I decided against a 10 worst list, because some shows — like Mixology and Manhattan Love Story — were clearly doomed from the start and promptly lived down to expectations. Instead, I’ve focusing on the year’s biggest disappointments: shows (and performers) who aspired to something greater, and perhaps even briefly achieved it, before it all came crashing down. Here is 2014’s Hall of Shame, in alphabetical order:

(Michael Desmond/NBC)

A to Z (NBC)

This sitcom — chronicling the A-to-Z relationship of Ben Feldman and Cristin Milioti —was one of the most promising fall pilots. Its stars had terrific, unforced chemistry. And then … nothing happened, for episodes on end. The jokes evaporated, and no actual stakes ever materialized. And how could a show set at not one but two different workplaces get away with never showing anyone doing actual work? After How I Met Your Mother, I thought the fantastic Milioti had finally found a part worthy of her talents. Better luck next season.

(Robert Voets/NBC)

Bearded best friends 

One of the most depressing developments of the fall season was the discovery that all the networks’ comedy development teams were operating from the exact same bland playbook: don’t forget to cast a bearded best friend! Like a virus, they popped up on almost every sitcom this fall, including Mulaney (Zack Pearlman), A to Z (Henry Zebrowski), Manhattan Love Story (Nicolas Wright) and Marry Me (John Gemberling). Now Gemberling is the last beard standing, not that I could really distinguish him from the other three.

(CBS)

Extant (CBS)

When I reviewed the Extant premiere this summer, I was excited about the sci-fi drama’s possibilities, both in storyline and the performance it was coaxing out of star Halle Berry, as an astronaut who returns from a lengthy solo mission to discover that she’s pregnant. A few episodes later, those optimistic dreams were the opposite of extant. Instead of learning its lessons from Under the Dome, which quickly squandered its beguiling premise in 2013, CBS repeated them all again.

(Ron P. Jaffe/Fox)

How I Met Your Mother finale (CBS)

While I was never a regular How I Met Your Mother watcher, I had been eagerly anticipating how series would pay off the story it had been setting up for nine (!) seasons. Instead, the finale confirmed everyone’s worst fears — that the Mother (Milioti again!) had died — and turned into How I Barely Met Your Mother. It was a legen — wait for it! — dary addition to the annals of all-time worst finales. (Make room, Dexter!)

(Ray Mickshaw/FOX)

Mulaney (Fox)

Out of all this year’s new sitcoms, I was most excited about seeing Mulaney, created by and starring one of SNL’s all-time great writers (and the man behind Stefon!), John Mulaney. And then I watched the first episode Fox made available, which was…awful. Soon after, Fox shared four more episodes, each one more depressing than the last. How could someone so innovative end up in something so conventional? Even worse, the show completely wasted its fantastic cast (including Martin Short and the underrated Nasim Pedrad).

(Fox)

Rake (Fox)

A year after Fox had scored big with a midseason drama featuring a movie star (Kevin Bacon’s The Following), it tried again with this Greg Kinnear legal series — and failed spectacularly. Billed as the law version of House, it lacked any of that show’s zest and wit. Kinnear’s Keegan Deane was less an anti-hero than an anti-character, as clunky a fit as the show’s silly title.

(Fred Norris/FOX)

Sleepy Hollow (Fox)

It’s the hat trick of Fox disappointments! Season 1 the Fox supernatural series was a delightful, wackadoodle wonder. And that’s what has made Season 2 so upsetting, as the series has undone so much of what made it addictive in the first place. John Noble, so vital to the end of Season 1, has been neutered this year, while Orlando Jones was stuck on the sidelines. There are still flashes of the trippy show that once was (and Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie remain terrific), but Sleepy Hollow suffered the biggest quality dropoff this year.

(Antony Platt/AMC)

Turn (AMC)

So intriguing in theory, so bland in execution. Still flailing post-Breaking Bad, AMC came up empty again with this uninspired Revolutionary War drama. It was somehow renewed for Season 2, and saddled with a longer title: Turn: Washington’s Spies. There, problem solved!

(Patrick Harbron/FX)

Tyrant (FX)

FX’s incredible run of essential dramas came to an end with this controversial Middle Eastern series, which finally offered one antihero too many for a network packed with them. And no, don’t remind me that this was renewed over the far-superior The Bridge.

