Dead Tree Alert: The Best TV of 2006

Amid all the hubbub in a certain newsmagazine over digital democracy, sousveillance and user-generated-media empires, let us take a moment to remember those who toiled at the old-fashioned, quaint task of making expensive entertainments, under contract to giant corporations, for millions of people to watch passively, while being paid a gigantic pile of money to do it. I give you my 10 Best (and one Worst) TV shows of 2006.

I did something slightly different this year, which to do my list the way most other TV critics do, judging new and old series side by side. There was a tradition preceding me at TIME magazine of including only new shows or series on the year-end list, which made sense in terms of putting new faces on the list every year but little sense in terms of actually honoring the best TV. I finally realized that a list that made it appear as if, say, Dexter, was a better show than The Wire--because the former debuted this year--just seemed a little crazy.

That said, I'll admit to a little jiggering to give credit to some deserving new shows. If I just wanted the 10 best series in absolute terms, I doubt there would be any new ones except Friday Night Lights (#3). Continuing series have a chance to develop depth, rhythms and resonances that even most great series can't after only a few episodes. The 10 plain-old best series would probably include, every year, whichever HBO series aired, plus South Park, and FX show or two and a couple network tokens, year after year until they went out of production.  It would be correct, justifiable and boring.

So, reader, I fudged it; returning shows needed to clear a higher bar, thus making room for new blood. If pressed, honestly I could probably name 10 series better than Heroes--as I've written before, the show is exciting and creative on a story level, but badly in need of cliche-removal surgery. But it's trying something worthwhile, and that ought to be noted, and it's not like The Shield and The Sopranos need another top-ten credit on their resume. 

That means plenty of perfectly deserving shows could have made the cut and didn't, and later this week I'll give you my Next 10 list: shows 11 to 20, any of which might have been on my list had I gotten out of the other side of the bed in the morning, or had they sent me better bribes. In the meantime, feel free to peruse my list--which will be gussied up in a web-friendlier version on time.com later--and revel in the idiocy of my choices.