TV Shows I Watched In 2014

Last year I delivered a Top Ten Shows list, which I very much enjoyed. For one reason or another, 2014 didn't see me watching that many shows from this year alone, and saw me more on the catch-up thanks to Netflix. So, in the spirit of fairness, here are the fiction-based TV Shows that I watched in 2014 that came out in that year.

Game of Thrones - Season Four, HBO/Sky 1

Game of Thrones' fourth season saw a sea of controversy and intrigue, as the plot developments moved onto the second half of G.R.R. Martin's third novel in his Song of Ice and Fire series, A Storm of Swords. Much as its fellows over at The Walking Dead, GoT is attempting to follow the plot of the books while keeping things fresh for those who've already read them, as well as imprinting its own stamp on the series. Whether this has been successful or not is up to debate, but the general feeling that I left the series with was that many opportunities had been missed and several plot elements were twisted to gain a much more problematic bent than in the original text.

Oberyn and Ellaria, this season's standout characters.
Shame they were so short-lived. From Wikia

      The biggest controversy (spoiler warning), came in the season's third episode, Breaker of Chains, in which anti-hero/anti-villain Jaime Lannister raped his twin sister Cersei as she mourned over the death of their son, Joffrey, in the previous episode. While disgusting enough in the book, the fact that the series decided to make this a non-consensual act and then proceed to never bring it up again left a bad taste in my mouth, and highlighted a lot of the other moments in the show when the producers had chosen to include more on-screen rape and sexual violence than was in the book to begin with. While this had calmed down by the end of the season, we were still given more of the same in the completely show-original scenes at Craster's Keep where villain Karl Tanner (an admittedly fantastic performance by Burn Gorman, Torchwood) used and abused a village of women already brought up in a life of incestuous torture. It's a strange thing that GoT brings sentences like that up.
     However, there were some fantastic moments this series which helped to balance out the controversy. The appearance of Pedro Pascal's firey bisexual Prince Oberyn Martell became an absolute scene-stealer whenever he was on screen, especially as he tread carefully around the politics surrounding King's Landing. The main plot in the South, with the death of Joffrey and Tyrion's trial for murder, didn't get quite the development it could have, but it came to a fantastic head in the penultimate episode. Some of Tyrion's motivation for his actions in the finale has been removed from the show's text, and that made his motivations less clear, but Peter Dinklage is still the stand-out actor of the show. Add in fantastic developments for Sansa and other characters, and GoT is still worth coming back to every year.

It's telling that the most exciting thing I found in 5A was
a few brief shots of Morgan. From Forbes

The Walking Dead - Seasons 4B and 5A, AMC/Fox

AMC's zombie drama seems to have been daring out into more experimental territory, and simultaneously bringing in higher and higher viewing numbers. After spending the first half of its fourth season in tense action at The Prison, the second half moved into a strange direction, breaking the ensemble cast up and focusing on groups of 2-3 people at a time as the characters escaped The Prison and headed down the tracks to Terminus, a promised land. Mixing in plot developments from Volumes 9-11 of the Comic series, the season had two stand-out episodes. The Grove saw badasses Carol and Tyreese escorting the deranged Lizzie and her younger sister Mia, and the eventual consequences when Lizzie tries to prove her theory that Zombies are just like other people. The season finale, A, felt in its second half like a bit of an anticlimax, but dealt with a certain brutal scene in the comics with a fantastic level of poignancy and horror.
     After Season Five had mopped up the cliffhanger from the previous show, the plot developments seemed to take a weaker turn. A major stepping-stone plot from the Comics was dealt with by the third episode, leaving the rest of the season to deal with long-winded flashbacks and a show-original plot based on Beth which ended (spoiler warning) with Beth's death. While the episodes preceeding the event were enjoyable enough, Beth's death comes at the end of the episode after everything has reasonably been resolved, and thus has started to poke a big hole in the show's suspension of disbelief. I'm still a Walking Dead fan, but the second half of Season Five needs to find a little more tension and make a little more progress toward's the show's eventual move to D.C.

