Cable TV has been hit hard by the streaming services.  Even by moving the HBO, Starz, Showtime to this category, I only have a list of four shows here.

#4.  The Walking Dead (AMC).  This show ruled the roost for several years, but it has seen a steep decline in interest and quality over the last few seasons.  I have heard that the last few episodes of season 9 (which I have not seen yet) are somewhat of a recovery for the show, so maybe I’ll have to pick it up again when it returns from its midseason break.

#3.  The Runaways (Hulu). The second half of season one was just as great as the first half and I loved the fact that the show felt confident enough in its set up and structure that it was able to develop these characters before they felt the need to make them run away, despite the show’s title.  The show returns in December, dropping all of their episodes in one binge-able block.

#2. Cloak & Dagger (Freeform).  The pair of unknown Marvel Comics heroes made for a stellar television program.  This was another show that took its time and the results really paid off.  They used their 10 episode season to near perfection as we really grew to love the characters of Tandy and Tyrone.  They slowly learned what they were able to do with these weird powers, they had a huge connection to the MCU with Roxxon Oil and they had one of the best TV episodes of the year with “Lotus Eaters.”

#1. Ash vs. The Evil Dead (Starz).  When I found out that season three would be the final one for Ash and the crew, I immediately ended my subscription to Starz in protest.  Ash vs. the Evil Dead was the only thing I ever watched on Starz and with it gone, there was no reason to keep it.  Ash was as good of a television program as you were ever going to get and I am sad that it is over.

Television has been in a golden age for the last several years since we have hundreds of locations in which to partake our favorite shows whether it be weekly, monthly or binging in one sitting.

A couple of years ago, I made the decision that with the TV section of the Year in Review, there were just too many shows eligible for the list and that it was impossible to narrow it down.  So I made the executive decision to split the TV category into four sections.  They were Network, Cable, Streaming, and YouTube.

Now I made a couple of adjustments this year.  I moved the networks HBO, Showtime, Starz etc to the cable group instead of streaming.  I did take YouTube Red (or whatever it is called now) and made it the streaming.  I know that seems odd, but I don’t think that putting YouTube Red series against the ones on YouTube proper was fair.

Then, this year, my consumption of television dropped significantly.  There were a ton of TV shows that would have made lists in the past that I just did not follow on even a semi-regular basis.  These shows included The Big Bang Theory, American Horror Story, Preacher, How to Get Away With Murder, House of Cards, 13 Reasons Why, Ghosted, Legion, Mr. Robot among others.  My time is just limited and I cannot watch all of these shows.

So that is the rules for the television section of this Year in Review.  So we shall begin.

This has been a heck of a year for documentaries.  In fact, I have more docs on this list than I have ever had before.  Maybe there has always been great docs that I just did not see, but it appears to me that there was a bunch of awesome ones in 2018.

In fact, the number one on this list will be in the Top 5 movies of the year for me.  That is saying something.

#10-4

#10.  Remastered:  Tricky Dick & the Man in Black.  Netflix story of Richard Nixon inviting Johnny Cash to perform at the White House.  Interesting doc.

#9.  They’ll Love me When I’m Dead.  Another Netflix doc, this time on Orson Welles and his attempt to complete his film The Other Side of the Wind.

#8.  Free Solo.  Just saw this tonight.  Most of the film, I found the main featured man, Alex Honnold, pretentious and selfish, however, the footage of his free solo climb of El Capitan’s 3,000-foot vertical rock face at Yosemite National Park was tense and thrilling.

#7.  Fahrenheit 11/9.  Michael Moore’s latest film focusing on the reason Donald Trump was elected.  Still, there was more here than just that moment.  He talked a great deal about teachers and the water being poisoned in Detroit.

#6.  Shirkers.  Off of a recommendation by Perri Nemeroff from Collider, I enjoyed this mystery story about a young woman trying to accomplish her dream of making a movie (called Shirkers) and the manner in which it is prevented by a certain man.

#5.  Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind.  We see just how brilliant of a man Robin Williams is and how much his life took out of him.  It is still a painful experience thinking about how we lost this genius.

#4.  Andre the Giant.  This on is on HBO and I actually purchased HBO on Hulu specifically for this doc.  There are some great moments in this film on the “Eighth Wonder of the World” and we see just how broken down Andre became by the end.  There might have even been some real emotion shown by Vince McMahon. (Maybe)

TOP 3….

