Best Dramas of 2011: 3 – Misfits

We’re counting down the Top 10 Dramas of 2011. Each pick will be revealed on Hulu’s homepage every day of this week. Selections 10-4 can be viewed here.

3 – Misfits

So we’ve gotten to this point. There was a big debate. A bunch of people in a room throwing around words like “objectivity” and “favor.” Misfits, Hulu’s very own British import, is third on this list, and that’s going to make a lot of people sad.

But, really, nothing entered the lexicon in our office like some of the quotes and people on this show. Down the hall from where I’m writing this sentence, someone was chugging Emergen-C at a lunch table a few weeks ago, talking about how she was feeling funny.

Her friend then said, “That’ll be the lightning.” Both people got it.

I’m not saying this girl magically felt better. “Misfits” is no cure-all. The only magical thing about it is that you’re almost never bored when you’re watching it. But the last time a drama (or, really, a dramedy, in this case) had such memorable lines, it was called “The West Wing.”

Part of it is watching the show grow, too, and that was accelerated by getting two seasons thrown at us at once like this. We got the UK’s E4 show in big, heaping lumps, so most people watched it like someone who got broken up with on a Saturday—as one, sweeping, serialized movie.

So the characters developed, but not out of their delinquency. Nathan and Simon and Alisha and everybody else—they finally acted like an actual person might act if they had superpowers. They weren’t these immediately benevolent, omniscient, never-tired caricatures. They were (ahem) blokes and birds who continued to act that way.

They were some of the best TV friends to enter our lives this year, and we wanted to let them know. So they’re number three on our list. That might invalidate the rest of the list for you, and that’s fine.

But think of it this way: If LeBron James were your nephew, would you leave him off your All-Star ballot just to be polite?

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