How little I care. (Yet still watch, albeit with a
month delay.) From Wikia

Doctor Who - Series 8, BBC1

Moffat is still here. That should say enough; while his writing is not as intensely unpleasant as it was the end of Matt Smith's tenure, there are still bumps here and there, and even that aside, the show is fast becoming stale under his leadership - and that's not just from my Tumblr-driven social justice background, that seems to be an increasing sentiment amongst fans too. By this point Moffat has had the job for about as long as RTD did, except that he isn't cutting his losses and will continue to be showrunner at least until the end of this year (and, he threatens, for even longer.)
     While I haven't finished my individual reviews of this season, I do have a good grasp of my basic problems. Clara, despite how much the series tries to build her up, has an arc which is either incredibly subtle or just tellingly hollow, which follows her seperation from The Doctor and her personality taking on a more destructive form of The Doctor's role. The problem with this was that it came bundled up in the relationship with Danny Pink, not only tying up her development into a man for no reason, but also forcing a relationship which, upon deeper inspection, is unhealthy and unbelievable. Peter Capaldi is doing his absolute best with what he's got, and despite The Doctor's new asshole persona I still think that Capaldi's Doctor knows what he's doing more than Smith's did. But in using his character differently in each episode, the series treads all over its attempts to present continuous themes, and the result is a season of uneven episodes.
     By the end of the season I'd found ways of looking past my problems with the show and at least enjoying it on a surface level - the finale two-parter was especially good in that regard, as for all it did to confuse and stretch Doctor Who canon, it managed to stay true to the (admittedly thin) characterisations and do so in an entertaining way. I used to hope that Doctor Who could become better - but now it seems to want to settle for middle-of-the-road. Tonally, Series 8 makes me think more "Adian Hodge's Survivors" than "Saturday night blockbuster", and you know my feelings on that.

Rachel Duncan... smiling...
From orphanblack.tumblr

Orphan Black - Series 2, BBC America

My darling, my precious. There are shows I might enjoy more on television, but from my position as a critic I can't think of a show which is just as good as Orphan Black is on every level - acting, themes, plot structure - it's just an amazing, juggernaught of a show. The second season didn't just carry on the plot from the first season, it ramped it up by including a number of new characters and plotlines which only deepened and en-richened the shows universe and characters. Most of this is thanks to the tireless efforts of star Tatiana Maslany, this season playing five clones regularly, and two more in guest spots. The distinct characterisation that Maslany gives to each of her characters and the seamless way she has them interact with and imitate each other is a masterpiece of acting ability, and I can honestly say I've never seen anything like it.
     Season Two's main theme, alongside its intrigue and conspiracy, seemed to be on the positions of women in society, with each of the clones playing a different role and the show really focussing on the clones' attempts to regain their agency after it was robbed from them by a number of organisations. It also followed religious extremism, the rights of the individual, and gave a sensitive if out-of-the-blue look at transgender issues by examining how the clones' dilemma has affected a transman clone, Tony Sawicki.

Tony Sawicki. Tatiana gives him all the respect the
role demands. From BBC America

     I could go into a lot of detail with how each of the main characters developed, but the most impressive to me was Rachel Duncan, a clone introduced at the eleventh hour in the first season who very quickly developed a very emotionally complex backstory and motivation - a tragic villain who has faced as much if not more suffering than the main characters, but who has been driven to believe that the company who created her and the other clones has to maintain its power. There's an amazing scene near the end of the season where, out of the blue, we see Rachel smile for the first time, and it's so both forced and jubilant that the result is scary and sad. Tatiana Maslany has smiled so many times on this show, but she managed to turn this one into the season's most powerful scene.
     Orphan Black's third season may just be its last, whether because the ratings haven't been that good or simply as a matter of narrative necessity - with this much happening in each episode, it seems sensible to know that you have an end in sight. But if that is the case, I can say that I will severely miss this show - and I hope that Maslany goes on to even more success.

