There’s no doubt that this year has been a pretty impressive year for dramatic TV. Between True Blood, Game of Thrones, and Boardwalk Empire, HBO has managed to be on of the top networks to deliver quality content throughout the entire year.

So why wouldn’t they want to celebrate that fact with a killer supercut of their 2011 successes. From clips of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Entourage, How to Make it in America, and plenty others, there are more than enough classic TV moments to tie together.

So why not feed into the joy of the network and take a look at their 2011 Image Spot after the jump, and see what they have to offer in 2012, including the highly anticipated sequel season to Game of Thrones.

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Over the weekend, I rewatched the 1967 Bedazzled, which, if you’re unfamiliar, features Dudley Moore and Peter Cook retelling the story of Faust, or at least using it as a springboard for a series of satirical skits. The movie itself isn’t really laugh-out-loud funny, but, as satire, it’s one of the best takes on the 1960s that aims and strikes at so any targets, it’s at once counter-cultural and conservative.

Cook’s generally regarded as the finest British satirist of the latter half of the 20^th Century, and after the film, I hopped onto YouTube to look up an old episode of the British Whose Line Is It Anyway? where Cook guest starred. Cook isn’t bad in it, but improv and satire are two distinct types of comedy, and Cook, being out of his element, plays it a bit too broad, trying to get laughs from funny voices and silly expressions.

It’s a trend you see when an older comic is asked to partake in something new that they’re not used to and is something I see now and then in Curb. It’s also the first thought that occurred to me when, tonight, Larry was paired with the overly effeminate son of his girlfriend.

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I don’t know if Judge Horn was actually a real show, but I really wish it were. According to Larry, he’s a real judge, so it may not be the Perry-Mason-style show I was hoping it to be (and more likely to be a Judge-Judy kind of show), but damn, how great would that be? Especially if it were in black and white and really did feature Judge Horn yelling at the defense for not having their stuff together.

Likewise, I don’t know if Larry David was the one who dreamed up the brilliant fictional movies that peppered the Seinfeld universe (Chunnel and Firestorm being my personal favorites), but if he ever gets tired of Curb and wants a new project, in a perfect world, he could bring those gems to the screen (how many people would cheer at the line, “Everybody out of the Chunnel!”?).

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Okay, okay, I get it—Larry’s “juicin’” (is this actually a legitimate term for taking Viagra?), and that upsets his girlfriend because they’re at the Baseball Hall of Fame. I still don’t quite buy it, and you have to admit it’s pretty shoehorned in (would a woman who’s so sexually charged that she’ll sleep with Larry Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Rosie O’Donnell Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday really have a problem with one of her partners taking medication—especially when she reaps the benefits?), but it’s nice to know that Curb cares.

There’s a few parts of the story that don’t really fit (was there a point to Larry adamantly refusing to be friends with, uh, Dougenstein? If there was, I’ve already forgotten it)—and what’s up with Rosie O’Donnell’s tan?—but the humor more than makes up for any faults.

This is totally the “Larry in New York” episode I’ve been waiting for, and it gives me an appreciation for the sense of location with which the episode, and the series as a whole, has. I’ve been to New York, and while I’m no expert, there’s a vibe to it that Curb captured beautifully: the cramped feeling, the recycled red brick apartments, the semi-elegant trendiness. I probably won’t be able to score some V from a Charlton Heston lookalike getting his ear grazed on by a sexy blonde in the park, but it feels right.

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Any episode that begins with Jeff and Susie giving Larry the visual “go ahead” when an attractive woman is seated next to him on the plane gears itself up to be a stellar installment. Add to that Larry trying to chat up the woman by not-so-subtly edging her drink away from his side of the armrest, getting shot down and insisting that he has better game, and then heading to the bathroom to prepare, well, in short, I loved this one.

Need I even mention that Larry unwittingly becomes a hero by tripping over his own shoelaces and into a drunk and disorderly passenger (whom I suspect to be Jerry from Parks and Recreation—IMDB isn’t much of a help, but am I right?), thereby becoming a hero?

Or Larry meeting up with Ricky Gervais (who, aside from sporting a hilarious scarf, is starring in the Broadway play “Mr. Simington,” which he delightfully describes as “One man’s fear of World War I and what’s going to happen”)? Or Larry attending the Greens’ dinner party and getting seated next to a gent who has racial prejudice against Spaniards?

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I wrote two weeks ago about the fact that Jeff and Susie’s kid Sammy has grown up, and this time we see (well, not actually “see”) the aging of another character: the Greens’ semi-beloved dog Oscar, who’s got to be getting up there, having been around since at least season 3, when he sniffed out a potential corpse buried beneath the restaurant. Now, Oscie-boy’s finally put down, and his last meal of Pinkberry ice cream is denied when Larry and Jeff eat it in progressively larger bites on the trip back to the vet’s.

The real-time aspect to Curb has always seemed weird to me. The show’s consistent with it, but it’s never seemed necessary—in the show’s 11 years, Larry, Jeff, Susie, Cheryl, Marty Funkhauser, and many others don’t appear to age. Maybe it’s because the ones who do (evidently that’s only Sammy and Oscar) aren’t explored too often, whereas someone like Richard Lewis defies age—he’s heading into his mid-60s, yet he still lands these girls in their late 20s to early 30s. And what about Nat? Will we ever see him again?

