Every December, a ton of “Best of the Year” lists pop up everywhere, and they can get old pretty quick, but I’m digging the “Best of the Decade” lists that I’ve been seeing lately. So I figured I’d jump on that particular bandwagon, and so I now present my list of some of the best pop culture trends of the past ten years.

Funny Music from Artists Besides Weird Al
Don’t get me wrong – my obsession with Weird Al Yankovic, the king of parodies and musical comedy, is still strong as ever. And he had a great decade in his own right, with the fantastic albums Poodle Hat and Straight Outta Lynwood, as well as his several Internet Leaks songs and videos. But he also had some competition in the funny music department. Tenacious D’s first album is side-splittingly funny. Though the movie and its soundtrack were less hilarious than they could have been, the genius of their first batch of songs more than makes up for it.

Then there’s Andy Samberg and his Lonely Island crew. The videos for Lazy Sunday, D*ck in a Box, I’m On a Boat, and others are brilliant in their lyrics and their visuals, and the digital shorts have been some of the best stuff on Saturday Night Live in recent years.

And who could forget the brilliance of Flight of the Conchords? Their two seasons on HBO, their two albums, and their EP were full of catchy, quotable, fantastic, and hysterical songs. I cried a little bit (on the inside) when I heard the show was officially done. Hopefully they’ll keep putting out music into the next decade.

The Renaissance of the Serialized Drama
The aughts may be remembered as the decade when hour-long, serialized dramas came back with a major vengeance. The best of the bunch has to be Lost – a show that not only blows your mind every week, but it has you obsessing in between episodes, talking over theories and trying to guess what it all means. The season 1 and 3 finales are two of my personal favorites in a standout series.

While the writing may not be as strong at 24 as it is on Lost, it’s still an extremely entertaining show, and it’s made Jack Bauer an instant kick ass pop icon. Sure, it’s cheesy when he screams “Dammit, we’re running out of time!” yet again, but it’s hard to resist the show’s real-time Die Hard feel. Then there’s Smallville, which has gotten much better at telling long stories over multiple episodes instead of just relying on freak-of-the-week episodes. And Fringe straddles the line of stand alone episodes with a greater mythology, and so far has been doing a great job of both. I also have high hopes for FlashForward and V, but it will remain to be seen how well those shows pay off long arcs, but they’re both off to good starts.

Even when theses kinds of shows haven’t worked all that well (Dollhouse, Terminator, Heroes) or when they were good concepts that were canceled too soon (Eli Stone), it’s still good that network executives are giving their audience some credit, understanding that we have patience, and can appreciate the kind of story-telling where everything isn’t all wrapped up in a tidy package in 42 minutes.

There is a great, albeit very long article about this topic at GQ.com with the guys from Bad Robot – I recommend it if you have a half-hour to kill.

Sit-coms Are Amazing Again!
It wasn’t just hour-long dramas that rocked the decade; the sit-com was reintroduced as a medium of clever comedies, and not just full of pratfalls and one-dimensional characters. Arrested Development was able to use bad puns, sight gags, kissing cousins, and The Final Countdown to great effect for powerful belly laughs. The British version of The Office gave us an amazing new brand of painful and awkward humor that would live on in the American series, as well as Ricky Gervais’ show Extras. 30 Rock is written so brilliantly and the jokes come so fast I find myself having to constantly rewind back to listen to jokes again. How I Met Your Mother gave a new twist to the story of urban singles looking for love. And we got 8 great years of Scrubs – even if Season 9 leaves a little to be desired.