Kieren and Amy both had tragic moments in the finale.
From The Mirror

In The Flesh - Series 2, BBC3

A couple of days prior to writing, In The Flesh was cancelled. This is a crime against television. Like Orphan Black, In The Flesh is a fantastically written show with not only amazingly strong character development, but also brilliant representation for female and minority characters, and themes surrounding prejudice, war, society and love. While the second season of the show wasn't as condensed as the original three-part miniseries, the show used its extra three hours to tell a story in a larger universe, with a stronger plot arc, more time to invest in its characters and an ending which felt absolutely shattering but at the same time thematically perfect.
     BBC3 has made a number of questionable decisions over the past few years, and that is probably a contributing factor to the channel's eventual disappearance later this year. It is frustrating, however, to note that shows like Jack Whitehall's asinine chatshow Backchat was safely renewed and moved into BBC2, while provocative, relevant dramas like In The Flesh (and to some extent The Fades) were thrown by the wayside. And to think I was annoyed about White Van Man. Luckily, In The Flesh has a massive fandom and the current twitter hashtag has provoked claims that Netflix may take the series up. Watch this space.

Sherlock - Series 3, BBC1

This whole show is just so dodgy.
From Flavorwire

One of the benefits of this not being a Top Ten is that I can include Sherlock at all. While it wasn't here for long, broadcasting as it did on three consecutive weekends at the very start of the year, Sherlock's third season made its odious presence known. Sherlock series are always quite brief, so I can sum up this series' three episodes as follows: Okay, Fairly good, Horrendous. Moffat's sexism and lack of narrative tact is always more refined in Sherlock, tempered only by the good natures of Mark Gattis and Steven Thompson, but not even they could fix the waste of film that is His Last Vow. On one hand assassinating the character development of Mary Morstan and dehumanising her in the most digusting ways possible and on the other hand giving suspension of disbelief a kick in the shins and throwing it in a ditch, this season's development from okayish into pure arse made me lose any faith that Sherlock will develop beyond Moffat's personal mouthpiece.

Elementary - Series 1&2a, CBS

Holmes and Joan have an amazing relationship that
is refreshingly platonic, instead focusing on trust and
friendship. From craveonline

I completely forgot about this one, but I did actually watch it, and I did end up having strong feelings about it. I suppose that was my issue with CBS' Elementary - it's a great show with some clever ideas, well-thought-out mysteries and decent character development that takes its more flashy British counterpart and wipes the floor with it. The problem for me as a viewer, aside from the lengthy seasons, was that in this form Elementary was a bit too much like the standard police procedural. Each episode ends up so focused on the mystery itself that, while there is very strong character development, it happens over a longer period of time.
     I binged the first series and the first half of the second all the way back in January, so I am a bit hazy, but if I had to mention my favourite bits it would probably be any moment of the show with Natalie Dormer. That woman is an artist. Both in-show and out.

And that was this year. Some TV was fantastic, some of it was tragic, and some of it mixed the two in a way which was confusing for everyone. See you guys next year.

Thanks.

P.S. Waiting until 20:14 to post this...

Review: Sherlock 2.3: The Reichenbach Fall

Sherlock squares up to Moriaty, who brings him down.

