year in review
From controversial endings to long-run sitcoms to brilliant new noir thrillers, television disappointed and thrilled us in equal measure during 2014. Instep rounds up the highs and lows of the year.
- Binge-watchers rejoiced as new seasons of Netflix’s terrific Orange is the New Black and House of Cards were released.
- Amazon Studios’ Transparent won acclaim.
- After being almost-cancelled every year, Community was actually cancelled this year by NBC ... and then resurrected by Yahoo! Screens, because clearly it has more lives than a cat.
- Hostages was so rivetingly bad that we forgot to stop watching it. Thankfully the network pulled the plug on the series after just one season and saved our intelligence from plummeting even further.
- The Comeback made a comeback.
- True Detective told us that time is a flat circle.
- Martin Freeman was suspiciously convincing as the bad guy on the deliciously sinister Fargo.
- Sherlock came back for a three-episode series, then left us with a Sherlock-shaped hole in our lives for another two years.
- The gods of cancellation made us wonder what sort of a cruel world we live in where The Neighbours gets canned after two seasons while Two and a Half Men runs for 12.
- Someone with very poor judgment cast Katherine Heigl to star in a TV show, resulting in a sorry State of Affairs.
- Bad Judge was really bad.
- The abysmal Homeland made us cringe.
- 24 lived another day.
- The Walking Dead still didn’t die.
- NCIS and its various spin-offs continued to be extremely popular.
- Someone decided to call a television drama “How to Get Away with Murder” because they couldn’t come up with a longer title.
- Here comes Honey Boo Boo? There goes Honey Boo Boo.
- The Newsroom was cancelled, which means Aaron Sorkin will now have to find another avenue to lecture us every week like we’re a bunch of dimwits.
- Cosmos wowed.
- The Affair met acclaim.
- Psych left us with fond memories that spring to mind every time we see a pineapple.
- Dads was cancelled 19 episodes after it should have been. It ran for 19 episodes.
- The Blacklist continued to be an overwhelmingly, preposterously, terribly stupid show that we continued to watch for some reason.
- I Wanna Marry “Harry” tried to vie for the Worst Show Ever Made title.
- Bill Cosby and Stephen Collins became everyone’s least favourite TV dads ever.
- President Obama sat Between Two Ferns.
- Jeremy Clarkson kept offending people.
- Ricky Gervais’ Derek bowed out.
- Miranda bid us farewell.
- Broadchurch’s brilliant ‘whodunnit’ was water cooler TV at its finest.
- The original, British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? aired its last show, coming to an end after a 15 year run.
- Someone or the other won American Idol, leading us to the question “wait, is that show still on?”
- Game of Thrones continued to be the most pirated television series while continuing to have the most annoyingly obsessive fans.
- Downton Abbey remained the most popular show that we still haven’t seen.
- Better Call Saul was delayed until 2015 because the universe must torment us at every given opportunity.
- Twin Peaks was revived for a limited series, set to air nearly 25 years after it was cancelled.
- David Letterman announced his retirement.
- Stephen Colbert changed the world.
- The bafflingly terrible ending of How I Met Your Mother generated a torrent of expletives from everyone who suffered through 9 seasons (208 episodes!) of initially exciting, eventually disappointing television, only to be left with a load of twaddle in the end. The infinitely better alternative ending later emerged so that we could mentally replace the last scene of the finale with the new version in our heads and pretend that the other atrocity never happened.
- By Sameen Amer
Instep Today, The News - 1st January, 2015 *
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