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So, that time of the year. You know what to do.

Feel free to add some categories! And feel free to disagree, but respect other peoples viewership opinions on what they liked.

Best TV show : Unbelievable (Netflix). 100% the hardest show I’ve ever watched in recent memory. But powerful performances from Toni Collette, Merritt Wever (who I had only known as a ditzy sidekick in Nurse Jackie, so it took me by surprise to see her as a hard charging detective) and a great supporting cast made this show just unforgettable. I saw it shortly after it launched and I think about it constantly. Highly recommend, but tough to watch. You’ll know why within 3 minutes of the start.

Worst TV show: GoT. Thats all. I’ll get mad if I talk more about it. feth.

Best movie: Ford v. Ferrari. The only movie I watched in the theater this year. Great performances from Matt Damon and Christian Bale. Kind of ended on a bummer note, but it was a true story and had they ended it before the bummer part, I’d have probably gotten a ridiculous speeding ticket on the way home. I was so pumped. Actually got me into some car podcasts, but me never really being a “Car Guy”, I lost interest.

Runner-Up: Ready or Not. Fun, dark and tense. Loved the lead actress.

Worst movie: Dark Phoenix. How’d they keep getting it so wrong for so long. Even DC kind of course corrected after their misses, why was it so hard for X-men? At least its over(Please?).

Best Horror show: Marianne (Netflix). Probably longer than it needed to be, but thats par the course with most Netflix stuff in my opinion. It also had some quirky weirdness that felt out of place at times, but I tend to find thats a European thing. Silly Europeans! But when it went into the horror stuff, it was awesome.

Worst Horror show: The Terror- Infamy. Not an objectively bad show, just a big letdown compared to the first season, for me. Though it was effective in how it really opened my eyes to Japanese Internment, not really sure how I imagined it all these years, but damn was I ashamed somehow, despite being separated by generations. The lead actor seemed out of his depth, and I felt was overshadowed by a better acting supporting cast.

Best Book I read this year:

Kind of a cheat category, because my best of winner was published in 2010, hence moving the goalposts kind of with the “This year” part. Its my thread I’ll do what I want!

Most of what I read this year was AoS stuff from Black Library. I enjoy it for what it was, but its nothing really heavy, though I liked all the Warhammer Horror stuff, maybe they are my Runner-Up(s).

But the winner: I finished “Empire of the Summer Moon” a few weeks ago and it was a remarkable story. From the savagery of plains warfare, formation of the Texas Rangers and all the crazy/remarkable personalities in what was essentially a 40 year war. Riveting. Was recommended by the Oprah for Men, Joe Rogan, and did not disappoint.

Worst book I read: Kind of regretted starting “ Will Haunt You” by Brian Kirk, but it still had some crazy parts. Overall, I can’t say I really read anything I didn’t enjoy in some fashion this year. Lucky me!

I think I might be with you on Unbelievable. It was an incredible miniseries. I think my wife and I watched it all in nearly a single run with minimal breaks. Very difficult to watch, and knowing it was true made it that much harder.

I'll write my own up when I get to work in a few hours and am being paid to do so.

A few things that came out this year that truly boggled my mind with the awfulness (mostly TV/Netflix);

Nightfliers: Did you watch the Cloverfield Paradox and wish it was a ten episode TV series? Well here it is and it's just as contrived and nonsensical.

Another Life: Do you want to watch Star Trek (+ all the other scifis from the 80s we loved) with 100% more teenage angst and general incompetence? Well here you go!

Black Summer: It's a zombie show, but mostly you'll be cringing at all the bizarre bondage/rape stuff that occupies the first two episodes and the super stupid car chase. The last two episodes are sort of okay.

Game of Thrones Season 8: I haven't watched it but I hear it's terrible!

13 Reasons Why: The 3rd season improves on the 2nd's horrific cringiness and squick value. And by improves I mean it's worse!

I actually think Netflix had a really rotten year for original programming. There are some gems not gonna lie, but they increased their output and outside of Dragon Prince and a few others so much of what they've put out has been so bad.

