WICHITV AWARDS: so much more fun than the Emmy's

HANNIBAL I designed this category with Dr.House in mind. Medical Malpractice is his speciality, and I thought he would sweep easily. But then I took a second to thought about it, and realized that Hannibal Lector takes medical practice to a new level. House's violation of his patient's autonomy is dramatic, sudden, and ultimatley in the name of medical good. Hannibal is playing an entirely different game. Will Graham's medical wellbeing is not the goal when Hannibal hides his Encephalitis dignosis from Will. The goal is to show Will his true, murderous nature. Hannibal's medical malpractice is pyscosexual. It's personal. It's love!

TRINITY SANTOS Who else is doing it like her? (The Pitt) She uncovered her enemy's drug addiction and flired with the hot surgeon on DAY ONE. I love how mean and confident and ultimiatley caring she is. I love how openly ambitious she is, and i love the she and the wet cat (dennis!!) are roommates.

The rest of this line up should not overlooked either.

While Margot and Alana's relationship on Hannibal didn't really work for me, Margot was one of my favorite characters. Eerie and Confident in her leather sling.

Pluribus is worth the watch for Carol Sturka - what the world was taken over by an alien hivemind and one of the 13 people immune to it was a closeted lesbian romance romance writer who hates her job? It takes truth serum for Carol to admit her feelings (that she misses her dead parter, and that she finds the dream woman the hive sent to be fuckable).

RIP Cinta Kaz, you were the rebellion's coldest assasin (Tony Gilroy you will pay for your crimes).

Shirley Dander isn't confirmed any sexuality but she is getting butcher every season so I threw her on the list -- she had her best season yet and was a pretty effective spy. Still a loser though.

THE PITT! A broken clock is right once a day, and the Emmy's were right about this one. The Pitt is that good. The show makes its ER setting even more tense by running real-time: the characters are working a 15-hour shift, and the show is 15 episodes, one for each hour. Every character is fantastic - Dr. Robby is a great lead. It's his first day working the anniversery of his mentor's death and you can feel that. There are so many amazing competent women on this cast: Dana, Mel, Santos, Samira, Heather (RIP) Cassie, Walsh. I am so attached to Parker Ellis and she had like 10 minutes of screentime. While some TV shows took place during COVID, giving their characters masks and going on as Normal, the Pitt feels like the first COVID retrospective -- Dr. Robby's PTSD from it hangs over the show like a ticking time bomb, blowing up right at the end. And to top off a fantastic season, the show is coming back on the 8th of January. Not the kind of thing Severance can do.

NOBODY WANTS THIS! (season 2)but seriously who wanted this? what was the point of this season? Did it do anything new at all? I could have given the award to 9-1-1 for falling off its format (rip capt nash) or the bear for filling its episodes with pretenious dialouge instead of moving a plot forward, but I'm giving it to this show. I even rewatched Season 1 -- it was a cute a romcom! Did not need a season 2. One plot point in here is used and dropped for the purpose of playing Reputation.

RIVER CARTWRIGHT! Nick Miller has a job and wife. Dennis Whitter may be covered in questionable fliuds but he is a great doctor. Syril, while he had most pathetic death of the bunch, at least thought he had a purpose. Will Graham had the excuses of Encephalitis. River Cartwright has none of that. He has a job he hates, with a boss who hates him. His dad wants him dead, his only friend left after he tried to kiss her this season, he is constantly failing at being a spy. All he knows is run very very very fast. Worst of all he thinks he's at the top of his game. He is not. But his evil dad is coming back next season, so maybe he'll get some character development then.

NEW GIRL! I binged this show during finals and I watched it way too fast because when I was complaining to my friends I could catch myself switching between Nick Schimidt and Winston. Not groundbreaking (you'd need to watch Community for that) but the perfect comforting mix of a friend group hanging out in their house. At 20, I love watches shows about 20-somethings when they have jobs and friends and are messing up but still having a good time. Identified very hard with Nick Miller. Adults and English teacher got the short end of the stick here because they are not as long running - they're only one season in, and the seasons are so short. I really liked Adults, and you can see New Girl in it -- five twentysomethings share a house, chaos ensures. Can they please get a 20 episode season 2??? Everything with Paul Baker, Anton, and Issa is wildly entertaining and I need more.

BARRY!This was the first TV show I saw this year (thanks dad!) and I've been thinking about it for MONTHS. How did we as a society move on from Barry on HBO? It has the best pitch ever: "A hitman decides to go to acting school". Bill Haders has been in so many sitcoms that I've seen but I honestly never noticed him. He stars in this show, he co-wrote it, and he directed the last (and darkest season) -- this so is so uniquley directed and written in its humor, and you can really see an artistic vision coming to life. Barry is a show about self-delusion. How deep to the layers go? How far will this killer go to convince himself that he's doing the right thing (cut to: hilarious scene of Barry skipping through Christian podcasts to find one that justifies murder). Barry is 4 season, each with 6 30 minute episodes (my favorite length) and it is both hilarious and terrifying, the way a show about a hitman has to be. Bill Hader could make anything and I'd probably go see it. I even considered going to see an animiated cat in the hat movie because he decided to be in it (probably for money). Will probably be my first rewatch of 2026!

Andor is my favorite Star Wars project since the originals. I can't believe Diego Luna didn't get a nomination for Cassian Andor. Andor is a show about how revolutions get made, and it is so well written. Granted, it has its misteps (Bix's ending forced me to stare at the wall and take deep breathes for a couple minutes) but it is worth the watch. 1x10 One Way Out justifies the entire show.

Severance was a show I watched as Season 2 came out (that three year wait must have been rough) and I thought the first season was stronger than the second. The most terrifying concept. Didn't make a favorite character of the year section because I didn't want to pick between Cassian and Helly R/Helena. What if you were the most repressed person on the planet, regulating every desire you have, and when you create a verison of yourself to live in the oppresive enviroment you maintain, she is freer then you will ever be, and she wants you dead. Happened to my enemy Helena Egan. Imagine you are stuck in a prision with your friends and you want to save them all. You will fight and claw and make your manager Mark S realize he wants to fight (after throwing things at his head) and when you finally make it to the outside world to tell them how tortured you are it turns out it was you running the prision the entire time. Your friends (with one execption) cannot tell the difference. Happened to my best friend Helly R. I didn't like how Season 2 pivoted from the corprate dystopia to the love-triangles (or, 4D cubes) but man, the romantic drama between people who have divided selves goes crazy.

if it didn't have the random timelapses of buildings, it would be impossible to tell Hannibal was a NBC show instead of a fringe arthouse movie. This show wedged itself deep in my subconsious. The second I finished Silence of the Lambs I thought, "Hang on. Wasn't there a gay TV verison of Hannibal," I googled it. I am not a horror person (or so I thought) gore freaks me out (unless its a metaphor for sex, apparently). I read all the warnings on DoesTheDogDie.com about this show (there are many) and thought there was no way I wanted to see a human body turned into a chello. And Yet...I kept thinking about it. I managed to watch 3 seasons of this show, only skipping a few times, because it turns violence into art. Hannibal is interested in beauty -- watching him saw Will's brain out comes off as an act of love. This show is gorgeously shot. Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen are stupid good in this show, which works because this is the Will and Hannibal show. You have to ignore the side characters (some great highlights, but some very poorly developed i.e. ALANA) and any pretense of reality. There's no justification for FBI profiling. Will Graham just stands there, looks mentally ill, and knows things about murderers. It's so deranged -- it's the most romantic thing I've watched this year, possibly ever!