At this point, I have almost finished reviewing all of the shows I've watched prior to starting this blog. It's taken way longer than I was hoping, and while I still have four shows left, I don't quite have the intricate knowledge of them that I had years ago, at least not enough to write full-on seasonal reviews without watching them all over again. And since I'm in the middle of a Precure marathon and have way more shows I want to watch and review in the future, I thought I'd just go over these last few series and give my general thoughts on them. What I liked, what I didn't like, how the quality progresses over the course of each season, which characters and episodes stuck out to me, and how I look back upon them. Maybe some day I'll give one or two of these shows full reviews, but at this point, I think it's time that I wrap these post-reviews up and finally move on to newer things.
Bojack Horseman: If there's any show I'm most-likely to rewatch and give complete seasonal reviews on, it's definitely going to be Bojack Horseman. It's a fantastic series, hands down my favorite out of these four.
Bojack Horseman is an adult-animated comedy about the titular washed-up actor and his daily struggles with depression. Bojack spends the series dealing with his lost fame, constantly alienating his friends, digging himself into deeper and deeper holes, and, despite everything, trying to improve. Meanwhile, his varied lineup of friends are also dealing with their own struggles and flaws. It feels like Bojack Horseman has left some sort of impact on every I know who's watched in and I think it's because, though many of the characters aren't all that great people, the struggles they face are so grounded and human that I think there's someone everyone can relate to here, maybe even multiple. I personally found myself relating hard to Princess Carolyn's arc about separating her personal and professional lives, but also, Todd's asexuality storyline helped me come to terms with my own. Bojack Horseman gets really depressing, no conflict is really ever resolved cleanly. The characters face massive setbacks and regressions, but what keeps the show from falling into sheer hopelessness is that its underlying message remains that people can grow and change. It's hard, and you'll have to work at it every day, but it's possible.
Of course, I said that this was a comedy, and that's still the case. While Bojack Horseman has a lot of drama, it's also incredibly funny, and manages to balance that humor remarkably well. The first few episodes may seem like your standard adult-animation sitcom with that usual stiff Family Guy-esque animation and that usual crass South Park-esque humor, but the show quickly forms its own comedic style, through a huge mix of memorable running gags and uniquely Bojack non-sequiters. The writers even start to experiment with structure and even the animation itself, ranging from episodes focused entirely on specific characters, to episodes that play around with space and time, to an episode with no talking, to an episode with all talking, to episodes with weird-ass drug trips. The cast and crew of Bojack Horseman refused to become complacent throughout the show's entire run. Every single season tries to one up the last in ambition and creativity, and it never overstayed its welcome either. Only six seasons and you could tell the writers were able to say everything they want to say, nothing more and nothing less.
Now let's go over the seasons:
Season 1: I've seen a lot of flack towards this season for its slow start, but I really don't think it's that bad. All the core themes of the series are laid out in the very first episode, the dramatic elements already show up by episode 4, and Say Anything onward is pretty much on par with the rest of the series. It's definitely the weakest of the six seasons since it has to spend time introducing the cast and easing the viewer into the show's world, but the sheer impact when things start to kick into overdrive is unparalleled.
Notable Episodes: The Telescope, Downer Ending
3/5 Stars
Season 2: Season 2 really just expands on everything the first season did right. It's darker, funnier, and doesn't waste time with getting the ball rolling this time around. It's the first season where it really feels like each character has their own defined and fleshed-out arc, and the big climax in Escape From LA is still one of Bojack's most sickening moments. I still think the finale was a bit too tidy and Chickens is probably my least favorite episode of the show, but otherwise, this is a solid improvement over Season 1.
Notable Episodes: Let's Find Out, Escape From LA
4/5 Stars
Season 3: Season 3 is a phenomenal season and the point where Bojack goes from great to amazing. The storylines are stronger than ever before, with the abortion and Bojack Horseman Show ones being especially memorable. We get our first visually-experimental episode in Fish Out Of Water, Todd's asexuality is finally hinted at, and the last few episodes are not only emotionally crushing but actually end the season on a bit of a darker and messier note compared to the last two.
