Reruns, reruns, reruns. On Sunday night, they switch TV back on again, with new episodes of “Oz,” “Alias,” “Boomtown” and “The Dead Zone.” “American Dreams” covers the arrival of the Beatles. The WB kicks off its new reality series “High School Reunion.” You’d think sweeps arrived a month early.
But now – now is still the winter of our discontent. The good news is we are afforded time to pause, reflect, and name the best shows on television this past year.
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. “Look! He’s doing an Olaf impression!” The best show on television deals with, rather improbably, a high school guidance counselor who secretly vanquishes evil mystical menaces in her spare time. Half the episodes aired since September - “Lessons,” “Same Time, Same Place,” “Help,” “Selfless,” and “Never Leave Me” – manifested world-class filmed entertainment by any reasonable standard, and allowed the series to reassert itself as the funniest and best-written on television. (The one good thing about “Firefly” being on hold is that Buffyverse mastermind Joss Whedon may be more available to focus and ensure that TV’s best show ends its run in style.)
2. 24. “Jack, if you kill me, you won’t know who I work for!! You think I work for Drazen – but I don’t!!” The first-season finale, which saw presidential hopeful David Palmer walk away from his marriage and Nina Myers walk away from the murder of Jack Bauer’s wife, manifested one of the most dramatic and compelling hours ever televised. This season one senses the creators are running out of ways to surprise us, but it’s hard to argue with Jack decapitating a state’s witness or George Mason’s discovery that he’ll be dead before the weekend.
3. Gilmore Girls. “Okay, we have to stop saying ‘pickle’ now.” The best “family” TV show ever. Frank Capra crossed with classic Woody Allen, updated to the 21st century and somehow piped into our homes every Tuesday for free: drama that elicits tears, hilariously sneaky comic dialogue, and an overarching plot about rebuilding one’s family that still intrigues two and a half seasons in. The only thing wrong with these adventures of Lorelai, Rory, Lane, Luke, Christopher, Paris, Kirk, Emily, Richard, et al, is that they air against the best show on television.
4. Firefly. “Oh, hey, free soup!” Why is this, an inspired seriocomic entertainment and the best new show of 2002, so slow to attract an audience? Are general audiences now so numbed and overwhelmed by the sheer number of low-budget “Star Trek” knockoffs floating around cable and syndication? Were the sci-fi geeks bewildered by the show’s western trappings (or perhaps too young to remember how “Urban Cowboy” perverted real-life American fashion 25 years ago)? I mean, Jayne wears T-shirts, Kaylee wears coveralls and belly-shirts, there are ATVs and machine guns; it’s not like the show adheres slavishly to its Old West trappings. Certainly, the more people watch “Firefly,” with its large cast of complex and beguiling regulars, the more they seem to like it. The Fox netlet ordered a production stoppage after just 15 filmed hours, but the show’s producers are hopeful that UPN may put Serenity back in the air before its fabulous cast disperses. Let’s hope we’ll yet learn why the bounty hunter said Book was no shepherd.
5. The West Wing. “Sorry, I was still talking to Carol.” It temporarily lost some of its hold on the national zeitgeist after 9/11, but bounced back famously throughout 2002 with the help of Josh Lyman’s stormy romance with doe-eyed feminist icon Amy Gardner, C.J. Cregg’s heartbreaking near-romance with secret service man Simon Donovan, Josiah Bartlet’s secret assassination of terrorist leader Shareef (and its ongoing aftermath), Lord John Marbury’s rudely hilarious party banter, Bartlet’s sound and decisive pummeling of weak-minded opponent Bob Ritchie, Jack Ross’ wary start with Donna Moss, Toby Ziegler’s politically incorrect run at fatherhood, Sam Seaborn’s campaigning adventures in Southern California, and Will Bailey’s arrival at the White House.
6. Alias. “Now, hold on a second, Marshall. We need our kidneys." Remember how, in the first-season finale, Will Tippen screamed like a little girl when he discovered the oddly tressed young woman saving his life was actually grad student pal Sydney Bristow? The show may never hit that kind of high again, but it does continue to confront Syd a with barrage of mind-bending dilemmas. And like all great dramas, the show keeps asking questions the audience grows anxious to see answered. Which is why we can’t wait to see what becomes of twitchy SD-6 techie Marshall Flinkman. Let’s just hope the Rambaldi element turns out to be something more than an excuse to keep Syd in the field.
7. Late Night With Conan O’Brien. “And which of these buttons calls your parents to pick you up?” The funniest and best-written franchise outside of prime time. Forget Preparation H Raymond. Forget the masturbating bear, the heckling turkey, Pimpbot, and announcer Joel Goddard’s obsession with young asian males. Triumph the Insult Comic Dog was loosed on the line for “Attack of the Clones” last May, producing the year’s funniest 10 minutes of television.
