July 2000 Archives

But in this terrible world, there are glimmers of hope -- new half-hour series that threaten to overtake the old standards and start a new age of comedy on network TV.

Frasier, already feeling a bit run-down last year, lapsed into a coma this past season and now lingers, waiting for the plug to be pulled. Friends came down with prostate cancer -- it's slow-growing and the show may die before the disease actually proves fatal, but it's a bad sign nonetheless. 3rd Rock from the Sun? We can't find the body, but we're thinking there are some signs of foul play.

But in the meantime, there are series at the top of their game. Everybody Loves Raymond, a favorite around the TeeVee compound, put in another solid year -- and nobody's more surprised than we are that there's a sitcom on CBS that we admire. The last time that happened, we were laughing at characters named B.J. and Hawkeye. That '70s Show proved that Fox can do a live-action sitcom with equal measures of sweetness and sly humor, rather than the usual formula of crass, classless humor. Sports Night put in one last, fitful year, a brilliant and brilliantly flawed masterpiece crumbling under the strain of its creative force, Aaron Sorkin.

Then there was the longest-running comedy on the air, The Simpsons, which continues to impress a decade after its debut. Sure, the show goes through waves of quality followed by waves of mediocrity -- this season was on the mediocre side, but only because the show has set the bar so high -- but in the end, when you consider just how much comedy Matt Groening's creations have given to us, you've got to stand in awe. Many of us can not hold a conversation for more than 10 minutes without making at least one reference to The Simpsons. Forget your Seinfeld, your Cheers, and all the rest. The king of comedy in this corner of mankind's history is, without a doubt, The Simpsons.

And yet this year, The Simpsons was outclassed by its cousin. In its second year, the Groening-created cartoon Futurama got running on all cylinders. With new areas of comedy to explore -- plumbing science fiction clichés, toying with how we view history, and generally being even less rooted in reality than The Simpsons, Futurama has done its creator proud.

Futurama is populated by a great collection of lead characters: the lovably misanthropic robot Bender is a favorite. But let's not forget the growth of several hilarious members of the supporting cast, including a peculiar lobster alien named Dr. Zoidberg. And we'd be remiss without referring to the best one-two punch in space exploration since Kirk and Spock, namely incompetent boob space captain Zapp Brannigan and his perpetually fed-up sidekick, Kif.

Featuring sight gags galore, solid premises, an endless stream of creative (and silly) plot ideas, and a shocking grasp of the lore (and the foibles) of sci-fi, Futurama knocked us dead this year. And that's why it earns half of our Best Half-hour Series Award.

The other half of the award goes to the best new half-hour of the year... a show that was clearly among the best on television after it had only aired a handful of episodes. Why the Fox network chose to wait nearly half a season before finally airing the first installment of Malcolm in the Middle is beyond us, but at least they finally got it on the air -- and the audience responded to the quality they found there.

The story of a strangely functional dysfunctional family, Malcolm is three different (but equally brilliant) sitcoms in one. It's a show about three young boys growing up together, with genius Malcolm in the middle between Reese ("This will send a signal to our enemies," he tells an incredulous Malcolm) and Dewey (whose behavior is explained to us by allowing us to see the world, briefly, though the eyes of a young child). It's about the parents in the house -- the hairy-backed, roller-skatin', easygoing dad (Bryan Cranston) and the tough, loud, don't-take-any-crap mom (Jane Kaczmarek, who took home this year's TeeVee award for Best Actress in a Half-hour Series). And it's a show about the oldest brother, who's been shipped off to a bizarre military school run by a one-armed, one-eyed, one-legged veteran who has never seen any actual combat.

With no laugh track and shot with one camera (as opposed to the flat, phony effect you get when you shoot a sitcom on a stage with a bunch of different cameras rolling simultaneously), Malcolm is exactly what we look for in a half-hour show. It's a unique vision, it doesn't insult our intelligence, and it's genuinely funny. Frankie Muniz puts himself in the running for all-time best kid actor as Malcolm, and we've already sung the praises of Jane Kaczmarek.

Last year at this time, it looked like the sitcom was dead. But with Fox's two successes on Sunday night, we'd say that the genre has been revived again. But don't worry, Malcolm and Futurama -- we won't blame you for the avalanche of lousy sitcoms that's heading our way. This year, you reign supreme.

