target audience. Because of all this history with the canon, I didn’t think The Carrie Diaries would be for me either, but I was so, so wrong.
It’s true that I’m still not in their demo — I’m old! And uncool! — but the stories offered up by Carrie Bradshaw’s early years appeal to me on a lot of levels. I twitter about the show a lot because it’s a show that makes me feel good. It makes me remember what it was like to be young and learning and innately, simultaneously frightened and excited by everything at the same time. Honestly, that’s still how I feel most of the time, so maybe that’s why I like it so much. Young Carrie Bradshaw is a good person and even as she struggles to find her way and makes mistakes, she learns and grows and owns up to them. She’s smart and charismatic and gentle and naive in a way that’s never presented as mocking or cruel. I sometimes find it kind of impossible to understand how she grows up into the woman she does.
The people that surround her only make the show better. Walt and Mouse and Larissa and Maggie and Sebastian and West and, well, basically everyone. Season two also brought us the introduction of Samantha Jones who is great. Lindsey Gort’s got Kim Cattrall’s mannerisms and character and spunk down pat, even down to the inflections of her speech. I mean, it’s kind of unbelievable how good she is at embodying a character who has such a big history — well, future — already.
The thing I love most about The Carrie Diaries aside from all of the wonderful friendships and relationships that develop and change with each episode is that all of these characters are good people, not just Carrie. They care about each other, they support each other, and they don’t hurt each other intentionally. It’s maybe the one thing I ever liked about Sex and the City, that those women loved each other and put each other first because of it and you can see where that comes from in these early incarnations. Wonderful, really. Plus it’s got a bomb as hell soundtrack.
I wasn’t going to watch Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I wasn’t going to give Fox the opportunity to burn me with another mid-first season cancellation and I wasn’t even all that interested in it anyway. I’m not big on Andy Samberg and even though I love Andre Braugher, I thought his character would be the flat straight-man and he’d be wasted on it. But then people I like and trust kept talking about it on Twitter and I had kind of run out of anything else to watch — I’d just finished watching through all of Raising Hope and had kind of burned out on The X-Files — and all the eps were on Hulu and, well, I’m super glad it had already been picked up for a full season before I got hooked.
When you look at the elements of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on their own, it doesn’t seem like it’s really going to be anything interesting. Cop sitcom, hard-nosed straight-man captain, and a cast of varying levels of goofy, but somehow when it’s all put together it really, really works. I particularly love the friendship between hard-as-hell Diaz and overachieving Santiago and how Diaz basically had to point out that they’re friends and don’t have to be antagonistic or competitive. Braugher’s Captain is so, so much funnier than I expected. He plays his lines so straight and so emotionlessly that it sometimes veers into this weird, but great surreality that I love and then, you know, sometimes he throws himself into Peralta’s goofiness unexpectedly and it’s so pitch-perfect it just kills. Andy Samberg isn’t nearly as obnoxious as the pilot might suggest and Terry Crews is, well, he’s Terry Crews so he’s obviously amazing. My only complaint is that I think Chelsea Peretti is being wasted on an annoying, one-note character, but you can’t have everything and the show kind of needs her? It’s a foil-ish thing. Maybe.
This is also a cast of characters that care about each other — found families! — and try to be good people. Plus it’s funny, sometimes painfully so.
First of all, I have to apologize because if you’re not in the UK, you can’t access this show. I would link you to the shady site where I watched it way back in February, but it was a site so shady that it was removed from the internet.
My Mad Fat Diary is absolutely the show that I wish had been on tv when I was a teenager. A smart, funny, engaging, honest show about a fat girl who is experiencing the real pains and issues that real young, fat women experience? It is, at times, so painful that I had to pause and put my head down on my desk and cry. This show understands what it is to be young and fat and scared and convinced of your worthlessness and those are hard, hard things to experience and particularly re-experience. But it’s also really life-affirming and positive at its heart. Rae’s life is hard and she is in a really hard place, but she is also surrounded by people who love her — even when they’re bad at it — who give her the support and the space to really figure shit out. She makes a lot of mistakes and there are times when it seems almost impossible for her to rebound from them, but she does and it’s wonderful.
