Post by Forever Xena on Dec 28, 2005 1:57:04 GMT -6
'Lost' tops list for best 2005 TV
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON - Calgary Sun
The best & worst on TV in 2005
The cast of Lost
True story - I was going to use this space to declare Bono and Bill Gates the Persons of 2005. Right after sending away for tickets to The View. And heading to Brokeback Mountain with Mike Bell.
Alas, Time magazine trumped my plans, slapping Bono and Gates (and Mrs. Gates) on their cover. Why? Because apparently when the U2 frontman isn't using $100 bills for toilet paper and the Microsoft mogul isn't buying Chevy Chase, they're performing good and charitable deeds. In the face of a year pockmarked by natural disasters (hurricanes, tsunamis) and manmade angst (bombs in Britain, unwinnable wars), do-gooders have become - as my grandpappy might say - the bee's knees. Which is why, for our mighty and highly-valued Sun bucks (we ordered them from a guy wanting to move money from Nigeria), we'll gladly declare Earl Hickey our Person of the Year.
Yes, that Earl Hickey - the moustachioed hoodlum-turned-hero of NBC's comedy My Name Is Earl. As personified by Jason Lee, Earl's no billionaire or music god - he's just an everyman attempting to make his mulleted corner of Middle America a happier place. Which, when looking at the last 12 months of television, is evidenced even in the viewing habits of the public. Note the continued decline of the degradation-as-entertainment cottage industry known as reality-TV. Disinterest or disdain? You decide. Martha Stewart's jail term was lapped up by the media, but the public balked at seeing her groom an Apprentice.
Scripted shows, on the rebound this time last year thanks to Desperate Housewives and Lost, surged in 2005 to dominate the ratings - Commander-In-Chief, Prison Break, Criminal Minds, My Name Is Earl, Everybody Hates Chris, Medium and even that god-awful Ghost Whisperer among them. Survivor and The Amazing Race still do just-fine-thank-you, but if the gods are kind, 2006 may just bring the moment where we, the little people of the world (i.e.: critics) can declare with authority: "The Donald Fired."
Until then, we take comfort, solace and more than a little peace that the following 10 series, each of which exemplifies TV at its best, thrived in 2005.
1. LOST: The architects of this spellbinder about plane crash survivors stranded on an island where seemingly anything is possible - look, it's Richard Simmons! (OK, not really) - achieved the impossible this fall. They not only craftily escaped the sophomore jinx (not so lucky? Desperate Housewives) but improved upon their monumentally-entertaining castaway saga with a richer, deeper and even more compulsive narrative. Much more than simply a genre entertainment, Lost, with its non-linear storytelling and textured performances, isn't simply a great thriller. It's simply great.
2. 24: After an uneven third day in the life of counterterrorist anti-hero Jack Bauer, this real-time drama restarted its internal clock with a sweeping shakeup. Audiences responded to the riveting reboot, giving the show - which inspired the current wave of serialized series - its highest ratings to date. Next month, Kiefer Sutherland returns for a fifth season with new supporting cast members including RoboCop's Peter Weller and Sean Astin. We can't wait.
3. ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: Sometimes you have to let the things you love go. So for we fans of this comic masterstroke - which has seemingly slipped unheralded into oblivion - the question of whether or not this comedy about the dysfunctional Bluth clan will survive (on Showtime?) is a moot point. We'll just wrap ourselves in warm, subversive memories and wait for Arrested Development: The Motion Picture in 20 years.
4. MY NAME IS EARL: As the titular character in this riotous romp about karma, redemption and Carson Daly, Lee achieves a level of scruffy supremacy seldom seen outside your friendly neighbourhood halfway house. In his dirtbag, he sifts through the scum to locate undercurrents of warmth, humour and even innocence.
5. THE OFFICE: Based on the acclaimed BBC series, The Office stars Steve Carell as Michael Scott, the regional manager of a paper products company located squarely in middle America. The key to Carell's inspired performance as this satire's blundering boss? As Carell told the Sun during an interview this year, everyone knows a Michael Scott. And if you don't, it means you are Michael Scott.
6. RESCUE ME: Denis Leary's New York firefighter spends life haunted and hopped-up, vacillating between reconciliation and self-annihilation, between light and dark, fire and salvation. Predictably, not all of the Big Apple's smoke-eaters are overjoyed with the all-too-human portrait they receive here, especially after so many flat entertainments (Ladder 49, Backdraft) that posit them as superheroes.
