(t5!) My Year In Lists 2011: #Hashtags!

Trending Topics, 2011

Jimmer, former Brigham Young University’s beefy Mormon point guard, was celebrated everywhere in college basketball in 2011. He tallied 28.5 points per game during the regular season, leading the nation in scoring, and he usually scored each point in spectacular fashion. His arsenal of faraway pull-up shots and acrobatic layups caused fans, overexcited commentators, and the entire Twitterverse to whip themselves into a frenzy. Belonging in a predominantly black sport like basketball, Jimmer was seen as a Great White Hope, which is some people's explanation why this undisciplined, selfish style of play—which is typically frowned upon by college basketball supporters—is forgiven when Jimmer played it. Selfish or not, it's still entertaining as hell. As a rookie in Sacramento, it’s yet to be seen whether he can translate his shoot-first, pass-rarely amateur game into a successful NBA career, but the world is checking out every highlight just so it’s witnessed properly it if he does.

HBO’s How To Make It In America was cancelled last year, and even people who watched the show every week thought to themselves that it’s the equivalent to a mercy killing. The show was horrible, but people (like me) refused to give up on it because it had so much potential. You can see the puzzle pieces—underdog mentality, Brooklyn, fashion, Aloe Blacc’s “I Need A Dollar”, Helvetica font, Kid Cudi—and it’s frustrating that the show can’t seem to put it all together. One thing I’m happy about is that the show has successfully advertised its most promising puzzle piece, Lake Bell, before the show ended. I’m not even talking about the fact that HBO made her go topless in season 2 (although nude scenes can do wonders in an actress’ career); the show was just a terrific exhibition for her acting skills. It’s frustrating to watch her waste her impeccable comedic timing and fast-talking charm on underdeveloped storylines, but at least we know that she’ll be able to parlay this stint into bigger and better things.

Everyone can remember the “Where Will Amazing Happen This Year?” campaign that was featured during the 2009 playoffs, where famous NBA moments were slowed down, refashioned as black-and-white clips, and soundtracked with a poignant instrumental piano track. But the NBA can’t run this brilliant marketing gimmick yearly, so they had to find a way to keep topping themselves. While the 2011 “Where Amazing Happens” commercials may not have been as intense or as expansive, they are definitely more clever. Fans of today travel back in time to confront their NBA idols Kevin Durant, Steve Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire, Chris Paul, and Stephen Curry, letting their favorites know the impact they’re going to have on their lives one day. The degree of difficulty is extremely high, which is why they only aired five different commercials and was never duplicated on YouTube like the WWAHTY? Of 2009, but I would’ve loved to have seen more of it. A fan pulling David Stern and Billy Knight aside to resolve the collective bargaining agreement earlier to avoid the lockout, maybe?

If you’re a music fan who pride on being ahead of the curve, you were really excited to see Arcade Fire with a bunch of Mountain Dew induced BMX riders perform “Month Of May” in the 2011 Grammy Awards; and you were probably very really excited when The Suburbs won 2011 Album of the Year; and you were basically jumping like a Jehosephat when they came out to close the night with “Ready To Start”. It’s admittedly ridiculous; it’s not as if your taste in music needed vindication for it to be valid (in the form of an incredibly irrelevant Grammy statue, no less). Nevertheless, the whole night felt like a personal victory, like it's the collective’s first step towards becoming the biggest band in the world. Apparently though, the majority weren’t ready to start, and inquired loudly all over the Internet who these French Canadians with violins and peculiar haircuts. Twitter blew up, Tumblr accounts were created, memes were started, shirts were pressed, and we, with superior tastes, laughed at their ignorant faces.

