Best Television of 2006
January 3, 2007
In my weekly evening viewing schedule I try to find time to watch as much as I possibly can, but being a creature of habit, and one still without a digital video recorder, I tend to stick with the shows I’ve been watching for years, and regrettably ignore some of the newer, trendier shows that critics and audiences fawn over. So, with that said, there can be no mention in this 2006 TV wrap-up of shows like “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Ugly Betty”, “American Idol”, “Battlestar Galactica”, or “Heroes”, because I have conflicting viewing appointments that render them unwatchable (or maybe I have little interest in them, I don’t know), but what follows, I think anyway, is a good representation, based on quality, personal feelings, and other critical reaction, of the best TV had to offer in 2006. Of the shows that I still watch that no longer have a place within the Top Ten, the best are still “House”, “Desperate Housewives”, and “The Sopranos”, but because each one has had slightly off seasons, as compared with the brilliance of their earlier years, I can’t justly consider them the best shows on TV anymore, but rather fine examples of aging dramas that still can surprise you with its likable familiar characters and strong writing. Other favorites I still try to catch every week when they are new include “King of the Hill”, which returns with a new season in January; Aaron Sorkin’s dizzy TV industry drama “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”, which has all the brilliance and pretentiousness of “The West Wing”, in a good way; Fox’s thematically ridiculous but totally addictive fugitives-on-the-run adventure “Prison Break”; the unjustly unwatched fist year serial “The Nine”; the final season of Kevin James’ conventional comedy great “The King of Queens”; the still sturdy reality giant “Survivor”, despite some weak participants and the inevitable familiarity of the challenges and life on a pretty little island; Tony Shalhoub’s still impressive Emmy winning “Monk”; and the interesting summer documentary series “30 Days” from filmmaker, and sometime subject, Morgan Spurlock. All of these shows, and I’m sure some I missed along the way, make up a great TV landscape that substitutes for the long stretches when there seems to be nothing good at the movies, but they are just the also-rans as far as this article is concerned, so for the best, here are my personal picks for the Top Ten TV programs of the year.
10. Poker on TV: You probably won’t find this on any other, more professional, television critic’s list, but most professional TV critics don’t play as much, or watch as much, poker as I do, so it’s a personal choice, and I’m not ashamed to include it here. If you look for it you can find poker on TV pretty much every day, but not all of it is worth watching, only the shows with the best production values and featuring the biggest prizes, like ESPN’s world class coverage of the World Series of Poker, from the early pre-series circuit events down to the twelve million dollar first place prize of the Main Event, or the World Poker Tour’s great final table coverage of countless big ticket tournaments, highlighting each personality and their specific styles of play, are worth your time. I’m a fan of other, smaller shows (the WSOP and WPT are the obvious standard bearers), like GSN’s entertaining “High Stakes Poker”, Travel Channel’s WPT offshoot “Professional Poker Tour”, FSN’s “Poker Superstars”, and NBC’s summer series “National Heads Up Championship”, and like the WSOP’s Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, and the WPT’s Vince Van Patten and Mike Sexton, each one of these shows has a good two-man announcing team to provide color commentary on each important hand. Poker isn’t the craze it was in 2003 and 2004, but for addicts, and frequenting the local card rooms on a weekly basis I know my share, watching these great programs is as fun, and as exciting, as hitting that miracle Ace on the river.
9. Entourage: Season three of HBO’s sweet and funny Hollywood buddy comedy was much of the same as seasons one and two, featuring the daily lives of three best friends riding the coattails of their famous leader, movie star Vincent Chase, but because the season was less focused on Vinnie’s celebrity career, and more on his acting career (in the wake of “Aquaman”, the season’s major arch), it played better as an insider comedy than before. The second half of season three premieres in March, and we’ll get to see if Vince changes his mind and brings back Ari, his recently fired super agent (I can’t see the show without Emmy winner Jeremy Piven), and it’ll be a welcome return, for no other comedy on TV, except for maybe “Scrubs”, so keenly blends the pressures of performing a high stress job with the struggles of maintaining close friendships, with such hilarity and often heartfelt sentiment.