7. FAMILY GUY: Death has been very good to the Family Guy. Resurrected from cancellation by Fox executives who were swayed by robust DVD sales, this animated sitcom returned this fall with new episodes and, one hopes, a new cheerfully-offensive lease on life.
8. THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART: Now that Ted Koppel has retired and Peter Jennings has passed on, the era of the broadcast anchor is officially behind us and - with apologies to Elizabeth Vargas and Brian Williams - the one journalist you can still count on to deliver the news in a timely, insightful fashion ... isn't a journalist at all. It's hardly news to report Jon Stewart has become, not just the primary source of societal satire for his young fanbase, but their primary source of information. Can somebody nominate Stewart to the Journalism Hall of Justice already? Maybe the Sun can adopt him? We need interns, right? One complaint? The Colbert Report which, while fine in small doses, isn't worth losing Stephen Colbert's biting Daily Show commentaries.
9. MEDIUM: When it debuted in January, I shrugged Medium off as a middling Sixth Sense clone about a psychic soccer mom who sees dead people. And for the first several episodes, that's exactly what it was. However, creator Glenn Gordon Caron clearly had a larger vision for the show. In its second season, the mysteries have grown increasingly twisty and complex. We'll even forgive the less-than-satisfying 3-D episode.
10. PRISON BREAK: Like 24, it's a season-long potboiler built around a ludicrous if propulsive premise - resolute Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) is determined to bust out his death-row brother Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell). Break falls short of the energy of 24 and we're having a hard time forgiving Fox for its decision to put the show on hiatus until March. But maybe that just means we can't wait to see what happens next.
Other 2005 TV highlights ...
STORM FRONT: American news folks didn't just wake up and smell the coffee in 2005 they poured it in Karl Rove's lap. The White House couldn't catch a break - from its strategy in Iraq to its bungling of the hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
CHANGE OF GUARD: After earning widespread praise for his Katrina coverage, Anderson Cooper became CNN's new golden boy, replacing Aaron Carter as the network's primetime anchor.
WAR OF THE WORLDS: Tom Cruise detonated his career in one fell swoop. Or jump - on Oprah's sofa. Cruise, apparently not satisfied he'd made enough of a laughingstock of himself, then got into a tussle with Today's Matt Lauer over psychiatry and Scientology.
KISS AND MAKE UP: David Letterman wooed Oprah to appear on his late-night show, resulting in his best ratings since he had hair.
SEX SELLS: Janet Jackson's nipple sat 2005 out, but that didn't stop starlets from shilling with their skin - Paris Hilton's banned burger ad and Jessica Simpson's sleazy short shorts Dukes of Hazzard video being just two examples.
And for the worst of '05
GHOST WHISPERER: When my gravy-and-whiskey-soaked organs finally give out, it would indeed be proof of a higher being if I was greeted by Jennifer Love Hewitt as my human guide into the next life. Not just because I could see her naked whenever I wanted, but because I wouldn't have to watch this show ever, ever, ever again.
THE APPRENTICE: MARTHA STEWART: For a woman as shrewd as Stewart, she missed the point of why this show was ever greenlit - namely, to see her berate contestants. Viewers tuned out in droves as soon as Stewart, obviously trying to soften her image, uttered the words, "You just don't fit in here."
DANCING WITH THE STARS: Fame, shmame. Has-beens John O'Hurley and Kelly Monaco would have danced for a bowl of soup.
PRINCES OF MALIBU: People have an endless appetite for rich, spoiled brats, but this flop reality show about the children of music mogul David Foster, was so obviously staged, it made you appreciate the acting chops of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
HEAD CASES: Want to see what My Name Is Earl would've been like if Earl Hickey had been a sleazy Beverly Hills lawyer and Jason Lee was Chris O'Donnell? Well, just tune into - oh, wait. You can't.
JOEY: The next time they run out of names for natural disasters that cost millions and ruin people's lives and careers, we suggest Joey.
KILLER INSTINCT: At this point, there are more murders and misdeeds committed on TV than in the streets of Detroit and Bangkok combined, but that hasn't stopped networks from churning out series about crackerjack investigators chasing society's worst. Killer Instinct makes the list because its crimes are more repelling than compelling.
CLOSE TO HOME: The world of Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI, Without A Trace, Cold Case) being original means setting your next crime show out of the city and in the suburbs. That's why he gets millions like I catch a cold.
SURFACE: The worst of the trifecta of alien invasion shows - alongside Invasion and Threshold - can be summed up in three words: Glug, glug, glug.
