Top 10 To Watch During November Sweeps

I'm guest blogging with Stinkylulu all this week over at ModFab and while I may just double up on some posts (because the work week seems like it may be busy), I will have some original stuff over there, particularly theatre related or anything with gratuitous photos of half naked men. If you're into that kinda stuff.

I did write a post introducing myself and it allowed me to make yet another list (cause I love lists) of my current favorite shows, especially now that we are in the midst of November sweeps, and to remind us of the great quality in writing the writers have been doing and thus, why their strike is important.

So here, are my current television picks (if it's on hiatus, it doesn't count):

1. Friday Night Lights - Utterly honest, heartbreaking, hilarious. Who knew football could be so enlightening on life, love and relationships? With an impeccable cast led by the amazing (and amazingly hot) Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton, who would have thought jocks and the community that loves them would create such a deep and rich television series?

2. Pushing Daisies - Just the colours (I'm Canadian and we like to spell things funny), the sets and the overall design should be enough to pull us in, but the delightfully morbid yet charming stories, twisted plots and oddball characters are some of the many things that satisfies our TV cravings.



3. Ugly Betty - The gayest show ever (yes, that includes you Queer as Folk) and loving every vibrant, campy, soapy, melodramatic moment. Too many characters to love, too many comedic duo possibilities with a fearless America Ferrera leading the zany pack through comic gold, infused with loads of heart and heartbreak. Oh and loads of bitchiness thrown in!

4. 30 Rock - Speaking of zany, Tina Fey, as the fictional series "The Tracy Jordan Show" headwriter Liz Lemon, leads a group of complete loons around Rockefeller Center that just keeps getting funnier and funnier and helps us forget that Alec Baldwin is probably a raging madman in real life by being an absolutely hysterical madman on TV.

5. The Office - Thank goodness my office isn't exactly like this, but I sure love spending time with Jim, Pam, Oscar, Stanley, Phyllis, Angela, Creed, Toby, Kelly and Ryan. Sometimes even Michael and Dwight.

6. Chuck - A fun spin on the spy game, with Zachary Levi charming us with his geek wit and any show with a character named Captain Awesome who isn't a superhero, deserves credit for being totally awesome. Plus casting the hot and VERY FUNNY Ryan McPartlin as Captain Awesome certainly doesn't hurt.

7. Brothers & Sisters - Add Walker family members, pour in alcohol, stir in an issue or two, shake and then take a step back before the explosions occur. It's a trashy soap opera performed by an A-list company of actors and all the more addictive because of it.

8. How I Met Your Mother - Barney. Slap Bet. Slap Countdown. Enough Said.

9. Aliens in America - What started off as a mildly amusing, possibly offensive look at a Muslim in middle America has turned into the politically biting, extremely hilarious family/social comedy I knew it was trying to become. Plus Amy Pietz is rocking the role of Franny, the mom of the Tolchuck family that takes in Raja, the esteemed morally grounded visitor, endearingly played by Adhir Kalyan.

10. Bones - It was a tough choice for 10th spot, since both House and Desperate Housewives have re-surged in quality, while Grey's Anatomy is almost getting back there. There are my favorite guilty pleasures like Gossip Girl, Men In Trees and Beauty and the Geek, and The Amazing Race is off to a terrific running start again, but Bones has been consistently entertaining and witty (yes, I said witty. On a procedural!) and between the romance between Hodgins (TJ Thyne) and Angela (Michaela Conlin) and the sexually laced banter/tension between David Boreanaz's Booth to Emily Deschanel's Bones, it has also become one of the most romantic shows around. Yes, a show about the dissecting of dead bodies through their remaining bones has become terribly romantic. Who would have thought?

Other great shows currently on hiatus: Mad Men, Entourage, Project Runway (though starts in a few days!!!) Lost, Weeds, So You Think You Can Dance.
Other Tapeworthy shows: The Amazing Race, Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girl, Grey's Anatomy, House, Bones, Men In Trees, Supernatural, Samantha Who?, Beauty and the Geek, The Big Bang Theory.