Out with the old, in with the new, as they say. A lot happened in 2013 that we fans of television – and pop culture in general – are tired with, and would like to forgo in 2014.

While 2013 did bring us a lot of fabulous – and fleetingly fantastic – things, it’s time to clean house and make room for a new year. Here is another end-of-the-year list presented to you in such a way that we can say goodbye to the old and hello to the new. As we look towards the new year, we hope we’ll see less Miley Cyrus antics, more of Lorde’s music, less celebrity scandals (or maybe you’e into that sort of thing) and more funny Jennifer Lawrence interviews. And for all of you who are ready for this year to be done, we hope you have a stellar 2014.

Of course, this is only a small sample of our entire list of things that are no longer ‘in’ for 2014. For instance, one thing we’d particularly like to take off the table is: television spin-offs. Enough already! I don’t need to know The Originals from TVD, nor what is going on in Wonderland or what happened to Saul before and/or after Walter White entered his life.

This is slightly satirical and funny, not meant to be wholeheartedly serious. As always, we’d love to hear you opinions in the comments. What would you consider ‘out’ and ‘in’ as we enter 2014?

We know we’re probably breaking your heart right now – sorry! We had to. The Christmas special next week will mark the departure of our dear Eleven. The mad man with a box, the doctor who (unintended pun) took us on adventures with Amy and Rory, River and Clara. The Matt Smith era marked the explosion of popularity in the United States and many will be heartbroken to see him regenerate into Peter Capaldi. All good things must come to an end.

Face it, this game is infuriatingly fun. It’s the best crash-course in patience our generation will probably ever have: use up your five lives before the first time limit expires and you’re sitting there, phone in hand, a little lost. But, because you could circumvent the time restriction, the app also became the highest-grossing game of the year, dethroning Angry Birds.

Meanwhile, the fun trivia game, QuizUp is all the Hypable staff can play right now. A myriad of topics and its simple graphics make it the newest addicting mobile game.

If waiting is out, then getting six new hours of television within two weeks is definitely in – until we have to wait again. Vicious cycle, isn’t it? How did he survive the fall? Why does John have such a fantastic mustache? These are questions I need answers to, Moffatt and Gatiss!

January 2, class is back in session, Human Beings! It’s the little show that could and with creator Dan Harmon back at the helm, we’re surely in for a wild and crazy ride. Albeit, we’ll have to say goodbye to Troy before the season’s finished.

It was funny for two weeks, but “What Does the Fox Say” represents a bigger genre of YouTube music that is ‘out’ for 2014 and joins the ranks of “Gangnam Style” and Rebecca Black’s “Friday” – but at least she’s become self-aware, posting a reaction video to her infamous song and posting a sequel, ground-breakingly called “Saturday” within weeks of each other.

This is how fast videos burn out nowadays: “Gangnam Style” exploded around October/November of 2012, and by the time his commercial in the Super Bowl aired in February, we heard a collective groan across America.
 

Most of our favorite shows have that dreaded months-long break and as we enter the holiday seasons, and when a show decides to split their season into two, the insufferable wait for the fans feels antagonizing. See: OUAT (returning March 9!), Teen Wolf, which returns from a three-month hiatus January 6, Breaking Bad season 5 – which was so divided many have taken to calling it season 5 and 6, and Mad Men’s final season airing in two parts during 2014 and 2015. Not cool, television execs in charge of this decision! Not cool.

However, the alternative, we suppose, would to have about 20 weeks of new episodes, 20 weeks of hiatus. Which is the lesser evil?
 



The recent trend started with Harry Potter and we all were thrilled. After nearly a decade of too-short movies, plot lines and backstories cut or reduced that angered the fans that claimed the movies weren’t doing the books justice, one Deathly Hallows book became two wonderful movies.

Then: they split Twilight and we all rolled our eyes. And now: they split Mockingjay, but why? Rereading the book, we’d argue they could easily fit the entire thing into one film, fitting nearly the entire first half of Katniss’ moping around District 13. Thankfully, recent news suggests Allegiant will stay as one film, for now.
 


Hear us out.
I was going to put an image of twerking here, but I wanted to burn my eyeballs just looking at the google results. The “Harlem Shake,” twerking and the aforementioned viral “Gangnam style” dances swept the nation in 2013, our short attention spans watched YouTube with bated breath for the next best thing – but that ‘thing’ just got weirder and weirder, and now the eye rolls can be felt miles away.

Maybe it’s not so much the dances themselves (that Supernatural harlem shake is pretty great) but more so the fact that they over-stay their welcome in our pop culture media stream.






Gone is the girl from that show on ABC Family about pregnant teens. Here is movie star, Shailene Woodley. After an impressive performance in The Descendants two years ago and her poignant role in The Spectacular Now this past summer she has, and will, dominate whatever corner of the market for young female actresses Jennifer Lawrence has left un-touched.

Ask anyone between the ages of 13-30(ish) what role she’ll be in next year. Depending on who you talk to, they’ll either mention cancer-stricken protagonist from The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel Grace, or tough-yet-terrified Tris in Divergent. Either way, both YA book adaptations will be mentioned. It’s easy to argue either part will be her best performance, however they are both so different but have such a similar audience demographic, Woodley is sure to be everywhere in 2014.



Confession time: we had a brief lapse in good judgement and thought about putting J. Law on the ‘Out’ list – after all, one would be hard-pressed to think about the entertainment industry without bringing her phenomenal year up in the conversation.

But, nope. She’s on track to have a 2014 nearly as big as her 2013, already nominated for the first of many awards for her role in American Hustle and will be back on the press circuit next fall for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. You just keep doing you, Jennifer.


The first seasons of House of Cards and Orange is the New Black are soo 2013. Their second seasons, and subsequently more original content from Netflix? That’s all 2014. The enthralling political drama and dramatic-sometimes-comedic jailhouse saga might have taken away a week or two from our lives this year as we binge-watched it (which is totally normal – by the way) but it was a sign of something bigger.

Netflix has already committed to expanding its original comedy development team for the new year and if they can make a comedy half as funny as House of Cards is tense and gripping, we’re on board.



The books have been done for years, all eight movies are now airing on ABC Family (subsequently the marathons now start on like, Thursday morning) but the Harry Potter fandom is still alive and well. We’ve got the park expansion opening next summer and a new Harry Potter-related movie.

To prove this point further, J.K. Rowling announced just yesterday that there is to be a new stage play based on the series. The Harry Potter series, obviously, has enough staying power to last us through at least the next few years – and all the hoopla of the new film, and then at some point, eventually, they’re going to remake the movies and all of us will come out of the woodwork, evaluating the cast and their performances against the originals. They can try to make us move onto other series and fandoms all they want, the Harry Potter fandom will live forever!

That’s all for 2013. Here’s to a happy new year!