TV (the Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time By Alan Sepinwall
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And why you like or hate it which not only teaches you something about the material but maybe something about yourself in the process So while I found myself disagreeing with their ultimate conclusion it still gave me a lot of food for thought as well as a desire to go out and watch all of them again. Tvnet The rest of the essays do a similarly good job of explaining why those shows were considered among the best while pointing out the flaws They ve got a real knack for explaining the appeal of a series and describing what made it special If anyone ever asks me what s so great about Deadwood I ll probably just have them read their description of it There s also some effort made towards explaining what they meant beyond just being TV shows For example.
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Is The Wire better than Breaking Bad Is Cheers better than Seinfeld What s the best high school show ever made Why did Moonlighting really fall apart Was the Arrested Development Netflix season brilliant or terrible For twenty years since they shared a TV column at Tony Soprano s hometown newspaper critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz have been debating these questions and many but it all ultimately boils down to this What s the greatest TV show ever That debate reaches an epic conclusion in TV THE BOOK Sepinwall and Seitz have identified and ranked the 100 greatest scripted shows in American TV history Using a complex obsessively all encompassing scoring system they ve created a Pantheon of top TV shows each accompanied by essays delving into what made these shows great From vintage classics like The Twilight Zone and I Love Lucy to modern masterpieces like Mad Men and Friday Night Lights from huge hits like All in the Family and ER to short lived favorites like Firefly and Freaks and Geeks TV THE BOOK will bring the triumphs of the small screen together in one amazing compendium. Tvg login Sepinwall and Seitz s argument has ended Now it s time for yours to begin TV the Book Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All TimeRATING 4 STARS2016 Grand Central Publishing Hachette Book Group Review Not on Blog This book is a must for all TV fans whether you agree with the writers or not this will get your binge watching self excited These two writers debate what the greatest TV show ever is and they lay out reasons why or why not I won t spoil anything but there is also a chapter on new shows that could also join this list I received an eARC from EDELWEISS 1455588199 Here s another book where I m not the target audience Hey that opening to the essay on The Simpsons where the authors address the someone in the universe who hasn t watched the show HI Still I read this anyway primarily because I really like Matt Zoller Seitz s movie reviews The first thing I did was frantically skim the table of contents for the few shows I have watched Then I spent two minutes annoyed that Farscape isn t included on the list of top 100 shows As someone who s watched maybe five of the shows highlighted here that opinion is certainly less substantive than the opinions of people who ve watched enough to write a book on the subject And yet There s a certain irony here I ve read a lot of criticism of critics who hasn t mostly in the vein of their inability to create something themselves that they have to resort to critiquing And here I am entirely unable to make a list of top 100 shows critiquing the critics These are two distinctive voices and that s made clear from the outset when they debate the order of the top five shows which per their ranking system all tied There s a transcribed debate between both authors hashing it out It might be my favorite part of the book I get the feeling reading it that I m being allowed to eavesdrop on a conversation between two really smart people about how art is made and why it s important through the lens of comedy vs drama and careful plotting vs messy ambition and scope and scale and humanity The voices stay distinctive too which is interesting they split most of the essays on specific shows and about a third of the way through the book I realized I could figure out which of the coauthors penned an essay before I got to the initials at the end I didn t read this book knowing about that initial debate though I read this because I was certain there would be gems of analysis and there are Here are three random bookmarks But it s hard to imagine a final moment better representing the totality of Deadwood than Al Swearengen up to his arms in blood covering up one of the violent truths of building a civilization with one last lie agreed upon by all involved The Comeback reminded us that comedy is often tragedy that happens to someone else and that behind each joke there s a grievance. Tvv entgelttabelle 2025 There are moments in reviews as in works of art where great critics hit on something so true that it s almost beyond critique I m still mad about Farscape though 1455588199 If you like watching TV then you will find this book interesting I enjoyed learning that I Love Lucy was the pioneer for the multi camera concept And I enjoyed reading about other shows that I just watched for enjoyment but never really noticed if they were doing something groundbreaking Very entertaining I won this book on Goodreads 1455588199 