The Glee Project - Dance-ability and Vulnerability

Okay, so some of our opinions have changed since our first Glee Project season two post, where we covered the casting special and episode one. After episodes two and three, Leeard has decided she hates just about every contestant except for maybe Shanna. Leeard hates Aylin the most. Ern stands by most of our early picks. Mario is starting to get on both our nerves. We liked him at first because of his talent and cool backstory, but his arrogance and insistence on having everyone remember that he was “classically trained” is getting annoying. There is a lot of classical training out there. Some of it is bad. We don’t know if his was good. We should have known when Taryn went home that Ryan Murphy would use the extra week to save a contestant when he couldn’t make a decision. Not that we are complaining. Lily was on the chopping block again this week and so was Nellie. We cannot lose either of them so soon, especially Nellie. We get that these competitions can take their toll on sensitive people, so we aren’t going to say a word against Taryn in this post, although it’s too bad that we didn’t get to see more of her. We didn’t even know if she was good or not.

As for the guest mentors, Samuel was useless and Cory Montieth came across as fake and rehearsed, but hot. Lea Michele is the best mentor of the season so far (no surprise). We liked the "Party Rock Anthem" cover and video from episode two, and the bullying video "Everybody Hurts" was overwrought, but entertaining. Hey, this show isn’t making art here. They were remotely tolerable and that’s as good as things are going to get. We could totally see all the lip-syncing errors the directors were complaining about in "Everybody Hurts". Zach is so hot, even when he’s yelling at the kids for being horrible dancer. Actually, especially when he’s doing that.

We could not be more tired of Tyler or hearing about his changing body. During the dance episode, he thought the challenges were a tragedy for him, even though there is a both a blind guy and a girl in a wheelchair. Yeah, Tyler, your changing body is a real handicap. Artard. While Leeard hates everything to do with Aylin since she called herself a Muslim “bad ass” in one of her talking head portions, Ern is really shipping her and Charlie. Aylin wants Blake, because of hotness, but she threw Charlie a kiss because she’s a kissing slut (which is kind of ballsy). That was nice of her. Then she kissed Lily in the video too, even though Lily seems to be Aylin’s biggest frenemy on the show. Lily hates Aylin almost as much as Leeard does.

It’s weird that Nellie complained about Spin the Bottle, saying she doesn’t just kiss people, and she is one of the only people shown kissing in the video. Did they make everyone kiss someone and just pick the best kiss? Did Aylin just kiss everyone? If so, thank God we didn’t have to see that. What we did have to see was “vulnerability” in week three, meaning drama. We liked the cover of "My Life Would Suck Without U". It was possibly their best cover yet, even though it’s one of the fantastic Kelly Clarkson’s stupidest songs (according to Ern; It's Leeard's ringtone, so she obviously disagrees). We are not at all surprised that Lily was the bully in middle school (mostly because just about everyone bullied someone in middle school, at some point, but also because Lily can be kind of a bitch). Lily breaking down in her Ryan Murphy audition was a smart move, because he loves to see pathetic tears.

We are sick of Lily’s excuses, but we love when she does her sexy thing and her voice is good. She’s no Hannah though, and we are ashamed that we thought she could ever live up to that legacy. Dani was screwed over. Yeah, she didn’t show enough “life” in the stupid party video, because she’s mature and a real artist. The best partiers are sometimes the laid-back, calm people at the party. She seemed comfortable and confident lying on the couch, singing with her fantastic voice. The show was looking for pep and GLEE though, so she was sent home, and we don’t even get to download her cover of Landslide to comfort us.

Dani wasn’t bringing the drama. You can grab a blind guy’s stick, make excuses, and fight for lines in a stupid song, but you can’t be boring on this show and survive. If you can’t handle a real person, why did you even put her on the show, Glee Project? Tyler, Lily, and Dani were the bottom three for Dance-ability. Keeping Tyler was a crime. We almost stopped watching the show, in protest, but there’s not much else on in the summer. Remember everyone: Ryan Murphy is the High School Chorus Teacher of This World, and don’t you forget it or ever argue with him, even if his show insists on talking about people's "dance-ability" when that is not a real adjective, nor even a real word.

