2016 in TV: My top ten shows

TV has hit some real high points in 2016. We're heading for 500 scripted shows in 2017 and so many of those are actually worth watching. As 2016 winds to a close, it's time to mark that with my top ten shows of the year.

Review: 'The Walking Dead's' sluggish season 7A ends with a crawl in a more promising direction

A quick review of The Walking Dead's latest midseason finale - with some thoughts on the half-season as a whole - coming up after the break.

Review: 'Arrow's' muddled visual style is causing problems

Some quick thoughts on an issue in last night's Arrow coming up after the break...

Review: On 'The Flash', the 'Flashpoint' hype is misguided

Over the summer - and even immediately following the second season finale - much of the talk surrounding The Flash has been in regards to the impending use of the Flashpoint storyline from the comics. I've not read nor do I know anything about (beyond what I've read in articles and on social media over the hiatus) Flashpoint, but I am aware that it's a substantial story on the page.

So why, then, has The Flash treated it in such a haphazardly speedy manner?

Review: 'Son of Zorn' is surprisingly and relentlessly funny

I'd argue that the 2016-17 TV season, in its traditional and almost entirely outdated form, doesn't really start until next Monday when all of the networks bring back and premiere about seventy zillion shows. But FOX premiering Son of Zorn means that, technically, the season has now begun. It's both an exciting and exhaustingly terrible time, as while I'm relieved to have a deluge of TV to watch after a relatively quiet summer (in which I got pretty much nowhere with my watchlist), it also means that I'm going to be spending a lot of time trying to follow it all.

But I digress. Let's talk about Son of Zorn.

Review: 'UnREAL's' second season relied on shock value, much to its detriment

Over the summer, I'll be watching and writing about a whole host of shows, ranging from beloved long-running series to those eyeballed by very few viewers. To see the articles that I've written, click here; for my list of shows to watch, click here.

Back in the penultimate scene of UnREAL's first season finale, Rachel (Shiri Appleby) and Quinn (Constance Zimmer) share the following exchange:

"We killed somebody, didn't we?"

"Yeah. Let's not do that again."

Review: 'UnREAL's' first season is great, mostly thanks to Shiri Appleby and Constance Zimmer

Over the summer, I'll be watching and writing about a whole host of shows, ranging from beloved long-running series to those eyeballed by very few viewers. To see the articles that I've written, click here; for my list of shows to watch, click here.

Watching UnREAL's freshman season, there were two shows with which I drew numerous parallels: Mr. Robot and How to Get Away With Murder.

Movie Review: 'Suicide Squad' makes the DCEU zero for three [Full Spoilers]

Of late, I've made a habit out of going to the midnight screenings of some of the big, blockbuster movies - Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Batman vs. Superman, etc. - and so, Thursday night, I sat in for DC's third entry into its Extended Universe, Suicide Squad. Based on the marketing, I had high hopes for it, and in spite of the generally negative critic reviews, I wanted to enjoy it.

Full spoilers for Suicide Squad coming after the jump.

Some thoughts on the 2016 Emmy nominations

The nominees for the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards were announced today, and, much to my - and a lot of people's - surprise, the nominations weren't terrible. In fact, they were kind of good, which is a rather unsettling feeling. Usually, my thoughts immediately following the announcement can be, like most things, summed up in the words of Ron Swanson:

Fortunately, that isn't the case this year. Read on for some of my thoughts, which jump across categories from point to point, so try to keep with it.

Summer 2016: What will I be watching?

Edit: Halt and Catch Fire and Terriers, both of which I somehow managed to leave off my list, have been added below.

There was once a time when the summer slate of television consisted purely of reruns and the runts of the litter, the shows that networks didn't want to air in a fall slot but needed to burn off somewhere. That's no longer the case, and the TV season is no longer September to May. It's all year round. Summer is no longer a dead zone, with a slew of popular and critically acclaimed shows now airing in those four months.

Review: An old adversary hinders an ultimately solid 'Person of Interest'

I'll have a much longer, more thought-out review of both last night's and tonight's (100th episode) of Person of Interest up on SpoilerTV later in the week, but before then, here are a few quick thoughts on "Sotto Voce."

Review: Did 'Banshee' need more than its fourth season to conclude?

Banshee wrapped its eight-episode fourth and final season this past Friday, and after an intense and superb run in season three, the swansong season paled in comparison to both its direct predecessor and the reputation of the show as a whole*. Most of that came from the unnecessary introduction of a serial killer who added almost nothing to the show, stealing valuable screentime from the already established arcs and characters. Perhaps more importantly, it gave Banshee a procedural element that it struggled to know what to do with.

*Obviously, that third season added immensely to the show's overall status, but focusing solely on the first twenty episodes still suggests a level of quality only glimpsed at this year. Season four, no matter what it did, was going to have a near-impossible job of topping last year's output, but that it barely scratched the surface is mind-boggling.

Review: On 'The Flash,' Barry isn't "Invincible" as Zoom takes control

Last night's penultimate hour of The Flash's second season was quite the episode, setting the stage for a massive finale and yet finding a way to be mostly self-contained and deal with a "metapocalypse" as Zoom attempted to take control of Central City.

Many have had frustrations over this season's underwhelming attempts to emulate the critical success attained by the first season by providing a near-carbon-copy of the Reverse Flash story, but in "Invincible," The Flash took hold of the season and tried to do something differently. Yet, much of the hour instead used elements from Arrow's sophomore season to propel itself forward, and while that's not a bad thing, the frequent similarities aren't ideal, much as they may have worked for each show in the previous two years.

2015-16 bubble shows: What's left on the chopping block?

It's that time of the television season once again as Upfronts are set to begin for the broadcast networks in a week's time. Perhaps it's the fact that this morning's Timehop presented me with tweets from the year ago day when a whole bunch of renewals and cancellations were announced, but it doesn't feel like a whole year has passed since the last Upfronts. In amidst all the chaos of learning about your favourite show's fate along with each network's new shows and fall schedules, it's a great time of year for those very reasons. Once a sad week - though it still can be, particularly if you lose shows you're not ready to say goodbye to - as it signalled the end of the TV season, with a plethora of channels broadcasting hundreds of shows each year, the summer palette is no longer as bare as it used to be.

The thoughts of a TV rambler

TV is a medium purposefully created to entertain those who choose to watch. In the age of technology, people are able to get their opinions about that which they love out into the world at the click of a button. That is precisely what this blog will do.