Charlie Toft,
Dec 30, 2008
Late December is a time for New Year's resolutions, but also an occasion for looking backwards one more time. Here are some of the memorable episodes from the TV year 2008, in rough order of their significance:
1. "Late Editions," The Wire
The penultimate episode of this acclaimed study of urban America began with a moment of triumph: the arrest of street kingpin Marlo and his key lieutenants. But the good news for the police proved to be short-lived, and things would get even more heartbreaking for viewers, as any hope that teens Michael and Dukie would escape their destinies was lost forever.
2. "The Constant," Lost
We don't see as much of Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) as many other Lost characters, but his episodes have become reliable emotional highlights over the past three seasons. This episode, which revealed that Desmond's consciousness is on a roller coaster through time, had its complicated elements (check any Heroes episode over the last two years to see how badly time travel can go off the rails) but proved again that there's real heart on Lost beneath all the fanboy trappings.
3. "Family Meeting," The Shield
The series finale didn't give Vic Mackey the bloody sendoff many had hoped for, but a different form of punishment for him instead: a sterile office cubicle, isolated from family and hated by whatever former colleagues hadn't been killed off. It will be a long time before I forget the image of Shane's wife and son laid out dead on the bed, the last victims of his stupidity.
4. "House's Head," House
This episode began with House injured in a bus accident and suffering amnesia. Why he was on the bus, and why he was insisting against all reason that someone on the bus was mortally ill even before the accident, was a puzzle with a devastating payoff that only deepened with the following week's season finale. The hour also featured Cuddy (Lisa Edelstein) stripping in a fantasy sequence, which was a harbinger of what we've seen so far in this current, very ordinary season.
5. The Late Show With David Letterman, September 24
After more than 25 years in the late-night game, Letterman sometimes needs an outside motivation to seem fully engaged in his show. He got one when John McCain canceled an appearance using the excuse that he was needed in Washington, only to pop up that night on the CBS Evening News -- at the same hour The Late Show was taping. Letterman's caustic response touched off three weeks of anti-McCain barbs that proved he can still set a pop culture agenda.
6. "Revelations," Battlestar Galactica
They actually did it: they made it to Earth. How they got there, and why what they found meant it was not yet the final episode of the series, was what made this a memorable hour in an otherwise puzzlingly slow-paced first half of the season. Edward James Olmos did not get a deserved Emmy nomination based on his work here, but everyone with the show is used to that by now.
7. "Six Month Leave," Mad Men
It wasn't easy to single out one episode from the second season of Mad Men, but I chose this poignant hour that marked the end of the line for a minor character, the jovial alcoholic Freddy Rumsen, out of place in a business becoming increasingly bottom line. Great work from Joel Murray as Freddy, and from the always excellent John Slattery, whose deceptively carefree Roger Sterling finds a startling way to combat his own feelings of obsolescence.
8. "If It Smells Like a Rat, Give It Cheese," Survivor: Micronesia
The 16th season of the reality staple was divided in two: a desultory first half, followed by a second half that reached new heights of insanity on a weekly basis. This hour saw the truly impossible take place: young and mousy Erik, who knew he was doomed without immunity, won it and then gave it up ... because some women told him they wouldn't like him anymore unless he did so.
9. "Two and a Half Deaths," CSI
High on the very short list of "positive outcomes from the writers' strike" was this hour, the result of an idle proposal that the writing staffs of CSI and Two and a Half Men should swap shows for one episode. The CSI folks tanked as sitcom writers, but the Two and a Half Men crew put together one of the silliest events of the year for Grissom and the gang, complete with barely disguised barbs that co-writer Chuck Lorre aimed at past nemeses like Roseanne Barr. This was a love it-or-hate it episode for CSIniks, but I came down on the love side.
10. Saturday Night Live, October 4
The Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin phenomenon peaked here, with the Palin/Joe Biden debate sketch, co-starring Queen Latifah. But the rest of this episode, hosted by Anne Hathaway, was well above average also, with Hathaway playing Mary Poppins with a venereal disease, and Andy Samberg's surreal turn as an animal-loving Mark Wahlberg.
11."The Pilot Episode Sanction," The Middleman
To be honest, I don't know that I recall one particular episode of this series as standing out over any others, but I have to make one more pitch for ABC Family to keep this goofball superhero spoof alive. TV can always use one more show that doesn't take itself seriously.
12. "Go Your Own Way," Dexter
This was a very uneven third season for Dexter, but its unquestioned highlight was Jimmy Smits playing way against type as Miguel Prado, a Miami district attorney who develops an unprofessional interest in Dexter's secret life. This was the episode where the full extent of the danger Prado posed for Dexter and for anyone else who might cross him became evident. Could Smits have a whole second career as a bad guy ahead of him?
13. "Alaska Bites Back," The Alaska Experiment
A trio of friends have done such a good job of preparing for the Alaskan winter on this Discovery reality show that they decide to hike over and visit one of the other groups in the experiment. But the plan to take just a couple of days turned into a week-long nightmare of exhaustion, exposure, and dehydration. With cameras around, none of the participants were in true danger, but watching them stumble around in the snow hallucinating was surprisingly scary.
14. "...And the Bag's in the River," Breaking Bad
One day you're a struggling but reasonably content high school teacher; the next day you have inoperable lung cancer and you're in a fight to the death with the rival drug dealer that's chained up in your basement.
15. "Bomb in the Garden," Generation Kill
The last episode of the HBO miniseries found a Marine recon battalion in Baghdad, decompressing from the war they believed was over, but picking up the first hints of the long and confusing quasi-war ahead. In one sequence, we finally see the Marines using the awesome recon skills they have trained for but never used ... in order to enter an abandoned government building that they proceeded to trash.
16. "Kyle Ainge," Nip/Tuck
For just one reason: Sharon Gless killing a man with a toy bear-stuffing machine. Merry Christmas!
