TV (The Book)

by Alan Sepinwall

  The show digs deep into the minutiae of the trans community and Maura’s particular transition—proper pronoun usage, the difficulties of using a public restroom, which hormones to take and which surgeries to consider—but also into the way that Maura’s long-held secret had ripple effects on her kids, which the entire family (including Judith Light—embracing her inner Jewish grandmother—as Maura’s ex-wife) is only now starting to realize.

  Tambor’s mainly known as a comic actor, and while the show is laced with wry, dark humor, Maura herself is a very serious and sad character—she didn’t grow up in a world of trans awareness, and thus is only coming out now to better enjoy what time she has left—and he captures every poignant nuance of her transformation. (What an amazing past three decades Tambor has had, with The Larry Sanders Show in the ’90s, Arrested Development in the ’00s, and his first Emmy ever coming for Transparent in 2015.)

  The television business is going through its own remarkable transition now, exemplified by a show of this quality debuting on a streaming video service. Once upon a time, the idea of a show this nuanced, this complicated, and simply this great debuting outside of a more traditional means of TV distribution (say, on Showtime or FX) would have seemed ridiculous. But that kind of thinking feels almost as outmoded as the prejudice Maura and her trans friends are going through, both from the outside world and the family members who aren’t prepared for how quickly the world, and their own lives, are changing.

  —AS

  Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix, 2015–present)

  Tina Fey was head writer and a big star on SNL. She created and starred in 30 Rock, which was nominated for more than a hundred Emmys during its run. It’s not hard to understand why NBC would have wanted to be in business with Fey again on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which she cocreated with 30 Rock vet Robert Carlock. But nor is it hard to understand why the Peacock ultimately backed out and sold the show to Netflix after the first season was produced.

  This is a weird show, even by Fey standards, with as dark a backstory for its main character as any sitcom has ever tried. Kimmy (Ellie Kemper) was in the eighth grade when the Reverend Richard Wayne Gary Wayne (Jon Hamm) abducted her and placed her in an underground bunker with a handful of other women, all of them believing the Apocalypse had come and they were the only survivors. After fifteen years of captivity—and, as she reluctantly acknowledges later, “weird sex stuff”—she and the other “Indiana mole women” are rescued, and Kimmy attempts to start over by moving to New York.

  The series deals mostly with Kimmy’s new life in the Big Apple, where she becomes roommate to flamboyant unemployed actor Titus Andromedon (Tituss Burgess) and nanny to the children of vapid socialite Jacqueline Voorhees (Jane Krakowski), a Lakota woman passing for white. But Kimmy’s time in the bunker is never far behind, and you can imagine NBC executives getting very uncomfortable at the thought of having to market the show, or deal with complaints from survivors of kidnapping and/or sexual abuse who might feel Fey and Carlock are making light of the whole subject.

  Thanks to Fey’s and Carlock’s deftness as writers who can wring laughs out of taboo subjects, and especially thanks to the joy radiating from Ellie Kemper every minute she’s onscreen, the series never feels bogged down by, or even disrespectful of, the ordeal that made Kimmy the woman she is today.

  Instead, it’s a ridiculous cracked-mirror view of every wide-eyed-girl-in-the-big-city story ever told, loaded with the same kinds of bizarre jokes, unexpectedly pointed social commentary (Titus is treated better dressed as a werewolf than as a gay black man), and irresistible song parodies (including that earworm of a theme—They alive, dammit!) that made 30 Rock so great—only now in a place where Fey never has to apologize for the low ratings, because nobody outside Netflix corporate knows what they are.

  —AS

  UnREAL (Lifetime, 2015–present)

  The rise of the cable antihero drama and that of reality TV began around the same time, but the two seemed like matter and antimatter, destined to explode if they ever came into contact. Instead, the two opposites fused together perfectly with UnREAL, a scathing drama about the producers of dating show very much like The Bachelor (where Sarah Gertrude Shapiro, who created UnREAL with Marti Noxon, used to work).

