Couch Tomato: That Was the Season That Was

Express' Arion Berger hits the high and low notes in the world of television.

TBS's "10 Items or Less" brings the funny despite its downscale production values. Photo courtesy TBS

PACKED OFF THE parents, threw away the leftovers, boxed up the most egregious of decorations, broke the toys, read the books, wore the pajamas. The holidays — mine, anyway — are over. So herein, to cap off the year, I present the Extremely Biased, Slightly Hung Over, Totally Nutrient-Free Column o' Lists.

The EBSHOTNFCoL is a chance for your Couch Tomato to sound off on a sorta-year, sorta-half season's worth of TeeVee, and a chance for you to weigh in with angry rebuttals and unnecessarily ad hominem remarks. Let's go, shall we?

BEST NEW SHOWS
"Dirty Sexy Money" (ABC) and "Mad Men" (AMC) take the '80s nighttime soap into swank new territory. "DSM" is saturated in money, and the acting is just as rich, especially Donald Sutherland's — the ornate pronunciamentos he squeezes through his bone-white clackers are a delight, as are the reactions of his callow brood of grown, spoiled children. As for "Mad Men," you don't have to have a taste for the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit era of American business, as I do, to fall for this early-'60s ad agency as its buttoned-up, bourbon-pounding Rabbit Angstroms and beehived, bestockinged wives and secretaries struggle with the dawn of a new era. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em, people.

BEST NEW SHOWS, GEEK DIVISION
"The Big Bang Theory" (CBS). A sententious lecture on how centrifugal force is actually just a reaction to centripetal force? Four geeks dressed as the Flash? Johnny Galecki and Sarah Gilbert together again? Be still, my nerdy heart.

"Aliens in America" (CW) It sounded gimmicky, started off cutesy and ended up saying almost as much about the anxieties of public school as "My So-Called Life," and the little leads are charmers.

MOST IMPROVED, GEEK DIVISION
"Heroes" (NBC). Tim Kring had, like, a half an hour to unscramble his omelet of a second season into something first-season fans would care about again, from the deaths of the Elder Heroes to the inclusion of multiple new characters. And he whipped it out in Episode Four, rescuing the series like Nathan scooping up his dimwitted brother in free-fall. Next: Please kill Maya for real.

THE I TOLD YOU SO AWARD, 2007
"How I Met Your Mother" (CBS). Neener, neerer, watchers-come-lately. Now go rent the first season.

THE I TOLD YOU SO AWARD, 2008, OR POSSIBLY 2009
"It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" (FX). Yeah, still waiting for people to realize that is shaggy dog of a show is the anti-"Friends," and that TV still needs an anti-"Friends."

THEY TOLD ME, BUT I DIDN'T LISTEN
"30 Rock" (NBC) is the funniest sitcom on prime-time. Damn you, Aaron Sorkin, for distracting me from Tina Fey's genius with your beguiling use of Bradley Whitford. Now, will someone please give Whitford a job so I can look at him some more?

IT'S JUST ME
"10 Items or Less" (TBS) How downscale is this tautly funny basic-cable sitcom? Everyone in the cast looks like a pale imitation of someone more famous Jason Lee, Sarah Polley, Rosie Perez, Eve Plumb in her Jan years), it's always overlit and the setting — the Greens & Grains independent grocery store — can't figure out what kind of establishment it's supposed to be, a discount Stop 'n' Shop or a crunchy miniature Whole Foods. Still, watching the scrappy band of clerks and shelf-stockers stand up to a venal nearby Wal-Martish store week after week, led by a dementedly cheery and naive John Lehr as Leslie Pool, who inherited the store from his sainted dead dad, is ensemble-driven fun.

"House" (Fox). I liked the search for new Housettes; so sue me. Also, Kal Penn makes me laugh on sight. Speaking of Kumar ...

BEST SHOW STRAIGHT PEOPLE AREN'T WATCHING
"Ugly Betty" (ABC). John Cho is a god to me. But even without its juicy little grace notes — like Posh, Vera Wang, and especially Cho's wannabe bad-boy accountant, with his ace raps ("She's Alexis/Big as Texas/Knows what it's like to be both sexes") — "Ugly Betty" continues to keep all its plates spinning, with soap opera, comedy, spit-take laughs and genuinely earned pathos. Brava, ladies who lunch on a plate of nothing with a side of champagne.