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I know there’s a lot of ladies reading this, so I’m going to start out with a question: Significant other aside, would you date/make out with Larry?

He doesn’t strike me as the world’s most gorgeous man (that would be guest star and People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive,” at least for 1986, Harry Hamlin), but he takes care of himself, might make you laugh, and, of course, he could dip his bald head in oil and rub it all over you body.

It doesn’t have anything to do with episode (well, Larry does date a curvaceous restaurant hostess), it’s just that after this one, Cheryl, Lucy Lawless, Gina Gershon’s character from season 4, and last week’s Palestinian women (and, to an extent, her sister), I’m curious if Mr. David is really God’s gift to women.

“The Smiley Face,” has a lot going for it with guest star Hamlin, the return of Larry’s assistant Antoinette (one of my favorite characters), and even some Lewis, but it’s one of those that seems more focused on the plotting than the humor.

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It’s an unspoken law of Curb that Larry’s powers can never be used for good, and any attempt to break that law carries an alarmingy high penalty. I have a soft spot for episodes like this, because more often than not I sympathize with Larry, so I like any episode that suggests it’s Larry who’s sane and there’s cosmological forces conspiring against him.

It’s not any surprise that things such as asking a friend’s wife to stop saying “Lol” instead of laughing or telling Susie to cut out that annoying “Ahhh” after taking a sip backfires. More surprising is that each women immediately suspects that it was her husband who put Larry up to pointing out their flaws. Accurate as their suspicions may be, it’s still not out of character for Larry to say anything (nor out character for anyone wanting to take advantage of his “social assassin” skills), but do women have an ability to distinguish between what’s authentically Larry and what’s not?

But supernaturality aside, “Palestinian Chicken” is a first-rate episode (after two somewhat lackluster installments). Not only do we get to see sex with an anti-semitic beauty (the owner of the Al Abba chicken restaurant who blurts out a stream of insults during coitus, my favorite being, “I want to f*ck the Jew right out of you”) from Larry’s perspective, but we also get it from a now-deeply religious Marty Funkhauser’s perspective as he awkwardly sits downstairs. Added to that is Larry’s habit of singing the theme song to the 1955 Adventures of Robin Hood TV show post sex. Genius.

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If you’re a fan of improv comedy you are probably a regular watcher of Larry David and the gang on Curb Your Enthusiasm. The show, which shows the life of Seinfeld co-creator and exec. producer David and cadre of friends and relatives, has developed a large and loyal following and fans are anxiously awating the start of the new season.

Well, that waiting is soon to come to an end with the eighth season set to debut in July. The new season brings David and friends to New York and this is sure to create all new situations where David will do something awkward and get into trouble.

After all, that’s what he seems to excel at. Of course that’s also one of the things people love about the show: David is the guy you love to hate.

Check out the trailer after the jump. Season 8 of Curb Your Enthusiasm debuts on July 10th at 10/9C.

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The DGA, which unveiled the small-screen nominations in eight categories last Friday, will announce the winners Jan. 30 at its 62nd annual awards ceremonies at the Century Plaza Hotel. AMC’s Mad Men received three Directors Guild of America TV nominations for drama series and HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and Fox’s Glee each got a pair for comedy. The nominations included a trio of season finales in Mad Men, Curb and ABC’s Lost. In the comedy category, two shows — the pilot for ABC’s Modern Family and Glee — also received nominations.

Thomas Carter scored a nomination in the TV movie-miniseries category for TNT’s Gifted Hands — The Ben Carson Story along with Bob Balaban for Liftetime’s George O’Keefe, John Kent Harrison for CBS’s The Courageous Heart of Irene Sandler, Ross Katz for HBO’s Taking Chance and Michael Sucsy for HBO’s Grey Gardens.

Here’s the complete list of nominations:

MOVIES FOR TELEVISION/MINISERIES

The nominees for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Movies for Television/Miniseries for 2009 are (in alphabetical order):

BOB BALABAN

“Georgia O’Keeffe” (Lifetime)

THOMAS CARTER

“Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story” (TNT)

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Coming on of the heels of Monday’s news that Showtime would be ordering a fourth season of their adult comedy Californication, it looks like another cable movie network is having the same success with their newest show Bored to Death.

The series has great potential, bringing together names like Jason Schwartzman, Zach Galifiniakis, and Ted Danson into a noir-like situation comedy about a bored writer who decides to moonlight at a private detective Each week, Schwartzman finds himself in yet another predicament while dodging his pot-smoking boss (Danson) and confiding in his best friend, a scruffy comic book artist (Galifiniakis).

The show has gotten big numbers in ratings since it’s start 4 weeks ago. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the pilot received 4.1 million viewers, not including an extra 500,000 who watched online for free. Following this past week’s episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which the cast of Seinfeld made a reunion, the show (which followed) earned 1.1 million viewers, which was an increase from the previous week.

Though the series is only 4 episodes into an 8-episode season, things are already looking up for them. This is the third new series from HBO, following Hung and Eastbound and Down, all of which have been renewed for another season.