I Like to Watch

May 28, 2006 | As we near the end of the 2005-06 TV season, it's important to take a little time to look back on the cornucopia of splendid televised entertainments, hold hands and say to each other, "Indeed, it was good."

Yes, it was good, brother! A solid TV season by any measure. We all mourned the departure of "Six Feet Under," to be sure, and for a while after that, the world seemed dark and gloomy and bereft of promise. But by the time the autumn wind was blowing strong in the trees, a new batch of shows were ready to be harvested, and their fruits proved to be sweet and mellow.

But brother, it's been a long harvest, and frankly, I'm exhausted. Between the finales of "The OC," "24," "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost," not to mention the others I couldn't miss but didn't have time to write about, the last few weeks haven't exactly been a honeymoon. Ahem.

Still, I couldn't resist writing a lot about each of those shows -- good or bad, there's a lot to say about them. Even though season finale recaps can be pretty short, about 500 words, most of those pieces clocked in at three times that long, with yesterday's "Lost" recap tipping the scales at a whopping 2,700 words. It was a lot of fun, but frankly, compadres, I'm out of words. And when you have no words, what do you do? For more answers, turn with me, as we so often do, to the Book of Ex-boyfriends.

Listless listing
Ex-boyfriends, Chapter 1, Verses 1-14. In the beginning -- or a few years ago, at any rate -- I had a boyfriend who made lists all the time. His lists were a little bit like the ones you'd find in Entertainment Weekly: "Ten Best Blockbusters of the Summer, 2003," "Likely Best Picture Nominees for 2004," "Ten Places I Want to Visit." Some of these lists he would actually write on tiny slips of paper, then fold them up and keep them in his wallet. Sometimes, right in the middle of a conversation, he'd pull out one of his lists and add something to it, based on what we were talking about.

I thought it was a tiny bit simple-minded, to boil everything down to lists all the time. In fact, I've actively avoided making lists of the shows I watch, or keeping a running hierarchy of my favorite shows, because it feels like killing the golden goose. Why lay it all out? Why not experience the universe of televised entertainments with the disorganized, awestruck mind of a small child? After all, at a time when the TV world is fertile and green, categorizing each and every show can feel like packing the fruit in boxes and sending it to market prematurely.

That said, we've all feasted well on the fruits of this harvest, so why shouldn't I take a second to look back and give a hard back-slap of approval to those shows that consistently amused, inspired and entertained me over the course of this past season?

Best Shows of the Fall 2005 - Spring 2006 Season
1. "Veronica Mars"
2. "Big Love"
3. "Lost"
4. "The Colbert Report"
5. "24"
6. "Project Runway"
7. "The Sopranos"
8. "Battlestar Galactica"
9. "The Shield"
10. "The Office"
11. "The Daily Show"
12. "The Amazing Race," "America's Next Top Model," "Survivor" 13. "Weeds" 14. "Arrested Development"

This list is in no particular order, but it reflects the shows that I found the most rewarding and fun to watch. Giving it a clear order would feel a little bit arbitrary, since it's tough to compare, say, "24" with "The Office." And I think it's a little bit queer to categorically state that "Lost" is a better show than, say, "Big Love," when each show has its own distinct charms, or that "The Sopranos" was worse this season than "Battlestar Galactica" was, when "The Sopranos" has to be credited with changing the landscape of television completely, and as such can't really be compared, in its final season, to shows that are not only a horse of an entirely different color, but that haven't been airing since 1999.

Next page: What about "House," "Grey's Anatomy," "Huff" and "Invasion"?