The Superhero Is Cool Again
It seems like ages ago, but there was a time in the not-so-distant past that superhero movies weren’t really anything to get that excited about. Then in a single decade, we got four fantastic films in the genre: Superman Returns, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and Iron Man. (I know I’m going to get mocked for making those the ones I single out… but I just can’t get behind Spider-man. I tried, really, I did. And I enjoyed X-Men and X2, but I don’t know if they were amazing.) Too often, superhero movies were considered formulaic drivel, and could be released, hated, and forgotten about quickly. But the aughts made them not only bankable hits, but films that both nerds and critics agreed were actually good. I’ve defended Superman Returns so many times I’ve lost count, so I’ll just make this quick – it had its fans, and its share of people who hated it, but I loved it, so it goes on *MY* list, OK? The rebooted Batman films were also incredible, and they made that world so dark and believable it’s hard to not be foaming at the mouth for more sequels. And even though I knew nothing about Iron Man, I thoroughly enjoyed that film as well. Sure there have been some bad superhero movies in the past ten years, but the good ones were so great, it almost doesn’t matter.

The Apatow Movie Method
If some strange pop culture villain put a gun to my head and demanded I name the funniest movie of the past ten years, it’s a safe bet that I’d answer Superbad. I was laughing out loud a lot when we first saw that flick, and every time I’ve watched it since, I have the same reaction. That’s impressive considering I know the jokes that are coming. I also feel similarly about Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Knocked Up, and The 40-Year Old Virgin. And Anchorman and Talladega Nights and Walk Hard and any movie that had Apatow’s name attached to was guaranteed to be at least funnier than your average comedy. Of course, Judd himself didn’t always have much to do with every all of the above movies, but his influence can be felt in them – and others where he had no involvement whatsoever, like I Love You, Man; there are outrageous moments, painful moments, and things that are ridiculous enough to make you laugh so hard your stomach hurts, but they still keep themselves grounded in such a way that you buy what’s happening. Movie comedies will probably continue to evolve, but these movies will always make me laugh.

The Pixar Streak
So much has already been said about the brilliance of the Pixar movies, but here it goes anyway: The folks at Pixar are geniuses, and each and every one of their flicks have been funny, beautiful to watch, and full of great characters and stories. Two of the greatest films of the decade in my humble opinion are WALL·E and Up, neither of which sounded like a home-run concept, but were both executed flawlessly. Sure there are other companies doing similar kinds of animation, but those movies always just fail to impress me with their stories, and often times they are so full of timely references that the jokes will be out dated in a few years. Courtney and I have been watching a DVR’d collection of Pixar shorts, and even the company’s short films are crafted with amazing precision and humor. I sure hope my kids love these movies, because I know I’ll enjoy watching them too.

Nintendo Changes Video Gaming
I’m a Nintendo fanboy – always have been, always will be. And I loved the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance. But what Nintendo pulled off with the Wii and the Nintendo DS is truly incredible. Video-gaming is no longer just associated with nerds playing alone in dark basements – it’s now something that the whole family can do together, something that parents don’t dread if their kids want to do, and it’s even something that women actually enjoy. (And are not just pretending to enjoy for the sake of their boyfriends or husbands.) Wii Sports isn’t my favorite game personally, but I love watching people who have never held a game controller pick it up and play with ease. Wii Fit is a really fun way to exercise at home. The latest iterations of the classic franchises have all been fantastic: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Super Paper Mario, Mario Kart Wii, Super Mario Galaxy, and New Super Mario Bros. Wii are all incredible games, as are their counterparts on the DS. (I just beat the first dungeon in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks this morning – it’s really fun so far!)

Sure Nintendo has room for improvement – better online capability, HD graphics, etc. But the fact of the matter is what they are doing now works, and it works well, and it works well for a huge chunk of the population.

Better, Clearer, Faster
High definition television. DVR. Portable players that let us watch movies, TV shows, and carry tons of music and photos, too. It’s pretty amazing that when we started this decade, those things weren’t common, and now it’s hard to imagine life without them. It sounds like a sweeping statement, but it isn’t, really. Try to go through a week without using your DVR. Or switch back to a standard definition TV. You’ll be going out of your mind in a week. What are you going to do, record your favorite shows with a VCR? Seriously.

