TV: A Year in Review, Part I

With Law & Order's season finale last night, the 2008-09 television season has come to an end for me. While there are shows that are actually worthy of attention in the summer (basic cable in, broadcast networks out), the summer usually provides a welcome respite from the weekly viewing habits that tend to eat up prime time. For example, I now only watch shows on Thursday and Sunday and opposed to Sunday-Friday during the rest of the year. Gives me a chance to catch up on the huge backlog of a DVD collection I have. For others, it's torture of the highest degree to wait four months (and longer in some cases) to see how season-finale shocking cliffhangers are resolved. Below is a review of the some of the best and worst, in my opinion, of the year:

We'll start with the worst because it's more fun to rant than praise. I'm officially dropping three shows for next fall, two regulars and one new series. The first is Heroes and like many who have grown increasingly frustrated with this once promising show, enough is simply enough. The promise of a turnaround next season, something that has been said going all the way back to before season two after the lackluster season one finale, it's just more of a chore than a fun diversion on Monday nights. Even the return of Bryan Fuller, after the demise of the sorely missed Pushing Daisies, did not elevate the end of season three above anything other than so-so. The show tries to be daring and then immediately does a reversal which the audience should find surprising but is instead just a restoration of the status quo. Heroes is moving to the 8:00 PM EST spot next fall and House, M.D. (see Part II) will be getting my undivided attention.

Another show which has very much overstayed its welcome is Smallville. After last year, the show runners from the beginning stepped down and fans were promised a series that would not be as constricted by canon and a fear of infringing on the adult Superman story lines. What we got instead was more of Clark standing around whining and uncertain when he should be doing something, characters acting wildly unlike themselves and fights scenes that were shorter than the time it took you to read this sentence. Even the introduction of Doomsday provided very little action and more of a chance to make the ultimate destroyer sympathetic for the audience. Who wants to care for Doomsday? Not every villain has to be vulnerable and conflicted. Even a huge season finale death which would have imploded Superman canon was immediately retconned (Heroes writers moonlighting?) and cheapened the emotional impact of what would have been a truly tragic demise.

Finally there's Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which I watched out of loyalty as a Star Wars fan despite the fact I really didn't care for last summer's animated film. Each episode is essentially another battle, with some moralizing on the side and ethnic stereotypes as aliens for the desert. While visually stunning, it's a bad sign when you're most interesting characters are the clone troopers who have seen more development in this series than any character in the prequels. Hell, more than most characters in the original trilogy as well. I finished off the season but am taking my leave before the last taste of Star Wars I have is an extremely bitter one.

Be sure to catch Part II next week for the season's best and must see TV viewing for next year. Part III will focus on those series who will not be joining us for another year on the tube and Part IV will look ahead to next fall and what makes the cut and what's not even Tivo-worthy. This weekend will also see a post about the summer viewing possibilities, mostly on USA and AMC. Until next time . . .