AOL Polls About The Year In TV

Or is that the year on TV? Doesn’t really matter, I’m writing this post largely because I’ve been remiss about posting for most of the past week. I know it’s summer and all (as of Thursday) but I can usually find something television related to post about even in the summer. Trouble is that the last few days I’ve been running around quite a bit, and I get really tired – playing games late into the night (or maybe that should be early into the morning) doesn’t help matters a lot. Just today I had to ride up to the Co-op Home Center to pick up a sprinkler head to replace one I broke the other day (there’s a park on the route that I use which floods easily when we have heavy rains like we did a few days ago; two ducks seem to have taken up residence in the pond that was formed – one’s a drake but I think it’s a little late for ducklings). So anyway I have to resort to filler, and for a guy, what makes better filler than a list.

This poll was posted a few days ago by AOL, and TVSquad which is actually a subsidiary of AOL (or part of a subsidiary or something, suffice it to say that the relationship is sort of incestuous) had it on June 19. Jackie from The (TV) Show Must Go On posted her opinion yesterday so I figures I’d better get on the bandwagon. AOL Also had “Editor’s Picks” which no one else has mentioned so I’ll put those in here too, as well as my own opinions.

1. Best Drama – House (29%), Grey’s Anatomy (28%)

Editors’ Pick: The Sopranos (9%)

Me: Since I haven`t seen the final season of The Sopranos I don`t know that I can judge it fairly except to say that 9% seems way lower than it should be, but then Grey`s Anatomy`s percentage seems too high. Based on the shows I saw, I think House is the right choice.

2. Best Comedy – Ugly Betty (30%), The Office (28%), Two and a Half Men (26%)

Editors’ Pick: 30 Rock (7%)

Me: I almost never watch comedies anymore so no opinion. I`ve heard all kinds of good buzz about Ugly Betty though. The – to me – surprising support for Two and a Half Men is yet another reminder of how out of touch the PTC is with American taste. As for the Editors either they`re too hip for the room or as out of touch with America`s taste as the PTC. I say the former.

3. Best Reality Show – American Idol (39%), Dancing With The Stars (28%)

Editors’ Pick: Project Runway (8%)

Me: Okay, you know how much I love The Amazing Race but even I have to admit that there were some things that they did in the past two seasons that annoyed the crap out of me – a lot of them had to do with the selection of All Stars for the All Star Edition and some – well a lot – of the challenges. My pick is the same as Jackie`s, the one ignored by Viewers and Editors alike – Survivor: Fiji.

4. Best New Show – Heroes (38%), Ugly Betty (32%)

Editors’ Pick: Heroes

Me: Heroes is one of the shows that I lose thanks to bowling on Mondays. If I didn`t, it would be exactly the sort of show I would love, so only having seen a few episodes, I`ll make it unanimous.

5. Worst New Show – Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search For The Next Doll (56%)

Editors’ Pick: Happy Hour (9%)

Me: No and no. Absolutely no show could compare with Twenty Good Years in terms of maximum possible suckage. Horrendous is a generous assessment.

6. Best Season Ending Cliffhanger – Lost (32%), CSI (29%), Heroes (23%)

Editors’ Pick: Lost

Me: And again, no and no. I gave up on Lost this year thanks to the whole short season/long hiatus business, while the conclusion of Heroes seemed to me to be more of a conclusion to a season. CSI on the other hand was a show that I watched and which had a real cliffhanger: will Sara die under that car. Then again, when it comes to edge of your seat suspense how can you beat the ending of Jericho?

7. Best Villain – Ben (Lost – 28%), Sylar (Heroes – 26%), Tony (The Sopranos – 23%)

Editors’ Pick: Sylar

Me: I think the Editors got it right. Sylar is a guy who cuts people’s heads open and if the future that Hiro saw was accurate wanted to commit genocide. I can’t help but wonder if the people who chose Tony Soprano felt the same way last year.

8. Heroes Power You Wish You Had – Time Travel (28%), Healing (24%), Regeneration (24%).

Editors’ Pick: Precognition (6%)

Me: My comic book geek side remembers a character called Duplicate Boy who was Shrinking Violet’s boyfriend in the Legion of Superheroes. He had a power similar to Peter Petrelli’s namely duplicating the power of any other super-person. That’s the power I’d want.

9. Hottest Single Mom – Lorelai (Gilmore Girls – 33%), Hannah (October Road – 27%)

Editors’ Pick: Lorelai

Me: I admit that Lorelai is hot, but as you all know from my Mothers Day articles my allegiance in this goes to Catherine Willows on CSI.

10. Best Sanjaya Hairstyle – Pony-hawk (37%), Shirley Temple (28%)

Editors’ Pick: Pony-hawk

Me: Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.

