1. Most of the articles I've seen (or podcasts/interviews I've heard) about Seth MacFarlane's performance at the Oscars have led with professions of open-mindedness - something along the lines of "I'm not too familiar with MacFarlane's work, so I was fully willing to be impressed." Then they transition into shock and horror at what came next.

I think that if you open any piece defending your open-mindedness with a "it wasn't me - I was willing to give him a fair shake, you know," there's a very good chance that you didn't start from a very open-minded position at all. Alex Pappademas gave offhanded reference today that Seth MacFarlane "hates women," as if this was an inarguable fact, based on hundreds of firsthand accounts, and not based on a dislike for the no-holds-barred style of his television show.

When you expect someone to come out and be racist and misogynist - and he gives winking reference to the fact that this was what you expected of him - it's awfully easily to have reality play into your preconceptions.

2. MacFarlane tweeted today "The Oscars is basically the Kobayashi Maru test" - a reference to the Star Trek challenge involving a no-win situation, where the only thing being rated is how you hold up under pressure, or redefine the situation. It's an apt metaphor, but I think a better one is War Games - "the only way to win, is not to play."

3. There's a real tone to these MacFarlane commentaries that have been bothering me, and I finally put my finger on today.

It's the fact that "Family Guy" is watched by "the wrong sort of people." You know, bros. Unintellectual types. Poor people. Not our tribe. And that makes MacFarlane an outsider - and the wrong sort of outsider. Not an outsider like Letterman or Jon Stewart, who showed up to skewer the puffed-up celebrities. The sort of outsider who'll track mud through the ballroom. That type.

It's classist.

4. I've defended MacFarlane's performance on the Oscars, which might have given the impression that I thought the Oscars were well produced. They were not.

The producers this year, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, decided to do a tribute to movie musicals. Which is... fine, I guess. There was one musical that came out this year, Les Misérables, so there's some connection. The big discussion leading up to the awards was actually "truth and history," but that's kind of a bummer, so... musicals! You've even got a host who loves musicals, so it works out.

But we didn't do a tribute to movie musicals. There was nary a mention of The Music Man, Greast, A Star is Born, Singin' In The Rain, Meet Me In St. Louis, Cabaret, West Side Story, or The Wizard of Oz. The closest they came was MacFarlane doing a gag about The Sound Of Music, where he announced the Von Trapp family but they failed to appear. We did a tribute to movie musicals from the last 10 years - Les Mis, Dreamgirls, Hairspray, and Chicago. In fact, we did Chicago a number of times - Catherine Zeta-Jones sang a song, the cast reappeared to announce a winner, MacFarlane talked about it being the ten-year anniversary of its Best Picture win... why this emphasis on Chicago? Because the producers of Chicago were Craig Zadan and Neil Meron.

So, so classy, guys.

5. And finally, I'd just like to remind everyone again that last year, Bill Crystal did blackface during the Oscars. Unironic blackface. Completely out of context blackface As in, he just had a blackface Sammy Davis, Jr. bit he wanted to shoehorn in, and he did.

I just thought we've all forgotten about that too quickly.

Never forget.

There has been a lot of commentary about the jokes MacFarlane made during the show, none of it good. What struck me is that all the articles seem to contain the line “the joke is that…” followed by an explanation that shows a real misunderstanding of the joke. Whether you liked MacFarlane’s Quvenzhané Wallis joke or not (“at age 9, Quvenzhané Wallis is the youngest Best Actress nominee ever. To give you an idea of just how young she is, it’ll be 16 years before she’s too old for Clooney.”), the joke’s at George Clooney’s expense, not Wallis’. The idea that “the joke is that black women aren’t good for anything other than being sexual objects” is a deliberate misreading, and a damaging one. We train ourselves to view everything as an attack, and then we can’t tell the difference between real prejudice and the echoes of our own voices.

If you feel that it’s wrong to include Wallis in any such joke that speaks about her eventually being a woman who can date people because she’s too young, I think that’s fine. But that’s not what’s being argued.

The Onion’s joke is more problematic, but again suffers from a lot of people misunderstanding what the joke is – or rather, what it isn’t. It isn’t a personal attack on Wallis. It isn’t an “indefensible expression of racism” or an “abhorrent verbal attack on a child.” (it’s not even verbal!) If you’ll indulge me as I do the very thing I was complaining about earlier: it’s a joke about how everyone loves Wallis and it’s impossible to find her anything but charming, and so to call her a bad word is patently ridiculous.

You don’t have to like the joke. You can find the joke horrendously offensive. But you shouldn’t make it into something it isn’t for the sake of being offended more.

