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The State of the Art: Television 2018

As streaming services take on more and more content, television has taken on a bigger and bigger chunk of my pop culture pie chart. As much as entertainment outlets were touting the "peak TV years" of prestige basic cable dramas, I feel like we're in a much more interesting time now. Shows have gotten increasingly diverse, which allows people to find things that are even more tailored to their tastes. I'm no exception, and the TV I enjoyed this year was all over the map. Here's the official ranking!

The Haunting of Hill House (Season 1)
Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories (Season 1)
The Good Place (Season 2)
Lovesick (Season 3)
Nailed It! (Season 1)
American Vandal (Season 2)

All of the shows above would get at least an A- on my grading scale, and were all in contention for my favorite show of the year. The Haunting of Hill House took top honors, but I also want to make special mention of Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, which was more about atmosphere than plot. The simple stories of the patrons of a late night Japanese diner were neither happy nor sad, but a fascinating series of slice-of-life tales.


There were also plenty of other highly entertaining shows that would nab at least a B+ on the scale:

The Great British Baking Show (Seasons 5, 6, and Holiday)
Bojack Horseman (Season 5)
MST3K: The Gauntlet (Season 2)
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (Season 3)
Black Mirror (Season 4 and "Bandersnatch")
The Dragon Prince (Season 1)
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (Season 1)
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Season 2)
Superstore (Season 4)
Brooklyn Nine-Nine (Season 5)
Ordeal By Innocence (Miniseries)

Then there are the shows that were pleasant enough to watch, but couldn't edge their way into the top echelons:

Bob's Burgers (Season 9)
Black-ish (Season 5)
Angie Tribeca (Season 3)
Nailed It! (Season 2 and Holiday)
Hilda (Season 1)

And the shows that ranged from simply okay down to waste of time:

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Season 4)
Big Mouth (Seasons 1 & 2)
One Day at a Time (Season 2)
13 Reasons Why (Season 1)
Making a Murderer (Season 2)
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The State of the Art: Movies 2018

Hey, remember that pledge last year to see more story- and character-driven movies and fewer superhero blockbuster popcorn fluff? I sure hope you don't, because it still seems like those kinds of movies are the ones that draw me to the theater. I guess it makes sense; I save the prestige movies for streaming at home, since theaters are kind of a chore now, and then I don't get to the films I promised myself I'd watch. Anyway, I did manage to see a good handful of movies this year, so here's the ranking of the 2018 films:

Game Night (A-)
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (A-)
To All the Boys I've Loved Before (B+)
Black Panther (B+)
Avengers: Infinity War (B+)
A Quiet Place (B+)
Crazy Rich Asians (B+)
Searching (B+)
Alex Strangelove (B)
Ocean's Eight (B)
Ralph Breaks the Internet (B)
Ant-Man and the Wasp (B)
Bird Box (B)
Ibiza (B-)
Sierra Burgess is a Loser (C+)
Ready Player One (C)


And the ranking of all the pre-2018 flicks I finally got to:

Lady Bird (2017) (B+)
The Incredible Jessica James (2017) (B+)
Ex Machina (2015) (B+)
The Last Dragon (1985) (B+)
13 Going On 30 (2004) (B)
The Big Sick (2017) (B)
Paddington (2014) (B)
Black Dynamite (2009) (B)
Happy Death Day (2017) (B)
Bride & Prejudice (2004) (B)
The Problem With Apu (2017) (B)
Ant-Man (2015) (B-)
Blacula (1972) (B-)
The Greatest Showman (2017) (C+)
Boss Baby (2017) (C+)
Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart (2013) (C)
Dolemite (1975) (D)
The Apple (1980) (F)
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The State of the Art: Books 2018

To all the authors out there, I'm sorry. To all of my friends who delight in exchanging book and story recommendations, I'm sorry. To all the people who take pleasure in the written word, I'm sorry. So, so sorry. My book list for 2018 is nothing short of disgraceful. I could point to all sorts of excuses: I have a new job! I've been spending quality time with my boyfriend! I devoted a lot of attention to games! I've been (and still am) reading a book that tops out at more than 1100 pages!