#3.  Three Identical Strangers.  A story so strange and difficult to believe that if this were a fiction story, you would say it was just too far fetched.  Identical triplets separated at birth find their way back to each other… and that is just the start.

#2.  RBG.  I found this unbelievably entertaining for a story about a Supreme Court justice in her upper eighties.  However, I was completely engaged in the story and I will be praying for her health for as long as Donald is in office.

#1.  Won’t You Be My Neighbor.  I have never before cried in the car on the way home from seeing a movie, but I did with this film…and for no real apparent reason.  It is not as if the film was a heart-breaker or that it tarnished the reputation of Fred Rogers.  In fact, it showed us that he was really that great of a human.  Maybe the fact that our world today could really used someone like him was what brought on my water works.  One of the best movies (not just documentaries) of the year.

Each year, there are films that are released in the previous year in limited release to qualify for Oscar consideration, but they do not go wide release many times until January.  That would make them 2017 films that I see in 2018.  Two years ago, I eliminated these films from my list of Top 30 films of the year because they were really films from the previous year.  However, I figured, why not recognize these films anyway.  All it would mean would be they can have a list all to themselves.

I have six 2017 movies that I saw in 2018.

#6.  Call Me By Your Name.  A lot of people loved this, and I thought it was great too, but I was not as much of a fan of this as most.  I enjoyed it.  No doubt that Timothee Chalamet showed himself as not only a star of the future, but a star of right now.

#5.  The Post.  The true story of the Washington Post and their decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, which showed a cover up involving the Vietnam War.  Starring Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks, the film was dramatic and showed the importance of a free press, a lesson we need to keep in mind even today.

#4.  Molly’s Game.  I did not expect to love this movie as much as I did, but there is an amazing performance from Jessica Chastain in a remarkably compelling true story about Molly Bloom and her high stakes poker games that she organized.  Aaron Sorkin wrote the script and the dialogue showed.

#3.  I, Tonya.  The story of Tonya Harding, the US figure skater who reputedly hired someone to club the knee of her biggest competition prior to the Olympics.  After watching this biopic, you may have a better understanding, if not actual empathy, for a figure whom had always had the worst reputation around.  Allison Janney is brilliant as Tonya’s villainous mother.

#2.  Hostiles.  Not too many people saw this western starring Christian Bale, but Hostiles is way better than I thought it would be.  Bale is a US Army captain who is assigned to escort a dying Cheyenne war chief and his family back to their tribal land. There is so much strain and anxiety along the way that the two enemies find that they have more in common than they thought.

#1.  The Shape of Water.  This was a near perfect movie for me.  I loved everything about it (with the exception of the strange dance number in the middle of the film).  Guillermo del Toro directed the heck out of this and really made me pull for this unlikely and downright oddball couple.  Who would have guessed that I loved this movie as much as I did?  Not I.  Yet, I was totally mesmerized by the film when I finally got a chance to see what everyone was raving about.

What movies will everybody be talking about this year when I have to wait until January to see them?  Unfortunately, I’ll just have to wait to find out.

It is December and every year, we at EYG, compile our best and worst lists from the year and review what we have seen in the world of pop culture.  Year in Review will list our top TV shows, movies, comics, wrestling matches, Schmoedown matches etc.

Of course, these lists are only our opinion and everybody else has the right to have their own opinions and to disagree with our choices.  Just because I hated something, does not mean you can’t love it.  That is why this is a safe local on the webs.

Over the next 31 days, we will be adding posts to this section dealing with all of Geek Culture.  Most of the movie lists will come later in the month as I have yet to see Aquaman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse, Mary Poppins Returns, Bumblebee among many other great movies.

I always enjoy making these lists and expressing my thoughts on the past year.  2018 was a year where the Avengers broke 2 million dollars, Black Panther became a cultural significance, where I slowed down on my TV watching, where we lost a legend in Stan Lee among other amazingly talented people and where the Mouse got his gloved hands on FOX.

2018 was the year of the documentary.  One of them may find its way into the Top 5 films of the year (not may, WILL!).  Horror movies were everywhere in 2018 and most were pretty good.

So… with 2018 coming to an end, let’s look back on the year that was….

BY THE WAY FROM THIS POINT ON THERE WILL BE SPOILERS!!!!!  BE AWARE