The 2014 season was a banner year for geeky TV. Everything came up nerd this year, from DC and Marvel duking it out on the airwaves to time travel romance to The Walking Dead beating the NFL in the ratings. So what’s good, bad, and weird? Let’s take a look.
Zombies Are More Popular Than Football
Really, this post summarizing AMC’s clever strategy says it all. Still, it tells you how dominant geekery is on television when a TV show about zombies based on a comic book is almost always the number one show in America when it airs.
NBC Builds A Genre-Night Friday
Normally, putting a show on Friday nights is the kiss of death. But, weirdly, NBC has been making it work… and making it work with shows the network would have killed after a season just a few years ago. Grimm is on its fourth season, Hannibal capped off a great second season with the news that a third was on the way, and Constantine has delivered rock-solid ratings, something nobody could have guessed at the start, and seems likely to be renewed as well.
Gotham Actually Delivers
I freely admit I spent most of 2014 ripping on this show, because, on paper, it really does sound terrible. It’s Batman Begins Begins. It’s Gordon: Before The ‘Stache. And the pilot, while solid, promised little more than a generic cop show with some DC characters in it.
Instead, it turned out to be a sprawling drama about a corrupt city, anchored by some surprising performances such as Robin Lord Taylor’s vicious schemer Oswald Cobblepot, Donal Logue’s sarcastic burnout Harvey Bullock, and Sean Pertwee kicking ass and taking names as Alfred. The show’s best episodes have been laced with black comedy and riffed cleverly on supervillains. Now if only they could give Barbara something to do…
Agents of SHIELD Comes Into Its Own
After what felt like a lifetime of generic episodes and dull characters, Agents of SHIELD turned it around in a big way in the back half of the first season, and it’s been steadily getting better with each episode, culminating in a blowout of a midseason closing episode that finally wrapped up the Skye plotline and even sets up more than one Marvel movie.
That said, as it’s turned into the show we want, it’s becoming less and less popular; it’s sitting at less than half of the viewers it had from the first season premiere. But we suspect that’s enough for ABC, especially as the show has become more popular as a streaming option.
Sleepy Hollow Struggles
Unfortunately it’s not all good news. Sleepy Hollow was an enormous surprise last season, but its second season has struggled, not least with the fact that the show seems unable or unwilling to drop terrible plotlines like… well, like everything Katrina does, really. There’s still plenty of the spark there: Tom Mison and Nicole Beharie still have the best comedic chemistry on television. But the writer’s room needs to tighten up the ship, or Ichabod’s going back in his grave.
The CW Becomes The DC Network
The CW has always had a strong genre presence. Name another network that would keep a show like Supernatural on the air for thirteen episodes, let alone ten seasons. But particularly surprising is just how strong Arrow and The Flash have turned out to be, both as shows and with audiences. It’s a welcome rise of a TV franchise… although considering how many DC series are coming, we hope it doesn’t get overextended.
So, 2014 was a great year for geeky TV. And 2015 promises even more, with Daredevil, Powers, and more episodes from the above. The fun gets started in earnest the first full week of January; Gotham returns January 5th and Agent Carter, Marvel’s period piece spy drama, debuts with two back-to-back episodes the following day.
