Inside Television with Alan Sepinwall

Lumps of coal: The worst TV I watched in 2011

Flimsy mysteries, bad comedies and terrible endings

By Alan Sepinwall Monday, Dec 26, 2011 2:47 PM

Joel Kinnaman and Mireille Enos in "The Killing."

Credit: AMC

I've written a lot of words praising the best TV had to offer in 2011. Now comes the dark side: the worst things I watched.

This list comes with a rather large caveat, which is that I imagine there are many things far, far worse on television than what's going to be on this list. I just haven't seen them, or have seen only a few minutes of them. I go out of my way to avoid Nancy Grace, have only been exposed to the Kardashians casually, couldn't pick a Dance Mom out of a line up, etc.

And in a few cases, something I chose wasn't necessarily as bad as something I omitted, but was disappointing enough to make the cut over something clearly inferior where I had no expectations.

So where I would be surprised if there was something out there on television in 2011 that I hadn't seen and would clearly bump one of my favorites from the best-of list, I will not pretend that this is a list of the absolute worst television of the year. These are just 10 shows, in alphabetical order, that made me unhappy in one way or another.

The 2011 Academy Awards (ABC): The Oscar producers wanted young and hip, so they hired James Franco and Anne Hathaway to host. But their writers (notoriously Bruce Villanch) saddled them with the same hacky material that hosts of every age have struggled with for a while - Hathaway and Franco appearing to dress in each other's clothes may have been a low point - Franco mentally checked out almost immediately, and poor Hathaway was left to flail about at twice the speed and volume to try to make something out of this mess she'd been given. The telecast was so excruciating that presenter Billy Crystal got a prolonged ovation just for reminding the audience in the theater what a non-terrible Oscar host looked like.

"American Horror Story" (FX): It's a hit for FX, and many of my fellow critics like it, but the half-dozen episodes I watched before bailing represented everything I dislike about co-creator Ryan Murphy's over-the-top style and none of the parts I tend to enjoy early on. A silly assault of whatever crazy ideas Murphy and Falchuk wanted to throw in there (Ghosts in gimp suits! Naked Dylan McDermott! Shape-changing maids!) mixed in with some performances that at least got the joke (Jessica Lange, mostly) and others that unfortunately didn't (Connie Britton), all of it so fast and relentless and loud that little of it had the intended impact on me.

The "Big Love" finale (HBO): There were many episodes of television far worse than this, but few were as disappointing. I'd put in five seasons of watching "Big Love" for the performances, and for some of the questions it raised about spirituality, marriage, politics, etc. But the show also held me at a remove because the man at the center of it was such a maddening blank. I knew I strongly disliked Bill Henrickson, but it was never entirely clear how the show felt about the guy - until a finale where he was martyred in ridiculous fashion and held up as a good, misunderstood man, rather than the passive-aggressive, manipulative emotional black hole we’d all been watching for five seasons. It wasn't so much that the finale was bad, as that it revealed that the show I was watching for five years apparently wasn't the one the creators thought they were making.

"Charlie's Angels" (ABC): All three of this fall's retro dramas ("Playboy Club" and "Pan Am" were the others) suffered from an identity crisis of one kind or another. But where the other two weren't sure what kind of show they wanted to be each week, the "Charlie's Angels" reboot decided immediately - it just chose horribly wrong, with a grimm, ultra-serious take that robbed whatever campy/cheesey fun you might have expected from the brand name, and with a collection of terrible performances and bad writing that undercut any attempt to give the Angels some dramatic heft.

"Entourage" (HBO): The laziest "comedy" on television didn't magically discover a work ethic in its final season, hitting the eject button on various storylines as quickly and obnoxiously as possible. ("Here, Turtle: I solved all your money problems by buying up those tequila shares you stupidly sold!") The finale was a special brand of clueless, as the series suddenly decided that what it wanted was for Vince, E and Ari to all live happily ever after with various lady friends - and, in the case of Vince, with a reporter he and we had just met, and whose courtship took place entirely off screen so the show wouldn't have to bother showing how she fell madly in love with him overnight. "Entourage" was never an especially good show, but there were times when it understood what it was and what its limitations and could be very watchable as a result. The victory lap season was both complacent and oblivious.

"Episodes" (Showtime): More smugness and laziness came courtesy of this tin-eared, predictable Hollywood satire about a pair of poor, beleaguered English writers whose acclaimed sitcom becomes unrecognizable in an American adaptation. (The show kept arguing that it should be a note-for-note remake, ignoring the many times this approach has failed spectacularly.) Every joke was telegraphed from miles away, and the only ones that ever even vaguely worked involved Matt LeBlanc playing a fictionalized version of himself. Overall, the whole thing was so obnoxious that it made me root for the bumbling network executives out of spite.

"The Killing" (AMC): There's been some mild revisionist history suggesting that people were only mad at "The Killing" finale because it didn't tell us who murdered Rosie Larsen. No. What made me, and many others, upset, was that the show had, piece by piece, fallen apart in every other way - it was a character-driven drama without interesting characters and a mystery series that only seemed to have one move (red herring endings that were immediately revealed as such the following week) - until the point where we realized that the only thing that would make the time wasted on the previous hours worth it would be to find out who the killer was, and "The Killing" couldn't even do that right. A near-total misfire, outside of some good performances in service of mostly one-note characters.

The diner scenes on "2 Broke Girls" (CBS): When "2 Broke Girls" is just following Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs as they slowly become friends and work a series of odd jobs to get their cupcake business of the ground, it's a not-awful sitcom with potential to grow into much more than that. But whatever goodwill is generated by the chemistry between the two leads immediately gets thrown away whenever they report to their regular job working at a greasy spoon where the other employees are heinous ethnic caricatures, where the patrons are all hipsters who are the butt of the same thin joke over and over, and where the series' overall IQ plummets. There's a good show at the center of "Broke Girls," but the first season has to end with the health department shutting that place down so Max and Caroline can never, ever go there again.

