Top Fifty TV Shows of 2013: #30 - 11

Alright, so things got a little hairy in the lower echelons of the #50-31 rankings last week. At points I actually felt more like I was writing a "worst of" list than a "best of." But you've reached the light at the end of the tunnel: While I may not consider the twenty shows below to have been among the ten best this year and I have my gripes about each, I can say with confidence that I like every single one of them. Let's get it started in here:

30. The Borgias (Showtime)

Best 2013 Episode: Season 3 Episode 10 - "The Prince" | New to List

Mix one part watered-down Game of Thrones with two-to-three parts The Tudors and you'll end up with Showtime's antihero Pope drama The Borgias, a show never exceptional but almost always pretty good. If you're looking for sex and violence and religion and scheming and sumptuous cinematography and set design and even a couple big battle sequences, it comes recommended, though with the caveat that it got canceled at the end of season 3 with no real, conclusive ending. The show has some problems, including the fact that it never convinced me our ruling-class heroes were the underdogs in any conflict it put them in, but I still wish I could see the fourth season that's never going to happen.

29. Awkward (MTV)

Best 2013 Episode: Season 3 Episode 20 - "Who I Want to Be" | Down 3 from 2012

Lauren Iungerich's droll, witty, energetic high school sitcom Awkward is unfortunately going to be entering its fourth season in 2014 absent one key ingredient: Lauren Iungerich. I'm unclear whether she quit or was pushed out, but one way or another Awkward is going to be missing its voice next year, which makes me fear we're in for a Community season 4 / Gilmore Girls season 7 scenario. But Lauren at least went out strong. Awkward season 3 remains far too obsessed with love triangles (my biggest problem with the show last year too), but takes its protagonist Jenna Hamilton through a dynamic emotional journey and wrapped up its season/year with one of the strongest, most moving episodes of the series.

28. The Office (NBC)

Best 2013 Episode: Season 9 Episode 23 - "Finale" | Up 8 from 2012

Like The Walking Dead and The Newsroom, The Office is this high on my list (and up from last year!) on the strength of exactly one episode: Its series finale. I don't think I'm being out-there or controversial when I say this show suffered massively from the loss of Steve Carell, but it remains an eternal fact of my own TV history that The Office was, for about a year or so, more or less my favorite show on television. Those emotional bonds can be fractured but are hard to shake entirely, and as such the emotion of "Finale" was felt deeply. Even Carell's return, while nice, ends up being largely incidental to the impact of the show's quiet and heartfelt final moments. There were literally dozens of Office episodes I found pretty damn bad by the end of its run, but it'll always be a show I remember fondly.

27. New Girl (Fox)

Best 2013 Episode: Season 3 Episode 8 - "Menus" | Down 4 from 2012

Weird fact: I consider New Girl's 2013 run to be superior to its 2012, yet somehow it's lower on my list this year. What's that about? Ranking pedantry aside, what I wrote last year still applies; New Girl was then and remains now "currently the best 'roommates in an apartment in the city' Friends-styled sitcom on the air." Hell, by an even bigger margin now that Happy Endings is dead. This year the show leaned heavily on the Ross/Rachel will-they-won't-they dynamic of Jess and Nick (and, as the above image indicates, answered it: they will), which isn't generally something I watch TV shows for or care about but in this case was mostly charming. Damon Wayans Jr. rejoining season 3 in a semi-regular capacity as Coach – last seen in the pilot! – has also been a boon to the show.

26. Homeland (Showtime)
Best 2013 Episode: Season 3 Episode 12 - "The Star" | Down 13 from 2012

A couple years ago, I reviewed the pilot of Homeland, calling it "the thinking man's 24." Roughly a year after that, I said that the show had lost what made it smart and different and essentially become "24 2." Now I'll offer a second amendment: Homeland is the pretentious man's 24; a twisty terrorism thriller that's mostly about cliffhangers and finding out who's gonna die next, only wearing a "moral examination of the war on terror" suit that, if you look closely, is cheap and ratty and barely holds together. Also, this season's Dana/Leo subplot is one of the shittiest things I saw on TV all year. All that said, the season finale "The Star" is a very good episode of television, one which thankfully has the balls to follow the show's story through to its only logical conclusion. If not for that episode Homeland would probably be ten ranks lower on this list.