Dance-ability grade: C

Vulnerability grade: B+

Girls: Season One

Girls is the most polarizing new show of the year. People who hate it hate it with a passion, calling it the worst show ever made. We think that’s a bit much, even if you don’t hate Girls. Two and a Half Men is still on the air, after all. To support their hate, critics say that the main characters are too selfish, all the men are portrayed as dogs and users, and the show isn’t funny enough. We wonder if most of these people only watched the first two episodes which, admittedly, were difficult to love, since they were cold and had all that bad (fascinating) sex.

In the subsequent episodes, Girls became even more relatable and less stressful. It didn’t focus so much on Hannah Horvath being broke, jobless, and futureless. It focused a little more on her friendships and insecurities. Shoshanna emerged as the best character on the show. Part of that is that the show only gives her to us in moderation. The time she did crack and lost her pants was one of the show’s best moments. Leeard is mad at what Marnie did to Charlie, breaking up with him during sex after working so hard to get him back. Ern thinks it’s funny and fabulous. Ern was never a Charlie fan.

We are going to miss Kathryn Hahn as Jessa’s boss. We won’t much miss her husband. Kathryn Hahn is so gorgeous and we don’t think she gets enough credit for that. We both hated Adam in the first two episodes, calling him an uggo and a waste of space. But after that, he became the second best person on the show. He’s a complex, honest guy. Yeah, he’s still kind of a jerk, but we can’t wait to see more of him next year. Also, his jerkiness is related to his honesty, which we can appreciate. He's be a much better friend than a boyfriend though. Why did this season only have ten episodes instead of a billion? Didn’t HBO anticipate that we would need more?

The finale had quite a few surprises. We didn’t love the beach ending, but we did love Shoshanna hooking up with Ray, which is much better than hooking up with that one guy who wouldn’t sleep with her because she was a virgin. We loved Ray’s lines in the finale. We also loved Jessa trying to speed up maturity by marrying that dick head Wall Street guy (Chris O'Dowd!). The wedding was cute, very Jessa, and it made perfect sense after her ex-boss’ pep talk. We wonder if, next year, she will be divorced and have half of his money. The relationship could be interesting to watch, if only because the actor playing her new husband (Chris O'Dowd!!!!!) does his part really well, but we think a divorce meltdown would be even more entertaining.

Season one is only five hours long, total, so we think you should check it out and give it a chance, if you don't mind raunch and language. Overall, it makes us smile. Everyone’s talking it about it. For being so short and new, it’s really got us hooked. We looked forward to a new episode every week. We think this show is going to come into its own and outgrow its critics as it matures and develops its four main characters more. We could use a little more Shoshanna, but not much. Sometimes you want to hit the characters, but at least the show makes you care, right? But warning: Some people hate this show so much. You might be one of them.

Season grade: A-

Pretty Little Liars - Kingdom of the Blind review

Spoilers follow. 

Is it just us, or are the clothes on this show getting better? We have our Mona back! Well, with a dash of cray cray. She's talking and gossiping again. We love the plot where Caleb hates Mona and wants her to hurt for trying to kill Hanna. He was never a fan, but the hatred has increased for sure. If Hanna doesn’t stop lying to Caleb, she is going to lose him and she is going to deserve it. Lucas sets fires now. Leeard has been looking forward to Crazy Lucas. Ern hates Lucas’ voice, so she is over both Crazy Lucas and Regular Lucas. (It has no presence.) Leeard likes his voice. Ern likes MONA’S voice. Bitch crazy, but bitch can sing. We will never be sick of Crazy Mona.

The big plot development this week was the Liars confronting Jenna for being able to see. Jenna has been going to a gun shop, which is super creepy. We loved Hanna stepping in front of Jenna’s car and forcing the confrontation. Whenever Jenna shows vulnerability, it really works. We feel sorry for her, even though she’s a rapist. Do we believe her about being threatened? We’re not sure. We don’t care much about the plot where Ezra and Ella are becoming friends again. It was smart of Emily to try to get to the bottom of the cheating though. Since she came out, Emily has been the one always trying to tell the truth. Bless her. We like when the girls use their brains.

We still miss the time that Veronica Hastings was cool. She really needs to level with Spencer, or Spencer is going to go crazier, find out the truth, kill them all, and paint the house with their blood. Mrs. Hastings needs to communicate better, but we agree that Garrett deserves a competent defense. We love that Melissa is becoming an alcoholic. Spencer confronted Melissa, who has finally returned from Mystic Falls (or DC), about being in Alison’s room the night of the murder. Spencer gets absolutely no information out of her sister, which is disappointing. Even more disappointing: Hanna got no information from Mona. We liked when she started screaming in Caleb’s face though. Pure entertainment and not much plot development this week.