  Quinn (Constance Zimmer), who has thrown her whole life into running shows like this, is unapologetic about the way she and her colleagues manipulate contestants into degrading themselves and how they contrive situations and edit footage to turn complicated human beings into two-dimensional TV characters. (Defending the casting of a woman with PTSD whom they will portray as “the crazy one,” Quinn shrugs and says, “She knew what she was signing on for.”) Her top lieutenant, Rachel (Shiri Appleby), acts like she regrets ever descending into this pit of lies (she’s fond of wearing a “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-shirt), yet she’s even better—and more ruthless—at getting the contestants to act against their own best interests.

  The dialogue is cutting, the performances layered and charismatic, and the writing has as much to say about gender norms in the twenty-first century as it does about the way dating shows help shape or reinforce them. And somehow, UnREAL threads the needle so that it’s just as addictive to reality TV obsessives as to those who view series like The Bachelor as a blight on our culture.

  —AS

  Veep (HBO, 2012–present)

  If Hollywood is high school with money, Washington is high school with power; or so it seems in Veep, the HBO comedy starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Selina Meyer, the vice president of the United States, from Scottish writer-producer Armando Iannucci. All of the characters are overgrown adolescents—bitchy, pouty, and narcissistic. And as it happens, they’re employed in a field that equals showbiz in its immaturity, treachery, and obsession with surfaces. Arrested Development’s Tony Hale plays Gary, the vice president’s “body man” and chief assistant, a lovable wretch whose foot is permanently lodged in his mouth. Anna Chlumsky is Amy, the veep’s chief of staff, who always has one eye on her smartphone. Reid Scott’s Dan is a sadistic but resourceful political fixer whom Selina ends up hiring because he’s “a shit” and “I need a shit.” Mike (Matt Walsh) is the world-weary press spokesman who pretends to have a beloved dog so that he can use it as an excuse to escape unpleasant social obligations (his officemates call the imaginary canine a “bull-shitsu”). The insufferably smug White House liaison Jonah (Timothy Simons) wields his West Wing access like a cudgel and tries to leverage his proximity to power to score dates with interns, as well as with Amy, who loathes him. Despite the hopeful West Wing–style credits music, the series feels like a live-action version of Doonesbury with baroque profanity and metaphors. “If you can get a Senate reform bill through the place it’s designed to reform,” a senator says, “that would be like persuading a guy to fist himself!”

  As Selina, a former senator, Louis-Dreyfus draws on her loopy, self-involved Seinfeld persona but adds hints of cynicism and brittleness. Everyone around Selina is likewise selfish and image-obsessed. This is a shark-tank world of a type that HBO specializes in; the ego-warring over perks, loyalty, and respect might remind you of the cable channel’s other classic half-hour studies in bad behavior: The Larry Sanders Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and the brilliant, short-lived Lisa Kudrow vehicle The Comeback.