I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review This was a very interesting book I ll admit that the first thing I did was to look up some of my absolute favorite tv shows ever Gil Girls The West Wing Community to see how they ranked and I was not disappointed I understood why they weren t higher on the list and really enjoyed what Alan Matt had to say about the shows They brought up some very valid points and went enjoyably in depth about with an impressively small amount of space they had to be brief on many of the shows otherwise the book would have been absurdly long. Tvv entgelttabelle 2025 Each piece was well written well researched surprisingly quite funny and just so smart it s clear that these guys not only did their homework but know how to write what they watched in an academic way that really gets to the particulars The beginning of this book which is a lengthy look at the top the top 5 shows on the list because they all received an nearly identical score Breaking Bad The Wire The Simpsons Cheers and The Sopranos I won t tell you which one ended up being number 1 because half of the beauty of this opening essay is reading Alan Matt parse it out and being pleasantly surprised by their conclusion. Tvupdate.roku.com link Their strategy formula for ranking all of these tv shows makes so much sense and actually makes me trust their final list completely When reading these shows essays I found myself nodding in agreement so often They were delightful and critical and in the end I felt validated for obsessing over some tv shows as much as I do Because I tend to inhale tv shows and think about every little detail nuance It s nice to know I m not alone. Tv garden So if you want to read about all 100 of the shows or just see what these critics have to say about a handful of your favorites i do recommend this book It is insightful intriguing in depth and well done 1455588199 ARC for review EPD September 6 2016. Tvnet What fun I love lists I love making them I love reading other peoples and while I ve seen lots of definitive books about movie lists this is the first really in depth one I ve seen about television shows and since we re in the golden age of television this is a perfect time for such a list which attempts to list and rank the one hundred greatest scripted so no news shows no reality show in American so no foreign shows TV history Obviously any list like this is subjective but the writers are both noted newspapers columnists on television and they try to use some objective criteria to wit 1 Innovation was the show trying something that was or felt new For example All in the Family and 24 scored high here Parks and Recreation scored low because it borrowed its documentary format from The Office. Tvv entgelttabelle 2025 2 Influence how much impact did it have on the medium Shows like Hill Street Blues and Friends were copied by many other series A show like Will Grace scored highly here because it reshaped attitudes toward homosexuality. Book tvs jupiter 125 online 3 Consistency how much did the quality fluctuate from episode to episode or over its run and how did it weather storms like cast changes for example Law Order 4 Performance both how great were the actors and how well crafted the characters the authors give the example that here The Sopranos outscores 24 because even if you thought both James Gandolfini and Kiefer Sutherland did a great job Tony Soprano was simply a better crafted layered character 5 Storytelling or basically according to the authors everything else direction production design music etc and how is it executed According to authors Hannibal Twin Peaks and The Simpsons prided themselves on doing something different every week while Cheers and The Honeymooners did or less the same thing every week but all five scored high here because they did what they did so well 6 Peak how great was the show when it was at its absolute peak And based on that it s easy for a viewer to say to him herself yeah I really loved _______ but it doesn t really fit based on those categories. Tvbook11 One thing I found fascinating is that the two reviewers were in total agreement on the top five shows of all time Amazing They then spend a chapter sussing out where in the top five each should fall I watched all but one of these shows and watched the first season of that one so I was fascinated to see their thought processes as they went through their movement of the shows before finally coming to an agreement no spoilers here you ll have to read it yourself I was a little surprised at one of the choices I ll admit but they seemed absolutely certainEveryone will love seeing the authors praise some of one s favorite shows For example for me there was Lost about which they said Lost aimed higher wider and further than anyone could have expected from a show born out of the chairman of ABC s desire for a scripted version of Survivor In the process it demonstrated how thin the line in television can be between inspiration and insanity and for fandom between love and hate Only a show capable of moving us so deeply could make us so enraged when it screwed upwhich is exactly how I feel about that show but I never would have been able to put it so well In addition to the one hundred greatest shows they also include some honorable mentions and shows that they regard favorably for one reason or another for example they did not include in the one hundred any series that had not completed its run which