Bill Simmons is one of my inspirations as a writer. I read his 736-page The Book of Basketball in its entirety, and I make sure that I never miss any of his 10,000-word articles on ESPN. So you can imagine how psyched I was when he announced that he was compiling a handful of up-and-coming sports and pop culture writers and starting a spin-off website. But Grantland is so much more than just Bill Simmons mega-columns. It’s Chuck Klosterman, my favorite pop culture probe, giving answers to questions that no one ever bothered to ask; it’s Jalen Rose in a podcast with the czar of reality TV, Dave Jacoby, giving the people what they want; it’s Bill Barnwell reinventing the Monday Morning Quarterback position; it’s Molly Lambert dissecting the tabloids every week. It’s the first online magazine that I visited everyday since Stylus Magazine decided to shut it down, and every day it seems that one of their contributors offer an interesting perspective that either influence or challenge my own.

When ESPN Films completed their fabulous 30 For 30 series, I was upset. I thought that was it; no more unexposed stories, no more investigative interviews, no more wonderful celebration of sports in the form of documentaries. Thankfully, it turned out that ESPN couldn’t help themselves and decided to extend the series anyway by showing the documentaries that did not make the original 30. More thankfully, the first installment of the 30 For 30 continuation is about my first ever (and most) favorite NCAA basketball team—the Fab Five Michigan Wolverines. Director Jason Hehr tackled the reasons why I fell for this team: the baggy shorts, the black socks, the trash talking, the swagger, the skills, the teamwork, the camaraderie between the five freshmen. He also revealed details that I was unaware of before, such as their inferiority complex with Duke and their resentment over the fact that the university profited millions while they didn’t make a dime.

Back when we watched the freshmen of Adams College fight back against the jocks in Revenge Of The Nerds, or when we watched Steve Urkel annoy the Winslows in Family Matters, did we ever imagine a time when nerds will become incredibly fashionable? But that’s the world we live in now: nerdy fashion, nerdy rappers, nerdy NBA players. And in Fox’s New Girl, we even have nerdy sex symbols. Zooey Deschanel isn’t your typical computer nerd like Angelina Jolie in Hackers, or girl-in-glasses-but-is-actually-hot nerd like Rachael Leigh Cook in She’s All That. This nerd can actually be insufferable if she wasn’t so adorable doing the chicken dance, wearing starfish lingerie, or singing out loud her every thought, I never understood Zooey Deschanel’s appeal before this year; I found her obnoxious in Almost Famous, trashy in All The Real Girls, and heartless in (500) Days Of Summer. In New Girl, I finally got why she is so revered.

Martha Marcy May Marlene is an absolutely unnerving psychological film that brashly put the cult experience on film. It recounts the tale of an impressionable young woman who escapes the orgy-laden rural cult she was trapped in and the grasp of her creepy Charles Manson-like cult leader whom she has fallen in love with. While Sarah Paulson and John Hawkes provide us with captivating performances, Elizabeth Olsen, the film’s breakout star, deserves most of the accolades here. She brilliantly convey the lingering damage of belonging in a traumatic environment for two years. It was heartbreaking to see her struggle to find a connection with the real world while she lived with her older sister and her new husband in their lakeside home in Connecticut, uncertain to find the difference between a dream and a memory. To think that all this time was wasted paying attention to Mary-Kate and Ashley, and there exists a perfectly good Olsen sibling that had actual talent.

Margo Martindale’s Mags Bennet from FX’s Justified was the most unlikely villain of 2011. She’s a folksy fifty-something, whose maternal tenderness can make everyone want to hug her or buy her flowers. But anyone who watched the show’s amazing second season knows how dastardly she can be. The scene where Mags, without remorse, smashed the fingers of his youngest (and biggest) son for his betrayal should be a convincing enough proof of her wickedness. But if you want more, consider how frighteningly manipulative and shrewd she was when she was using her comforting exterior to rally the citizens of Harlan against Black Pike to pocket a profit, to gain sympathy by feigning tears, or to convince her nemesis to drink her homemade apple-pie flavored, poison-laced moonshine. Mags was such an impressive character that Margo Martindale took home the Best Supporting Drama Actress in this year’s Emmy’s, even when the majority of the TV-watching contingent have no idea that the show exists.