Notable Episodes: Fish Out Of Water, Best Thing That Ever Happened, That's Too Much Man, That Went Well
5/5 Stars
Season 4: Season 4 finally delves head on into Bojack's family and... it honestly leaves me a bit mixed. I love the addition of Hollyhock, she's a great character who brings out the best in Bojack. However, the stuff around Bojack's mother didn't quite grab me as much as many other of the show's plotlines. I can't deny the quality of episodes like The Old Sugerman Place and Time's Arrow, but I guess they just didn't have the same impact on me as they would've on someone in Bojack's position. Still, there are a lot of phenomenal standalone episodes and an increased amount of experimental stuff to still make for a great season, just not that hit me quite as hard personally.
Notable Episodes: Hooray Todd Episode, Stupid Piece Of Shit, Ruthie, Time's Arrow
4/5 Stars
Season 5: Season 5 is my favorite season of Bojack Horseman. The main plotline revolves around Bojack actually managing to get a role again, which leads to a season about the filming of a TV show: My favorite kind of plot. It's not all guns and roses though because after the slightly more uplifting Season 4, Bojack starts to regress hard in Season 5 to the point where he finally decides he needs to go to rehab. I love the overarching theme that Bojack is not a role model and a tragic backstory doesn't exonerate him of the stuff he did wrong, which seems almost directly targeted at a certain group of viewers. Not to mention all the other great storylines like Todd in an asexual relationship, Princess Carolyn adopting a kid, and literally everything about Birthday Dad. There's a bunch of truly stellar experimental episodes, and one of the show's best finales to top it all off.
Notable Episodes: The Amelia Earhart Story, Free Churro, The Showstopper, The Stopped Show
5/5 Stars
Season 6: I've never been a fan of final seasons that were split in halves like this, it leaves the whole feeling somewhat disjointed. But when you get past the structure, Season 6 really does have the most standout episodes out of any season. You got stellar character studies like The New Client and Good Damage, great comedic episodes like Surprise!, and that whole phenomenal final story arc that wraps everything up wonderfully. Season 6 just does a good job at resolving everyone's storylines, and the ending simply feels satisfying. Not to mention The View From Halfway Down is one of the most harrowing episodes of TV I've ever seen and its existence alone makes this season great, an easy second place for my favorite season.
Notable Episodes: The New Client, Surprise, The Face Of Depression, Xerox Of A Xerox, The View From Halfway Down, Nice While It Lasted
5/5 Stars
Bojack Horseman is one of the greatest shows of the 2010s, and honestly just one of the best animation series in general. The characters are fleshed-out and interesting, the writing is sharp and clever, the drama is gripping and emotionally effective, the animation is inventive, and the show manages to balance a whole bunch of disparate tones pretty much perfectly.
5/5 Stars
The West Wing: The West Wing is a fine political show carried hard by its lovable cast and the immaculate writing of Aaron Sorkin. Because in terms of plotting, The West Wing is actually fairly unconcerned with your standard seasonal storytelling. There's still cliffhangers and stuff, but major events may happen at random points in the middle of a season, and the actual season finales can often leave plotlines resolved. I'm not gonna lie, it's a bit frustrating at times, you really have to take each episode as they are.
Thankfully, as mentioned above, the real brilliance of The West Wing comes in Aaron Sorkin's screenplays. That man is a dialogue wizard, his writing is fast, witty, distinct, and just a joy to listen to. I've seen more and more backlash over unrealistic dialogue as of late, but when done well, there's nothing quite like listening to a classic Sorkin or Tarantino back-and-forth. Not to mention that when West Wing does fully commit to a serialized story like with the election or Bartlet's MS, it makes for some damn good television. I've also seen criticisms towards The West Wing's politics since it's a pretty idealistic show, and... yeah, I'm sorry, that's a stupid criticism. It's fine if the idealistic elements make you uncomfortable, but to fault a show from the Y2K era for not having the same cynical spirit of the 2020s is just plain unreasonable.
