‘Tis the Season

This is the time of year when we all reflect on what happened in our recent past, and as it’s the end of the decade as well, there’s a particularly strong inclination toward navel-gazing and list-making. Before I launch into some posts about holiday-themed television, I want to (participate!) highlight some of the interesting thoughts floating around about the 2000s.

I’m particularly fond of this Emily Nussbaum piece from the NYMagazine, which discusses this decade as the moment when television became an art form and we collectively began to understand TV as an object for study and analysis rather than lowbrow pabulum. She highlights all the shows you’d expect, The Wire and The Sopranos especially, but also talks about the importance of shows like Slings and Arrows and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (and gives one of my favorite characterizations of The West Wing ever – “a liberal holodeck”). The piece also has a thoughtful mention of the way technology like DVDs and DVRS have made all of this artful TV possible, which I agree has been crucial in our appreciation of television as a form.

The Nussbaum piece is polished to a high sheen – on the other end of the spectrum, there’s this great discussion between several television critics about some of their favorite shows. Only the first of its three parts has been released so far, but it deals with Lost and its many issues in a thoughtful and pleasantly casual way. Like the Nussbaum article, this conversation touches on fandom and its role in television appreciation.

And now for some lists – here are Maureen Ryan’s, James Poniewozik’s, and Alan Sepinwall’s absurdly comprehensive List of Lists. The best thing about list projects like these is the inevitable contentious decisions and subsequent fallout from blog commenters. As Alan Sepinwall described, list making is always a process of explaining that while you like Thing 1, you like Thing 2 better, and then watching the entire internet explode in outrage over your snub of Thing 1.

I think this post plus yesterday’s comments on the Golden Globes is plenty of meta-commentary for now, and tomorrow I’ll begin discussing holiday television. My plan is to meander through whatever occurs to me as well as hitting some of the greats – last year’s A Colbert Christmas, the perpetual A Charlie Brown Christmas, the awesome Angela Lansbury made-for-TV movie Mrs. Claus if I can find a copy – with the ultimate goal of landing on that holiest of holy grails, the Star Wars Holiday Special. I’ve never seen it, but have often heard of its awesome, gut-wrenching power and look forward to experiencing the horror. Let me know if you have a favorite and I’ll try to get to it.