If you’re a diehard fan of a show, you can proclaim your love loud and proud with your standard t-shirt bearing the show’s logo. But sometimes, you want merchandise that’s a bit less conventional. Maybe a bit less straightforward. Maybe a bit more of an insider-y reference. For such occasions, I recommend the following items.

Merlotte’s Neon Sign The perfect accompaniment for your bar/liquor cabinet/Tru Blood cooler, this neon sign harks back to the favorite watering hole of Bon Temps, Louisiana. If you’re more the fangbanger type, a Fangtasia sign is also available, and it’s only a matter of time before we see a Lou Pine’s variant.

The Office Sign Not much ambiguity here, but this door sign is highly emblematic of the show. The Office has one of the most bountiful online stores, with hundreds of items available. If you want to continue making your home resemble the Dunder Mifflin workplace, you can also get personalized name plates, reprints of Pam’s artwork, and bobbleheads of almost all the employees.

Top Chef Logo Jacket What better way to say “I’m not your bitch, bitch” than to don this jacket and tell all who enter the kitchen that you mean business. Food—instantly better. Atmosphere—instantly more intimidating. Of course, to complete the look, you also need the Top Chef pants, the Top Chef apron, the Top Chef oven mitt, and the Top Chef knives. (And no one’s gonna tell you to pack them and go.)

Jeffster Poster Promote the Buy More’s homegrown cover band by purchasing this poster, sporting the trademark coifs of the Nerd-Herders-cum-rockstars Jeff and Lester. Let everyone know you support the arts, dubious as they may be.

Lost Prints When graphic designer Ty Mattson wanted to craft invitations to his Lost viewing party, he created eight Saul-Bass-esque works of art, each iconic of a specific aspect of the show. Two are available for purchase as prints (and as t-shirts and even skateboards) at the ABC Store.

Tracy Jordan TJ Pendant T-Shirt Even if you haven’t achieved the almighty EGOT status, you can still match Tracy Jordan’s swagger with this blinged-out t-shirt. Take it from a proud owner of this shirt, people on the street certainly do look at you differently.

Mad Men Barbie Dolls If you want to reenact Mad Men’s hot-blooded office politics and smoldering trysts, now you can, with these miniature versions of the main characters which are not creepy at all. But I don’t know how you’re going to find a pack of Lucky Strikes that are to scale.

Metal Dharma Signs If you’re working on transforming your living room into a Dharma hatch—buying Geronimo Jackson on vinyl, finding the right ping-pong table, keeping that pesky electromagnetic field under control—then these metal signs are a must-have. Unfortunately, the Dharma Initiative Alarm Clock seems to still be in the theoretical stages.

You want the latest skinny? I got your latest skinny right here.

