or The 10 best TV shows of 2011
This list for me kind of marks the end broadcast television, because there are only 2 shows that aren’t from a cable channel and one of them just ended. The main thing that makes cable shows better, more then the better acting, writing and technical aspects, is the shorter seasons. All of the cable shows below had a season between 10 and 13 episodes, this allows for a tighter plot better character progression and less of that boring filler that takes up way to much time and grinds even the best shows to a halt. For instance take Fringe, this show slowly built it self up to some pretty amazing places last season but in order to fill out 22 hours a season the show now has to put all that interesting stuff to the side to do some boring monster of the week stuff. And its not like the boring monster of the week stuff is all bad, its just not as good as the rest of the show and the pacing is ruined. The shows below know how to slowly build to a amazing climax in a way better then most movies.
Now having read my list I want you to think back to all your favorite shows. What if all the boring filler was pulled out and what we were left with was a much more suspenseful and emotional journey. How much better would those shows have been? Some of the shows that pop to my head are Alias and Lost, shows that wanted to tell a compelling story but failed. I also think back to my favorite show of all time Lexx which had a pretty lousy 20 hour second season and how much better the third season was when there was only 13. What shows can you think off? Post them in the comments below.