TV: Best of 2007

Over at Modern Fabulousity, Gabriel has begun a week-long series of "Best of 2007" posts focusing on the year's finest artistic achievements. I was delighted and honored to be invited to join his television jury, and you'll find our collective wisdom here.

Gabriel asked each of us to submit lists of ten programs and five performances that we thought were the year's best. It took some mental gear-shifting to think in terms of calendar year, when I'm so used to analyzing TV by September-thru-May seasons, but these were the lists I turned in:

TOP TEN PROGRAMS
1. Pushing Daisies -- It's the most dazzling high-wire act on TV, with every actor, writer, and stagehand working on exactly the same wavelength. Every week I find myself thinking that they can't possibly pull it off again, and every week -- miraculously -- they do.
2. Mad Men -- Dialogue bordering on song, and a cast that knows how to sing. Jon Hamm was the find of the year, and Don's sales pitch monologues took my breath away.
3. Slings and Arrows -- Another impeccable ensemble cast, joined for the King Lear season by the superb William Hutt. And it was that rare show that knows how to tie up loose ends in a series finale without answering every question.
4. Project Runway -- Still the best reality competition on TV, thanks to clever challenges, impeccable casting, and the fabulousness of Tim and Heidi. Well, OK, mostly Tim.
5. John from Cincinnati -- I don't even pretend to understand this show, but I was always enthralled by it. John's sermon in the hotel courtyard was the best scene TV gave us this year.
6. Battlestar Galactica -- A lot of people (Emmy voters among them, sad to say) assume that because it's SF, it can't be anything more than meaningless entertainment. Oh, what fools they be!
7. How I Met Your Mother -- The best sitcom ensemble currently working, in a show that plays clever variations on the format, juggling multiple timeframes and plots with spectacular dexterity.
8. The Big Bang Theory -- Part of this year's mini-trend of geek chic. Johnny Galecki and Jim Parsons have the kind of chemistry and timing that normally takes years to develop.
9. The Daily Show / The Colbert Report -- Because Jon and Steven are about the only thing keeping me sane these days.
10. Chuck -- A good old-fashioned escapist comic drama, maybe the best since Magnum P.I.

TOP FIVE PERFORMANCES
1. Chi McBride, Pushing Daisies -- Every time the show is in danger of becoming just too damned sweet, along comes Emerson -- cranky, skeptical, curmudgeonly, lovable Emerson -- to bring it back down to earth. McBride's done fine TV work for years, but he's never been as perfectly cast as he is here.
2. Jim Parsons, The Big Bang Theory -- Sheldon was a brilliant creation from week one, but I think Parsons was just getting started when the strike cut off the supply of new episodes. Parsons and the writers were starting to explore the ways in which Sheldon isn't just nerdy, but really annoying, and I'm eager to see how the character develops.
3. the women of Mad Men -- The men got most of the attention (and they were fine indeed), but Christina Hendricks, January Jones, and Elisabeth Moss gave us three spectacular portraits of womanhood in 1960. Any of the three could get a belly laugh and break your heart in the same episode, sometimes in the same scene.
4. Melinda Doolittle, American Idol -- For thirteen weeks, Melinda put on a masterclass in singing. Even Sanjaya didn't seem so horrible when you knew Melinda was coming up next.
5. Jesse Tyler Ferguson & Heather Goldenhersh, The Class -- The most unfairly neglected sitcom of the 2006-07 season gave us the year's best love story -- funny, romantic, poignant. The fact that it featured a pair of socially awkward misfits only made it better, and Ferguson and Goldenhersh were an irresistible couple.