Episode grade: B+

Bunheads - For Fanny

Michelle goes into a restaurant/bar. The guy running it is no Luke Danes. He is, in fact, old and an uggo (and MITCHUM HUNTZBERGER!). Michelle doesn’t like dogs?! What?!! COMMUNIST. We liked seeing that Pushing Daisies alumna as the crazy ex-Wiccan. We loved “Ain’t She Sweet” from last week and lamented that we couldn’t find that version of the song to buy on iTunes. This week’s song wasn’t as good, but it was still pretty good. We love that creator Amy Sherman-Palladino can exhibit her music taste better on this show by having the girls dance to it. Lane showed us on Gilmore Girls that Amy is quite the audiophile. We like that Sasha is showing a lot of heart, because it’s great to round out her character from the pilot. She’s still the troublemaking, spoiled leader of the pack, but we think we are going to like her.

It would have been inappropriate for Michelle to openly grieve immediately. When she finally asserted that she was “going through this too,” it was after she had given everyone leeway to take all the grieving rights. But using the words “crazy” and trying to change the memorial was arguably wrong. The predictable solution was for Michelle to make the memorial happen. It wasn’t very Buddhist though. Suck it, Shonda Rhimes. We saw dancers “of color” in the background during the memorial. The Grey’s Anatomy creator tweeted a while back, “Hey @abcfbunheads: really? You couldn’t cast even ONE young dancer of color so I could feel good about my kid watching this show? NOT ONE?” It’s funny that Shonda thinks all TV casting needs to be either a crusade or a rejection of one.

This episode proved that Amy’s actresses can really dance. That’s what they were picking: actresses with ballet backgrounds extensive enough to perform that memorial dance, not actresses who represented every color of the rainbow. The show is new. New, more diverse cast members may pop up. We love seeing black actresses get lead roles (we praised Shonda’s Scandal for it), but we don’t think you need to go after someone else’s fragile, cute show for casting all white actresses who are perfect for their parts. Amy responded, saying (among other things) that there wasn’t much time or budget for a casting search. We know the names of the other two main dancers! They are Melanie and Ginny. Ginny is the blonde. Boo and Sasha round out the main four. Boo’s real name is Bettina. They are all perfect for their roles.

The episode’s end had another twist, but a more predictable one. Hubbell left everything (the land and the house) to Michelle, not Fanny. We loved Michelle’s swig of beer after hearing the news. Sutton Foster (Michelle) is growing on us with every minute we look at her and her facial expressions, which are comedy gold. She can convey everything with a deadpan glare. This episode was a little slow in parts for us, especially when Fanny was planning her crazy memorial. We get it, show. It was crazy. The episode was also, obviously, kind of a bummer. The episode had to happen though. The Truly stuff was funny. Our favorite lines were: “I didn’t mean to scare you with hell.” “It’s okay. That’s what Hell is for.” They were delivered in the perfect, teary way.

Less perfect was the delivery of some of Amy’s more cutesy lines. The young dancers struggled with making their dialogue seem believable and needed more guidance in how to equal Lauren Graham’s delivery. Even Kelly Bishop didn’t feel genuine. We hope the show gets better at feeling natural while keeping the clever jokes. Don’t force it, Amy, it’s going to come across as a false, soulless copy of Gilmore Girls, rather than a show with its own loveable characters. The show is still building toward its main plots, where Michelle will teach the girls to dance and hopefully find her Luke Danes. When the show is done with set-up, we expect it to feel more genuine. We still think you should be watching it, if only to help the ratings, because it has so much potential to be awesomesauce. The best part was the dog-walking part.

Episode grade: B-

True Blood - season 5, episode two “Authority Always Wins”

Spoiler warning

This episode wasn’t much of an improvement from last week. Tara rises like an animal, and it’s actually kind of cool and morbid. She can’t be tamed. At least she’s quieter. Then she gets back to herself a little, says, “I’ll never forgive you” to Lafayette and Sookie, and runs off. Tara’s angry at someone?!! What a change! It seems like she will be getting completely different storylines now that she’s a vampire and it’s a whole new season! We hope you are getting all the sarcasm there.

