Best of the 00s: Best TV Music Moments

Television offers so many different examples of the rich potential in uniting images and music - both original to the show and previously recorded. This list seems a little intense, but here's my chronologically-ordered rundown of some of my favorite television music moments of the decade:

"Lady" - Styx and Nick Andopolis (Jason Segel), Freaks and Geeks - "Boyfriends and Girlfriends" (1/16/00)

It seems fitting that this particular moment came only a few weeks into the decade, because Freaks and Geeks still feels so formative to me as a television viewer. There isn't much to say about this that I haven't already, but I'll add that I love that nearly a decade later I can still see Jason Segel being goofy on television on a weekly basis.

"Heat Wave" - Martha and the Vandellas, American Dreams - "Pilot" (9/29/02)

A few weeks ago, I was reading a quote from Jon Hamm where he observed that Mad Men is not American Dreams, particularly referring to the latter's featuring black characters within its narrative. The musical moment here, which comes about four minutes into the clip below, highlights the fundamental difference in tone between the decade's two major depictions of 1960s life - while Dreams featured many of the conflicts that defined the 60s, it also placed some value on a sense of warmth and community. The explosive sense of joy that came when "Heat Wave" kicked in, emblematic of the show's use of popular music, made this a truly wonderful pilot.

"Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me" - Clay Aiken, American Idol - "Season Two Wild Card Performance Show" (3/4/03)

True Confessions Alert: When the second season of Idol aired, I was sixteen years old and I loved Clay Aiken. I was never one of those fans that was deeply invested in his mythic heterosexuality - I just though he had a beautiful singing voice, and voted for him every single week. There are other performances I could have chosen (this past week's Community reminded me of how much I liked his "Somewhere Out There," and he had one of the few non-terrible finale songs in many seasons of the show) but I went with the wild card performance that got him into the top 12.

"Shakin'" - Rooney, The O.C. - "The Third Wheel" (1/7/04)

Before they added the Bait Shack in Season Two and built performances by popular musicians into the show, the first season episode featuring this performance by Rooney felt novel. (To me - I mean, I wasn't old enough to have seen the same kind of thing on previous teen shows.) It also remains a favorite for introducing me to a band I continue to love.

"If You Leave" - Nada Surf, The O.C. - "The Goodbye Girl" (3/3/04)

Music Supervisor Alexandra Patsavas has been behind several TV music moments that prompted me to then purchase said music - I believe this was the first. She chose several gorgeous covers for moments on The O.C. - Ryan Adams' take on "Wonderwall," Petra Haden's "Yellow" - but this may have been the best. It featured the departure of a great character before that kind of thing took the show downhill, and drew upon the John Hughes music legacy without feeling forced.

"It Ain't Easy Being White" - G.O.B. and Franklin Delano Bluth (Will Arnett), Arrested Development - "Righteous Brothers" (4/16/05)

Was there ever a more perfect representation of G.O.B.'s all-consuming self-absorption than Franklin? This song serves as just one example of what made Arrested Development totally unlike anything else on television.

"Muffin Top" - Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakowski), 30 Rock - "Jack-Tor" (11/16/06)

I think it says a lot about popular dance music of the decade that this is what a parody of it sounds like. Props to Jane Krakowski for her 100% commitment to Jenna's insanity and total lack of self-knowledge.

Muffin Top - Celebrity bloopers here

"Let's Go to the Mall" - Robin Sparkles (Cobie Smulders), How I Met Your Mother - "Slap Bet" (11/20/06)

I think with How I Met Your Mother, a lot of people can't get past their association of the multi-camera setup and the laugh track as relics of a bygone age of comedy. It's too bad for them, because then they miss awesome stuff like "Let's Go to the Mall," the denouement of perhaps the show's best episode. It is simultaneously hilariously goofy and insanely catchy, making it a winner in every way.

"Open Your Eyes" - Snow Patrol, The Black Donnellys - "Pilot" (2/26/07)

This comes from a time when Snow Patrol seemed to be everywhere, particularly "Chasing Cars." This is an example of a song that I heard previously on another show (Grey's Anatomy in this case) but in this specific circumstance, it made me sit up and pay attention. The cascading notes that close the song, paired with the pilot's framing of the violent origins of a destructive crime family, gave the scene a dire, apocalyptic air that I still remember even though the show was short-lived.

