Veering off the book blog path for a moment to talk about one of my very favorite things: TV!
If I weren’t such a voracious reader, you’d be right to worry about me. Yes, I do watch a lot of TV. Yes, that does entail sitting on the couch for hours and eating bowls of popcorn. No, it hasn’t rotted my brain yet, as far as I know. Yes, if I had to choose one or the other, I’d pick reading… but fortunately, I live in a world where I don’t have to choose! I want it all!
Am I excited when my favorite shows are on? Yeah, you could say that.
Moving on…
The traditional TV season has come to an end, more or less — although one could argue that the concept of a “season” for TV is out of date, since there’s excellent programming year-round. Still, May seems to be the time of year when many shows air their season finales, and it just so happens that nearly all of “my” shows have finished their seasons.
So, I thought I’d tell you a bit about what’s just ended — and which shows ended with an especially big bang!
(This is a completely subjective list. It’s just the shows that I personally watch and enjoy, not at all a comprehensive overview of what’s worth watching!)
Done for the season:
The Americans: Just wrapped up season 2 this past week, and wow! What a way to pull off a finale! Season-long mysteries were resolved, some loose ends were tied up, some long-awaited confrontations finally took place… and lots of groundwork was set for the next major conflict. Just a stellar season all around, with incredible acting, superb writing… and yes, plenty of wig action! If you’re not watching The Americans, you’re missing out. Give it a try!
The Originals: I scoffed a bit at the beginning of the season, and true, the show did get off to a very rocky start, plot-wise. But this spin-off show turned itself around and ended its season 1 with incredible drama, plus open-ended plot developments that actually wrung a tear or two out of my dried-up soul.
The Vampire Diaries: Okay, I’ve been quite frustrated this season (and last), and have almost walked away a few times… but the season finale was not bad, there were some genuinely emotional moments, and the ending leaves me wanting more. Not bad is really the best I can say about it. This show needs to straighten out its muddled mythology and start having actual stakes (as in life-or-death consequences, not the pointy wooden things). When everyone on the show has died and come back a few times already, why should we worry when one more bites the dust? Particularly when the most recent “death” is one of the show’s biggest stars, it’s a no-brainer to assume this person will be back in the fall, in one way or another.
Mad Men: Why do I keep watching this show? I keep asking myself that question, yet I keep watching. This season has been more energetic and engaging that the last couple, but still — despite all the reviewers out there who rave about this show, I find it hard to maintain interest week after week when nothing much seems to happen. Yes, I know, character-driven TV, blah blah blah. Like I said, I watch, but I don’t love.
Survivor: Cagayan: I started watching Survivor again a couple of years ago when my son took an interest, and was surprised to realize just how much fun it still is, even after all these years. My kiddo and I had a great time with the latest go-round, which in my mind was an incredibly strong season with players who came to play hard. From a parent’s point of view, it’s interesting in a number of ways: We talk about strategy, and numbers, and the thought-processes that go into the various alliances and blindsides. At the same time, we can discuss the differences between game-play and life, what it means to play a game like Survivor and make choices to betray and lie, and whether a successful player can also be a good person. I think the fact that Survivor is something I can watch with my son is a big draw for me — it’s become one of our go-to weekly events, and even works as a motivating tool. “No Survivor ’til the homework is done” is my rallying cry…
Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD: I’m a relative newbie when it comes to the Marvel universe, but I’ve been digging the movies of the past several years, and adored the Whedon-riffic Avengers, so there was no question of not watching Agents of SHIELD. After an admittedly slow kick-off, the show dug in and revealed layers only hinted at early on — then kicked into super-high gear with its connection to the events of this spring’s Captain America movie. The last batch of episodes was… well, let’s not mince words… epic! I’m hooked, and can’t wait to see where the show goes from here.
The Big Bang Theory: Sure, you could argue that after so many years, there’s not a whole lot of fresh material for BBT to explore. And yet, I’m always charmed, episode after episode, and when it’s not making me giggle, BBT actually has some genuinely sweet and heart-felt moments. I like this show! And I think this past season was surprisingly strong, ending on a high note for Penny and Leonard, and with a big huge question mark for our beloved Sheldon.
Gone… and soon to be forgotten?
I was sad to see the demise (a.k.a., cancellation) of two new shows from this year that I’d really had fun with.
