TV Top Ten 2013

1. Mad Men
2. Masters Of Sex
3. Breaking Bad
4. Eastbound & Down
5. New Girl
6. Justified
7. The Newsroom
8. The Wrong Mans
9. Top Of The Lake
10. Family Tree

There were a whole slew of good TV shows this year, almost too many to whittle down the list to 10. And god knows I love making lists. Sitting here looking at my list, which I'm pretty sure is accurately listed in order although there could be a little shuffling and it wouldn't be the end of the world, I am recognizing a similar theme that runs through almost all of these shows in one way or another. It seems that in the year of television, I was concerned with men struggling to realize what they want and who they want to be in relation to the world around them. This year saw the end of the road for Kenny Powers and Walter White, two men who were very proud and found it very hard to give in to outside forces who were trying to influence the course of their lives. Both men had strained relationships with their families and partners which always threatened to bring them back to earth but never could. Their egos outweighed their ambition, but barely so, they always found a way to come out on top, even if the world was burning around them. Don Draper struggled to stay relevant, not to mention sane, at SCDP this year. He is such a complicated and enigmatic man that he is always the most magnetic, loathed, feared, and desired man in the room. Don himself doesn't know who he is and isn't likely to as the series comes to an end. What I have always found so interesting about Don Draper is his constant struggle with the world around him, he always seems to be both a step behind & a step ahead of everyone & everything around him at the same time. Trying to envision who Don Draper will become as the years go by and the world evolves with or without him will be the central question the next two years. Walter White is gone, now we want to know what Don Draper's fate will be.

The most interesting new character this year is Bill Masters, although the man and his work have actually been around for over 50 years. His work with Virginia Johnson concerning the furthering of the study of sex as a viable science takes a backseat to the man himself. He is powerful, cold, calculating, humorless, and determined; he is a man who will resort to blackmail, both emotionally and financially, to see that nothing will interfere with his work. What's great about this show is the reservoirs of depth to him that cannot be fully explored no matter how many seasons the show gets to be on the air. Like Don Draper, nobody really likes him but they recognize his value and can't help but be drawn to his ever-expanding aura, like moths to a flame. Another man who would be on the Mt. Rushmore of perpetually troublesome, misunderstood men of TV 2013 would be Will McAvoy. He thinks people like him more than they actually do, but they respect him more than they actually let on. He's unfailingly loyal and uncontrollably unpredictable. He's stubborn and always tries to talk his way out of situations that he has previously talked his way into. I grew to love Will and the rest of The Newsroom gang as the season went on, it's definitely the show with the deepest bench. Perhaps my favorite ongoing character is of course Raylan Givens, yet another man whose impulses and sense of direction for his life puts him at odds with everyone around him. Raylan is at the doorstep of fatherhood now, and while he is fearless as a deputy stalking the hills of Kentucky, he is made speechless when it comes to being a husband and a partner. He struggles to understand the basics of his job and his relationships but is so brilliant and unique that he simply cannot be overlooked. What draws me to characters like these guys is the larger-than-life shadow they cast and their fearlessness in sticking to their guns, no pun intended in this case, to do what they know is right. Their complications and struggles to maintain their self in the face of opposition is a joy to follow.

Two shows with young men thrown into pretty extraordinary situations outside of their small worlds are Family Tree with the continuously great Chris O'Dowd and the British show The Wrong Mans. The latter is about a sad-sack hourly worker who gets caught up in a world of espionage, murder, mystery and femme-fatales while still stuck with the mundanity of life working at an office and an ex-girlfriend/current boss who he is still hung up on. He learns to be heroic at the expense of his safety and eventually finds out the kind of man he wants to be and must become to earn back the love of a woman and make it out of his predicament alive. It's what an Edgar Wright/Simon Pegg/Nick Frost wrong-man-espionage movie would be as a TV show. Chris O'Dowd has a similarly soul-searching yet less perilous journey to undertake in Family Tree, where he plays a man who takes on the task of researching his family tree as an attempt to forget his ex girlfriend and move on with his life.

As much as I have praised and been drawn to a whole host of male characters this year, even more notable are some of their female counterparts. Virginia Johnson, as played by Lizzy Caplan, is one of the most captivating, magnetic, brilliant and desirable characters on TV. She is ahead of her time in so many ways but makes it seem so breezy and carefree, like she's willing to wait for the times to catch up to her, but she's not going to stop moving forward. The effect she has on men in the era the show takes place is notable for the fact that she would make men blush in the year 2013, let alone 1957. Seeing the brilliant Bill Masters rendered speechless by her stating a simple fact of sexuality that was so foreign to him shows us who the real star of that show is. Her shadow looms so large over everyone that she is impossible to forget. The amazing Elizabeth Moss pulled double duty this year, becoming the new Don Draper on Mad Men and playing the fearless detective Robin Griffin on Top Of The Lake. She is brilliant and dogged, willing to go into the homes and lives of people that everyone else is too scared to do. Her pursuit of little Tui and the fucked up small town dynamic she has to navigate is nothing short of brilliant to watch. The show is tragic and cold, but Moss is a bona-fide star. I also love the women of The Newsroom. They don't let the men in their life control them, but instead provide the real world anchor that they need to keep from floating away into another stratosphere. Olivia Munn not only has the best character name on television, Sloane Sabbath, but has become the star of the show. She steals, if not outright owns, every scene she is in. And although it has become vogue to aim our collective anger at the various wives of our brilliant protagonists, the wives are always the key to understanding, or perhaps, unraveling, the man and the empire. Betty Draper, Skyler White, April Buchannon, and Libby Masters must be understood before attempting to get to the bottom of their significant others. Too often we just see them as the nagging roadblocks to the ultimate goal for their husbands but the best shows actually explore those characters and show us what makes them tick. They're not just built on stereotypes or there to be the butt of a joke from a male character like they would be on lesser shows and for that, we're better off.

Other favorites of mine this year include Luther, Broadchurch, The Bridge, The Killing, Sons Of Anarchy, Hell On Wheels, Girls, Arrested Development, Veep and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, among others.