Continuing with your amazement at the amount of quality shows HBO had on at at one time.  I think 2004 was the single best year HBO ever had.  Season 5 of the Sopranos, Deadwood Season 1, The Wire Season 3 and Six Feet Under Season 4.  I'd say Six Feet Under season 4 is the weakest of those seasons mentioned.  Pretty…

Pretty inconsistent that you go back to grading the episodes after grading seasons 1 through 4 and not grading 5.  I like it though, maybe you can go back and grade season 5 as well?

Kind of but not really, I think the Shield is much more fast paced camera work.  The Wire isn't as fast I'd say.

The Wire visual style is definitely underrated.  It fits the show absolutely perfectly for what it is trying to accomplish.  Just as The Sopranos, Game of Thrones and Deadwood visual styles fit those shows perfectly as well.  I couldn't necessarily say I prefer one over the other.  However, it is annoying that The…

Wait so since AVClub is too lazy to do a club classic review of the series, Paul Feig has to walk us through it?

Continuing with the ranking that David Simon hates.  I don't think Marlo gets enough credit as being one of the shows top 10 characters.  He is by far the evilest character on the show and probably just as memorable as Avon.  I also love how they introduce him to the show.  His first scene is an almost walk on and he…

Completely agree with him.  The same can be said about Breaking Bad.  I'd say the audience for Breaking Bad has at least doubled since it started airing.  Although it's hard to blame people because other than The Sopranos not many HBO shows were watched when they originally aired.  Band of Brothers became huge on DVD…

Took forever to get back to The Simpsons, Seinfeld is almost done reviewing.  The current rate AVClub is reviewing The Simpsons it will take more than 2 years going up through season 8.

And it's a lot better than True Blood.  Better acting, better directing, writing, set design.  I think I could watch the show on mute and appreciate the overall look of the show.  True Blood, I'm just waiting for the tatas

So AMC is officially the network that steals previous ideas already done on other shows.  This new show = Friday Night Lights.  Hell on Wheels = Deadwood. The Killing = Twin Peaks

On a Breaking Bad side note, Bryan Cranston is quickly becoming a legit movie star.  He is going to be in 6 movies this year according to wikipedia. One is with Tom Cruise the other is directed and starring Ben Affleck.

So what show is taking it's place on the HBO lineup next January?  Guess HBO will be pilot searching for a new drama.

I feel like next year or the year after would have been a great choice for Billy Crystal to come back and host.  This year just seems off movie and nominee wise.  Who knows maybe Billy will save it to be more memorable than some of the movies.

What would be pretty great is if they hired all the same actors back and recast all their parts.  It would still be an anthology series but so interesting seeing the same actors recast in different roles every season.

Hugh Laurie seems like that douche who won't act the rest of his life because he made so much money from House.  But we know his real talents were in the comedy shows he was in.

Wait so you guys are going through season 2 of Twilight Zone before starting season 6 of the X Files?  Doesn't really make sense but whatever.

I find it odd that VanDerWerff is using grades for Carnivale yet on all other recent classic reviews they've stopped using grades

Not surprised by this as mentioned below by Vanderwerff.  They just hired too much talent for them to cancel this show after one season.  It would have been pretty terrible and embarrassing to say to Dustin Hoffman who is in his first TV series that his show was cancelled after one season.  Same with Game of Thrones…

I'm a little bit confused by this.  Louie is a 13 episode show with Louis doing almost all the work on that show.  I'm assuming that show will start filming in a couple weeks or months for a summer start day in June or July.  How exactly is he going to create a network show that will have 24 episodes a season in…

I fully expect Luck to win it next year.  Probably one of the best ensemble casts for a TV show I've seen since Deadwood