And remember when you had to carry a discman with you to listen to music on the go? You looked strange wearing headphones, and you could only listen to one album at a time! Now you can carry thousands of songs in your cell phone.

And remember dial-up? When it would take a half hour to load a 30 second video clip? Now you can watch entire episodes of TV shows or whole movies on your laptop – or even on your TV – that load in seconds.

It’s hard to imagine so much has happened in ten years, and it’s even crazier that in December 2019, we’ll be looking back at all of this stuff as quaint and old-fashioned.

Warning – MAJOR SPOILER ALERT on the potentially upcoming Ghostbusters movie!

Still here? OK, so Sigourney Weaves has been doing press for Avatar, and the folks from the UK’s Channel 4 asked her about a Ghostbusters sequel. Here’s the video:

Whoa, right? That’s quite a bombshell at the end – Bill Murray will be in the movie AS A GHOST? That implies that sometime in the interim between parts 2 and 3, Peter Venkman will meet an untimely end. How could this happen? Will we get to see a great death scene in a flashback at least? And will Ghost Venkman be a good ghost, a bad ghost, or a silly Slimer-esque ghost? One can imagine Bill Murray having a lot of fun playing an apparition. My only fear is that this news means that Bill would only be in the movie for a small cameo. I’m sure that I am not alone in thinking that just a little bit of Venkman is not enough for a Ghostbusters movie.

In other pop culture “death” news, it is official -according to Bret and Jermaine themselves – that the Flight of the Conchords HBO series is no more. This isn’t that shocking, since the guys had said before that they wouldn’t do a third season, and with the way the season finale ended, it sort of makes sense. Still, I was hoping that Bret and Jermaine would bring the show back. But it sounds like they’ll keep doing other things, which helps soften the blow.

And totally unrelated to anything: check out this amazing Millennium Falcon bed and this adorable little Link outfit.
Thanks to Chris Martin and “B.E.” respectively for passing them my way.

The new Flight of the Conchords CD is out, and as a huge fan of Brett and Jermaine, of course I picked it up in a hurry. I’ve listened to the album twice, and it’s definitely funny and fantastic and catchy. So far I don’t think I’m as in love with it as I was their first disc, but that very well could just be because I’ve listened to the old batch of songs so many times I have most of them committed to memory, and the new tunes still need time to properly implant themselves in my brain.

So far, my favorites are “Too Many D*cks (On The Dance Floor),” “Carol Brown,” and “Rambling Through The Avenues Of Time,” a great Billy Joel-esque ballad. I’ve noticed a few more fast little jokes on my second listening, which is great, and I hope continues. It should, since I still hear new things in the old FotC songs.

My biggest complaint with the disc is that it’s really short – under 34 minutes. There have to be more songs that they could have included; off the top of my head, there was Murray’s song “Rejected” from the season 2 premiere which I remember thinking was really funny. And there was “Mermaids” from season 1 which wasn’t on either album. Of course I hope the guys keep the show going and keep on putting out new music, but I also hope that these and the other forgotten tracks get released at some point as well.

In the meantime, those angels will have to just keep doing it in the clouds…

Hey, I was moved by the Kim-Jack reunion.  I mean, I saw it coming that she would come back and give him a transfusion or something to save him, but it was still an emotional scene.  The guy has one big weakness, and that’s his daughter.  This time out she didn’t look her best, but at least she was not being threatened by a menacing cougar!  And what the hell is up with Tony?  I do not get that twist at all – is he just trying to blackmail his way out of jail time?

On to Lost – I loved the past two episodes.  Ben’s run-in with Smokey was great, and I just loved the way he was lying for what appeared to be no reason.  The man might just be pathologically insane.  I was pretty chocked that he didn’t end up killing Penny – I did think she was a goner – but I’m glad Desmond was able to save his wife.  And I of course loved all of the Hurley-Miles stuff this week, especially the Star Wars references.  Although Hurley did get some of his Empire chronology wrong: Vader told Luke he was his father AFTER he sliced off Luke’s hand.  Jeez, Hurley, get your facts straight!  And who were those guys in the van?  I’m thinking they aren’t with Ben or Widmore – they’re some mysterious third faction, and THEY are the ones who faked the 815 wreckage.  Only a few episodes left!