The much-hyped backstory of how Pam met Eric is lame so far. Steve Newlin just needs to go away. He’s the kind of gay guy that gives gays, Christians, Republicans, and men everywhere a bad name. He isn’t funny and he isn’t scary. He’s still in the closet about being gay. The best thing about his existence is Jessica throwing him out of her house and throwing his hair. We liked Hoyt’s mom’s reaction to Jason breaking up Hoyt’s relationship. Pies for Jason!

Luna acted pretty crazy when Sam suggested that Luna not cut Emma off from her grandmother, Martha. Emma is a cute little wolf. Marcus’s body looked too fake to be gross when it was all partially eaten. We don’t get to see a ton of Alcide and just about everyone keeps their clothes on this week. We don’t get much progression on the Terry stuff. He just acts crazy and agrees to go with Patrick to look for their missing fellow soldier.

We liked Nora getting shut up and slapped when she tried to lie. We also like Chris Meloni as the head of the Authority (the Guardian). True Blood is tackling religion, the church, and fanaticism by showing us the vampire religion. They are like vampire Catholics from the Inquisition days and they definitely believe the government should be a theocracy with them at the head. Greeeeeaat. That will be so fun, True Blood of all the dumb f*** shows getting political and throwing out commentary.

We’ve seen the Lilith myth used in much better ways. Most of the effort is devoted to the Authority torturing Bill and Eric. They tell the Guardian that Russell Edgington is alive and about. That way, they can be offered to Russell as bait so that he can be caught and killed. Then he won’t go after Sookie. Sookie’s got a mean air freshener on her side though. She might not need their protection! Yeah, that was more sarcasm. Sookie needs to get a sawed-off shotgun with silver ammo and start working on how to get better control of her fairy powers. This show makes one of us miss The Vampire Diaries.

Overall, this episode was boring and mostly set-up. But the last image was gross enough to make it worth watching. This season had better get good, quick. We miss Jesus. Kill Tara and bring back Jesus!

Episode grade: C+

Scandal - Both of us are finally caught up/finished with season one

One of us was caught up a while ago and freaking out that the other blogger couldn’t talk about the developments on this show since we last covered it because they were substantial. They were, to use the hated phrase, game changers, both plotwise and regarding our opinion of the show/whether we are going to watch season two. We were only behind on four out of the seven episodes and here’s what we thought of them.

"Enemy of the State": Olivia gives Amanda Tanner pregnancy tests and they are positive. Chief of Staff Cyrus Beene declares war on Olivia when he finds out that she intends to back her client, Amanda, in a public takedown of President Grant. While Cyrus digs into the personal lives of Olivia’s team, Quinn goes out with a reporter, Gideon, who wants to know more about Amanda Tanner. The client of the week is a dictator with a missing wife and children. He is on American soil and feels he will get no help from American authorities, since he is as despised as Castro. It turns out that his wife was leaving him, and Olivia helps her do it.

Comments: Well, we still hate Abby and seeing a backstory where she was a beaten and abused wife doesn’t help us like her much. She’s just too holier-than-thou. We did like that she forced Olivia to step up and be a good guy. By this point, the show had pretty much eliminated the moral ambiguity we mentioned before. It’s a good thing, since we aren’t confused anymore, but it’s also bad in that there were interesting grey-area aspects to the show that could have been explored more. It seems they have been abandoned. As we will see, the show even eliminated much of the moral problem with having Olivia sleep with President Grant. 
Episode grade: B-

"Crash and Burn": Pope & Associates must defend a dead pilot from media accusations of incompetence and drunkenness on the job after a plane she is flying crashes, killing everyone onboard. They succeed. Amanda Tanner is killed and Huck tortures the man hired to kill her for information. Her body is found. We meet Vice President Sally Langston and President Grant goes to Olivia’s apartment to assure Olivia that he didn’t kill Amanda Tanner.

Comments: Here’s something we don’t like - the vice president. We know a ton of Republicans and a ton of fundamentalist Christians, judgmental and perfectly nice alike. We know a ton of creationists. None of them speak the way she speaks. None of them come across that way. The way she mentions God’s plan seems forced, not fundamentalist. Maybe it’s the performance and maybe it’s the lines, but it’s not believable. The character seems to exist only to make these kinds of people look like stupid, hypocritical dinosaurs. She’s a cliché and a stock character. What we do like is that President Grant seems to be some sort of progressive, competent Republican who doesn’t base his political career on religion. Usually, the honest, sympathetic politicians on TV are Democrats, and we like to see a break from the usual (especially since we tend to think both parties are equally messed up). This is where the show started to feel less like a Grey’s Anatomy that takes itself even more seriously than Grey’s Anatomy and more like 24 and The West Wing. We liked the "just like 43" line. It does seem like George W Bush to try to escape and run around the real world, haha. 
Episode Grade: B+

