Ripping Good Yarns: Five Favorites On Right Now

With more and more limited series (Seasons of 13 or fewer episodes), what is on TV doesn't just shift in the fall.  The kaleidoscope of programs available are constantly shifting.

Below are my five favorite programs I'm watching right now:

5) Justified (FX, Tuesdays at 10).  If you want to watch a redneck crime noir, this is the one.  Sometimes the bad guys are sneeringly brilliant, and at other times crushingly stupid, but they are always massively entertaining.  Timothy Olyphant is charming and zinger filled, but also a Clint Eastwood level threat.  Walter Goggins as Boyd Crowder, is his chief menace and is menacingly evil, but in an odd folksy way.  This show is near the end of it's run, and if you haven't seen it, is definitely worth streaming.

4) Better Call Saul  (AMC, Mondays at 10).  Wanna great follow up to Breaking Bad?  Here you go, and thank you very much!  Slightly funnier and more charming than Breaking Bad, it is just as poignant and effective as you get under the skin of it's characters.  You see Bob Odenkirk as Jimmy 'Saul' McGill struggling with his desire to be a great and straight lawyer, compete with his ability to be the consummate con man.  One of the best spin off series ever.

3)  The Americans (FX, Wednesdays at 10).  I recently started streaming this series from the beginning, and have now started watching Season 3 episodes.  Very evocative of that eighties era, and the last gasps of the Cold War.  Keri Russell (perhaps the most beautiful woman on television) and Matthew Rhys play the Jennings, an embedded pair of Russian spies acting as Americans, having been here for a couple decades and even starting a family.  This as close as I come to binge watching, having caught up with Seasons One and Two in the last couple of months.

2)  Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC, Tuesdays at 9).  If you're watching NCIS or something else instead of this show, you are making me very, very sad.  This is quite simply broadcast television at it's best.  And, the only broadcast series on this list.  Watch it.  Please.

1) The Walking Dead (AMC, Sundays at 10).  I've said it here and other places a hundred times.  This so much more than a show about zombies.  It is one of the greatest character driven shows in the history of television.  The level of adversity these people face really strips humanity to its core, both the good and the bad.  

And with TV's incredible variety nowadays, check back with me in a month or two, and this list may be completely different.

Except for Agents of SHIELD.  That's always there.  Well, at least September through May.  Or when the brilliant Agent Carter is taking it's place.

OK, so this list will always be changing.

Viva la TV variety!