OMG!
"Dexter" (Showtime) continues to amaze. Although I would like to have seen Lila die more slowly, this sympathy-for-the-devil series, if anything, grew stronger in its second season. The opening credits are stunning (and got a nasty real-world reprise in the finale) and whoever lights this thing deserves an Emmy for turning Michael C. Hall's "Six Feet Under" friendly, decent-guy bone structure into a shadowed landscape of hell.

I FORGOT TO CARE
I'm sorry, "Scrubs" (NBC). It's not you; it's me.

THE SHARK, IT IS JUMPED
"America's Next Top Model" (CW). Wake me when Tyra Banks implodes from a surfeit of white-hot smugness.

FOR GOD'S SAKE, GIVE UP ON 'THE SOPRANOS'
"Big Love" (HBO). Someone shot or didn't shoot Tony; now can we all move on? With a stellar cast, nuanced acting and storylines that mix thrill-ride arcs (not one but two loony polygamist separatist sects!) with the intimate awkwardnesses of married life, this cuss word-free but lust-drenched series is It's Not TV's dramatic ace-in-the-hole.

ON THE BUBBLE
"Grey's Anatomy" (ABC), "Friday Night Lights" (NBC) and "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (HBO) skirted the very edge of using their quirks for evil, but this season all three ("Curb" by default — the series is no more) redeemed themselves.

LOST
"Lost" (ABC)

INEXPLICABLY HOT
Hugh Laurie (House)
Gordon Ramsay (Hell's Kitchen; Kitchen Nightmares)
Anthony Bourdain (a little less sexy since he quit smoking, and shut up)
Jon Hamm (Mad Men)
Phil Keoghan (The Amazing Race)
Apparently, I have a thing for accented bullies who can cook. Healthy.

EXPLICABLY HOT
Tom Welling (Smallville)
Taylor Kitsch (Friday Night Lights)
Adrian Pasdar (Heroes)
Seth Gabel (Dirty Sexy Money)
Jared Padalecki and Jason Ackels (Supernatural)

THE SCREEN OF SHAME
There are only so many hours in a day, or so I tell myself. Which means I am going to inevitably miss out on some sterling television just by dint of having a full-time job and needing to grab the occasional cat-nap. Still, there's no excuse for having missed FOUR seasons of "The Wire" (HBO; the final season begins Jan. 6), the smart person's go-to series. Never saw a second of it. But I am repenting over the New Year's break by renting the first season and will march slowly but inexorably toward a full understanding of this show that makes people Lose. Their. Grip. Mea culpa, etc.

One would think, if one ever thought about it, that "Battlestar Galactica" (Sci Fi) would be right up my alley. One would also, foolishly, imagine that I'd ever seen it and have countenanced good friends and colleagues' endless, eloquent soliloquies on its profundity with good humor and grace. It is not so. Again: I've got some catching up, not to mention some 'splainin', to do. (That's Katee Sackhoff of "Battlestar" pictured at right.)

I have tried, and failed, to appreciate "Pushing Daisies" (ABC). But I do agree with the show's fans that it's at least something new and different on TV, that nothing in the prime-time landscape feels anything like it, and for that, I hope CBS renews it.

I'm too old to care about the "cast" of "The Hills" (CW). I was too old to care about "Laguna Beach," but I did make an effort, tuning in only to watch two or three morons floating in a pool talking about absolutely nothing. Isn't the Millennial Generation supposed to have a short attention span? As My Heterosexual Viewing Companion once said of "Trading Spaces," it's like watching paint dry, or in this case, toenail polish. Ditto for "Gossip Girl" (ABC), which I only watch to hear the dulcet tones of Buffy's voiceovers.

D'oh! I watched the pilot screener of "Samantha Who?" (ABC), dismissed it as irrelevant and moved on. Stupid — Christina Applegate is a daffy charmer in this amnesiac sitcom, and Jennifer Esposito, late of "Related" (loved that show when no one else would touch it), is deliciously evil.

"Brothers and Sisters" (ABC) stars Calista Flockhart. Enough said.

All the critics are head-over-heels for "Life" (NBC). I think of it as that half-pan of mashed potatoes you thriftily refrigerated four days ago that's gone a little slimy on top but is still perfectly edible, probably, but you're still dubious, so you wait until it goes resolutely green and fuzzy before throwing it out in good conscience. That kind of show. Cancel it, NBC, so I won't have to feel guilty anymore.

Happy New Year! Next week, the return of "Project Runway."