"Wild World" - Cast, Skins - "Everyone" (3/22/07)

To some extent, this moment is emblematic of how significant music can be to a show, and how much can get lost in translation. The music rights for Skins, a British show, don't apply to the U.S. releases of the show, which in most places just means that popular songs get switched out for genre-similar approximations. However, the DVD version of the first season finale cuts out this moment - where members of the cast sing the Cat Stevens classic - out completely, causing a scene jump that makes little narrative sense. On top of that, it's also a unique, beautiful moment that serves as an example of what makes Skins so excellent.

YouTube won't let me embed: Link

"All Along the Watchtower" - Bear McCreary, Battlestar Galactica - "Crossroads, Part Two" (3/25/07)

"Crossroads, Part Two" was the first BSG episode that I ever watched on a television (as opposed to my computer) and the closing moments featuring this song epitomized that increase in quality. The ties between the people BSG depicted and people today was always sketchy - references to "Earth" and Greek gods made it clear that we weren't totally distinct, but bringing in Bob Dylan to *spoiler alert!* introduce four of the final five Cylons was a gamechanger. BSG composer McCreary's take on "Watchtower" is hauntingly beautiful, and though the associated backstory introduced in the show's fourth season never completely worked for me, the closing shot of this episode zooming in on our Earth is one of the show's best.

Someone's super-litigious, as I can't even find the associated clip on YouTube. This is one of many coupling McCreary's take on the song with pictures from the show: Link

"Sweet Dreams" - Eurythmics, So You Think You Can Dance - "Season Three Top Six Performance Show" (8/8/07)

The third season of SYTYCD is still my favorite - I think it was the one group of dancers that had an ideal balance between technical ability, versatility and personality. This is my all-time favorite routine of the show - the moment where Neil does the "plange" (my phonetic spelling) propelling himself up and over Sabra on the table, it felt like time was standing still.

"Hopelessly Devoted to You" - Olive Snook (Kristin Chenoweth), Pushing Daisies - "Dummy" (10/10/07)

There's a moment at the end of the Pushing Daisies pilot where Ned and Chuck hold their hands behind their backs, pretending to be holding each other's hand, where when I originally watched it I thought to myself, "I think I love this show." This moment, from the second episode, is when I thought to myself, "I know I love this show."

"Stripper" - Sohodolls, Gossip Girl - "Victor Victrola" (11/7/07)

From yet another Patsavas-supervised show, this moment functioned as the genesis for a great TV couple in Blair Waldorf and Chuck Bass, and also served notice that Gossip Girl was decidedly departing from its source material.

"Mr. Roboto" - Jeffster (Scott Krinsky and Vik Sahay), Chuck - "Chuck vs. The Ring" (4/27/09)

This moment, from Chuck's second-season finale, represents the kind of go-for-broke spirit that defines the show's tone and makes its fans love it so fervently. That this was written and made it to air well before the creative personnel knew that the show would be renewed for another season just makes it that much better.

"Don't Stop Believin'" - Cast, Glee - "Pilot" (5/19/09)

Just when it starts to feel like network television is stagnating, something like Glee comes along. The pilot builds all the way up to this joyous burst of song, which managed to make "Don't Stop Believin'" feel fresh even at the close of a decade where it appeared regularly across channels and shows.

Best of the 00s (Okay, Maybe Not): I Can't Believe I Watched...

I watch a lot of TV, that much is obvious. Looking back over the past decade has forced me to contend with the fact that not all of it has been good. Some of it was bad. And some was so terrible, boring, or bizarre that I still can't believe I watched it, yet somehow sufficiently compelling that I watched most or all of the episodes that aired.

