It’s rare that I will agree with all five of anybody’s list of anything, but I found myself saying an excited “yes” to every item on The 5 Best Dramas Currently Airing on Television so I thought I’d see how many additional shows would come out of your own Top 5 dramas currently being presented.
Though I can’t honestly move them into that same group to replace anything there, I would accept mention of these:
Justified (not quite current, but back soon)
The Mentalist
Sons of Anarchy
Blue Bloods
Which shows would you replace one or more on that list with?
Which shows would you add as runners-up?
Game of Thrones
Mad Men
The Americans
Homeland (though this season is sucking, and I may stop watching soon)
Walking Dead (same as above, though it’s consistently been pretty bad)
I think Elementary, the Johnny Lee Miller/Lucy Liu variation on Sherlock Holmes, doesn’t get nearly as much respect as it deserves. It’s an excellent show, and a worthy counterpart to Sherlock.
Hannibal
I really really want to like Boardwalk Empire, but it’s just always been somehow less than the sum of its parts to me, and I finally stopped watching after two or so episodes this season.
I definitely put Justified first and Sons of Anarchy second. After those two, The Americans, The Blacklist, Nashville and Elementary are in the next tier. Granted, Nashville is a soap opera, but I like the music industry story lines.
I’ve really been liking Orphan Black and Elementary. The former might have problems next season, since I got the feeling the writers were running out of plot ideas by the end of the first season, but I remain optimistic.
Homeland was pretty good, but had the same problem I fear Orphan will run into. They ran out of plot at the end of last season and haven’t really replaced it with anything. They also, like so many shows, are extremely reluctant to drop actors off the show when their plots have ended, and so end up with a bunch of cast members whose usefulness to the narrative is long since passed, and who have to be provided with their own meandering side-stories.
Boardwalk Empire is alright, but should’ve been a better show. It started as a show about a mildly corrupt political operator dealing with the increasing violence and instability brought about by prohibition, but they kind of gave up on that and now its just characters stumbling around engaging in random acts of violence and kinky sex. Which is cool, I like kinky sex and violence, but its more of a guilty pleasure show then the more interesting drama it should’ve been.
I think that covers it for currently running dramas I’ve been watching.
I’m enjoying The Blacklist quite a bit, but honestly, I’m just enjoying James Spader. Sign me up for anything that man does.
Now, The Americans… that’s a show I’m eagerly awaiting the return of. Of the ones in the article, I only watch (and only have any interest in watching) Boardwalk Empire. No, it’s not Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad, but but it’s consistently engaging. I won’t begrudge it its spot on the list.
I’m not an admirer of Downton Abbey, and though Michael Sheen is always worth watching, I’m not impressed with Masters of Sex as a drama. So I’d substitute Justified and The Americans for those two.
I watched Orphan Black with great interest and have the highest opinion of its star’s talent. But for me, the reveal in the finale landed with a big thud.
I’ve never seen The Good Wife; perhaps I should give it a try.
Elementary is really enjoyable. It’s much more than just a standard detective procedural. There’s fantastic character development and a very interesting multi-episode plot arc at the end of the first season. I’ve said this before, I like Sherlock, I think it is stylistically stronger than Elementary, but Elementary is much more tightly plotted than Sherlock. The mysteries always start out strong on Sherlock but then they go off on pointless convoluted tangents that fail to wrap up in a satisfying manner.
I agree, Boardwalk Empire is so close to being a great show. They’ve got all of the ingredients for greatness: great acting, great sets, great costumes, interesting characters, an interesting setting and premise. But somehow they just can’t bring all that together for a polished finished product. Plot points often seem cartoonishly over the top or lazily thrown together. Most television dramas suffer from a lack of tension* due to an unwillingness to kill off main characters. Boardwalk Empire is probably the only drama in television history that would benefit from less people being killed.
*Which is the exact problem I have with The Americans. It’s a good show but it’s getting a little dull and straining credulity because the two leads can’t get caught, because then there’d be no show. The concept probably would have worked better as a movie or a miniseries.
I like Elementary, but I’m kinda meh on most of the actual mysteries. They’re way too dependent on having an incredibly unlikely coincidence leading to a red herring that the characters follow up for the first two thirds of the show, in order to pad out the episode.
Its an alright device to use occasionally, but almost every episode of Elementary relies on it.
