End-Of-Year: Favorite 2013 TV Shows, Part 1

My goal was to get this list posted a few days after I picked my acting winners, more than two weeks ago, so clearly that didn't happen. In any case, below is the first part of my ranked list of TV shows I watched in 2013. You may think having a Top 35 List is pretty much giving everyone an trophy, but that's not even half the number of the shows I saw last year. And thus...

35. Cougar Town - New network, but same hijinks. At this point, the show really is just a bunch of drunks having fun together. I'm not complaining.

34. 30 Rock - Probably too low, but I sort of already fell out of mad love with the show a few seasons ago. With that said, their final season was a back to form and it'll truly be missed if only for my love Jenna Maroney.

33. Big Bang Theory - The most popular show on TV right now isn't perfect, but the cast chemistry in undeniable. When the show takes advantage of its full ensemble, it's very good.

32. New Girl - Its sophomore season was really great including the back half which aired last year minus the whole Schmidt two-timing storyline, but while still good, it seems to have stagnated early in its junior season just a bit.

31. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - I was lukewarm on the pilot and a few of the early episodes were a bit unmemorable. With that said, I've become oddly invested in the characters and while it's still not the show I know Whedon can deliver, it's still a show I like to watch.

30. Arrested Development - I actually saw the whole series for the first time last year which is why I've ranked it here since while I was intrigued at how they structured the latest season in Netflix, it made for rough watching early on.

29. How I Met Your Mother - This ranking would be much higher if the show took full advantage of Cristin Milioti, because every episode she's been featured in has been aces. But look this is one of my favorite shows the past few years and while the unique final season framework hasn't been super successful, at least they're doing something different.

28. Community - Most people would like to forget that this Dan Harmon-less season ever happened, but I was never really one of those people who thought it was a bad season, just different. In fact, I ended up loving a handful of episodes.

27. Girls - I actually think I may have liked this season over the first one and its lower ranking only means A LOT of new shows premiered this year. That said, I honestly don't get the haters for this show. Okay, maybe if they're complaining about anything Jessa-related.

26. Call the Midwife - Managed to watch the first two seasons last year and ended up loving its mix of high-stakes drama (delivering babies!) with some organic comedy (Miranda Hart!).

25. Please Like Me - There's something just super appealing to the quirky, brash humor by Josh Thomas in this fun British show about a guy coming out of the closet and yet stubbornly refuses to change one iota.

24. Vikings - I honestly didn't expect to love a show about the lives of Vikings and yet with fully realized characters and superb production qualities, this History show really delivered. Plus it has a hot monk!

23. Teen Wolf - This is a supernatural show full of hot guys and kickass ladies. Do I really need to explain more about why it's one of my not-at-all guilty pleasures?

22. Sleepy Hollow - When this show premiered, I pointed out that its pilot walked "the fine line of embracing its weirdness while also providing a refreshing sense of gleeful sincerity in its tone" and fortunately the show maintained this throughout while also developing its characters and its overwrought, but entertaining mythology.

21. The Crazy Ones - This is a show that definitely got much better as it went, especially when it stopped being the Robin Williams show and became more of an ensemble show, a really funny one at that. Its end tag bloopers is one of my favorite things this past season. Also Kelly Clarkson in the pilot! Win!

20. Hannibal - As a huge fan of Bryan Fuller, I knew this show would be right up my alley and while it's less whimsy and more gory than his other shows, the quality remains. It helps that Mads Mikkelsen and Hugh Dancy are doing amazing things in their roles.

19. Elementary - I don't subscribe to comparing this show with BBC's Sherlock since they're both so different. What I do love about this show is the fresh take Miller brings to the character and his fantastic relationship with Liu's Watson.

18. Downton Abbey - I never know which season of this show I'm honoring--the one that aired in the US early last year or the one that aired in the UK later last year. No matter, as I think the show has found its sweet spot between period piece and soap opera melodrama and I can't get enough of it.

17. House of Cards - While it wasn't my favorite Netflix original of last year, it was still such a delight to see Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright plot together to take over the world. I can't wait to see what/who else they can manipulate and destroy.

16. Mad Men - Ranked the exact same last year, I do think people have started to really take the greatness of this show for granted. But it's still pretty damn great especially with its central character so much more broken than ever. Also, this season gave us Bob Benson, so there you go.

I'll hopefully post the second part of my rankings aka my Top 15 before the end of the week, but whenever I say that it usually takes a few more days or week to actually happen. In the meantime, here are a few honorable mentions...

An Adventure in Space and Time - This was a BBC television movie that dramatized the origins of the show Doctor Who airing in time for the 50th Anniversary of the show. So good, but as it was a movie, didn't make my list.

Fringe - Based on the last three episodes it aired in 2013, this would be a Top 20 show easy, but I wanted to honor newer shows and it already made my Top 10 list last year.

Lizzie Bennett Diaries - Such an inventive take on the Pride & Prejudice story, adapted for the YouTube generation. Since it was a web series, I felt it'd be better to call it out here rather than including it in my list. Watch it here.

Reality Shows - I saw a lot of good to great ones the past year, but with so many scripted shows to honor I had to take them out. But from old favorites (Amazing Race, Masterchef, Face Off) to new surprises (The Writers' Room, Masterchef Junior) to silly fun ones (American Ninja Warrior, Whodunnit?, Hollywood Game Night), I had to pay tribute to them in some small way.

