Top 10 TV Series
Revista Time
1. Breaking Bad
Often overshadowed by its AMC-mate
Mad Men, this everyman-turned-criminal saga found a new and higher gear in its third season, becoming at once more sweepingly grand and more devastatingly intimate. Former chemistry teacher
Walter White (Bryan Cranston) embraced his new life as a highly paid crystal-meth maker, even as he recovered from the lung cancer that drove him to crime, and risked losing the family in whose name he justified his acts. Cranston was mesmerizing this year in showing Walter's creeping realization that he has lived too long and squandered his second chance. But Aaron Paul also shone as his partner Jesse, the small-time punk who somehow, oddly, became the show's moral center; and the brilliant, bleached-out panoramas of cinematographer Michael Slovis lent the show a grim beauty reminiscent of film classics like No Country for Old Men. (AMC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0gpBTMOh-k&feature=player_embedded
2. Mad Men
The '60s reached their midpoint in season 4, but TV's psychologically acute advertising drama still had that swing. Having Don Draper and company relaunch their business in the sleek new offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce gave the show's office-politics stories new verve. And the new business — snazzy on the outside, but financially struggling — served as an analogy for the show's recurring theme: the disconnect between surface appearances and inner reality. As the Draper dealt with the messy aftermath of his and Betty's divorce, the season brought Don to an alcohol and doubt-fueled nadir — and it showcased Jon Hamm's best work yet. As the season ended, Don moved toward new beginnings, getting a handle on his business problems and getting engaged again. Is he truly changing, or just finding a new way to fool himself? We'll have to see: the '60s are only halfway over. (AMC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_utuvAQt8mg&feature=player_embedded
3. Parks and Recreation
The show that began in 2009 with a lot of potential but an uneven voice emerged in its second season as TV's funniest, sweetest and all-around best comedy. The employees of the Pawnee, Ind., parks department, drawn at first in broad strokes, emerged as fleshed-out characters with the work of a fantastic ensemble. Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope became a likeable protagonist as an overeager civil servant, Nick Offerman made gruff boss Ron Swanson into a reliable, complex foil, and Chris Pratt and Aubrey Plaza quirkily struck sparks as ne'er-do-well Andy and sarcastic-girl-with-a-heart April. It's ironic that, at a time when there's so much angst and distrust over politics, a show about government should be one of the least cynical things on TV. (NBC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mU2vct6yQA&feature=player_embedded
4. Louie
On paper, it was the most familiar concept for a TV show: standup comic adapts his act into a sitcom. In practice, this low-budget, high-performance comedy was thoroughly and delightfully idiosyncratic. The ever-acerbic Louis C.K. starred in, wrote, directed and edited this series, giving it a personal, auteuristic feel closer to a short film series than a TV sitcom. Louie wasn't bound by rules or consistency: from week to week, or even within the same episode, it could be surreal, scatalogically funny, nostalgic, raunchy or deeply dramatic. But the wildly different episodes were united by their themes: Louis C.K.'s thoughtful, world-weary takes on middle age, mortality, sex, religion and hands-on single fatherhood. Louie did one of the simplest yet rarest things TV can do — capturing a voice in the form of a story — and made it look easy. (FX)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmYiOdtzHBk&feature=player_embedded
5. Boardwalk Empire
History repeats itself: in this case, HBO's history of taking familiar historical periods and delivering them in all their raw, deromanticized glory. Yes, Boardwalk Empire is a mob story, with blood and bootlegging and real-life gangsters like Al Capone and Arnold Rothstein. But like Deadwood and Rome, it's also a founding myth: in this case, the story of how the reformist paternalism of Prohibition produced an opportunity that created fortunes and ushered in the golden era of organized crime. But it's also a politics story: Nucky Thompson (Steve Buscemi) is the fictionalized county boss who turns Atlantic City into a rumrunning center, moving at equal ease in the underworld and at political conventions. As Nucky says, the only thing more appealing than a product someone doesn't have is a product someone's not allowed to have; Boardwalk shows how desire is the stuff empires are made from. (HBO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDyKgRCjf_U&feature=player_embedded
