11 TV Shows I Enjoyed in 2011

Doctor Who

After posting thoughts about 11 movies I loved and loathed in 2011, I realized I should do the same thing for TV shows. This isn’t a list about “quality” TV – although all the shows on this list are well-made – these are the shows that I enjoyed watching; felt like rushing home to watch; or was willing to actually program the DVR to see. These are the shows I liked the most. These are my opinions, and I feel comfortable with them.

TOUCH 1.1: Pilot

Tim Kring, creator of the flash-in-the-pan phenomenon HEROES, is back with a new show about a kid who appears to exhibit extraordinary powers, and a father who just wants to connect with that son.

I didn’t know what to expect from TOUCH because the marketing campaign was so weak and muddled, but the ads depicted Kiefer Sutherland running and shouting a lot, so how far off the rails could it go? But it also looked like it was supposed to be real family story with emotion. And it has a Danny Glover cameo!

2012 Oscar Nominations

With a lot of surprises — both good and bad — no one can accuse this year’s roster of Academy Award nominations of being “the usual suspects.”

Here is a complete roster of all the nominees. Check out the official Oscars site for more details.

Extremely Unlikely & Incredibly Strange

I’m going to start rooting through this year’s Oscar nominations in the Best Picture category, because it’s the biggest award of the ceremony, and the surprising roster of contenders is a good place to start. And it lets us look at Oscar’s big crime of inclusion: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.

At first glance, the inclusion of the critically lambasted box-office dud Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close among the movies nominated for the Best Picture Oscar by the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences seems pretty inexplicable. But if you think about it long enough, the nomination begins to make (a bit of) twisted Hollywood sense.

ALCATRAZ 1.3: “Kit Nelson”

As expected, ALCATRAZ slotted right into the “63 of the Week” format this week, introducing the newest returnee from the legendary Rock, child-killer Kit Nelson. But viewers also got a far-more-interesting peek at Dr. Diego Soto’s backstory — y’know, his origin story.

Child murderers are at the bottom of any prison pecking order, so Kit (Michael Eklund) found life behind bars to be a litany of daily beatings. But it didn’t reform him. When he appears in the present, he resumes his old practice of abducting a child on a Friday night with the intention of returning him home on Sunday — dead. But not if “Doc” Soto (Jorge Garcia) and Madsen (Sarah Jones) have anything to say about it. (And they do.)

PRETTY LITTLE LIARS 2.17: “Blond Leading the Blind”

So… Let me get this straight: The mysterious A was threatening Alison before she was killed? I have to admit that I did not see that one coming.

However, after my initial shock at the revelation that A had left Alison (Sasha Pieterse) a note pinned on a pumpkin by a knife, I immediately became suspicious of the rampage on Alison’s porch. We didn’t see the gourd vandalism in the Halloween special (“The First Secret”), but the incident was presented as happening after Alison’s prank in the haunted house, after she decided that she could trust the Liars to have her back.

More of What You Don’t Like — Now in Color!

DC Comics posted some new color/themed images of its atrocious new logo on Facebook this morning — and the rainbow of ugliness is perfect for a drizzly winter Monday, because the images also make me want to crawl back in bed and throw the covers over my head just as much as freezing rain does.

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Being a Giants Fan…

It went deep into overtime, but the New York Football Giants defeated the San Francisco 49ers, 20-17, to qualify for their fifth Super Bowl appearance – a rematch of Super Bowl XLII, in which the Giants crushed the New England Patriots’ fantasy of a perfect season with a 17-14 victory.

While I felt good going into halftime of this championship struggle in wet weather with a 10-7 lead, I was on the edge of my couch for the entire second half.  I was bemoaning the fact that New York settled for a field goal just before the half ended, but I knew having the lead was important. Besides, it wouldn’t be a Giants game if we fans weren’t in hell the whole time. Who wants a blowout when we can spend 30 minutes on tenterhooks? I love my Giants, but they really test my devotion while I’m watching.

Newt Slithers to the Lead in S.C.

Today, Republicans in South Carolina go to the polls to vote for a GOP candidate to run for president in the fall. In a stunning reversal of fortunes, former front-runner Mitt Romney finds himself trailing former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who is favored to win in the conservative-leaning state despite revelations from one of his former wives, Marianne, that Newt cheated on her in her own house and asked for an “open marriage” in which he didn’t have to hide his relationship with mistress (now current wife) Callista. Marianne suggested that Newt doesn’t take his marriage vows very seriously.

Since his own behavior is clearly indefensible, Newt did the only thing he could: He shot the messenger. Employing the GOP’s favorite trope, Newt blamed “the media” for bringing Marianne’s statements to light. At the beginning of Thursday night’s debate, he launched into a tirade at CNN moderator John King for daring to bring up Newt’s own marital history.

SOPA/PIPA Taken Off the Table – For Now

In an extraordinary change of heart today, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) has changed his mind about the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) – and the forces allied against it – and pulled his bill from consideration by the House Judiciary Committee indefinitely. In addition, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) has canceled the Jan. 24 Senate vote on its version of the legislation, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

I applaud these reasoned actions, because now the conversation can shift to where it should be focused: on how to protect intellectual property intelligently. Nobody wants content to be pirated. As a creator of content myself, I most definitely want to be paid for my work. But there are better ways to do it than wiping out the Internet. After all, printing presses weren’t outlawed to stop libel. This is clearly a victory for those looking to preserve free speech and innovation on the Internet. However, the fight is far from over – for both sides. But without the threat of a flawed “fix” being rushed into law, all sides can work together to stop criminals.