Since I meant to start this as a defense of MacFarlane, let me loop back around: I thought he did a good job. It was designed to be a little something-for-everyone, and the backdoor way of landing edgier jokes through the guise of James Kirk-from-the-future showing him clips of his critically-panned show was a good idea. The criticism against his show being “utterly free of laughs” seems more a result of people wanting him to be terrible more than it actually being bad  - the Hollywood Reporter had a good piece this morning about this being a no-win situation for MacFarlane, but that he ended up winning anyway.

I was most enthused that he went out of his way to actually host the show – appearing before each presenter to make a crack as they walked out, introducing guests and performances, etc. Most hosts do a big comedy bit in the beginning, then appear only sporadically throughout, and the show suffers from it. Even Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, as great as they were at the Globes, were absent throughout much of the telecast. MacFarlane made sure that the show never felt like it was going off the rails, despite a number of truly abysmal musical performances. 

Anyway, let’s check in on the results and… not bad. I ended up having a pretty good showing: I missed only 7 out of the 24 categories. I actually thought I did better than that, because during the show, I seemed to never be wrong*. But it also became apparent early in the night that the Academy liked all of the films nominated (except Zero Dark Thirty), and wanted to honor as many as possible. Therefore, my gamble on Amour not winning Best Foreign Film proved a bad one, but you’ve got to take a few risks if you’re hoping to stand out. Everyone remembers the time you correctly picked the 16-seed to upset Duke, y’know? That metaphor may not apply here, since no one will ever remember any of these picks I made, including me.

*Though that’s also how I normally feel, so I guess I can’t trust my gut on that one.

Of the ones I missed, I was surprised to see Lincoln get little love: the Oscars gave Best Supporting Actor to Christoph Walz instead of Tommy Lee Jones (a decision I heartily endorse, by the way), and gave Best Screenplay to Argo (a decision I mildly disagree with, but fine). Not to mention that Spielberg was expected to land Best Director, but it went to Ang Lee instead, which I’m ecstatic about.

Okay, fine, not ecstatic. I’m smiling, though. Good for the Academy. It was the best-directed film of the lot, and I know a lot of voters were put off by the film’s religious content. So, to see the movie land the award while espousing a deep belief in God? A nice sight to see.

Hey, it’s the first ever Ten-Four Films Oscar Night Drinking Game! So, even if you’re enjoying the festivities tonight alone, you can take comfort in the fact that if you follow my rules exactly, by the end of the evening, you will be dead.

So come, my tan-faced children! Follow well in order! Have you your pitchers? Have you your lime-flavored Budweisers? O Pioneers!

Red Carpet Section: 

1. If you find yourself watching any part of the red carpet section, finish your drink.

2. Yes, I know we just started. Finish it. Now pour another. Here we go.

3. Every time a camera cuts to a close-up of someone’s shoes/bracelet/necklace/sash/broach, take a drink. Stop only when you feel the tide of death upon you. 

4. If you say aloud, “say, isn’t that guy/girl from that show?” and it turns out not to be, take two drinks.

5. If you say aloud, “oh, I don’t like that at all,” go read YouTube comments for six minutes.

6. If you say aloud, “boy, _____ is really the color this year,” quit drinking and devote yourself to a life of charity.

7. If you say aloud “ooh, I actually pinned that the other day,” drink until you can’t feel your legs. Then, find a sharp object and remove your legs.
 

Hosting/Presenting

1. Take a drink when Seth MacFarlane makes a joke about how he isn’t famous.

2. Take a drink whenever the camera cuts to an actor or actress not really laughing after MacFarlane’s made a joke at their expense.

3. Take two drinks if that actor or actress has a confused look on their face, as if desperately trying to place the name of the spray-tanned man on the stage mocking them.

4. Whenever Seth MacFarlane does an imitation of someone else, turn to your neighbor and attempt your own imitation of a famous person.

5. Take a drink if that imitation is not of “Cagney” and/or “Lacey.”

6. Keep drinking until your Cagney and Lacey imitations are better.

7. Whichever religion MacFarlane mocks first, join that religion.

8. Every time a presenter mentions Emmanuelle Riva’s age, consider the fragility of human life.

9. Every time a presenter mentions Quvenzhané Wallis’ age, reflect on the innocence of youth.

10. Every time a presenter mentions Quvenzhané Wallis in a way that makes it clear that they’ve practiced the pronunciation of it in their bathroom mirror for several days, make a resolution to learn a new language this year. Forget this resolution by sunrise.

11. Every time a presenter mentions a movie not released in the previous year, fix yourself a drink appropriate to the year of that movie’s release. You may have to stock your liquor cabinet beforehand. I have a moonshine guy if you need one.

