2008 TV Show of the Year

I skipped this award last year, concentrating only on Season in Review posts for prime-time only shows in May, but in 2006, The Colbert Report won the award in only its first full season on the air.   Some things may have changed in the past two years, but the quality of that program has not.  It is without fail one of the most entertaining programs on television and does it night after night.  Stephen Colbert's "personality" - a mixture of Bill O'Reilly-esque pompous certitude undercut by a sly wink and a nod to intelligent viewers about the idiocy of such pompous certitude - is absolutely the most wonderful thing on television today.  If there's an award for greatest performance or most consistently entertaining entertainment personality then Stephen Colbert should win it hands down every year.  Unfortunately, he did not win the Vague Space television program of the year.  What did?  Well, you'll have to click through to find out, but suffice it to say that television quality (or at least the quality of programming that I spend time watching) has improved dramatically in the two years since my last list (which featured The O.C. at #6).  My guilty pleasures this time (The Hills, Real World Challenge, other shows I'm even less willing to name in public) didn't make it into the top 10 and we are all thankful for that.

  1. The Daily Show (Comedy Central, Mon-Thu, 11 pm).  It was an election year.  It was a very, very important election year.  And it started in early January and continued through November.  In fact, there was a runoff election yesterday.  And The Daily Show has never been better.  Whether it was skewering the media for their fascination with all things Hillary or their kid-gloves approach to the McCain campaign in the spring and summer or their obsession with Obama's race and whether or not that made him unelectable, Jon Stewart and company had a triumphant year of absolutely hilarious, biting, and insightful episodes.  And that was all before the comic gold that was Sarah Palin.  And with the notable exception of Tina Fey's SNL appearances, there was no one funnier than The Daily Show about the insanity that is Republican politics these days.  Truly inspired.  True genius.  And this show, more than anything, is what educated me about the horrors of the Bush administration -- years before the rest of the country (and the mainstream media) caught up.  Job well done.  Oh, and the reporting staff was excellent all year, from John Oliver (who is probably the best right now after a shaky start) to the incomparable Rob Riggle to Aasif Mandvi to the married couple Jason Jones and Sam Bee, who will hopefully be used more now that she's not pregnant.  A great, great year.

2.  The Colbert Report (Comedy Central, Mon-Thu, 11:30 pm).  I praised the shit out of Stephen Colbert already and I don't think the show has slipped one bit from its heights in 2006, but election year Daily Show triumphed.  This program is the goofier, funnier, more lighthearted companion to Jon Stewart's more news-focused show and so in these difficult times, it took a backseat.  But nothing to be ashamed of to be #2.  Hey - for the past three years, Stephen has lost an Emmy to Barry Manilow (Manilow!!!!!), Tom Jones, and Don Rickles.  Losing the VS award to Jon Stewart shouldn't piss him off too much, right?  Right?  Stephen?

3.  Lost (ABC, Thursday? 9 pm? 10 pm?)  I don't remember what night this show was on and I barely remember what happened back in June when they finished a spectacular 14 episode strike-shortened season.  I just remember loving it.  And I can't wait for it to return.  Now, can someone remind me what happened again...

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4.  Weeds (Showtime, Sunday, 10 pm)  Three years ago, Showtime debuted a hilarious little program featuring Mary Louise Parker as a suburban mom selling pot to pay for her rich suburban life after her husband died and left her alone with his two teenage sons.  It was brilliant, funny, irreverent, and included a cast of wonderful actors playing perfect characters.  Then things got a little out of hand.  As Nancy's drug dealing "empire" expanded beyond her neighborhood, the plots expanded in unwelcome and dangerous directions and the humor of the episodes was subverted by the drama of increasingly outlandish and painful storylines.  People wound up dead -- lots of people -- and after a very good season 2, season 3 became so out of control that it couldn't be thought of as anything but a disappointment.  Then creator Kenji Johan decided to dump the entire suburban plot that had carried in through the first season (but kind of disappeared in later years) by burning down the neighborhood and moving the entire show to the Mexican border and a new house on a San Diego beach with Nancy's father-in-law (Albert Brooks).  The new focus was just as dangerous but ultimately refreshing and the humor returned, along with the empathy we once had for Nancy, especially as she faced her ultimate failure as a mother in the final episodes of the season.  It truly was brilliant again -- the best season since the first -- and is in the current lead for best show of the network season for '08-'09, depending on the Lost return and if The Office recovers.  The last two episodes were some of the best television I've watched and when Nancy pulled out her trump card (the picture) in the very last scene to save her life, well my mouth was agape for a long, long time.

5.  True Blood (HBO, Sunday, 10 pm).  The best new show on television.  And if it weren't for a disappointing final episode that wrapped up the serial killer storyline too quickly and then sped off in eighteen different directions for future plots, I'd probably have it ahead of Weeds.  But still, a very auspicious beginning and the best drama on HBO since The Sopranos.  Not bad for a little vampire show.

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6.  The Office (NBC, Thursday, 9 pm).  The best comedy on network television was once the best show on television (like, a year ago), but the writing has not nearly been as sharp in 2008, both in the abbreviated strike-shortened spring and in the underwhelming fall.  There's still too much Michael and not enough of the rest of the characters, but mostly, it just hasn't been as sweet and funny as seasons 2 and 3, with nothing close to the Olympics episode or the Christmas "Yankee Swap" episode or the immortal first appearance of the Dundees.  It's still a great show, but a notch below the top 5 this year.

