I’m just going to say it: there’s too much good television out there right now. I mean, sure, we can all think of improvements worth making to even the most popular TV shows – but overall, there’ve been a lot of greats lately. Yet who has the time to keep up with them all?
As for me, television is one of my most favorite vices. I grew up in a completely TV-free household; until I moved out at age 18, I never touched the stuff. Once I had a taste of it, though, I got completely hooked! As an adult, I always have kept up to date with the shows that interest me … until 2015, when that all went down the tubes. I’ve just been too busy. Yes, I know that isn’t a real problem, but considering that part of my job is telling you all what media’s worth your time, I do feel a bit guilty for missing out on some great stuff this year — plus, most of these are shows I really wanted to watch, so I’m pretty disappointed.
In my defense, I’d like to point out that I went out of my way this year to watch every single episode of Jessica Jones as quickly as possible so that I could write about it in a timely fashion (it did help that the show came out right before Thanksgiving break). I have also managed to stay up-to-date on Brooklyn 99 and How To Get Away With Murder. Three fantastic shows — that’s not too shabby, right? But there’s so much other good stuff out there! AAAAA!!!
Here’s my list of woulda-coulda-shoulda watched, in order of least to most effort I’m going to put into trying to watch them in 2016:
10. The Flash
This show only started in 2014, and yet I already feel so miserably behind that I’ll never catch up. All of my friends have fallen in and out of love with Robbie Amell by now, multiple times. Or possibly Stephen Amell? I’m not up-to-date on the work of either Amell. Which brings me to my next entry —
9. Arrow
Not only have I not watched any of The Flash, I haven’t watched any of Arrow – so the exciting crossover event between these two shows only felt like further proof of how far behind I am on everything. You know what’s really sad? I like all of these characters and their source material(s)! These shows are for me! Hence why I really feel I’m missing out. Sigh.
When it comes to Arrow, the reason I didn’t watch at first was because I heard the first season was bad – so I figured I could safely ignore it and it’d get canceled. But then before I knew it, the show improved, and now everyone loves it. Now I’m stuck with a massive backlog — including a less-than-stellar first season to slog through before I can get to the good stuff. Anybody got a skip list for me?
8. BoJack Horseman
Like several other entries to follow on this list, BoJack falls under the category of “I watched the pilot episode, I planned to continue watching, then … I didn’t.” What’s really fun about this one is that I seem to have given a lot of my friends the mistaken impression that I’m a regular viewer. Maybe I mentioned it in passing by accident once? I don’t know. Anyway, there’s only one season, so this goal seems achievable. Season two doesn’t come out until July of next year, so I have a little time to make good on my backlog with this one.
7. Once Upon A Time (Season 5)
I went from being a Once Upon a Time super-fan to not watching a single friggin’ episode this season. I stuck with this show through the hard times, even the really stupid crap. I even defended the Frozen arc, which I’m pretty sure everyone else besides me despised (I maintain that the scenes between Anna and Rumplestiltskin are amazing). Heck, I nursed a budding crush on Maleficent in Season 4 – but even that wasn’t enough to get me to find time for Season 5 in 2015. I’ve heard it’s just as silly and confusing and drama-filled as every other season of OuaT, so I’ll probably get a kick out of it when I get to it … if I get to it.
6. The Mindy Project (Season 4)
The Mindy Project found a new home on Hulu as of this season, which is great, because this Mindy Kaling rom-com parody deserves to live on rather than get canned. This show falls under “guilty pleasures” for me — it’s not my favorite show ever, but the hilarious moments usually overshadow the missteps often enough to keep me interested. Part of the reason I stopped watching, though, is that I just can’t get behind the Mindy/Danny dynamic. Now that they’ve got a kid together and are getting married (or something? I mean, you know I didn’t watch the latest season), it doesn’t seem worthwhile to keep up. Am I wrong, though? I loved this show before, maybe I should get back on board. But who has the time???
5. Empire
Okay, now the list is starting to get more and more embarrassing. Listen: I watched the first two episodes of Empire! Possibly even three? And I loved them! But even though this show came out in 2015, it somehow already has a gazillion episodes. As a musician and as a Shakespeare fan, I love everything that this show is doing. As a person with no free time, I just can’t see myself staying on top of it. I’m putting it high up on this list because I want to be able to catch up, but … you know how it is.
4. Daredevil
That’s right. I watched the pilot of Daredevil – twice, no less, with different sets of friends each time – and I never looked back. It seemed great! I meant to keep watching it. I don’t know what happened, okay? I don’t … I don’t know what happened. I told you this list was going to get embarrassing. You knew what this was.
3. Gotham
This one makes me extra-sad, because I actually started recapping this season of Gotham here on this very website, and I enjoyed the hell out of it! Unfortunately, in the hustle and bustle of preparing for New York Comic Con, I missed two episodes of the show in a row, and then it seemed impossible to catch up after that.
Much like OuaT, I’ve stuck through all the prior episodes of Gotham even though everybody else on the planet fell off the wagon – and by all accounts, the new season is actually … good? If I’d kept watching past the first two episodes that I recapped, then I think I would’ve been pleasantly surprised. I want to catch back up on this show. So, let me know if you enjoyed my recaps and if you’d like to see them come back next season.
2. Supergirl
I KNOW. An admission like this seems like enough to get me fired, around here. (Just kidding! … I hope!) I mean, I do work here, so I do know all the major plot points and delightful tidbits surrounding this season of Supergirl … but I’ve only actually seen one episode, the pilot. The rest of the show seems like it’s going great, though. How do people have time to watch all of these shows, I ask you? How?
1. Master of None
I saved the best and saddest for my number-one slot: Aziz Ansari’s Master of None. I haven’t even seen the pilot for this, even though I loved the hilarious trailers for this show so much that I’ve watched them all multiple times. I’ve heard so much about this show that I feel like I’ve seen it. Even my parents, who are both significantly busier workaholics than I am, managed to this show and told me to watch it, which is utterly bonkers (recall at the top of this piece when I said I grew up in a television-free household?). This show is pretty much 100% guaranteed to be my favorite, and yet I haven’t managed to watch a single minute of it.
Honorable Mentions
Fresh Off the Boat and Black-ish, both family sitcoms, both great – but I’m just not that into family sitcoms as a genre. I do enjoy these, though I’ve fallen too far behind on them to say whether they keep up in quality. If you like family sitcoms, though, I bet you’ll enjoy both of these.
One more —Â Rick and Morty, a show that I keep trying to watch and may give up on, since it just doesn’t seem to be my thing. If I’ve got this many shows to watch in my backlog, I may as well stick to stuff that I consistently like, as opposed to only watching stuff because “everybody else” tells me to do it.
So, my New Year’s Resolutions for 2016: watch more television. Put in a more positive way, I could probably stand to spend more time relaxing and enjoying myself this year. So I will!
What TV shows do you have left in your embarrassing backlog? Come on, I bared my soul here – you all can admit to me which shows you’ve been meaning to watch for ages and never have checked out. Do it!
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Published: Jan 5, 2016 04:21 pm