October Road (2007-2008)

Once, a couple of years ago, I began writing a post about my issues with October Road, but it devolved into threadless rambling. I couldn't identify what it was that compelled me to keep watching the show - and I watched every episode - when at least once an episode I would think, "I hate that I can't stop watching this." Sometimes it was the dialogue that sounded like something no actual person would ever say. Sometimes it was the endless teasing of an unresolved-paternity storyline that was only wrapped up in the second-season DVD extras. Sometimes it was just shit like this:

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007)

This is probably going to become a sort of a broken record script as various critics look back at the decade, but there really was a time when Studio 60 seemed like a stronger bet than 30 Rock. Aaron Sorkin's record was Sports Night and The West Wing, while Tina Fey's was a number of seasons of SNL that didn't seem to have a public consensus on overall funniness or quality. And, ultimately, that was what did Studio 60 in - the show within the show never quite seemed like it would be funny enough to sustain a run on television, and the difference between saying you're funny and being funny was just enough to doom the show. Fey, ultimately, could recognize that Tracy Morgan in a Thomas Jefferson biopic is a goldmine of comedy, where Sarah Paulson in an Anita Pallenberg biopic is dour and smacks of cultural over-literacy. Here, a clip from the show's infamous "animals beneath the floorboards" storyline, which really tells you all you need to know about why this one didn't last:

Watching this again reminded me of how many legit actors who've been delightful in other shows were in this, like Lucy Davis and Merritt Wever. Oh well. At least I got a good Christmas song out of it.

The Best Years (2007-2009)

A college show that seemed like the college experience was something its writers had only heard about in passing. The pilot started off on a truly strange note with a student falling off a dorm roof and dying, an event that never quite seemed to cast the kind of pall over student emotions one would think. The remainder of the first season was much of the same, with plot advancements that would have seemed over the top on most daytime dramas, a wholly unbelievable student-professor affair and a heroine so seldom depicted negatively that she became insufferable. It's my understanding that there was a largely revamped second season, but the first was just too much.

Big Shots (2007-2008)

In which Liz discovered that her love of Michael Vartan indeed had limits. Big Shots was presented as a sort of guys' Sex and the City, but played more like the back-patting dream of the kinds of dudes whose response to any assertion of feminism is "BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEN?!?"

Hidden Palms (2007)

In the run-up to the premiere of The Vampire Diaries, lots of reviews brought up Kevin Williamson's work on Dawson's Creek, but, shockingly, none mentioned Hidden Palms. A CW summer series so brief that it almost seems like it didn't happen, Hidden Palms wanted to be a dark mystery set among the idle rich, but featured a protagonist so inept at sleuthing that it never quite gelled.

American Juniors (2003)

An American Idol spinoff with children sounds like a bad SNL sketch, but I swear it actually happened. The show more or less immediately revealed itself to be a totally ridiculous failure, with stage parents and kids performing uneasy covers of songs way beyond their maturity range like this:

And this:

Britney and Kevin: Chaotic (2005)

I don't really feel I have sufficient adjectives for this slow-motion trainwreck. I'll only say that as a piece of reality television it embodies all of the reasons why celebrities might want to resist the impulse to share everything with the world. Sadly, YouTube won't let me embed the clips of this, so I'll just link here and you can decide whether or not you want to go down that particular rabbit hole.

Coming Attractions

It seems that this coming winter, the forecast is blizzards - OF CHEESE.

Someday, Matthew Goode (winner of the Most Woefully Miscast in Watchmen Award) will get a romantic comedy worthy of his talents. This looks like a good "rainy weekend when I'm avoiding my schoolwork" movie, but even those two-and-a-half minutes were so cliche-riddled that I have my doubts about going to see it in the theaters.

I'm of two minds about this one: On the one hand, when Garry Marshall is on, he's on, and as an Alias fan, I cannot entirely reject the opportunity to see Jennifer Garner and Bradley Cooper in the same place at the same time, even if they don't share scenes. On the other hand, everything about this screams "clusterfuck," right?

If there's such a thing as film meth for me, it is truly film adaptations of Nicholas Sparks' tales of young love beset by tragedy. Even if I could count the number of times I've seen A Walk to Remember, I wouldn't want to because it would surely be a sad total. Add that legacy to the all-around excellence of Amanda Seyfried, and I think we've got a winner.

All that plus When in Rome? It's going to be an...interesting...winter.

