UGH, The Worst! 2012

Because when you have a blog you make lists at the end of the year otherwise it's not a real blog.

Lena Dunham/"Girls"

This was the year in which an uber-privileged white girl wrote a show called "Girls" in which the people of color that populate New York City became a backdrop upon which to paint a portrait of said privilege.  The fact that Dunham knew exactly what she was doing and made a conscious decision to NOT include any queers or POC in significant roles on her show makes it all so much worse.  And yet, even after a brutal take-down by critics, blogs, and viewers, white people's love of watching neurotic white people won out.  The AV Club, which is my go-to place for online TV criticism, wrote this and I died a little inside:

An Expert Discussion On The Closing Of The "Gossip Girl" Ouvre

Lauren: Ok so seriously I did not even know about Gossip Girl ending until this morning when I read this article:http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/12/xoxo-conspicuous-consumption-how-the-economy-killed-gossip-girl/266181/

Lauren: Otherwise I would have been texting you much more often about it than I already have

Lauren: That, for me, is the saddest part about this whole thing...the end of our texts about Gossip Girl

Lauren:  "UGH SERENA'S DRESS IS THE UGLIEST DRESS THAT HAS EVER EXISTED"

Lauren: "I am riding the Dan & Blair train all the way to Awesomeville. DAN+BLAIR4EVA"

Lauren:  "Chuck has a dog. Its name is Monkey"

Lauren: “uggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh Serenaaaaaaaaaaaa”

Lauren: "ugh, serena ruins everything."

Lauren: "CHUCK+MONKEY4EVA"

Lauren: But I have to say that as someone who was initially not only resistant to, but actually disgusted by Gossip Girl, the show, in all its multifaceted horribleness, has really come to grow on me

Lauren: I went back and found all my posts tagged "Gossip Girl" - this first one is worth reading. And you HAVE to watch the video, the video is still amazing: http://the-hedgepig.blogspot.com/2010/08/you-cant-make-me-love-gossip-girl-if-i.html

Lauren: And the show came back from that and was on my "The Best" list last year:

"Dan and Blair (and Chuck?)
I know that it is never to be and that Chuck and Blair are meant to be together, but Dan's love for Blair and the possibility of them boning has kept me watching Gossip Girl even after I stopped reading Richard's Gawker TV recaps. And while Dan and Blair (Dair? Blan?) may never be a couple, that doesn't mean a future plot twist won't involve them knockin' da boots and putting everyone into a tizzy. MAKE IT HAPPEN, writers. Honestly, maybe THEY should all be polyamorous, Chuck and Dan seem to be getting pretty tight with all that talking and bonding they've been doing. Dan got him a DOG and Chuck named that dog MONKEY. That's at least worth a handy during a three-way."

"The Perfect Last Christmas Party"

I realized a few days ago that I haven't really been talking about my shows much this fall - by that I mean the shows that are my real favorites, like Parks & Recreation.  Partly it's because I've been so busy, and partly it's because Community's not on the air, but it's also partly due to the fact that I've been watching with a more over-arching point of view, instead of simply evaluating shows on an episode by episode basis.  And with that in mind, it is time to talk about The Office.

Now, I have loved The Office for a very long time, and I was never the hugest Michael Scott fan.  I even thought the show had the potential to improve in his absence.  But they made some bad decisions along the way and cast the wrong people and went way too far down the Robert California rabbit hole and last season the show was, let's face it, bad.  Very bad.

But then this season came around.  And since we all know this is the final year, the show has been given a chance to get back to where it started as well and demonstrate how far it's come.  At the center of all that is the combination of relationships between Dwight, Jim, and Pam.  Oh, sure, there's Erin and New Jim, and Angela and Oscar, and all the rest in between and they're great, but resolving the Dwight/Jim/Pam relationships is clearly the documentarian's goal.  As someone who knows the early seasons to an obsessive point it is absolutely captivating and joyful to watch the pleasantly gradual denouement of these characters.

The Office's first Christmas episode was a classic in both the Michael-is-a-clueless-jerk and the Jim-and-Pam-are-tragically-in-love veins, with the Yankee Swap and the teapot and the shameless-but-apt iPod promotion and the Meredith's boobs.  It set the stage for many, many more great Christmas episodes - the dueling margarita/nutcracker parties (which includes my favorite Creed line: "I don't care which party I go to. Once you've danced naked at a hash bonfire with the spirits of the dead, all parties seem pretty much the same"); the Morrocan Meredith Intervention Christmas (which I believe was also the Princess Unicorn episode - "My horn can pierce the sky!"); the one where Phyllis is Santa.  The Christmas party is a time where the employees of Dunder Mifflin open up and get drunk and embrace the holiday spirit, and it's always a highlight of the season.  Last year's Christmas episode was a bright spot in a dark, glum year.