Since the advent of the American League Most Valuable Player award, only 21 pitchers have received the coveted prize. It’s due to the fact that pitchers aren’t classified as full-time players. Unlike hitters, pitchers either start every four games or come in for a couple of innings to relieve the starter or to ice the game late. In order for a pitcher to win the MVP award, he has to really separate himself from the pack, either by being incredibly dominant or by being good in a year when there’s no hitter deemed a irrefutable favorite. For the Detroit Tigers’ Justin Verlander, both cases were true in 2011. Sure, no hitter was superior enough that they should imperatively win the MVP. But at the same time, Verlander posted insane numbers all year: 24 wins, 250 strikeouts, 2.40 ERA, and tied for the league lead in WAR. Even the most illiberal voters of the award—those who think pitchers should only be eligible to win the Cy Young—had no choice but to reward Verlander’s stellar production.

Drew Brees stole a little bit of his thunder near the end there, and his backup Matt Flynn sort of proved that a replacement can be plugged into this offensive system and can still put up numbers. But regardless, in 2011 in the NFL, Aaron Rodgers is king. To start the year, he led his sixth-seed Green Bay Packers to win Super Bowl XLV. Then to prove everyone that his accomplishments were no fluke, he won 13 straight games to start the next season. He finished the most recent season with career-highs 4,643 yards and 45 touchdowns, only threw six interceptions, set an NFL record 122.5 passer rating, and tied the NFL record for most consecutive games with at least two touchdowns with 13 games. The Packers only lost once the entire calendar year. With these monstrous numbers, he solidified himself as one of, if not the best quarterbacks in the league. That’s pretty decent for someone who was passed over by 23 other teams in the 2005 NFL draft and backed up Brett Favre for three long years.

The couple of episodes that lead to Steve Carell leaving The Office, “Michael’s Last Dundies” and “Goodbye, Michael”, were, without a doubt entertaining and emotional, but what happened afterwards was more significant. We saw Peyton Manning miss the entire 2011 NFL season because of neck injury, and the reliable Indianapolis Colts went 2-14 without him. Similarly, Michael Scott left The Office and the show tanked in his absence. No one doubted how phenomenal both of them were as individual performers, but not everyone realized how valuable they actually were until they’re gone. Before Steve Carell left to become a bigger movie star, I thought that the greatest strength of the show is the depth of its cast. But while Jim, Pam, Dwight, Andy, and the rest were all lovable and funny characters, Carell’s departure proved that the insensitive, offensive, socially clueless, self-proclaimed “World’s Best Boss” is completely irreplaceable. "Goodbye, Michael" might as well be the series finale.

Professional wrestling was an addiction I couldn’t shake. Even when their product was horrible, I just had to tune-in week after week to see what happened next. If I hadn't made a conscious effort to quit—and I was aided by WWE’s diminishing talent pool and stale story lines—I would still be slogging through WWE’s weekly programming. For a few weeks in 2011 however, CM Punk reminded me why I used to love this circus unconditionally. One June Monday night, Punk thought it would be fun to kayfabe, which is wrestling geek talk for "breaking the fourth wall". After interfering in a John Cena vs. R-Truth match, he delivered one of the most defiant and compelling monologues in WWE history, punking out superstars like Cena, Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Triple H, and WWE owner Vince McMahon. CM Punk was “suspended” for this act of outright disobedience, but I still couldn’t help but tune in subsequent weeks to find out how this story line concluded, being treated with charismatic mic work and exciting matches from him once he came back.

