We’ve got a new #1! Boss finished its run and immediately drops out of the charts, while How I Met Your Mother dropped off the bottom, making room for a couple of new entrants in Touch and Parks & Recreation. Remember, comments are open – disagree with my list? Or maybe you think its spot on? Post your thoughts below …
| # | LW | SHOW | CH | COMMENT |
| 1 | 2 | Justified | One | The second season closed in fine style, with a brilliantly-acted scene between Raylan and Mags (Margo Martindale proving that she really did deserve that Emmy for Best Supporting Actress). TV One will be playing the acclaimed third season later in the year. |
| 2 | 1 | Homeland | TV3 | Another week, another masterclass in screen acting from Damian Lewis and Claire Danes – this time as they spend a nice weekend together at a family cabin, before all hell breaks loose in the investigation and between the awkward couple. Still think Brody has turned? |
| 3 | 4 | The Almighty Johnsons | TV3 | Siobhan Marshall guest-starred in the best episode of Johnsons to date, playing the gender-swapped version of Axl – which was especially inspired in those few scenes where she was playing a girl, pretending to be a man, pretending to act like a woman. Brilliance. |
| 4 | - | Touch | TV3 | The new Kiefer Sutherland series gets off to a good start, with Tim Kring showing again how good he is at coming up with a great idea. The question is whether the high-maintenance concept can be replicated week in, week out. Bad international reviews suggest not. |
| 5 | 5 | 7 Days | TV3 | Radio stars JJ Feeney and Vaughan Smith join Rhys Matthewson and Jeremy Elwood on this weeks panels. Not the best episode to date, but entertaining nonetheless. |
| 6 | 10 | Go Girls | TV2 | Airing a night earlier than that brilliant Johnsons episode, Go Girls also delivered an A+ with a fantastic “what if” story that showed both sides of a decision and their disastrous effect on Amy and Cody. Bronwyn Turei again showed how great she can be with the right material. |
| 7 | 7 | Modern Family | TV3 | Its a funny idea having Claire go out for a night on the town with Mitchell and Cam, and it worked thanks to the performances of Stonestreet and Ferguson (and Julie Bowen, too). The real highlight was Phil (again), especially that closing scene with his best friend. |
| 8 | 9 | Person Of Interest | One | PoI seems to be improving with every new episode, aided by the increased input of Carter and improved chemistry between Caviezel and Emerson. By the way, how many procedurals can claim an Oscar-nominee? Easy to forget that PoI has one in Taraji P Henson. |
| 9 | 8 | The Simpsons | Four | Joan Rivers guest stars in this Krusty-centric episode, the first non-Simpson focused ep of the season. Still, Krusty is a big part of the show; you don’t feel like the first family are neglected. The idea of Krusty getting an HBO show is enticing though – any way we could make this happen?! |
| 10 | 6 | House | TV3 | A schizo kid causes problems for everyone else, while House causes problems for a grieving family, which causes problems for Foreman. One of the better episodes of the season so far, from a writing perspective. |
| 11 | 12 | The Walking Dead | TV2 | Rick and Herschel leave the farm in an attempt to deal with the fallout from the barn clearout, while Shane and Dale face off and Lori gets herself in trouble. The performances this week were better than usual, while the story is really starting to heat up now. |
| 12 | - | Parks & Recreation | Four | The second seasons draws to a close with two of the best episodes to date – and it only gets better: during S3, Parks & Recreation starts hitting it out of the park each and every week. This is a show that will probably climb up the charts from here on. |
Next week looks like it will be much the same as this week, though poor reviews mean that Touch might drop down the list (unless nearly every critic is wrong … which, lets face it, is entirely possible). Post your thoughts in the comments section!
(The rankings are put together using an average rating for each show over its past five episodes: every episode is rated out of 10, then the average rating across all episodes is worked out – the shows are then ranked according to their average to date. The episode rating is purely the opinion of Chris Philpott, and is worked out based on production values, performances, story, writing and entertainment value. The important takeaway here is that this is entirely my own opinion – no input from other critics is used, and information like ratings is not considered. Shows will be considered for the rankings when they are active, which means that they might still appear if they’re off for a week mid-season, but will disappear when their season finishes and return when a new season begins. Shows missing 2 or more consecutive weeks are also considered inactive. In this way, shows that improve can make their way into the Top 12, while shows that tail off will drop out. The result is my Top 12 favourite shows for any particular week.)
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