Sharon Rooney is incredible, glittering amongst an equally stellar cast. I particularly love Ian Hart as Rae’s therapist who is dealing with his own strifes in the midst of Rae’s pain. Their connection and relationship is just super refreshing to see on television. The other kids in Rae’s group are also phenomenal. Well-drawn and complex characters of their own who often surprise and delight in unexpected ways. Also a killer soundtrack.
I won’t encourage or condone anything illegal, but you’re smart, capable people and if you can find this one, I promise it’ll be worth the effort. But maybe not incarceration.
Aaron Sorkin is kind of a dick. You probably all know that, I mean, the whole internet knows it. He’s very, very bad at writing more than one type of woman. He often mines the same material from one show to the next and every episode of television he’s ever written drips with self-righteous smugness. That said, he writes shows that are compelling and engaging and enjoyable. I hate him for it.
I have sort of a weird Sorkin history. I watched Sports Night a long time ago, in 2005 or so? I watched Studio 60 when it aired on tv (It’s still in my top five favorite shows of all time and I think about it daily) and I liked The Newsroom from the jump as well. For whatever reason, I just never watched The West Wing. I didn’t really watch TV when it originally started airing — and I was 14, not exactly prime viewership for it — and when it popped up on Netflix I sort of shrugged and thought, “I’ll get there eventually.” Well, this year, I got there and I am so, so glad that I did. I started the show on August 7 and finished on September 17th and the only reason I didn’t watch it faster was because I tried to force myself to slow down because I didn’t want it to end.
There are too many good things to tell you about with The West Wing and there’s a good chance you’ve already watched it and know all of them, but what an incredibly satisfying and emotionally devastating experience. Nothing has ever made me cry harder than the season two finale of Veronica Mars — I literally sobbed so loudly that my mother came into my room from the other side of the house to make sure I was okay — but there are at least three episodes of The West Wing that came awfully close to dethroning it.
The characters are rich and interesting and complex — even the women, though it often feels that is the work of the incredible cast instead of their creator — and though the plots can sometimes be obvious, the character interactions and relationships make it all work. These people are coworkers and friends and family and watching those relationships grow is so, so special. I am particularly fond of the development of the relationship between Charlie and President Bartlet and how valuable it is to each of them. I also love the depth of friendship between Leo McGarry and President Bartlet and sometimes I just think about The Napkin and just get choked up. Also, I wish I was CJ Cregg. Or her best friend.
Watching The West Wing was like watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I know that doesn’t sound like a likely statement, but it really is. The delight of watching those two shows for the first time is like nothing else I’ve ever experienced media-wise and it’s something I’d pretty much give anything to get to do again. You can rewatch and you can love enthusiastically, but you can never have that unforgettable first-time again.
I watched the first four and a half seasons of Breaking Bad in 124 hours. I watched the last half of the fifth season of Breaking Bad as it aired in marathon in the eight hours leading up to the premiere of the series finale. I watched all of Breaking Bad in 132 hours. No one should have that many emotions in that short of a period of time. I mean, really. I talked about watching all of Breaking Bad in 132 hours so much that someone drew me a crying Jesse Pinkman Emmy for my efforts.
Anyway, I could talk all day about how I didn’t want to watch Breaking Bad, but how I ended up deciding to do it because 1. I didn’t want to be spoiled in case I ever did decide to watch it and there was not going to be a chance in hell of avoiding spoilers, and 2. because I love a big television event. The Friends finale took place during my first year of college and I ditched classes and came home for the weekend to watch it with my parents. I’ve watched the finales of a bunch of shows just because they were Events and I knew it’d be fun and exciting on Twitter and stuff. I could talk for weeks about how much I loved it and what an incredibly well-done masterpiece of television it is and how satisfying it was and how I cried and cried (which is like, you know, one of my very favorite things about experiencing media) and how it was so worth 132 hours of agony to get to experience it with what felt like the rest of the world.
But you already watched it, didn’t you? And you know exactly how phenomenal it is. And you’ve probably read one million people talking about how good it is one million times over and you’re probably just like, “Yeah, yeah, we know, it’s great.” And I am truly happy to just be part of the chorus on this one. Thanks, Breaking Bad. It was a trip.