  —MZS

  ETC.…

  American Crime Story (FX, 2016–present) The addictive first season of this anthology drama, about the O.J. trial, set an incredibly high bar that we hope future installments can clear… Archer (FX, 2010–present) What if Inspector Clouseau were as hypersexual and unerringly lethal as James Bond, and every time he opened his mouth, a frat bro’s voice came out? The humor is so scabrous and weird, the cocktail-cool graphic designs are so pleasing, and the action is so inventively choreographed (better than most live-action spy film violence, honestly) that it’s the closest thing to brain candy on cable right now… Bob’s Burgers (Fox, 2011–present) Warm, weird an
imated comedy about a family as off-kilter as the ingredients in the title character’s Burger of the Day, featuring some of the wildest musical numbers this side of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend… Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Fox, 2013–present) Crackerjack ensemble comedy from several Parks and Rec alums, in which Andre Braugher proves his talents can be just as powerful when applied to the silliest of humor as when he was being deadly serious on Homicide and elsewhere… The Carmichael Show (NBC, 2015–present) Thought-provoking and funny in equal measure, comedian Jerrod Carmichael’s multi-cam sitcom is a worthy descendant of Norman Lear… Casual (Hulu, 2015–present) Part of the rising tide of TV shows with the tone and artistry of independent films, this dramedy about profoundly damaged siblings who hurt as much as help each other’s chances at happiness features a remarkably layered performance from Michaela Watkins… Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (CW, 2015–present) Former YouTube star Rachel Bloom’s musical-comedy-romance raised hackles with its title, but the series is considerably deeper and more complex than the name, something akin to Seinfeld or BoJack Horseman with Broadway-style song-and-dance numbers, about the human tendency to see one’s own desires and problems as the most important things in life and everyone else’s as a distraction… Empire (Fox, 2014–present) Dallas with hip-hop and a predominantly black cast, it surges relentlessly forward, packing enough plot twists for a whole season of other shows into single episodes, always cranking the emotional volume to 11… Fresh Off the Boat (ABC, 2015–present) Comedy about an Asian American family in ’90s Orlando is a fine, funny example of why TV benefits as much creatively as socially from diversifying the kind of people and stories that we see… Halt and Catch Fire (AMC, 2014–present) and Silicon Valley (HBO, 2014–present) Two excellent shows set in different eras, and wildly different genres, about how goddamn hard it is to find both fortune and happiness in the tech field…  It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX/FXX, 2005–present) DIY sitcom about a quintet of grubby sociopaths has run forever without losing its rough edges or ability to inspire howling laughter… iZombie (CW, 2015–present) Supernatural/procedural mash-up from the Veronica Mars team, it abandons nearly everything from the comic book on which it’s based, but is so sharp and fun, it serves as a reminder that adaptations don’t have to be faithful to be good… Jane the Virgin (CW, 2014–present) That rare, magical beast: a spot-on parody (of telenovelas) that simultaneously functions as a sincere, well-crafted version of the thing it’s parodying… Master of None (Netflix, 2015–present) Half romcom, half anthropology, made special by cocreator/star Aziz Ansari’s irrepressible curiosity about the world around him… The Mindy Project (Fox, 2012–2015; Hulu, 2015–present) Creator and star Mindy Kaling segued seamless from The Office to this romantic comedy that’s also a meditation on the allure of the romantic comedy, as well as a look at the complexities of modern dating and (to a lesser extent) what it’s like to be an Indian American woman in a culture and a profession (medicine) that’s still very white… New Girl (Fox, 2011–present) Profoundly uneven but explosively funny hangout comedy that’s at its best when it forgets about pesky things like story and logic and just lets things get weird… Rick and Morty (Adult Swim, 2013–present) Inventive animated sci-fi comedy that crosses barriers of good taste at least as often as its characters cross dimensions… You’re the Worst (FX/ FXX, 2014–present) A dark, touching, raucous romantic comedy about two people who would be horrified to discover they’re the leads in a romantic comedy.

  A CERTAIN REGARD

  (Shows we love for one strange reason or another)

  American Family (PBS, 2002–2004)

  Showtime’s Resurrection Blvd. (2000–2002) was the first dramatic series about a Latino family on US TV: a multigenerational saga about the Santiagos of East Los Angeles, a clan whose identity is built as much around boxing as the experience of being Mexican American. American Family, which debuted in 2002, was a more ambitious and arresting work, aiming to be something like a Latino Rich Man, Poor Man with magical realist touches. Created by director Gregory Nava, who’d been refining the idea since the 1995 feature film Mi Familia (My Family), the program was originally intended for CBS, but the network bumped it after deeming the pilot insufficiently commercial. To be fair, it was: Nava, his regular cinematographer Reynaldo Villalobos, and his star and coproducer Edward James Olmos (who also acted in Mi Familia) rooted the story in current political reality, to an extent not seen since Norman Lear’s 1970s sitcoms. The second season went several steps beyond that, telling a serialized, thirteen-episode story that jumped between the present day and the Mexican Revolution, the event that sent the Gonzalez family from Mexico to the United States. It also confronted the divisiveness of the Iraq War (which had started only a year earlier) head-on: Olmos’s character, Jess Gonzalez, a politically conservative barber and Korean War veteran, fights about it with his liberal lawyer daughter (Constance Marie), believing that they’re obligated to support the war because his son (Yancey Arias) is an Army doctor. The opening of season 2 is the most dazzling technical achievement of its TV decade: a thirty-eight-minute tracking shot that moves through and around the Gonzalez household during a party, weaving in ghostly visitations by ancestors from another century.

