2015: The Year in TV Comedy/Talk

Yes!  Another fine list from T. M. Strait!  Why?  BECAUSE I LIKE LISTS!  And what better excuse than a year end wrap up!

Unlike dramas, I don't have much that fits on this list other than the ones here.  I've enjoyed clips from The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and The Daily Show - but I don't watch whole episodes.  After three years of on and off viewing, we finished our streaming of The Office - a great show whose characters we are going to miss.  I also need to mention The Rachel Maddow Show - she puts the news in a fashion that increases my comprehension and knowledge about how things fit together - her story on the horrible (and criminal) water crisis in Flint, Michigan is Pulitzer level stuff.

And now, (drumroll)...the list!

5) Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) was a marvelous treat. It has 13 episodes that we streamed over the course of the year.  Ellie Kemper of The Office stars, playing off the same kind of ditzy character.  She plays a "mole woman" - held hostage underground by a doomsday cultist for almost two decades.   

4) Blackish (ABC) is another family comedy that Alison and I have grown to love. It reminds me of the golden age of sitcoms, with shows like All in the Family, where not only were they side-splittingly funny, but they were also social relevant.  It does have a slight Simpson thing going on, in that the situations seem somewhat independent from one episode to the next.  If everything that happened to them in the past was true, it would create a quite voluminous and possibly contradictory back story.

3) Speaking of family comedies, here is the Modern Family (ABC) supreme!  Yes, it's been on awhile, and I don't laugh quite as much as I used to, I still enjoy the characters and the threefold family nature of it.

2)  Parks and Recreation (NBC) ended its fantastical run in 2015, and what a joyous romp it was!  I would place Amy Poehler's Leslie Knope in the top 10 comedy characters ever on television.

1)  Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) - I actually get jittery if I miss my weekly dose of this great show.  It is very funny - political and social satire at the very top of it's game!  But it also incredibly insightful, putting into focus important stories that the lazy mainstream media just passes over.