10. Season 2, “The One with the List” – The least appealing part of Friends for me, both upon initial airing and in the years of subsequent reruns, is the back and forth Ross and Rachel nonsense. It’s not that the romances on the show aren’t interesting — I love Monica and Chandler’s fumbling courtship because I’m not dead inside — it’s just that the friendships are so much more compelling. Ross and Rachel date, they don’t date, either way I don’t really care. Even if that wasn’t the emphasis of this ep, it’d still fall to the bottom of the list for not really being about Thanksgiving at all. If it weren’t for Monica’s mockolate scenes with Michael McKean the ep would hardly be worth watching at all.
9. Season 9, “The One with Rachel’s Other Sister” – You know how sitcoms love to introduce really irritating characters and then rally the comedic forces of their casts around pointing out just how annoying that character is? I hate that. Christina Applegate is great at what she was brought into do, but it just feels unbearable and uninspired. Great tender moments of friendship, a lot of great Chandler emotions, and the entire China plot make it very watchable despite its flaws.
8. Season 1, “The One Where Underdog Gets Away” – The one that started it all! The most impressive thing about this episode is that it was the ninth episode of Friends ever and the characters already feel fleshed and whole. Love Joey’s STD posters, Chandler’s Thanksgiving issues, and Phoebe’s general willowiness.
7. Season 3, “The One with the Football” – Monica and Ross’s sibling rivalry is an early delight and, as always, weird Geller traditions are a highlight. Phoebe’s enthusiasm is maybe my favorite part of the entire episode and Joey and Chandler’s competitiveness verges on just the right kind of meanness without being unbearable. A solid and very Thanksgiving-y entry.
6. Season 8, “The One with the Rumor” – Problematic gender, trans*, and fat hate issues aside, this one’s got a nice turn from Brad Pitt and some decently funny moments. Ross’s tender remembrance of the tryst he had with his high school librarian is particularly charming and well-played.
5. Season 6, “The One Where Ross Got High” – Mr. and Mrs. Geller make an appearance in one of the strongest and most laugh out loud of the bunch. Notable not just for Rachel’s beef and pea trifle, but also Monica and Ross selling each other’s secrets out to their parents in a shouting match followed by Christina Pickles’s pitch-perfect delivery of the ultimate mom monologue. Glorious.
4. Season 7, “The One Where Chandler Doesn’t Like Dogs” – Tons of great laugh out loud moments in this one including Matt LeBlanc’s hilariously delivered “Don’t do it!” (which also has a great blooper) and Ross’s dislike of ice cream. Jennifer Aniston’s dry delivery and perfect timing are also a delight. She’s often overlooked when people talk about the cast, but she’s killer and this is a particularly great example of her.
3. Season 10, “The One with the Late Thanksgiving” – A hilarious and heartwarming turn from the final season of the show, notable for Chandler and Monica receiving news that they’ve been chosen as adoptive parents. This is one of those trope-y sitcom episodes where everything kind of goes disastrous but it’s got a lot of great laughs including the dumb but delightful talking heads bit and the baby beauty pageant. The news of the adoption is particularly sweet, the kind of news you want surrounded by the people you love most.
2. Season 5, “The One with All the Thanksgivings” – Friends flashback episodes are well-loved for a reason and this one is no exception. Joey getting the turkey stuck on his head is funny enough, but escalated when Phoebe tries to disguise him from Monica with parsley. Pre-nose job Rachel is a favorite every time she shows up and Chandler and Ross’s thematic outfits are glorious. Another great turn from Christina Pickles and Elliott Gould rounds out a great ep.
1. Season 4, “The One with Chandler in a Box” – This ep is hands-down my favorite because it’s not only the one that makes me laugh the hardest and most consistently, but also because its driving force is really friendship. Chandler and Joey’s relationship is always a great source of comedy for the show and it doesn’t disappoint here. Matthew Perry’s not even visible for most of the episode and he’s still killer. Michael Vartan is particularly babely and charming and his awkward kiss on the balcony with Courtney Cox is flawlessly hilarious.
What’s your top ten? What are your other Thanksgiving faves? Are you rewatching The West Wing where President Bartlet calls the Butterball Turkey Line today too? Or are you just eating a whole bunch and staring at the dog show? Whatever you do, enjoy it and know that I am thankful for you!