I suspect that a handful of people may scoff at the inclusion of this film in this list. The Tree Of Life is unequivocally a movie with obvious (dinosaur-sized) flaws. It’s long, uneventful, confusing, pretentious, and can’t be described without using the dreaded word “epic”. For all of its negative traits though, one thing that is for certain is that it’s the most gorgeous looking film of 2011, and coming from director Terrence Malick, that wasn’t at all surprising. I will always choose an entertaining plot over brilliant film school characteristics any day of the week, but he and Wong Kar Wai are the only two directors that I will promote for their captivating cinematography, regardless of whether or not the script of their movies is engrossing. Persevering through the story of The Tree Of Life may be a daunting endeavor—I myself eventually learned to love the theme of people’s capacity to love as well as hurt without forethought—but I never wanted to look away for a second because I would hate to miss a masterly shot scene.

Explaining FX’s Louie to someone who hasn’t watched a minute of the show before can be a little bit challenging. It’s billed as a comedy and its lead actor, writer, director, editor, producer, custodian is every comedian’s favorite comedian Louis C.K.. It’s absolutely funny the majority of the time, but to call it a comedy would singularize what the show is doing marvellously. “Duckling”, the best episode of the series’ abundant second season, didn’t make you laugh out loud, but it was a thoroughly beautiful, feel-good tale about Louie’s trip to Afghanistan and how the duckling that his daughter gave him as a gift to keep him safe might have actually saved his life. A huge percentage of human conflict arises from misunderstanding between two parties. Louis C.K. demonstrated in “Duckling” that the simple comedic effectiveness of a chubby, middle-aged man falling over while chasing a baby duck can be a common frame of reference that can diffuse an extremely volatile situation.

No one expected much coming into this. Manny Pacquiao has decimated the last seven fighters that stood across him before this fight, while Juan Manuel Marquez faded into obscurity after his bout with Floyd Mayweather in 2009. Vegas oddsmakers calling Marquez a 10-1 underdog didn’t add much to the excitement factor either. So when Marquez showed off his counterpunching prowess early, making it difficult for Pacquaio to unleash any sort of fury, everyone was shocked. It eventually ended up into a split decision that went in Pacquiao’s favor, enraging the Mexican fan base, as well as the incognizant casual boxing fans. Marquez had more highlight punches, so many thought he should’ve won. However, the judges’ scorecard revealed that Pacquiao landed more punches and won more rounds. Even though he didn’t win them spectacularly, all that matters is that he won more than Marquez. The fight sparked controversy, but it’s refreshing to watch a competitive match for a change. A great night for boxing.

Chris Paul’s 2011 was a roller coaster ride. Because he was going to be a free agent next summer, the league-owned New Orleans Hornets were forced to trade Paul away when the lockout ended to avoid losing him without getting assets back. So GM Dell Demps concocted a fair three-team deal that would send Paul to the Lakers. But because the Hornets were collectively owned by the other 29 NBA teams, they persuaded NBA commissioner David Stern to veto the trade. They questioned the fairness of the deal and they whined that it’s another case of a superstar leaving his small-market team for a big-market franchise. The whole debacle infuriated everyone involved in the NBA, pointing out the conflict of interest, and the league jeopardized its credibility as a result. The PR mess forced David Stern to re-open trade negotiations with other teams, and Paul ultimately ended up with the Los Angeles Clippers. And now Paul couldn’t be happier; he has the enviable task of throwing alley-oops to Blake Griffin, and is being talked about as a legitimate MVP candidate.

Real fans practice unconditional sports monogamy. When the Edmonton Oilers were struggling during the past few NHL seasons, you still stuck by them if you’re a real fan. In 2011, those real Edmonton Oiler fans were rewarded for their loyalty in the form of a scrawny 18-year old center called Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. Don’t get me wrong, last year’s pertinacious winger Taylor Hall is just as rewarding, but he never really looked like a guaranteed superstar during his rookie season. On the other hand, Nugent-Hopkins at times looked like a hockey virtuoso, even when his physique seems too juvenile for the brawny men of the opposing teams. He was capable of seeing passing lanes that hasn’t even developed yet and he had a knack for turning loose pucks into goals. Partly because of his play, there was a short period of time in the 2011-12 season when the once (and still) lowly Oilers were leading their division, but has now limped back to normalcy to end the year. Whatever happens this season, the future looks promising.