"Torchwood: Miracle Day" (Starz): "Torchwood" creator Russell T. Davies brought his sci-fi franchise to America with a miniseries that was twice as long as the previous "Children of Earth" and not even half as good. "Miracle Day," in which everyone on the planet lost the ability to die - and discovered that immortality came with a lot of downside - suffered everywhere from the disease of more. Too much story (even for 10 hours), too many new (and boring or irritating) American characters, and just too much ambition and not enough direction. Bigger was definitely not better in this case, and if Davies decides to continue the series (either here or in the UK), here's hoping he scales things back a bit.

"Whitney" (NBC): Where I can find merit to half of "Broke Girls," the other new Whitney Cummings sitcom has been much scarcer on silver linings. So much to dislike, including terrible jokes being greeted by the laughtrack as if every single scene was Chuckles the Clown's funeral, and characters behaving not as human beings, but as aliens who learned everything about our culture from watching "Veronica's Closet." Worst of all, the central relationship between Whitney and her boyfriend is built on a deep foundation of mutual loathing, yet the show tries to treat their various mind games as cute and fun. Ugh.

Others considered: "Allen Gregory" (FOX), "Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior" (CBS), "The Event" (NBC), "Franklin & Bash" (TNT), "H8R" (CW), "Harry's Law" (NBC), "I Hate My Teenage Daughter" (FOX), "Last Man Standing" (ABC), "The Paul Reiser Show" (NBC), "The Playboy Club" (NBC), "Terra Nova" (FOX)

A sneak peek at 2012: The new year hasn't even started yet, and yet I will be shocked if I hate anything quite as much as I dislike ABC's upcoming cross-dressing sitcom "Work It."

Alan Sepinwall may be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

Related Searches: Torchwood, American Horror Story, Big Love, James Franco, Anne Hathaway, Charlie's Angels, Entourage, Episodes, The Killing, 2 Broke Girls, Whitney

Next 96 Comments

trufflin

Except for American Horror Story, a.k.a. Glee Ghosts, you have done a good job of shielding yourself from the Kardashian Buttcrack Sweat on the shallow end of the TV toilet. The Kardashian and Lohan mothers should be charged with crimes against humanity for failing to procure abortions.
December 26, 2011 at 4:04PM EST Reply to Comment
- Ernst Glee Ghosts...love it!! I was actually thinking that since they are rebooting AHS for season two, that what I would really like to see is the cast of Glee move into Murder House. Now THAT would be a show...
  December 27, 2011 at 1:35PM EST
Adam B.

The Paula Abdul dancing show? The Cape?
December 26, 2011 at 4:11PM EST Reply to Comment
- Ergonomic I had almost forgotten about The Cape. Yeah, that was awful.
  December 26, 2011 at 7:30PM EST
- LoopyChew Six seasons and a movie!
  December 26, 2011 at 7:56PM EST
- Hatfield Except The Cape attained "so bad it's good" status, especially if you read the AV Club recaps
  December 27, 2011 at 11:43AM EST
DirtyKash

Honorable mention: The last 10 minutes of the Sons of Anarchy finale.
December 26, 2011 at 4:20PM EST Reply to Comment
MGT

How dare you include Franklin & Bash on this list. Even as an Honorable Mention...the very idea!
December 26, 2011 at 4:25PM EST Reply to Comment
Geoff Peterson

The smugness of Episodes is one of the things I like about it, I think we're meant to feel uncomfortable watching some of those characters in the awkward scenes this season had, and I always found them amusing, sometimes even laugh-out-loud funny.

The synopsis of Episodes is irresistible, the cast is perfect, and granted, the writing of some jokes was sometimes predictible but so is Larry David's on Curb your Enthusiasm (well, the show has 8 seasons so it's a little more understandable) and it doesn't stop me from thinking this is the best comedy still in production (I'm counting on a ninth season). All that matters to me is the outcome, even if there's no much surprise on what it is, and on that level I was almost always pleased while watching Episodes, I laughed a lot.

However I can only agree on Entourage. In season 8 I barely recognised the show I once was a big fan of (seasons 2-4), and the series finale is absolute garbage.

I for one enjoyed The Event. It's no 24 and it's no Lost, there are clearly no acting performances (although Zeljko Ivanek is good in anything), but it does entertain, every week I wanted to see where the story was going (even if it was silly), and besides, heavily serialized shows are so rare on networks.

Thanks to advised critics like you, I saved myself from bad shows like Whitney and 2 Broke Girls (although I had made my mind on those two after watching the Upfronts trailer). Thank you for your sacrifice.

I actually watched the pilot of Charlie's Angels just to see what was the mess the lovely Minka Kelly had gotten herself into, and it was pretty bad, and not even unintentionally funny.
December 26, 2011 at 4:29PM EST Reply to Comment
kevin_garren

Torchwood wasn't THAT bad, just the big reveal was. Sure, compared to the other 3 seasons, Miracle Day was crap.. how is The Cape and The Event not in here? compared to those, Miracle Day was a masterpiece

Terra Nova had potential, but instead of having a serialized show, it was full of standalone filler episodes that didn't serve the overall storyline, and they tried to rely on the (horrible) graphics instead of the script. all of Fox's animated shows are the worst things on TV, not just Allen Gregory

Franklin & Bash was good though, the only law show I like. And I Hate My Teenage Daughter is getting better with each episode
December 26, 2011 at 4:31PM EST Reply to Comment
- Kyle7 Alan said he put things on the list that severely underwhelmed over merely blah things for which he had no expectations. It sounds like he was rather disappointed in Torchwood, especially coming off of Children of Earth, and that outweighed the mehness of The Cape and The Event for which he had no real expectations.
  December 27, 2011 at 1:27AM EST
- velveetahead I agree that Torchwood should be on the list because of the caveat Alan gave at the beginning of the article. I was so supremely disappointed in the season. While trying to get new fans to check it out, I have told them to watch the British seasons & forget this one existed. Jack was turned into a caricature & the new characters were highly annoying & unnecessary. It could have just been the Jack & Gwen show.
  December 27, 2011 at 4:21PM EST
tv_vwr

I was expecting a group bleh to the interchangeable, utterly forgettable Friends clones that each network threw at the wall this year until Happy Endings finally stuck by showing some personality and zest.
December 26, 2011 at 4:36PM EST Reply to Comment
chuchundra

I really liked Episodes. Matt LeBlanc was very good as Matt LeBlanc and I thought the two leads had some very nice, romantic chemistry, which made it all the more sad when it fell apart at the end.