Additional contributions to this article by: Jason Snell.

We don't have Jon Seda to kick around anymore.

Oh sure, we'll be tooling around the dial, and we might happen upon an appearance by the two-time winner of TeeVee's Worst Actor award. Maybe it'll be a guest shot on Third Watch, maybe a beer commercial, maybe even an appearance in feature film come to cable like "Selena" or "12 Monkeys." And each time we see his chipmunk cheeks and beady eyes, we'll sigh wistfully, turn to one another and say the same refrain: "Do any of you guys understand a word he's saying?"

We'll turn on Court TV and its nightly reruns of Homicide, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Marble-Mouthed One. And we'll reminisce. Hey, remember where you were the first time you saw Jon Seda garble a line? Remember that time TV's Falsone was involved in a thoroughly uninteresting subplot? Or how about when Jon Seda got out-acted by that filing cabinet in Yaphet Kotto's office? And who could forget how his very presence nearly ruined one of the best shows on TV?

Yes, life without Jon Seda is just a little bit grimmer, a little bit more lonely, a little bit less worth living.

Not that this past season didn't offer a host of worthy successors, vying for Seda's crown of thorns. Jaleel White, Richard Belzer, Ted Danson -- all gave their very best, which turned out to be not very good at all. But no one in this triple-decker shit sandwich could match Jon Seda inanity for inanity.

Michael Weiss, TV's Pretender, had been nipping at Jon Seda's heels for years. But, despite another year of wooden performances and deer-in-the-headlights looks, Weiss failed to win the big prize. Besides, Pretender finally got cancelled this year, and we figure that's reward enough. For us, we mean.

Boomer Esiason leapt into contention for his portrayal of a tongue-tied ex-quarterback trying to mask his unfamiliarity with the English language. But after watching Monday Night Football, we simply couldn't believe Esiason had ever seen a game of football, let alone played it. Say what you will about Seda, but we always believed he was a cop. A slow-witted, easy-to-fool, marble-mouthed cop.

Unlike Boomer, Alfred Molina managed to convince us that he was a native English-speaker. Unfortunately, his work on the reprehensible Ladies Man failed to convince us that he's human. Molina's performance as a bug-eyed fuckknuckle of a husband and father proved so loathsome it helped hide the fact that Ladies Man also starred Sharon Lawrence -- possibly the worst actress in the western world. Anyone who can out-ham the former Mrs. Sipowicz deserves our awed respect and dumb admiration. And possibly a mute button.

Taking potshots at the cast of Shasta McNasty for failing to pass creative muster is like driving out to the local high school to mock the spring musical. Still, nobody's angling to put Central High's production of "Godspell" on UPN next fall -- though we hear negotiations are heating up. Besides, one look at the equine features of Jake Busey -- Gary Busey's worst project since "Predator II" -- and we must set aside simple human decency. If we don't speak up now and recognize Busey's work on Shasta McNasty as an awful performance on a terrible show, there's a chance we might be stuck with him forever. And after we've just recently managed to shake Martin Short.

Yes, all worthy candidates to serve as a third-rate Prince Hal to Jon Seda's hack-like Henry IV. But in this comedy of errors, there's only one true heir to Seda's porcelain throne, only one actor who, when tackling his role, asked himself, "What would Seda do?"

God bless you, Erik Palladino. The Jon Seda Memorial Cup for Worst Actor on TV is all yours.

You watch Palladino's open-mouth-breathing performance as Dr. Dave Mallucci on ER, and something just doesn't seem to fit. Palladino seems so out of place in the ER universe, you can't help but wonder if he was acting in front of a blue screen and then edited into the shot in post-production. Or maybe he's some sort of computer-generated character grafted onto ER for comic relief.

If so, he's the worst CGI since Jar Jar Binks.

Every scene featuring Palladino grinds to a halt. Every subplot devoted to him serves as an invitation to channel surf. You see Dr. Dave interact with patients, and you wonder why they don't run from the hospital screaming about how they've just converted to Christian Scientist and they're putting their faith in the healing power of prayer.

