TV in 2013: Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Walking Dead, Homeland and more

I watched a crap load of TV in 2013. Films have always been my big thing and even with The Wire, The Sopranos and 24, I still didn't jump on the loving TV bandwagon. But this year, that really changed. I'd been slowly but surely getting stuck into a few TV shows and this year, two of my favourites finished forever; Breaking Bad and Dexter.

Helpfully my friend also showed me a way to keep up with TV shows without having to subscribe to ludicrously expensive TV services. More importantly I got sent a few TV boxsets to review for Filmoria and I also got lots of work writing for Yahoo on both The Walking Dead and Homeland.

These are all the TV shows I watched in 2013. If I reviewed them, then just click the titles to see my reviews:

TV shows I watched in 2013:

Unit One Season 1

'Unit One might not reach the heady heights of other recent Danish crime exports but has plenty to offer fans of the genre and will certainly please fans of both Mads Mikkelsen and Nordic noir with a healthy feminist streak.'

Jack Irish

'Jack Irish is a cut above many TV movies, injected with plenty of Aussie charm amidst the occasional stereotypes and distracting subplots, but shot, edited and scored very effectively. While Irish is the focus, the supporting cast offer just as much fun and help to illuminate the central character. Guy Pearce is a very welcome presence to the small screen and makes further Jack Irish adventures a welcome prospect.'

The Killing Season 1

'What I loved about The Killing is that there was a thick web of characters surrounding the case. They all felt very real and provided a great deal of interest and suspense into the events after the murder. The family of the victim, a politician and his campaign crew and more and more assorted suspects keep clotting up the case and providing fresh intrigue and fresh suspects throughout the 20 episodes.'

The Walking Dead Season 2

Better than the first season but I still hadn't fallen in love with the series yet despite loving the premise.

Black Mirror Season 2

The second episode of this season, White Bear, was one of the best bits of TV I'd ever seen. Check out my reviews of White Bear and The Waldo Moment here. 

Game of Thrones Season 1

Loved it so much, I started reading the books on holiday in Thailand. I got half way through the second season and then stopped so I could read the second book first. Now I've just finished A Clash of Kings, I'm going to finish watching the second season and then move on to the third books.

Arrested Development Season 4

Disappointing but still had it's moments. I also got a perfectly timed second free trial month from Netflix to watch it all. Not enough Job, not enough Tobias and a bit too convoluted and clever-clever for its own good!

Breaking Bad Season 4

Best season of the series yet. The dynamic with Gus Fring went to another level and dominated this season and I loved every minute of it. Ended with an absolute shocker too. Walt had descended to his absolute lowest and scummiest and suddenly I found myself caring for Jesse again.

Unit One Season 2

'Unit One series 2 furthers the drama of the first series and has a consistently fascinating array of mysteries and murders. The increasingly challenging relationships of the team might at first appear to take a back seat but by the end of the series, the members of Unit One are still the ones audiences will warrant worthy of further investigation in future series.'

Breaking Bad Season 5

Even better than the fourth season, this was pretty much perfect TV. Episode 14: Ozymandias was literally unforgettable and was the pinnacle of the show for me. Read how excited I got about it here. Then I wrote a piece for Yahoo on saying goodbye to two of TV's greatest anti-heroes, Dexter and Walter White. They will both be sorely missed although White went out on a massive high whereas Dexter kind of over stayed his welcome.

The Walking Dead Season 3

'It was an incredibly eventful season with Michonne getting to kick ass, The Governor becoming a truly terrifying threat and supporting characters like Glenn and Daryl finally really getting a chance to shine. With the deaths of Lori and Andrea, it even tugged hard at the heartstrings before all out war made for an action packed final episode. Season four will have a lot to live up to.'

Homeland Season 1

I had to race through this as I had to catch up with the whole show before season three started and I began my writing for Yahoo on the series. Loved season 1 but kind of wished it had ended with Brody blowing himself up and then that would have been that!

Dexter Season 6

The Colin Hanks starring series was ok but ended with the mother of all cliffhangers; Deborah finding out about Dexter. That was enough to keep me watching the next season.

Dexter Season 7

It all started losing the plot a bit here with Deborah knowing about Dexter's secret life. However, again it ended with an absolutely gobsmacking climax; Deborah killing LaGuerta. I personally think that would have been a pretty brilliant and bleak way to end the show.

Homeland Season 2

Not nearly as good as the first but much better than the third season. 

Low Winter Sun Season 1

'Low Winter Sun sits in the very long shadow cast by other far better dramas but is a success on its own terms, acting as an autopsy of a dying Detroit that would soon be declared bankrupt.'

Homeland Season 3 

Opening episodes recap 

Episode 3 Review: Tower of David

Episode 4 Review: Game On

Episode 5 Review: The Yoga Play  

Episode 6 Review: Still Positive

Episode 7 Review: Gerontion

Episode 8 Review: A Red Wheelbarrow

Episode 9 Review: One Last Time

Episode 10 Review: Good Night

Episode 11 Review: Big Man in Tehran

Episode 12 Review: The Star

I am still currently watching:

The Walking Dead Season 4 which we are half way through and will start again in February.