Your main problem with the show seems to be the verisimilitude of the driving action. Your assertion that American remakes of UK shows are generally better if they're allowed to deviate from the source material may well be true, but it's irrelevant to the quality of the show for most people.

December 26, 2011 at 4:39PM EST Reply to Comment
Teklanika

Wow, not sure how you leave off the series killing season finale of SOA. You earned it by rightfully including "Hands" in you best of column.
December 26, 2011 at 5:06PM EST Reply to Comment
consideract

Hmmm, only disagree with American Horror Story and perhaps a bit of Big Love.

I will certify that they muffed Bill's death in Big Love, in letting him slip off the accountability hook, but Bill was never merely a black-hole. His narcissism was balanced by what he did well, and what he really cared about in a human unselfish way, amidst his selfish unaware destructive tendencies. I come from an extremely dysfunctional family (non-Mormon), and I could picture Bill as a natural result of such a family. I know him, or a version of him, among my own siblings. I know Bill's father, as well, in certain key regards. So, Bill always made perfect sense to me. I well know what his wives were facing in the tension to stay/go, and why mostly (not #4) they decided to stay. There is real humanity in the character, but the narcissism is also real. In that regard, I also liked how the show dealt with the cycles of the generations, and how these emotional aspects play out, who is healthy or healthier, how people are marked by their families. Bill was the central node, or crux of that progress, within the show, so he was often caught between worlds. I would have liked the death handled better, however, especially given how he had let his ego increasingly get the better of him in the final two seasons. I think it was okay to show him driving the family over the cliff (taking on way too much in a willful, not-quite-blind-but-I-know-best-you-will-see way is part of this character type), but then his death needed to be handled differently, though I liked his lingering ghost overlooking the family as a narrative tool (just would have liked it ameliorated differently) reflecting the imprinted legacy of those past.

With American Horror Story, one of the tricks I liked best was the "shape-changing maid." To me, that was one of the better ghostly gambits, a natural extension of the way the ghosts are trapped and the ways they appear to themselves and others. I particularly liked how Ben in the end saw her as the older character, with Moira telling him that now he was seeing things straight. I think it was fairly clear that the ghosts appear as they see themselves, all kinds of wardrobe changes for example, but also that part of the trap for someone like Moira is that though she sees herself as aging, maturing, growing, desires to not just be the tramp, desires to be respectable in her duties, in the end to be part of a family even, that she is trapped as a tramp in the eyes of the men passing through the house (until someone like Ben finally gets past their own honey-trapped minds).

I may find some episodes of a Ryan Murphy production to be off in their stride, but I find the over-the-top nature of his work to be an authentic form. I really dislike musicals, probably in the main for this reason, but that is what they are. It is hard to critique a musical or a horror show for being over-the-top, for highlighting spectacle. Though I don't think he succeeds on his own terms 100% (I was bored by episodes 2 and 3 in AHS), I somehow like the way Ryan Murphy embraces this kind of form. I wouldn't put AHS at the top of my own personal best list, but I particularly like how AHS dealt with facing death, of facing one's own self-centered loop and being trapped by it or growing beyond it, whether alive or dead.

December 26, 2011 at 5:09PM EST Reply to Comment
Greg

I would also add Nurse Jackie, which was so incredibly repetitive that it felt like every single episode was the same. The writers only changed a feel details here and there (in one episode the statues were removed, in another a rat fell on Zoey's sandwich, et. all) to make us belive that there is a story going on, but nothing ever happens on this crappy show.
December 26, 2011 at 5:27PM EST Reply to Comment
- Laura I actually thought Nurse Jackie (and Tara) were really good this season. I love that Jackie will be untethered next season and that she has found a partner in crime just as, if not more, conniving than she is.
  December 29, 2011 at 2:22PM EST
Sareeta

Terra Nova and Hell on Wheels?
December 26, 2011 at 6:00PM EST Reply to Comment
- Sareeta Oops, I missed that you included Terra Nova in your "others considered" section. I never watched either of these series past their pilots. Did they improve at all?
  December 26, 2011 at 10:39PM EST
blinky

Terra Nova was the most anticipated show with the biggest let down. People meet dinosaurs, hilarity ensues. Just think of all those other Steven Spielberg Executive Produced television gems...ah, thinking, thinking. Hmmmmm....
December 26, 2011 at 6:45PM EST Reply to Comment
shin

You're so right about 2 Broke Girls. There are many episodes I thought were pretty terrible until the girls finally left the diner and all of a sudden it became a completely different, much better show.

I could do without every single one of their co-workers, but the Chinese owner is especially unfunny. And seeing the once-great Garrett Morris sitting behind a counter delivering terrible one-liners like he's sleepwalking makes me think they show's producers hired him as a favor so that he can afford health care.
December 26, 2011 at 7:21PM EST Reply to Comment
- KathyB I gave up watching this show, for all the reasons mentioned. My other half didn't even know that it was Garret Morris sitting there in the diner. I hope they figure it out.
  December 28, 2011 at 7:12PM EST
- I find their use of Garrett Morris especially tiresome because, him being an older man, and Max never knowing her real father they could explore that relationship and tell some really interesting stories there but they actively choose not. The moment when he turned the clock forward and scared off Beth Behr's douchebag ex-BF with a bat was a nice moment but they never again showed a moment of caring between them that wasn't rooted in their mutual hatred of hipsters and annoyance with their cartoonish boss.
  December 28, 2011 at 9:48PM EST
srpad

"It wasn't so much that the finale was bad, as that it revealed that the show I was watching for five years apparently wasn't the one the creators thought they were making."