Their season ended a while back, but Flight of the Conchords had another brilliant season, and I really, truly hope they come back for a third year.

South Park’s been a bit hit-or-miss this season, but I’m loving the great Randy moments.  Every time he says “Hey… hey Sharon,” it just cracks me up.  And the moment a few weeks ago where, after Kyle saves the economy and all of the credit goes to Obama? Well, that was pure brilliance.

And The Office has been as great as ever, and though at first I was hoping to see Michael, Pam, and Ryan rejoin Dunder-Mifflin, now I’m loving their side antics too much to care.  Oh, and this may be harsh, but after reading in Entertainment Weekly, the Times, and online how Parks & Recreation was going to be totally different from The Office, all I could see in two episodes was an Office clone, with one key difference – The Office is funny.  NBC let Scrubs go for this?  Oh, and the two-parter of Scrubs in the Bahamas?  Hysterical.

SPOILER ALERT!

I’ve been loving Lost this season, but I think last night’s episode may be my favorite so far. Sawyer, Juliet, Miles, and Faraday were given the night off, and we got a whole mess of how the Oceanic 6 – Jack in particular – made their way back to the Island. I didn’t care for the way the show started – with a short scene and then the “46 Hours Earlier” bit – it just wasn’t necessary. But overall the episode was amazing, answering a few questions while asking a ton more. I can’t wait to find out how Hurley got Charlie’s guitar, or how Sayid worked himself into custody on that flight, and who said what to Kate to get her to not only go back to the Island, but do so without Aaron. Dream-Claire did warn her to not bring him back, so maybe she was heeding that warning. I’ve been predicting for a while that Ben was going to kill Penny while Des had her in LA, and it looks like there was one hell of a bloody struggle there, although we’ll have to wait to see what exactly went down.

But the way the show worked in elements of fate and destiny, logic and belief – all for the umpteenth time, still felt fresh and relevant. We’re used to all kinds of coincidences occurring with these characters, and things happening because they “have to,” but Jack is still struggling with these concepts, even as he begins to slowly accept them. Lost has had me hooked for a while, but I sort of fell hooked anew after last night’s show.

OK, I’ll stop gushing. Some questions: Why didn’t the O6 have to bring Walt back to the Island – is it because he was “allowed” to leave? Did Flight 316 crash? Won’t people notice that the famous Oceanic Six disappeared form a second flight? How did the Ajira Air water bottles get onto the beach? When are Jack and company? It would appear the 70’s, based on the Dharma van. Have Jin and Farady and the rest of the group “joined” the Dharma group? They probably have it better than the Hostiles. That would explain how Farday was on the Island in the past. This question came from my buddy Mark, and I think it’s a great one – Did Christian die to bring the 815′er so the Island in the same way that Locke had to die to bring the O6 back? How old is Jack’s grandfather? Did he father Christian when he was 11?

But the biggest question of all – Why didn’t Jack or Kate pack some extra goodies with them? Like, you know that game where you say if you were going to be stranded on a deserted Island, you’d bring such-and-such? Why didn’t they bring some supplies along? Comfortable shoes, sunscreen, a couple of good books, maybe an iPod and one of those hand-cranked battery chargers? Some M&M’s, Peeps, I don’t know – something.

Also in pretty huge TV news is the fact that The Simpsons has gone hi-def and widescreen! (James wouldn’t understand.) I thought I’d hate having a new opening credit sequence, but it was really well-done, it kept the same spirit of the original, while taking out dated references (Bart skateboarding by Jacques and Bleeding Gums Murphy) and adding a ton of freeze-frame references put in for the die-hard nerds. Like me! For example, Maggie now is on the shopping belt with Krusty-O’s, Mr. Sparkle, and a bottle of Tomacco juice. The town motto on the Jebediah Springfield statue was a nice touch. And if you pause on the quick-pan across the townspeople, you’ll see Kodos and Kang and even Spiderpig! Little things like that make me happy.