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON - Calgary Sun
The best & worst on TV in 2005
The cast of Lost
True story - I was going to use this space to declare Bono and Bill Gates the Persons of 2005. Right after sending away for tickets to The View. And heading to Brokeback Mountain with Mike Bell.
Alas, Time magazine trumped my plans, slapping Bono and Gates (and Mrs. Gates) on their cover. Why? Because apparently when the U2 frontman isn't using $100 bills for toilet paper and the Microsoft mogul isn't buying Chevy Chase, they're performing good and charitable deeds. In the face of a year pockmarked by natural disasters (hurricanes, tsunamis) and manmade angst (bombs in Britain, unwinnable wars), do-gooders have become - as my grandpappy might say - the bee's knees. Which is why, for our mighty and highly-valued Sun bucks (we ordered them from a guy wanting to move money from Nigeria), we'll gladly declare Earl Hickey our Person of the Year.
Yes, that Earl Hickey - the moustachioed hoodlum-turned-hero of NBC's comedy My Name Is Earl. As personified by Jason Lee, Earl's no billionaire or music god - he's just an everyman attempting to make his mulleted corner of Middle America a happier place. Which, when looking at the last 12 months of television, is evidenced even in the viewing habits of the public. Note the continued decline of the degradation-as-entertainment cottage industry known as reality-TV. Disinterest or disdain? You decide. Martha Stewart's jail term was lapped up by the media, but the public balked at seeing her groom an Apprentice.
Scripted shows, on the rebound this time last year thanks to Desperate Housewives and Lost, surged in 2005 to dominate the ratings - Commander-In-Chief, Prison Break, Criminal Minds, My Name Is Earl, Everybody Hates Chris, Medium and even that god-awful Ghost Whisperer among them. Survivor and The Amazing Race still do just-fine-thank-you, but if the gods are kind, 2006 may just bring the moment where we, the little people of the world (i.e.: critics) can declare with authority: "The Donald Fired."
Until then, we take comfort, solace and more than a little peace that the following 10 series, each of which exemplifies TV at its best, thrived in 2005.
1. LOST: The architects of this spellbinder about plane crash survivors stranded on an island where seemingly anything is possible - look, it's Richard Simmons! (OK, not really) - achieved the impossible this fall. They not only craftily escaped the sophomore jinx (not so lucky? Desperate Housewives) but improved upon their monumentally-entertaining castaway saga with a richer, deeper and even more compulsive narrative. Much more than simply a genre entertainment, Lost, with its non-linear storytelling and textured performances, isn't simply a great thriller. It's simply great.
2. 24: After an uneven third day in the life of counterterrorist anti-hero Jack Bauer, this real-time drama restarted its internal clock with a sweeping shakeup. Audiences responded to the riveting reboot, giving the show - which inspired the current wave of serialized series - its highest ratings to date. Next month, Kiefer Sutherland returns for a fifth season with new supporting cast members including RoboCop's Peter Weller and Sean Astin. We can't wait.
3. ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: Sometimes you have to let the things you love go. So for we fans of this comic masterstroke - which has seemingly slipped unheralded into oblivion - the question of whether or not this comedy about the dysfunctional Bluth clan will survive (on Showtime?) is a moot point. We'll just wrap ourselves in warm, subversive memories and wait for Arrested Development: The Motion Picture in 20 years.
4. MY NAME IS EARL: As the titular character in this riotous romp about karma, redemption and Carson Daly, Lee achieves a level of scruffy supremacy seldom seen outside your friendly neighbourhood halfway house. In his dirtbag, he sifts through the scum to locate undercurrents of warmth, humour and even innocence.
5. THE OFFICE: Based on the acclaimed BBC series, The Office stars Steve Carell as Michael Scott, the regional manager of a paper products company located squarely in middle America. The key to Carell's inspired performance as this satire's blundering boss? As Carell told the Sun during an interview this year, everyone knows a Michael Scott. And if you don't, it means you are Michael Scott.
6. RESCUE ME: Denis Leary's New York firefighter spends life haunted and hopped-up, vacillating between reconciliation and self-annihilation, between light and dark, fire and salvation. Predictably, not all of the Big Apple's smoke-eaters are overjoyed with the all-too-human portrait they receive here, especially after so many flat entertainments (Ladder 49, Backdraft) that posit them as superheroes.