• Dustin Hoffman is migrating to television to headline HBO’s new series Luck, created by David Milch (Deadwood). Variety reports that the show will center on “several eclectic personalities who ply their trade on the horse-racing circuit,” including Hoffman’s character, “a man in his late 60s just released from four years in prison who’s autodidactic, intelligent, and deeply involved in gambling.” The show is predicted to debut in January.
• The network is also developing a yet-to-be-titled series in which Kevin Kline will portray a man just released from prison fifteen years after murdering his mistress. Was he cellmates with Dusty Hoffman?
• And hey, Diane Keaton is going to HBO, too! Along with Ellen Page! The duo will star in Tilda, a show roughly based on the life of notorious Hollywood journalist/blogger Nikke Finke.
• Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman will co-star in HBO’s television movie Hemingway & Gellhorn about Ernest Hemingway’s love affair with novelist/war correspondent Martha Gellhorn, the woman who purportedly inspired him to write For Whom the Bell Tolls.
• Also, Diane Lane, Tim Robbins, and James Gandolfini will star in HBO’s Cinema Verite, a television movie about the production of groundbreaking TV documentary An American Family.
• And you haven’t forgotten about HBO’s miniseries Mildred Pierce with Kate Winslet and Guy Pearce, have you?
• Kevin Spacey is not going to HBO, but he is going to Showtime. Ha! Twist! He’s in talks with the network to star in his own series, called The Crux, about a high-profile cult.
• True Blood, Breaking Bad, and Justified are all renewed for another season. Hurrah!
• Jason O’Mara (Life on Mars) has signed on the dotted line to star in the Spielberg-produced dino-drama Terra Nova on FOX.
• Ian McShane (Kings), Donald Sutherland (Dirty Sexy Money), and Rufus Sewell (The Eleventh Hour) will star in Starz’s miniseries The Pillars of the Earth, based on the Ken Follett novel of the same name. Starz calls the story an “epic of good and evil, treachery and intrigue, violence and beauty, a sensuous, spirited story set against a backdrop of war, religious strife and power struggles in 12th-century England.” The miniseries begins on July 23.
• Starz apparently loves them some period pieces, because it’s also reinventing the Camelot story with Joseph Fiennes (FlashForward) and Eva Green (Casino Royale).
• The hilarious Old Spice pitchman, whose name is Isaiah Mustafa, has signed a talent deal with NBC, so odds are that we won’t be seeing him only during the ad breaks.
• Syfy is developing a pilot entitled Three Inches about a man with a unique superpower: he can telekinetically move any object three inches. He soon join forces with other individuals with equally questionable abilities. It’s like a lamer-yet-awesomer version of Heroes.
• Michael Rosenbaum (formerly Lex Luthor on Smallville) will star in a Syfy comedy called Saved by Zeroes about two actors who squander the money they earned on a cult-favorite science-fiction television series and now have to work the convention beat to pay the bills.
• Gossip Girl actor Chace Crawford was arrested for possession of marijuana. Furthermore, is everyone incapable of looking good in a mugshot? Moving on.
• AMC is making a zombie show called Walking Dead based on the comic series by Robert Kirkman. Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption) is on board to write, direct, and executive-produce the series.
• AMC is also developing a pilot entitled The Killing about a tangled police investigation into the murder of a young girl. Billy Campbell (The 4400) and Michelle Forbes (uh, everything) have joined the cast.
• The pilot Edgar Floats, a comedic drama about a police psychologist, is not dead at ABC—in fact, it has a six-episode script order—but the Alphabet Network did order the recasting of almost the entire cast, including leading-man Tom Cavanaugh (Ed). The only surviving cast member is Robert Patrick (The X-Files).
• MTV is filming its own version of the racy British teen drama Skins. And, like the original, the series will be written largely by teenagers. (Uh, hi, my name is Dan. I was a teenager not too long ago!)
• Also, a film version of the original Skins is in production and set to be released in 2011. Nicholas Hoult and Dev Patel are reprising their parts.
• Rebecca Mader has further endeared herself to me by revealing that she demanded silence while watching Lost, a show on which she starred as Charlotte. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal back in April, Mader mulled over the idea of hosting a finale party but then added, “If someone talks, I will punch them in the head. [...] If someone is saying, ‘What’s going on?’ I’ll be like, ‘Oh my God, get out of my house.’ I don’t have the patience.” I think she and I would get along.
• Speaking of Lost, here’s a doooope tribute by The Injustice League. Who knew that Michael Giacchino’s score could be incorporated into a rap so well?

