Top Televison Picks

TOP TV for 2006

I have enjoyed watching many TV series this year thanks to my Netflix membership. I seem to be telling people at parties about my viewing habits and spelling out titles on cocktail napkins instead of having a real conversation. This sort of information belongs committed to a blog. So here’s a start:

Old Televison/ Old Seasons In no particular order....

*Wonderfalls*

This is a short-lived series from the guy who would later create *Dead Like Me* It’s like Ali MacBeal meets Northern Exposure in a gift shop at Niagra Falls; figurines talk and the mystical Indian tribe nearby provides spiritual flavor.

*Slings & Arrows*

Also Canadian, brought to you by the people who recently presented *The Drowsy Chaperone* on Broadway. This show features a Stratford Festival-like theatre company doing a season that always includes a Shakespeare or two. First Hamlet, second The Scottish play. It’s full of onstage/offstage and artistic/admin.

*Hustle*

From the BBC via the AMC channel. A very well written series that’s still running, that includes a 5-member crew of con artists with hearts and souls. It’s like mini-versions of Oceans 11 with that much style and pace.

*Bleak House*

This is the BBC at it’s best. There are at least 3 discs of storytelling; if Dicken’s were alive, he’d have written for television.

*Dick Cavett*

These talk shows from the 70s are long-form late-night interview television that makes Inside the Actor’s Studio look rushed. So I found myself fast forwarding through many places, but if you watch nothing else, watch the first disc with Carol Burnett talking about physical comedy. She is absolutely charming and smart and in full possession of herself. Woody Allen’s on that one too.

*Foyle’s War*

This is another WWII British series that involves a police inspector solving crimes in the countryside while the larger theatre rumbles in the background. Michael Kitchen could read the phonebook and he’d have me all to his own. Unfortunately there are only 3 seasons.