Based on, "The Final Problem", this series' end-story was certainly epic in scale, taking on the battle between Holmes and Moriaty much unlike many had before it. Ultimately I felt rather unsatisfied by this tryptic, but Falls was more tense and character driven than its two predecessors and did leave me wanting more from the series. It's such a shame that the 90 minute format reduces the story number to a mere three, as there's so much that Sherlock could have done in the space of 6 unique, 45 minute affairs.
     Jim Moriaty is seemingly able to steal the Crown Jewels, break into the Bank of England and organise a prison break-out at the same time from one place, getting the attention of the criminal world. Upon his arrest, a blackmailed jury allowed Moriaty to walk off scott-free, but not before planting some seeds. Soon assassins are poised around Sherlock, and doubt from a Moriaty-set-up kidnapping leads the Police to suspect Sherlock of being a fraud. Despite how he denies it, Sherlock and John are forced to run from the police. They find that Moriaty has created an alias, Richard Brooke, claiming to be an actor whom Sherlock hired to play Moriaty, and that the story has gone to the national press. Sherlock, realising that Moriaty is playing him, heads for a rooftop confrontation. Jim tells Sherlock to jump to his death; if he doesn't, then his men will kill all of the people he cares about. Sherlock admits that he could easily read the safeword from Moriaty as long as he stays alive, and so Jim shoots himself. With no other option, Sherlock jumps from the building - or appears to. After his public shaming and funeral, Sherlock is revealed to still be alive, his future uncertain.
      Sherlock stories usually sag in the middle, but this story surprisingly sagged in the beginning despite the intrigue of the Moriaty storyline. Things only really got going once Sherlock's validity was being questioned after a victim seemed to recognise his face, and the slow transformation from this series' rise to fame, to the public shaming and disregard was almost, dare I say it, Batman-esque. His fake death also felt typically Moffattian, as it was this exact tactic that resolved the arc in 2011's series of Doctor Who. I admit that it felt a little irritating, but the scene was well done and there was serious doubt in my mind as to whether the series would continue. (Irene Adler spinoff, anyone? Although not written by Moffat, preferably).

Moriaty blackmails a jury.

      Something that struck me was how much of an actual finalé this felt like. I had the strangest niggle that the past two series had been written as one six-episode story, and thus why the last episode here felt so out of the norm. Sherlock usually has a bit of beef to it - a continuing mystery, something to chew on. Falls was very, very different from that and it's perhaps why I found the story quite jarring in places.
       The Reichenbach Fall was a tragic tale of a man's collapse from fame to infamy through his own mistakes, but that doesn't fit with what we want from Sherlock. We want a decent mystery and characterisations to make that less easy to work out; we only received the latter here, leaving it feeling devoid of any of its regular substance. Sherlock may have been terribly well-acted and performed, but there was something in the writing this year that threw it off course. Great thing it's coming back next year, then, eh?

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Nothing, unless Being Human starts sooner than I anticipated. Until then, look out for weekly reviews of Doctor Who Classic and Lost.

Review: Sherlock 2.2: The Hounds of Baskerville

In front of a full moon. Classic. No sense of subtlty there, guys.

Based on, "The Hounds of the Baskerville", Mark Gatiss delivered a slightly calmer adaptation that took a more traditional route and followed the more conventional Sherlock Holmes format as established by the written stories. It was a lot slower than the Moffation pace had left me expecting, but that didn't stand to its detriment as a lot more time was given forth to character development. It just didn't feel as clever as the series usually allows itself to be, and instead relied on what the titular character would call, "Cheap tricks".
       Sherlock is off cigarrettes cold turkey and is thus highly erratic. The only case he can find is One about a rabbit that has disappeared after turning luminescent. When Henry Knight (goddamnit, Russell Tovey) turns up and offers his testimony about a "gigantic hound" that roams Dartmoor near a science laboratory called Baskerville. Sherlock is immediately enthused, and once out on the moors he sees the Hound himself and is shaken by his own self-doubt. However, further investigations into Baskerville reveal the truth; Henry, Sherlock, and later John, saw the Hound because of a hallucinogenic gas which was specifically designed to cause people to go mad. They return to the sight, battling their own hallucinations as they finally corner the killer, who used the gas to cover up a murder.
       Russell. Tovey. I don't like him. He's irritating, his screechy, unconvincing acting style that was acceptable in the Being Human 2008 pilot but that slowly begins to gnaw away at my insides. Casting Tovey to play a man afraid of large dogs showed that at least the Sherlock team has a sense of irony, but it did nothing to enhance the episode and his scenes are by and large the worst part.
       The use of more modern, sci-fi elements leads this to be a little on the simple side, and any attempts at complexity come off like disposable red herrings. The story spent a lot of time on set pieces and ideas that never went anywhere - the moor, while atmospheric and great for, say, trailer shots, was over-emphasised over plot. Likewise there's a long scene where John believes he is being stalked by the Hound in a Lab, one that has no bearing on the actual mystery but seems just to be Sherlock uncharacteristically dicking about. More importantly, there were scenes added that made little to no sense whatsoever, such as hallucinations at Toby's home actually cause the lights to turn on and off.
        The Hounds of Baskerville was still enjoyable, but it didn't live up to the standard that I've become accustomed to in Sherlock. It replaced the usual fast paced conundrums with a slow walk around the British countryside, something that failed to tickle my fancy entirely. And, after his less than impressive Who record, Gatiss is still in my bad books for the moment.