• Steven Spielberg is in talks with FOX to develop a dinosaur drama! (That sentence begged for an exclamation point.) The project, tentatively titled Terra Nova, would see a family from the future travel to prehistoric times. But obviously, it might be too ambitious a project to produce: think of how hard it’d be to round up all the dinosaur actors in Los Angeles and fly them out to some remote jungle to start filming.
• ABC family renewed Greek for a fourth season, which creator Sean Smith says will be its last, telling Entertainment Weekly, “We’re all looking at this as an opportunity to come back, wrap up the show, and end strong. ABC Family could’ve ended it, but they gave us this opportunity and I don’t want to squander it.”
• A&E is getting back into the drama game with a series called Sugarloaf, in which a framed Chicago detective flees to the titular small town in Florida. The series will star Aussie actor Matt Passmore and Lost’s Kiele Sanchez.
• True Blood will start its third season on June 13. Meanwhile, HBO is releasing one high-resolution poster every week until the premiere on its super-sleek website, like the one I’ve adapted above!
• How did I not know about the Battlestar Galactica roller coaster at Universal Studios Singapore? It’s actually two coasters in one: you can either ride as a human (in a traditional sit-down coaster with a train themed like a Viper) or as a Cylon (in an inverted coaster with trains themed like rows of Centurions). Either way, you’re going to have some close calls with the other side. Check out the dogfight in this video.
• The creator of the HBO/BBC series Rome—which ran for two critically-acclaimed seasons starting in 2005—wants to bring the epic story to the big screen. The script is done, and Morning Light Productions is signed on to produce. The film will be set in Germany after Caesar’s invasion of Gaul and Augustus’s rise to power.
• New episodes of freshly-resurrected Futurama are coming to Comedy Central in June. And now that the contract disputes have been settled, all the original voice actors will return to their parts.
• Syfy has an adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood in the works called Red, which will star Felicia Day (The Guild, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) in the lead role. Syfy describes the movie thusly: “In the action-packed Red, Red (Day) brings her fiancé home, where he meets the family and learns about their business—hunting werewolves. He’s skeptical until bitten by a werewolf. When her family insists he must be killed, Red tries saving him.”
• FOX has announced its summer schedule, and for once, it’s not all reruns and reality shows. Sure there are reruns (i.e. Glee) and reality shows (So You Think You Can Dance begins May 27). But shockingly, a scripted series is set to premiere: The Good Guys a not-so-buddy-cop show from Burn Notice creator Matt Nix. It stars Bradley Whitford (The West Wing, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) and Colin Hanks (Roswell, Mad Men) and debuts on June 7—with a special preview on May 19. The show will be paired up with Lie to Me, which has been patiently waiting to resume its second season for five months now!
• Speaking of Glee, the show returned from its midseason hiatus with a record 13.6 million viewers.
• Speaking of Glee (again), creator Ryan Murphy says that the second season will likely be a hearty helping of 25 episodes.
• Apple honcho Steve Jobs will be the subject of a new series called iCon from Borat auteur Larry Charles. The show will air on premium channel Epix. And yes, this is the first time I’ve heard of Epix, too. But the channel might get some much-needed street cred if its miniseries adaptation of Atlas Shrugged comes to fruition, especially if Charlize Theron is attached like she’s rumored to be.
• Fringe: The Musical? It’s happening, alright. In two short weeks. And it sounds surprisingly promising.
• LeVar Burton tweeted last month that Reading Rainbow is coming back. Hurrah!
• Parks and Recreation star Aziz Ansari will host the MTV Movie Awards on June 6, which I consider to be an bizarre but inspired choice.
• But MTV’s first single-camera comedy is a touch less inspired: The Hard Times of RJ Berger, or, as TV Squad aptly dubbed it Hung, Jr. A nerd goes from uncool to slightly-less-uncool when he’s pantsed and everyone gets a good look at his sizable business. The trailer is full of middling to iffy jokes, with the exception of the moment when one envious teacher says, “It’s a goddamned Buick Regal.” The show premieres on June 6.
• Speaking of TV Squad, one of its bloggers pieced together that Graham Yost, creator of FX’s newest edgy series Justified, cut his teeth two decades ago by writing for Hey Dude, a campy Nickelodeon about teens at a dude ranch. Talk about going from one extreme to the other. (Not that I’m judging—I’ll start my television-writing career anywhere!)
• TV Guide Network will start airing reruns of Curb Your Enthusiasm on June 2, followed immediately by Curb: The Discussion, a roundtable discussion of each episode’s moral dilemmas. Larry David, brainchild and star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, will produce; and Susie Essman (who plays foul-mouthed Susie Greene on show) will host. The first guests ’round the table will include Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Hamm, Taraji B. Henson, Seth Green, and Rob Zombie.
• Starz is developing a series based on the autobiography of New York Times food critic and frequent Top Chef Masters judge Gael Greene (entitled Insatiable: Tales from a Life of Delicious Excess). But she’s old and wizened now, so it’s a little icky imagining her “delicious excess.”
• It seems we’re at the halfway point of Mad Men. While speaking at the National Association of Broadcasters convention, creator Matt Wiener revealed that he only foresees six seasons of the show.
• Lynette Rice of Entertainment Weekly reported that Conan O’Brien could film his new TBS show on his $50-million Tonight Show set. However, she does notes that there might be too much “bad blood” for him to do that, but I hope it happens. That stage is too pretty to lay dormant.
• And, to end this post on a high note, NBC has revealed that it lost $233 million on the 2010 Winter Olympics. (As for silver-or-perhaps-bronze lining, the Games brought them great ratings for the month of February!)

1. Breaking Bad
2. Mad Men
3. Lost
4. Battlestar Galactica
5. 30 Rock
6. True Blood
7. Modern Family
8. Fringe
9. Glee
10. Dollhouse

Aloha, dear TV junkies.  I may be on vacation, but thanks to some coffeshop wi-fi, I’m still able to update this here blog with cinnamon-bun-sticky fingers.  Surely you didn’t think I’d forgotten about honoring the best small-screen moments of 2009!  Listed below are my favorite episodes across the airwaves from all of last year.  Is the list comprehensive?  Maybe not.  Does the order tend to be arbitrary?  Perhaps.  But still, I believe this to be a pretty good representation of 2009’s highlights.  Writers and directors of the below episodes, I raise my iced-coffee cup to you.

