10 years of Foolishness

Ten years ago today, I launched this little blog, fresh off leaving the Houston Chronicle, and having no real idea what I was doing.

What a ten years it has been.

Together we have lived through an earth-shaking shift in the television and entertainment paradigm, the rise of A.I., had the dream of a female president slip through our fingers twice in favor of a felonious rapist demented game show host who has been diligently destroying our democracy, we’ve survived a pandemic and a coup, we’ve watched late night be attacked and institutions like 60 Minutes be destroyed from within, we’ve watched movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter rise up to correct injustices only to have women’s healthcare be stripped from us, and DEI crushed beneath a white nationalist boot, and we said goodbye to Game of Thrones with the most disappointing final season of a great show since …

well …

let’s move on.

It obviously hasn’t been all terrible. We’ve had some literally amazing television in the midst of all this: Succession, Fleabag, Atlanta, Game of Thrones, Ted Lasso, This Is Us, Schitt’s Creek, The Great, Better Call Saul, The Bear, Pluribus, Severance, Mr. Robot, The Leftovers, The Good Fight, The Last of Us, Watchmen, Hacks, Barry, Killing Eve, Ramy, Andor, The Americans, Veep, Chernobyl, Abbott Elementary, Russian Doll, Bridgerton, The Handmaid’s Tale, Perry Mason, Key & Peele, The Studio, Stranger Things, Reservation Dogs, Fargo, Squid Game, PEN-15, Silicon Valley, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Someone Somewhere, Dead to Me, Wednesday, Orphan Black, Ghosts, Evil, WandaVision, Lovecraft Country, Baby Reindeer, Alien: Earth, The Queen’s Gambit, Drunken History, Cobra-Kai, Derry Girls, I Think You Should Leave, The Diplomat, Baskets, Shrinking, Heated Rivalry, Poker Face, Margo’s Got Money Problems, Ozark, The Leftovers, The Righteous Gemstones, Fall of the House of Usher, Slow Horses, Yellowjackets, Dying for Sex, The Haunting of Hill House, Beef, The Other Two, Downton Abbey, Fallout, Love on the Spectrum, Dark, Adolescence, The Lowdown, The Good Place, Marianne, From, Big Little Lies, Mo, GLOW, Mindhunter, Midnight Mass, Mare of Eastown, Shōgun, The Rehearsal, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Station Eleven, Black Mirror, Only Murders in the Building, Silo, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Pitt, Insecure, The Boys, The Mandalorian, The White Lotus, Bad Sisters, What We Do in the Shadows, Jury Duty, The Gilded Age, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and, of course, my newest favorite, Widow’s Bay.

And those are just the ones I remember — I just know I’m leaving so many amazing shows off of this list. But this being (ostensibly) a TV blog, it’s important to point out that in the past ten years we have been genuinely blessed with some of the most original, moving, poignant, terrifying, hilarious television that I’ve ever seen. And while there is great hand-wringing over the future of the television business as a whole in the face of corporate consolidation, political boot-licking, and the ever-present enshittification from AI, I remain somewhat Pollyannish, believing that the best is still ahead of us, and that creatives will always find a way to tell stories that delight, teach, embolden, and move us.

As for what the future is for this little one-woman show? I’m just going to keep doing what I’ve been doing and hope that you will keep checking in on me. Ten years is the longest I’ve ever done anything, because I like it here. And I like it here because I like y’all. Thank you for finding me, thank you for showing up, thank you for making me feel like I’m not alone screaming into the void. I hope to keep hanging around here, and I hope you’ll keep stopping by.

To another ten years of foolishness!