Best TV Episodes, April 2013

10. Supernatural, Season 8 Episode 20 – "Pac-Man Fever"

I've discussed a couple times now how, despite its season and series-spanning arcs growing stale over the years, Supernatural is still capable of busting out a thunderously entertaining case-of-the-week, and that stands true up to its eighth season's last standalone episode, "Pac-Man Fever." Marking the third appearance of Felicia Day's geek hacker chick Charlie Bradbury but the first that has told a primarily dramatic rather than comedic story about her (outside of an Inception–esque trip into a zombie shoot 'em up game in her mind, anyway), the episode's final scene between Charlie and her comatose mother made my heart hurt in a way that only TV at its best does so well these days.

9. Community, Season 4 Episode 11 – "Basic Human Anatomy"

Though I enjoyed bits and pieces of its documentary and puppet episodes (the balloon song from "Intro to Felt Surrogacy" has been stuck in my head for weeks), it is, of all things, its body swap episode (!!) that comes closest to capturing how insanely well Community executed its "gimmick" episodes under the reign of Harmon. It was emotional and tied deeply into characterization and character development, but was also quite funny (Exhibit A: The Dean's Jeff Winger impression), and Jeff flicking the lights on and off during the final "body swap" scene reminded of him picking up the imaginary hats in "Pillows and Blankets," one of the sweetest scenes of the entire series.

8. Bob's Burgers, Season 3 Episode 20 – "The Kids Run the Restaurant"

I don't know that Bob's Burgers is ever funnier than when Tina, Gene and Louise are all allowed to share a single storyline isolated from their parents, so when they teamed up to build an underground casino in the restaurant's basement – spearheaded by Louise – it was unsurprisingly funny as hell from beginning to end. Bob and Linda's story was hilarious too, with Bob's Burgers coming closer to "dark" humor than it usually gets in Bob's hand injury spraying blood all over Linda and everything else. As I've said before, this show is the sitcom to beat in 2013, and I doubt any show will.

7. Game of Thrones, Season 3 Episode 5 – "Kissed By Fire"

"Kissed By Fire" was, after the awesome and fiery opening sword fight with the Hound, one of Game of Thrones' lower-action episodes, but I loved it. I can't guess about or speak to how people who haven't read A Song of Ice and Fire might feel about it, but as a fan of Martin's books for years before the show came along this episode contained a shitload of scenes I've been waiting to see for a long time, from the Hound's fight to Robb dealing with the Karstark situation to Jon and Ygritte's cave tryst to the shocking, slightly hilarious wedding reveals of the final scene (and while leaving out this season's more redundant Bran and Theon stories). Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's monologue in the Jaime/Brienne bath scene was Emmy-worthy. The whole hour was a treat for book fans.

6. Justified, Season 4 Episode 13 – "Ghosts"

While I had my issues with Justified season 4's Drew Thompson story arc in its early going, once it revealed Thompson's true identity the season almost immediately buckled down and delivered a lot of solid entertainment. Its season finale was structured in an interesting, almost defiantly backwards way, kicking off nearly immediately with its most tense, thrilling and bloody sequence, then actually winding the action down through the hour to a contemplative ending that, while not sad or "bad guys win" or even necessarily dark, has been haunting me since in a way the quippy and fun Justified doesn't usually aim for. Looking forward to season 5 already.

5. Hannibal, Season 1 Episode 2 – "Amuse-Bouche"

I don't think I've seen five shows this decade kick off as immediately spectacularly as Bryan Fuller's Hannibal. It's my favorite horror show in years by an astronomical margin, one of my favorite shows of 2013 and (feel free to declare this blasphemy) has probably already trumped 1991's Silence of the Lambs as the definitive screen depiction of Hannibal Lecter for me. I really, really love it. Though I could have found room for several of its first five hours on this list, episode 2 gets the nod because its case-of-the-week, involving a killer who turns his victims into living mushroom fertilizer for months while they're kept alive via IV, has been swimming in my nightmares for weeks.