Another element of The West Wing that really stands out as great are the characters, who are all incredibly memorable and lovable. Press secretary CJ Cregg is the obvious highlight here, but between the president we all wish we had in Bartlet, the charismatic Sam Seaborn, and the gripping will-they-won't-they pairing of Josh and Donna just make for an incredibly strong and well-rounded cast of characters. The strong writing obviously helps these characters be even more appealing, since standout episodes really just put a bunch of characters in a room and let them talk, but it also helps that the performances on the part of the cast are fantasitc too. And it's a stellar cast, Martin Sheen, Bradley Whitford, Allison Janney, and even Rob Lowe and Dule Hill before they really hit it big with Parks And Rec and Psych respectively.
Season 1: Season 1 of The West Wing is really everything you'd want from a first season of your show. It efficiently introduces the characters, puts them in a variety of entertaining political situations, and slowly unveils more layers to the cast over time. Aaron Sorkin's style is apparent right from the incredible opening, as is the cast's chemistry There isn't much of an overarching story here, though, and while the cliffhanger at the end is fantastic, it comes at the end of what's otherwise a very standard episode.
Notable Episodes: The Short List, He Shall From Time To Time, Celestial Navigation, What Kind Of Day Has It Been
3/5 Stars
Season 2: Season 2 is a pretty big step-up over the first, and is probably the only season where the plot elements really carry it. The opening and Christmas episode about the fallout of Season 1's big shooting are incredibly intense and emotional, and those final few episodes about Bartlet dealing with having to come out his MS is some of the most gripping television in general. Once again, though, I have to criticize the finale. Two Cathedrals is one of the most widely-praised episodes of television ever for its acting and stellar monologues, which I mostly agree with, but it kinda fails as a finale since it unsatisfyingly pushes a bunch of other characters and storylines to next season to focus solely on Bartlet. Still, otherwise, a pretty stellar season.
Notable Episodes: In The Shadow Of Two Gunmen, Noel, The Stackhouse Filibuster, 17 People, 18th And Potomac, Two Cathedrals
4/5 Stars
Season 3: Season 3 of The West Wing is my favorite of the bunch. The decision to focus it solely on the election means the season has a consistent sense of momentum, and yet there's also a great amount of genuinely fantastic standalone episodes as well. Hell, three of my personal favorites are all back-to-back. And the final arc about CJ's bodyguard is an incredibly tragic and compelling way to end the season, even if it's not quite as iconic as the MS storyline from last season.
Notable Episodes: Machester, Bartlet For America, Hartsfield's Landing, Dead Irish Writers, The US Poet Laureate, Posse Comitatus
5/5 Stars
Season 4: The final season of The West Wing has a strong start, a strong end, and a meh middle. The first few episodes do a phenomenal job at resolving Season 3's election storyline is a satisfying and rewarding manner. It's a great miniarc on its own merits. The final few episodes have some of the most nail-building tense moments of the whole show as well as my favorite episode in Commencement. The middle of the season, on the other hand, is kinda just boring. With both the election and the MS stuff over, The West Wing had lost all of its narrative drive, and it wasn't until Sorkin start to build towards the end of his run on the show when that drive picked up again.
Notable Episodes: 20 Hours In America, Game On, Election Night, Evidence Of Things Not Seen, Commencement, 25
4/5 Stars
Post-Season 5: Notice how I called Season 4 the final season? Well, that's because it is to me. After Season 4's finale, Aaron Sorkin left to do other things, and the show immediately suffered. I tried watching Season 5 but couldn't go more than two episodes, the West Wing had lost all the things that made it special. The characters felt less likable, the tone felt jarringly depressing, and the show feels like it had completely lost its soul. The West Wing is often solely praised for Sorkin's dialogue, but I think he truly understood his characters more than anyone else, because the moment he leaves, it's like The West Wing has turned into something far different and worse.