It's not that we don't like Dr. Dave. We're not supposed to -- Mallucci was conceived as a foil. It's that he's a lousy foil. Small children with no medical training outside of what they've read in Curious George books could outwit him. Stuck among the other characters on ER, he stands out like a sore thumb. And we resent the fact that on a show choked with excess cast members, any amount of plot is spent on this boring, poorly drawn, badly portrayed character. Palladino takes away screen time from more talented actors -- Eriq LaSalle, Laura Innes, an extra mop lying around the set. He appears on screen, and instantly, our hearts sink.

Jon Seda would have been proud.

Unlike Seda, Erik Palladino can't claim sole responsibility for ruining a once-great show. That fault falls upon the show's writers and producers, who no longer care to come up with any good ideas.

It says something that in a day and age where a number of terrible shows still populate the airwaves, ER was our hands-down winner for Worst Hour Show. But ER has become such a convoluted mess that it lapped a very impressive field.

Ally McBeal is a terrible show -- an hour of David Kelley's worst instincts and poor impulse control. Then again, it also follows the pattern of so many Kelley projects: great first year, mediocre second, poor third, unwatchable fourth. You might as well get angry because the ugly duckling became a swan. A horrible, misshapen swan.

Lexx certainly qualifies as the worst show on cable TV. Filled with bad acting, worse costumes, and even worse computer graphics, the show makes a compelling argument for the lavish production value of cable-access TV. But it airs on Friday nights on the Sci-Fi Channel, so the only people in danger of seeing Lexx are lonely teenage boys who might otherwise listen to speed metal. So Lexx is a small price for society to pay.

Get Real and Wasteland were horrible additions to the fall schedule, polyps on the colon of creative endeavor. But Get Real is, thankfully, dead. And Wasteland, while eye-glazingly awful, may have exposed Kevin Williamson as a fraud. By doing so, it may have performed a greater service than its pea-brain is capable of recognizing.

But consider ER. It's irredeemably awful. From the bloated cast to the uninvolving storylines, there's not one facet of ER that didn't disappoint this year.

A big part of the problem is with the writing. Things like "character development" and "story arc" apparently frighten and confuse the ER creative team. So we get plots that come out of nowhere, peter out and resurface again in the second wave.

Nothing for Dr. Greene to do this week? Let's kill his father. And Carol, you're infatuated with the Croatian guy. Only now, you're running off to be with Doug! Carter, you're hopelessly addicted to pills! Starting... now! And Lucy... you're dead! Let's see you get out of that one!

If the writers have stopped trying, a lot of the actors have mailed it in for so long they could double as postal annexes. Julianna Margulies sleepwalked through her final year on the show. Anthony Edwards looks to be following her zombified lead. And, thanks to a cast larger than most countries, fine actors like LaSalle and Innes blend into the background like furniture.

This wretchedness didn't materialize overnight. ER's creative slide has been in effect for some time. And, unless drastic changes take place before October, you can expect next year to be just as bad, possibly worse. In fact, it's time ER took the honorable way out and called upon the services of a man who knows how to give once great shows a proper send-off.

Paging Dr. Seda. Dr. Jon Seda...

Additional contributions to this article by: Philip Michaels.

Of course, with politicians in their pockets and the public addicted to their poison, these coporations won't allow such extreme measures to happen anytime soon. So it's a matter of baby-steps, small gestures that can get a foot into the regulatory door.

And that's why we were at TeeVee advocate the testing all half-hour shows on mice before a single human being is exposed to them. Despite being vehemently opposed by the networks, such a move is simple common sense: how much suffering could be prevented with this precaution, how much pain?

In an independent TeeVee study -- funded by People for Arbitrary and Vindictive Cruelty to Animals Hee Hee Hee Lookit'm Squirm -- three groups of white lab mice were subjected to the three nominees for the coveted TeeVee Award for the Worst Half-Hour Show. The results are illustrative, and disturbing.

For instance, the group that viewed Ladies Man completed the test lethargic and sluggish, unable to answer simple questions and obviously incapable of operating heavy machinery. Placed behind the wheel of a car and instructed to drive a test course, the group registered the equivalent of a 6.3 blood-alcohol level, unusually high even around TeeVee writers.

The mice that viewed Then Came You turned violent, singling out the weakest member of the group and slowly killing it with dozens of vicious mouse nips. The carcass was then raised on a spike as a warning to others. One observer described this as a metaphor for the show itself.