12. Induce vomiting if an animated version of “Ted” or a “Family Guy” character appears to announce an award. You’re probably near alcohol poisoning at this point anyway. Let it all out. You’ll feel better in a minute. There you go.

Special Performances

1. If someone besides Adele sings a song, take a drink.

2. If someone besides Adele sings a song not from the past year, finish your drink.

3. If someone mentions a “revival” of movie musicals, travel to Los Angeles and kill them.

4. If MacFarlane starts singing at any point, see whether you can hold your breath the entire time.  If you pass out before the song finishes, rewind the ceremony to the beginning and start again.

5. If Adele sings a song, take no drinks. Weep softly, cradling your glass, and think fondly of times that never were.

6. Travel to your nearest grocery store and buy all the Peeps. Consume them before you get back to your car. You don't need a reason. You know you want to.

Speeches

1. Take a drink if a speech starts with “wow!”

2. Take a drink if a winner mentions more than 8 people in any speech.

3. Take a drink if someone not nominated has received more than one reaction shot during the ceremony (as a quick cheat sheet, George Clooney is nominated as producer for Argo, while Meryl Streep is not nominated at all). Exception: if the person receiving multiple reaction shots is the spouse of the winner and the winner is telling that person how much he/she loves them and that this is all for them.

4. If a spouse of the winner receives multiple reactions shots while the winner is telling that person how much he/she loves them and that this is all for them, finish your drink. (Thought you were going to get off easy for a minute, didn’t you? Not likely)

5. Every time someone mentions a relative who in not in attendance, trade glasses with your neighbor.

6. Every time someone mentions a relative who in not in attendance because they are dead, trade glasses with your neighbor, then finish their drink.

7. Every time Anne Hathaway mentions someone she admires, take a drink.

8. If Anne Hathaway mentions another other actresses nominated in her category, finish your drink.

9. If Anne Hathaway mentions all of the other actresses in her category, the person in the room who can name the fewest Shakespearian plays must finish all the other drinks in the room.

10. If you didn’t get that joke, you are not allowed to watch the Oscars tonight until you’ve finished reading three books.

11. No, you don’t get to pick the books. I get to pick the books. Also, take another drink.

12. You may come to hate Anne Hathaway by the end of her speech. But, if someone at your party makes a catty statement disparaging Hathaway, slap them forcefully into silence. That young lady is above your disdain.

13. After any shot of Quentin Tarantino laughing, do ten pushups.

Show Closing

1. For every second the ceremony runs over, eat that many jelly beans, including black ones.

2. Tally up your Oscar Predictions scorecard, then grab a pair of scissors. Calculate the percentage you got right. That’s the amount of hair you’re allowed to keep.

Hope you all have fun at the ceremony this year! I’ll see you all again next year, or as soon as about 40% of my hair grows back.

But every year I write a long diatribe about each award, and then people come to the page and scan each section quickly, looking for a leg up to win their office pools. And those are the most interested people that I get.

Frankly, though, I write this site for my own entertainment anyway, so screw all y’all. But since I’d find it much more entertaining if I went out and got some Chinese food right now, I’ll make this quick. A prediction in each category, followed by a sentence or so.

I’m sort of blasé about the Oscars this year anyway. Not sure why I’m not more enthused – I’ve seen eight of the nine films nominated in Picture (and really liked seven of them), for once several of the big awards aren’t set in stone, and I’m one of the few people alive who thinks Seth McFarlane is a good choice for Oscar host. But I didn’t read any Oscar predictions this year, and I normally churn through those. I’m sure I’ll enjoy the telecast, I’m just usually a little giddier.

By the way, I’m definitely live-tweeting throughout the show, so be sure to either check that out or unfollow me, depending on your proclivities.

Let’s start with the technical awards:

Makeup and Hairstyling: It’s strange that this is a tough choice, but it’s a choice between Les Mis (a prestige film where the makeup department just rubbed dirt on the actors faces) and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (where humans are covered in ridiculous dwarf makeup). I’m gonna say The Hobbit, though I acknowledge that it’s just because it wins the award for “Most Makeup” rather than “Best.

Costume Design: Anna Karenina. This is the sort of movie that’s designed to win these sorts of awards, since Joe Wright’s last two movies (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement) both got nominations in this category. I don’t think either won though, so that may be a bad sign. Still, the Academy loves to give awards to people who keep getting nominated and not winning!

Original Song: “Skyfall” by Adele. Like it’s even a question. The Academy wouldn’t do Adele (or, as I like to call her, “Classy Taylor Swift”) like that. That girl’s been through enough.

