AFTERTHOUGHTS (37)
TOP TV SHOWS FOR 2007

It’s that time of year when Top 10 lists breed like rabbits, and though the sheer number do make the head spin, I still check out a lot of them, just to see what others have to say about the shows that I love (if and when my top choices happen to coincide with theirs).

Time had two lists of top TV shows, and Lost crashed into the #2 spot on Time’s Top 10 Returning TV Shows, while Pushing Daisies took root in the #5 spot of their Top 10 New TV Series.

#2. Lost (from Time’s Top 10 Returning TV Shows)
Like a boulder on a desert-island mountain, a Lost season starts slow, but after a dithering first six episodes, season 3 was an awesome force. This spring's episodes delved deeper into the mythology of the mysterious island, then vaulted years ahead in an astonishing, forehead-smacking finale that set the bar even higher for next season. In between, we got Desmond's mind-blowing premonitions, invisible mystic island honcho, Jacob, and the moving death of doomed romantic junkie Charlie. What more could you want? Only more Lost, and soon.

#5. Pushing Daisies (from Time’s Top 10 New TV Shows)
It's whimsational! It's twee-riffic! It's preciously precious! In this grown-up fairy-tale, a piemaker (Lee Pace) can raise the dead with a touch, but kills them if he ever touches them again. This complicates matters when he resurrects the love of his life, whom he can never kiss, at pain of her life. Playful, fantastical, and art-directed within an inch of its life in candy colors by Barry Sonnenfeld, Daisies is as romantic as it is outlandish.

Pushing Daisies also sprouted in the #2 spot on Entertainment Weekly’s Best TV Shows of 2007.

2. Pushing Daisies (from Entertainment Weekly’s Best TV Shows of 2007)
Filled with mermaid divers and windmill farms, Pushing Daisies is a fantastically fantastical, bubble-gum-colored fable about a pie maker named Ned (Lee Pace), who magically brings his childhood love, Chuck (Anna Friel), back to life with his touch but will kill her if he ever makes contact again. Between solving oddball mysteries involving puppy cloning and scratch-'n'-sniff empires, Chuck and Ned banter and moon at each other. (As Ned's gruff detective buddy, wonderful Chi McBride undercuts any excess sweet.) When so many TV couples are bickery brats, there's something strangely mature about this chaste pair. It's easy to whip up a juicy drama about evildoing bastards — it takes a boatload of creativity to make all this niceness so mesmerizing.

Congratulations to all involved with Lost and Pushing Daisies. Onward, ho, to 2008. And let’s get the WGA strike resolved soon so we can all breathe easier…

Entries quoted above are from time.com and ew.com. To see the other Top 10 shows, the complete lists can be accessed from the links above.

(Images courtesy of abc, fanpop.com [Lost] and about.com [Pushing Daisies].)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (15)

15.1 Congratulations to all involved with the following TV shows, for being chosen for Time’s 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME list.

Battlestar Galactica
“A stark, well-imagined story of a war in a galaxy far, far away, yet too close for comfort.”

Felicity
“The finest, funniest and quirkiest of the '90s explosion of young-adult dramas, this WB bildungsroman was a rare soap about a young woman in which her personal growth was as important as her love life.”

Lost
“In a way it's a misnomer to call Lost one of TV's best shows—it's a fine show on the level of character and writing, but what makes it a classic is that it's the finest interactive game ever to appear in your living room once a week.”

Six Feet Under
“Alan Ball's all-in-the-funeral-family drama expanded on the themes of his movie American Beauty: families keep secrets, people maintain facades, and while death may be final, life is messy.”

Twin Peaks
“The story of a teen girl's death in the Pacific Northwest—and the pie-eating, deadpan-soliloquy-spouting FBI agent investigating it—carried on the theme, from Lynch movies like Blue Velvet, of sordid secrets and ancient horrors hid behind a facade of wholesome Americana, proving that TV could equal or surpass film in its storytelling ambitions.”

The X-Files
“… for years this conspiracist gem drilled into our reserves of horror and mistrust, and struck black oil.”

Hey! J.J. Abrams wound up with two of his shows on the list. Sweet.

All quotes are from the article. For the complete list, go here. (Each title above brings you to that particular show’s entry.)

15.2 Meanwhile, Lucas and Spielberg have apparently made up their minds: it’s officially Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I’d referred to the fourth Indy film once or twice here at the Iguana as Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods, which was actually merely one of several rumoured titles.
I still like the sound of City of the Gods more than the official monicker, but hey, it’s their movie.

(Images courtesy of space.com [Battlestar Galactica]; atnzone.com [Lost]; answers.com [Six Feet Under]; tarnishedlady.typepad.com [Twin Peaks]; and amazon.com [The X-Files].