7. FAMILY GUY: Death has been very good to the Family Guy. Resurrected from cancellation by Fox executives who were swayed by robust DVD sales, this animated sitcom returned this fall with new episodes and, one hopes, a new cheerfully-offensive lease on life.
8. THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART: Now that Ted Koppel has retired and Peter Jennings has passed on, the era of the broadcast anchor is officially behind us and - with apologies to Elizabeth Vargas and Brian Williams - the one journalist you can still count on to deliver the news in a timely, insightful fashion ... isn't a journalist at all. It's hardly news to report Jon Stewart has become, not just the primary source of societal satire for his young fanbase, but their primary source of information. Can somebody nominate Stewart to the Journalism Hall of Justice already? Maybe the Sun can adopt him? We need interns, right? One complaint? The Colbert Report which, while fine in small doses, isn't worth losing Stephen Colbert's biting Daily Show commentaries.
9. MEDIUM: When it debuted in January, I shrugged Medium off as a middling Sixth Sense clone about a psychic soccer mom who sees dead people. And for the first several episodes, that's exactly what it was. However, creator Glenn Gordon Caron clearly had a larger vision for the show. In its second season, the mysteries have grown increasingly twisty and complex. We'll even forgive the less-than-satisfying 3-D episode.
10. PRISON BREAK: Like 24, it's a season-long potboiler built around a ludicrous if propulsive premise - resolute Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) is determined to bust out his death-row brother Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell). Break falls short of the energy of 24 and we're having a hard time forgiving Fox for its decision to put the show on hiatus until March. But maybe that just means we can't wait to see what happens next.
Other 2005 TV highlights ...
STORM FRONT: American news folks didn't just wake up and smell the coffee in 2005 they poured it in Karl Rove's lap. The White House couldn't catch a break - from its strategy in Iraq to its bungling of the hurricane Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
CHANGE OF GUARD: After earning widespread praise for his Katrina coverage, Anderson Cooper became CNN's new golden boy, replacing Aaron Carter as the network's primetime anchor.
WAR OF THE WORLDS: Tom Cruise detonated his career in one fell swoop. Or jump - on Oprah's sofa. Cruise, apparently not satisfied he'd made enough of a laughingstock of himself, then got into a tussle with Today's Matt Lauer over psychiatry and Scientology.
KISS AND MAKE UP: David Letterman wooed Oprah to appear on his late-night show, resulting in his best ratings since he had hair.
SEX SELLS: Janet Jackson's nipple sat 2005 out, but that didn't stop starlets from shilling with their skin - Paris Hilton's banned burger ad and Jessica Simpson's sleazy short shorts Dukes of Hazzard video being just two examples.
And for the worst of '05
GHOST WHISPERER: When my gravy-and-whiskey-soaked organs finally give out, it would indeed be proof of a higher being if I was greeted by Jennifer Love Hewitt as my human guide into the next life. Not just because I could see her naked whenever I wanted, but because I wouldn't have to watch this show ever, ever, ever again.
THE APPRENTICE: MARTHA STEWART: For a woman as shrewd as Stewart, she missed the point of why this show was ever greenlit - namely, to see her berate contestants. Viewers tuned out in droves as soon as Stewart, obviously trying to soften her image, uttered the words, "You just don't fit in here."
DANCING WITH THE STARS: Fame, shmame. Has-beens John O'Hurley and Kelly Monaco would have danced for a bowl of soup.
PRINCES OF MALIBU: People have an endless appetite for rich, spoiled brats, but this flop reality show about the children of music mogul David Foster, was so obviously staged, it made you appreciate the acting chops of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
HEAD CASES: Want to see what My Name Is Earl would've been like if Earl Hickey had been a sleazy Beverly Hills lawyer and Jason Lee was Chris O'Donnell? Well, just tune into - oh, wait. You can't.
JOEY: The next time they run out of names for natural disasters that cost millions and ruin people's lives and careers, we suggest Joey.
KILLER INSTINCT: At this point, there are more murders and misdeeds committed on TV than in the streets of Detroit and Bangkok combined, but that hasn't stopped networks from churning out series about crackerjack investigators chasing society's worst. Killer Instinct makes the list because its crimes are more repelling than compelling.
CLOSE TO HOME: The world of Jerry Bruckheimer (CSI, Without A Trace, Cold Case) being original means setting your next crime show out of the city and in the suburbs. That's why he gets millions like I catch a cold.
SURFACE: The worst of the trifecta of alien invasion shows - alongside Invasion and Threshold - can be summed up in three words: Glug, glug, glug.