The Crazy Ones, a star vehicle for Robin Williams, was really an ensemble gem that I suppose just didn’t get the viewership it needed. I laughed. A lot. And was delighted to have Sarah Michelle Gellar back on my TV screen. Bye, Crazy Ones!
My kiddo and I had been watching The Tomorrow People on the CW all year… and yeah, it didn’t always make sense or stick to its own rules, but it was compelling watching all the same, and I’m sorry that we won’t get to see whatever craziness would have happened next. Plus, Mark Pellegrino! A big huge plus for any show, any day.
A bit earlier on, we had the series finale for Being Human, and I’m still not over it! When this show first started, I sneered. Who needs yet another American re-hash of a BBC series? But the Syfy production of Being Human took off on its own and created its own show, thanks to creative storytelling and a remarkable cast… and damn it! if I think too much about it, I’ll get all weepy again. Sniff. I’ll miss you, Being Human!
Not over yet:
Game of Thrones: The disadvantage to having read the books first is knowing what’s coming… and being powerless to change it! I know I don’t want to see what’s coming in the next episode — but I’ll be glued to the TV anyway. Three more episodes left this season! I can’t quite figure out how the showrunners will juggle books 4 and 5 in the next season or so, but I’ll be watching to find out.
Orphan Black: We still have several more episodes left this season, right? I’m loving season 2, and even this far along, I’m still amazed by Tatiana Maslany’s ability to convince me that I’m watching separate actresses playing separate characters.
And still to come:
I’m really looking forward to meeting the new Doctor this August when this rolls around:
Doctor Who, returning in August!
And… shocker of shockers… the TV show I absolutely can’t wait for is…
Yes, I will be glued to my TV on August 9th, thanks for asking! So DO NOT DISTURB.
So what TV shows were you sad to say good-bye to? Which had the best season finales? And what will YOU be watching this summer?
Bookshelf Fantasies 
The only shows I watched this year were Downton Abbey and Vikings, both of which I highly recommend. I watched the pilot for Black Sails too, and I’ll be looking for that on DVD as soon as it comes out.
I missed Vikings… still want to check out Black Sails, but I don’t have Starz yet. Maybe they’ll still have it on demand when I finally get Starz this summer! I still keep watching Downton Abbey, but found the last season pretty disappointing. 🙂
My biggest one was Warehouse 13. I was a DIE-HARD fan from day one. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this show and Syfy did it SOOOOOO wrong. First off, they had the first 3 seasons only be like 14 episodes each. Then we finally get a long 4th season just to find out that the 5th will be the last AND there would only be 5 episodes. I’m so mad it’s gone, I’m boycotting SyFy and I cried like a baby when I watched the finale ~ twice back to back in the same sitting. I miss it, and I hate that it’s gone. I don’t know that there’s been a show I’ve loved this much that has come before it (though Smallville was a close runner up) and I doubt there will be one again!
Other than that, I hate that Almost Human and Intelligence were cancelled. 😦 Almost Human was amazing. We wanted to like Crazy Ones but just really didn’t. Still glad my NCIS is going strong, as well as BBT. Glad Unforgettable keeps popping back up and looking forward to NCIS NOLA if it continues ~ at least with that I’ll (hopefully) continue getting CCH Pounder (a WH13 regular) and The Following gives me one of my two Ashmore twins fix! 🙂
One of my friends was a huge Warehouse 13 fan, and I think shared your feelings about how it was handled (or mishandled) and then cancelled. I missed the boat on that show… I know it had a lot of devoted followers!
I’m eagerly waiting for Homeland season 3 to premiere in India !! I’m also a huge fan of Big Bang Theory by the way 🙂
Yay for BBT! I still haven’t watched Homeland… one of my best friends was shocked that I haven’t watched it yet, and I promised her I’d try to catch up!
I was SO sad to see Being Human go. I can see why they did it (they were following the BBC version and the BBC version changed out their characters around this time) but it was such a touching way for them to say goodbye. I have to say that there series finale totally made up for the rip off that was the How I Met Your Mother series finale. The show is now completely ruined for me, I can’t even watch it on Netflix anymore.
I think the US Being Human surpassed the UK version in so many ways — but especially after the cast change, the UK one was just awful, imho. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the final season. Loved the US cast so much!! I’m really sad it’s over. I heard that the How I Met Your Mother finale was terrible. I didn’t watch the last season, but read the recaps of the finale, and I think if I’d been watching, I’d have felt completely ripped off too!