I could have wrote this sentence regarding the BSG finale.
December 26, 2011 at 8:04PM EST Reply to Comment
- chuchundra I'd say that the BSG finale was bad, as well as revealing that the show I was watching for five years apparently wasn't the one the creators thought they were making.
  December 26, 2011 at 9:25PM EST
- keith Caprica showed you what they thought about BSG. They never really understood what we liked about it at all.
  December 27, 2011 at 12:01AM EST
Mulderism

Yes, I had really come to loathe Entourage the past few seasons. The show was interesting when the boys were taking chances with Vince's career. But somewhere along the way the producers/writers decided that the boys didn't deserves to suffer and so everything just worked out well for all of them.

At the end they were just a bunch of rich, successful douchebags. These are people we're supposed to admire and look up to? I was hoping their jet would crash in the last episode.

And don't get me started on how they neutered Ari... He was a mere shadow of himself in the end.
December 26, 2011 at 8:09PM EST Reply to Comment
- nic919 Entourage would have been more interesting if the guys stopped acting and just played themselves. They would have been more interesting playing the mediocre level famous actors they truly are. And Piven could have created pathos with his mercury poisoning.
  December 26, 2011 at 8:45PM EST
snakehole

I don't watch Dexter anymore but, considering that everybody who does seems to be in agreement that this was a pitifully terrible season, I was almost certain that I would find it on this list.
December 26, 2011 at 8:10PM EST Reply to Comment
Elevation

The wife from "Lights Out" deserves a special horrible character shout out.
December 26, 2011 at 8:34PM EST Reply to Comment
txt

I would think the worst part of The diner scenes on "2 Broke Girls" involves the blatant racism on the show's portrayal of Asian, Eastern European, and African American. It was painful to watch that show, I don't understand the praise, it's just a mean spirit sitcom with occasional sentimental scenes. what a huge let down.
Yeah, I hated Entourage so much, I sold my incomplete DVD collection because they ruined the whole show with those last eight episodes. It was shockingly bad.
My other worst of the year: Falling Skies, Terra Nova, The Event, and the fall from grace Dexter.
December 26, 2011 at 8:40PM EST Reply to Comment
- neverthehero Eastern European and Asian for sure, but I don't remember too many African American slams.
  December 27, 2011 at 1:46AM EST
Akshay

what is lump of coal is this piece of shit article that you have come up with. seriously american horror story and the killing were some of the best made tv dramas out there. episodes is funnier than most of the shit that is passed out as comedies these days
December 26, 2011 at 8:51PM EST Reply to Comment
- Octavio u mad?
  December 26, 2011 at 8:56PM EST
- Josh Great point.
  December 26, 2011 at 9:10PM EST
- Col Bat Guano A rare sighting of the elusive The Killing fan. Probably still disappointed The Cape was canceled.
  December 27, 2011 at 3:41AM EST
- ZacharyTF They probably thought The Cape would get six seasons and a movie.
  December 27, 2011 at 11:05AM EST
- ken sly AKSHAY is a tad harsh, but honest. Of the nine people that I know that watch THE KILLIG, all nine like it. Of those nine, not one of them reads AS's reviews. So what do I conclude? Eh, just that I know nine others that watch a show.
  December 27, 2011 at 2:29PM EST
patrick_eakin

I'd love to see a top 20 list from you Alan, as I'm sure Weeds deserved to be on it.

Also, it galls me to defend anything about Big Love from Season 4 forward but I will stand up an insist that there was one scene in the finale - the sister wives in the mini cooper talking, set to an orchestral adaptation of Moby's best song - that really GOT to me and was touching on so many levels, making me appreciate the characters and the actresses themselves. A cyncic would have insisted that the line of wanting to drive away forever was a veiled remark about the show's terrible material itself but it still was the only redeemable moment beyond seson 3 that worked for me at all. It only sucks that it is 1% of the show.
December 26, 2011 at 8:59PM EST Reply to Comment
Stormshadow4life

I actually quite liked Episodes! American Horror was kind of enjoyable....even the show really had no idea what it was doing (changing the rules whenever they saw fit)
December 26, 2011 at 9:11PM EST Reply to Comment
War Chief Shake Zula

You should've put The Event on the main list. The post-hiatus stretch in particular was single-handedly responsible for breaking my innate trust in sci-fi on broadcast, thanks to its wandering, unending inanity. Bonus points in that regard go to the Spanish-flu arc. God was that terrible, and ultimately, the fact that I couldn't bring myself to delete it from the DVR was the worst part (a failing I attribute to my love of aliens and my inability to quit ANY sci-fi unless the third episode makes me really hate the show), given that I ultimately fell victim to self-hate over the fact that I couldn't stop watching such a thoroughly unpleasant show.

Personally, any top ten list of mine would also include Falling Skies, which helped break my innate trust of sci-fi on any part of TV (and also helped me be prepared to be disappointed by Terra Nova, which happened to have THE EXACT SAME PROBLEMS in terms of characters, pacing and atmosphere). To the almighty idiot ball, which Skies abused to a degree I've never seen - even the aliens made incalculably idiotic decisions simply because the plot called for them to - and to another trust-breaking round of self-hatred after I ONCE AGAIN watched beyond three episodes.
December 27, 2011 at 1:23AM EST Reply to Comment
neverthehero

Spot on with Two Broke Girls Alan. I do wonder why would an Asian actor work with that script? Do writers have that much power?
December 27, 2011 at 1:42AM EST Reply to Comment
- klg19 Probably more that Asian actors, like all actors, like being able to pay their rent.
  December 28, 2011 at 4:10PM EST
Kyle7

Completely agree on 2BG. I keep seeing flashes of, if not brilliance, at least goodness in the non-diner sections. I'm giving it until the end of the season since I've watched many shows that didn't really click until the second halves of their first seasons (Community and Fringe are 2 recent examples), but it's definitely on my personal bubble.

