MagneticMediaFed

I love making end of the year top ten lists. Sometimes I think it’s the only reason I put up with the fifty weeks of mediocre nonsense (but then I take my antidepressants and go back to playing with that shiny piece of foil). The problem with having television as your medium of choice is that the television schedule doesn’t fit nicely into the Gregorian calendar. Typical seasons on the networks run from September to May, while cable tends to stick closer to the actual climatological patterns of the earth. It’s easy to say that first season Friday Night Lights was the best thing of 2007 except for the fact that half of the season landed squarely in 2006. MagneticMediaFed has figured out the solution to all of this: EPISODES. Episodes are what make television TELEVISION. A good episode keeps you glued to the screen for the full hour (or half hour), it tells a complete story while adding significantly to the series as a whole, it shows you something you didn’t think you’d see or makes you laugh in ways you didn’t think were possible.

I’ve spent a good chunk of the past couple weeks culling over the MMF-archives reminding myself of those episodes that I thought really stuck out. I watch a lot of television, though I don’t purport to watch all television (anyone who does should be shunned and bathed — not necessarily in that order). Because of this, my list only includes the shows that I regularly watch and is missing some obvious gems that I simply don’t know/care about (i.e. Battlestar Galactica, A Shot At Love with Tila Tequila). Still, I think most of the bases are covered. If there was a fantastic episode you remember from this past calendar year, please let us know in the comments. The full list, available right after the jump…

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I’ve gotta say, it’s a hell of a relief to know that Friday Night Lights will be off the air for a good month or so. It’s going to need the time to let the bad taste from these past nine episodes dissipate from our collective mouth. Still, I gotta say as far as a “let’s do everything in our power to wipe the slate clean” sort of episode, there was some good stuff in there. There was some god-awful stuff as well, but it certainly wasn’t the soul-crushing hour I was expecting (part of the reason I put off watching it as long as I did). More after the jump…

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I’m sorry, what show is this?

This show – this once amazing, realistic, funny, sad, visceral, captivating show – has turned into a complete and utter disaster. Believe me, it hurts to say it, but it’s true. More after the jump…

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Better to burn out or to fade away?

This thing is killing me. We all knew the writers’ strike was going to be a major inconvenience, but I never suspected it would have the effect it’s currently having on my psyche. Ever since the writers took to the picket line three weeks ago, television has kind of sucked, and not just because my beloved late-night shows immediately went into reruns. Despite the fact that we’ve still been getting new scripted episodes these past few weeks, the strike has, in a way, highlighted just how solidly mediocre this fall has been. The new series, while marked by very few cancellations (honestly, who would have thought Cavemen would still be airing new episodes three weeks into November?), have generated no significant hits (with the exception of Samantha Who?, but it’s hard to say if it is the show that is successful or its Dancing With the Stars lead-in) while our favorite returning series from years past have either been wildly inconsistent (How I Met Your Mother), shockingly awful (Weeds) or just kind of a mess (Friday Night Lights). To top it all off the two series that have been consistantly good and occasionally great in The Office and 30 Rock are the first to run out of episodes. The whole mess can put your average television viewer into something of an existential conundrum: if interesting stories can vanish as quickly as they appear, what’s the point of it all? More after the jump…

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What’s in the box?

We are so close. Every week the show has improved on the previous episode, inching ever so slowly to its former greatness, but it just isn’t there yet. There were far more problems with this season besides the god-awful murder plotline and most of them have been course-corrected except for that damn murder. Why, Landry? Why couldn’t you have just gone to the cops? I mean, it only makes sense, right? More after the jump…

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Y Tu Football Tambien

I had some pretty big problems with this week’s episode, most namely Landry and the unsettling level of character inconsistency. I also felt that a lot of the dialogue was particularly cheesy, something the show has always done a good job of shying away from despite the often melodramatic subject matter. Of course like every episode of this show there was as much good as there was bad. More after the jump…

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I’m curious if the title of this week’s episode had a bit more to do with the general consensus of the season’s start than it did with Julie learning how to drive or Riggins’ realization that the Mexico trip probably wasn’t the best idea. Probably my favorite episode this season (though with obvious flaws) one got the feeling the series creators may be trying wipe as much of the slate clean as they possibly can. More after the jump…

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It’s been a month since new shows started popping up and my god has it been a rough ride. I was able to keep for the better part of two weeks, but lately I’ve had to throw my hands up and declare that once again, the television has won. Part of the problem, for me at least, is this fall seems to have more decent shows than season’s past. There are always one or two really good new programs, but typically the rest of it is just dreck. This year there have only been a small handful of shows I would consider abdominal, but with an unusually large amount resting somewhere in the middle. But how does one justify sticking with a series that is at its very best just OK. I think now would be as good a time as any to look at where we are and decide how to move forward.

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