The Top 10 TV Shows of 2015

I didn’t plan on making a TV Top 10 list this year. I was not trying to follow a great deal of TV in 2015, and given that I barely had time to review movies this year, I did not spend nearly as much time as I would have liked writing about television. But once December arrived, and I started thinking about year-end reminiscences, it hit me just how much good TV I had soaked up in 2015 without even trying, upwards of 20 or 30 shows I would call good or mostly great – and at that point, there was no holding back. I had to make a countdown.

And what a countdown this is. 2015 was such an incredibly rich year for television, with so many great shows coming from so many different corners, that this is easily one of the toughest Top 10 tasks I’ve ever set myself, for film or for television. Just getting the list down to 10 titles was maddening, and ranking it involved a lot of staring blankly at the screen, wondering how on earth I could compare all these incredible shows. I would say several of the series on this list had straight-up masterwork seasons, and I cannot count the number of times television left me reeling in 2015, left me dazed and pummeled and unable to do or think about anything else while I processed the emotions and ideas and aesthetics of what I saw on screen. 2015 was, as has been said many times, ‘Peak TV’ in America, with more scripted shows in production than ever before; and even then, it’s the sheer barrage of quality that hits hardest, that so many of that record number of shows could be so good, so powerful, so moving, in so many different ways.

So this is my Top 10 Shows of the year, but I couldn’t stop there, and once the countdown is finished, I have listed another 10 ‘Honorable Mentions,’ which you could consider as a rough #11 - #20. And I could have kept listing shows out from there, but then I would never have gotten this finished, which would break my heart, because celebrating the year in television that was 2015 seems kind of essential.

So without further ado, here are the Top 10 TV Shows of 2015 (and ten more Honorable Mentions), coming up after the jump…

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #128 - Reviewing "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" (Spoilers)

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, television, and video games. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link.

This week, Star Wars: The Force Awakens finally arrived in theatres, and achieved world domination more or less instantly. We have been covering the movie since its announcement back in 2012, and now that it’s finally here, what did we think? I gave my spoiler-free thoughts in text form here, and suffice it to say, I’m all in. I love it. As for Sean…well, he didn’t like it as much – which certainly makes for an interesting and varied discussion, as whether one loves it or not, The Force Awakens offers plenty of things to talk about. We do just that, diving deep into all of the most interesting aspects of the movie – spoilers ahoy, obviously – and wrap up our fourth season in podcasting with some thoughts back on what kind of year 2015 has been.

Enjoy, and we will see you back here in 2016!

  

Download and Stream 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #128 as an MP3

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

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If you have questions, comments, or concerns about The Weekly Stuff, or would like to write in to the podcast to have your questions read on the show, please e-mail dinochow@jonathanlack.com.

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

A love letter to "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" - in many ways, my favorite film of the year

This piece on Star Wars: The Force Awakens is largely spoiler-free, and should not ruin any significant elements of the film for the uninitiated. I have many more thoughts on the film than just this, and shall share all of them on tomorrow’s podcast, where Sean and I will dive into the film in much greater detail. For now, this is just an attempt to summarize what the film means to me, and why I love it as much as I do. Enjoy…

Magic may not be ‘real,’ but there are times, sitting in a crowded movie theater and feeling enraptured by a sort of profound communal energy, a silent but positively electric dialogue between film and audience, that it can absolutely feel that way. I think of the first time I saw Fellowship of the Ring, and being transported to the realms of Middle Earth with such complete immersion; or seeing the final Harry Potter movie with 600 other fans, each and every one of us emotionally worked over, top to bottom, by the many blows the film lands. It doesn’t even have to be about a big crowd or a timely release; I vividly remember the last time I saw The Godfather with my Dad, in a revival screening of the new 4K restoration, me seeing it theatrically for the first time, him for the first time in decades, and both of us being pummeled by that well-known classic in ways neither of us ever had been before. In moments like those, when the lights go down and the film fills one’s vision, it really can feel like something beyond the realm of the physical or logically explainable is taking place, a unique sensation that belongs completely and totally to the mysterious realm of cinema.

And with Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I felt that magic again, as strong as I have ever felt it before.

Continue reading after the jump…

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #127 - Assassin's Creed Syndicate, Movie Trailers, and Star Wars Memories

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, television, and video games. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link.

With Star Wars: The Force Awakens completing its long march towards world domination this weekend, we thought now would be as good a time as any to take a walk down memory lane, and try to determine what Star Wars means to us, as a series of remembrances from childhood. We talk about our first experiences with the series, what it was like growing up alongside the Prequels, and the ways Star Wars has evolved for us over time. And before all that, we also talk a bit about games – Sean reviews Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate and I talk the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection – and go through all this week’s big movie trailers, including X-Men Apocalypse and Star Trek Beyond. It’s a calm-before-the-storm sort of episode, but a fun one nevertheless.

Enjoy!

  

Download and Stream 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #127 as an MP3

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

Follow ‘The Weekly Stuff’ on Tumblr!

If you have questions, comments, or concerns about The Weekly Stuff, or would like to write in to the podcast to have your questions read on the show, please e-mail dinochow@jonathanlack.com.

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #126 - Doctor Who Series 9 Farewell Spectacular!

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, television, and video games. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link.

The Doctor Who Series 9 finale obviously looms large over everything else this week, but we take some time at the top of the show to discuss a few other topics as well, including the hilariously atrocious new Batman v Superman trailer, news and happenings out of the Game Awards and PlayStation Experience, and finally, a full review (with spoilers!) of Netflix and Marvel’s Jessica Jones.

But Doctor Who is the focus on this extra-long episode, as we break down the outstanding Series 9 finale, “Hell Bent,” before looking back on Series 9 as a whole – ranking the episodes, thinking about favorite moments, saying farewell to departing companion Clara Oswald, and looking forward to the show’s very promising future. This has been an all-time great season of television, and it has been a pleasure and an honor to get to cover it in so much depth these past 12 weeks.

Enjoy!

Time Chart:

Intro and Stuff: 0:00:00 – 0:44:50

Reviewing Marvel’s Jessica Jones: 0:45:50 – 1:33:32

Doctor Who Series 9 Farewell Spectacular! 1:33:33 – 3:48:14

  

Download and Stream 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #126 as an MP3

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

Follow ‘The Weekly Stuff’ on Tumblr!

If you have questions, comments, or concerns about The Weekly Stuff, or would like to write in to the podcast to have your questions read on the show, please e-mail dinochow@jonathanlack.com.

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.