leaves out Game of Thrones but they felt it was worthy of discussion I felt that maybe they discussed a few too many shows perhaps diluting the effect of making it to the top one hundred and though they generally did not include children s shows they did include Sponge Bob Square Pants yet there s nary a mention of Sesame Street a terrible error in my mind They also didn t include mini series and made for TV movies so there s a special section for those too but again they simply include too many although no discussion of TV would be complete without mentioning Roots which they acknowledge was the most important scripted program in broadcast network history Absolutely true but I don t think we need give the same importance to the good but ultimately insignificant in TV history Olive Kitteridge Overall though the book was great fun I read it straight through but it would be a nice book to have around to leaf through on occasion or when you needed something that didn t require total concentration though you would be missing out on some good insights about the shows and the times during which they aired And of course the arguing I m using the book as a basis for a poll on my radio show in which my listeners e mail me their five favorites We ll probably go until the end of the year and then I ll review this book on the radio show reveal the authors five favorites and the top ten of our listeners It s sure to be interesting 1455588199 Alan Sepinwall has been writing about television for close to 20 years first as an online reviewer of NYPD Blue then as a TV critic for The Star Ledger Tony Sopranos hometown paper now as author of the popular blog Whats Alan Watching on HitFix. Tvmate com Sepinwalls episode by episode approach to reviewing his favorite TV shows changed the nature of television criticism according to Slate which called him the acknowledged king of the form Alan Sepinwall has been writing about television for close to 20 years first as an online reviewer of NYPD Blue then as a TV critic for The Star Ledger Tony Soprano s hometown paper now as author of the popular blog What s Alan Watching on HitFix. Tvv rechner com Sepinwall s episode by episode approach to reviewing his favorite TV shows changed the nature of television criticism according to Slate which called him the acknowledged king of the form site_link I received a free ARC of this from NetGalley for review. Tvdb In this era of Peak TV I subscribe to a couple of streaming options that I could easily spend a month or so watching non stop and still not get through the shows on my current watch lists Meanwhile my DVR is usually glowing red hot from all the recording it s doing for the shows airing on the network and cable stations So what I really didn t need read right now is a book that makes me want to watch TV but I m still glad I read it. Apple tv app for kindle fire Television critics Alan Sepinwall and Matt Zoller Seitz started sharing a newspaper column 20 years ago just as a revolution was about to occur that would change the TV landscape Although they both moved on to other jobs they remained friends and had on going debates about TV topics which has led them to come up with a list of the all time best 100 TV shows They cheerfully admit that this is a bit of a fool s errand in that there s something inherently flawed about comparing a show like All in the Family to The X Files However they came up with a ranking system they both used to score shows on a variety of factors and then used it to come up with their top 100 which they then explained in detail in short essays about each one. Book tvs jupiter online They used some basic rules to keep it all somewhat in line Only American shows that have ended were considered although there are some notable exceptions like The Simpsons and South Park which after decades on the air had enough material to adequately judge Some shows with uncertain futures like Louie were included in case their creators never produce No reality TV was considered and variety skit and talk shows were also deemed too hard to compare to scripted dramas and comedies Longevity was also a factor because a brilliant show that only produced a handful of episodes like Firefly obviously didn t have the burden of sustaining that level of quality over the course of many seasons so there was handicapping done in the ranking system to account for that. Tvline So after applying math and some logical rules to their exercise what did Sepinwall and Seitz come up with A bunch of shows that s pretty much what you d expect if you pay attention to things like awards reviews and critic s Best Of lists It turns out what is generally considered the best TV is still the best TV by their standards and an unforgiving cynic might think this is merely a clickbait interwebs article taken to book form. Apple tv app for kindle fire However what makes this interesting to me as a TV fan isn t the rankings they gave or what shows did and didn t make the top 100 cut although that s the kind of thing it s fun to argue about over a couple of beers My favorite part was an online conversation they had in which they debated how to rank the 5 top shows that tied in their ranking system Through the course of that discussion they question how much a show s innovation mattered vs just doing something familiar as well as it s ever been done whether they had an inherent bias towards thinking of dramas as better than comedies and how to judge a show filled