The Americans

Ok so not everyone on The Americans
looks like a "real person"

The FX show, The Americans, is a bit like a classic "false flag" operation. On the surface it's a TV show about FBI men looking for dangerous Soviet sleeper agents who are out to harm America during the Reagan years. For all I know that's how the show was pitched, but it's not really about that at all; in The Americans it's the Soviet sleeper agents who are the good guys and the FBI men looking for them who are the villains. I like this idea as it's a reversal of a longstanding American TV tradition: I mean we've had mafiosos as good guys, meth manufacturing chemistry teachers as goodies, but until Angelina Jolie's Salt Soviet agents have always been baddies, often the baddest of the bad (see for example the beyond dreadful Russkies in Indiana Jones IV). And yes although the Russians in The Americans are often ruthless operatives (and definitely pathological) they are, at bottom, men and women of honour out to do their best for their country and their way of life. The older Soviet agents in The Americans in particular are all Red Army veterans who heroically fought in the "Great War of The Motherland" against the Nazis. The FBI agents on their trail aren't nearly so interesting or fundamentally decent. They're rather dull functionaries who are working for a Reagan administration which at the time show begins is still supporting the Khmer Rouge, Saddam Hussein and Pinochet's Chile (and which goes onto to invent the Taliban and cook up the treasonous and disgraceful Iran Contra scheme).
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But please don't get the idea that The Americans is a show about black and white characters. It really isn't. It's more complex than that and even the minor players in The Americans get to go against type, to reflect on their actions, to make mistakes and to act, well, like real people. The Americans is as nuanced and as carefully written as Homeland with the added benefit that nobody is as bug eyed crazy as Carrie, as bizarrely beautiful as Brodie's wife or as annoying as Brodie's daughter. And now that I'm thinking of the casting, I love the fact that the actors in The Americans are low key and (for the most part) look like real people. Real people in real situations dealing with real problems and although the show has a lot of action and even (in the season finale) a car chase its essentially a character driven programme that relies on suspense not action to keep the viewer gripped. If Showtime's Emmy award winning Homeland is the, uh, Cadillac of sleeper agent shows on US television, FX's The Americans is the stolid Subaru Outback and anyone who's driven both will know which is the better one to have in your garage/DVD player on a rainy day. 

Louie S2 E11

CK in Iraq

Until yesterday I hadn't previously watched any of Louie, Louis CK's sitcom on FX. I had seen CK's old sitcom on HBO and was not impressed - that show was damp and weird with very few laughs. But I do find CK funny and on an impulse I decided to check out a random episode of his new show: S2 E11. And I have to say that this time I was impressed. It was funny, well made with great production values (except maybe the Hueys pretending to be Blackhawks) and surprisingly affecting. The episode is partially based on the story of CK's USO tour that he wrote about beautifully on his blog, here and also partially based on a story that his 9 year old year old daughter suggested to him. 
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The show is a little like Seinfeld in that it is centred around CK's real life as a comedian living in New York, but it is not at all Seinfeldian. It's a single camera show with no laugh track and every episode written and directed by CK. It's a darker programme than Seinfeld which was pretty dark for its time. In real life CK is divorced and the father of two girls aged 5 and 9 and much of his humour is about being newly single, overweight, depressed and angry. 
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Louie gets lowish ratings but the cast is small, everyone works for close to scale and the show is cheap to make. I hope Louie runs for years as I've seen a couple more episodes now and they were also very good. I may, however, be precisely the target audience: Louis CK is exactly my age, approximately my build and I also have two daughters aged 5 and 9; we're both writers, Louis CK went to high school in Boston with my wife Leah and I'm also more than a little ticked off at the state of the world. But even if you're none of these things you should still check out his show. Actually read his blog post first about his USO tour and then watch the episode and I think you'll enjoy it even more.