"The Trail": It turns out that Amanda’s baby wasn’t President Grant’s and he only slept with her once, out of grief over Olivia leaving him. We get to see flashbacks from two years ago showing us Olivia’s work on Grant’s campaign and the start of their relationship. Olivia worked to make Grant’s marriage look warm and alive. We find out that Mellie cheated on Grant and that she’s a huge liar. Olivia is the person on the tape sleeping with Grant and someone is blackmailing him with it, even though the blackmailer thinks the girl is Amanda. Gideon finds out that Billy, the VP’s number two, was Amanda’s secret boyfriend who impregnated her. Gideon confronts Billy and Billy stabs Gideon in the neck with a pair of scissors. Billy is the guy who had Amanda killed.

Comments: We both hate and love this episode. We hate it because Shonda has used this same formula to justify an affair before. Because Addison slept with Mark on Grey’s, it’s okay for Derek to sleep with Meredith and have it end up the show’s best romantic relationship. Because Mellie cheated first, it’s okay for Fitz to cheat. Shonda wants us invested in the love between Grant and Olivia and it feels like she’s taking a shortcut and making it too easy for us to get there. If you're going to set up a shady love story, do it. Don't rehash a Grey's convenience. We also hate that Mellie is so unsympathetic and coldly ambitious. She’s like Michelle Palmer on 24. It’s just all too easy. We love that we got to see the backstory of why Olivia and Grant even slept together. At this point in the show, it was essential that this be explained. We also love that we get to be invested in this relationship now that we know he isn’t just a serial cheater and total scumbag. The Amanda thing was one-time and he really loved Olivia. His marriage is beyond dead and reconciliation is impossible since Mellie is pretty much a monster (an awesome monster whom Leeard loves, but a monster nonetheless). Since President Grant and Olivia’s forbidden love is the center of this show, it’s good that we can kind of root for it now. We also liked the state attorney’s assistant who failed the bar and loved the line, “All lawyers pass the bar. That’s what makes them lawyers.” 
Episode Grade: B+

"Grant: For the People": Quinn finds Gideon, still alive, and pulls the scissors out of his neck. He bleeds out and dies. Quinn calls Olivia and Olivia has the team cover for Quinn. Quinn has a secret identity and is wanted by government authorities for some reason. If she is fingerprinted or booked, or if the cops investigate her fully, her identity will be revealed. The state attorney eventually figures out who she is. We don’t get to know. The episode ends on that cliffhanger. Billy gets on TV, resigns, and confesses to his affair with Amanda, but he also tells the media that President Grant slept with her, driving her to suicide. Cyrus contacts Olivia and gets her help with the crisis. President Grant wants to come clean about the affair and live a normal life with Olivia, but Mellie and Olivia work together to make Grant’s denial of the affair plausible. Cyrus reminds Olivia that Grant is a great man whose administration should continue for the good of the country. And besides, nobody wants a President Sally Langston.

Comments: This was a really good finale. Ern is livid that Quinn pulled the scissors out of Gideon’s neck. What an idiot. Didn’t that girl go to law school? If you further hurt someone when trying to help them, you can be sued for it anyway. Leeard maintains that Gideon would have died anyway, but Ern isn’t so sure. He was alive for that long. (We don't actually know how long he was alive for. She only went to get bagels). The right thing to do was to not cause more damage or faster bleeding, but to call 911 asap. Anyway…we liked Grant’s desire to tell the truth. It made us like him more. We also liked Olivia’s unselfish decision. It’s cool that Quinn is finally becoming useful as a character. We don't really care about her, but if she gets some backstory, we might. We think she might be a child who was kidnapped and doesn't want to be reunited with her family. We don't know how we feel about the team defacing the crime scene and making sure Billy would never be convicted in the process. Mellie was entertaining in this episode. Maybe she's too one-side, but she's sure fun to watch. She doesn't love her husband. She was mad at Olivia for leaving him, dropping the ball, and making him depressed enough to sleep with Amanda. Mellie thinks her husband is a good president, but most of all, she just wants to keep being first lady. Keep conspiring, Mellie. Olivia and Fitz have real chemistry, but is he a master manipulator or a victim who is denied love by life's circumstances? Probably the latter, because this is Shondaland. 
Episode Grade: A-