Overall, The West Wing is such a strange show. The way it structures itself is unconventional and it's fair to say the politics of it haven't aged the best, and yet the writing, the characters, the standout moments of drama, and the sentimental tone still holds up in my eyes. I don't think I would've been as frustrated about the Season 5 shift if I hadn't grown so attached to this series to begin with.
4/5 Stars
How I Met Your Mother: How I Met Your Mother is a sitcom that I loved while I was watching it, but had slowly gone down in my rankings the more I've deliberated on it.
HIMYM tries to capture the same combination of grounded comedy and relationship drama as Friends, and while the cast doesn't have quite the same chemistry, it brings a lot of neat ideas to the table. There's a stronger emphasis on serialized plotlines, flashbacks and flash-forwards, cutaway gags, and character development. HIMYM is at often its best when it's playing around with time, whether it's in more comedic episodes like The Pineapple Incident or in more dramatic episodes like How Your Mother Met Me. I also like how it downplays some of the multi-camera tropes, like how it dims the laugh track and allows the characters to spend a lot of time out in the city. Speaking of which, I also love HIMYM's depiction of New York City, it feels like the writers have an intimate understanding of what makes that place so special, rivaling NYC classics like You've Got Mail and Spider Man.
However, the more I look back on it, the more holes HIMYM tends to have. While I like almost the whole cast, especially Barney and Robin, the main lead in Ted is immensely unlikable and suffers from the same "nice guy" pitfalls that someone like Ross does. The show also starts tor really drag as it goes on, as later seasons take increasingly longer periods of time for any progress to be made, culminating in Seasons 8 & 9 which easily could've been compressed into a single season. But most of all, HIMYM just has a shit ending. While the alternate ending slightly dulls the pain, Last Forever is a pretty horrible finale that goes back on all of the show's build-up, reverting the status quo to Season 1. As someone who was able to tolerate the Dexter finale, this really dragged down the series for me.
Season 1: A solid first season that does a good job at introducing the characters and demonstrating the show's strengths. I have a bit of bitterness towards it for the series finale, but otherwise, it's pretty good.
Notable Episodes: The Pineapple Incident, Game Night, Come On
3/5 Stars
Season 2: Great season, one of the best. Lily and Marshall's wedding is a great storyline, there's a lot of strong comedic episodes, and the finale arc that confirms Ted and Robin as a lost cause is a bold move (even if the finale goes back on it).
Notable Episodes: Swarley, Arrivaderci Fiero, Something Borrowed, Something Blue
4/5 Stars
Season 3: Season 3 gets off to a pretty great start, but it really begins to fall off around the second half. Part of that is probably because of Stella, who I was never really a fan of. The slightly shorter length doesn't really help either. However, it did introduce the Barney and Robin relationship, so I like it for that.
Notable Episodes: How I Met Everyone Else, Spoiler Alert, Sandcastles In The Sand
3/5 Stars
Season 4: My favorite season. It lacks the high points of some of the other seasons, but it's so consistently strong and funny. There's not a single weak episodes in the entire lineup. The buildup towards Barney and Robin getting together is great, and the finale really could've worked as a definitive ending for the show.
Notable Episodes: Intervention, The Naked Man, The Possimpible, The Three Days Rule, The Leap
4/5 Stars
Season 5: While slightly less consistent than Season 4, this season has a bunch of truly outstanding episodes like Girls Vs Suits and The Playbook. I'm not a fan of how it immediately tears apart Barney and Robin, though.
Notable Episodes: The Playbook, The Window, Girls Vs Suits, Perfect Week
3/5 Stars
Season 6: Season 6 has a lot to love, with some of my favorite comedic and dramatic episodes and storylines in the show. The finale is one of the most satisfying, I love the Marshall's dad arc, and the whole season feels like it tells a good complete story. However, Zoey sucks and drags down the whole thing for me.