4. Community, Season 4 Episode 8 – "Herstory of Dance"

I already wrote a full review of Community season 4's crowning achievement, but I'll just quickly reiterate here that it was a massively warm, pleasant half-hour of television that just made me feel happy. If I could travel into the brightest timeline alternate dimension where Dan Harmon was never fired from Community's 22-episode fourth season, this episode and "Basic Human Anatomy" are the two I would want to take with me unchanged to air as part of that season (though I would also want to take the Greendale Babies cartoon from the premiere and the trout farmer from "Advanced Documentary Filmmaking").

3. Game of Thrones, Season 3 Episode 4 – "And Now His Watch Is Ended"

2. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 9 – "The Dead and the Dying"

It was several years ago that I read about how the real historical Spartacus held his own gladiatorial games to honor one of his fallen brothers, using captured Roman soldiers as gladiators, and I've spent all of Spartacus: War of the Damned nervously eyeing the ticking-down episode count, wondering whether or not Steven DeKnight had just decided to skip this particularly juicy historical nugget. But it turns out, nope, he was just delaying our pleasure, saving one of the show's best episodes for its penultimate episode.

DeKnight tweaked history to bring our heroes into the action (rather than having the Romans fight each other, in the show they fight the former slave/gladiator main characters), and, to be blunt, it was deliriously fucking awesome. In a show that (despite what TV critics who hate thinking may claim) is normally one of most thoughtful and contemplative and consequence-heavy on television in its depiction of violence, it was a enormous fun to see an episode just kick back and let it rip with an hour of pure pump-your-fist-and-cheer-out-loud bloody spectacle for perhaps the first time since Gods of the Arena. Just awesome.

1. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 10 – "Victory"

I've already written and talked about 2013's finest television achievement at arguably excessive length and have little more to add on the subject. But I'll emphasize one more time that Spartacus' finale really had its cake and ate it too, providing a rich emotional feast and the conclusions to years of thoughtful character work and tying a totally satisfying thematic bow on everything while also remembering to give us a final battle sequence that made Game of Thrones' "Blackwater" look like the skirmish at the end of a Hercules: The Legendary Journeys episode. It's one of the best series finales and one of the best episodes of television I've ever seen.

Best TV Episodes, March 2013

10. Community, Season 4 Episode 6 – "Advanced Documentary Filmmaking"

While neither me or anyone else (certainly not anyone else, since according to most of the rest of the TV blogosphere we're now supposed to hate Community unreservedly) would argue Community's fourth documentary episode measures up to "Intermediate Documentary Filmmaking," "Documentary Filmmaking: Redux," or "Pillows and Blankets," it was a fun, energetic little episode with Donald Glover delivering comedic gold once again via Troy's quest to disagree with Annie on everything. I especially loved the show bringing back Chang's wife, last seen in "Environmental Science" two and a half years and 67 episodes ago. They may lack Harmon, but someone on Community's writing staff clearly knows their Greendale history.

9. Game of Thrones, Season 3 Episode 1 – "Valar Dohaeris"

No one will mistake Game of Thrones' setup-centric third season premiere as being among the show's finest hours, but I just love this world and these characters and, frankly, having a fantasy series on television operating at this level so much that I richly enjoyed it all the same. The final reveal of Barristan Selmy just oozed cool.

8. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 7 – "Mors Indecepta"

Spartacus: War of the Damned's second-weakest episode (after episode 3, "Men of Honor," the season's only hour I would describe as merely good instead of explosively fantastic) was still a huge, action-packed spectacle with an ending that had me literally cheering out loud on my couch like a fucking crazy person. That War of the Damned's relative low points make almost all of the rest of TV look so fucking boring in comparison speaks to the searing power of what this season is in the midst of accomplishing.

