What's working: The year's best TV

Here's what was working for me in 2008. Yes, it's time for my annual Best TV Shows Slash Great Last-Minute Gift Ideas List. Special to the web: Every single show below is linked to its online or DVD-purchase page!

I first started rating the best shows of the year in the 1990s -- you know, the videotape era. Back then, I might as well have rating the best bird sightings of the year; most shows had already flown past the public and weren't coming back. Nowadays, thanks to DVD sets (not to mention Tivo, YouTube and video-on-demand services), you can't get rid of them. So you might as well buy some and give them away.

Start with "John Adams" (HBO: DVD | Blu-Ray ), my pick for show of the year. Paul Giamatti played the second president in this splendid miniseries, typically by looking like he had indigestion. Indeed, there was much that was hard to stomach in governing 13 fiercely independent states in the new republic. John was counterbalanced by Abigail, fetchingly portrayed by Laura Linney in this adaptation of David McCullough's book.

Here's the rest of the best, in alphabetical order:

"American Idol," starring David Cook (Fox: video). From about week six on, the scratchy-faced Blue Springs rocker, who had a knack for turning soft-rock oldies into scorching ballads, sure looked like a winner. Aided by thousands of adoring older women -- cougars are the new soccer moms -- he walked off with the title and has been off and running since.

"Black Magic" (ESPN: DVD). Excluded from white college basketball for decades, African-American schools developed their own flashy style and menacing defense that would prove influential once the sport integrated. This documentary brings Kansas City art prof Milton Katz's biography of hoops pioneer John McLendon to life.

"Chicago 10" (PBS: DVD). Wildly imaginative retelling of the kangaroo trial by which Abbie Hoffman and others were convicted of starting the 1968 Grant Park riots that were actually started by Chicago cops.

"A Colbert Christmas" (Comedy Central: DVD). Instant holiday classic features Stephen Colbert, musical guests and some of the most inventive Christmas songs I've ever heard: John Legend's raunchy tribute to "Nutmeg"; Toby Keith's radio-ready spoof of the "War on Christmas"; Colbert and Elvis Costello reminding holiday humbugs that there are "much worse things to believe in."

"Fringe" (Fox: video). Creepy phenomena are terrorizing New England and it's up to three oddly matched, not fully mentally stable sleuths to shut them down. This series from "Lost" creator J.J. Abrams effectively recycles "The X-Files" with humor and gimmicks.

"High School Confidential" (WE tv: showpage). Overland Park mom Sharon Liese spent four years documenting the lives of girls at Blue Valley Northwest and boiled it down to eight compelling hours of TV.

"King Corn" (PBS: DVD). Two buddies rent an acre in Iowa and use it to grow America's most abundant and troubling food stuff. Corn is in everything from our gas tank to our hamburger to our soda pop -- and the question you come away from this movie asking is, why?

"Leverage" (TNT: video). In this deftly-paced action comedy, Timothy Hutton leads a Mod Squad of bad guys over to whatever the opposite of the dark side is.

"The Rachel Maddow Show" (MSNBC: video). The Rhodes Scholar and so-called lovable lefty doesn't watch other cable news shows -- and it shows. In her thoughtfulness, choice of issues and guests, she's become an oasis for two million substance-starved fans a night.

"Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired" (HBO: DVD). The exiled director is asking a court to dismiss his 30-year-old morals case in the U.S., now that filmmaker Marina Zenovich has so powerfully exposed it as the sham it always was.

"Worst Week" (CBS: video). A stumblebum who can't impress his in-laws -- in fact, practically gets them killed every week -- is the unlikely premise for the fall's one new comedy hit.

From the political season the best 30-second ad was T. Boone Pickens explaining his "Pickens Plan" in the kind of straight talk John McCain used to be known for. (Perhaps just as impressive is Boone's FIFTEEN-second ad -- so effective that NBC at first wouldn't run it!) Runner-up was Emily Graves, daughter of Sam, starring in the season's most adorable attack ad.

Honorable mentions for 2008 include "The Mentalist" (CBS), "Generation Kill" (HBO), "60 Minutes" (CBS), "Traces of the Trade" (PBS: related book), "Mad Men" (AMC), "Breaking Bad" (AMC), "Burn Notice" (USA), "Fareed Zakaria GPS" (CNN), the final seasons of "The Shield" (FX) and "The Wire" (HBO), "Architecture School" (Sundance), "Hopkins 2008" (ABC), "Frontline: The Hugo Chavez Show" (PBS) and "Privileged" (CW).

Comments

[Randy Reichardt]

Hi Aaron. PLEASE tell me I didn't read the phrase "American Idol" in your list of the Best TV of the Year. Wait, let me check again...yes, the phrase is still there. I've been a loyal subscriber since Late Show News Days, and cannot fathom why you would include such a waste of airtime in your otherwise always respectable list of the year's best. What's even more confounding is that you would consider AI better than The Wire or Mad Men, and in turn, those shows not worthy of the top ten.

Perhaps you are a parallel universe Aaron. Wait, that must be it. :-)

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and keep up the (mostly) good work. ;-)

- Randy

[Pat Jack]

Lol, an honorable mention as a 'political' thing. That a grassroots organization and maverick energy planner for our nation is political, that's funny.

Pat Jack