Production Design: Anna Karenina. The film had all that cool interlocking staging (the whole movie is reconceived to take place inside a theater), and this is the award that honors that sort of thing. By rights, this should probably go to Les Misérables, but we never saw enough shots of the actual sets to determine if they were as good as they looked while out-of-focus behind people.

Sound Mixing: That is, the award for recording sound on the set. Les Misérables should win this handily, since – if you didn’t know – all the singing was recorded live.

Sound Editing: This is the award for “creation of sound effects,” and it’ll go to Life of Pi. Because it’s a great movie and it’s not going to win anything else.

Visual Effects: Life of Pi. Except for visual effects, I mean. Life of Pi is definitely going to win Best Visual Effects.

Film Editing: Argo. It’s probably going to win Best Picture, which means it’s probably going to win Film Editing. Most of the time, that’s just how it works. That said, it’s not a bad pick.

Original Score: I think Life of Pi wins, but I honestly don’t remember the score from any of the other films, except for from Lincoln, because I thought John Williams did such a lousy job with it. Actually, I have a vague recollection of liking the score in Skyfall, too. I think Thomas Newman did it, but I’m too lazy to check. Wait, no I’m not. Hang on… yes, it is Thomas Newman. Not that it matters. No one’s giving an Oscar to a Bond movie – unless, of course, Adele is coming up to accept the award in a floral dress, gushing in a posh British accent.

Okay, now that the dull techie stuff’s out of the way, let’s move on to the categories no one ever knows anything about.


Live Action Short Film: “Curfew.” It’s the only one I’d heard of. Normally I haven’t heard of any of them.

Documentary Short: “Innocente.” It’s the story of a homeless, undocumented teenager who’s determined to become an artist. How does that not win? It doesn’t even sound like a real movie. It sounds like something made up to win an imaginary Oscar. Here’s a link to the trailer. I think you’ll agree with me.

Animated Short Film: “Paperman.” Disney did a good job of promoting this across the web, and I know a lot of voters tend to vote on this without having seen the rest of the films (it isn’t like Documentary Feature, where voters have to prove they’ve seen all five films). Possible spoiler: “Adam and Dog,” a buzzy independent film that also released their entire short to the net last week. It’s a charming concept – how man and dog first became best friends, back at the beginning of time.

Foreign Language Film: Logic dictates that this has to go to Amour, since it’s also nominated in Best Picture and none of the other films are. But the voters who cast their ballots in this category – again, a smaller group than the overall Academy voters – can be contrarians. I’m going out on a limb and picking Chile’s No instead.

 
Documentary Feature: I’ve heard nothing but overwhelming adoration for Searching For Sugar Man. I’m gonna have to see this movie.

 
Animated Feature: This may be the only time I ever do, but I’m going against the Pixar movie. I don’t think Brave takes it. I know Frankenweenie has won a lot of awards, but I say that the Academy goes populist, and picks Wreck-It Ralph. The movie’s so good!

Original Screenplay: This is the tough one. I think Django Unchained isn’t going to win any other awards, so the Academy gives Quentin Tarantino this one. That said, I think both Moonrise Kingdom and Zero Dark Thirty are more impressive pieces of screenwriting. But unless Flight wins for some reason, I’m fine with whatever gets picked.

Adapted Screenplay: Gosh, Argo probably wins here, doesn’t it? It’s not an undeserving win if it does, but I’ve got to hand the award to Tony Kushner for Lincoln. That screenplay is a magnificent piece of historical fiction. I can’t even imagine the research it would’ve taken to make that thing.

Okay, on to the biggest – but least surprising – categories.

Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway. I don’t have to explain why. Everyone knows this is happening. Only Sally Field is even making the press rounds, trying to compete against her. And I don’t see that upset happening.

 
Supporting Actor: Tommy Lee Jones has won everything up until now, so it seems likely he’ll win this. Though word is Robert De Niro is making the rounds, shilling for Silver Linings Playbook, and he never does that. I’d let that influence me, but I don’t think he’s all that impressive in Playbook. He’s good, sure, but not remarkably so.

Leading Actress: There’s a campaign for Emmanuelle Riva that goes something like “we should vote for her, because she’s old and might be dead soon.” Which is exactly the sort of voting nonsense you hear every year. An actress no one had heard of until two months ago, and now the Academy feels the need to show her more support than they’ve ever shown any of their own family members, because people are watching. Anyway, I’m picking Jennifer Lawrence, because people seem to want to avoid voting for Zero Dark Thirty in any way, so Jessica Chastain won’t win. Which makes me sad, because she’s so, so good in that movie.

Leading Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis. I love Daniel Day-Lewis. He’s actually crazy, but in the best possible way. He’s a method actor who actually does become his role, as opposed to most Hollywood actors, who are just making idiots of themselves, wearing 17^th-century underwear for three months because they think it’ll help them get in character.