8. South Park. “Cartman, what the hell are you talking about??” Did co-creator Trey Parker, who now seems to author every episode himself, learn something about pacing when he made the “South Park” movie? Points are gotten to much more quickly these days, and those points are as pointy as ever. In 2002 we got to see Russell Crowe fighting ‘round the world, Vatican officials strategizing with their randy clergy and queen spider, George Lucas visiting Ewoks upon “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and, most memorably, Lemmiwinks the gerbil’s harrowing journey (with guidance from the Frog King and the Sparrow Prince) through Mr. Slave’s digestive tract.
9. Angel. “I’ll take away your bucket.” The fourth season of “Angel” is already by far its finest. All of the season’s seven aired episodes have been terrifically watchable, but the last two aired – “Spin the Bottle” and “Apocalypse Nowish” – rank among the series’ best installments ever. It’s hard to understand why the title character was not more understanding about Wesley Wyndam-Pryce’s kidnapping of Baby Connor, but Wes’ subsequent banishment from Team Angel was a masterstroke: the ex-“rogue demon hunter” has evolved into one of the most complicated and unpredictable characters in all of TV Land.
10. Curb Your Enthusiasm. “You don’t like salmon? That’s fine!! Plenty of fish in the sea!!” The title of this show should really be “Mr. Argumentative,” because Larry David seems resolutely incapable of having a civil conversation with any friend, business associate or functionary. The improvisational nature of the show is a blast; there should be a drinking game keyed to utterances of the interrogative “What?” Anyone who says “Sex in the City” is funnier than “Curb Your Enthusiasm” could well be harboring an agenda that has nothing to do with comedy.
11. (tie) Oz/Six Feet Under/The Wire/The Sopranos. All TV should follow the HBO model: let the creator take as long as he or she needs to pound out 13 great episodes, air all 13 in 13 weeks, rinse, repeat. Who dares miss what will next befall Tobias Beecher, Claire Fisher, Jimmy McNulty or Uncle Junior?
15. Big Brother. A lot of critics this year finally acknowledged what Herc’s been screaming about since this show first landed here three summers ago: “Big Brother” rules, baby. People go nuts inside that little house! There’s no relief valve! It’s a big simmering three-month cauldron of love, hate, plotting, paranoia and plain old-fashioned bad behavior. There are four key reasons “Brother” outranks “Survivor” on the Big Fun scale: 1) “Brother” only features one big tribe, so there’s no long wait for a post-merge dominant tribe to pick off the other tribe’s remnants; 2) Because the show unfurls more or less in real time, producers don’t bother trying to misdirect viewers on vote outcomes; 3) It offers three hours a week instead of one, so one gets to know the players much more intimately; 4) The house is always full of bored, great-looking people, so everybody’s always having sex.
16. Boomtown. Of the 612 new crime dramas that debuted this autumn, “Boomtown,” from “Speed” scripter Graham Yost, is the only one that deserves to stick around. It’s kind of like “Hill Street Blues,” because it centers around two street cops, two plainclothes detectives and a district attorney. And it’s kind of like “Law & Order” because it deals with a single crime each week. But one senses the key inspiration may have been “Reservoir Dogs,” because the story is always riddled with quirky characters and told out of sequence. The real reason to watch, though, is alcoholic, womanizing, demon-riddled district attorney David McNorris, played by “Band of Brothers” vet Neal McDonough. If McNorris was a character on “Law & Order,” he wouldn’t be one of the regulars, he’d be that week’s key suspect.
17. The Osbournes. “This is Spinal Tap” made miraculous flesh. Nothing will make you appreciate Ozzy, Sharon, Kelly and Jack more than spending a few minutes with Anna Nicole Smith, her son, her lawyer and her assistant, none of whom do anything or have anything to say about anything except decorating Smith’s home.
18. The Shield. The success of HBO’s original series looms large over FX’s flagship crime drama. Like “The Sopranos” and “Oz,” its protagonist is a murderous sociopath, but this time he’s a cop who makes Harry Callahan look like Joe Friday. Make no mistake: Vic Mackey makes for one fascinating and iconic antihero, a monster who can be relied upon to get a job done.
19. ER. They chopped off Rocket Romano’s arm; what do you people want? Thanks to “CSI,” “ER” is now only the second-most-watched drama on television, but it’s still must-see up here on Mt. Olympus. Carter, Lockhart and Kovach create a highly watchable central triangle, Pratt, Chen and Gallant make swell secondaries, and Weaver and Romano remain two of the best villains the medium’s ever produced.
20 (tie). The Amazing Race/The Road Rules-Real World Challenge. Sports for people bored silly by sports. Like “Big Brother,” these series get high marks for keeping the emphasis on interpersonal conflicts.
Finally, and apropos of nothing, Herc wants to encourage everybody to check out “Catch Me If You Can,” which is hilarious and fascinating and exciting and the most entertaining Steven Spielberg film since “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” I finally caught up with it last night and can't stop thinking about it.
Happy New Year!!