1. Battlestar Galactica “Daybreak, Part 2″  No matter if you loved the end or hated it, the final two hours of this show boldly went where no show has gone before. A catastrophic first hour was followed by a contemplative second. The epic space saga went out with a bang and then a whisper.
2. Mad Men “Shut the Door, Have a Seat”  After an intense season of smoldering interpersonal drama, this episode was one of the most light-hearted and cathartic. In the vaguest terms I can use, Don closed some doors and opened others. He reinvented himself, and the show was reborn anew.
3. Breaking Bad “Phoenix”  Often the penultimate episode of a season is just as climactic as the finale, as proven by Breaking Bad. Without spoiling anything, it was Walter White’s inaction during a gut-wrenching dilemma that made this episode so powerful.
4. Glee “Sectionals”  Between Mercedes’s powerful “And I Am Telling You” rendition, Rachel’s “Don’t Rain on My Parade” showstopper, and the club’s “My Life Would Suck Without You” dedication, the musical numbers in this fall finale were brilliant enough to tide us over until the show’s return in spring.
5. 30 Rock “Apollo, Apollo”  It’s hard to top Jack Donaghy’s excitement-puking and Kenneth’s Muppet-vision, but what made this episode the best of its season was the Polish singles’ line commercial that a young Liz Lemon debased herself by appearing in. Remember, just call 1-800-OKFACE.
6. Dollhouse “Omega”  After the startling return of rogue-doll Alpha at the end of the preceding episode, this episode shows the making (read: programming) of a maniac. The Dollhouse made its bed, and now it might have to die in it!
7. Breaking Bad “Negro y Azul”  Any episode that starts with a mariachi band and ends with an exploding turtle surely deserves a spot high on this list.
8. Lost “Dead is Dead”  It’s Judgment Day for the conniving Benjamin Linus as “the Island” takes him on a painful trip down memory lane. By the end, his relinquishing of power leaves him impotent… and dangerously desperate.
9. Glee “Pilot”  FOX was so excited about this episode, the network aired it four months before the series even started. With the well-crafted song-and-dance numbers, the satirical commentary on the high school food chain, and the hilarious immaturity of the show’s adult characters, I could not stop believing that Glee would be a hit.
10. Grey’s Anatomy “Here’s to Future Days/Now or Never”  This show may be showing its age, but watching the end of this fifth-season finale was tantamount to mainlining adrenaline when the identity of the heroic (and doomed) John Doe was realized.
11. Californication “The Apartment”  A day of reckoning comes for Hank Moody when all the major players in his life coincidentally convene under one roof. In true farce-like fashion, he scrambles to accommodate his girlfriend, his mistresses, his mistress’s husband, his daughter, his best friend, a few random prostitutes, and Rick Springfield, all the while trying to keep his indiscretions under wraps.
12. Modern Family “Pilot”  The premise is simplistic—the daily travails of three families that are “nuclear” for the new millennium—but the writing and acting is refined. Oh, and the show happens to be hilarious. With this episode alone, this show skyrocketed to the elite of half-hour comedies.
13. So You Think You Can Dance “Top 20 Showcase”  This was an episode without missteps—just the top twenty competitors dancing in their own genres, resulting in routines that were almost unmatched by the rest of the season. (Almost.) What was otherwise a filler episode turned into the best hour of the season.
14. Fringe “There’s More Than One of Everything”  John Noble’s most impressive acting came when his character revisited the memories of a beach house with his son. And the alternate-reality story thread tangles as Olivia finds herself in the most improbable of locations in the ballsy cliffhanger.
15. Lost “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham”  At last, we discover how He Who Shall Be Named Jeremy Bentham died. Frustrated by his failure to get the gang back together and feeling spurned by destiny, he decides to take his own life. But his real cause of death, which we find out minutes later, is even darker.
16. Parks and Recreation “Beauty Pageant”  One of the first episodes of the season, this installment solidified Parks and Recreation’s status as suddenly brilliant. Example Leslie Knope line: “This [mural] depicts a famous fight between Reverend Bradley and Anna Beth Stevenson, widowed mother of seven. The original title of this was ‘A Lively Fisting.’ But, you know, they had to change it… for obvious reasons.”
17. Damages “Trust Me”  Flash-forwards as a narrative technique are a hot ticket right now, but Damages uses them in a brilliantly manipulative way, revealing a little more of certain scenes in each episode. And in “Trust Me,” all the cards are laid out in this punch-out ending to a gripping season.
18. True Blood “I Will Rise Up”  It started with an act of terrorism perpetrated by humans and ended with an act of tenderness by a human—Sookie Stackhouse—surprising the millennia-old Godric, who had seen the worst of our race’s behavior in his lifetime. Plus, this episode featured another dialogue gem from Lafayette: “I don’t know what you is, but I’m feelin’ you, and you a soulless bitch.”
19. Top Chef “Finale, Part 1″  No matter what you thought of this season’s winner (or even the order of the runners-up), all Top Chef viewers could agree that Keven, Jennifer, and the Voltaggios were the four best contenstants. And to see them duke it out in Napa Valley (aboard a moving train, no less) was a treat.
20. Lie to Me “The Core of It”  Like Parks and Recreation, this procedural drama also came back from its hiatus creatively reinvigorated. In this episode, Cal Lightman and his group have to contend with a murder witness with multiple personalities. Not only do they have to figure out which of her multiple personalities saw the crime, but they also have to find a way to trigger that personality. Guest star Erika Christiansen is scary-good as Sophie/Trisha/Jessie/RJ.

