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Mark's Best of 2018

It's not really accurate to call this a Best Of list. It's more a random collection of stuff I noticed while watching TV this year. But Mark's Random Collection of Stuff He Noticed While Watching TV This Year is a bit of a mouthful so I'm gonna just stick with Mark's Best of 2018.

Best Explanation For Why Everything Sucks Now - The Good Place


Turns out we have Team Cockroach to blame for why everything is such a mess now. Their return to the land of the living has thrown the whole world out of wack resulting in Brexit, the success of The Greatest Showman and -- forking bell -- the Jacksonville Jaguars actually being good now.

Best Sidetrack - 'Kiksuya' (Westworld)


It's a brave show that stops everything it's doing to devote an entire hour to the backstory of a character we have barely seen. It takes a great show to turn that detour into one of the absolute best episodes of the entire year.

Best Motivational Speaker - Saru (Star Trek: Discovery)


After finding out their captain is really an impostor from an evil mirror universe (which was shocking, but not that shocking), acting captain Saru rallied his crew with one of the most inspiring speeches any starship commander has ever given. Shame Starfleet Command had to then ruin things by giving the ship to another impostor from an evil mirror universe who also liked to eat people.

Good Cop - Saga Norén, Malmö CID (The Bridge)


After a brief stint in prison, Sweden's finest (sorry Wallander) was back to unravel another needlessly complicated multinational case that didn't always make a lot of sense, but still had you gripped right until the end.

Really Bad Cop - Yasmin Khan (Doctor Who) 


Guy pulls out a (illegal in Britain) handgun and threatens Yaz and her mum with it and she doesn't arrest him? PC Khan seemed to forget what her job is almost as often as the writers seemed to forget her very existence.

Best Signage - Disenchantment 


Matt Groening's latest show is (so far) no Futurama, but it is the best show on the net for brilliant background gags. 

Biggest "The fuck...?" Moment - The Singing Mouse (Legion)


How do you make an already pretty weird episode even fucking weirder? Easy, just have a mouse  randomly show up singing Bryan Ferry's 'Slave to Love'. Not only will you be deeply confused but you'll have that song stuck in your head for weeks.

Brightest Smile - Karolina Dean (Runaways)


Thanks to her creep alien dad, Karolina can literally turn herself into a luminous rainbow space angel, but she's never shined brighter than when Nico (the girl she's silently crushed on all season) finally kissed her back.

Most Harmonious Lineup - Brooklyn Nine Nine 


So that the witness can identify the perp, Jake has the members of a police lineup take turns singing 'I Want it That Way' by the Backsteet Boys and gets so carried away he forgets why they're there in the first place, leading to one of the show's best punchlines ("It was number five, number five killed my brother").

Best Nostalgic Cameo - Darkwing Duck (DuckTales)


He is the terror that flaps in the night. He is the lone roller skate at the base of villainy's staircase. He is Darkwing Duck and he better be getting his own reboot series or Disney will hear from my lawyers.

Most Unsurprising (But Very Emotional) Death - Kanan Jarrus (Star Wars Rebels)


The wayward Jedi was a dead man walking from the moment he first appeared on screen. We all knew it was going to happen, but that didn't make it hurt any less when he finally sacrificed his life to save his family.

Most Stylish Assassin - Villanelle (Killing Eve)


Villanelle is always dressed to kill. Mostly because she's an assassin and assassins are technically always dressed to kill (unless they're nudist assassins), but also because her fashion game is always A+++.  Even the MI-6 agents chasing after her can't help but compliment her exceptional taste in clothes.

True Detectives - Strike and Ellacott (Strike)


Like the J.K. Rowling Robert Galbraith novels it's based on, this series is somewhat lacking when it comes to gripping murder mysteries. But what it does have going for it is the simply fantastic chemistry between Tom Burke's Cormoran Strike and Holliday Grainger's Robin Ellacott.

Most Lethal Drinking Game - "Ma'am" (Bodyguard) 


Knock one back whenever David Budd or any other character says "Ma'am". You'll be needing a transplant before you've even reached the end of the first episode.

Best Prison Break - 'Blindsided' (Daredevil


After a Defenders imposed hiatus, Daredevil returned this year (for the last time, sadly) and successfully defended its title as master of the one-take hallway fight, blessing us with a nerve wrecking 11-minute sequence that saw a costume-less Matt Murdock fight his way out of a prison where everyone, guards included, is trying to kill him.

Best Mismatched Pairing - Wynonna Earp and Nicole Haught (Wynonna Earp


Yeah, yeah, Waverly and Nicole are super trooper cute, but if this past season has proven anything it is that the best Earp/Haught pairing on this show is actually the chalk and whisky partnership of Wynonna and Nicole.

Best Karaoke - 'All That Josh' (The Magicians)


What better way to heal a fractured group of heroes than have them all take part in a multi-dimensional rendition of the Queen and David Bowie classic 'Under Pressure'. Mmm num ba de...


Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011 More Mark Greig

2 comments:

  1. An enjoyable read, Mark. But you know what it made me realize? How we're in the middle of peak television. I've only seen half these shows. And I have a TV site!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Agreed on "Best Explanation For Why Everything Sucks Now."

    I *still* haven't watched the third season of Daredevil. Something to look forward to in 2019.

    ReplyDelete

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