Best of the 00s (or So I Hear): 10 Shows I Assume I'll Watch Eventually

If you haven't gleaned as much so far, I watch a lot of television. Even so, there are a lot of critically acclaimed and cult-popular shows that I never quite got to this decade. Here are ten shows from the past ten years that I hope to watch sometime in the next ten:

1. The Wire (2002-2008)

Every bit of acclaim that The Wire gets for being one of television's greatest series makes me feel increasingly fraudulent as a television fan for not having watched it. It was going to be my next great Netflix undertaking this summer, after I finished Six Feet Under, but then my dad was all, "You know, to truly appreciate The Wire, you really should watch a few seasons of Homicide first." After gaping at him for a few minutes (Watch Homicide first ?!? Doesn't he know I have academic work I'm supposed to be doing?) I put The Wire on the backburner. It's probably the first show I'll tackle come 2010.

2. The Sopranos (1999-2007)

The Sopranos is sort of in the same category as The Wire, but the show permeated pop culture to such an extent that actually taking the step to watch it feels less vital. It comes up frequently enough in discussion of former Sopranos writer Matthew Weiner's Mad Men, though, that only sticking to what floated up in the zeitgeist feels insufficient.

3. Firefly (2002-2003)

I never felt compelled to be a Whedonite until I started watching Dollhouse last year. That show has been imperfect, but its highs have been insanely good - upon completion of the unbelievably good DVD-only Season One finale "Epitaph One," I said to myself, "You know, maybe I really should watch Firefly." The one-season run of Firefly is often cited as emblematic of Fox's mid-decade quick-cancellation fever, but even a few episodes made the people who love it total fanatics.

4. Deadwood (2004-2006)

My interest in Deadwood was piqued by two post-Deadwood shows featuring former stars of the Wild West revamp - Kings, which starred Ian McShane, and Swingtown, which starred Molly Parker. Plus, there's a lot of inventive cursing, which I can always get behind.

5. 24 (2001-present)

I don't really want to watch 24, but I feel like I should. The whole "he-man, America - Fuck, Yeah!" thing has never really appealed to me in a casual TV-watching sense, but as an American Studies student, I can't avoid the impact it's had as the post-9/11 show (at least on broadcast networks). It'll happen eventually, but Jack Bauer might have to drag me there kicking and screaming.

6. Breaking Bad (2008-present)

AMC's success with Mad Men has, by most accounts, been continued with Breaking Bad. The fact that Bryan Cranston has beat out Jon Hamm and the rest of the dramatic actor cohort twice at the Emmys, which are not exactly a bastion of forward thinking, convinced me that I will eventually give Breaking Bad a try.

7. Sons of Anarchy (2008-present)

I started watching SoA when it premiered last year, but it got lost in the shuffle of the new fall TV schedule and apparently I never quite got to the point where the show saw a dramatic uptick in quality. Also, Charlie Hunnam doing an American accent invariably reminds me of the one Undeclared episode where Lloyd does a hilariously bad James Van Der Beek in Varsity Blues impersonation (I wish I could find this clip on YouTube, but searches were sadly unsuccessful.) However, I can't ignore the crazy love the show's been getting during the second season this fall, and, I won't lie, I was thrilled when they beat Jay Leno in the ratings.

8. The Shield (2002-2008)

The Shield is sort of third behind The Wire and The Sopranos - if you read a lot of television criticism from the past decade, it's impossible to avoid. Like Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston, the acclaim around Michael Chiklis' performance in The Shield makes the show undeniably intriguing.

9. Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000-present)

Part of me wonders if Larry David isn't too misanthropic for me. Generally speaking, I'm a big fan of cynicism and dark humor, but watching a bunch of Woody Allen movies for a class a few years ago made me realize that there is some humor that is just too bleak for me. I'll probably give Curb a chance, but I might not watch more than a few seasons.

10. Carnivale (2003-2005)/Rome (2005-2007)

Okay, this is two shows. But they essentially represent the same thing: HBO shows that only aired for a few seasons, beloved by their audiences, that I missed due to non-access to their network.

Best of the 00s: The Game Plan

Like everyone and their brother, I can't quite resist the allure of the coming new year as an impetus for writing a whole bunch of lists. Specifically, detailing my pop-culture favorites of the past decade. Anything aired or released between January 1, 2000 and December 31 of this year is fair game. It'll probably end up being television-skewed, due to that being my personal favorite medium. With all that being said, let's see how much random crap from the past ten years I can drag up out of the ether, shall we?