In other news, Heores is totally boring now, and Wifey has officially given up on it. I may soon follow. Dollhouse was a bit disappointing, and though I like it when Fringe does the super-short commercial breaks – “Fringe will return in 4 seconds,” Dollhouse felt like it was just kind of dragging. But it was only the pilot, hopefully it will improve as it finds its footing. Flight of the Conchords reached a new high with “Too Many D*icks on the Dance Floor.” And Eastbound & Down made me laugh at a lot of inappropriate jokes, and I can appreciate that.

First up as always is Lost: I really and truly love this show, but I have to say that I get a bit disappointed when the big “reveals” in the show are things that most fans have already guessed – like that Jack and Claire were related, or that Locke’s dad was the original “Sawyer,” or that Faraday’s mom was the white-haired lady in the church and who told to Desmond he had to go to the Island. I mean, those were all great twists, and I’m sure less-obsessive fans thoroughly enjoyed them, but when you see them coming, they lose a bit of their “HOLY CRAP” factor.

That said, it was nice to see Rousseau take out her team, and see that apparently, Smokey made them go sort of crazy, somehow, and not just by ripping off that one dude’s arm. So what exactly is the nature of “the sickness?” Why does Smokey sometimes rip people limb from limb, sometimes kill them instantly, and sometimes make people go insane? And more importantly, what is the Temple? Ben mentioned it in Season Three as a place that the Others needed to go to hide from the Freighter people. Are some Others still there? Is that where the kids from 815 are? What is it a temple to? And why does Smokey venture so far away from it at times?

The reveal by creepy Christian that Locke was supposed to move the Island and not Ben was fascinating – did Ben know that he was tampering with the plan? He said he has gone through so much for the O6 and they don’t appreciate it – why did he move the Island then if he thought it would cause such heartache for him? Ben said that he had to move the Island because Jacob wanted to banish him – but was he right? Or was he lying? And does Ben not know that Desmond is shacking up with Penny? You’d think he would have been happier to see Des if he did, since he did in fact promise to Widmore that he’d take out Penny. And why is it that ALL of the Oceanic Six had to go back, but now seemingly it was all right if it was just Jack and Sun?

OK, my head hurts, so enough of that. Man, isn’t Flight of the Conchords amazing? I absolutely love them, and I can’t wait for this season’s songs to be released on CD so I can memorize all of them as well. The past few episodes have been stellar, and Murray’s quest to become friends with Bret and Jermaine was absolute pure genius.

And what’s up with Heroes? I only saw Volume Four’s first episode, but I couldn’t help but notice that the show still sucks. Volume Three was supposed to fix all of Two’s mistakes, and it didn’t. Four was supposed to really right the ship, and so far I don’t see it. I never give up on a show, even when the quality goes down. Like, ever. But I am really temped with Heroes. I’m thinking I’ll let the rest of this season play out, but if it doesn’t pick up, I’m done.

And speaking of shows I haven;t given up on, way to go Smallville for finally doing the Clark-Lana story some justice! Although the “wrap-up” (???) of the Lex story left a lot to be desired. Like, really – he’s dead? Yeah, sure. Lex Luthor can’t be dead, but it seems like he may be dead for the purposes of Smallville – which is all well and good, but the character deserved a much better exit than the one he got.

And Dollhouse premieres tonight – on a Friday night. Not a great time-slot, but now with DVR’s and TiVo, who cares about time-slots, anyway? Also tonight is a special Valentine’s Day episode of Brink – watch it with your honey!

Yay – it’s time for the new Spring TV Season! Hooray! Here, in no particular order, are the shows I’m foaming at the mouth for.

