agents of shield

Last week, we brought you our favorite movies of last year (finally saw Inside Llewyn Davis, by the way, and yes, it would have made the cut). This week, we change channels to focus on TV. We’re doing things a little differently this time out, with separate top 10 lists for new shows and returning favorites. Though there were a lot of new shows I enjoyed over the past year, I’ll admit I couldn’t stretch them to 10; instead, I’ve got 8, while Paul’s just crazy enough to have a full 10.

As always, there are shows we couldn’t get around to: I haven’t seen Rectify, Top of the Lake, Broadchurch, or The Wrong Mans, all of which I’d hoped to see in time for this list. Oh, and to absolve him of all guilt, I should mention that Paul has never seen Breaking Bad. Wait, I don’t think that absolves him.

NEW SERIES

PAUL: 10. HANNIBAL (NBC)

I wasn’t particularly interested in a television adaptation of the Thomas Harris characters. But names like Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, and Bryan Fuller pulled me in. It’s one of the most visually stunning and hauntingly…haunting shows ever to make it to network television. It’s also one of the most shockingly violent and grotesque. All positives in my book. But I can’t put it any higher on my list because it’s crushingly depressing.

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NOTE: You may notice this episode was recorded more than a week ago. It would have reached your ears sooner had one-half of the podcast not almost died. You’ll almost certainly be hearing about that next time.

Gobbledygeek episode 157, “This Podcast Is Clean (feat. Valerie Clark),” is available for listening or download right here, and on iTunes here.

It’s late. Your dad’s asleep in his chair. The national anthem plays. Static blares from your TV set. You place your hands on the screen, lean in close, and are confronted with the most nightmarish vision possible…the new episode of Gobbledygeek! Scary, I know. Paul and AJ kick off the month of horror that is known as Gobbledyween with a look back at Tobe Hooper’s 1982 classic Poltergeist, joined by long-time friend of the show Valerie Clark in her first (1st!) appearance. Does the movie hold up? Did Hooper really direct it, or was it all writer/executive producer Steven Spielberg? Is the film really one long treatise on Reagan-era values versus traditionalism? Are the characters’ food habits the most disturbing thing about the movie? All these questions and more will be answered! Plus, the gang talks Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Next: Gobbledyween continues to terrify, as the putrid Eric Sipple returns to chat Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners.

(Show notes for “This Podcast Is Clean.”)