The Best of the Best: Celebrating 1,500 Posts With Our Favorite Shows

Here we are again, folks. It feels like it’s been no time at all since we celebrated our 1,000th post. But we’ve already made it to 1,500! In honor of yet another milestone, we’ve decided to look back at some of the shows we’ve most enjoyed covering over the years.

Once Upon a Time

“Once Upon a Time” tells the tale of what would happen if all of the fairytales we knew as children were real and were transported to our world. Oh and pretty much everyone is somehow related to everyone else. The show started before Sarah joined the blog on a full-time basis but she’s covered it every season from season 2 onward. Even if she complains about the overly complicated connections amongst the characters, Sarah loves the fantasy and the drama of it all. Yes, she may never forgive the writers for killing off one of her favorite characters but the stories and the situations will always keep drawing her back in. And blogging the show on a weekly basis allows her to vent just a little of her fangirl frustrations.

12 Monkeys

“12 Monkeys” is based on the movie of the same name starring Bruce Willis. The show tracks James Cole as he travels back in time to try and stop a devastating plague and the CDC doctor who helps him along the way. Sarah covered the show’s first season this past summer as a DVR Dump. She intends to do the same with the upcoming second installment when it airs in January. The TV landscape needs more time travel sci-fi and “12 Monkeys” delivered very well on that premise. Sarah enjoyed the characters and the wider mythology of the story. When a lot of what we have covered has been more procedural, it’s always good to have something so completely different from the rest.

Person of Interest

“Person of Interest” centers on two men, billionaire Harold Finch and former CIA operative John Reese as they team up to stop crime thanks to an artificial intelligence that tracks violent crimes. The catch: they only have the social security number of the would-be victim or perp and they don’t know which it is until they start investigating. For the first three seasons of this show, Sarah covered the show weekly during the fall/spring season. The story format changed in season 4 and she decided to stop covering the show. However, for the first three years, Sarah enjoyed just how different the show was from anything else on TV. The characters were interesting and it was always a puzzle figuring out who these people were and what transpired to bring them together.

Lost

“Lost” was a big part of the early days of MTVP, as it was a show we both really enjoyed back in its heyday. As you probably remember if you’re reading this, “Lost” told the story of a bunch of plane crash survivors as they tried to escape a very strange Island and its inhabitants. The story got bigger and more complex through each of the show’s six seasons. While the finale of the show was questionable, “Lost” is still one of Jen’s favorite shows, and she would rewatch the whole thing if there weren’t so many new shows to watch (thanks Peak TV!). On MTVP, we recapped the sixth and final season, and Jen also did a “Lost 15 Favorites” series where she recapped her fifteen favorite episodes from seasons one through five. We also wrote qutie a few one-shot posts about “Lost,” including a two years later retrospective and a “Where are they Now” post about the actors. Lost will remain among the pantheon of great TV shows because it combined an intriguing mythology and complex mysteries with memorable characters.

How I Met Your Mother

While many (including Jen) might argue that “HIMYM” utterly crashed and burned in its final season, it has gotten more coverage on MTVP than any other show, even “Doctor Who!” “HIMYM” told the story of Ted’s search for love (and adventures with friends) as a late-20/early-30-something in New York City, using the framing device of a much older Ted telling his kids how he met their mother. Jen regularly covered seasons five through eight on the blog, and she also did a 15 Most Legendary Episodes series. “HIMYM” also featured in many classic recaps, holiday and otherwise, and other one-shot blog posts. Jen liked two things most about “HIMYM.” First was the realistic (albeit heightened) take the show had on many “adulting” milestones like giving up your first car. The other was the loving found family that Ted had in his friends.

Wonderfalls

“Wonderfalls” tells the story of Jaye Tyler, 20-something misanthrope who has a degree from Brown but chooses to work at a Niagara Falls gift shop and live in a trailer. Because she’s sticking it to the man. Her life changes when she starts hearing animal-shaped inanimate objects talking to her. And they’re telling her to do nice things. Jen covered “Wonderfalls,” which starred the always wonderful Caroline Dhavernas, as a Summer TV Rewind in 2013. The character of Jaye is what really makes the show great. She has a very misanthropic view of the world and can be surly to people who try to show her kindness, but underneath it all, she is very vulnerable and would really like to have “nice things” for once. Like bartender Eric, who just happens to still be married (albeit separated). The show was a bit uneven episode to episode, but it takes viewers on a very satisfying arc, and there are moments that no TV fan, or fan of creator Bryan Fuller, should miss.

Doctor Who

Spend any time on this blog and you’ll know that “Doctor Who” is the many adventures of a madman with a box bumping around time and space. We did a few one-off posts about it in the early years of blog before starting to cover it season by season with series 6. We are now on the 4th series we’ve covered completely. And who can forget the time we posted a defense of female Doctor Who fans on Hypable and almost broke the Internet (by our standards anyway). There are many reasons why we love “Doctor Who” (most of the time). The show’s premise lends itself to a wide variety of stories. You can watch a far future space story one week, and a historical story the next. The actors also change on a semi-regular basis, which, while the transitions are always sad, tend to keep the show fresh. It’s fun to watch each new Doctor/Companion team-up find their groove. Mostly, “Doctor Who” is just a show that invites its viewers to use their imaginations.

And with that, we wrap up our 1,500th post here at MTVP. Here’s to another 1,500. We’re excited about what the coming years in television will bring!