And, finally, the group of mice that were subject to Shasta -- long a suspected level four biohazard -- began twitching violently only seven seconds into the credits. At the three minute mark, milky white cataracts had formed over the mice's eyes, and the first appearance of Jake Busey caused each mouse to almost instantly lose all its fur, leaving only mottled pink skin. By the end of the airing, those mice that had not spontaneously burst into flame and been reduced to smallish lumps of charcoal had obviously gone insane, repeatedly scrawling "REDRUM" on the sides of the test chamber using their own excrement and the ashes of their compatriots.

Those of us here at TeeVee who have watched Shasta can only hope that it has left us sterile. We shudder at the genetic horrors that would be produced should any of us ever manage to get laid.

This show, obviously, poses a significant risk to human health and the future well-being of the planet at large. If the government, humanitarian organizations, and the world's churches aren't willing to do anything about Shasta, then we at TeeVee will have to get the word out: Shasta wins the Worst Half-Hour Show Award, hands down, and very likely for all time. We're tempted to retire the category, never condemning anything again if Shasta -- all of Shasta, including the actors and writers -- is sealed in a concrete bunker deep in the Arizona desert and forgotten entirely.

We half-suspect that worse shows may have been planned -- Shasta airs on UPN, after all -- but they ended up violating the laws of physics, keeping them safely in the realm of the theoretical. Shasta, apparently, is as bad a show as there can be.

So bad, in fact, that Shasta pulled a trick well-known to credit cheats and federal Mafia witnesses: it changed its name, in an attempt to flee its past. Originally broadcast with the warning-label title of Shasta McNasty, the show now manages to lure in an unknown number of nature lovers, innocently looking for documentaries, and leaves them with the spectacle of slack-jawed hipsters hooting unfunny nonsense at each other and the midget they've got running between their legs.

It's hard to describe how singularly awful Shasta is without resorting to ancient ur-tongues that have words for "like getting your eyes eaten by beetles." Not only inept in execution -- with bad writing, bad acting, bad blocking, bad scenery and, more than likely, bad catering -- but massively muddle-headed in conception. Why would anybody want to watch tattooed and dreadlocked morons with poor impulse control on their TVs when they look out the window and see them on the street every damned day of the year? Hey! How about a show that exactly mimics the experience of flying cross-country with a screaming baby, too?

Oh, God, the pain, the pain.

Shasta, plainly put, is as bad as they come, the best argument yet for a massive nuclear war that will plunge humanity into a thousand years of darkness. Limitless agony, slow death, the shadows of loved ones seared into walls -- all sound a lot better than allowing another episode of Shasta to come into being. Oh, sure, wiping out civilization may seem a high price to pay to get one small "comedy" off the air.

But that just means you've never seen it.

Additional contributions to this article by: Greg Knauss.

No, despite such ad hominem attacks, we have nothing personal against Mariska. She may very well be a stunningly nice person. Certainly, during the one talk show appearance of hers we saw, Ms. Hargitay was entertainingly goofy.

And Mariska is certainly not the worst actress of all time. She memorizes lines, apparently, and hits her marks, and seems to know about where the camera is when she's on. We must admit: Mariska is no Bo Derek -- she's not even a Farrah Fawcett.

Alas, however, Mariska Hargitay is the worst actress of the 1999 fall season, beating out such lumnious rivals as That Blonde Broad From Wasteland. It comes down to a reach-to-grasp ratio: Kirstie Alley may have torn up the bottom of the barrel and dug six feet down to find her performance on Veronica's Closet; That Low-Rent Debra Messing Broad From Then Came You might have required another two feet of digging from Alley; Portia de Rossi might have been regularly out-acted by her hair; Calista Flockhart might also have been regularly out-acted by de Rossi's hair. But none of those actresses assayed roles actually requiring acting. All of those roles merely required approximately six square feet of surface area covering a portion of the background set.

Not so the role of Det. Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Think for a moment about this woman: She is a female police officer of the rank of detective operating in New York City in a unit specializing in particularly gruesome sexually-oriented crimes. Any one of these would qualify Det. Benson as an exceptionally strong woman: None of us have ever undergone police training, but we imagine there are many hurdles for a woman to jump in this traditionally male-dominated profession. To reach the rank of detective must take intelligence and effort. To do this in New York City, probably one of the hardest cities in the country for police officers, must be even more difficult. And to work in a sex-crimes unit and be confronted with the worst of man's inhumanity to man -- Det. Benson must be tougher than nails. She must eat nails for breakfast and shit backyard decks before dinner.