We have heard that Henry Ian Cusick (Stephen Finch and Desmond Hume on LOST) won’t be returning as part of the main cast. This is a huge loss for the show, but we've heard it's basically because Shonda thinks he's too good for the show, which we can't really argue with. Shonda Rhimes said that the second season will likely have 13 or fewer episodes. The show is good enough now that it deserves more episodes. We will definitely be watching season two. The show really grew into itself, gave us people to root for, and became faster paced in the last couple of episodes. It did a lot in seven episodes. There’s nothing else on TV quite like it. If it sounds interesting to you, watch it. We’re onboard. 

Your Highness....

is not a good movie. However, there are some funny parts. We'd recommend it for people who like to get stoned and watch movies with their friends.

Father’s Day List: The best dad currently on TV, a competition

We won’t be mentioning Coach Taylor or Charles Ingalls. This is a competition to find the best dad on television shows that are not cancelled or finished yet. 

The contenders:

Cameron Tucker - Modern Family and Mitchell Pritchett- Modern Family. These two go together, obviously. Cam’s fun approach compliments Mitchell’s worried, actual-parent approach. But we’re going to count these guys out early because of the creepy clown antics and the fact that they are always fighting. Yeah, it’s funny, so you hardly notice, but think about it. Most of their plots involve some petty disagreement. The writers need something new to do with these characters. Lily’s kind of unlikeable too.

Bobby Cobb - Cougar Town. Grayson isn’t in the running, since he just found out that Tampa exists. Andy? Well, Stan is a demon child. So that just leaves Bobby. Travis is an alright little guy and Bobby is his dad. Still, Bobby is bad at everything. He always crashes his son’s college place, lives on a boat, named his dog Travis, Jr. because the dog reminds him of his son, and thinks the best activity in the world is throwing pennies in a can. Bobby is fun and occasionally doles out good advice (worded badly, but the heart of it is usually good), but we’re going to bet that Travis turned out well in spite of Bobby and because of Jules. Still, we love him, so he deserves a mention.

Phil Dunphy - Modern Family. We thought of him instantly because of the way he pals around with Luke and this season’s episode where he found out that Haley lost her V-card. This might be the most adorable dad on TV right now, while also the most traditional. He makes an effort to please Claire (part of being a good father is being a good husband) and bond with Alex, even if it just ends with Alex vomiting. His cluelessness works against him in this contest, but as of right now, he’s a strong contender for best dad on TV. He may be the funniest character on the whole dang show too. 

Dexter Morgan - Dexter. Dexter turned out to be a much better dad than we had anticipated. Dexter makes sure his son has a good nanny, worries that Harrison will turn out like him, rushes to save Harrison when he is kidnapped, hugs him, talks to him, and provides for him. But Dexter loses major points for the…you know…whole serial killer thing.

Tom Mason - Falling Skies. This father and his sons are the heart of this show. Tom does a lot to save and protect his offspring from alien invasion. But we’d like to give the award to a dad with a little more personality. Personality goes a long way. You want to actually hang out with your dad and enjoy it. Our dads are weird, but they’re better than Tom because they aren’t boring. And we’re sure they’d do alright protecting us from aliens. They both have enough guns.

Tywin and Jaime Lannister - Game of Thrones. Bah haha. Just kidding. Tywin's too mean to Tyrion. Since Ned and Robert left, there aren’t that many dads on this show. Jaime? He has incest babies. Has he even seen them in the last couple of years? We’re not giving the award to someone who pushed someone else’s kid out the window.

Randy Marsh- South Park. He’s a contender purely for hilarity’s sake, and you have to admit that he’s better than Kenny’s dad.

Dr. Walter Bishop - Fringe. He’s made some major mistakes, but he would do anything for Peter and he’s so sweet. He’s not going to beat Phil Dunphy, but we thought we’d at least put him on the list.

Tad Horvath - Girls. He’s on the list for cutting Hannah off from his bank account, because that’s really the best thing for that girl. You can totally be the voice of your generation, Hannah. We think you have what it takes, but get a job while you’re at it. We know Tad is always there if Hannah really starts drowning, but tough love is necessary. Plus, it’s hilarious that he’s secretly gay, according to Hannah’s gay ex. But then we saw him go to town on his wife. Secretly bi maybe?