Game of Thrones Season 2 which I am about half way through and intent to finish now that I have read A Clash of Kings.

Dexter Season 8 which I just have the final ever episode left to watch!

In 2014, I intend to get through Game of Throne season 3 and hopefully 4 when it comes out, finish The Walking Dead season 4 and watch Homeland season 4. I'm also tempted to start on Boardwalk Empire and Under the Dome.

What TV have you been watching this year?

Why don't you stay awhile? More 2013 lists from I Love That Film:

World Cinema in 2013

Best books I read in 2013

2013 List of Shame or 25 films I should have seen this year

2013 Top 10 Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction

2013 Top 10 So Far (written in July)

Best British Films of 2013

Top Documentaries of 2013

Top 25 Films to see in 2014

 

More popular posts at I Love That Film:

TV in 2013: Breaking Bad, Dexter, The Walking Dead, Homeland and more

Analysing La Haine

5 MUST SEE films at the BFI London Film Festival 2014

Valentines Day; Time for Romance

The Femme Castratrice in Horror

Why I Love The Hunger Games

Using Critical Approaches to Study Fight Club

  

Short Story: LIVING FOR THE WEEKEND

Batfleck, Beorn, Dexter and Walter White

In my writing for Yahoo Movies and TV, I've been tackling a range of issues this week from defending the casting of Ban Affleck as Batman (probably not very convincingly) to the coolest new character to watch out for in The Desolation of Smaug and finally bidding a very fond but sad farewll to TV's greatest anti-heroes: Dexter Morgan and Walter White.

I’m a bit behind on Dexter because the final episode of season 8 and the finale of the whole show is airing on Sunday and I’m just approaching the end of series 7. I’m a bit concerned for the direction it’s taking, suspecting that the writers may have left this one out in the Miami sun for a bit too long.

Breaking Bad on the other hand is going out on a monumental high, especially after the left episode left my jaw continually on the floor and sent me hurtling up and down an emotional roller coaster of sympathy and hatred.

In defence of Batfleck 

As an avid Affleck fan since the start of his career, here’s why haters should hold their tongues before they see Batfleck in action.

Why new character Beorn will become the real hero of The Hobbit trilogy

 

Forget Smaug the Dragon, Bard the Bowman and Bilbo and the dwarves, the most exciting character in Peter Jackson’s 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' sequel will be Beorn, the half man, half bear recluse.

Goodbye Dexter Morgan and Walter White

 

Within two weeks, ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Dexter’ fans will be mourning the loss of two of TV’s greatest ever anti-heroes. Here's why fans loved the infamous Dexter Morgan and Walter White.

If all that isn’t enough, I’ve also been weighing in on a bunch of other topics for Yahoo Lifestyle and Yahoo News from proposed British rail networks to the benefits of quitting smoking.

HS2 rail project benefits the few but costs us all dearly

Reports are suggesting that the High Speed 2 rail system could have a bold and brilliant impact on the UK economy. I’m all for planning ahead and trying to get people off the roads but HS2 and all the reports surrounding it, reek of false optimism to me.

How swapping from smoking to jogging changed my life

In quitting smoking and starting running at around the same time, I used jogging as a distraction from wanting a cigarette in the evenings. It worked and soon I found myself craving a jog, rather than a fag after work.

That’s it from me for the week! What you have been writing and watching?

Distractions: TV and Books

What distracts you from catching all the films you ever wanted to see?  Kids, social life, work, college, exercise, significant other wanting to do 'something else for a change'?  Why do I still have over 100 titles on my Lovefilm rental list?  How all you bloggers with kids manage to watch all these films and then find the time to blog about them, I will hopefully one day discover.  I am in awe of your good selves.

Well for me it's mostly work and the odd jog that get in my way but the real time consumer is the occasional TV boxset and the regular books that I get stuck into.

In February I only got through 18 films.  See the list of all of them here and here.  But this was due to ploughing through the third season of the wonderful Dexter and reading the first book in the Hunger Games trilogy.

Dexter season 3 was really just an obstacle to charge through in order to bridge the gap between the incredibly tense and brilliant second season and what I've heard is probably the highlight of the entire series, season 4 with John Lithgow as the Trinity Killer.  I'm really looking forward to this after hearing so many good things but am holding off on watching it until I've got through more of my list of 2011 films that I still need to see.  I've ticked off only three on the list I made back in January.

The Hunger Games book I need to highly recommend before I go any further.  Absolutely brilliant.  Unputdownable.  It's gripping with a fantastic female hero and a healthy feminist angle throughout.  I know the suits are desperate for it to be the new Twilight and it does feature a love triangle but this book is far from soppy.  Love is used, faked and lost in a desperate fight for survival where literally no character is safe. 

It's a real shame they've gone for a PG rating as it could have been a bloody nasty little shocker but I guess it's only right that kids should get to see this anti-violence, anti-reality TV, mix of The Running Man, 1984, Series 7: The Contenders and Battle Royale.  And the casting of Jennifer Lawrence after Winter's Bone and everything else I've seen her in is perfect.  Can't wait for this movie and glad I managed to stomp through the book in time for the cinema release.  Go read it before you see the film.  Just in case the movie turns out crap and at least then you'll always have the book!