Thanks.

P.S. Nice chap though. Lovely chap.

Review: Sherlock 2.1: A Scandal In Belgravia

Sherlock refuses to dress. Even for royalty.

Based on "A Scandal In Bohemia", the first episode of this new series of Steven Moffat's adaptation took a very different tone than that of the first series over 18 months ago. Its source material, one of the earliest of Conan-Doyle's tales, is one of the only stories that show the title character as showing any interest in the opposite sex. Suffice to say that Moffat's script does not disappoint in its powerful and yet incredibly clever take on the classic mystery.

  Following directly on from the black-out cliffhanger of The Great Game, Sherlock and John escape the scenario troubling them and get back to detective work, which leads John's blog on the path to becoming an internet sensation. Sherlock is drafted, by his brother Mycroft (co-producer Mark Gattis) and the Royal Family into investigating one Irene Adler (Lara Pulver), a dominatrix going by the codename, "The Woman" who uses photos of her high-profile clients to blackmail herself into powerful positions. They immediately dispense with any attempts at disguise and Sherlock slowly works out where she's hiding her privvy information - on a camera-phone also locked by a four-digit code.
      After an attack by a group of Americans, Sherlock is drugged and wakes up with his phone personally stylised by Alder to respond to her texts. Over Christmas she flirts with him by phone, until he is called in to find a body that he can identify as hers. This troubles him immensely, but John soon finds that Irene has falsified her death; Sherlock soon finds out as well. Before he can react, he arrives home to find his flat accosted by the same American units, whom he beats up and hands over to the police. Irene turns up again, and lets Sherlock look at the privvy information - a code written in a private email from the MoD. He uses the code to realise that a plane will explode the next day, and that the Government is prepared to let it happen.

The seductive Irene Adler

     Irene sends this information to Moriarty, who then taunts Mycroft. Sherlock is invited to the plane and finds the seats already filled with corpses; Mycroft arrives and reveals that the plane was designed to explode without any loss of life, and that Sherlock has inadvertantly told the terrorist cell in question about the entire plan. Irene arrives to barter terms; she is prepared to blackmail the entire government if her demands aren't met. Sherlock, feeling humiliated, then realises the code - his own name, because Adler is in love with him. Mycroft arrives some time later to reveal to John that Irene has been executed in the Middle-East, but we see that Sherlock already saved her life.
     The episode revolves principally around the relationship between Adler and Sherlock, and the fact that Sherlock may or may not have feelings for her. Lara Pulver was the perfect choice, in my opinion - she looks similar to Cumberbatch facially, and she was able to grab the dominatrix persona effortlessly. Her character threatens at time to rob the story, but as always Moffat specialises in characters just like Sherlock and so his inner turmoil is perfectly demonstrated, with Cumberbatch's mannerisms cementing it. I also thought that Mark Gattis was used very well in this story; in his inital appearances in the first series he often became something of a parody, but here Gattis is as sly and as manipulative as his fictional brother.
      I'm still not quite used to stories that last one and a half hours, but it gives the story a guessless quality that felt perfectly. The story kept twisting and turning, and the unusual length allows that to happen without it becoming silly. The beauty of Moffat's script was that I was still guessing until the end. The attitude of contant and total mystery and manipulation of the truth that so plagues his Doctor Who offerings is suited almost too well to this genre, and that's what, at least for me, makes it so enjoyable.