I started to reply to your comment with "but Dragon Prince" but I see that's been covered so I'll be quiet now.

 LunarSol wrote:
I started to reply to your comment with "but Dragon Prince" but I see that's been covered so I'll be quiet now.

I haven't even mentioned season 3 of Slasher yet!

Yeah, I have not generally enjoyed my geek media this year. Marvel stuff is still great overall, and I really liked Joker a lot (best film of the year Oscars you know it too) and I've been digging into Legend of the Five Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, and Arkham Horror LCG for table top geekery, but in terms of TV and movies it's been pretty much groaning and laughing at the badness XD

Best Movie: I hate to be cliched, but Endgame was the one to beat this year.

Person Favorite: Godzilla King of the Monsters

Personal Favorite runner ups: Ready or Not (super fun), Crawl (I'm essentially always down for dinosaurs/alligators/sharks/monsters eating people)

Best Movie that Looked Terrible But Wasn't: Long Shot

Best Mads Mikkelson vehicle: Polar

Worst Movie: Hellboy, for sure. What a POS. I can't believe they did my man Hellboy like this.

Yesterday was a close contender, because even though it generall did its job of being a little piece of fun fluff, there was one specific plot point that absolutely infuriated me.

Special mention for Dark Phoenix, for finally being the X-men movie that looked so bad I couldn't be bothered to even watch it.

Best Series: I feel like Stranger Things only gets better. I watched it like a night at work - back to back for 8 hours strsight with only bathroom breaks.

Worst series: Another Life. I love Selma Blair and like Katee Sackhoff and thought the trailers look great. I had to abandon it 30 minutes into the first episode.

Best miniseries: Unbelievable (already discussed)

Best miniseries full of unspeakably stupid characters you'll enjoy anyway: Black Summer

Best game: I'd go tie between the Outer Worlds, which is a terrfic classic Fallout0-style romp, and Jurassic World: Evolution, which is like Roller Coaster Tycoon, if the roller coasters sometimes ate dozens of people. Surprisingly fun, and I spent more time than I should just screwing around with Nvidia Ansel, taking picture of dinosaurs.

Worst game: This is a tough one. I want to keep it to games I actually played, so that excludes Fallout 76. I also would like to say Mechwarrior 5, but the truth is even as much as I am complaining about it, I also want to play it more despite it being generally bad, because the actual mech combat is OK. So, I'm going to have to go with Anthem on this one. I got the origin free trial, and even for free, I didn't want to play it for more than 45 minutes.

Best Comic Series: House of X/Dawn of X is freaking wild, man.

Worst Comic Series: the Punisher 2099 relaunch seems pretty terrible so far.

Wait. They’re doing the 2099 comics again?

Yeah, but I am just realizing it might be a limited thing and not really a re-launch (oops).

 Ouze wrote:
, Crawl (I'm essentially always down for dinosaurs/alligators/sharks/monsters eating people).

Have you seen Sweetheart? Weirdly titled, but I enjoyed it so much. Liked it better than Crawl, personally. Think it was because sometimes less is more.

There’s a part where Sweetheart shoots a flare into the sky to signal rescue and on its way down... chills.

Never even heard of it, but it's in my queue now for sure!

Best movie: another vote for Ford v. Ferrari.

Best album: part of me feels like saying Tool would be too cliched because its more like "fething finally!!! they put out a damn album!!!" but really. . . of the 2019 albums I managed to pick up (i'll admit I'm rather detached from the musical world at this point), the new Rammstein album was definitely the best/most favorite of them.

Best TV: kind of a tossup here. I've really enjoyed watching American Gods (granted, I may be a year late to the party, as I wait until you can buy the seasons on Amazon), also really enjoyed Stranger things that I've seen so far.

Worst TV: probably any American based sporting event

Best Miniseries: I don't tend to go all in on these things, but the best one I saw this year was Good Omens.

