With each passing year in this golden age of brilliant television, these Best-Of lists become more and more a reflection on our own viewing habits than the actual content broadcast during the calendar year. In the same way that pre-2008 list would now seem complete without the The Wire (a show that many people caught up to on DVD long after its air date), a 2012 list without Homeland or Ben & Kate may look impossibly dated or just plain wrong in just a few months’ time.
Jan 31: Paula Abdul announces that she will not renew her contract on a television program called The X Factor. Apparently, The X Factor is on the Fox Network. Apparently, it is also a television program.
In my first analysis of this great, great show, I let slip that I enjoy watching this more than I enjoy watching Mad Men (blasphemy, I know). I’ve been thinking over a little as to why that is. There is no doubt that Mad Men is the deeper show and there’s no doubt that Mad Men is the more daring show. The very idea that a television program would revolve around one ad man’s existential crisis is revolutionary and the show has, with very few exceptions, always done an amazing job of making it come to life in a visual medium which can’t be an easy feat.