7. Bob's Burgers, Season 3 Episode 17 – "Two for Tina"

I've reiterated multiple times that (despite H. Jon Benjamin's vocal greatness) Bob's Burgers' title character and his wife Linda are but supplementary to the show's true comedic superstars: Tina, Gene and Louise Belcher. And even amongst that trio – currently, if anyone's keeping track, the greatest sitcom characters on television – Tina stands alone, with "Bad Tina" and "Tina-Rannosaurus Wrecks" being two of my favorite sitcom episodes last year, and now "Two for Tina," which contains a dance contest that may just put Silver Linings Playbook to shame. I also love that this episode continued Tina's character arc from last month's also-hysterical "Lindapendent Woman," again establishing Bob's Burgers as having a continuity leg up on almost all other animated sitcoms.

6. Justified, Season 4 Episode 11 – "Decoy"

Justified is so much sheer goddamned fun that I'm honestly kind of shocked that it's accepted as a "great" show by the "serious TV drama must be grim and bleak and relentlessly unpleasant"-pushing voices of the TV blogosphere. But it's somehow slipped through the cracks, and a show capable of putting out an episode this insanely high-energy, complete with shootouts, standoffs, torture, a blood-pumping fight where I really wasn't sure who was gonna live, a psychotic evil henchman named "YOLO" and a literal goddamned exploding car can not only exist but also be critically lauded. Justified is just cool as hell, baby.

5. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 5 – "Blood Brothers"

A mere three episodes after launching his plan to sack and take over a Roman city (itself an epic set piece 99% of other TV dramas would have saved for their season finale, which Spartacus casually tossed out as episode 2 like it weren't no thang), Spartacus' dominion of Sinuessa en Valle goes up in literal, spectacular flames in yet another insane midseason hour that, again, virtually any other show would have considered season finale material. Have I mentioned lately how Spartacus makes basically every other action show ever made look like dogshit?

4. Bob's Burgers, Season 3 Episode 16 – "Topsy"

ELECTRIC LOOoooOOooOVE!!!

3. Switched at Birth, Season 2 Episode 9 – "Uprising"

I mostly just think of ABC Family's Switched at Birth as a teen drama – a well above-average one, but just a teen drama regardless – so it was a pleasant shock to see them produce this formally and emotionally ambitious hour. The students of Carlton School for the Deaf rise up in an occupation protest when the city moves to shut their school down, which is, except for a few spoken lines at the episode's beginning and one more at its end, depicted entirely in silence with nothing but subtitled sign language to better reflect the viewpoint of the deaf characters. It was unique and ballsy, but more importantly than having a great gimmick, it had a great gimmick rooted entirely in character, thematically relevant and tied to a strong emotional throughline.

2. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 8 – "Separate Paths"

Though I doubt anyone would describe Spartacus: War of the Damned episodes 4 through 7 as slow-paced, they nevertheless kicked it up another notch with this sweeping, tragic and epic antepenultimate episode, whose show-shattering climactic events made it clear that we're now locked firmly into endgame mode. It wasn't even technically a "final battle" (which will presumably be coming in the actual series finale airing April 12th), but it nonetheless delivered a massive and spectacular final battle set piece that effortlessly kicks the ass of most other TV battles I've seen. It was certainly, without hyperbole, hundreds of times bigger and more exciting than The Walking Dead's finale. And though I know I sound a broken record at this point, it was yet another midseason episode any other drama on television would have saved for season finale time.

1. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 6 – "Spoils of War"

I've already done a full review for Spartacus: War of the Damned's endlessly clever, simultaneously thoughtful and thunderously exciting sixth episode, so I won't go too in depth here. But it's my favorite episode of what is my favorite TV season of the year so far, which may just make it my favorite TV episode of 2013 (give or take a Fringe series finale, perhaps). It was smaller in scope and more intimate than other episodes, but, as a hardcore Spartacus fan going way back, I found its self-reflective nature thrilling and even moving. A fun tour back through four years of an amazing series.