My favorite Day-Lewis story is from Lincoln is that he started writing notes to people on set, as Abraham Lincoln, in Abraham Lincoln’s handwriting. If they ever made a sequel (and they cannot, for obvious reasons), he’d probably have spent so much time in the character he’d be qualified to run for President. 

He wouldn’t, though, because he’d believe that he already served two terms back in the 1800’s.  

Director: Steven Spielberg for Lincoln. We haven’t given him one of these in a while, and the two best directed films didn’t land nominations for their director, for no apparent reason.

I know I’ve complained about this before, but this really is ridiculous. How hard was it for Michael Haneke to direct Amour, really? I know that there's something to be said for "coaxing great performances out of actors," but in his movies, actors are sitting in armchairs in well-lit libraries, talking to each other. There’s only so much directing that actually need to happen.

Best Picture: Argo. It’s won everything up until this point. Why shouldn’t it win this? And I don't mean that in a mean-spirited way, I really like Argo. It's just won everything, so odds on it wins this.

Sigh. I can't believe that's the shorter version of my Oscar predictions. Next year, I'm gonna give myself a 300-word limit and see what happens.

20.  Bent (NBC)

19.  The League (FX)

18.  Bob’s Burgers (FOX)

17.  Battleground (Hulu)

16.  The Good Wife (CBS)

15.  Archer (FX)

14.  Happy Endings (ABC)

13.  The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)

12.  Louie (FX)

11.  Key and Peele (Comedy Central)

10.  Girls (HBO)

9.    Awake (NBC)

8. 30 Rock (NBC)

7. Downton Abbey (PBS)

6. Parks and Recreation (NBC)

5. Mad Men (AMC)

4. New Girl (FOX)

3. Community (NBC)

2. Game of Thrones (HBO)

1. Sherlock (BBC)

I’ll post my Top Twenty television shows immediately after this entry, but I noticed a theme as I was putting the list together, and couldn’t help but point it out. It seems three of my top ten shows, including both of the top two, are:

a. had their second season in 2012

b. were inarguably worse shows than they were the year before.

“Sherlock”, “Game Of Thrones”, and “Downton Abbey” all returned last year to great fanfare. Sometimes it takes a little while for these sorts of shows to catch on, but word had spread, DVDs were passed about, and Netflix accounts and free HBO trials were taken advantage of. Each of these shows had a significantly bump in viewers for their second season premieres than they’d had for their first season finales. And each show found themselves facing real backlash before they’d even reached midseason.

The degree in variance among the three shows ranged from “slightly disappointing” to “significantly worse.” BBC’s “Sherlock” was only mildly damaged, with two just-below-standard episodes whose weaknesses were forgotten by the time an appropriately nail-biting finale rolled.

“Game Of Thrones” was more deeply wounded, though much of that was to be expected. It had been lauded for its brave decision to follow the arcs of the novels it was based on and execute its main character at the end of Season One. TV writers were orgasmic. “It just shows you that anything can happen!” And, anything could; including the show predictably struggling to find cohesion without a central figure to hold things together. The show became so disjointed that entire weeks would pass by without us knowing what several of the major characters were up to, which is a rough strategy for a show built around a giant, interconnected narrative.

Still, faithfulness to a much-adored novel is a weakness I can easily forgive. Much more galling were the decisions Julian Fellowes made on “Downton Abbey.” Television pundits were shocked when people started showing up in droves to watch this decidedly sudsy turn-of-the-century drama (the show is up to a very un-PBS eleven million viewers per episode, almost three times what NBC is doing at the same time, and was the second-highest watched show on Super Bowl Sunday), which pretends to be about class struggle and social politics but is mostly about people in period costumes having unrequited romances. The class struggles and social politics only come into play if they can create roadblocks to those romances, so that the characters can stare longingly at each other at formal family dinners.

So what did Fellowes do in his second season? Crank the soap opera elements up so high the feathery charms of the series collapsed under the weight of desperate plot machinations. Matthew has disappeared! No, now he’s returned! Now he’s gone again! Now he’s paralyzed! He’ll never walk again – until two episodes from now! Just in time for his fiancé to die! Just down the hall from where that other servant died last episode! But there’s no time to focus on that! A soldier with a burned face has appeared from nowhere! And he has amnesia! Is he someone from Edith’s past? Who knows? He’ll disappear at the end of the episode so that some other pile of nonsense can happen!

I didn’t make any of that up.

I mean, viewers understood that this show was all nonsense, a sugary concoction that had little tie to the era it was recalling. The mistake is to not let the audience pretend they don’t realize this, and letting amnesiac burn victims wander in and out of plotlines does tend to spoil the effect. 