Yet Mariska appears onscreen and manages to emote not a single kilowatt. Where is the power that a Det. Benson must wield? Where is her confidence, her strength? Her toughness? Missing. Mariska gives not a hint of any of this. Rather, she's good at tearing up. No, she doesn't cry as much as an Ally McBeal -- most humans run dry and keel over at only halfway to Ally levels anyway -- but she certainly cries a lot more than Benson should. She spends far too much time leaning on costar Chris Meloni and his character Det. Stabler. I would think half the time he should be leaning on her. That's at least one reason why police officers come in pairs.

Some of this is the fault of the writing on L&O:SVU and that adds to why it won the Biggest Disappointment award this year. It's not entirely the writing, though: Whatever might be there on the page just isn't coming through Mariska. From where she's sitting, maybe she's conveying a quiet potency; from here it's more like line delivery the consistency of Pergo floor laminate.

There is still hope for our Mariska. She could grow into the role and find new nuances; perhaps the writing will improve and with it her performance. But for now she stands out as the Worst Actress of the 1999-2000 season, bad standing out from bad on a bad series.

Additional contributions to this article by: Chris Rywalt.

The fall of 1999 brought with it many disappointments. ER continued its long, painful dive into histrionic stupidity. Buffy the Vampire Slayer lost its way on its new post-Angel path. Frasier and Friends lurched on in a pathetic imitation of past grandeur. Xena: Warrior Princess dumped thousands of alt.tv.xena.subtexters like so many high school girlfriends.

But all of these disappointments came from established shows. These were series we expected to do better based on past performance. Of the new shows of 1999, there was only one disappointment. Anyone could tell that Get Real would bite the big hot hairy one, that Grown Ups would suck like unto an Electrolux, that Snoops would lick the bag and Work With Me would eat it and Ladies Man would do something else bad in the oral/genital neighborhood.

Who, though, could have forseen that Law & Order: Special Victims Unit would be so awful?

Not us. We are longtime fans of Law & Order. We were thrilled at the prospect of another night of L&O with additional stories, additional characters, additional crimes and misdemeanors. We don't get enough L&O even with the A&E repeats; and by now we're starting to have some of the episodes memorized. To think that Dick Wolf would be doubling the production of new shows was to think that God really did listen to our prayers.

L&O looked like an excellent franchise for cloning, too. Unlike most -- we're even tempted to say all -- other shows, Law & Order is not strongly character- or actor-based. Its strength has always been in its writing. It's not a show about gimmicks, either. The network may tout that its plots are "ripped from the headlines," but frankly, we don't think the viewers care. L&O is entirely about getting from point A -- the crime -- to point B -- the disposition of the criminal. How did they do it? Why? Do they get away with it? Are they punished? If so, how? Everything else is frippery.

But it's some mighty fine frippery. L&O consistently finds top-notch acting talent. Drawing from the vast pool of the New York City stage, the show almost always has a brilliant cast. In the center we have the stars of the show, solid actors all of them, from Paul Sorvino to Sam Waterston. These are actors with chops to spare. In the recurring roles and in the bit parts, too, L&O puts so much acting power onscreen at any given time you'd think General Electric was running the show. No part is so small that they stand a cardboard cut-out up for it.

And the Xena nuts don't know a thing about subtext. Law & Order is almost entirely subtext to die-hard fans. Who is sleeping with whom? Who is having a baby? Why is there tension in the office? And all of it is communicated in such subtle, quiet, slow ways, revealed over season after season, in the background, like a long, involved magic trick.

All of which seems easily repeatable, in large part because any of the characters, any of the plots, any of the actors, are replaceable. Move one out, move another in. L&O has survived cast changes which would kill a lesser show. Michael Moriarty has a beef with Janet Reno and decides to quit? Well, seems to us we have a number of Tony Award-winners to choose from here... let's go with this Waterston guy. As long as the plots are solid, the frippery can be endlessly varied.

So viewers like us had high hopes for Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. We all envisioned a strong, healthy, beautiful sibling for our great love; instead we found a dreary younger sister.