11. Favourite Investigative Team – Benson & Stabler (Law & Order: SVU – 34%), Grissom & Sara (CSI – 32%)

Editors’ Pick: Keith & Veronica (Veronica Mars – 10%)

Me: Trouble is that they define a team as a pair. By that criterion my answer is Grissom & Sara. However widening things up a bit (a lot) it would have to be Gibbs, DiNozzo, David, and McGee on NCIS.

12. Couple You Loved To Love – Luke & Lorelai (Gilmore Girls – 32%), Carla & Turk (Scrubs – 24%), Sun & Jin (Lost – 22%)

Editors’ Pick: Eric & Tami (Friday Night Lights – 12%)

Me: The Editors got this one right. There’s a realism to the relationship between these two that we really don’t see that much on TV.

13. Couple You Love To Hate – Edi & Carlos (Desperate Housewives – 33%), George & Izzy (Grey’s Anatomy – 25%), Kate & Sawyer (Lost – 23%)

Editors’ Pick: George & Izzy

Me: I don’t hate George & Izzy, and strictly speaking I don’t hate Edi & Carlos – I don’t get it but I don’t hate it. No one picked Grissom & Sara on CSI, which is about as close to “hating” a relationship as I get. Grissom & Catherine = hot; Grissom & Sara not so much.

14. Most Shocking Development – Edie’s suicide (Desperate Housewives – 33%), Sanjaya’s survival (American Idol – 28%)

Editors’ Pick: Christopher’s death (The Sopranos – 15%).

Me: Close for me but I think I might side with the Editors on this one not just because of the death of such a pivotal character but because of who killed him and the way it was done. Besides, I’m laying odds that Edie’s suicide will have been caught in time for her to survive.

15. Most Disappointing Series – American Idol (30%), Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (26%), Dirt (20%)

Editors’ Pick: Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip

Me: Tough one for me, but probably The Amazing Race. Even though I never reviewed Studio 60 I did like the show and if it disappointed me it was only because given that Aaron Sorkin created it I was expecting to love it the way I loved The West Wing, Sports Night, The American President and A Few Good Men and I didn’t. On the other hand I love The Amazing Race but found that the changes they made in this year’s two seasons took away from it, particularly the Intersection and the ability for one teams to take both Fast Forwards. Part of the problem can be traced to the hiring of the challenge creator for Survivor – I just don’t think he gets the sort of thing they do on The Amazing Race.

16. Coolest Guest Star – Jennifer Anniston (Dirt – 30%), George Takei (Heroes – 27%), Forrest Whittaker (ER – 24%)

Editors’ Pick: George Takei

Me: Definitely George Takei. Casting Anniston as Courtney Cox’s lesbian competitor (with whom Cox had a brief sexual fling years ago) was a stunt, complete with a kiss. Takei actually had a major presence in the series and the role shows that he has range. If Heroes actually manages to get any Emmy nominations, one of them should go to George.

17. Meanest Reality Judge – Simon Cowell (American Idol – 51%); Gordon Ramsay (Hell’s Kitchen – 36%)

Editors’ Pick: Len Goodman (Dancing With The Stars – 7%)

Me: Oh come on! Ramsay reduces grown men to tears and came close to inciting violence from some of his contestants. Admittedly the grown man was Aaron but still when was the last time Cowell or Goodman did either of those things.

18. Top Primetime Game Show – Deal Or No Deal (56%), Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader (33%)

Editors’ Pick: Deal Or No Deal

Me: Call me a game show snob, but I like game shows where the contestants are challenged with questions that range in difficulty but still don’t deliberately try to prove how stupid they are. There’s no skill to Deal Or No Deal. I prefer 1 vs. 100 because even though the questions aren’t all Jeopardy hard there is a challenge there, and not just for one person but for a group. And besides, Annie Duke was not only on the show but was the mob member who answered the most questions correctly, showing how smart the best poker players can be.

19. Strongest Network – ABC (36%), Fox (25%), NBC (18%), CBS (16%), The CW (5%)

Editors’ Pick: NBC

Me: How do you define strength? CBS tops the ratings and has a higher percentage of shows coming back than any of the other networks. ABC nearly killed Lost and went through a huge number of unsuccessful series – mostly sitcoms. NBC, which the Editors praised for adding 30 Rock, saving The Office, giving us Heroes and renewing Friday Night Lights also managed to ditch Kidnapped after a handful of episode, made a total mess of last summer’s upfronts (totally redoing the schedule within two weeks of announcing it), and firing the guy who renewed Friday Night Lights days after this season’s upfronts and only a couple of months after renewing his contract. This is a strong network?

20. Cancelled Show You’ll Miss the Most – Gilmore Girls (48%), Jericho (30%)

Editors’ Pick: Veronica Mars (13%)

Me: I rarely watched Gilmore Girls and only caught Veronica Mars when it briefly ran on one of the major networks a couple of years ago. The volume of response to the Nuts! campaign suggests that a lot of people were going to miss Jericho, and I would have been one of them.

So tell me (in comments), what do you think?