One last thing that's been distracting the hell out of me the last couple of days is Flickchart.  I have to blame/praise Emil at A Swede Talks Movies for introducing me to this new distraction.  Well at least it's film related.  Go check out Emil's Introduction to the World of Flickchart if you haven't seen it already and get involved.  I'd love to have more friends on Flickchart to compare movie rankings with so if you're already on it, add me up.  If you're not on it, go sign up and start ranking films.  Worryingly I've completed 1324 rankings in the last two days, covering 502 different films.  It's fun but terribly addictive.  You've been warned.

So what's distracting you from all your film watching? 

Anyone else read The Hunger Games?

Is Dexter season 3 the low point of the entire series?

Anyone else on Flickchart and have advice for dealing with this terrible addiction?

2011 List #5: TV

I don't watch much TV.  Sometimes it gets in my line of sight and grabs me but generally I'd rather be watching a film.  Occasionally if I've heard great things about a TV show, I'll rent the boxset.  But this year I have had the pleasure of some of the best TV I have ever seen.

 
This is England 88 soared above everything else.  It was absolutely perfect, except for one (likely improvised) fight scene that went on slightly too long.  The performances and the writing were captivating.  I have banged on about it enough this year in these two posts here and here.  But it came out of nowhere (I had not heard that there would be a TIE88 until I saw the TV advert about a week before it aired) and slapped me round the face.  It was grim but not nearly as depressing and shocking as TIE86.  There was a slightly hopeful ending that leaves me desperate for the next installment, TIE90, that Shane Meadows has promised.  The show was Meadows at his best; warm, real, complex, sad and funny.  All this and more.  Go watch it.

I kept hearing so much about John Lithgow in Dexter Season 4 that I decided it was time to give this show a go.  So far I've made a start by watching the first two series.  Dexter is played by Six Feet Under's (a show I have been forced to sit through but actually admired a great deal) Michael C. Hall and is an interesting if slightly silly character.  The first season was pretty good but the second season took it up a notch with a brilliant character coming to an unexpected end at the climax of the series.  I hope the show can maintain it's appeal for me through the third season despite the loss of a great character.  I'm definitely going to stick with this one just to see what all this fuss is about Lithgow in season 4. 

This year I watched season 7 of Entourage.  It's still painfully sexist but wierdly Sasha Grey, the actual ex-porn star, playing a version of herself came out as quite an interesting and vaguely complex character.  The guys still make me laugh but deep down I still hate them for not being grateful enough of their blessed lives.  Jeremy Piven is consistently brilliant as agent Ari Gold, a character you love to hate or hate to love.  I'm still not sure.  Looking forward to the final season and movie in the near future.

The Walking Dead should have been the ultimate TV show.  Finally a TV series following the lives of characters stuck in the middle of a zombie apocalypse.  But the first season underwhelmed me.  I like that it had a great deal of focus on the characters and not so much horror but I felt that the characters are not brilliantly written and some of the acting didn't seem spot on for me.  I still find it hard to accept Andrew Lincoln's American accent and if you asked me to name any of the characters I couldn't.  However I look forward to Michael Rooker (minus one hand) coming back into the series at a later date.  And from the first couple of episodes of season 2, it looks like this series is going to get better and better.

I finished Lost this year.  As much fun as it was, the ending was bloody terrible.  I really enjoyed it's absolute ridiculousness and it's a shame they tried to provide answers in the end.  Lost had it's ups and downs but consistently made me jump up and down going WTF???  But by the end I wanted it to get lost.

Two more series I started but decided not to invest any more time in to were Rescue Me and Mad Men.  The former was quite good and I watched the entire first season.  I like Denis Leary and was keen to see how the writers would tackle the aftermath of 9/11 and it's impact on New York firefighters.  But the show seemed to just want to show that these guys are politically incorrect assholes just like most other people.  The characters are sexist and homophobic and despite their clearly heroic job, I didn't feel the need to spend any more time with them after the first season.  Mad Men seemed intriguing but just didn't grab me.  It looks amazing, the acting is fantastic and the creation of the near-past is faultless.  However I don't think it's for me. 

Finally Black Mirror, created by Charlie Brooker is a fantastic three episodes of wierd, technology-obsessed dystopian tales.  Beginning with an episode where the Prime Minister is forced to have sexual relations with a pig, the show just got wierder, cleverer and more prescient as it continued.  The episodes all featured a new cast, new characters but similar themes; the dangers of our reliance and obsession with technology.  It is an absolute must-see.  Sharp, serious satire from a cynical, sarcastic genius.  Find a black mirror and watch it.

Next year I will be continuing with Dexter and The Walking Dead and should probably try and get round to starting The Wire.  I'm also desperate to start Breaking Bad which I have heard very good things about.  Anybody want to recommend me any more TV to dip my toes in in 2012?  Anyone see any of this lot?