So why are all three shows in the top ten? Who knows? I guess I’m as fickle as the breeze.

Or maybe it’s that while the shows took a hit, they didn’t lose whatever quality it was I loved most about them. Or all three shows were so good that they could stand to take a quality hit. Or I just really like British actors. I’m not sure.

I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’ve had lots of shows that I’ve battled with decisions that they’ve made or directions that they’ve taken. Doesn’t bother me.

The problem is when I stop caring.

There are people who love a good “comments” section (sick, depraved people, the way I see it). I’m not one of them. Not on any terms. Not in a well-run discussion forum. Not the “abandon all hope, those who read below” bit underneath YouTube videos. Not even the “fun to read for the insanity of it” of a Reddit thread gone awry.

It’s not even the people loudly shouting their opinions in all caps. It’s the people who work terrifically hard to create a quasi-intellectual response to the article or subject.* These are people who consider themselves significantly superior to the people typing in all caps, but when you read the comments, you realize they see things in terms just as black-and-white. Their comments are no more open-minded than those banging angrily away at their keyboards (people writing in all caps may be typing normally, but reading it always sounds like they’re just slamming their fists up and down on their laptop).

*It’s the same level of self-absorption as getting a blog (which will be referred to from this point forward as the correct level of self-absorption), but then deciding “it’s not enough for my opinions to be available. I must take my brilliance to the people.”

Take television. The vast majority of people who talk about this subject online see it as a massive divide: there is brilliant, smart television (“Breaking Bad”, “Mad Men”, “Arrested Development”) and there is dumb television made for idiots (“Two and a Half Men”, “Big Bang Theory,” “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”). And the tragedy of our age is that everyone wants to watch the latter, and no one wants to watch the former, and so our society swirls down the drain.

That’s nonsense. Television exists on a very narrow spectrum. As much as television has improved as an art form in the past thirty years (and the divide between “Mad Men” and “My Mother The Car” is quite remarkable), it’s still the same thing. It’s still generic stories, run through executives and past corporate sponsors, filmed in a rush, then delivered to you in weekly doses interrupted by advertisements. Television, as a medium, has changed drastically only by the measure in which television can change without no longer being itself.

I know this is starting to sound a little bit sophomore-in-college Intro To Media Studies paper (“Sheep! You are all sheep! Things would be so much better if I was in charge!”) But when we talk about television, it usually sounds like we think the gap between “Two and a Half Men” and “30 Rock” is the gap between the Piss-Christ and the Mona Lisa, when deep down we know it’s really the gap between McDonald’s and Chick-Fil-A.*

*I should be clear that I am speaking only in terms of “quality of chicken products,” not “ideological sentiments.”

Television is fast food, and it’s bad for us, and we know this. But we make the point that “Mad Men” is ‘perhaps the greatest television drama ever created.’ So it becomes “appointment television,” because you have to make a commitment to quality art. “Community” is ‘the funniest show no one’s watching.” “Scandal” is ‘trashy television done brilliantly.’ Even “The Bachelor” is ‘a reflection of our society’s appetites and obsessions.”  Our entertainment becomes more than a flickering black box that fills up our evening hours, it becomes cultural literacy, because addiction is always justifiable if you squint at it long enough.

Alex Pappademas did a mesmerizing piece last week on fired “Community” creator Dan Harmon, who is referred to as a “genius” in almost every article written about him (unless they refer to him as a “tortured genius”), including that one. And Harmon goes on a tirade at some point about this very subject. “That there's a difference between any of this s--- is the greatest joke that television ever told,” he says. “I mean, as the creator of ‘Community’, I'm telling you: It's all garbage.”

He’s not wrong. The difference between the best television and the worst television we’re ever going to see is a small divide, created only by our inability to look elsewhere for comparison.

Of course, I’m still going to watch all of it. I may be past the point of pretention about all of it, but I’ll still watch TV shows because I like TV shows, and I always have. I could spend my time learning the history of fresco painting, or how to create my own subsistence farm, or military naval maneuvers, but I don’t want to, and I don’t see the need to pretend that I ever would.

Television grows in importance in our society, but it’ll never reach the point where it’s actually important, and I don’t really care. I don’t need to gild something to make myself feel better about it. Being reminded that somewhere out there, chefs are preparing lobster bisque doesn’t make me love fried chicken sandwiches any less.

