Wanderlust

For a show that's basically just people talking in different locations, this sensitive, brilliantly written series anchored by a fantastic performance from Collette sure is thrilling. We watch Joy and Alan talk (and argue), we watch their teenage son chat with his friends at school, Joy's clients and friends drop by to discuss things both ridiculous and intimate, and throughout, it's utterly, totally captivating, because they feel like real people with whole lives, not just TV personality quirks. They go to work, they eat sandwiches, they go out, they stay in, but the magic is largely just in the way they talk to each other.

A husband, disturbed by his wife saying what he's doing in bed is "good," grumbles that it should be "more than just good." "You're telling me, Buster," she says, leering and popping her eyes, whereupon he rolls away and starts a fight. Joy's neighbor drops by with cannoli and a confession: while watching a porn with her husband, she was unable to take her eyes off one of the female stars. She says with a face filled with both terror and dawning awe, "I have thought to myself -- what if?" The characters reveal themselves in facial expressions instead of words, they tell anecdotes, they don't finish sentences. Wanderlust is more than just good TV; it's the best kind of art that reflects people as they really are: trying but imperfect, beautiful and flawed.