The Best Shows on Cable
filed in Lists, Television Lists, television on Jan.12, 2009
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The Fall 2008 tv lineup was terrible. Don’t get us wrong, there were some good shows here and there, but for the most part, our Netflix queue has been getting good use for the last few months. But while Eleventh Hour was painful to watch and every Heroes episode left us feeling angry and disappointed, cable has come out with some seriously good shows in the last couple of years. The Funniest Show on Cable
None of the characters on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia pass for likable or decent human beings. This is almost always a recipe for a terrible show (see: Kath & Kim), but “Sunny” pulls it off. With episode titles like “Charlie Goes America All Over Everybody’s Ass” and “Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire,” It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is as funny as it is disturbing. While not for the easily offended or anyone who has kids within 200 feet of the TV, Sunny makes us laugh more than any other show on cable. The Best New Show on Cable
There are a handful of cable channels that air good original shows. While HBO, Showtime, and USA make the list, TNT doesn’t usually come to mind. Sure they have short Summer seasons of the Closer…but for most of the year, our DVR doesn’t even know TNT exists. Halfway through their short 13-show first season, Leverage has already become one of our favorite shows on TV. Timothy Hutton leads a team of thieves on Robin Hooding jobs where they help the little guys finally get some justice against greedy corporations. In this day and age of giant corporations getting government bailouts so their CEOs can still get multi-million-dollar bonuses while their employees go on welfare, the victims on this show are people that we can relate to and the Leverage team are heroes we want to see. If you haven’t tuned in yet, see what you’ve missed on TNT’s Web site. Leverage is hands-down, the best new show on cable, and arguably better than any new show the networks debuted in the Fall. We’re hoping it will do so well, that the second season gets a full 20+ episode order. The Best Show We Don’t Want to Admit to Watching
Dexter came out and a few people told us that we should watch it. We didn’t. Then the DVD came out, more people told us to watch it. We didn’t. It wasn’t until we ran a piece about how the 2008 TV lineup was terrible that we started watching Dexter. We got so many recommendations, we figured there had to be something to it. So at long last, we rented season one. We would have watched Dexter sooner, it’s just that a show about a serial killer gives us the creeps. If it were about a vigilante who did the same exact stuff that Dexter does, we would have been on board from day one. And if it weren’t for the fact that Dexter essentially acts like a vigilante, we couldn’t watch it. But the recommendations were right, even though the show is creepy, and we sometimes have to look away from the screen, Dexter is actually a really good show. The Best Duo on Cable
Until Monk and Psych came along, USA spent years calling themselves a network…but nobody believed them - kind of like FOX before The Simpsons. And CBS must have been banking on the fact that USA doesn’t get network-level ratings when they came out with “The Mentalist,” — if you got about 10 minutes into the first episode of that show then said “this is just a cheap ripoff of a Psych with about 5% as much of the comedy (not for want of trying, though),” you’re not alone. In the age of boring CSI and Law and Order spinoffs, Psych is an interesting and compelling criminal drama — or at least it would be if it weren’t so hilarious. If you haven’t seen it yet, add season one to the top of your Netflix queue…now. The Best Show on Cable
On second thought, Psych should be the second thing you watch - after Burn Notice. Burn Notice is about a spy named Michael, whose been burned (blacklisted) from the intelligence community. Every week, he gets a little bit closer to discovering who set him up for his burn notice…in the meantime, he takes on private investigation work with unparalleled cunning. Burn Notice is one of those shows that keeps you coming back for more with every step Michael takes to discovering who set him up and why. The writing and acting are both top-notch (it even has Bruce Campbell from the Evil Dead movies), but it’s Michael’s how-to tips that make this show so cool. Watching Burn Notice, you’ll feel just like you did when you were a kid and you got that spy kit for Christmas. It’s fun, it’s intriguing, and it is the best show on cable.
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