I was with How I Met Your Mother until the last 10 minutes when the writers destroyed all my love for the show. It’s so rare that a US version of a show meets or surpasses a UK original. After getting invested in the US version the way I did I could never get into a cast change. The show ended beautifully though.
I’m growing bored with The Big Bang Theory. I watch it more out of habit than anything else. Not that it doesn’t still have its good moments, but on the grand scale of things, there’s just not much interesting happening. As much as I never thought I’d say this, I might abandon it next season… just wait until the series is over and binge-watch from there to the end. (Besides, shows are so much better if you binge-watch them… all the great stuff sticks out in your memory, while the not-as-great is quickly forgotten.)
I’m still dealing with my feelings on the end of How I Met Your Mother. There were things I liked, but overall it didn’t make sense with where they took the show the last couple seasons. If they were dead set on using the ending they’d planned – and shot parts of YEARS in advance… because, you know, kids grow up – then they could have done things differently along the way.
I am getting back into Royal Pains, which I loved when I first watched, and then fell way behind on, and it only recently got added to Netflix. Also, Psych ended this year, but I haven’t watched any of the final season yet. I’m about a half a season behind on Castle (like BBT, I just lost interest and will probably binge-watch at some point).
Those are my main ones. My husband and I are also (painfully slowly) watching Doctor Who, but he’s never in the mood for it… I think I need to set a rule of at least one episode a week or I’m just going to watch it without him.
I just got hooked on Royal Pains on Netflix too — such a good show! It’s so weird to me to see the estate where Evan and Hank are staying for most of the episodes because it is Oheka Castle where my husband and I stayed after our wedding and I usually never recognize locations for TV shows or movies. For the record, it is NOT actually in the Hamptons!
Wow, that is too cool! (That you recognized the place and that you actually stayed there!) I started watching the show when it first came out, but about halfway through the second season we moved and never got cable. I was so excited when I saw it was on Netflix now! All the other USA shows (Psych, Burn Notice, White Collar, etc…) have been on there forever, so I don’t know what was the hold-up with Royal Pains, but I’m glad it’s there now.
Totally agree about the benefits of binge-watching! That’s how I got hooked on Big Bang Theory in the first place — got the 1st five seasons on DVD and watched ’em all in a row. Much better that way! But I do still enjoy it…
I quit watching How I Met Your Mother a year or so ago, thought I’d come back for the final season, watched a few episodes, then quit again. But based on what I’ve heard about the finale, I would have been PISSED. It doesn’t make sense, based on everything that happened over the years. I agree, if they were so determined to stick to the ending they’d decided on years ago, then they should have built the story so it worked!
I gave up on Castle (the crime of the week formula bores me after a while). My kids love Psych, and were marathoning it via NetFlix all spring.
I enjoy Doctor Who, but don’t obsess over it the way certain of my friends do. I watched season 1 w/my son again this year, but couldn’t convince him to continue after that. I think you should probably ditch the husband and binge on Who all by yourself!!
I love The Big Bang Theory! Things do seem to have tapered off a bit with that one though and I’m still not used to watching one week at a time after watching seasons 1-5 straight through on DVD — I’m impatient, apparently! A lot of the other shows I watch all had crazy endings this year — Revenge, Castle, Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife — ahhh why do they have to make us wait?! Looking forward to the summer seasons of Rookie Blue, Mistresses, Rizzoli & Isles, and of course the premiere of Outlander! After a few more Game of Thrones episodes, there’s going to be quite a wait before the next season — I really should try catching up on the books in the interim 🙂
Ha, that’s exactly how I got into BBT — watched season 1 -5 all in a row on DVD! It’s harder to maintain interest when it’s just a 1/2 hour per week, but I still enjoy the gang, even though Penny doesn’t seem to have much to do any more. I hate having to wait all summer for new seasons of most show… but yes, at least we’ll have Outlander!!