Top Thirty TV Shows of Q1 2013

As a means to publicly organize my thoughts, here are, ranked mostly without commentary, my thirty favorite shows of the year so far based solely on episodes aired between January 1st and March 31st, 2013. I don't even like the first few shows on the list that much, so if anything didn't make the cut you can safely assume that either, one, I haven't seen it (Enlightened falls in this category), two, it hasn't premiered yet (Breaking Bad, etc.), or three, I don't like it. I've seen at least a little of pretty much everything, so most missing shows fall into category three (fuck you, The Following!).

30. The Americans (new)
29. Glee
28. The Office
27. Revolution
26. Archer
25. The Walking Dead
24. Nashville
23. Vikings (new)
22. Gravity Falls
21. Revenge
20. Hart of Dixie
19. Parks and Recreation
18. Happy Endings
17. Arrow
16. American Dad!
15. Game of Thrones *
14. Scandal
13. Switched at Birth
12. 30 Rock
11. Supernatural
10. The Vampire Diaries
9. New Girl
8. Community
7. Banshee (new)
6. Justified
5. Fringe
4. Parenthood
3. Bunheads
2. Bob's Burgers
1. Spartacus: War of the Damned

* I love Game of Thrones and give it a 99% chance of being higher than this on my eventual best of 2013 list. But its ranking here is predicated on a single episode consisting mostly of setup, which, considering, I think actually makes being at #15 pretty impressive.

TV Obituaries, Vol. 3: March 2013

March was a fucking TV character bloodbath!

Spoilers follow for Banshee, The Following, Justified, New Girl, Revenge, Revolution, Scandal, Spartacus, Supernatural, Vikings and The Walking Dead.

Best TV Episodes, February 2013

10. Community, Season 4 Episode 3 – "Conventions of Space and Time"

As I've discussed, my feelings on Community (which, mind you, was for a time my favorite show on television) have been both complicated and simplified by the ousting of Dan Harmon. Complicated in that I'm always watching going "Is something off? Would Harmon have done it like this?", simplified in that I spend a lot less time rewatching and analyzing episodes, content to just go "That was fun. Ok, moving on with my life." None of season 4's efforts so far have been anywhere near the upper tier of Community classics, but they've all been enjoyable enough removed from outside context. I could've gone with any of them for this #10 slot, and landed on "Conventions of Space and Time" because, hey, why not.

9. Revenge, Season 2 Episode 14 – "Sacrifice"

I honestly didn't expect to ever be putting Revenge on one of these lists again, as the show has stalled and lost focus in its second season, but they pulled one hell of a tragic, surprising, climactic hour out of their hat in February, with secrets coming out and battle lines being drawn and not one but two prominent character deaths. "Sacrifice" is the kind of TV episode that makes you nod with appreciation and say, yeah, that's soap done right.

8. Justified, Season 4 Episode 8 – "Outlaw"

I'll level with you guys: I'm not sure how I feel about Justified season 4's serialized season arc. The idea of the team cracking a decades-old cold case is potentially intriguing, but in practice has amounted to the characters doing a whole lot of running around Harlan asking people if they've seen Drew Thompson. But Justified can still have a lot of good pulpy crime fiction fun on an episode-by-episode basis and even deliver just a hint of emotion, as this episode does via the relationship between lawman Raylan Givens and his criminal father Arlo. (But don't worry, people get shot too. This ain't no touchy feely show!)

7. Bob's Burgers, Season 3 Episode 13 – "My Fuzzy Valentine"

One of the main things separating Bob's Burgers from most other animated sitcoms at the moment is how unreservedly charming and sweet and mild-mannered it's content to be for long stretches at a time without feeling the need to undercut it and tell you, pfft, you shouldn't actually care about any of this. No, Bob's Burgers can be a truly nice show, one that is just pleasant to watch, and that carries over into its first Valentine's Day episode as Bob goes on a townwide journey to find a piece of memorabilia from he and Linda's first date as the perfect Valentine's present.