with peaks and valleys against a show that was consistently great but didn t provide as many next level moments. Tvupdate.roku.com link It was a fascinating often funny conversation between two critics who know their subjects have the skill and self awareness to step back and ask themselves just what made these shows so great and then follow those trains of thoughts to logical conclusions Good criticism shouldn t just be about giving a score or a thumbs up thumbs down It should make you think about what you like or hate the article about I Love Lucy doesn t just pay homage to it as a groundbreaking comedy but also outlines how Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were true innovators whose impact on television from a creative and business standpoint went far beyond even what they did on screen as Lucy and Ricky There s also some bonus features like funny lists about things like the best and worst bosses on television They also do lists of the best mini series TV movies honorable mentions and current shows that will probably make the Top 100 list after they complete their runs. TV epub to The essays are filled with spoilers to the shows in the interests of discussing them fully but it should be easy to avoid by skipping over any ones you haven t seen it yet Fair warning that the bonus lists do contain some spoilers particularly one about the best character deaths so maybe skip those if you re worried about such things. Tvokids logo Taken all together this is a love letter to television written by two guys who appreciate how lucky they were to be in exactly the right place to help document a golden age 1455588199 An informative opinionated delight Sepinwall and Zoller Seitz put about as much thought as any two human beings could into how to rank TV shows if you re going to rank them at all and that thoughtfulness shows you can argue with both their systems and its results and I sometimes did but you can t argue that they didn t try They have a scoring system that gives out points for consistency peak quality influence on subsequent shows performances et al. Tvnz+ on demand It s also the kind of book that teaches you something about your own tastes I knew that I slightly preferred dramas over comedies but I didn t know how continuously surprised I would be at a sitcom s high ranking not that I necessarily disagreed but that I tended to forget about them when assembling my own lists That meant happily that I wound up marking a lot of shows to remind myself to check them out later I knew I needed to watch Hill Street Blues but I need to watch Hill Street Blues And My So Called Life Taxi Police Squad WiseguyI was also endlessly impressed by the amount of knowledge Sepinwall and Zoller Seitz had at their fingertips from the way the high level of creator control on I Love Lucy revolutionized the medium to the fact that Friends is almost singlehandedly responsible for the plague of generically good looking people on network TV sitcoms to the long history of cheeky fourth wall breaking that each generation seems to think it s invented for the first time. Tvx premium Throughout the authors enthusiasm is infectious and their taste cheerfully runs the gamut of highbrow to lowbrow they can praise the surrealist slapstick of Spongebob Squarepants and then write about the bleak realism of China Beach can talk about teen masterpieces like Freaks and Geeks and old school success stories like Gunsmoke which I now feel like I ve completely underrated all these years In short a tremendous amount of fun a conversational informative look at decades of good to great TV And great material for arguments. Tv listings My completely unscientifically determined partly determined on the fly and constantly shifting personal top fifteen though the first three are pretty firmly ensconced in their positions for what it s worth 1 The Shield2 Deadwood3 The Wire4 Mad Men5 Community6 Breaking Bad7 Rectify8 Justified9 Buffy the Vampire Slayer10 Twin Peaks11 The Leftovers12 M A S H13 Terriers14 Arrested Development15 Friday Night Lights 1455588199 This masterfully engaging book by two smart guys who really know their stuff is one of the most enjoyable reads I ve had in a long time Intelligent discussions of the very best of television show by show are wonderfully readable as though one were a participant in those discussions and learning much from the insights of one s magnificently well informed friends Though they left out a few items from my own list of excellences from TV s history the brilliant Combat the charming and moving Brooklyn Bridge there s scarcely a show listed that doesn t deserve to be on a list of the most meaningful works in the medium Fun informative revelatory TV The Book was addictive one of the most compelling just one page experiences I ve had in a long time 1455588199 If you love the smaller screen over the movies this book was written for you I am not afraid to admit it there are plenty of times that I would rather see another episode of something on the tube than hike myself to the movie theater And sometimes it is just the timeframe a 30 45 or 60 minute episode is easier to accommodate than a 2 hour movie even if it s on the TV Sepinwall and Seitz have invested in their analysis than almost anyone I have come across You may not always agree with them What fun would that be but you will have to be on your game to be able to pick their reasoning apart First they have a set of criteria then an elaborate