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Friday, Dec 21, 2012 2:29 PM UTC

Blue Glow TV Awards: Kate Aurthur

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Topics: Video, 2012 Blue Glow TV Awards, Best of 2012,

Blue Glow TV Awards: Kate Aurthur

Kate Aurthur writes about TV as BuzzFeed’s chief L.A. correspondent.

Kate says about her top 5: “The weird thing about my five favorites is that there are nine of them. In no order”: 

“Bunheads” (ABC Family)
“Mad Men” (AMC)
“Breaking Bad” (AMC)
“Real Housewives of Orange County” (Bravo)
“Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC)
“Game of Thrones” (HBO)
“Parenthood” (NBC)
“Justified” (FX)
“The Good Wife” (CBS)

Special Categories:
1. What was the show of the year? This category is the only one I’m having a problem with; I love all my shows, including ones that would have made the list if you’d asked for my Top 50, for different reasons! I’m going to pick “Mad Men” because I was so impressed and moved by Season 5, and thought that Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser and Jessica Paré did incredible things.

2. What was the best scene? “The Game of Thrones” episode “Blackwater,” which pitted Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) and the Lannisters against Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), is not precisely up my alley; I don’t care much about a big battle, unless it’s waged by Housewives? But as an episode of television – I’m counting the “scene” in question to be the long battle scene, which is much of the episode – it raised the stakes for every other show on television. Raised them to an unreachable level, at least for the near future. It was written by “Game of Thrones’” daddy, the “A Song of Ice and Fire” novelist, George R.R. Martin, and directed by film director Neil Marshall. Just amazing.

3. Best performance of the year? There are so many. So, so many. I’m going to be random about it and say that I didn’t think there was an actor alive who could speak the machine-gun-clever words of Amy Sherman-Palladino as well as Lauren Graham on “Gilmore Girls.” And then Sutton Foster came along in “Bunheads.” It’s a tie!

4. What was the funniest joke or line? I kept this fight between Sheree and Marlo from “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” on my TiVo for months. I showed it to friends, strangers, cats. Oh my God.




5. Which series best evoked life in 2012? I always learn the most about contemporary life – which, to me, is currently all about the economy – from the Real Housewives.  All of the different versions of the franchise. But special thanks to Teresa Giudice of New Jersey for demonstrating the denial a single human can live with!

6. And personality of the year goes to … I liked how much of Michelle Obama we saw this year, culminating in her convention speech. It made me excited to learn someday what she really thinks about her White House experience.

* * *

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What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

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  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

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