The Spy Who Charmed Me

As I spoke about two weeks ago, some great TV shows go unseen by audiences during their original air dates. They can fail for any number of reasons, but most shows are ultimately cancelled based on viewership stats. If a show isn't watched, then advertisers won't pay for commercials during that time slot, then the network has little choice but to cancel the program. Others may have just not been marketed correctly, or were on a network that not a lot of people knew about/watched. When Veronica Mars was on the air from 2004-2006, all of these factors probably played a role in its ultimate demise.

All the Vice President's Men and Women

Politics on television, as well as real life, have always been a tricky proposition. Power, greed, and desire all come in to play as countless politicians vie for whatever it is they --  or their constituents and financial supporters -- want. This can be an entertaining vein to dig into, given the natural drama and conflict that comes with running an entire country. Scandal and House of Cards seem to be the newest, juiciest iterations of tapping into political drama.

Partners in (Stopping ...and Sometimes Committing) Crime

One of the bastions of quality television is the cancelled-to-soon, critically adored show that only ends up being on the air for a season or two. There are a myriad of reasons for these cancellations, but the most often culprit is simply that no one watched it. Terriers on FX is a great example of this unfortunate, all too often occurrence.

The Dog Ate My Soul

Rarely does a television show's basic premise seem so far-fetched that you can't believe it made it to air. Wilfred on FX (and later FXX) fits that bill. The titular Wilfred is a dog, but not just any dog. In the mind and vision of protagonist Ryan Newman (played by Elijah Wood), Wilfred appears to be a talking man dressed in a dog costume (series co-creator Jason Gann). Ryan's also, unfortunately, the only person who can see Wilfred this way, which leads to a lot of awkward and unexplainable situations with his friends and family. No one ever really catches on, but there are a lot of close calls. The show begins with Ryan being depressed and suicidal after leaving his abusive father's law firm. With no clear direction or purpose in his life, Ryan and Wilfred strike up a friendship after Wilfred's owner Jenna moves in next door.

The Bold and the Beautiful

Serialized television can be a visceral and all-consuming medium. Devotees to certain shows lap up every piece of content they can find, spend money on merchandise, and even create their own fan art. They scour online fan communities, social media sites and message boards to speculate and theorize about what everything means and what's going to happen next. Obviously, the internet has catalyzed a lot of this growth by organizing fans from all over the world over their mutual love for a given show. House of Cards and Orange is the New Black appear to most recent examples of this phenomenon, while Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead seem to be on a whole other level by themselves. Netflix, on-demand, and other streaming services have helped proliferate these shows to reach audiences they wouldn't have reached five or ten years ago.

While so much fanfare and internet attention is devoted to these big tent pole properties, other smaller shows still get unnoticed; criminally so in some cases. In many ways, that's what this blog will be devoted to; taking the shows relegated to the TV-darkness and bringing them into the light. Let's get started with two of my recent favorites.