I see where Alan's coming from with regards to Torchwood. The ending of Children of Earth left me floored, and I suppose it would have had trouble living up to that no matter what happened. I didn't overly dislike any one aspect, but it definitely could have been tighter. Oswald Danes was rather unnecessary; the fact that a couple episodes in the middle of the season didn't have him at all and I didn't notice didn't speak all that highly about the character. I never really loved the first two seasons; maybe the show just works better as a 5-episode season, and trying to make it run much longer leaves too much time to fill.

I'm a little surprised Alan didn't have HIMYM at least on the "considered" list. I know he liked a couple episodes, including putting The Ducky Tie on his best-of list, but his extreme dislike of the fall finale suggested it might get a mention.
December 27, 2011 at 1:44AM EST Reply to Comment
ZacharyTF

Did you watch Last Man Standing after the pilot? My brother and I watched all 11 episodes on Hulu Plus over Christmas and it does start off pretty bad, but by the 11th episode, it's basically Home Improvement with daughters instead of sons.
December 27, 2011 at 1:58AM EST Reply to Comment
- chuchundra Pretty much, yeah. Although I think LMS has the potential to be a better show because the three daughters have more potential than the kids on Home Improvement. Plus they have Hector Elizondo.
  
  It makes a decent show to watch on Hulu during slow days, although I don't think it will ever graduate to the big TV.
  December 27, 2011 at 2:43AM EST
MoreTears

Episodes was great, and the worst thing that should be said about The Killing is that it is AMC's "least good" series, because it IS good, but in my opinion pales when looked at alongside every other series AMC has done.

To expand a little bit on what I object to in Alan's comments about The Killing, I have to say that complaining about red herrings in a murder mystery just makes one appear oblivious to the tropes of the genre (of course it is legitimate to simply not LIKE the murder mystery genre, but one should just say that up front instead of acting surprised when a murder mystery has red herrings). Also, when even the least bit of internet research could have told one that the Larsen murder case in the original Danish series was covered in 20 episodes, episodes split into two parts of 10 episodes with a big cliffhanger in the middle (and we are talking about 52-55 minute, non-ad-interrupted episodes, not American commercial TV's 43-minute episodes with 17 minutes of commercials) -- well, when all of that information is a few mouse-clicks away, I really have to wonder about a professional TV critic just lazily assuming everything will be wrapped up after 13 episodes in a season finale because that is what the mundane formula of American TV has inculcated him to expect. And to make it worse, he blames the SHOW, not his own lack of research and foresight, when his ill-conceived expectation that the show wouldn't buck the standard American formula wasn't fulfilled. From the average couch potato, I wouldn't expect more. From someone making his living from thinking and writing about TV, we should all expect more.
December 27, 2011 at 2:32AM EST Reply to Comment
- mikec31 The advertising for the show, interviews prior to the finale, etc. all ranged from hinting to outright stating that the mystery would be solved in the season finale.
  December 27, 2011 at 3:16AM EST
- Col Bat Guano The failure to reveal the killer was just the final cherry on that steaming pile of crap. The ridiculous red herrings which somehow were resolved in a day, the nonsensical political story, the absurd lengths they went to keep characters from communicating important details along with the police's inability to investigate the most obvious avenues made The Killing an easy contender for the worst of 2011. Oh, also the torrential rain that fell continuely which always brought a laugh for us Seattle residents.
  December 27, 2011 at 3:50AM EST
- cgeye MoreTears, I won't insult you as you have Mr. S., but the smallest bit of Internet research would reveal that AMC marketed the hell out of the phrase "Who Killed Rosie Larsen?", which, according to the one-season-hit-or-die renewal system in America, implies that the producers were prepared at least to answer that question in one season.
  
  THE KILLING didn't, nor did it set up the groundwork for the mystery to continue for another season *before the finale*. It idled plotwise for so many wasted episodes that it didn't give the audience the pleasure of being caught up in the mystery, throughout. And if you want proof of mundanity, check Veena Sud's IMDB page -- girlfriend's stayed in the shallow end of the narrative TV pool, which didn't prepare her or her team to be near the Danish in innovation....
  
  Also, with the smallest bit o' Googling, one would also note that TK was marketed as being *different* from other procedurals in having a strong character-exploration bent -- a bent that it betrayed -- not twisted, betrayed -- in a finale that turned characters around without any meaningful hints, just as murder suspects stopped being murder suspects, because of choppy and bad faith plot twists, instead of deepened characterizations revealing themselves.
  
  Lastly, if MAD MEN or BREAKING BAD pulled this type of crap, without giving us ample helpings of memorable characterizations, would you be so quick to excuse? H-E-L-L to the N-O. AMC might be letting down its standards for higher ratings, but there's no call that we have to either excuse their slippage or pretend that They Meant To Do That. Sheesh.
  
  December 27, 2011 at 4:11AM EST
- MoreTears @MIKEC31 -- The interviews I read were all ambiguous (purposely) and never even came close to hinting all would be resolved in the season finale. I do remember an interview with Mireille Enos in which the interviewer's questions assumed everything would be resolved, and Enos neither contradicted the person nor confirmed the assumption, which was the entirely correct and professional way to do the interview. I have heard people say they saw an AMC promo on TV promising resolution, but I didn't see that, so I will merely say that IF that report is true, AMC's MARKETING can be justly faulted, but that is something quite separate from the show itself. The incident would simply be added to the long record of TV channel marketing departments either being clueless about the content of their own channels' programming, or resorting to deception to lure in viewers -- two things that I have heard the people who actually MAKE TV shows deplore over and over again.
  