6. Bunheads, Season 1 Episode 18 – "Next!"

Bunheads' first season finale was a really wonderful episode of television in every way except one: It did not feel – narratively, thematically, or in terms of the show's character arcs – in any way like a season finale. It didn't conclude, wrap up, or put a bow on anything. In fact, it ended on a pretty grim note for this generally fun series, and, not knowing whether there will even be a second season, that makes me nervous. But outside of that it was great. Protagonist Michelle's journey to Hollywood to audition for a musical was an exhilarating fifteen-minute sequence that had more energy and excitement and genuine filmmaking verve to it than, well, most feature films, and the episode also did very well by the show's younger cast. If only it was episode 18 of a 20-to-22-episode season, I'd probably consider it one of the five best TV episodes of the year so far.

5. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 2 – "Wolves at the Gate"

As Spartacus (the character) makes good on his plan to attack and take over a Roman city the very episode after hatching it, Spartacus (the show) continues to deliver monumental, climactic episodes every other drama on television would save for their season finales week after week like it's the most natural thing in the world for a TV show to be operating at this level. An awesome episode and another successful chapter in the exhilarating highwire act that is War of the Damned.

4. Bunheads, Season 1 Episode 16 – "There's Nothing Worse Than a Pantsuit"

I thoroughly enjoyed 2012's ten-episode run of Bunheads, but the one big complaint I had was that two of the show's supposed main teen characters, Ginny and Melanie, felt continually underserved, always shoved in the background to let Boo and Sasha shine. The show's 2013 run has fixed that completely. "There's Nothing Worse Than a Pantsuit" dedicated much of itself to developing blonde bunhead Ginny's theatrical ambitions, and didn't just do right by the character but arguably made her the singular highlight of Bunheads' teen cast. It's the show's best episode this year.

3. Bob's Burgers, Season 3 Episode 14 – "Lindapendent Woman"

Linda leaves the burger restaurant and takes a job at a grocery store, and hilarity ensues. (Literally, I mean, not in the snarky way.) I love this show so much that I sometimes wonder if this might be how animation fans felt watching The Simpsons' golden years back in the early and mid 90s. It's just great. It's so fucking funny and just so much fun to watch, week in and week out. There's no other comedy on the air right now that's even close.

2. The Vampire Diaries, Season 4 Episode 15 – "Stand By Me"

I know, right?! What the hell is The Vampire Diaries doing this high?? I'm the one putting it here, and I myself am looking at it going, "Huh?" But "Stand By Me" was a hugely affecting hour of television any way you cut it, following up on the death of a very major character at the end of the previous episode in a way that even had me thinking just a little of Buffy's "The Body." Of course it's not nearly as good as "The Body" – literally a handful of episodes of television ever made are – but the fact that it even had me drawing mental comparisons speaks highly of it. It also kept the season's greater arcs moving along, even busting out a couple pretty big twists, but what makes this one of The Vampire Diaries' finest hours lies primarily in its exploration of loss and grief.

1. Spartacus, Season 3 Episode 4 – "Decimation"

Beyond its insane pacing and beyond-the-pale awesomeness, one of the big things separating Spartacus from most other cable dramas – especially those involving life-or-death stakes – is that it's not and never has been centered around a morally ambiguous antihero. Spartacus is a hero and he's noble and we like him and root for him and want him to succeed, and that's pretty much that.

But, in "Decimation," Spartacus came around to cable antiheroism through an interesting roundabout method: Spartacus himself may be a hero, but his army of thousands contains every shade of morality across the spectrum. Some, as Spartacus, fight for the freedom of all slaves, willing to give their lives to shake the foundations of Rome. Many simply follow Spartacus' orders to the letter. Others seek vengeance. And a few are, unbeknownst to Spartacus, in it for plunder and murder and rape.