When NBC didn’t include Community in their midseason schedule, I became violently angry. As a fiercely loyal fanatic of Community, I’ve attempted to recruit people to be part of this strange “community” of devotees. But, even someone as dedicated as me can admit that at times, the show can be too audacious. Its inconsistency wasn’t an appealing attribute, but we fans understood though that we have to go through all the drivel for a promise of an episode such as “Remedial Chaos Theory”. This episode demonstrated that when the show is at its finest, it can successfully showcase its ambitious plots while humanizing its zany characters. The multiple timeline gimmick exposed the developing relationships and unresolved issues the different study group members have with each other, but it also allowed everyone to boast their comedic chops. I’ve stopped pimping this show to everyone I know. I realized that if Community had to dumb down to get more viewers, it wouldn’t have the fortitude to reach highs like this.

I often bitched about how Friday Night Lights, the greatest teen drama TV series of all time, didn’t get a big enough audience. But really, I should just be thankful that it did hold on for five satisfying seasons and gave its passionate fans a fitting goodbye. Friday Night Lights was seldom kind to the citizens of Dillon, Texas, but "Always" was kind enough to grant its characters a favorable ending. East Dillon won State, and even though they had to disband afterwards, they got to continue the run as members of the Panthers the next season. Matt gets Julie, the love of his life. Becky gets Luke and the Riggins family. Tim gets his brother Billy back, a potential future with Tyra, and a piece of glorious Texas land. As for Coach and Mrs. Coach? Eric was willing to become a low profile high school football coach in Philadelphia so that Tammy can get her dream job at a college admissions office. It may not be “Texas Forever” for them, but it’s the happy ending that the greatest married couple in TV history deserved.

If you want to market a product effectively, there’s no better strategy to have than targeting people’s paranoia. Fox’s 24 were experts at that, and it allowed them to stay on air for as long as they did. During an era of uncertainty, Jack Bauer was a fictional terrorist slayer that audiences relied upon to keep them safe. And even though it was never really phenomenal after the first season, the sum of all fears convinced everyone that this living exemplar of the Patriot Act is having the worst day anyone in the world can ever have….eight different times! In 2011, I’m glad to say that that nationwide paranoia is diminishing, so Showtime’s new drama Homeland was unable to rope in fans the same way 24 did. However, it remains brilliant without the need to exploit that horror. Although you won’t find a Jack Bauer in Homeland, you will find Emmy-worthy acting performances from Claire Daines and Damian Williams, and a substantial storyline full of twists reminiscent of classics of the genre such as The Manchurian Candidate and The Parallax View.

We’ve been preconditioned to think that the perfect NFL quarterback is accurate, has a quick release, stays in the pocket, steps back to pass 50 times a game, easily throws for 300 yards against the most stifling pass defenses. Denver Broncos’ Tim Tebow has none of those qualities: he is inconsistent, has an unorthodox throwing mechanic, is uncomfortable in the pocket, rarely throws the ball, would never lead the league in passing yards. He is atrocious when judged by normal standards, yet all he did was win, and it drove every NFL expert and stat geek insane. It’s not even appropriate to label him a “scrambling quarterback”; even Michael Vick, the greatest player under that classification, still has the abiliy to break down a defense with his arm. If you must categorize this enigma, Tebow is a fullback that runs the option and throws occasional 40-yard bombs, a trick play that normal NFL offenses use maybe once a season. But in Denver, he’s there for every excitingly unpredictable and unexplainable possession.