8. The Shield: Much has been written about how guest star Forest Whitaker deserved an Emmy award for his masterful portrayal of obsessive I.A. detective Jon Kavanaugh on FX’s great cop drama, and how egregious it was that he wasn’t even nominated, and it’s entirely true, season five was made all the more special because of the arch following Kavanaugh’s investigation of Vic Mackey’s Strike Team, and for the Academy to ignore the performance, and the show itself, is one of the biggest oversights in recent Emmy history. But who needs the terribly out dated Academy to tell us what’s good, as long as Sean Ryan and his talented writers keep coming up with riveting stories for Mackey (the invaluable Michael Chicklis), who will be hot on the trail of Lem’s murderer this season (if only he knew it was Shane, his best friend and partner), and keep the Whitaker thread as dramatic as it was last year, than we’ll be a happy lot, appreciating the best cop show on TV, whether the Academy recognizes or not.
7. The Office: This slot could rightfully be occupied by any four of NBC’s Thursday night comedy block – including “My Name is Earl”, “Scrubs” and “30 Rock” – but the Emmy winning ‘Office’ is the most consistently hilarious comedy on television, and star Steve Carell’s performance as the sadly pathetic, awkwardly ambitious boss, Michael Scott, is one for the ages. The entire cast is great, and the addition of Ed Helms as Dwight’s new rival for Michael’s affections is an inspired bit of casting (coming from “The Daily Show” Helms understands the art of awkward humor well), but like Ricky Gervais’ David Brent on the BBC original, the boss is the central figure, and though the rocky flirtations of office-mates Pam (Jenna Fischer) and Jim (Jim Krasinski) may keep the romantics watching, it’s Carell who steals the show, and one of the reasons this great comedy justly deserved the Emmy it won as the year’s best comedy series.
6. Deadwood: The greatest television western of all time, HBO’s “Deadwood” was unfairly written off by the studio after its third season due to expensive production costs and low ratings, but fans, who are eagerly awaiting two wrap-up movies currently being constructed, can forever take solace in the fact that their beloved foul mouthed masterpiece, which wins prestigious awards like the Peabody Award and is always showered with the highest praise, will live on on DVD as one of HBO’s very best dramatic offerings. What Forest Whitaker did for “The Shield” last season Gerald McRaney did for “Deadwood” this season as his performance as the overpowering businessman George Hearst came to dominate the focus of the series, pitting Hearst’s dour and violent attitudes towards the town against Swearengen and Bullock’s attempts to run him and his destructive cronies out on a rail, and preserve the future of their fledgling establishment. The few brief scenes between McRaney and the brilliant Ian McShane as the saloon boss Al Swearengen were the season’s most charged moments, but on this landmark series everything is dramatic and heightened, and though it’ll be missed, at least we have three seasons, and upcoming movies, to remember it by.
5. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts: Spike Lee had a nice mainstream hit this year with the Denzel Washington bank thriller “Inside Man”, but his artistic triumph of the year, and one of the greatest films he’s ever made, was this four and a half hour documentary about Hurricane Katrina and the devastating aftermath it had on the city of New Orleans. Combining hours and hours of news footage, including a montage of dead bodies you hardly saw on national news stations, with deeply personal, and angry, interviews with all types involved, from politicians (mayor Ray Nagin), celebrities (Sean Penn), and local musicians (Wynton Marsalis), as well as civilians hurt most from the poorly handled clean up, Lee has made a devastating and emotional document of a truly terrible natural disaster. There is much blame to spread for how the clean up and initial response was handled, and of course Lee takes much pains in getting the stories straight before unleashing his most pointed criticisms, but when the politics are put aside, what is left is a purely human story of loss and struggle, and what it takes to ultimately survive the worst disaster in your city’s history. Wrenching and provocative, this is a masterpiece, and an instantly documentary classic.
4. Lost: The past two years “Lost” has been my number one show of the year, and the second half of season two was as good as anything else on TV, but season three, which has only aired six new episodes so far, has been sidetracked by The Others and their holding Jack, Kate, and Sawyer captive, shifting focus away from the original islanders, losing something in the process. That said, I still love the show, its production values are some of the best in the business, its cast is still first rate (including new regulars Elizabeth Mitchell and Michael Emerson), and when it digs deep into its characters personal feelings, like in Kate’s previous marriage, Jack’s failed marriage, and Sun’s supposed infidelity, it’s still a moving experience. The death of Mr. Eko didn’t make much sense (wasn’t the smoke monster his friend last season?), and we’ve all but lost contact with favorites like Charlie, Sayid, and Hurley, but when the show returns in February for an uninterrupted run, I have a feeling it’ll pick up again, and continue to be the blockbuster us fans truly know it to be.