I always say (to whomever is listening, whether they care or not) that when new comedies premiere, you don’t start watching for what the show is, you start watching for what the show will become. Most comedies need a full season to get their sea legs, as writers learn to write for their actors’ strengths, and the actors learn how to wring jokes out of their characters' quirks. Shows like “Parks and Recreation,” “Community,” even “Girls”*… they aren’t nearly the same shows they were when they premiered, and that’s usually a good thing.

*All three of these are separate cases. "Parks and Rec" started out as an "Office" spin-off, but it wasn't working and no one on the show was likable, particularly Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope as the oblivious Michael Scotty-type lead. The showrunners adjusted, changed Leslie Knope into a likable overachiever, and suddenly the show was about a bunch of nice people who had this easy workplace chemistry. It's unrecognizable as the show it was when it premiered.

"Community" seemed to start out as just another bland single-cam sitcom with a good cast, but developed into something referential and insane and occasionally brilliant and deeply uncommercial. In Season Three, it retreated a little too far into its own headspace, and creator Dan Harmon was fired as showrunner. Since showrunners are fired all the time, I was hoping that the effects of Harmon's firing would be overblown, and that the cast remaining would be enough to keep the lights on.

But, judging by the first results of Season Four, it seems that everything that made the show stand out has disappeared abruptly. It's a shame. That used to be my favorite show, and now it's a chore to watch it, especially since I know how much potential the show actually has.

As for "Girls," it seems we're still learning exactly what the show is as it goes, but it's deepened itself nicely as it hass expanded. Even on pay-cable, it's surprising to see a sitcom that makes character choices this subtle.

When a new comedy premieres, I’ll check out the pilot and an episode or two afterwards, to see what the potential of the show is. Sometimes I’ll enjoy the show enough to say “I’ll stick with this to see where it ends up.” Sometimes I’ll get a sense of the cast’s chemistry, feel it has promise but isn’t worth watching yet, and decide to check back in later.* And sometimes I’ll take one look and say “Nope. Never again.”

*This year, I thought both “Ben + Kate” and “The Mindy Project” were worth looking at again at the end of the year to see how they were coming along. I checked back at Christmas, but wasn’t much impressed with the change – both shows seem to be wasting a lot of actors I enjoy, like Chris Messina and Dakota Johnson. Though now that "Ben + Kate" is officially cancelled, I guess those guys are free to do other things.

With “The League,” it was the latter. But I received so many recommendations to pick the show back up that I found I couldn’t ignore it anymore.  And when I finally watched another episode, I found a loose, bawdy, improvisational show completely different show from the one I’d left. The show had made the leap.

It’s this leap forward I’m referring to whenever I start getting animated about why people should watch “New Girl.” Whenever people ask me what I’m watching, that’s the first show I talk about, because it’s a show that's made the leap and hardly anyone noticed. Everyone sees the show’s original conceit (awkward hot girl moves in and baffles the three normal guys living in her apartment) and its star (professional awkward hot girl Zooey Deschanel) and assumes it’s going to be girly, faux-hipster unfunniness.

But instead, sometime last spring (specifically, the two-parter "Fancyman," if you're looking to check this out), it made the leap, and this was already a pretty good show to start with. If you haven't been following TV much lately, this will sound crazy but: it’s the best sitcom on TV.

Don't believe me? I’m not the only one who thinks so.

By the time I started watching “Bent”, the show had already been officially cancelled. NBC blew threw all six episodes they’d made in three weeks, then announced that the show wouldn’t be returning. I was not shocked to hear the news, the promotion for the show had been spotty and mostly dismal, and the ratings had been correspondingly tepid.

They had their work cut out for them on this one, anyway. With a show like “Bent,” you had to sit through a few minutes to catch on to the loose, conversational rhythm of the show. But TV promotions need to be about 10 seconds long (because that’s the only way they know how to market shows), so in every ad, NBC’s marketing department would just pick a quick clip of dialogue that sounded vaguely similar to a standard set up/joke delivery, and then trot that out during commercial breaks. It’s not particularly surprising the strategy didn’t work, and “Bent” disappeared before most people noticed it had ever been.

Most of the shows I watch seem perpetually on the verge of cancellation. Every week, it’s a rallying cry on Twitter, begging for “first-watch eyeballs” (that is, non-DVRed viewing) on the latest “Community” or “Bob’s Burgers.” “Parks and Recreation” is only alive because NBC has nothing else in the tank to replace it. Some are anointing “Happy Endings” the funniest show on TV, just in time for it to likely disappear at the end of the year. “30 Rock” was, at its peak, the 62^nd most watched show on television, and it signed off two weeks ago with one of the characters shouting, “that’s our show! Not a lot of people watched, but joke’s on you, because we got paid anyway!”