If you are aware of Ren & Stimpy in the ‘90s, more specifically their patented tactic of zooming onto something truly gross, then you should know that Nickelodeon is committed to an extremely high level of detail when they do animation. Therefore, you were confident that when Nickelodeon Movies teamed up with Industrial Lights & Music to make Rango, ILM’s first ever feature film, it is guaranteed to rival anything Pixar or Dreamworks has ever done. To rival them seems like a limiting ceiling; they inconceivably surpassed them. Not only did you get the chameleon version of a Hunter S. Thompson-inspired Johnny Depp, not only did you get a cartoon version of the 1974 film Chinatown, but you also got the most eye-popping computer-animated feature film that you have ever seen. The way Rango made their animated animals look like archetypal ugly Spaghetti Western characters is ridiculous, and the way they made it seem like they placed those animals in a real-life barren Mojave Desert is phenomenal.

The last Charlie Sheen project that I truly enjoyed before 2011 was the Major League series. I’m not really a proponent of his chosen lifestyle either. Sure, drugs and alcohol and porn stars would be a good life for like a couple of days or so. But all of that hedonism should get old after a while. Still, I don’t think that 2011 would have been the same without Charlie Sheen. Charlie Sheen was basically a walking soundboard, throwing insane quotable lines left and right during his interviews with ABCNews and TMZ. These quotes, like “Duh! Winning!” and “I’m an F-18, bro!” were then turned into merchandise slogans that sold like water bottles just before Y2K. After being released from the very profitable sitcom Two and a Half Men, Charlie Sheen went on tour, his venues packed with fans hoping he would utter one of these phrases. Also, his roast on Comedy Central this year—the highest rated roast Comedy Central has done—was a treasure chest of weirdness, such as Mike Tyson trying to do stand-up and Steve-O trying to give himself a black eye by jumping into Tyson’s fist.

If Rebecca Black is the byproduct of children never receiving any criticism because the people they’re surrounded with would rather lie to them than hurt their feelings, then let us continue to spoil these kids. When it comes to unintentional comedy in 2011, “Friday” is definitely the seat you take. The melody consisted of two notes, but Rebecca needed the help of an autotune anyway; the video was an experiment on how many awkward dancing teenagers can they fit in front of a green screen; a huge chunk of the lyrics consisted of Rebecca educating us on the order of days in a week; and the one black guy they found in Hollywood hills was enlisted to “rap” a verse. The worst part about it was that the song is as catchy as a common cold, so every Friday for at least three months, everyone was heard singing a line from the song. Yes, it’s cruel to find joy at her expense—poor Rebecca had to take down the YouTube video due to the amount of ridicule she was getting—but I'm too busy laughing out loud to care.

Brad Pitt used to be the guy that even the most homophobic man can openly admit is really good looking. In 2011 though,Ryan Gosling officially became that guy. There wasn’t even a torch passing ceremony; while Pitt was busy portraying 1950s dads and renegade baseball general managers, Gosling just plain stole the torch from under his nose. It’s not as if Gosling is completely useless either, because this pretty boy has acting skills, starring in numerous critically acclaimed movies in 2011 (and late 2010) like Blue Valentine, Drive, The Ides of March, and Crazy, Stupid, Love. There was also video evidence that he’s cool enough to break up random street fights and to reintroduce the lost art of baglamas playing. The Ryan Gosling deification was authenticated when People Magazine unfathomably named Bradley Cooper over him as their 2011 “Sexiest Man Alive”, which actually caused devastated protesters to wave pro-Gosling placards outside of their New York office. No one ever did that when Richard Gere beat Pitt in 1999.

If the NBA lockout could’ve gone forever, Dallas Mavericks’ Dirk Nowitzki would be completely fine with that. Not only would his team’s reign as champions be extended until eternity, he would be remembered as the best player in the NBA the last time professional basketball existed in the United States. The Mavs’ championship run was improbable; no one even believed that they would get past their first round opponent, the Portland Trail Blazers. But they handled them in six, then swept the defending champs, the Los Angles Lakers, then took an up-and-coming team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, to five games, then humbled the Big 3 (or Big 2, plus whatever fraction of superstar you think Chris Bosh is) for six games. All in all, the 2011 NBA playoffs were entertaining thanks to his team’s improbable run. And Dirk? He was sinking everything, and doing so at the most crucial moments. He was so impressive in 2011 that the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant is actually attempting to forge his patented one-footed fadeaway. Imitation is the best form of flattery.

