The 2007 Winter Critics Poll is out from TV Week, and not surprisingly, The Wire is on top as best show (as it was in Broadcasting & Cable's earlier TV Critics Poll), followed by Excellent 10 program Heroes (yay!), and The Office. Other notables:
-Ugly Betty, another Excellent 10 favorite finished in a tie for fourth with Grey's Anatomy.
-Lost dropped from first in the summer poll to sixth.
-The overrated Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip finished tenth.
-Another Excellent 10 fav, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, came in fourteenth, up from eighteenth in last summer's poll.
-The critics bragged a lot about how good the new prime-time serials are, but only one (besides Heroes) made the list: The Nine finished nineteenth.
-Two more Excellent 10 of 2006 finishers tied for 24th - Comedy Central's The Colbert Report and South Park , along with ABC's Brothers and Sisters.
-The Simpsons, once a mainstay in the Best TV Poll, didn't make the cut. Neither did Family Guy.
-CBS did not have one show in the top 25, and Fox had just two. Ouch!
-No surprises in the Worst Show category, topped by now-defunct sitcom Happy Hour, although there was one entry that did raise an eyebrow or two: CNN Headline News' prime-time vixen Nancy Grace tied for sixth. (BTW, where was Bill O'Reilly?)
-However, among worst movies, specials, and miniseries, Fox's O.J. special, If I Did It... topped that category, even though it didn't air. So, producers... if you even think about airing a tawdry special featuring nude women dancing with dogs, rest assured it will top this category. (If the critics can list the non-existent O.J. Special number one, then why not those Girls Gone Wild infomercials?)
-This is not the first time a program that did not air made the worst series list: A few years ago, The Grubbs finished tenth in the Worst Show category, despite never making it onto the air. What network had it in development, you may ask? Fox. No surprise there.
-Topping the best movie, specials, and miniseries was Masterpiece Theater's Prime Suspect: The Final Act.
-Traditionally, the critics could care less about programming that airs outside the Big Four networks and cable. So it is no surprise that new networks The CW and MyNetworkTV (the latter Robert Feder labeled a bust in his year-end column), featuring affiliates TV critics have probably never watched, earned low marks. (For the record, they really didn't care about The WB and pretended that UPN and first-run syndication never existed.)
- Notable quote: "By the Christmas episode ... I had to break down and admit it: I'd rather watch Sorkin fail every week than just about anything else on TV." -- Toronto Sun columnist Bill Brioux on his conflicted feelings on Studio 60. (And this guy is qualified to be a TV critic? Go back to covering the Maple Leafs.)
-Moron: The award for The Person Who is a TV Critic, But Shouldn't Be goes to our very own Doug Elfman of the Chicago Sun-Times, who is quoted in this poll regarding MyNetworkTV telenovelas, rather negatively:
"Porn is the only thing that can bring up its ratings at this point."
But yet, in this review of Desire, one of those telenovelas, he writes:
"Desire is (I can't believe I'm saying this) good. Compelling. Stupid. Well-acted. Not terribly written. Funny on purpose. Better than most series on TV."
(Then again, he's right on the money with this article in the Sun-Times on Tuesday 1-16-07. So, I'm conflicted...)
The complete list of best and worst shows (PDF)
The list of best and worst movies, specials, and mini-series (PDF)
updated 1-16-07 at 15:25
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