1. Sue Sylvester (Glee) When Sue swaggers onscreen in one of her splashy tracksuits, you know that she’s say something both wildly inappropriate and gut-bustingly funny. The malicious comments she deploys in her jihad against McKinley High’s glee club almost makes you root for her. Played by Jane Lynch.
2. Ron Swanson (Parks and Recreation) The reluctant supervisor of Pawnee’s parks department had a breakout season that had him facing off with his domineering ex, presiding over the breakfast buffet at a strip club, enjoying a shoe-shining a bit too much, and having his scalp leaded with buckshot. Played by Nick Offerman.
3. Walter Bishop (Fringe) Last season, we saw the charming kookiness behind Walter’s mad-scientist-ness.  Now we’re seeing the vulnerability behind that charming kookiness. What layer will be unearthed next? Played by John Noble.
4. Starbuck (Battlestar Galactica) Love her or hate her, you have to acknowledge that Starbuck’s so-called destiny directly influenced the fate of humankind… in a way that’s very open to interpretation. Played by Katee Sackhoff.
5. Manny Delgado (Modern Family) One of the youngest and yet most mature members of the Pritchett clan, Manny is wise beyond his years—and quite the fencer, too. Played by Rico Rodriguez.
6. Benjamin Linus (Lost) In a show that specializes in shades of gray, it’s no surprise that Ben isn’t relentlessly villainous. We’ve seen glimpses of his humanity. But just before we start to like him, he does something like staging a character’s suicide—and we’re reminded of how much we hate him (and love to hate him). Played by Michael Emerson.
7. Arizona Robbins (Grey’s Anatomy) She’s often viewed as the happy-go-lucky pediatrics doc, but between her anguish over little Wallace and her blurting out “I love you” to Callie in the episode “Invest in Love,” she won me over. Played by Jessica Capshaw.
8. Troy/Abed (Community) Some of the funniest moments of Community came in the final minute of each episode when the credits were rolling—an end tag that became the Troy and Abed Show after the hilarious Spanish 101 rap (a.k.a. “La Biblioteca”). Community has been uneven so far, but Troy and Abed represent reliable comedy. Comedy you can believe in! Played by Danny Pudi and Donald Glover, respectively.
9. Saul Tigh (Battlestar Galactica) For reasons too spoilery to reveal here, ole One Eye Tigh had some of the most tumultuous internal conflict in Battlestar’s final season. Let’s just say that he found himself intimately associated with those who were once his enemies. Played by Michael Hogan.
10. Jenna Maroney (30 Rock) Ditzy fame-whore Jenna is everything that Liz Lemon isn’t, but just as much of a dysfunctional human. Her constant oversharing gives us mere glimpses into her bizarre life. (For example: “The reason I speak with a slight English inflection in my voice is because I lost my virginity to the My Fair Lady soundtrack.”) Played by Jane Krakowski.
11. Lester Patel (Chuck) Lester went from neurotic tech nerd to neurotic tech nerd and rock star with the debut of cover band Jeffster, performing awesomely bad versions of 80s classics like “Africa” and “Mr. Roboto.” True, Lester is only one half of Jeffster, but his bandmate Jeff is just too out-there for this list! Played by Vik Sahay.
12. Victor (Dollhouse) Besides a few face slashes here or there, Victor is the doll with the most fun: his “imprints” involve bedding boss Adelle DeWitt, acting like an exact clone of tech-whiz Topher, or channeling his inner sorority girl. And hey, those cuts healed remarkably fast, didn’t they? Played by Enver Gjokaj.
13. Hoyt Fortenberry (True Blood) As one of the only truly good residents of Bon Temps, Hoyt became more than just a background player this season when he fell in love with newly-vampirized Jessica, much to the dismay of his oppressively devout mother. His evolution from (momma’s) boy to man was great to see. Played by Jim Parrack.
14. Walter White, Jr. (Breaking Bad) His relationship with his emotionally-elusive dad is tenuous, but Junior still went to incredible (and touching) lengths last season to raise money for Senior’s cancer care. Played by R.J. Mitte.
15. Anna (V) Leader of the Visitors, Anna is alternately calculating, eloquent, manipulative, and alluring. A wolf in sheep’s (well-tailored) clothing. Played by Morena Baccarin.