I’ve taken part in the begging myself. I’ve submitted a few “watch this, please!” tweets in regards to all the shows above, and I pushed for people to watch “Awake” so it wouldn’t be cancelled (neither of those things happened, sadly). I even feel kinship for campaigns to save shows I don’t particularly enjoy, like the fans who clung to “Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23” until the day it died – though mostly, I feel relieved that I don’t feel attached enough to the show to have to summon the energy to get up in arms about it.

A lot of people harp against the unfairness of it all, but I’ve come to feel the other way about it. It might be unpopular to say, but I kind of…. love following shows that could leave me at any moment.

Television is a static medium. That’s part of the appeal. We meet and fall in love with characters, and every week they return to us.

The trouble is, there’s nowhere else for that relationship to go. The show may get better for a time, and we will grow to love it more, but eventually, inevitably, it will get worse. The experience of watching it will become a chore. The network might take it off the air, or we might give up on it, but the unshakable fact of the matter is that either they will leave us, or we will leave them.

The news that “How I Met Your Mother” had been renewed for a new season would once have filled me with gladness, but now it only brings a hollow dread. As each of the last few seasons has progressed, everything I loved about the show has slowly drained away, until now I find myself unable to root for any of the characters. Each episode only damages the goodwill I have towards the show, and a new season – which I will helplessly watch at least some of – will only damage my relationship with the show more.

Compare that to the early, heady days, when the show was constantly on the brink of cancellation, and only a few CBS execs who liked the show kept it hanging around in hopes of it finally finding an audience. That was a young, alive show, something that looked utterly distinct from this plodding thing that doesn’t know what it wants to be anymore.

Shows that realize that any moment the guillotine could fall are different from their steadier counterparts. The pace is faster, the jokes packed tighter, the showrunners take more chances. I remember someone on a DVD commentary (I think it was Joss Whedon talking about “Firefly,” but who knows) saying that the threat of cancellation is bad for your health, bad for your sleep pattern, bad for your family life, bad for your marriage – but good for your show.

A show like “Modern Family” doesn’t have that attitude. It’s a massive hit, ABC counts on them to anchor a Wednesday night full of unproven comedies, and so everything they do seems safe, predictable. I saw about half-a-dozen episodes of the show this year. They were the exact same as the episodes I watched last year.

I once loved the show, but now there’s no reason to get excited when it airs, because I know there’s nothing I’ll watch that’s any different from anything I’ve seen before.

Of course, part of that may just be me. Knowing I can click away from the show and come back a few weeks later, and the show will still be there… that’s part of what a lot of people like about TV. Television is a dependable bedrock, sending you the same content every week, never messing up something you love. That’s a harder thing to do than I often admit, and it’s not like “NCIS” would be a better or more daring show if they only made ten episodes a season, anyway. It’s steady as a train, and it always arrives at the same station. One day it will be gone, but only when it has outlived its usefulness, and not before.

But a show like “Parks and Recreation,” where at any moment the powers at be can just say, “well, that’s enough of that,” and it’s abruptly gone from my life – it makes me appreciate the show that I’m watching while I’m watching it. Because I know that it’s going to leave me long before I want to leave it.

I tried doing this last year and failed miserably, as I didn’t manage to finish it in the midst of all the end-of-the-year movie reviews I was trying to do, which I also didn’t finish.

Yet another banner year in the world of the Ten-Four Blog.

Still, this is a place where I write when I feel like writing, and so if I start a list at number thirty-two and flame out at about nine, that’s just something we’ll all have to live with.

Where’d I finish in my “Top 100 Albums of All Time” list? I don’t even remember.

In any case, I ranked this list not on quality, but on the enthusiasm with which I looked forward to each episode. The episodes at the top were “drop everything, stay up late, whatever you have to do to see this,” the ones at the bottom were “let ‘em roll up on the DVR and catch ‘em on a lazy Saturday.”

I started a list for this really breaking down my relationship with each show, but my skill set isn’t much suited to that sort of thing. Instead, I’ll just start writing about things I find interesting, then put the final list up after I finish that. Otherwise, I end up so harried by the end that I reject all research and editing, and my reviews begin to look like:

“’Sherlock’ is a British show from a British channel (check on this later) that stars Benedict Cummerbund and Martin Sheen, and features unforgettable performances by guess starts like ______(check IMDB).  There are only a few episodes every season, and the reason is ______ (copy Wikipedia entry). The show is very, very, very well written by Stephen (Steven?) Muffett, who we all remember from his work on “Dr. Who” and ________ (add obscure thing he’s done and a sentence that makes it sound like I’ve seen it). I enjoyed this show very much. Four starts."

Speed is not my strong suit. If I was the lead in “All The President’s Men,” I’d still be hacking away at the Nixon article.