So, what a year it's been in television. Some old favourites have been cancelled - after a solid run, Medium finally gave up the ghost, even if we still have another season to come in the UK - while having started after a steep downhill trajectory with the Dead Jim storyline, Ghost Whisperer was also consigned to the afterlife.
Some shows haven't even made it past one season: those of us who stuck out an increasingly patchy FlashForward were aggrieved to see the first and final season end with a whole load of cliff-hangers, while suspecting that the Event would have the same fate made me feel slightly smug when it did.
Of course the big news finale was for a show I don't watch - and I still can't get a consensus from Lost fans on whether it was any good or not. Much bigger in my personal universe was the finale-that-wasn't - the end of the five-year arc in Supernatural that went out in a blinder, but was a victim of its own success and so was renewed for what many (including me) are saying is a very questionable sixth series.
Many of the shows I loved this year were relatively - or completely - new, while some have been around a while and I was just late coming to the party. Timothy Olyphant's cool-as-a-Heathrow-runway-in-December portrayal of cop in a cowboy hat Raylan Givens made Justified one of the best shows of the year for me - and I was equally taken with his showing among a seriously strong cast in the cancelled-before-its-time Deadwood, which I discovered on DVD.
2010 was also the year I caught up with the rest of the world in discovering that the best show in the world is the Wire. Another DVD treasure was motorcycle drama Sons of Anarchy, the first two series of which I consumed at speed (then went back to when Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam was a skinny teen in Queer as Folk, which has stood the test of time surprisingly well).
Quality comedy was on hand from Modern Family, the Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, though the latter is getting a bit long in the tooth and looks like it should be calling it a day soon. Leverage and Burn Notice continued to be the most fun you can have with a TV set, while Glee's high school singing shenanigans brightened up my weeks, (and, to paraphrase the words of new-best-character-on-TV Sue Sylvester, made me tear up more often than Michael Landon in a sweeps week episode of Little House on the Prairie) even though it featured the least convincing teens since Grease.
Speaking of teens, much guilty pleasure was to be had from the emotional angst and casual murder on hand in the Vampire Diaries (or Dawson's Vampires, as it is often referred to), while for more grown-up fangy fun, season 3 of True Blood (hitting our screens in January) was the best yet. (Interestingly, though, while True Blood wins on the sex and nudity score, comparing the shows I suspect the body count is much higher in Vamp Diaries, which has an attitude to bloodshed that borders on the blasé).
Nathan Fillion continued to prove he is one of today's most charismatic stars in the entertaining Castle, and the Walking Dead proved Andrew Lincoln can cut it in the States, although personally I have my doubts as to the longevity of the zombie apocalypse format.Surprise pleasure of the year was Stephen Moffat's updating of Sherlock, where spot-on casting and sharp scripts combined to make an instant classic: and it was good to see Moffat's and Matt's take on the Doctor keep the regeneration of one of our best loved shows going strong.
There were some disappointments: the Mentalist was patchy, with the non-Red John episodes dull and Patrick Jane too often less quirky, more smug git. This tendency to twattiness was even more evident in Lie to Me, where Tim Roth went from charming maverick to unpleasant bully in less than a series, causing me to give up on the show altogether. Idris Elba BBC vehicle Luther had its moments but couldn't live up to the wattage of its post-Wire star, and new shows Caprica and the-now-cancelled Stargate Universe were just too dark and dreary for me.
The latest season of Dexter also dragged - while delivering a kicker of a finale - creating fears that the format has outlived its welcome. Can't help that co-stars Dex and his on-screen sister have split up in real life, which must make for some awkward moments.
Still, overall it was a year that brought far more good than bad, and with new seasons on the way of Glee, Burn Notice, Leverage, Justified and Sons of Anarchy - to name just a few - 2011 looks like being another bumper year. Or maybe I need to get out more.
