One opinion on TV's best and worst of '08

It's been a quick December, hasn't it? Here we are, less than a week until Christmas, and another week beyond that will be the start of a brand new year.

Between fulfilling my duties here at the paper and finishing my Christmas shopping and singing in the McCook choir a couple of weeks ago and -- well, sleeping -- I've had precious little time to keep myself caught up on my voluntary TV beat. But somehow I've found myself with a few minutes here and there to watch this and that, so thankfully, I have been able to put forth my choices for the best and worst in TV for 2008.

Best TV series of the year: ABC's "Lost," which returns to TV with its fifth season premiere Wednesday, Jan. 21, at 8 p.m. I admit to being an unabashed fan of the show -- I devoured the season four DVD set as soon as I could free the discs from the package -- but can you blame me, especially when the show is such a complete entertainment? At turns thought-provoking, witty, action-packed, terrifying, and even thrillingly romantic (especially in the bravura episode, "The Constant"), the genre-busting "Lost" continues to shake up TV by accomplishing what a handful of shows in the history of television have even dared to attempt -- changing the way stories are told in the medium.

Runners-up: the richly entertaining "Pushing Daisies," which, sadly, is doing just that, the CW's "Supernatural," which, I admit, I had to be cajoled into sampling, and now wish I'd been watching from the beginning, and Comedy Central's refreshingly jaded tag-team election coverage provided by "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report."

Honorable mentions: NBC's "30 Rock," CBS's "How I Met Your Mother," and AMC's "Breaking Bad."

And I would be remiss if I didn't offer special thanks to Conan O'Brien for the truly ground-breaking work on his show during the writers' strike. While most of the other late-night talk shows were hamstrung, NBC's "Late Night" came to life. O'Brien took on the duty of doing virtually anything he could to fill an hour of TV a night, and his labor turned up rich veins of comedy gold in every nook and cranny -- sometimes quite literally -- in the studio.

Best new TV series: ABC's "Life on Mars," hands down. The admittedly-goofball premise of a modern-day New York police detective finding himself on the same beat in the 1970s either intrigued you or sent you for the hills. For me, though, this show has been one of the most enjoyable rides of the year, and it was gaining storytelling steam week by week. New episodes will air after "Lost," starting Jan. 28.

Worst TV series of the year: NBC's "Knight Rider" do-over was a bad idea as a two-hour TV movie, what with its color-by-numbers script and even lazier performances. That the series was worse -- and not just a little worse, but truly plumbing the depths -- didn't come as a shock, I suppose, but who could have guessed that it made just about every single aspect of the original series look like "Citizen Kane" in comparison?

Dishonorable mention: ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" is a show I used to really like in years past. Okay, it was a little oversexed, but there were characters I could relate to (and even cheer for), and stories that I could care about. Now it's an almost-unwatchable mess; the overstuffed cast has been knotted and gnarled into a wholly unappealing tangle of hoary soap opera cliches.

And the less said about "The 2008 Primetime Emmy Awards," the concept and execution of "Rosie Live," the mere concept of "Momma's Boys," the continuing success of "Two and a Half Men," that "Kath and Kim" is still on the air, and the return of "According to Jim" for an eighth (!) season, the better.