Mood Music XXII

There's something undeniably charming about mainstream pop artists who still like to do something different with the music video as a medium. I love the group choreography accompanying the chorus. If I was 13, I'd totally be trying to learn it, almost certainly looking like an idiot in the process. (How lucky am I that YouTube didn't exist when I was 13? It would have been non-stop ridiculousness.)

Mood Music XXI

I was watching Wattstax the other day for a paper I'm working on about concert films, and I was struck by how beautiful this rendition of "Lift Ev'ry Voice" is.

I also love the crowd shot with the baby.

And While We're on the Topic of Glee...

Listening to the just-released soundtrack ("Alone" is so good!) only reinforces a feeling that I know is at odds with what the people behind Glee would have us believe. Namely, I think Kevin McHale (Artie) has a much better singing voice than Cory Monteith (Finn). Head-to-head:

I don't have a problem, per se, with the way the show's narrative is set up, but it does make the "Rachel and Finn Show" element in solo assignments just that much more tiresome.

Wish List: Five Popular Actors I'd Like to See on Glee

The buzz that has surged in the past few months around Glee prompted me to look back at executive producer/co-creator/writer Ryan Murphy's previous high school effort from a decade ago, Popular. Popular shares a lot with Glee, both thematically, in its focus on the social hierarchies that govern high school life, and tonally, in its aversion to total realism. It's easy to see the remnants of Popular's a-little-too-weird-for-the-WB vibe (one episode features both an extended riff on Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Erik Estrada appearing as himself) in Glee, which is never quite as wholesome as it seems like it's supposed to be. Accordingly, it would be great to see Murphy acknowledge Glee's antecedent by bringing in some Popular actors as teachers, or McKinley alums, or something. Here are my top five:

1. Leslie Grossman

Of all the Popular cast members, Grossman has shown the most facility with the kind of manic energy that has distinguished Glee in its few months on the air. Popular's Mary Cherry was a uniquely crazy character the likes of which one rarely sees, and Grossman never gave her less than 100% commitment.

If they hadn't already given Terri a totally insane sister, I'd nominate Grossman for the job.

2. Tammy Lynn Michaels

Michaels is perhaps the one actor whose Popular character could make it to Glee completely intact.

It would be amazing to see Nicole Julian bringing the Glamazons into competition against Sue's Cheerios on Glee.

3. Leslie Bibb

Admittedly, it's more Bibb's post-Popular work that makes me want to see her on Glee, particularly her role as bitch-on-wheels social climber Katrina Ghent in the little-seen but seriously good (seriously, if you've got half a day to devote to it, all the episodes are on Hulu) Kings.

Bibb is great at playing uptight characters without making them heartless or rigid, a quality that fits in well with Glee's rubric of softened-edge villains.

4. Wentworth Miller

Miller wasn't on Popular for very many episodes, but he made a mark with relatively little screen time. His turn as Adam Rothschild-Ryan, insane cheerleader underminer, skirts the funny/grating line of deliberate camp in its sheer over-the-top-ness.

Your mileage may vary as to what side of that line his performance ultimately lands on, but it is refreshingly different from the persona he's established over the past few years on Prison Break. It would be delightful to see Miller do it again on Glee.

5. Christopher Gorham

Okay, this is mostly because he's cute. Look at his face!

Also, the egregious narrative misuse of Henry was a major factor in my decision to stop watching Ugly Betty. A glance at Gorham's IMDb page shows the kinds of 20-ish episode runs in short-lived shows that get an actor branded a showkiller, and it would be nice to see him do some time on a show as well-received as Glee.

Dear Matthew Weiner,

You cannot leave all these plot threads dangling after next week. I will go mad (see what I did there?) if I have to wait until next summer to know whether we've seen the last of Sal or Joan. The strangled cry of frustration I let out after the preview for next week, which wasn't even the usual collection of cryptic sound bites but rather highlights from the season, will pale in comparison to the howl of rage brewing if we don't get some sort of indicator of whether this whole endeavor is ultimately character-driven or Sterling Cooper-driven. Have mercy.

P.S. Dear Janie Bryant, I am deeply in love with Trudy's blue dress for the wedding. Please try to make this a 2009 mass-market reality.

I'm Not Crazy...

Oh, how I wish I could go to New York and see this live:

We should all be so sanguine about our personal foibles.