Best Overall Movie of the Year: Joker
Best Metal Album: The Great War
Best TV Movie: Steven Universe Movie
Best Animated Movie: HTTYD: The Hidden World
Best Netflix Animated Series: The Dragon Prince

Those are just a few I can think of now.

Worst has to be either GoT season 8 or The Rise of Skywalker. Glass was pretty awful as well.

The Mandalorian has been good so far.

Endgame is a push. I think it was pandering fanservice, but a lot of people loved it.

 Ouze wrote:
Worst Comic Series: the Punisher 2099 relaunch seems pretty terrible so far.

Having just finished Doomsday Clock, I'd like to retract that above statement.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Best Overall Movie of the Year: Joker

I actually htought the Joker was a pretentious but "meh" movie TBH. If they'd just done the movie as is, without putting a clown face on him and riding on the coat tails of comic book movies being the "in thing" it wouldn't have attracted any attention.

Best Overall Movie of the Year: None, it has been a long time since there was made a movie that caugth my intrest
Best Metal Album: Hringras by Danheim
Best tv series Series: The Witcher
Best comic I read this year : Hostage by Guy Delise

BrianDavion wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Best Overall Movie of the Year: Joker

I actually htought the Joker was a pretentious but "meh" movie TBH. If they'd just done the movie as is, without putting a clown face on him and riding on the coat tails of comic book movies being the "in thing" it wouldn't have attracted any attention.

It's one of those movies you either love or hate. I was on the love side but I don't expect everyone to feel the same. But I do agree it does at times try to come across as something deeper than it really is.

As I age, I find it harder and harder to be blown away by things, at least in a positive light. So much of everything today is shocking 80%, B-Grade effort to me (something which is somewhat inevitable when money/sales is the goal and not a superb piece of art I guess).

The only thing that comes to my mind for this thread has already been mentioned, the worst TV show/miniseries being Game of Thrones, Season 8 (really 5-7 aren't anything special, but Season 8 is on an island of garbage by itself).

The most enjoyable thing to me as, without surprise, Stranger Things Season 3...but that's just default (and even it was sub-par compared to Season 1, arguably my favourite filmed thing...ever).

I will say that I can widely condemn the general move toward heaps of oppressive political bias/agendas/messages in so many modern films/TV shows, etc. That has soured maybe 60% of things I've watched (and subsequently turned off) this year. The amount of slack-jawed political drivel is ruining entertainment. So I'd give that my vote as generic WORST for all Geek Media across the board. Politics, bias and agenda pervade too much of modern day life, I don't need it in my entertainment.

I personally wish we had kept reality shows out of my politics, but I guess neither one of us got what we wanted.

I would say that amongst the best things produced in ''geek media" this year we can count the Mandalorian and I loved the Dragon Prince once they solved their animation issue in season 1. I don't know if it came in 2019 or 2018, but Hereditary was probably the best horror movie I have seen in a long while. The Korean TV series Kingdom was a nice spin off of the zombie genre and deserves a watch in my opinion.I got to also give kudos to the Dark Crystal series. While I didn't enjoy it much, it's extansive use of puppetry and practical effect (in addition to CGI effect) was excellent, especially for a TV show. Endgame was an okay movie, but nothing much and I haven't seen either the Witcher or the last Star Wars, but I have good hopes the later and I'll prudently be giving a shot to the former even though I never read the books and thought the games were bad (some sort of half-baked Monster Hunter). I stopped watching Games of Throne at season 5 when I realised the show was going like the Titanic (and so would the books) and it seems it wasn't a mistake. Nobody seems to have liked the last three seasons.

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

DeathKorp_Rider wrote:
Best Overall Movie of the Year: Joker

I actually htought the Joker was a pretentious but "meh" movie TBH. If they'd just done the movie as is, without putting a clown face on him and riding on the coat tails of comic book movies being the "in thing" it wouldn't have attracted any attention.

It's one of those movies you either love or hate. I was on the love side but I don't expect everyone to feel the same. But I do agree it does at times try to come across as something deeper than it really is.

