Best of 2013 Part 1: Television and Music

Oh, 2013! What an interesting grouping of days. It's a strange thing, looking back on a year, because it's hard to remember anything that happened more than a month ago. Was there music before Beyoncé's December album? Was there television before the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary special? It's difficult to say; the mind grows cloudy. Still, in an effort to fully look back at the last year, I've compiled a list of what I feel to be the top pop culture events of the last year, conveniently ranked and separated by genre. Travel with me as we, in Part 1, look back at the television and music events that made 2013 so 2013:

The Office Series Finale: Some Thoughts

 A WARNING: Due to EMOTIONS, my thoughts are a little scatter-shot, 

so some of what I'm about to write might not make sense.

When Steve Carell left The Office two years ago, I was impressed with the way that the show handled his goodbye. There wasn't a lot of fanfare, there was very little crying (on-screen, that is). It was simply a wonderfully perfect episode full of honest and sweet goodbyes. I wrote then that 'the show has always succeeded in the quiet moments', and that was true once again in the series finale, which saw the return of a lot of favorite characters and the departure of even more. There were big decisions made and character revelations abounded, but it was the smaller moments that took center-stage.  

TV Review: The Office -- Michael Scott's Farewell

When will I see you again?

Tonight was the last episode for Steve Carell as Michael Scott, Manager at Dunder Mifflin, and before we watched it we were absolutely sure what would happen: tearful goodbyes, meaningful moments, and Michael Scott's car exploding as he drove away from the office he's called home for so long (okay, not really - they still have to bring him back in a year or two for Sweeps). Instead, the affair was rather small, with Michael pretending that he had another day at the office in order to keep people from being overly emotional and to quell his own feelings about the situation. It was a very non-Michael Scott moment, and it really capped off his emotional maturity arc of this season. On his last day in the place he loves the most, Michael spends a little time with each of his co-workers who are basically family