3. 24: What can be said about the Emmy winning fifth season of “24” that hasn’t already been said? Not much, all of the critical hyperbole has been spent, so I’ll just add that, as a fan from the very first episode, there has been times when even I have felt the show had gone too far in its outrageousness and time constraint gimmick, but for a season which saw the deaths of at least five major characters (including the ex President), Jack Bauer landing a 747 on a Los Angeles freeway, then hijacking a Presidential helicopter, with the President on board, and uncovering a conspiracy that’ll lead to a Presidential impeachment, and then getting jacked by the Chinese in the final moments of the season, I believed it all, and never questioned the producers for one minute because it was so riveting. The performances here are a given, with Keifer Sutherland giving one of the greatest action hero/skilled assassin performances of all time, and the addition of Gregory Itzin as the Nixonian President Logan, and Jean Smart as his troubled First Lady only made the season that much better, proving that with the right actors, and story developers, even a show with such outlandish premises can still maintain its mastery after five long seasons.
2. Friday Night Lights: NBC’s family drama about a rural Texas high school football team, a town’s devotion to its beloved sport, and the personal lives of a handful of players, coaches, and girlfriends, is the best new show of the 2006 season, and one that hopefully more people will pick up on in the second half of the year. Adapted loosely from the book and film of the same name, ‘Lights’ has no one focus in particular, spreading out an ensemble cast – including Kyle Chandler as new head coach Eric Taylor – to paint a picture of high school sports, and small town high school in particular, as a difficult breading grounds for some of life’s most personal vices, such as drug abuse (the star running back’s steroid use), alcohol abuse, sexual infidelity (head cheerleader Lyla and her forbidden affair with bad boy half back Tim Riggins, as her boyfriend lies paralyzed in the hospital), and the pressures of performing under immense local scrutiny. The latter episodes of the first half of the season have toned down the football angle and focused more on the characters, which is great considering how relatable they are – especially sophomore QB Matt Saracen, with his crush on the coach’s pretty daughter – and if it comes back and stays true to its format, mixing the personal with the larger symbolism of football as both war, and life, it should continue to evolve, and if it finds an audience, become what we already know it is, a total emotional knockout.
1. The Wire: Each season David Simon’s urban dramatic masterpiece cuts out of section of public life and scrutinizes it with pinpoint precision and intense criticism, and this year, its fourth and arguably best season, the focus was on the inner city public school system and how, through overcrowding and lack of funding, it ends up failing the children in the long run. The politics of the school system was filtered out through the usual channels, involving the West Side drug trade, run by the brash Marlo Stanfield (Jamie Hector); the bitter election for mayor between the black incumbent and a cocky white challenger; and the dogged, if often futile, work of the Major Crimes division to gather evidence to convict Stanfield and his crew. Take all that, with the usual recurring cast of characters (Omar, Bunny, Cuddy, McNulty, Bubbles, Wee-Bey, to name a few), and add the ongoing story of four 8th grade best friends whose life paths are seemingly decided throughout the arch of the season, and you’ve got what amounts to the great television novel of the year – a sprawling multi-narrative web of pain, frustration, politics, and life in one of the poorest, most dangerous cities in the country, Baltimore, Maryland. Throughout the season we watched as Michael (Tristan Wilds) tried to distance himself from Marlo’s crew, only to end up one of his youngest gangsters, as Randy (Maestro Harrell) became the focus of threats as a school snitch, as Duquan (Jermaine Crawford) struggled to get by with a family of poor drug addicts, and as Namond (Julito McCullum), the central figure of the group, tried to take up the family drug trade for his pushy mother, but failed to possess the street-wise toughness Michael garners by the end of the season. “Mike ain’t Mike no more,” Namond says to his soon to be caretaker Bunny Colvin (Robert Wisdom), and with that the arch comes to an end, the four friends are separated (Namond with Bunny, Randy in a boys shelter, Duquan on the streets, and Michael running his own street crew), and what started out as a happy summer before the first year of their teenage lives, ends in bitterness and ruin. In intricate detail, from the shattering accidental death of Bubbles’ young partner Sherrod, to the brilliance of Omar’s daring season ending heist of Marlo’s goods, “The Wire” portions out its multiple stories with realism, depth, and a bravado unmatched by anything on basic cable. It may take a full commitment to see these stories through to their heartbreaking conclusions, but by the end you’ll know why most critics, myself included, consider this one of the greatest dramatic shows of all time.
by Adam Suraf