but logical point system following that is a long and sometimes very funny discussion between them as to how each evaluated the field finally there is their ranking with dozens of shows discussed at length The latter part was my favorite I was amazed how much I learned about the TV shows I thought I knew These two are really critics as well as enthusiasts and it becomes apparent very quickly how many levels above us poor mortals SS fly around at Obviously this book could be read cover to cover but I bet you will as I did just search out your favorites and see where they rank and why This is now my go to beside reader If you have any interest at all this is your book 1455588199 You may have witnessed my reading of this book through my intermittent comments whenever I encountered something I disagreed with particularly vehemently or that FACTS disagreed with I am told that the faces I made reading were fairly amusing too I have a few quibbles with this book A minor one is perhaps unavoidable my list would have been different But all in all critics and viewers must surely be allowed to have different tastes and assessments perceive shows as great based on different criteria and arriving at different conclusions re whether a show succeeds at doing something or falls short of the mark Moreover what we like and what is great can be totally different I am willing to concede that The Sopranos was in some ways a great show even as I found it in turns boring and off putting But that s a clear case of YMMV What in my opinion isn t are the following 1 Willingness to go to great lengths not to address the fact that the series perceived as great are almost all made by white men and predominantly about white men That is not accidental there are objective reasons overwhelming majority of prestige TV made by for men and those demographics changing only recently and subjective reasons assigning importance to stylistic than thematic innovation for intance Addressing those would have at least given some fig leaf to the overwhelming conservativeness sticking to the masculine unless it s a critical darling or a sitcom of the list one that found space for Boardwalk Empire and Community How I Met Your Mother and Hannibal puh lease but not Weeds or Damages or even that zeigeisty mess of awfulness that was Ally McBeal not to mention such outliers as Queer as Folk or The Sarah Connor Chronicles Generally the Un Likable Antiheroine Woman usually 30 minute dramedy genre gets short shrift here as though United States of Tara Weeds Nurse Jackie Dirt that Holly Hunter show whose name I never recall et consortes had never graced our screens 2 Willingness to be casually sexist mentioning the age of Lucille Ball but not a single one of the main guys in the series described previously to excuse sexism well M. Tvp sport H is verrrrry feminist except for all the sexism but STILL and to completely overlook misogyny this is such an amazing show truly shows human psyche in that episode where a female character gets graphically raped murdered mutilated on screen so that we can focus on how that affects the guy. Tvp health insurance 3 Factual inaccuracies To list a few Jessica Jones isn t a show that considers calling rape rape to be passe on the contrary Jessica naming her experience as such is a major plot point Carrie Bradshaw s post 9 11 snow globe is a major moment of season 4 not 5 of Sex and the City The plot of late seasons of The Good Wife is completely misrepresented in the description And that s not even counting some very strange interpretations transphobic Pennsatucky yes it s her transphobia and not her homophobia that is so much on display Prime Suspect was an anthology series o_O and lists the book creates like calling Adama of BSG a great boss or not putting Nikita on the list of best TV spies come on Back to YMMV but if it does you are wrong It seems a glaring omission for me not to put Jane the Virgin in the main part of Works in Progress when UnReal Kimmy Schmidt Jessica Jones and Game of Thrones got in Series this book encouraged me to re visit or catch up on Moonlighting which I watched as a kid but don t remember any Picket Fences ditto Enlightened tried but didn t keep up and Friday Night Lights. Book tvs iqube Series this book discouraged me from re attempting The Sopranos the I read the less I want to put myself through it again Deadwood Oh my everything they found space for Dexter on the Certain Regard list but not for any of the shows I mentioned earlier on I mean in what universe is that allowed to happen And just one thing there s something so sad in the way in which this is a listibook I do think they would have done a better job by having fewer shows described but in depth or grouping thematically I mean I get why do it this way it s fast easy sellable readable digestible but if you go for shallow descriptions the least you could do is fact check 1455588199
| TV (the Book): Two Experts Pick the Greatest American Shows of All Time By Alan Sepinwall |
| 1455588199 |
| 9781455588190 |
| English |
| 432 |
| Paperback |
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., Tv listings But for that one year season 2 Chuck was everything a young Chuck Bartowski might have fantasized a show about his life could one day look like: Tvnz+ on demand and they even take into account the vexing question of how to score one season wonders alongside shows that ran long enough that some unevenness is almost inevitable.A.S