  —MZS

  American Horror Story (FX, 2011–present)

  Ryan Murphy and Bradley Falchuk’s horror series was the first blockbuster prime-time series to reinvent the anthology, changing the unit of measure from the episode to the season. (See also ABC’s unrelated but incredible American Crime, which may have been canceled by the time you read this, but whose second season you should hunt down by any means necessary.) Cast members (including Sarah Paulson, Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Kathy Bates, and Angela Bassett) reappear in consecutive seasons as new characters in new story lines, nearly always a Frankenstein hybrid of several touchstone series, films, or horror genres. Seasons 1 (Murder House) and 2 (Asylum) are the best, marrying the show’s trademark baroque visuals, gross-out violence, pervy sex, and anything-for-a-jump-scare aesthetic to social criticism and historical muckraking; subsequent installments are skippable, unless you’re a Lange or Paulson completist, or can’t get enough of endless Steadicam shots and Dutch angles.

  —MZS

  Beavis and Butt-Head (MTV, 1993–1997, 2011)

  Daria (MTV, 1997–2002)

  “Huh-huh, huh-huh, huh-huh.” That hoarse, cretinous laugh was also the sound of cash registers ringing at MTV, where Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head improbably became a ratings powerhouse. The characters began life as characters in Judge’s 1992 short “Frog Baseball,” which single-handedly stole the traveling theatrical anthology Spike & Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation; the duo are delinquent, obtuse, fire-obsessed best friends who are never shown smoking pot but always seem stoned to the point of numbness. They’re such badly behaved and incompetent students that in one episode they briefly get demoted to kindergarten; at home (in Highland, Texas, or so we’re told) they seem to exist in a world without parents. Although they wander around the neighborhood getting into trouble (at one point they become convinced that a homeless man is a werewolf), they spend most of their afternoons fused to a couch, scarfing sodas and junk food and commenting on trash talk shows, infomercials, and (especially) MTV videos. Their guttural witticisms, showcased in stand-alone shorts ranging from five to eleven minutes in length, were a suburban waste-case’s answer to Mystery Science Theater 3000, written and performed by Judge (as both characters) with unhinged enthusiasm. (Beavis frequently imagines himself as the Great Cornholio, who “needs TP for my bunghole.”)

  The TV-watching segments were the show’s big draw, putting a snarky postmodern wrapper around MTV’s already self-consciously artificial music programming. Some of the boys’ offhand remarks were clever, in their way (“These guys are pretty cool, even though they’re sixty,” Beavis says of Aerosmith), and they qualified as cultural commentary: They were dispatches from two fools live-casting a slow-motion apocalypse that was consuming them as we
ll, even though they didn’t know it. Although the show’s dependence on then-recent pop culture references makes it almost incomprehensible to anyone who wasn’t actively watching it in the ’90s, its satire of American dunderheadedness hasn’t aged a day; Beavis and Butt-Head are entitlement personified, sexist and classist, arrogant and dense, proudly unteachable in every subject, including life lessons. South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone consider Beavis and Butt-Head a primary influence; the show paved the way for Judge’s superior and much sweeter King of the Hill, the 1997 feature film Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, and Judge’s Idiocracy, a nightmarish slapstick comedy set in a postapocalyptic world in which the boys might be considered wise men.

  The power of seeing yourself represented onscreen should not be underestimated; it kept the animated sitcom Daria on MTV for five seasons. Spun-off from Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head, the show was executive-produced by two of Judge’s writers, Glenn Eichler and Susie Lewis, but otherwise had little in the way of continuity. Previously a foil for Beavis and Butt-Head who showed up to harsh their buzz and remind audiences that they weren’t hero-worship material, Daria Morgendorffer was a sprightly-cranky beacon of hope to every woman who had ever felt marginalized by her education, her wit, her cynicism, and her reluctance to give in to sexist messages that urged teenage girls to act peppy and harmless, obsess over clothes and makeup, and hide their eccentric specialness to make boys like them. (Appropriately, the theme song was “Standing on My Neck,” by Splendora.) The supporting cast included Daria’s mother, Helen, her father, Jake, her younger sister, Quinn, and her best friend, Jane Lane; her suburban town of Lawndale was just as vacuous as Beavis and Butt-Head’s but more realistic and ultimately hopeful, if only because it allowed a character as rich as Daria to live in it without losing her marbles.