The most painful difference between the two shows is that SVU drops the tried-and-true format of the original. And while it may have been a half-assed attempt by Dick Wolf to maximize syndication revenue for the original Law & Order, splitting the hour-long show into two half-hours -- one concentrating on tracking down the perpetrator and one on bringing them to justice -- proved to be a stroke of genius. It brought a strong sense of realistic closure to a genre known for having to wrap up its storylines much more neatly than the real world would ever allow. How many killers commit suicide after being caught, saving us the trouble of a trial? In the world of TV, too many, because following a trial never fit into the format of a cop show.

SVU drops the L&O crime-and-punishment format and thereby leaves its viewers with the worst case of justice interruptus-induced blue balls in the history of TV. There you are, stroking along, they investigate the crime, getting faster, they interrogate a witness, things are moving smoothly, they catch the criminal, yes, yes, that's it, they find evidence against them, oh baby, yeah -- and suddenly the show scoots away from you across the back seat complaining of a headache as the perp is passed into the hands of the lawyers just before the end credits roll.

What happens to them? What about that lousy search warrant? Did a judge find it invalid and toss out the evidence? Did anyone notice how they roughed up the suspect -- was the confession entered into evidence or suppressed as having been coerced? Did that guy they caught really do it, or was it that shifty eyewitness -- we were wondering about that guy!

These questions are never answered by Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. You have to provide your own answers, just like you did in high school after those disappointing dates.

SVU is not content to step incorrectly just this once, either. No, the show stumbles on all the other high points of the original as well. With the enormous well of talent in New York, for example, you'd think they could find some better actors. Instead, we have the plywood Mariska Hargitay; Dann Florek in the phone booth dialing in his performance from the original series; Richard Belzer doing Dann one better by beaming his performance in from some other galaxy in which he's the lead in a half-hour comedy dud called Munch 'Em; and the thankfully departed Dean Winters, whose line readings were so badly stuttered that we don't think we understood a single word he said all season. Only Chris Meloni's performance has grown on us -- no longer do we look at him and think of various lumpy roles in his past ("12 Monkeys," "Bound," "Runaway Bride," "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," many appearances on TV shows sundry); we see Det. Stabler, and that says something for his acting.

And as for subtext, it's all but missing in this series, except for where it is written as maintext -- exactly where L&O viewers don't want it. We don't want to see that chowderhead Cassidy walk up to Benson in the office and say, "Last night was great -- when can we do it again?" We can get that from any of a hundred other cop shows (anyone up for reruns of Bochco's Greatest Hits and Misses?). We want to see their relationship slowly evolve across many episodes while we gather hints like breadcrumbs from a trail. Although, actually, given the emotive powers of Hargitay and Winters, we'd really rather see them in a bizarre double murder-suicide. In fact the only appreciable subtext we've uncovered in the show is that off in the background there is a Det. Briscoe -- gasp! Could he be related to Lenny Briscoe from the original series? -- who is played by Chris Orbach -- gasp! Could he be the son of Jerry Orbach who plays Lenny Briscoe from the original series? Except that the sum total of this subtext is that one of the main characters tosses a line off like, "Give that to Briscoe." And it's over.

Finally, though, SVU collapses in the writing. Strong writing would, of course, lead to better and more subtle subtext; it might resolve the cases more cleanly; and it could possibly even overcome the less-than-stellar acting of the cast. Alas, the writing on SVU is not strong unless you mean olfactorily. It is, in fact, very bad. By the end of the first season it had even veered off into David E. Kelley/Picket Fences territory with a plotline about a pervert who gropes women on the subway and masturbates on them; one of the women is a lovely, pleasant, one might almost say virginal, pregnant woman who heals Stabler's influenza with a touch and turns out to have been accidentally impregnated by the pervert. If this had been on Law & Order one assumes the judge would have been played by Ray Walston. One also assumes the regular L&O story editors would have had to call in dead the day the script was approved.

In sum, L&O:SVU fails completely and totally, on every level. And while we may expect this sort of complete sleep of talent from people who have never shown any talent to begin with -- we're looking at you, Amy Brenneman -- to find it in professionals we thought had merit, who we thought could be counted on to deliver the goods, that is especially painful, and especially disappointing. Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is the biggest disappointment of the 1999-2000 season.

Additional contributions to this article by: Chris Rywalt.

