Twelfth Day of TV Christmas- Twelve Eps of Gangsters

In a new tradition here at the Pool, as both a way of summing up the year in television and celebrating the holidays, we will be releasing the first Twelve Days of TV Christmas series leading up to the day where I hope to receive multiple DVD box sets of my favorite shows. Whereas the Poolies celebrate the best television of the season by a number of voters, the Twelve Days of Christmas is my attempt at giving credit to the top series of the year by me and only me. Having said that, a couple of my favorite shows have been left off the list for a multitude of reasons. In the case of Chuck and Justified, it's mostly because I couldn't fit them into a numbered slot as well as some others. With Sons or Always Sunny, I just wasn't as happy with their respective seasons in 2010. So without further ado, here is the Twelfth Day of TV Christmas. Feel free to sing along.

On the twelfth day of Christmas my tv gave to me...twelve eps of gangsters, eleven family members, ten weeks a fighting, nine flashes sideways, eight minutes breathless, seven kids a studying, six deads a walking, five deeeaaad rapiiiiists, four ad partners, three Jo Bros, two Terriers, and a paper boss in Scranton, PA.

So this is it, Christmas morning. And how better to celebrate than with the final day of TV Christmas. Earning recognition today for its performance in 2010 is HBO's Boardwalk Empire. The complaints that I have heard about the series are that it was slow, confusing and there were too many characters. My response to that is that the two shows that are currently thought of as the two best dramas in the past decade, The Wire and Mad Men, started out much more guilty of that. I literally couldn't keep going with The Wire after four eps because it was so slow. With Mad Men I never stopped, but I wasn't enjoying it the pace was so slow. The first season of Boardwalk was not anything like those. It is a slower pace than some other shows, but it definitely kept my interest throughout. I got excited to see what Nucky, Jimmy, and the crew were going to be up to form week to week. A great start to what should be an epic series over the next half a decade.