Good telly of 2004

Cop Show

The Shield
Kind of screwed over by channel 10 in 2003, it had some consistency in the late night saturday timeslot last year. Well worth setting up the vcr to record (hell even tape the following NYPD Blue). The Shield is a solid balls out cop show, mucho macho. Its fun watching Vic squirm and scheme his way out of everything and though he always seems to make things worse he still hangs on by the skin of his teeth. It only had one dud episisode in the whole year, which was the unnecessary flashback episode. Otherwise good tv.

honorable mention
The Wire
The best cop show, if not best tv show ever, was Homicide life on the Street - this is close, has the same beat and feel. A good season long storyline that slowly builds, what lets it down was that there were too many characters that weren't interesting enough. Where The Shield is about bad cops that do right for their own benefit, The Wire is about good cops that have to do wrong to do right. A story of conflict and objectives. It was lost by channel 9 in the late night monday timeslot, and unlike channel 10 does with its late night shows, it failed to advertise it so no one watched it. Keep an eye out for it on paytv if you are connected.

Comedy

Arrested Development
It was a shitty year for comedy, such that i was considering putting the OC in this category. Thank god this came out of the woodwork. Everyone knows how good it is. I wish Channel 7 stopped messing around with it, plus i wish i remembered it was on.

Honourable Mention
Andy Richter controls the universe
Wrote about this last month, it only ran for one season and has been dumped on channel 9 at 2 in the morning but its worth waiting up/programming vcrs for. A sad little fat man is angry at the world but lacks the conviction to be too angry for a sustained period. Ends up being a loser.

Soap Opera

The OC
California, califoooorniyyyaa
Pretty people in trouble is always fun too watch. Especially when one of them is funny. It took Dawson's creek and good 4 years to run out of steam, this will probably do it in half the time. Its paced too fast for a long life but all in all it just coasts above melodrama - making it quite palatable. As post-modern as a soap opera can get.

Honourable mention
Cooks
It was overhyped follow up to a so so tv movie with that guy from Water Rats, and it was never going to do that well. Channel 10 freaked out when the first episode didn't do well and quickly crammed it on late night thursdays with ridicously short commercial breaks (one or two ad breaks), something I have never seen done before. They were obligated to run the whole series but wanted it over so quickly (to get to the news) - they forgoed ad revenue.
But it wasn't that bad, it was actually really good. I never got into Secret Life of US so I can't compare but it had sweet and original characters, witty and intelligent scripts and Emma Lung, sweet Emma Lung. Sigh, what could have been. The later episodes were much better, i think the producers finally figured out what they wanted. I doubt it will ever be repeated on free to air but catch it if you can.

Genre

24
After 3 years - still a very gripping show. Part of me would like this on dvd but i think without the week break between episodes it wouldn't be as edgy. The guy that played the main villan would make a great Bond. Nothing is truely oustanding in this series but for some reason the pacing, the small plot intricacies and the kewl moments ("He shot his boos in the head! Kewl!") make it very addictive.

Honourable Mention
Angel
That last season of Angel started out a bit crap but it came good, real good. After 5 years except for half a dozen episodes (in season 5) this was a good series, but i liked the Connor episodes so what do I know.