Notable Episodes: Subway Wars, Glitter, False Positive, Bad News, Challenge Accepted
3/5 Stars
Season 7: Genuinely underrated season. The lineup of episodes is genuinely really solid, and the midpoint has one of my favorite stretches in the whole show. It's still not as consistent as some of the earlier seasons, but Season 7 truly has some high points.
Notable Episodes: Disaster Averted, Tick Tick Tick, Symphony Of Illumination, Trilogy Time, The Magician's Code
4/5 Stars
Season 8: While the opening breakup arc, the midseason Final Page two-parter, and the final batch of episodes are all really good, Season 8 spends a lot of its time with not much happening, and the comedy and creativity just isn't enough to fill in those gaps.
Notable Episodes: The Final Page, The Time Travelers, Something New
2/5 Stars
Season 9: When it's building up to the finale, Season 9 has some genuinely fantastic episodes, some of my favorites in the whole show. However, the painfully slow first half and the awful finale drag it down pretty hard.
Notable Episodes: Platoonish, How Your Mother Met Me, Gary Blauman, End Of The Aisle
2/5 Stars
Overall, How I Met Your Mother is a perfectly solid sitcom. It's funny enough, has some good characters, brings some neat new ideas to the table, and has a lot of super memorable episodes. However, with a bad main character and a very disappointing ending, the show never really rises past just being good.
3/5 Stars
Mad Men: I'll always have a soft-spot for Mad Men for being the first proper 45-minute-long drama I've ever watched. Seriously, prior to then, I had only been watching sitcoms. Because of this, I'm pretty sure a lot of Mad Men went over my head, but the really impactful moment and general vibes have resonated with me to this day.
Mad Men is a period drama that looks at the decade of the 60s through the eyes of an advertising agency. The cast of characters within said advertising agency spend the series rising up and falling down the ranks of their company, but the focus is mostly on Don Draper and Peggy Carter, the former of which is an outwardly charismatic advertiser with a dark past and some serious infidelity problems, and the latter of which is a new secretary who spends the series slowly getting hardened by the shit she deals with in her new job. There's a lot of other characters too, all of whom also have their own struggles, but what's interesting about Mad Men is that there isn't much of a plot here. You really just spend the show observing these characters over the course of the decade, become innately familiar with their strengths and weaknesses, and watch how they change. It works for the show, though, because change does happen, particularly in season finales which shamelessly blow up the status quo which still feeling natural. It's Mad Men's slow methodical pace that makes the more dramatic moments all the more shocking.
The closest thing Mad Men has to actual progression is the decade of the 60s itself. The show slowly moves from 1961-1969, and is peppered with episodes based on big real-life events from that era as we watch the characters react to them. There's something so unique about the way Mad Men depicts its time period. From a purely aesthetic level, Mad Men makes the 60s look like a wonderland. Everything is clean and slick, colors pop, and the fashion is intricate. You can tell a lot of effort was put into the set and costume design to really give Mad Men its own unique aesthetic. And yet, when you delve deeper into the subtext, under all the bright colors and clean settings, the 60s kinda sucks. Mad Men doesn't shy away from the rampant racism, sexism, and homophobia of the era, and whenever one of those aforementioned big real-life events happen, the show leans in hard on the feelings of dread that surface because of them. For example, the episode about the Cuban Missile Crisis shows the almost apocalyptic vibe, as pretty much everyone had begun to fear that a missile could come in and kill all of them at any time. It's this juxtaposition between the aesthetics and the substance of the 60s that made Mad Men so memorable to me, simultaneously feeding into nostalgia for the era while also subverting it.
Season 1: Season 1 is still one of my favorite Mad Men seasons solely for how cohesive it is. You can tell the crew wasn't sure if they were going to get another season, so it really manages to work as its own individual story. There's a nice mystery element in uncovering Don's past, and the final two episodes make for a pretty perfect ending that balances both satisfying plot resolutions and more thematic resolutions.