  @CGYE -- "Who Killed Rosie Larsen?" doesn't promise an answer to the question posed in the first season AT ALL, and your believing it does is actually quite amusing, because the question is an obvious homage to, or rip-off of, "Who Killed Laura Palmer?" from Twin Peaks, a series that didn't answer the question in its first season either.
  
  The rest of your comment, much like most of the statements made by Col Bat Guano above your comment, are opinions that I disagree with, but are in the realm of subjective taste and are not worthwhile quarreling over (at least not here, now). I can only speak for myself and say I was interested in the characters in The Killing and ENJOYED the progression of the storyline, red herrings, blind alleys and all. Obviously the content isn't up to the incredibly high standard of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, but I am always amazed by how many people fail to appreciate that failing to meet such high standards doesn't make something "bad TV." There is a vast middle ground between Mad Men/Breaking Bad and bad TV, and The Killing comfortably occupies that ground, leaning toward the high end and not the lower.
  December 27, 2011 at 5:02AM EST
- Ed G. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The name of the show is "THE Killing," not "A Killing." There can be absolutely no bigger clue that this would not be resolved in one very short season.
  December 27, 2011 at 12:18PM EST
- Ken Raining If you go back and read Alan's synopsis of the Killing finale, you'll see that he's well aware of the length of the Dutch series, and that it was possible that the mystery would stretch beyond the season finale-- that doesn't mean that he has to be happy about it.
  
  Also, Alan's made it pretty clear that his objection to the red herrings isn't so much the trope itself, but the way it was utilized by this show in particular; as he says above, it was the show's only move.
  
  Finally, if YOU are going to go out of your way to accuse a professional of being lazy, then YOU should do some of the research of which you're so fond. I mean, Alan's reviews of the Killing are one click to the right; what's your excuse?
  December 27, 2011 at 3:24PM EST
- Barry Folks, it's pointless arguing with this MoreTears bloke, I've seen him on other sites (Digital Spy; The Guardian) defending The Killing to the death (almost as if he worked on the show). It's really not worth the effort considering his liking of the show puts him in the clear minority.
  December 27, 2011 at 7:28PM EST
- MoreTears @Ken Raining -- I read everything Alan wrote about The Killing, AT THE TIME IT WAS PUBLISHED, and I listened to what he had to say about the show in his podcasts. I just re-read his season finale review now, and yes, I forgot, over the course of the last SIX months, that he referenced the 20 episode Danish season, but he doesn't acknowledge the big break in the middle of that "season" that effectively made it two seasons, or the cliffhanger in the middle, which practically led to a riot in Denmark. Alan made it clear he thought Veena Sud should just collapse the story into 13 43-minute episodes anyway. He also thought Sud should make severe changes for season 2. In short, there is a refusal on Alan's part to even face what it means to do a more or less faithful adaptation of the original source material. Time and again he blames Sud for things that the Danish producers chose to do and that Sud simply followed because it was in the source material she was charged by Fox Studios with adapting for America. Also, Alan does not realize or doesn't care that one change Sud made was in REDUCING the number or red herrings from what the Danish show gave its audience. I have seen fans of the Danish show who hate the American adaptation take glee in Alan's opposition to the US Killing, but the grounds on which Alan bases his disdain give me little indication he would have liked the Danish show either, and if anything he probably would have hated it more.
  December 27, 2011 at 9:13PM EST
- Col Bat Guano What the Danish version of The Killing did or did not do has no bearing on whether AS enjoyed this adaptation of it. His opinion (which I share) was that this was a bad show. You may disagree with his opinion, but you can't go around calling him lazy especially when you don't even bother to check his reviews before blasting him. Pot meet kettle. I'm glad you enjoyed this crapfest, but nothing you say is going to change anyone's mind.
  December 27, 2011 at 10:04PM EST
- MoreTears Col Bat Guano -- I just said I DID read his reviews, and everything he wrote about the show, so that seems to have gone over your head, but yes, I did FORGET one thing, and it is a thing that does NOT take away from my point -- Alan LAZILY assumed the American show would not buck the mundane American formula of wrapping everything up in the season finale. Frankly, him knowing the Danish story lasted 20 episodes makes it worse. It was completely unrealistic to think all of that content would be reduced to 13 American episodes, especially once it became clear that the show was moving as slowly in its pace as all AMC shows move. So I stand by that point made above, because it is true, and it is even more clear after RE-reading Alan's season finale review. This show is not 24, for God's sake. And you seem to think I believe I am going to change the minds of people who didn't like the show. Nothing could be further from the truth. Does ANYBODY ever change anybody's mind here, or write under the illusion that they will? People write to express their point of view and that is that, here and at other TV forums.
  December 27, 2011 at 10:42PM EST
- Col Bat Guano Again you seem to think that the failure to reveal the killer Alan's biggest complaint and that somehow the fact that they followed the Danish show's format makes that a mistake. No. The show was a failure on every level (in my opinion) and not revealing the killer was the least of its problems.
  December 28, 2011 at 12:50AM EST
- MoreTears Col Bat Guano -- In the article above Alan says, back-handedly, that the time "wasted" would have been "worth it" if the killer was revealed. And in his season finale review he made it clear that not revealing the killer was the straw that broke the camel's back and had him swearing at his TV. So, no, I don't think I am overestimating the importance of that in Alan's mind, at least far as what he has represented to be his state of mind. And the red herrings as well made it into every complaint he has written, or vocalized in his podcast in the summer (I haven't yet listened to the new podcast that went up today). Those are the two things I wrote about because those are two things that I believe can be discussed OBJECTIVELY. I said above that there are things that are subjective, and if they CAN be argued over, now probably isn't the time to do it, and this doesn't seem like the place. There is not much to say when someone doesn't like fictional characters or plot developments or pacing if one has the opposite opinion all those things, and that is why I didn't bother getting into any of those things in my initial post. Not "getting into it" doesn't mean I don't acknowledge Alan was unhappy about what was done with the characters or plot.
  December 28, 2011 at 1:41AM EST
- Alf Ed G., I think the title shouldn't make you think that way. Do you think "The Wire" should only be about one wire or should change its name to "A Wire"?
  December 28, 2011 at 2:10AM EST
- Col Bat Guano No, you're not overestimating the importance of that to Alan, but only if you completely ignore the writeup above. As his first sentence says:
  
  "There's been some mild revisionist history suggesting that people were only mad at "The Killing" finale because it didn't tell us who murdered Rosie Larsen. No.
  