I saw this earlier and forgot I haven’t replied so here we go:
TVD is quite the guilty pleasure of mine. It’s nearly impossible for them to do what they did in the finale (leaving out spoilers in case someone’s reading this..?) but they pulled something similar to the finale to Lost where every episode was almost always fade to black and this episode faded to white. If the writers are gutsy enough to actually follow through with it, I’ll give them THAT much more credit. It’s unlikely that’ll happen..but here’s to hoping. The show is basically made it impossible for there to be any realistic finality in all “those scenes” when they have season after season of returning cast (though, I really wanted Lexi to just be selfish for once 😦 ). Now I’m rambling. Onward to the next series. (I also haven’t considered The Originals but I’ve heard great things with the ending!)
I was following Survivor on-and-off, mainly by Wikipedia annnnnd I was kind of happy/angry/sad at the result.
Marvels! I’m not caught up yet, slowly trying to be. Buuuuuut it’s been quite fun so far. Not Whedon’s best (although I don’t know how much credit he can really get on it?) but it’s definitely a great fix for the yearly in-between gray area between Avengers movies and the like.
I actually enjoyed The Tomorrow People for what it was. I agree with you on all the loosey goosey writing and acting involved but it kept my attention (which I’ve come to realise isn’t that hard). Just to tangent–I just hate how some shows get the axe without really given the chance it needs to develop. I feel CW is pretty notorious for this, too. Although I’m still perplexed with some of their decisions (i.e. Carrie Diaries, Beauty and the Beast renewels–even if they were short blocks of episodes, they still got that chance that some shows don’t when they’re starting to develop).
I’m excited for summer television mainly because season four of Suits is back!
Much apologies for this long-winded post. Great to hear that another reader watches television voraciously as me!
Cheers,
Joey
Joey, we’re kindred spirits in the TV (TVD) world! I really hate that they gave Lexi a permanent good-bye (although as we’ve seen, nothing is ever really permanent on this show, so maybe they’ll find another loop-hole down the road.) If you have time on your hands this summer, I’d say check out The Originals. Despite some rather dumb moments, there are really some gasp-inducing elements too, and the core cast is really strong.
I was actually pleased with the Survivor result this time around. The guy who won played hard and was actively strategizing the entire time. People (other players) might have legitimate reason not to want to be friends with the guy, but they can’t be mad at him for going for it when nobody else seemed to be. (Okay, preachiness done…) 🙂
I’m happy to discover that so many of my fellow book nuts are TV people too! I love long-form TV drama, where you get years to really understand the characters and see them develop over time. I keep insisting to my husband that it’s like reading a long and involved novel!
Have fun with Suits this summer!
My main question for The Originals is: IS KLAUS EVER GOING BACK TO CAROLINE?! (I ship it. I ship it a lot…but Enzo is an okay consolation, I guess).
Oh, I do agree that Tony played a good game. And the jury this time wasn’t bitter about who played the best game and voted his way. I think I just really wanted Spencer to win haha.
Long, drawn out dramas is a hit or miss with me. I mean, once you get deep into the seasons, I often find myself wondering when they’ll end! Though it is indeed a bittersweet moment when long-standing shows like HIMYM does achieve finality.
My favourite not of this season but of at least the last decade was Revolution and I’m absolutely devastated it got cancelled. It had such a unique premise and amazing characters and I will be mourning it for a long time. Or maybe some other network will hopefully pick it up and I won’t have to.
Other than that, yeah I’m one of those people who watches a bunch of shows (though none can get as much of my love and investment as Revolution), like you. My feelings on TVD are very much similar to yours, though I did enjoy The Originals from the start. And The Tomorrow People got really good towards the end, likewise Agents of SHIELD. At least the latter wasn’t cancelled. I’m looking forward to see how they go on. And also Game of Thrones. And the Outlander series! Can’t wait.
Oh, my sympathies about Revolution! I didn’t watch it (other than the first episode), but I’d heard that it got really good. It’s so disappointing to invest in a show and its characters and then never get resolution. I’d started watching a new show this year (Last Resort, I think it was called?) and thought it was off to a great start — but when they announced the cancellation I couldn’t even bring myself to watch the final batch of episodes.
I think my issue with The Originals early on was the premise — why did these all-powerful, unbeatable vampires focus so much on New Orleans, when they could go anywhere and do anything? The witchy politics bugged me for a while, but over the season they seemed to iron out a lot of the weak spots, and I thought the cast was just stellar.
So much TV to love!!
Cannot freaking wait for Outlander. So damn excited!
Oh my gods, yes! Can. Not. Wait.