The boys are back in action.

      Irene Adler was an excellent contribution to Sherlock's modern day exploits, and A Scandal In Belgravia was a brilliant start to a new series. It was tense, action-packed and yet intelligent as hell, all the while mixing a clever mystery with brilliant characterisation that leaped from the screen. Possibly the best episode yet, Scandal makes me look forward to this series immensely.

Thanks.

Review: Sherlock: Part Three

An exciting if manic episode, "The Great Game" saw the culmination of this short series, and the reveal of Sherlock's man enemy Proffessor Moriaty. It was more a cluster of mini-mysteries than one long story, although I expect that this was the point, demonstating how Moriaty works.
        A series of victims, attatched to ticking bombs, contact Sherlock. Each time they do so, they indicate a case which they have to solve and submit to the victim before the bomb goes off, to save their life and the lives of the people around them. At the end, Moriaty was revealed, and we were harshly given a cliffhanger as Sherlock threatened to kill him.
        It's got all of that detective skill, as well as some growing-up by Watson, but it wasn't as energetic as the previous two episodes, despite the fact that timers made up most of the episode's structure. It all worked, but since most of it was crucial to the particular mystery it was solving, it became very easy to miss important details.
          That cliffhanger is one of a worrying number, tacked on to British dramas to try and get another series. It's a shame that Sherlock resorted to this, as it didn't need to in the long run.

Thanks.

Review: Sherlock: Part Two

A much more interesting mystery this week, with a tighter focus on getting down to business instead of the lighthearted bantering of last week. Yet again everything fit into place like clockwork, but it got a bit convoluted along the way, leaving the whole thing a bit unreal.
        A Chinese woman disappears. Deep in a tower block in London, someone writes a piece of graffiti in a mysterious language. Sherlock is called in, and discovers that the graffiti is a warning to the Hong Kong ambassador, Van Coon. Sneaking into Van Coon's flat, Sherlock discovers him dead, a murder badly disguised as a suicide. After another murder, Sherlock and Watson follow several paths including book ciphers and ancient chinese dialects, revealing a murderous smuggling chain disguising themselves as a circus.
          The mad complexity of the plot is generally consistant, and there aren't any logical gaps that spring to mind. What is lacking, however, is a sense of light-footed genius. Sure, there are near-supernatural deductions from Holmes, but it could have done with something to break up the madness. Not that it wan't enjoyable, of course. I'm looking forward to the final installment next week.

Thanks.

Review: Sherlock: Part One

Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis were sitting on a train and decided that together, they would create a modern series regarding Sherlock Holmes. And here, in three film-length instalments, is Sherlock. Expectations were high for this series, having the creative input of two of the most successful writers currently in the BBC, as well as a large budget.

            Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch, who previously played Van Gogh and Steven Hawking), a neurotic, intuitive genius employed as an independent detective by the police, meets and ends up sharing a flat with former army doctor Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman, from The Office, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Love, Actually.) They investigate a spate of four suicides, all of which seem conclusive but that Holmes is convinced are murders. Using a series of clues and a GPS tracker, Holmes tracks down the murderer as a homicidal taxi driver, with only a few months left to live and a sponsorship by a man fascinated by Holmes, who goes by the name of Moriaty. 

            The story is a good effort and the characters are introduced seamlessly, with good humour along the way. Freeman is a bit wooden, but that fits in with the character’s noted experiences in Afghanistan, and his decision to kill the villain before Holmes kills himself in a challenge shows how committed he now is to the detective, as well as showing weakness of character. There’s also a well-developed Sherlock, neurotic an obsessed with understanding everything.

            Very good, Mr Moffat, very good.

Thanks.