Fox. The network critics love and love to hate.

Fox can brag about having four shows on the best 10 list in TelevisionWeek’s critics poll. But it also has five of the 10 shows that critics deemed the worst on TV.

Critics pat Fox on the back with one hand-thank you for keeping "Arrested Development"- and slap it with the other-shame on you for killing "Wonderfalls."

Fox was also named one of the three networks critics can’t live without.

As the Knoxville News Sentinel’s Terry Morrow put it: "It has a grand mix of the trashy ("The Swan") and the intelligent ("24"). The network is like the woman you don’t mind dating, but you can’t bring her home to mother."

Ed Bark, critic at The Dallas Morning news, calls Fox the "good twin/bad twin network that consistently deals out both the worst ’reality’ programming and the most innovative scripted series."

Fox Entertainment President Gail Berman joked that the results of the poll show "We have bipolar critics."

"They love to hate us and they love to love us," she said. "We are that kind of place for critics. If you are going to take the shots that we have to take to be great, you are going to win some and lose some in people’s minds, but we’re out there taking the shots. That’s what keeps us fresh. That’s what keeps us alive, and unfortunately, that’s what keeps us a target for so many people to say, ’Well this is great, but don’t you remember when they did that?’

"You cannot get the kind of success we have in the best show category without being creatively adventurous, and that is just not going to appeal to some people."

And some critics do get it. Despite criticizing the network for awful reality programming, the San Francisco Chronicle’s Tim Goodman named Fox a network he couldn’t live without because "It consistently takes chances, even if it doesn’t always back up those chances with unwavering support."

Nowhere is the network’s dichotomy more evident than in the plight of "Wonderfalls." It was canceled after only a few episodes, but the critics named it the ninth best show on television. They also chose it as the 2003-04 season show that was canceled and shouldn’t have been.

The critics were vocal and brutal in their dismay over how Fox treated the series. It was launched midseason on Friday nights-perhaps the worst night on TV to launch a show with a young target audience-and then moved to Thursday nights, which is the worst night on TV for a show if it’s not on NBC or CBS. It never got a chance at a decent time slot, as reality fare such as "The Swan" and "My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé" did.

TV Guide critic Matt Roush called "Wonderfalls" "one of the more regrettable lost opportunities of last season. Whimsical and weird, this one needed a network to believe in it. Instead, Fox rallied behind ’The Swan.’ The season in a grisly nutshell."

Said Gail Pennington of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Fox made every mistake possible with ’Wonderfalls,’ a textbook example of a show on the wrong network, at the wrong time, in the wrong time slot, with the wrong promotion, handled incorrectly and canceled prematurely."

Ms. Berman said she was fond of "Wonderfalls" but ultimately didn’t think the show was broad enough for the network. She said she didn’t think a different time slot would have helped.

"Maybe we were the wrong place for that kind of show," she said. "Maybe if that show had been developed on a cable network, it would have thrived, because the necessity for a larger audience would not have been there. It hurt all of us to have to cancel it, because we had invested so much time and devotion into the creation of it and we had very close ties to all of the people involved in it. That said, part of the difficulty of this job and network television in general is you have to make the tough choices."

One show that was on the bubble on Fox that did make it to another season is "Tru Calling"-which the critics chose as the TV show that was renewed but should have been canceled.

"Saddled with an incomprehensibly implausible premise and a star with about three facial expressions, Fox’s ’Tru Calling’ should have hit the same rubbish heap that welcomed other noble-yet-off-the-mark experiments, such as ’Wonderfalls’ and ’Skin,’" said Eric Deggans of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

Said the Sun-Sentinel’s Tom Jicha: "No ratings, no buzz and no chance for better. I’ll be watching on Emmy night to see if [star] Eliza Dushku is sitting next to some Fox executive."

Ms. Berman said the critics’ dislike of "Tru Calling" mystified her because the show has shown ratings growth and Ms. Dushku is a dynamic TV star. "We think it grew creatively throughout the year," she said. "I question whether or not people were really watching the show to list it there, because if you were watching it you would have seen a lot of growth."

All five of Fox’s shows on the worst list are reality programs, and Ms. Berman defends them. At least a Fox show elicits a strong response, she said.

"We’re doing things that get people talking," she said. "We have programming in the worst shows that are very highly rated. ’American Idol’ is in the best category for some people and it’s in the worst category for some people, so I don’t really understand that one. I do think these things set trends. They move the form forward.

"’My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé’ was a huge ratings success story and also a form success story. It moved this reality form forward in the comedy/reality hybrid form." #