Note: The following post first appeared as an article by the same name in The Climax, Hampshire College’s newspaper. Also, some of these micro-reviews may exceed 140 characters—my bad!

I am a student of television. Writing television scripts is my Division III [a senior project, in Hampshire speak]. So I have no shame in the fact that I watch all of the shows below religiously. I study the craft, folks. That’s a lie—I am ashamed of some of them, but I’m feeling forthright in my fourth-year-ness. Anyway, I only assumed that I couldn’t review all my shows for The Climax before I graduate. And then it occurred to me: I could review each in 140 characters or less. (Arbitrary number, I swear.)

• 24 Some seasons fire on all cylinders, and some make you want to shoot yourself in the kneecap. But I’m still a fan of the Bauer Power Hour.
• 30 Rock Is Tina Fey God? Even if not, this show is in my pantheon. 22 Emmy nominations this year alone. What the what?
• The Amazing Race A competition show and a geography lesson all in one. Plus the race just looks like such a globetrotting thrill.
• Breaking Bad Brilliance you’ve likely never seen. Bryan Cranston (as a reluctant meth dealer) and Aaron Paul (as his witless lackey) are a wondrous team.
• Brothers & Sisters Created by playwright Jon Robin Baitz, powerful character drama pervades this series about the virtues and frustrations of family life.
• Burn Notice Ex-spy Michael Westen is a MacGyver for the new century. Plus he narrates his creative process! Plus Bruce Campbell plays the sidekick!
• Californication Man-child Hank Moody is David Duchovny’s (comedic) role of a lifetime. And the show featured Hampshire band Bubonic Souls last week.
• Chuck Put a self-described nerd in a world of government conspiracies and sexy secret agents, and hilarity ensues. Such a lovable show.
• Community A comedy about a community college study group that’s not quite up to snuff but getting better each week.
• Curb Your Enthusiasm Schadenfreude at a fever pitch. Larry David is such an incorrigible ass, but you can’t help siding with him in all of his curmudgeonliness.
• Damages Vicious legal thriller with Glenn Close and Rose Byrne. Season 2’s powerhouse cast included William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden, and Ted Danson.
• Desperate Housewives What do I have in common with middle-aged, lovelorn women? Uh, not much. But this show is still a fun look at the seediness of the suburbs.
• Dollhouse Engineered personalities, ethical perversions, and intense action make this (cancelled) show radically different. Well done, Joss Whedon.
• Entourage Not the sharpest tool in the shed, but still a comical insight into the biz and a testament to lifelong friendship. (“Lloyd!”)
• FlashForward An ambitious fate-vs.-free-will drama with a laudable cast. But can its premise sustain it for more than this season?
• Flashpoint This Canadian import, about a hostage negotiation team in Toronto, is edge-of-your-seat tense. Plus Veronica Mars’s dad is the lead!
• Fringe Like The X-Files, only with a more mind-warping mythology and the addition of one raving-mad, madly-funny scientist. Freaky good times had by all.
• Glee This high-school satire is so much fun, thanks to a stellar cast, its show-stopping covers of pop songs, and the incomparable Jane Lynch.
• The Good Wife What makes this legal drama intriguing is that the protagonist—played by Julianna Margulies—is the jilted wife of an adulterous politician.
• Gossip Girl Used to be a salacious indulgence. But they had to match everyone up in an endless cycle of hook-ups and break-ups. What a mess.
• Greek If Gossip Girl had a sharper, wittier, more accessible, yet less popular twin sister, her name would be Greek.
• Grey’s Anatomy Melodramatic, yes, but the relationship drama is sophisticated and smartly executed. But its hard to watch if you’re single, dammit!
• Heroes Holy Hiro, what the hell happened to this show? This once-great serial has suffered bloated storylines and botched mythology. Shut it down.
• Lost The most revolutionary show on this list, nay, of the decade. Season 5 was a creative resurgence that was so awesomely challenging to watch.
• Lie to Me An unconventional procedural drama that’s proven to be surprisingly un-formulaic. And Tim Roth doesn’t even have to use an American accent!
• Mad Men If you’re not in love with this elegant, introspective, and smoldering drama, you just haven’t seen enough of it.
• Men of a Certain Age Three old friends have midlife revelations. This show just started, but I like what I’ve seen. It’s like Garden State—plus twenty years.
• Modern Family Funniest new show of the season. Believe it.
• Nip/Tuck Not as deeply cutting as it was in its youth, but now it’s superficially fun and bat-shit crazy. Can’t complain too much.
• The Office Just when I think it has lost its mojo, it pulls a “Koi Pond” episode or “Subtle Sexuality” webisode to remind us all of its wit.
• Parks and Recreation Started off as an Office clone but came back roaring in its second season. Now it rivals its predecessor for laughs.
• Private Practice A spectacular cast and interesting storylines, but I still wish Addison would go back to Seattle Grace. Maybe everyone can go along!
• Project Runway I’m probably not the right demographic for this catty show, but who cares. I just hope Tim Gunn would approve of my wardrobe.
• Smallville Never “super” but never terrible, Smallville is reliable entertainment even after eight years. One of the only good things the CW can offer.
• So You Think You Can Dance The most legit and diverse dance competition. The talent gets more absurd each season. YouTube “Ellenore & Jakob – Contemporary” for proof.
• Top Chef In a world of hamburger reality shows, Top Chef is a filet mignon with escargot, grilled ramps, chanterelle mushrooms and yuzu—i.e. refined.
• Top Chef Masters The nation’s top chefs compete. Of course it’s good.
• True Blood I reviewed this show already this semester! Suffice it to say, it’s addictive.
• Ugly Betty In this refreshing comedic drama, Betty maintains a beautiful can-do spirit as she navigates the (hilariously) bitchy world of fashion.
• V This series about tensions between humans and alien “Visitors” is off to a promising start, but lamely, we only get four episodes this year.
• Warehouse 13 Undecided about this show. I dig the whole “America’s attic” notion and the leads’ chemistry, but some of the episodes have been, uh, hokey.

