Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

Sometimes in the list-making frenzy that occurs at the end of each year (like it or not), categories get too rigid. "Best and worst moments" leaves out a news event like, say, Tim Russert’s death. But then a more serious collection of news events in 2008 might not call for the mention of Oprah Winfrey telling the world that she weighs 200 pounds. Sometimes you need a grab bag for the variables.

Here, then, a random collection of great individual performances, interesting network decisions, really horrible shows, potentially interesting tidbits and one very large anvil dropped on the head of NBC.

Great performances, Vol. 1: Walton Goggins has always done excellent work on "The Shield," but he’s always been overshadowed (like much of the rest of this fine cast) by the Emmy-winning, career-defining work of Michael Chiklis. And yet, Goggins is riveting in this final season of "The Shield," capturing the nuances of rage and love, trapped in the insanity of the moment and aware of the tragedy that lies ahead. Incredible work.

Note to actors: Don’t annoy the writers: When Katherine Heigl decided not to submit scenes for Emmy consideration because the writers on "Grey’s Anatomy" hadn’t given her much to work with, it started a strange cycle. She became as annoying as the series itself, just as she was making her mark in movies. Now the writers have given her a crazy illness that makes her see (and sleep with) dead people. And now "Grey’s Anatomy" is beyond stupid, and that Emmy is beyond her grasp.

The rise of Rachel Maddow: Proving that left-leaning channels could finally create anchors who electrify the base just as well as right-leaning channels, MSNBC found in Maddow a presence viewers glommed onto and someone who interested media writers as much as Keith Olbermann does.

"The View": No doubt the report from the space aliens back to their commanding officers is as predictable and sad as we all thought it would be: Men, as depicted on ESPN, shout at each other when discussing sports and athletes. Women, when gathered on "The View," seem catty and gossipy and hurt each other’s feelings, sometimes over politics and sometimes because that’s how the show stays in the headlines.

Great performances, Vol. 2: An argument could have been made that of all the wonderful, mostly unknown actors who came to our attention in the first season of "Mad Men," January Jones was going to be the weak link. In Season 2, she stepped up in ways that weren’t even hinted at in Season 1, deepening her Betty Draper character and showing range without showing off. Impressive.

A comeback and an extended stay: Although the idea of leaping five years into the future wasn’t entirely original, the move breathed new life into "Desperate Housewives." And yet the soap still froths mightily in this series, which was extended to a ninth season. Is that a good thing, or too much of a good thing?

Oprah’s weight: Honesty is great, Oprah. But honestly, we don’t care.

How to run a network as if it’s a hammer factory. Or how not to run a network: NBC’s mission to create programming that’s not worth your time, or a damn, continues unabated - thus appearing on two of my lists in a mere three days (the paltry number of NBC series appearing on my best of 2008 list Monday stands as a further indictment). In any case, NBC is what happens when you lack vision and count beans. But honestly, even with that shallow pedigree, how in the world did it put "Knight Rider," "Kath & Kim," "My Own Worst Enemy" and "Crusoe" on the same fall schedule? It doesn’t look to get much better in midseason. To save money, NBC didn’t make pilots this fall; it chose instead to make series commitments on the basis of scripts. You get what you pay for.

Pushing daisies, indeed: If any show suffered from the momentum-killing break of the writers’ strike, it was ABC’s clever (too clever?), color-saturated, ridiculously witty, word-heavy comedy "Pushing Daisies." It came back, got ignored and is now canceled. For proof that television isn’t fair, start there.

Summer shines, fall fails: All right, enough about how viewers didn’t want recycled strike-shortened series. The fall TV season was dismal enough in other ways. Let’s focus instead on sunnier days: the Summer Olympics in Beijing. No doubt Michael Phelps and his ceaseless triumphs helped make this a blockbuster event, but the Olympics are always a unique television spectacle. From the sports you had to really hunt for (or record deep in the night) to the prime-time package, there was enough drama, intrigue, heartwarming ups and shattering, emotional dips to more than make up for the mostly weak scripted fare we got in September.

