So I’d planned to do this fun review of 2008 on New Year’s Eve, but unfortunately I’ve been suffering from flu recently and that didn’t materialise. But seeing as the start of the new year was as subtle as usual, you probably haven’t noticed that we live in the future yet, so let’s just go ahead and do it now.
Let’s start, as I usually do, with TV. Several things continued to be awesome this year, most notably Battlestar Galactica, whose hastily-truncated fourth-part-one season proved that it will leave a big hole in the listings when it concludes in a few months’ time. Heroes recovered from its Second Season Syndrome by ramping up the pace, regaining its comic-book-on-TV feel with twists and set-pieces aplenty. Lost, too, reached the heights of its premiere season again, its confirmed end date giving the series a sense that things really were leading somewhere. Even Catherine Tate (mostly) managed to prove everyone wrong to build perhaps the strongest season of Doctor Who yet.
My personal find of 2008 was Outnumbered, BBC1’s remarkably uncomplicated family sitcom featuring some astonishing performances from its child actors, particularly the girl playing five-year-old Karen, as well as Hugh Dennis’ excellent turn as the weary, sarcastic dad.
Of course there were disappointments, though – Never Mind The Buzzcocks tried its hardest but lacked some of its edge after Bill Bailey’s departure, House tried to be the X Factor and got muddled with ever-more-preposterous mysteries, that same X Factor’s winner only needed thirty seconds on stage with Beyonce to show that she was a long way from having that special presence, and the BBC ordered a third season of Robin Hood.
It was quite a good year for music. Elbow had critics fawning over them for their album The Seldom Seen Kid (admittedly very good), but I felt they were outstripped by American experimental rockers TV on the Radio, whose mesmerising Dear Science was a genuinely new sound. Coldplay proclaimed themselves a new band, wrote their most magical, uplifting song then dropped it from the album (Life in Technicolor II), and failed to endear themselves with their hidden-track antics, but still produced a good album. Keane, similarly, displayed a bold, brash new sound with the superb Spiralling but chickened out and made the rest of the album disappointingly unadventurous. Meanwhile U2 announced No Line On The Horizon, and there was much anticipation.
In the cinema, Australia made a good impression before ruining it all by going on for what felt like an entire day, and Quantum of Solace was terrible.
So, you know, roll on 2009.
Posted by ChannelDelibird 