  You may believe you can discuss this objectively, but I hope you realize that that makes very little sense in a discussion of TV criticism.
  December 28, 2011 at 12:17PM EST
- MoreTears Col Bat Guano -- Objecting to red herrings in a murder mystery is OBJECTIVELY silly (tantamount to objecting to horses in a Western). Automatically expecting a season finale to resolve a story (as if season-ending cliffhangers are unheard of in TV), especially when the story in question is just an Americanization of a pre-existing 20-episode story and the US season has only 13 episodes, is objectively silly. You obviously disagree with those statements, but I think they are true.
  December 28, 2011 at 1:13PM EST
- Ed G. "Alf: Ed G., I think the title shouldn't make you think that way. Do you think "The Wire" should only be about one wire or should change its name to "A Wire"? "
  
  Hi, Alf. That is a very good question but no, I can't see it that way (but I'm sure other people will.) The Wire wasn't a mystery. The question was never "who" did what so much as can the cops gather evidence against known bad guys. And then, to me, it even extended to questioning institutional objectives that are so rooted in their own self-justifications (criminal, law enforcement, education, the press...) to try to understand if they were actually capable of making moral decisions.
  
  But in a who-dunnit show that has a previous history, I'll take any clue I can get. My friend is one of those people who stuck around only because he wanted to see "Who Killed Rosie Larsen." I had the same discussion with him and basically suggested that he stop watching the show if he didn't like the pace. He also hated Rubicon for the exact same reason. (He doesn't like mysteries or spy novels either, which might have something else to do with why this show is polarizing.)
  
  I felt the acting was riveting and the pace reflected a more realistic portrayal of solving crimes.
  December 28, 2011 at 2:50PM EST
- Jessamyn Thread synopsis: I'm going to repeat my opinions and factual points, mixed up indiscriminately, but this time IN CAPITALS, so that you will finally see the light. Because nothing is a better use of time than complaining about or defending (vs. analysing or using as a springboard for discussion) a critic's self-acknowledged highly personal opinion piece.
  January 2, 2012 at 9:27AM EST
mikec31

If the Big Love finale proved one thing, it was that the wives would have had better lives had Bill just gotten out of the way. Kill him off and suddenly they're living their dreams.
December 27, 2011 at 3:14AM EST Reply to Comment
- Laura I was so happy they killed him because of that very reason. The show was always about the wives.
  December 29, 2011 at 2:25PM EST
Mike

I cannot watch Harry's Law, and Terra Nova would have made my list, but it was DOA (if not before).
December 27, 2011 at 12:24PM EST Reply to Comment
Timm S

"What made me, and many others, upset, was that the show had, piece by piece, fallen apart in every other way - it was a character-driven drama without interesting characters and a mystery series that only seemed to have one move (red herring endings that were immediately revealed as such the following week) - until the point where we realized that the only thing that would make the time wasted on the previous hours worth it would be to find out who the killer was, and "The Killing" couldn't even do that right."

--When I read this, I imagined your voice rising incrementally into a violent yell. I like to feel your anger regarding this show. I also like the one word sentence preceding it, "No.", as though you needed a 10-second timeout.

Also, THE EVENT! That was a thing! And I sort of watched it! Thanks for reminding me it was in AD 2011.

Happy New Year, all.

December 27, 2011 at 12:58PM EST Reply to Comment

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Lumps of coal: The worst TV I watched in 2011

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Option 1

Option 2

Option 3

trufflin Except for American Horror Story, a.k.a. Glee Ghosts, you have done a good job of shielding yourself from the Kardashian Buttcrack Sweat on the shallow end of the TV toilet. The Kardashian and Lohan mothers should be charged with crimes against humanity for failing to procure abortions.

Ernst Glee Ghosts...love it!! I was actually thinking that since they are rebooting AHS for season two, that what I would really like to see is the cast of Glee move into Murder House. Now THAT would be a show...

Adam B. The Paula Abdul dancing show? The Cape?

Ergonomic I had almost forgotten about The Cape. Yeah, that was awful.

LoopyChew Six seasons and a movie!

Hatfield Except The Cape attained "so bad it's good" status, especially if you read the AV Club recaps

DirtyKash Honorable mention: The last 10 minutes of the Sons of Anarchy finale.

MGT How dare you include Franklin & Bash on this list. Even as an Honorable Mention...the very idea!

tv_vwr I was expecting a group bleh to the interchangeable, utterly forgettable Friends clones that each network threw at the wall this year until Happy Endings finally stuck by showing some personality and zest.

Teklanika Wow, not sure how you leave off the series killing season finale of SOA. You earned it by rightfully including "Hands" in you best of column.

Laura I actually thought Nurse Jackie (and Tara) were really good this season. I love that Jackie will be untethered next season and that she has found a partner in crime just as, if not more, conniving than she is.

Sareeta Terra Nova and Hell on Wheels?

Sareeta Oops, I missed that you included Terra Nova in your "others considered" section. I never watched either of these series past their pilots. Did they improve at all?

blinky Terra Nova was the most anticipated show with the biggest let down. People meet dinosaurs, hilarity ensues. Just think of all those other Steven Spielberg Executive Produced television gems...ah, thinking, thinking. Hmmmmm....

