TV 2018

Watched since October 1st:

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season 4 episodes 1-3
The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season 2
West World season 2 (minus the finale, with Cricket)
GLOW seasons 1 & 2
Upstairs Downstairs (2010) season 1
The Magicians season 1 episodes 9-13
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina season 1 episodes 1-11
The Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj volume 1
Lost in Space reboot season 1
The Romanoffs full series (8 episodes)
The Innocent Man full series (6 episodes)
Alias Grace full series (6 episodes)
CNN's The Nineties full series (8 episodes)
The Untold Tales of Armistead Maupin
Ellen Degeneres: Relatable
The West Wing rewatch of season 5 episodes 17-22 and season 6 episodes 1-3 along with The West Wing Weekly podcast
American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson rewatch

And in the theater:
Mary Poppins Returns
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald

Check my Q1, Q2, and Q3 posts for the rest of the year.

I watched A LOT of good TV this year. Around October, I started to run out of beloved, time-tested, familiar series and scrambled around for new things to watch, and found a few interesting things, but most of the good stuff was in the first three quarters of the year. Possibly the best thing I watched this year was seasons 5 and 6 of The Americans, which has changed the way I feel about U2's "With or Without You." Season 3 of Fargo was yet another round of chilling and riveting storytelling for the great series. GLOW seasons 1 and 2 were a hilarious and smart delight. Black Mirror season 4 was very affecting and I am currently avoiding Bandersnatch. West World is hopelessly confusing, but I'm enjoying watching with with Cricket and her 3- or 4-times removed HBO login. I continue to love Call the Midwife which I caught up on this year (seasons 5-7) and I just remembered there's a Christmas episode waiting in my Apple TV somewhere. Also highlights of the year were season 2 of The Good Place, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (one of these things is not like the others, well I guess none of them are like each other).

I watched an awful lot of Shameless (US, seasons 3-7), and I'm getting a little tired of it, so season 8 may not be in my future. On the other hand, I closed out the year with the spare season 1 episodes of The Magicians which I hadn't gotten to, thinking I'd just finish out the season and not look back, but the season finale cliffhanger may have other plans for me.

I did a fair amount of rewatching this year, driven by a combination of a lack of compelling options, specific cravings for certain old favorites, and, unaccountably, time on my hands (?). After finishing Alison Weir's The Lady in the Tower, I headed straight for Amazon Prime and watched the first two seasons of The Tudors. My craving ended with Anne's end, so I did not continue much into season 3. After that I still wanted more British accents, so I rewatched the entirety of Downton Abbey. I wanted to rewatch it again (re-rewatch it) after seeing the Downton Abbey exhibit over Labor Day weekend, but I stopped myself. Hulu knows me better than I know myself, so it threw The Mary Tyler Moore Show my way, but unfortunately only seasons 1-3, so no Sue-Ann Nivens and only the very beginnings of Georgette. Second-to-lastly, I know it sounds odd, but I really loved American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson, so I allowed myself to watch it again this year. I also continue to watch The West Wing along with the The West Wing Weekly Podcast (from the middle of season 4 to the beginning of season 6).

I have a pretty busy life (full-time job, freelance job, managing an orchestra, participation and leadership in other groups, family, friends, travel, etc) so it's always a surprise to look at this list at the end of the year and reflect on how much TV I manage to watch. The only explanation I can come up with is that I do most of my work, activities, and people-seeing outside of my house, and when I happen to be in my house, I pretty much just eat, watch TV, and sleep.

Happy new year!