Fall failure? Not so fast: It’s not fair to CBS to claim that nobody’s making hits. The network has done well with most of its freshman series, notably "The Mentalist," which is one of television’s top-rated series. And if the broadcast networks didn’t exactly stick the landing as this season began, their cable counterparts gave us new series to admire in "Sons of Anarchy" on FX and "True Blood" on HBO, while also bringing back gems like "The Shield," "Dexter" and others.

HBO finds out that it really is TV: Speaking of "True Blood" (and the animated series "The Life & Times of Tim," plus the Aussie import "Summer Heights High"), HBO has begun taking the baby steps it needs to get back to where it once was: if not above the rest of television, then at least worth the subscription fee. All but eclipsed by Showtime this year, HBO suffered from ill-advised programming decisions, management shuffling, expensive missteps ("12 Miles of Bad Road"), awful additions ("Little Britain USA") and less buzz on series like "Entourage." With "The Wire" now over and done, HBO needs to rebuild quickly. "True Blood" is a fine start. But it will need to find a lot more of that mojo in 2009 to regain its standing.

"Saturday Night Live" finds relevance: Even though "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" and "The Colbert Report" (and even David Letterman via his John McCain rants) increased their excellence in this election year, it was woeful "Saturday Night Live" that got the biggest boost. People were talking about it - and liking it - two relatively new phenomena. Unfortunately, the nonpolitical skits on "SNL" remain painfully long and not nearly funny enough.

Tina Fey: What more can be said about this woman? She almost single-handedly saved "Saturday Night Live" after leaving it to create television’s funniest sitcom ("30 Rock"). Sarah Palin was the proverbial gift horse, but the impersonation was dead-on and will no doubt be the stuff of legend.

Katie Couric: If it weren’t for Fey, you’d have a pretty good argument that Couric benefited the most from the election (and Palin in particular). So much for the talk about her leaving CBS News and being a failed attempt to resuscitate a dinosaur. Now people are talking about this being the comeback of the year.

Not everybody can be AMC: Scripted television may have lacked creativity in the hands of the five broadcast networks, but cable continued to prove that smart programming abounds. Perhaps that’s why Starz, heretofore known as a movie channel in the ether of your cable or satellite package, wanted in on the scripted game. Who could blame it after watching AMC - which had become a nonessential, mockery-worthy movie channel - turn into the home of Emmy-winning programming with "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad"? Unfortunately, turning "Crash" - a seriously flawed movie - into a seriously flawed weekly series failed to get much attention, or viewer traction.

Great performances, Vol. 3: If you haven’t seen it already, get or rent "Generation Kill" from HBO. The miniseries abounds with exceptional acting as it takes a grunt’s-eye view of the war in Iraq.

Great performances, Vol. 4 (and then some): Sarah Silverman, Matt Damon, Jimmy Kimmel, Ben Affleck and hordes of other stars who went mostly uncredited in the two-pronged song spoofery that was Silverman’s "I’m F- Matt Damon" and Kimmel’s rejoinder, "I’m F- Ben Affleck." Beyond being hilarious, it let the world in on the fact that Kimmel had arrived as a late-night host. Haven’t seen them? Try YouTube.

Oh, yeah, the Internet: Although we thought the Internet-will-kill-television stories all dried up in 2006 from lack of proof, there were at least three noteworthy TV-related developments. First, Joss Whedon’s "Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" proved that with a great TV writer, some fine TV actors and some TV-quality video, a real phenomenon could arise in otherwise lean times. Second, Hulu.com continued to be relevant, and that forced most networks and cable channels to improve their own sites, which is development No. 3.

Great performances Vol. 5: For all the actors - from the top billed to the most minor - who ever graced a scene or episode of television’s greatest series, "The Wire," here’s to you. The Emmys never noticed. But those of us who watched sure did. Uncommonly brilliant in range and depth, anybody who said a line in "The Wire" should be proud.