Nah, “Mandy” is one of those movies you love or hate. Joker is too bland for such polar opinions, imho. It’s ok, but very overhyped and overpraised

Crikey, haven't seen much this year but overall its been good. Enjoyed Dark Phoenix, Joker, Jumanji, etc, so its hard to pass judgement. Oh, well, here goes...

Worst film: Terminator Dark Fate. Which makes me feel bad because I don't regret having seen it, and it deserved to do a bit better at the box office. In hindsight they should have put the energy into a final 3rd season of Sarah Connor Chronicles, but not the disaster it was made out to be.

Best film: IT Chapter 2. The second half of IT wasn't as scary as the first, but it was fun and comical like the The Lost Boys. Bravo!

SamusDrake wrote:
In hindsight they should have put the energy into a final 3rd season of Sarah Connor Chronicles

If only! Severely underrated show.

 Ouze wrote:

SamusDrake wrote:
In hindsight they should have put the energy into a final 3rd season of Sarah Connor Chronicles

If only! Severely underrated show.

Tell me about it Ouze!

They left it on a super-cheesey, "gangs all here" cliff hanger that demands a third season. How could they not finish it off???

epronovost wrote:
I would say that amongst the best things produced in ''geek media" this year we can count the Mandalorian and I loved the Dragon Prince once they solved their animation issue in season 1. I don't know if it came in 2019 or 2018, but Hereditary was probably the best horror movie I have seen in a long while. The Korean TV series Kingdom was a nice spin off of the zombie genre and deserves a watch in my opinion.I got to also give kudos to the Dark Crystal series. While I didn't enjoy it much, it's extansive use of puppetry and practical effect (in addition to CGI effect) was excellent, especially for a TV show. Endgame was an okay movie, but nothing much and I haven't seen either the Witcher or the last Star Wars, but I have good hopes the later and I'll prudently be giving a shot to the former even though I never read the books and thought the games were bad (some sort of half-baked Monster Hunter). I stopped watching Games of Throne at season 5 when I realised the show was going like the Titanic (and so would the books) and it seems it wasn't a mistake. Nobody seems to have liked the last three seasons.

I loved the Kingdom and binged the heck out of it.

 Ouze wrote:

 Ouze wrote:
Worst Comic Series: the Punisher 2099 relaunch seems pretty terrible so far.

Having just finished Doomsday Clock, I'd like to retract that above statement.

I feel that part of the letdown of Doomsday clock was that they had 3-4 months between issues, they over-hyped the heck out of it, and the ending was less than "OMFG!!!". If this was a monthly release as a general crossover it would have been all right.

I'll add "most exceeded expectations": Battle Angel Alita. While not the best film ever, I walked into that expecting it to be absolute and totally unsalvagable garbage, and it was actually pretty solid. I enjoyed it.

I'll have to ponder the rest of the list later, but thought this one deserved a shoutout.

Worst movie by far this year: Charlie's Angels. It makes the previous reboot look Oscar worthy by comparison.

That was mind boggling. I didn't even know it was being remade until it had already been in theaters for a week and the recriminations had started. I saw a lot of blame thrown around but no one involved seems to have considered at the onset the wisdom of rebooting an IP no one cares about starring a mix of actresses no one knows with one most people don't like, and then marketing the movie not at all.

Who even wants to see a Charlie's Angel movie in 2019? Where is that audience? That seems like trying to make fetch happen, difficult in the best circumstances.

 Vaktathi wrote:
I'll add "most exceeded expectations": Battle Angel Alita. While not the best film ever, I walked into that expecting it to be absolute and totally unsalvagable garbage, and it was actually pretty solid. I enjoyed it.

I agree. Looked like a dumpster fire, turned out not bad. I'd like to see more.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Worst movie by far this year: Charlie's Angels. It makes the previous reboot look Oscar worthy by comparison.

Was Charlie' Angels ever good? From my point of view it was always a sort of bad action-comedy cop show that only survived on its sex-appeal for a mature male audience.