7.  It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (FX, Thursday, 9 pm).  Their seasons fly by -- FX only contracts about 10 episodes and runs two a week for the first month -- and many episodes and jokes within episodes become groaningly uncomfortable to watch (the entire episode about poop was difficult to watch, although ultimately pretty damn funny).  But yeah, it is overall, even if inconsistently, drop-dead funny more often than not.  The Liberty Bell episode was an instant classic, as was the Dennis Sex Tapes episode , and they both reveled in a type of humor no other show would ever attempt and no other show could be able to pull off so well.  I mean, the three leads disdainfully referring to Dee as a witch slave throughout the Liberty Bell back-in-time episode had me in tears.

  8.  Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC, weeknights, 8 pm).  He hates Bush.  He hates O'Reilly.  He created a show that finally fought the lies of Fox News head on, without any of the wishy-washy "present both sides of incontrovertible facts" crap that pervades mainstream media and has killed effective journalism for at least the last eight years if not the past two decades.  When you have one "news" outlet presenting completely biased right-wing talking points to prop up a criminal president and you have the rest of the media presenting those same points with only cursory acknowledgment of another side to the story, is it any wonder that so much of the electorate (including me) became so ill-informed over the years?  Keith was a breath of fresh air.  And his huge ratings surge in 2008 (and successful launch of an equally brilliant followup show from Rachel Maddow) proved that a liberal bias to counteract Fox News is an effective programming technique. 

9.  The Amazing Race (CBS, Sunday, 8 pm, or usually 8:37 because of football overruns).  This season's contestants were refreshingly drama-free, with the notable exception of Sarah and Terence, but even they stopped fighting so much and became bearable in later episodes.  Former NFL Safety Ken Greene and his wife Tina, who he cheated on, have been a solid blend of mature interaction in dealing with his infidelity combined with great racing ability.  Brother/sister team Nick and Starr have been dominant on the race in recent weeks and have a great relationship.  And everyone loved mother/son team Toni and Dallas, who deserved better than their dismissal last week in the final leg before the final three, after Dallas mistakenly left their money behind in a taxi in Moscow and they had to spend tons of wasted time begging Russians for cash to finish the leg (Russians were very friendly and willing to help these Americans, by the way).  As a result of that miscue, of course, self-named "Team Superbad" (a name that is only appropriate with a literal interpretation) Dan and Andrew ("Dandrew" to other teams) have somehow survived to the final leg despite being complete spazzes, not that bright, and absolutely horrible in all the Detours and Roadblocks.  They've come in 2nd to last about half a dozen times, came in last on a non-elimination leg, and managed to get past a leg in which they changed activities at the Detour not once, not twice, but three times, when superspastastic Dan couldn't march -- literally, he could not march, which is basically walking; he couldn't get his legs and arms to move in concert -- this is a twentysomething male without any physical handicaps and he bombed a Detour because he couldn't WALK STRAIGHT!.  Admittedly, that was some of the funniest shit on television this year, but it's a real embarrassment that they will be racing against Ken/Tina and Nick/Starr for the million dollars on Sunday.  This is still a very entertaining show.

10.  Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives (Food Network, Monday, 10 pm).  I always like to put a Food Network show on the list at #10 and this program edges out the equally entertaining Throwdown with Bobby Flay and the once entertaining Dinner: Impossible, which was probably my favorite show on the network until host Robert Irvine was fired for lying on his resume and replaced by the not nearly as funny, amusing, or enjoyable Michael Symon.  But yeah, the show where season 2 "Next Food Network Star" winner Guy Fieri travels around to a bunch of diners and home-cooking type places and watches them make some wonderfully delicious and often bizarre dishes is some great television.  Even if I would never actually eat any of the dishes served on the show for fear of ending up as fat as Guy has become on the series.  Guy's Big Bite cooking is also quite good, and among my favorites of the "In the Kitchen" style shows on the network, along with Tyler Florence's Tyler's Ultimate, Bobby Flay's changing name grilling show, Ina Garten's The Barefoot Contessa, and new show Secrets of a Restaurant Chef, starring Anne Burrell, known to Food Network viewers as Mario Batali's sous chef on The Iron Chef America series.  (Yes, I watch a lot of Food Network).

Entourage just missed the list after an encouragingly entertaining end to their season.   30 Rock was not far behind.  New shows that I just started watching include Friday Night Lights and Big Bang Theory, which both might make the primetime season review in May.  The Rachel Maddow Show leads the non-entertainment series omissions, while South Park is the most glaring program to miss the cut completely, for what is probably the first time in years.  I've been a huge South Park fan for a decade, but either the show has run out of ideas or I've outgrown it.  I'm assuming it's the former, since I'm planning to watch The Hills spinoffs Bromance and The City, which proves that I haven't outgrown anything (and that you probably shouldn't trust my opinion on television quality in the first place).  But hey, you read the whole column, so who's the sucker now?

Comments

[McNulty]

"The best drama on HBO since The Sopranos."

Someone needs to watch "The Wire".

[switsky]

episode 41 on weeds was the funniest show ever.