HIMYM Final Season Premiere and Pilot Thoughts on Mom

Even as I acknowledge that the show is not as good as it was, I still find myself being a big apologist when it comes to How I Met Your Mother. I can't really help it, because when it was good it was great and I just adore the cast. With that said, I was equal parts apprehensive and excited right before watching the final season premiere of the show. At this point, they don't really have to prove anything to anyone since it's their final season, but I'm hopeful that they are able to recapture some of the magic it has lost just for being in the air for so long. The premiere gave me more reason to be optimistic.

First and foremost, the best part of the premiere is Cristin Milioti as the titular mother, whose face was shown to all of us in last year's finale. Her scenes with Alyson Hannigan, and more importantly, Josh Radnor were utterly delightful and after eight years of hype, she more than lived up to all of it. She really only had one scene with Radnor as a sort of flashforward, but the time-travel gimmick and immense heart showcased in the scene are How I Met Your Mother at its best and truly affective for any long-time fans. Getting the two of them together in a scene this early also bodes well for the rest of the season in that we won't have to wait until the series finale to see them interact and learn more about Milioti's character.

The premiere also showed some promise with how they're going to handle the whole season taking place in the 56 hours encompassing Robin and Barney's wedding weekend. Granted, we might get sick of Farhamptom after eight or more episode, but for now I'm looking forward to seeing what they do. I'm still not sure how I feel about Barney/Robin after they've essentially messed that whole relationship up the past few seasons, but the two actors sell it the best they can. I even like Marshall hanging out with Sherri Shepherd, but again let's see how long that actually happens. Basically in summary: so far so good and also Milioti is amazing.

I had slightly low expectations for Mom despite my love for the talented Allison Janney and Anna Faris, but I think that helped since I walked away after the pilot wanting to see what happens next. The episode wasn't perfect, but it was still able to succinctly introduce us to a whole host of characters without feeling to cramped as well as make us understand how each related to one another. The show is about Faris, a young working recently sober single mom, and her relationship with a mother, played by Janney, who is also trying to fix her life and mend fences with her daughter. The two work well in trading barbs with each other so that bodes well. Plus the show doesn't seem to rely on potty humor (yet) which is quite refreshing froma CBS Chuck Lorre show. B-

In other news, the second episode of Sleepy Hollow was fine. Didn't really blow me away, but all of the stuff I really liked about the pilot were all still there. Nice to see John Cho sticking around for at least a few more episodes. The way the bad witch was dispatched felt a bit rushed, but the show also seems to be following the standalone episodes featuring a monster that genre shows often do.

Pilot Thoughts: Sleepy Hollow and Brooklyn Nine-Nine

The official Fall Season Premiere week doesn't officially begin until tomorrow, but there have already been a few shows to make their debut, more notably from FOX. Here are my thoughts on two of those shows.

With more and more options on TV, many new shows try to hook viewers in with more and more outrageous concepts. It's certainly a risk that could be highly rewarded (Lost), but more often than not results are less than promised with shows like Revolution, Flashforward, and Ringer coming to mind. And yet there does seem to be those few shows recently that successfully sell and deliver their crazy premise and twisty plots with their pilots (Revenge, Awake, Last Resort). I say all of this, because I think FOX's Sleepy Hollow might be in the latter group.

Certainly the show has the cracked out premise down. A British soldier by the name of Ichabod Crane, who defects and fights for George Washington during the Revolutionary War by most notably beheading a fearsome red coat soldier riding a horse, is brought back to life in modern times where he works with a deputy by the name of Abbie Mills to investigate all the weird and supernatural things in her town including the return of Crane's now headless horseman. And I didn't even mention witches, demons, a passing reference to the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. It's certainly a brand new take of Washington Irving's famous short story. But yet I found it all working somehow. The show's pilot walks the fine line of embracing its weirdness while also providing a refreshing sense of gleeful sincerity in its tone (or as much sincerity is possible for a show like this). Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie, playing Crane and Mills respectively, already have great chemistry with one another giving us yet another great female-male partnership on TV. I'm also fully intrigued by the burgeoning mythology and promise of a larger world full of things that go bump in the night, giving the show lots to work from. In that way the show feels like a hybrid of Fringe and Supernatural, which is big plus on my book. But really, I'm going to watch more episodes, because the pilot was just plain fun. B+

Speaking of fun shows, Brooklyn Nine-Nine is a keeper. While its pilot wasn't laugh-out loud funny, it made up for it by having interesting characters that already seem fully realized, a tough feat to achieve early especially with sitcoms. The show itself doesn't have as challenging a premise as Sleepy Hollow as it mostly revolves around the hi-jinks a group of detectives at a specific precinct get themselves into. Andy Samberg plays a cocky, freewheeling detective that butts up against the new and serious captain played by Andre Braugher, which I still think is the best casting ever this pilot season. The other supporting characters get their token scenes in the pilot to show us just enough to know what they're like and I'm looking forward to seeing more from them. But really, how could anyone not like a show where Braugher is shown in slow-motion saying "manscaping?" I already want more! B/B+