All of those are true, but I still feel terrible that I read so little this year. Reading often has the capacity to expand the mind so much more than movies and television, and I'd hate to think that my brain is getting calcified by not reading as much as I should. Hopefully, I can get back into the swing of things in 2019, but in the meantime, it's time to call out what I actually did get to this year.

Given the video game I chose, it appears that 2018 is the Year of Appreciation for Things That Can Actually Surprise Me, because the top of this year's list is 2016's The Power, by Naomi Alderman. When women and girls worldwide begin to exhibit the ability to electrify with their hands, they finally have a weapon to take down the most troublesome aspects of the patriarchy. Power corrupts, though, and things get wildly out of hand. It takes a gifted writer to make me truly able to see things as if I were viewing it from another person or group's perspective, and Alderman was able to convey not only the joy of newfound power, but the terror it can inflict.



Here's the full 2018 ranking:

The Power - Naomi Alderman (2016) (A)
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas (2017) (A-)

The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street - Susan Jane Gilman (2014) (B+)
Openly Straight - Bill Konigsberg (2013) (B+)
The Rosie Project - Graeme Simsion (2013) (B+)

They Both Die at the End - Adam Silvera (2017) (B)
Afterlife - Marcus Sakey (2017) (B)
Sweetbitter - Stephanie Danler (2016) (B-)
Children of Blood and Bone - Toni Adeyemi (2018) (B-)
Iron Gold - Pierce Brown (2018) (B-)
The Hearts of Men - Nickolas Butler (2017) (B-)

What Light - Jay Asher (2016) (C+)
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The State of the Art: Games 2018

Well, as you'll see in upcoming posts, I really whiffed it on absorbing what the year had to offer in some areas of pop culture. That doesn't mean I missed everything, though, and it's been an extremely rewarding year, game-wise.

In the tabletop realm, not only did I continue playing in multiple D&D campaigns, but was able to participate in T.I.M.E. Stories expansions, delved into the devious world of Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, and turned from pixels to ink by playing the card versions of both Pathfinder and Arkham Horror (both of which had clear advantages over their larger counterparts). When I got tired of fighting, it was extremely pleasant to turn to the artful experience of Tokaido, in which you're simply traveling along a Japanese road, soaking up culture.

That said, the clear favorite of the year was Gloomhaven, a cooperative game in which four dungeon-crawlers do their best to work together to clear out monsters and other bad guys, while still having to incorporate decisions that have long-ranging effects on the overall game. When one of your characters advances enough, they retire to become somebody new, so the game always seems fresh, and trying to find the best combinations of attacks and moves with the other players is the kind of challenge I always enjoy.


I also played gobs of video games. My poor computer finally gave out a couple of months ago, but I logged some good hours in before that happened, and of course, there's always the phone and the PS4 games as well. Florence was a fun little story game on the phone, even if Marvel Puzzle Quest sucked up most of my mobile gaming time. On the PS4, I dabbled a little in Late Shift and Horizon Zero Dawn, and I'm just now starting to explore Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Detroit: Become Human. The rest of the year was spent either saving the fantasy land of Neverwinter with Aaron, or swinging through Manhattan as Spider-Man, which is the runner-up for my favorite game of the year.

Before it exploded, the PC saw plenty of the usual suspects like Overwatch and Cook, Serve, Delicious 2. I also tried out new (or new to me) games from a wide variety of genres. Valiant Hearts: The Great War brought me to the brink of tears with its stories of survival during WWI. Tacoma entranced me with the interpersonal relationships on a doomed space station. Aviary Attorney had me search for clues to exonerate my feathered clients. Armello saw me trying to topple a mad king. Night in the Woods managed to combine the story of an aimless dropout with some haunting side-stories.

That said, the video game that really blew me away this year was Doki Doki Literature Club!, about which I really can't say too much, lest I spoil the surprise. I'll just say that on first glance, it appears to be a simple, silly little game about a boy who joins a club full of girls at school, and tries to impress them with his poetry. Midway through, the game takes a turn that left my jaw on the ground, and even after I thought the game was over, it had more to shock me with. This is an odd year in which I can't recommend my favorite game to everyone, because it can be extremely confusing or upsetting to some people. But for me, it knocked my socks off, and then punched me in the face when I bent over to pull them back on.

 
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