Notable Episodes: Red In The Face, Nixon Vs Kennedy, The Wheel
4/5 Stars
Season 2: Season 2 suffers from having to follow up a season that worked so well on its own. The first episodes practically feel like the show is starting entirely anew, and you have to wait a frustratingly long time for anything that happened in Season 1 to actually get addressed. However, once the season actually gets going, the second half is still pretty great. Betty learning about Don's infidelity transitioning to Don's trip to California makes for a pretty surprising and intense end to the season.
Notable Episodes: The Gold Violin, Meditations In An Emergency
3/5 Stars
Season 3: Season 3 is probably the best season of Mad Men, it not only tells a great story but it has some of the best episodes of the series. Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency in particular is a subversive gem that pretty much encapsulates the show as a whole. And so much happens here, from Sal's outing arc, to the Hilton storyline, to Betsy learning about Don's past, all culminating in one of the best season finales to any TV show.
Notable Episodes: My Old Kentucky Home, Guy Walks Into An Advertising Agency, The Gypsy And The Hobo, Shut The Door Have A Seat
5/5 Stars
Season 4: Season 4 is also pretty great. It's the most consistently strong season even if it doesn't have as many high points as its predecessor. The new offices really are a great change of pace and it's neat to watch Don and co build up their new company, but the highlight is definitely the almost entirely Don-and-Peggy-driven The Suitcase, rightfully considered one of the show's best episodes.
Notable Episodes: The Chrysanthemum And The Sword, The Suitcase, Tomorrowland
4/5 Stars
Season 5: Season 5 feels like it starts a new era for Mad Men, and that's not entirely unfounded. There was a year spaced out between the last two seasons, and Tomorrowland pretty much split up Betty and Don for good, as they both started their own families. Personally, I found Season 5 kinda has similar issues to Season 2 where it kinda feels like yet another first season, but there's still a diverse range of memorable episodes scattered throughout capped off by a pretty crazy one-two-three punch at the very. Peggy leaving in The Other Woman in particular may be my favorite moment in the entire series.
Notable Episodes: Signal 30, The Other Woman, Commissions And Fees
3/5 Stars
Season 6: Season 6 suffers pretty heavily from the feeling that the show has started to run out of ideas. While the big company mergers used to be shocking, at this point, they've really started to feel played out. The quality of episodes also just isn't as there in Season 6, with the drug-fueled The Crash in particular being my least favorite episode and a wild tonal shift. As a whole, Season 6 kinda felt like it was stalling, which made its great finale In Care Of that finally started to push things to an ending all the more satisfying.
Notable Episodes: The Flood, In Care Of
2/5 Stars
Season 7: Season 7 is... weird. It's a big mix of stuff I love and stuff I don't quite like as much. I love the storyline about Don having practically been fired, I love the McMann merger because of how final it feels, I love Don's trip near the end and the ending it results in, and I even like Betty dealing with her mortality. However, I don't like the fact that the season was split in two, or how Peggy's happy ending was ending up with someone, or the overly gross way Michael was written out. It leads to a season that mostly felt like a bit of a mixed bag, but I liked Person To Person enough that I'm at least very satisfied with how it ended.
Notable Episodes: Waterloo, Time & Life, The Milk And Honey Route, Person To Person
4/5 Stars
Overall, Mad Men is such a weird anomaly of a show. It's simultaneously a relaxing nostalgia trip through a glorified version of the 60s, and a dramatic deconstruction of the era. It's a plotless character-driven slice of life, that also happens to boast some of the craziest plot twists I've seen in a show. These paradoxes feel they should make Mad Men feel like a disjointed mess, but it's not, it all meshes together into a drama that feels like one of its kind. Maybe that's why I still look back fondly on Mad Men even after all the shows I've seen since, because it still feels so unique of a drama.
4/5 Stars