Note: The following review first appeared as an article entitled “True Blood: HBO’s newest (and most misunderstood) hit” in The Climax, Hampshire College’s newspaper.

Enough vampires, you say. And you’re entitled: pop culture is oversaturated with blood-sucking stories these days. True Blood might have been white noise amongst other fang-bearing works. But Twilight it ain’t. Part pulpy horror flick, part gothic love story, and with pervasive social commentary, HBO’s first post-Sopranos hit series defies categorization. And—forgive me for this—it’s bloody good.

Based on the book series The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris, True Blood revolves around the character of Sookie Stackhouse, a telepathic waitress at a watering hole in the sleepy town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. In the first episode, she falls in love with Bill Compton, a 150-year-old vampire, whose blood heals her after she is viciously beaten. Even though Sookie and Bill are presumably the central characters of the show, any fan will tell you that the supporting characters are the fan favorites: Tara, Sookie’s quick-tempered but loyal best friend; Lafayette, Tara’s sassy cousin with swagger to spare; Sam, the bar owner with a murky past; Eric, an imposing, centuries-old Scandinavian vampire and Bill’s maker; Jason, Sookie’s promiscuous, simple-minded brother; and a whole bevy of other colorful characters.

When we first join the story, a synthetic blood beverage called “Tru Blood” is making it safe for vampires to come out of the coffin. Some humans welcome the vampires into mainstream society, most are leery, and some are downright hostile. The central conflict of the first season is a murder mystery: a serial killer is on the prowl in Bon Temps, and women—specifically women associated with Jason Stackhouse—are dying left and right. The slayings coupled with Bill’s arrival (as Bon Temp’s first resident vampire) have the whole town on edge. No sooner is the mystery is resolved at the end of the season than an alluring woman arrives with what seem like bizarre voodoo powers, causing the town to devolve into lawlessness and rampant orgies. To make matters worse, the vampires of the area have to fend off the attacks of an extremist Christian cult called The Fellowship of the Sun. Thus wars are waged on multiple fronts, and the body count soars. But even amidst this chaos, a solid dose of humor and romance gives us a chance to exhale.

True Blood has a rabid and vocal fan base, and everyone bows at the altar of Alan Ball, the creator of the show. With this series and his previous one, Six Feet Under, Alan Ball has vaulted into the pantheon of television masterminds—the likes of which include J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, and Bryan Fuller—whose visions are so unique (and so niche) that the creators receive almost as much fanfare as the on-screen talent. And that’s high praise, because Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Rutina Wesley, Nelsan Ellis, Sam Trammell, Alexander Skarsgård, Ryan Kwanten, and the rest of the cast act the hell out their roles (and look good doing it, to boot).