Lost – This is a given. Though I personally thought that last season was not the show’s strongest (blasphemy, I know), they did get the ball rolling on a number of fronts, and all of the lingering questions and conspiracy theories that the show leaves you with are just too much fun. In spite of any quibbles, Lost is definitely in line to be one of the greatest serialized dramas in TV history, and I will damn sure be obsessing over every minute this year. In addition to the obvious questions of how Locke ended up in the casket, how the O6 will get back to the Island, and where (or when?) the Island disappeared to, I am still dying to find out how Christian plays into everything, how on Earth Danielle was able to live on the Island for 16 years without ever seeing an Other, and I STILL want a flashback episode for Vincent.

24 – Oh, really, last year sucked? Yeah, thanks for the heads-up on that. Well, for the record, the very beginning and very end of last year were good, it was just the entire middle that was boring and mindless. Well, the mini-movie this fall showed that Jack can still be interesting, and though the change of setting from LA to DC can only do so much, I do think it can help give the show a kick in the tush. They need to remember that what made the show so great in the first place was that the characters were so interesting – the cookie-cutter villains and even good guys just don’t work after a while. Oh, and my conspiracy theory is that Tony Almeida isn’t really a bad-guy – he’s good, just working undercover. I’m really clinging to that, because the whole concept of having him be evil because Michelle died is just so trite.

Big Love – Multiple wives! Shady business dealings! Roman conspiracies! (The kind about the guy named Roman, naturally.) I don’t understand why more people don’t love this show – it’s really well written and well acted, and the whole concept of a a show about a polygamist is just fun.

Flight of the Conchords – I fell in love with this show last year, and picking up the CD has kept New Zealand’s fourth most popular folk rock duo fresh in my music-parody-loving brain. I know the first episode is available to watch online, but part of me wants to wait to see it on the big screen.

Dollhouse – My original goal was to finish Buffy, Angel, and Firefly before Whedon’s latest kicks off. that might not happen, but now that I’m a Joss convert, I’ll definitely be checking in to see Eliza Dushku’s latest role. The rumors of problems on set and with the writing don’t really faze me, as often times those things are exaggerated, and whenever there are high expectations you’re bound to have some people crying foul. But I’ll give it a shot, to watch a Whedon show “live” – just a decade after everyone else started doing it!

Scrubs – And last but not least – Scrubs is back! Tonight! On ABC! I’m going nuts with exclamation points! I am so stoked to be getting more of this show, which I have loved for many years now. Very rarely can one show – a sitcom, no less – be so funny and have so much heart. It’s not an easy line to walk, but Scrubs does it time and again. Part of me hopes that the show ends after this year when Zach Braff leaves, and part of me would love to see it go on forever with a rotating cast, but that just reeks of Saved by the Bell: The New Class to me. Once the core group goes, especially if it’s en masse, it’s just harder to care beyond that point. But I won’t worry about that now, and I’ll just be happy for new Scrubs starting tonight!

According to this article, Flight of the Conchords, one of the funniest shows to ever air on HBO, may call it quits after its upcoming second season.

This makes me very sad.

And yet, part of me understands why Bret and Jermaine want to pull the plug on their own show.

It seems like a concept that is lost on American TV – there’s no shame in ending a popular series when it is on the top of it’s game. BBC shows do it all the time, and apparently that mentality makes sense to New Zealanders as well.

There is no shortage of examples of American series that have outlived their welcome, and should have gone off the air gracefully instead of overstaying their welcome (Smallville, The X-Files, some would argue The Simpsons, though not me…) So maybe there is something to be said about a show’s creators deciding that the quality of further seasons would lead to a decrease in quality, and that they want to end the show on their own terms. I can totally and fully respect that as a creative decision.

But the spoiled child inside me wants more! More Flight of the Conchords! More Bret! More Jermaine! More Murray! More songs about robots, mermaids, and crying!

Oh well. FOTC is I guess destined to be one of those shows with a short run and a devoted cult following, and if that means less episodes of a higher caliber, so be it.