I know (t5!) is my blog and I can do whatever I want in it, but I sort of make up little rules that I have to explicitly follow to give myself some form of structure and consistency. One rule that I have is that for these #Hashtags lists, I confined myself to only include episodes of television shows unless it’s a show’s debut season. Otherwise, if a show is constantly terrific, it’s going to show up in this list annually, and that’s boring blog work. But I’m going to have to break that rule in 2011 because there’s no way I can select one episode from Season 3 of Parks & Recreation. It was literally flawless and the best season of comedy that has ever existed in my lifetime. Adding Adam Scott and Rob Lowe as regular cast members just fortified the already extremely gifted and hilarious roster of comedians that have figured out how to selflessly maximize each other’s talents. It would be really optimistic to think that the people from Pawnee can keep up this streak—Season 4 is still magnificent, though probably not as consistent—but it was awesome while it lasted.

Like Season 3 of Parks & Recreation, all 13 episodes of AMC’s Breaking Bad should be included in this list, because the show’s fourth season is the most intense chapter of television anyone has ever aired. But I can’t break my rule two entries in a row. Besides “Crawl Space” is an easy choice given that it was the season’s unequivocal climactic peak. I could list here all of the impactful events that left everyone breathless afterwards, but that would be pointless because it would (a) only reiterate all the scenes that is already forever etched on your brain, or (b) only spoiling it for you if you haven’t watched it yet, and thus deprave you of the exhilarating thrill. “Crawl Space” is the episode when Walter White’s entire world fell apart. But most importantly, it marked the symbolic death of I’m-just-cooking-meth-to-provide-for-my-family Mr. White (brilliantly illustrated with that overhead shot of Walt laughing maniacally in his crawl space). And with that persona out of the way, he can complete his transition to super bad-breaking Heisenberg.

I’ve always felt indifferent towards the whole fantasy genre in general. I guess my imagination isn’t vivid enough to envision the majestic setting to be able to put myself into the protagonist’s world. I’ve never read any fantasy novels when I was young. I found the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy a bore. I didn’t hang with the kids in school who played Magic: The Gathering. I have never played Legend of Zelda back when I owned a Nintendo.

Call me a genre bigot, but that’s exactly why I didn’t give HBO’s Game of Thrones a fair shake right off the bat. I assumed it would be a tedious narrative about opposed kings, elderly wizards, fire-breathing dragons, and mystical quests. However, after seeing the first season, I am now gladly eating my words. While other television adaptations of the genre were usually fixated on fetishizing magic and knights and sword fighting, Game of Thrones—even though it still contained all of those fetishes—were more focused on picturesque storytelling than anything else.

Game of Thrones is really no different than any of HBO’s exceptional dramas. The Wire was basically a cop show, Deadwood was basically a Western, and The Sopranos was basically about gangsters. Game of Thrones is basically a show about a mythical version of the Middle Ages. And yet, to the audiences who loved these shows, they will attest to the fact that all of them were much glorious in their ambition and much richer in their execution. Similar to The Wire, the characters of Game of Thrones were incredibly realized and wonderfully casted. I wanted to know more about these characters, which, along with the nudity, kept me from falling asleep during dialogue that I usually don’t care about.

The first season felt so incomplete, but that is meant in the very best way. The entire collection of episodes felt like a prologue to the crazy shit that’s about to go down when the Starks, the Lannisters, the Baratheons, the White Walkers, and Dany’s dragons collide. I can’t believe I’m saying this about a fantasy television show, but I can’t wait to watch it. I may even give Magic: The Gathering a shot if I can find people willing to play it now.