We're told this is the golden age

And now, part two of the commentary on the Time 10 Best TV shows of the year.

The Office: True confession time. My name is Lingual Mania(h), and I have a problem. I am physically incapable of watching people be blithely unaware of how much they are embarrassing themselves, even when I know the scenario is fictional. In real life, this means I often have to leave church meetings when well-meaning but dreadfully bad speakers take the podium. As far as television, some shows hit exactly these same notes for me for some reason, and I actually cannot sit through them, so uncomfortable do I become. This, what, disease? condition? psychological abnormality? made watching Seinfeld very difficult for me but makes watching The Office virtually impossible. I do love the Jim and Pam storyline, I get the funny, I think the show is very well done, yadda, yadda, yadda, but I just can’t do it, people!!

Lost: This show is wearing on my nerves. I, like other viewers, would like some of the many, many loose ends tied up (polar bears? Living smoke? Plethora of wardrobe options? Ben?). Not all of them, of course. Some of the mystery is the point, I know. But I worry that soon there will be so many unresolved pieces of information out there that we will all just give up caring (ala The X-files), and I still want to care. I want to believe, gosh dang it! Because I want to think that someone out there in tv-land has purposefully and knowingly conceived of this immense, novel-esque narrative and can actually tie it all up into a neat, not disappointing bow and, furthermore, and this is the crucial point, actually wants to do so! Do not let me down, J.J. (oh, and a 13-week hiatus between the mid-season ender and opener? Sooo lame.)

Battlestar Galactica: Recently, a friend (DC in DC) asked me what I thought of this show since he was considering beginning to watch it. Let me excerpt just a bit: “Battlestar Galactica redux…has HUGE buzz, even more so this season. I recently read all about it in an Entertainment Weekly cover story and I have to say, despite my very real intentions not to get addicted to any more new shows, I was very intrigued by what I read. Apparently it's getting both critical and popular acclaim, which is rare, particularly 3 seasons in. And I have been very impressed with the caliber of people who tell me they watch it religiously (not fringy types at all, but some of the smartest and funniest people I know here...which is a relative endorsement, this being SC, but hey)…. I will also note that a lot of the show's appeal seems to center around sexy alien women in skin-tight ensembles, but this is also very much in the sci fi tradition (sadly), thought the main pilot character is a buff not skimpily-clad woman, which is a nice attempt at balance on their part (and a huge shift from the original).” Since then, he has watched all and declared it “possibly the best show on TV” so I will let his assessment stand until I can speak for myself.

Bleak House: Somehow, some way, I missed this one, an eight hour Masterpiece Theatre production of the Dicken’s novel starring Gillian Anderson. What?! Oh, right, I have no time for PBS. So it really isn’t that shocking that I didn’t catch this or hear anything about it or have any idea when it even aired this year, but now I am intrigued. And it takes a lot to get me intrigued by Dickens. Actually, nothing yet has gotten me intrigued by Dickens, so this is a red-letter day for a bad but unrepentant English major.

Heroes: Last but certainly not least, regular readers (assuming there are any!) will know already of my passion for all things Heroic. I am waiting with the proverbial bated breath for the spring premier. I noticed in an ad in some magazine I read while traveling (did I mention how long it took?) that there was a strange woman in a cast photo whom we have not met yet, so more characters appear to be in the wings, meaning some will surely die, which, remarkably, doesn’t really bother me (though it does whenever they try it on Lost…and the fact that Bai Ling is the next guest star shows why some new cast members are so bothersome) because one expects that some of these powers must eventually though sadly kill their vehicles. As for the current characters, so far I love Hiro and the cheerleader best, but I am even fond of the bit players, like the cheerleader’s “I am only a plot device” nerdy friend with the video camera or Hiro’s practically nameless "I am comic relief" friend/traveling companion. My cup of fabulousness runneth o’er!

Overall, Time's network choices were good ones. Entertainment Weekly added 30 Rock (finally, finally, the other appropriate vehicle for Alec Baldwin besides SNL), 24 (just another day. yawn), and Dirty Jobs (you know my love for this Discovery Channel show already) to their list, just to spice things up, but largely agreed with Time. And I largely agree with them, though I think both missed the boat by not mentioning worthy of much worship Veronica Mars. As Mrs. Transient Gadfly observed to me, "man, that show is like crack." I couldn't have said it better!