Downton Abbey (2010-15)

Downton Abbey is a costume soap opera that started out with a phenomenal first season. And it kept it up for a bit, but then they fell into a lull in the fourth and fifth seasons. Gladly, they ended strong with an excellent final two episodes, tying nicely everyone's story lines in a touching and emotional way. As a big ensemble drama, there are a lot of characters. And admittedly, some characters have more interesting story lines than others. You try to equally invest in the upstairs aristocrats and the downstairs servants. The separation between the two spheres was distinct but I enjoyed watching their interaction as well.

The characters that last all 6 seasons maintain continuity in a world of change. The great estates of England are in decline by the end of WWI and we watch the times change and the family adapt. It is a period drama, and the time period always played an important part of the story as new technology was introduced and as events unfolded around the world. And time moves very quickly episode to episode. The music and cinematography of Downton Abbey is really pretty too. It takes place in the gorgeous Highclere Castle.

Mary was known for being mean to poor Edith. Their dynamic was always funny to watch. Mr. Carson and Ms. Hughes also had some great banter. But Dame Maggie Smith was was the star of the show with her never ending one-liners.

The Good Wife (2009-16)

The Good Wife has consistently been one of the best shows on TV. In the era of cable television, The Good Wife has been the lone standout on the networks, delivering 23 episodes of high quality drama per season. It was procedural without ever feeling procedural. It was definitely the best legal drama, showing audiences different types of courts, a cast of quirky judges and lawyers, and interesting and innovative interpretations of the law. It glorifies the legal profession and, as an aspiring lawyer, inspires. Apart from the law, the politics was always engaging, especially behind the scenes of the campaign. The show always did a good job reflecting reality, bringing in stories from the current newspapers, like the brilliant NSA arc. Plus the writing was funny. It was overall an enjoyable show to watch--a show I would actually look forward to watching every week.

I didn't really like the finale.  It's one thing to leave us with uncertainty, but doesn't Alicia deserve some finality? Don't we deserve to know that she can be happy? I will always remember Josh Charles's last episode, a shocking moment coming out of left field in the middle of an episode in the middle of one of the best seasons, so we were given plenty of time to process what we'd just seen.

Not only was the main cast excellent, including Emmy winners Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi and my favorite Alan Cumming, but the recurring guest cast was phenomenal and memorable as well. Michael J. Fox and Carrie Preston are particular standouts. But each season had several new names worthy of praise. It was a show full of strong female characters played by strong female actors. Julianna Margulies will forever be known for playing The Good Wife. The show's title is a bit of a misnomer. The show quickly became so much more than a show about a woman who stood by her man. She was defined by her own accomplishments and prowess, never merely by her role as a wife.

The Imitation Game (2014)

Benedict Cumberbatch is so good as the eccentric British hero Alan Turing.  His stutters and mannerisms convince the audience that he is playing a true genius.  After doing a little research on Turing, I appreciate the little details included in his characterization that I otherwise would have ignored (For example, he was an avid runner in real life).  Turing was not the only person facing discrimination; Keira Knightley's Joan Clarke is a fellow outcast whom Turing befriends.  Knightley leads a fabulous supporting cast working in ultra secrecy during WWII.  Praise to the production design team for depicting the reality of wartime Britain.

This story is an important one that needs to be told to recognize these war heroes' massive achievement in computing history.  There were some parts in the subplots that went by so quickly that I failed to understand what happened.  As I later read, the subplots are partially fictitious.  The screenplay does a good job of strategically tracing three key periods of his life to highlight his closeted homosexuality without undermining the central war part of the story. The movie also attempts to explain Turing's famous Imitation Game and some of the mechanics behind his decoder.  Perhaps the ideas are too difficult for the common audience to understand, but I think we could have benefited from a little more detail about how the machine actually worked.