Thus was the subject of one of Spartacus' darkest episodes to date, as Spartacus' occupation of the Roman city Sinuessa en Valle began to go really, really bad for the Roman prisoners under Spartacus' protection, spurred along by Julius Caesar – posing as a rebel slave and acting as Marcus Crassus' man on the inside – and a particularly nasty soldier in Spartacus' army by the name of Nemetes.

"Decimation" was some dark, ugly, crazy, thrilling, heart-pounding, next-level television. And it was yet another example of how thoroughly Spartacus is schooling everything else on TV right now in everything from pacing to excitement to narrative complexity to moral difficulty to even the baser pleasures like crazy twists and action scenes. It packs more into every hour than certain other shows (*cough* Walking Dead *cough*) do into entire seasons, and does so with style to spare. TV don't get much better than this.

TV Obituaries, Vol. 2: February 2013

Spoilers follow for Justified, Nashville, Revenge, Scandal, Spartacus, The Vampire Diaries and The Walking Dead.

TV Obituaries, Vol. 1: January 2013

Pardon me if this sounds grim, but probably the best innovation of the contemporary television drama is that you're allowed to kill off major characters.

It's easy to take for granted in this post-Buffy, post-24 TV era of Game of Thrones and Boardwalk Empire and the like (hell, the new Fox show The Following was damn near marketed with the premise "Expect shocking deaths!" to victorious ratings), but this was a big, big innovation that really gave serialized drama the freedom to be bold and surprising and have real stakes in a way they just plain weren't allowed to for the first, oh, four decades of the medium's lifespan. Today a character death is simply one of the thousand tricks in the dramatic TV toolbox, not only accepted but a popular enough trope that fans can get restless and complain if a life-or-death-stakes serialized drama goes too long without one.

Thus my latest monthly feature, TV Obituaries. It's exactly what it sounds like: At the end of each month, I'll highlight prominent TV characters to kick the bucket since the last column. Obviously, even a TV nerd as pathetic as me doesn't watch everything, so I'm sure to miss major deaths here and there, but I'll aim for completion at least within the realm of shows I watch (and if people wish to let me know in comments who I've missed, I'll strongly consider adding them). Now let's get started with January 2013.

Spoilers follow for Fringe, Justified and Last Resort.

Top Ten TV Shows of 2012

We come to it at last. The great top ten of our time. You could probably switch my #10 pick with The L.A. Complex or American Dad! and I'd be ok with it, but I feel very comfortable with the placement and ranking of my top nine, the nine shows you could whittle all of television down to and it'd still be my favorite medium. Best of all, though three are ending (one in January) and one lost its original showrunner, all ten of these shows are continuing in 2013. Enough foreplay, let's get down:

10. Justified (FX)

There's been grousing on these here internets about Justified's third season not quite measuring up to its phenomenal second, and I can agree with that. (I didn't see Justified season 2 until it hit DVD, but when it did I wound up shotgunning the entire season in two sittings; five episodes the first night, eight the next.) Though actor Neal McDonough did the best he could, season 3 antagonist Robert Quarles just wasn't up to snuff with season 2's legendary Mags Bennett.

But when it comes to the day-to-day of pulpy crime fiction, no show does it better. Seriously – it can tell a fine serialized story, but when it goes straight cop procedural, Justified leaves the entire rest of that genre choking on the exhaust of its superiority (with the only two other examples on this list being Awake at #25 and Longmire at #46, and TV's million other cop procedurals being way down below my top fifty).

Part of this is due to Timothy Olyphant's charisma, even more due to the show's redneck noir Harlan County settings, but the biggest contributor has to be its lineup of lovable white-trash villainy: Ever-scheming Dickie Bennett, poor dumb Dewey Crowe, and especially Walton Goggins' sometimes-villain/sometimes-ultra-dark-antihero Boyd Crowder, one of the most unstoppably watchable characters on all television. I wouldn't say he overshadows Olyphant to the same extent Ian McShane did on Deadwood, but three seasons in there remains a giddy, tingling thrill to every scene he's a part of.