Mark Sloan - Grey’s Anatomy. Derek couldn’t even do his baby’s hair, so he’s not the pick from this show. Mark has been at this longer, and he’s always into it, all the time. He’s always wanted a baby (remember how sad he was about Addison’s abortion) and now he has one. He stepped up to it enthusiastically, even taking some BS from Arizona in the process. Plus, he's a doctor so he will likely push hard for his daughter's education...and he'll be able to fund it.

Marshall Erikson - How I Met Your Mother. It’s early, but we’re sure Marshall is going to be a cool, kick-ass dad. He’s a good husband, friend, and lawyer, after all. But he named his son Marvin Waitforit Eriksen and then took his baby on his first outing…to a bar. That’s not a good start, but we know Marshall will make up for those things.

Don Draper - Mad Men. You know Pete won’t get the nomination. But Don has been staying in his kids’ lives after his divorce, letting them come over when they need a break from fat Betty. He took Sally as his date to his awards party, he works hard, he gave them a good stepmom, and he insisted that Sally take off her hooker boots and get rid of the makeup. He’s protecting her innocence like any good, square dad would. He's not good at marriage, but he's not ditching his kids.

Burt Hummel - Glee. Stop the contest. This is the winner. Just kidding. Maybe. Burt’s best moments came last season. This season, it seems like he’s been too busy being a Congressman, and he also made us watch him do the "Single Ladies" Dance. Still, this is every gay guy’s dream dad and the heart of this increasingly shallow show. Also, this speech: “"For most guys, sex is just always this thing we want to do...But it’s about more than just the physical. When you're intimate with someone in that way, you're exposing yourself. You're never gonna be more vulnerable, and that scares the hell out of a lot of guys... For you, it’s worse. With two guys you've got two people who think that sex is just sex. It's gonna be easier to come by and once you start, you aren't gonna want to stop. You gotta know that it means something. It's doing something to you, to your heart, to your self-esteem, even though it feels like you're just having fun...When you're ready, I want you to be able to do everything. But when you're ready, I want you to use it as a way to connect to another person. Don't throw yourself around like you don't matter, because you matter, Kurt…That’s it, for now. Can I make you some toast?"

Crosby Braverman - Parenthood. We usually don’t compliment Crosby, but the guy really stepped up this year. He got Jasmine back, which should be great for Jabbar. Crosby also opened a music studio this year. Jabbar is still the cutest, nicest kid ever, even if he lost patience with Max this year. And who was around to help Jabbar handle the Max situation? His dad, Crosby, who is really growing up.

Jimmy Chance - Raising Hope. Jimmy is doing his best and, as it turns out, his best is pretty good. And hilarious.

Byron Montgomery - Pretty Little Liars. He put the smackdown on the Ezra situation. Well, he tried to. That’s really all he’s got going for him. He cheated on Ella, had Aria keep his cheating a secret, had no idea what his son was doing last season, lost his marriage, and is now hanging out with Meredith. Objecting to his teenage daughter sleeping with a grown man is less a good-dad move and more of a cave man’s knee-jerk reaction. ONLY I MAY SLEEP WITH YOUNGER WOMEN.

George Altman - Suburgatory. He gets points for understanding his daughter. He loses points for making her move to the suburbs. Overall though, this is an exceptional TV dad. And those of you who are George/Tessa shippers: stop it. Please. It's super creepy.

Martin Bohm - Touch. Martin will stop at nothing to communicate with Jake and make sure Jake is happy, healthy, and fulfilling his purpose. Martin leaves no stone unturned in the mystery of why Jake is the way he is and what patterns Jake sees. Martin runs frantically all around the sitting doing Jake’s mystic errands. He’s a little impulsive, can't fight like Jack Bauer, sometimes makes rash decisions, and he has a short temper, but he’s always gentle with Jake. Touch only works because Martin’s a devoted father, and he’s definitely in the top three on this list.

Chris Brinkley - Up All Night. The good: His relationship with his wife and the way he stays home and takes care of his baby. The bad: Chris is going to embarrass that poor kid SO MUCH in her teenage years.

Richard Castle - Castle. Alexis is definitely far from our favorite character, but their relationship is definitely a great part of the show. We want a dad who will play laser tag with us! Especially an epic decade-long battle like theirs.

We’re giving it to Martin Bohm this year. Congrats, Martin! Who’s your pick?