KathyB I gave up watching this show, for all the reasons mentioned. My other half didn't even know that it was Garret Morris sitting there in the diner. I hope they figure it out.

srpad "It wasn't so much that the finale was bad, as that it revealed that the show I was watching for five years apparently wasn't the one the creators thought they were making."I could have wrote this sentence regarding the BSG finale.

chuchundra I'd say that the BSG finale was bad, as well as revealing that the show I was watching for five years apparently wasn't the one the creators thought they were making.

keith Caprica showed you what they thought about BSG. They never really understood what we liked about it at all.

nic919 Entourage would have been more interesting if the guys stopped acting and just played themselves. They would have been more interesting playing the mediocre level famous actors they truly are. And Piven could have created pathos with his mercury poisoning.

snakehole I don't watch Dexter anymore but, considering that everybody who does seems to be in agreement that this was a pitifully terrible season, I was almost certain that I would find it on this list.

Elevation The wife from "Lights Out" deserves a special horrible character shout out.

neverthehero Eastern European and Asian for sure, but I don't remember too many African American slams.

Akshay what is lump of coal is this piece of shit article that you have come up with. seriously american horror story and the killing were some of the best made tv dramas out there. episodes is funnier than most of the shit that is passed out as comedies these days

Octavio u mad?

Josh Great point.

Col Bat Guano A rare sighting of the elusive The Killing fan. Probably still disappointed The Cape was canceled.

ZacharyTF They probably thought The Cape would get six seasons and a movie.

ken sly AKSHAY is a tad harsh, but honest. Of the nine people that I know that watch THE KILLIG, all nine like it. Of those nine, not one of them reads AS's reviews. So what do I conclude? Eh, just that I know nine others that watch a show.

Stormshadow4life I actually quite liked Episodes! American Horror was kind of enjoyable....even the show really had no idea what it was doing (changing the rules whenever they saw fit)

neverthehero Spot on with Two Broke Girls Alan. I do wonder why would an Asian actor work with that script? Do writers have that much power?

klg19 Probably more that Asian actors, like all actors, like being able to pay their rent.

ZacharyTF Did you watch Last Man Standing after the pilot? My brother and I watched all 11 episodes on Hulu Plus over Christmas and it does start off pretty bad, but by the 11th episode, it's basically Home Improvement with daughters instead of sons.

mikec31 The advertising for the show, interviews prior to the finale, etc. all ranged from hinting to outright stating that the mystery would be solved in the season finale.

Ed G. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The name of the show is "THE Killing," not "A Killing." There can be absolutely no bigger clue that this would not be resolved in one very short season.

Barry Folks, it's pointless arguing with this MoreTears bloke, I've seen him on other sites (Digital Spy; The Guardian) defending The Killing to the death (almost as if he worked on the show). It's really not worth the effort considering his liking of the show puts him in the clear minority.

Alf Ed G., I think the title shouldn't make you think that way. Do you think "The Wire" should only be about one wire or should change its name to "A Wire"?

mikec31 If the Big Love finale proved one thing, it was that the wives would have had better lives had Bill just gotten out of the way. Kill him off and suddenly they're living their dreams.

Laura I was so happy they killed him because of that very reason. The show was always about the wives.

Mike I cannot watch Harry's Law, and Terra Nova would have made my list, but it was DOA (if not before).

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trufflin

Except for American Horror Story, a.k.a. Glee Ghosts, you have done a good job of shielding yourself from the Kardashian Buttcrack Sweat on the shallow end of the TV toilet. The Kardashian and Lohan mothers should be charged with crimes against humanity for failing to procure abortions.

Adam B.

The Paula Abdul dancing show? The Cape?

DirtyKash

Honorable mention: The last 10 minutes of the Sons of Anarchy finale.

MGT

How dare you include Franklin & Bash on this list. Even as an Honorable Mention...the very idea!

tv_vwr

I was expecting a group bleh to the interchangeable, utterly forgettable Friends clones that each network threw at the wall this year until Happy Endings finally stuck by showing some personality and zest.

Teklanika

Wow, not sure how you leave off the series killing season finale of SOA. You earned it by rightfully including "Hands" in you best of column.

Sareeta

Terra Nova and Hell on Wheels?

blinky

Terra Nova was the most anticipated show with the biggest let down. People meet dinosaurs, hilarity ensues. Just think of all those other Steven Spielberg Executive Produced television gems...ah, thinking, thinking. Hmmmmm....

srpad

"It wasn't so much that the finale was bad, as that it revealed that the show I was watching for five years apparently wasn't the one the creators thought they were making."

I could have wrote this sentence regarding the BSG finale.

snakehole

I don't watch Dexter anymore but, considering that everybody who does seems to be in agreement that this was a pitifully terrible season, I was almost certain that I would find it on this list.

Elevation

The wife from "Lights Out" deserves a special horrible character shout out.

Akshay

what is lump of coal is this piece of shit article that you have come up with. seriously american horror story and the killing were some of the best made tv dramas out there. episodes is funnier than most of the shit that is passed out as comedies these days

Stormshadow4life

I actually quite liked Episodes! American Horror was kind of enjoyable....even the show really had no idea what it was doing (changing the rules whenever they saw fit)

neverthehero

Spot on with Two Broke Girls Alan. I do wonder why would an Asian actor work with that script? Do writers have that much power?

ZacharyTF

Did you watch Last Man Standing after the pilot? My brother and I watched all 11 episodes on Hulu Plus over Christmas and it does start off pretty bad, but by the 11th episode, it's basically Home Improvement with daughters instead of sons.

mikec31

If the Big Love finale proved one thing, it was that the wives would have had better lives had Bill just gotten out of the way. Kill him off and suddenly they're living their dreams.

Mike

I cannot watch Harry's Law, and Terra Nova would have made my list, but it was DOA (if not before).

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