Despite the hype and the marketing surrounding the show, vampirism is only one facet of the story. Indeed, only three of the series regulars play vampires. The rest portray the humans (and other supernatural beings) of Bon Temps. More than the things that go bump—or, in some cases, hump—in the night, the show is about the townsfolk’s reaction to these “supers,” which is often horribly bigoted and ugly. To call True Blood a metaphor would be an understatement, and in fact, Charlaine Harris and Alan Ball seem to make the parallels between that world and ours all but explicit. True Blood is an entertaining show, but Ball also makes it a compelling allegory of intolerance. For in the town of Bon Temps, it’s often the humans who are the real monsters.

A year ago in this publication, I picked True Blood as one of six new shows to watch, but I never foresaw how fiendishly watchable it would be. It’s lurid, it’s graphic, the plot moves a mile a minute, and it’s compelling as hell. Plus it sports a rollicking honky-tonk soundtrack and a killer title sequence. With all these winning elements, it’s no wonder the Television Critics Association named it Outstanding New Program of the Year. Find it on DVD or on iTunes, pour yourself a tall glass of tomato juice, and find love at first bite.

Per usual, all five of the Emmy nominees for Main Title Design are stellar achievements—and nice counterpoints to the the title card some shows display in lieu of an actual sequence. But the most captivating of these year’s contenders is the one Digital Kitchen designed for HBO’s True Blood.

Pulsating, lascivious, and kinetic, the sequence is a whirlwind tour of the South—its culture, its environment, and its seedy underbelly. I love so much about this sequence: the music (Jace Everett’s “Bad Things”); the rough-hewn, custom-made typeface; the frenetic editing; the images of life and death, the juxtaposition of religious and sexual ecstasy, et cetera, et cetera. See for yourself:

And, if you’re interested in how Digital Kitchen developed this magnum opus, you may find Creative League’s “Making Of” article (from whence the title of this post came!) and its accompanying video interesting.

When you watch as much television as I do, you see familiar faces all the time, and then you have to ask yourself (or IMDb), “Where have I seen him/her before?” For example, I’m watching the first season of House, and I’ve recognized guest stars from elsewhere in thirteen of the first fifteen episodes.

And then there are actors like Michelle Forbes and Željko Ivanek who show up on many of my favorite series. The phenomenon came to a head recently when I saw both of them on the same episode of True Blood.

Pictured above is Forbes in the roles she’s played in some of my favorite shows. From left to right: presidential advisor Lynne Kresge on 24, Oceanic Airlines representative Karen Decker on Lost, tough-as-nails admiral Helena Cain on Battlestar Galactica, beleaguered wife Kate on In Treatment, “social worker”/maenad Maryann Forrester on True Blood, and abducted physicist Maggie Sinclair on Alias.

And here is Željko Ivanek in his roles: Juliet’s ex-husband Edmund Burke on Lost, the sadistic Magister on True Blood, closeted attorney Ray Fiske on Damages (a role which earned him an Emmy), Serbian terrorist Andre Drazen on 24, Homeland Security agent Emile Danko on Heroes, and mentally-handicapped murder suspect Roland on The X-Files.

So both actors have been on 24, Lost, and True Blood, as well as the short-lived series The Inside. And True Blood wasn’t even the first time the two have appeared on a show simultaneously: they also shared the screen for eleven episodes of Homicide: Life on the Streets.

Luckily, I think both are fine actors, so they’re welcome additions to any show I watch. (I say that now—soon I might be complaining about Željkoverload!) And I see that both have made appearances on other shows I’ve been meaning to watch: Forbes has been on Seinfeld, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Prison Break; and Ivanek has been on Oz, Big Love, and—coincidentally enough—House.

The following post was originally published on my old blog on February 4, 2009.  Updates to this post are noted below.

Under some pretense of being an organized person (ha!), I keep a very meticulous list of the episodes I have yet to see for all the shows I follow. And I’ve noticed definite trends regarding my level of addiction to certain shows—or the lack thereof—as shown in the following categories. (I should point out that this is nowhere near a comprehensive list!)

Must-See TV I want to see it, and I want to see it now.

• Battlestar Galactica
• Lost
• 30 Rock
• Grey’s Anatomy
• Chuck

Will-See TV I love it, but I might be a few episodes behind.

• 24
• Heroes (Update: Lo, how the mighty Heroes has fallen.)
• Mad Men
• Damages
• Californication

Might-See TV I’ve liked what I’ve seen, but I have a serious backlog.

• Pushing Daisies
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
• True Blood (Update: The more I watch this, the more I love it.)

Should-See TV I know, I know, I have to watch it. So you keep telling me!

• The Wire
• Friends
• Friday Night Lights
• The Office (Update: I got caught up in April, and this is must-see TV now.)

Won’t-See TV No, thank you.

• CSI
• NCIS
• Law & Order
• American Idol