My 12 Days of Christmas – TV Style

It’s not every year I can find 12 things to be grateful for when it comes to TV, but this year I could have probably written ‘24 Days of TV’ without breaking a sweat. Don’t worry, I didn’t. I kept it to the traditional 12.

My Twelve Days of TV

1st Day…A Return Date From NBC
After months and months of date pushing and controversy Community is finally coming back February 9th. Whether you find the show funny (as I do) or not so funny (as the ratings would suggest) it was time to put this show on the air. You can watch the cast joking about their returning to air date here.

2nd Day…Singing Ladies
How fantastic is Nashville? I’ll admit it, I would follow Connie Britton anywhere, so you can imagine how grateful I am that the show is good, great even. The best part however are the songs, they are worthy of being downloaded and put into playlist rotation.

3rd Day…Three’s Company
I’d like to think I know the difference between right and wrong but very little on TV makes me more excited than rooting for couples who shouldn’t be. For instance, Scandal’s Olivia and Fitz or even Homeland’s Mike and Jessica and Brody and Carrie.

4th Day…Awe-inspiring Abs
Let’s all take a collective moment to thank The CW for whatever is in the water over there.  Whether it is Arrow’s Stephen Amell, Vampire Diaries Ian Somerhalder, Jay Ryan on Beauty & the Beast or Hart of Dixie’s Wilson Bethel I spend a lot of time watching TV with my head tilted to the side in jaw dropping admiration.

5th Day…Great Comedies
Generally I’m not a fan of comedies, I prefer the dramas, so I was pleasantly surprised with the number of comedies I have found amusing this year. I was even more surprised to find the networks agreeing and giving full season orders to freshman shows like Go On, Ben and Kate & The Mindy Project.

6th Day…Returning Favorites
Often returning shows hit a sophomore slump, not so for Fox’s New Girl, ABC’s Suburgatory or FX’s American Horror Story. These shows just keep getting better, besides anything that keeps Jessica Lange on TV is a plus.

7th Day…Shows Ending
It seems like an odd thing to be happy for but hear me out. I don’t know why it has taken so long for networks to listen but 3 million viewers is still 3 million viewers. So giving Fringe a season to wrap it up and a chance for those loyal fans to say goodbye means a lot. Not to mention the way ABC is retooling the series finale of short lives shows like 666 Park Ave and Last Resort to give closure to the fans and critics who loved them.

8th Day…Cables Wide Array
These days it doesn’t matter if you turn on basic cable channels like FX (Sons of Anarchy, Justified) or Syfy (Haven, Warehouse 13) or premium cable channels like HBO (Game of Thrones) and Cinemax (Strike Back) there is good original programming on just about every channel. Since a number of those channels air their shows on an opposite schedule from network TV it means year round TV for us TV Junkies.

9th Day…Imports
Copper, Doctor Who and Sherlock to name a few have taken over the US airways and thankfully so. There is something about British TV that makes me oh so happy and thanks to Hulu, PBS and BBC America they have become much more accessible.

10th Day…Sorcery, Evil Stepmothers and Grimm’s Oh My!
It doesn’t matter if you like your fairytales to be the red poison apple type or the monsters who steal kids away in the night type there is something otherworldly for everyone on TV right now.
The magical Once Upon a Time is dazzling on ABC while Grimm is serving up their grittier version of fairytale reality on NBC.

11th Day…Social Media
Sure if you happen to read a tweet before watching your favorite show you could get a huge spoiler revealed, but the trend of actors tweeting along with their show, doing Facebook chats and live video streaming from the set makes TV so interactive and I for one like it. From Showrunners to Prop Guys there are a ton of people involved in making my favorite shows and when they take the time to share their enthusiasm & behind the scenes tidbits with us it is infectious.

12th Day…Mid-Season TV
I’m not sure if I have ever said this, but the midseason shows are looking better than the ones the networks debuted with. From the intriguing FOX show The Following to the NBC sudser Deception network TV is going to get even better.