(Virginia Sherwood/NBC)

Christopher Walken (Peter Pan Live!)

Two weeks later, I still can’t believe what I saw on Dec. 4. Walken’s Captain Hook was supposed to save Peter Pan Live! Instead, he almost sunk the show. That an actor who is so reliably riveting in everything he appears in — no matter how great or lousy the project itself is — could sleepwalk through a three-hour live performance was one of the year’s biggest stunners. Whether it was due to age or boredom, Walken lost a big chunk of his luster that night.

That was cathartic; now it’s time to praise television again! Check back Thursday for more 2014 TV VIPs.

The post The 10 Biggest TV Disappointments of 2014 appeared first on TV & Not TV.

I was pleasantly surprised by Extant, the “event series” starring Halle Berry that CBS is hoping will do just as well for them this summer as Under the Dome did last year at this time. The show, as I write at The Daily Beast, is a substantial upgrade over Dome, thanks in large part to its star:

The show’s name, Extant, means “still in existence; surviving”—the opposite of extinct. The word could also refer to Berry’s career, which seemed to have flatlined in recent years, outside of the X-Men franchise. Extant can only thrive if Berry does, and so far the actress, making her first TV series appearance since the short-lived 1989 Who’s the Boss? spinoff Living Dolls, delivers in what is a difficult, enigmatic role. Berry has never deployed her talents consistently during her career, but acquits herself quite admirably here. While at first, she seems to be frustratingly underplaying Molly’s reaction to the pregnancy news, it turns out that there’s a method to her stillness. You see, Molly also knows things—some of which unfold in flashbacks—with many more revelations likely to come in future episodes. Until they do, Berry utilizes her star quality to keep us riveted and awaiting whatever twist comes next. And she makes the most of her standout scene in the premiere, in which she silently and captivatingly unpacks several years of emotional baggage.

My long-term reservations about the show aside, I applaud CBS for proving, at least for now, that quality broadcast television can indeed be extant during the summer months.

Surprise! Halle Berry’s Career is ‘Extant’

The post Surprise! Halle Berry’s Career is ‘Extant’ appeared first on TV & Not TV.

Alright, alright, alright! The Atlantic picked up my Quartz story about the renaissance of the (don’t-call-it-a) miniseries.

The Miniseries is Dead (Long Live the Miniseries!)

The post The Miniseries is Dead (Long Live the Miniseries!) appeared first on TV & Not TV.

After a dormant period, the miniseries genre is having a renaissance. Just don’t call them that, as I wrote at Quartz.

But nobody calls these shows “miniseries,” anymore. Instead, the networks have embraced terms like “limited series” and “event series” to describe programs with a predetermined end or cast that changes from season to season.

So what’s the difference? Not even the people running the networks can answer that one. “I don’t know,” NBC Entertainment president Robert Greenblatt admitted to reporters at the Television Critics Association’s press tour in January.

“It’s a genre that has kind of gone out of our sort of vocabulary for a long time because we stopped doing them,” said Greenblatt. “I think we use the word miniseries when something is closed-ended and can’t continue.…I don’t know what a limited series is.”

CBS Entertainment chair Nina Tassler also spoke with me at TCA about why the m-word has become so verboten, and I help clear up the confusion between miniseries, limited series, event series and anthology series.

The television miniseries is back (under a new name) 

The post The Television Miniseries is Back (Under a New Name) appeared first on TV & Not TV.

As upfronts wrap today, I wrote this Quartz piece about one big change to this year’s proceedings: the networks are finally serious about programming year-round, and they’re actually putting their money where their mouths are.

But as broadcast ratings continue to erode, those networks can no longer assume that their viewers will stay loyal and return in the fall. So when CBS took a chance on adapting Stephen King’s Under the Dome as a “limited series” last summer, and it became the highest-rated scripted summer series in 21 years, the network kept it in the same spot this year (it returns June 30). With the addition of Extant and other summer shows, CBS will have 90 hours of original programming this summer.

It’s a big change from the broadcasters’ traditional hands-off approach to summer, allowing the cable networks (and more recently, Netflix) to swoop in and take all the audiences for themselves.

Finally, instead of re-runs over the summer, new TV shows will premiere all year

The post Finally, Instead of Re-Runs Over the Summer, New TV Shows Will Premiere All Year appeared first on TV & Not TV.