6. Party Down
This brilliantly observed, too-little-watched comedy was about waiting, in more ways than one. Waiting as in carrying trays of hors d'oeuvres, as was the lot of the aspiring actors, writers and stage moms of the Party Down catering company, who spend their nights hustling drinks and snacks at the fetes of Hollywood's far more successful. And waiting as in waiting for something better to happen to you, as you do your shift and wait for your cell phone to ring. The comedy was both blisteringly funny — like few shows since Arrested Development — and essentially hopeful, and it ended its too-brief run with has-been actor Henry Pollard (Adam Scott) deciding to shed his cynicism and give his career one more shot. Party Down bet on its talent too, and TV was better for it. (Starz)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT2DOz2McW8&feature=player_embedded
7. The Pacific
It would have been hard to imagine, watching HBO's Band of Brothers, that there was a side of World War II more horrific and brutal than the European theater it depicted. But there was, and this ten-part sequel, from Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, presented a war that is less familiar, less romanticized and was far more physically disorienting and morally ambiguous. Switching between the stories of three soldiers in the war against Japan, The Pacific re-created not just the war's explosive sweep but its ugliness: the heat and misery of the tropics, the undercurrents of racism, the brutality on both sides, often involving civilians. But it also captured the decency (and fallibility) of the men who fought, not always sure where they were going and why, and unaware of the toll the war would exact from them long after it was over, if they were lucky enough to survive. (HBO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e99B80crU3E&feature=player_embedded
8. The Good Wife
Next time someone tells you that only cable can make smart, adult drama successfully, point them here. The Good Wife began with a timely premise: Alicia Florrick (Julianna Margulies), the humiliated wife of a state's attorney caught in a scandal with a hooker, dusts off her law degree and goes to work. But going into its second season, it's become so much more: a political thriller, a family drama and a darn good case-of-the-week courtroom show. In each storyline, The Good Wife displays a moral complexity that most big-network drama has given up on, asking what ethical tradeoffs are justifiable for legal success, political gain and personal happiness. Even the heroine has become complicated, as Alicia has learned to become a bare-knuckled legal brawler — and has pragmatically tried to reconcile with her former husband. Alicia is by no means perfect, and that's what makes The Good Wife good. (CBS)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZv9LnpqrKM&feature=player_embedded
9. Rubicon
There have been a lot of spy stories on TV since 9/11 (and before), but few involving the painstaking creep of espionage. In this political conspiracy thriller, no one went undercover in nightclubs or beat confessions of out bad guys seconds before a nuke was about to go off. Its mysteries unfolded on two tracks.
Will Travers (James Badge Dale), a deskbound analyst, discovered that the intelligence contractor he worked for was involved in manipulations of world events. At the same time, he and his team of stressed-out, dedicated intel-nerds searched documents and crunched clues to sniff out a terror attempt in the middle of unfolding.
Rubicon took its time, but had a lot to say about a real-life issue: the power placed in the hands of a quasi-governmental security state. And its moody aesthetics and love of old-fashioned analysis made this a satisfying paper chase. (AMC)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Egu8fDL3cw0&feature=player_embedded
10. Terriers
The title confused people. Was it about show dogs? A sports team? In fact, FX's witty, shaggy-noir detective series was about small-time detectives, former cop Hank (Donal Logue) and former crook Britt (Michael Raymond-James), scraping by in Southern California when — like the dog that caught the car — they sank their teeth into a land-grab case much bigger than them. The weekly investigations were peppered with sharp dialogue, and Logue and Raymond-James shared the best screen chemistry of 2010. But the show really gained depth as it explored their personal demons, asking variations on the question: how much do you really want to know about those around you? Title aside, Terriers was a detective show tailor-made for recessionary times and a great exploration of a classic breed: the underdog. (FX)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkb8h5P3-zw&feature=player_embedded
Fuente: Time.com
Breaking Bad
