Best TV Of The Year

While I’ve found little to amuse me this year in music and movies, the TV has been something else this year. There have been a number of gems hitting our screens.

It is true that some shows are perhaps getting tired or have just plain run out of ideas – comedies in particular. The IT Crowd is rapidly making its once very engaging lead characters into catchphrase spouting clichés, which is a shame as it has previously been one of the most amusing of C4’s sitcoms. Likewise, Peep Show has clearly seen better days – a recent episode saw the non-dynamic duo locked in a house for the best part of an episode. Take away the profanity and the obsession with body fluids and you have an episode of Last of the Summer Wine, rather than an edgy modern comedy. Pete versus Life ended up doing Peep Show more effectively than Peep Show itself has managed this year. Speaking of body fluids, just how many episodes of The Inbetweeners can feature a main character urinating or spewing? Sure, it remains funny, but it is getting increasingly samey.

Yet there have been some great TV programmes this year. Misfits is everything The Inbetweeners wants to be, but often isn’t – with added superpowers. It offers intricate story-telling, laugh-out-loud yet always convincing dialogue and manages to consistently make the most extraordinary and unlikely plot points into credible storylines. What other series could have a menacing serial killer offing main characters through partially digested dairy products – while at the same time offering such a simple way of dealing with the monster? If this show’s writer and creator is not on the list of potential writers for Doctor Who then he bloody well should be.

Speaking of Doctor Who (well, it was bound to come up, wasn’t it?) it is worth pausing to note the gamble with the show that was taken at the beginning of the year. The man who brought the show back from relative security departed as both head writers and show-runner, while the actor who had become synonymous with the role also left, to be replaced by a young actor with foppish hair. It could so easily have gone badly wrong. But it didn’t. Smith is a natural as the Doctor – he offers a brilliant, original take on the role that arguably hasn’t been seen since the Baker era (Tom, of course, not Colin). And Moffat has revamped the way in which Doctor Who stories are told – this year’s season was one long story to a large extent, with further plot strands still to be explored next year. Quite simply, this was not only the best season of Doctor Who since the show returned, but one of the best also of all time.

And what of the individual episodes? Well, I’ll be ranking those tomorrow, so stayed tuned.

Another fantasy programme also had a storming year. Ashes to Ashes ended in the summer, and in doing so not only ended its own story, but also comprehensively ended the story begun in Life On Mars. The season as a whole deserves to praise for taking what was, at first, a lighter version of its predecessor and making it much, much darker. It also showed a determination to deal with the strange logic of the show in a credible and convincing way, and in doing so led to an absolutely fantastic final episode. It was always going to be difficult to end a series like this, but the producers and writers did so not only with considerable aplomb, but they made it look easy. In fact, they made it look as if they knew how this story would end all along. Ashes to Ashes final episode is quite simply one of the best finales I have ever seen.

Let’s hope that next year also sees some fine TV – with both Doctor Who and Misfits returning, I feel quite hopeful...