Then the space aliens took over the brain of Dana, Huffman's character on Sports Night, and she spent most of that shows final season dropping by the desk of Isaac (Robert Guillaume) to dither charmingly between scenes in the forthcoming Lifetime movie "Forgotten Competence." Patricia seemed poised to take home the coveted TeeVee award -- just desserts for turning in another year's worth of delightful performances as Debra on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Unfortunately, two things derailed Patricia. The first was a groundswell of support for Debra Jo Rupp who, as Kitty Forman on That '70s Show, provided the show with a steel-buttercup persona. Playing a deliberately blithe persona against the splenetic charms of Kurtwood Smith, Rupp gave us vidiots ample reason to agitate for a spinoff, That Red and Kitty Show. So the competition narrowed down: mom against mom, voice of reason against voice of compassion, Heaton against Rupp. It looked like it was going to be close.

Then Jane Kaczmarek of Malcolm in the Middle swept in like a force of nature and took home the best actress accolades.

Kaczmarek deserves it. She plays the kind of mother Homer would have been daunted by, someone who makes Medea look passive. Lois dispenses her brand of justice to her four boys (five if you count dad) with impunity tempered by love.

It's not an easy role to play, but Kaczmarek owns it. Her portrayal taps reserves of compassion for Lois and her entropy-generating spawn and a sort of goofy determination to grab life by the throat and throttle it for imagined wrongs. She makes maternally-generated terror look appealing.

So we had to give her the award. Besides, if we didn't, she might hunt us down and unleash Lois. Better luck next year, Patricia.

Additional contributions to this article by: Lisa Schmeiser.

That scene dropped out of favor, thank God, surfacing only on hack shows like Saved by the Bell. This year, two ugly ducklings are taking home the Best Actress award for one-hour shows. Both women did it by showing how much beguiling an awkward misfit can be.

By all rights, Allison Janney isn't known for her misfit roles. She's known for slinking onscreen and stealing every scene she's in, infusing her roles with dryly bemused delivery and wonderfully natural body language. Six feet tall with a voice that can dip from silky menace to racous laughter, Janney is the kind of actress who can intimidate simply by showing up on screen.

It's a testament to her talents that she takes those qualities and uses them to make C.J., the beleaguered press secretary on The West Wing, so very endearing. Janney has always appeared to be hyper-aware of how other people in the scene regard her character, and that acute self-consciousness is turned inside out to good effect on the show: C.J. lacks the self-assurance she deserves, and watching her struggle to build it while working in a fishbowl is simultaneously touching and frustrating. Janney works hard to show C.J.'s unconscious strengths -- like her one-line smackdowns of coworkers Josh and Toby (Bradley Whitford and Richard Schiff) -- as well as her crises of confidence whe her boss calls her on the carpet.

If Janney's effortless ability to become the heart of every scene she's in don't convince you that she deserves the award, consider this: she had to kiss Timothy Busfield this season. Repeatedly. They gave Patricia Wettig an Emmy for doing that; at the least, we can only hope Janney's getting hazard pay for her Busfield bussing.

One can also hope Linda Cardellini will eventually be able to listen to Styx without shrieking in secondary embarassment; God knows we won't. Cardellini, who shares the best actress award for her portrayal as Lindsay on Freaks and Geeks, also turned in a sympathetic performance as an ugly duckling struggling to remake herself as a swan.

In a show filled with good actors and better writing, Cardellini stood out as the emotional center. Lindsey was our ticket into the separate freaky and geeky circles: she had one foot in each of them and had no idea where she wanted to step next.

We knew this because Cardellini's face broadcast Lindsay's every move. Although her death ray glare -- directed most often at her dad -- was eerily reminiscent of the same look we shot our parents as teenagers, Cardellini was equally capable of broadcasting indecisiveness and, too rarely, unguarded joy, with a few subtle shifts of her features. She managed the rare feat of letting the audience know what she was thinking without sacrificing believability in scenes where her costars were required to misunderstand her.

Cardellini did her job because viewers ended up getting their hearts stomped on when she did; she made us empathize with her, and she made us feel good for doing it.

Cardellini and Janney were birds of a feather this year: actresses giving exquisitely rendered portraits of people oblivious to their own beauty.

Additional contributions to this article by: Lisa Schmeiser.

When we voted for the Best Actor, Half-Hour award, we had four strong contenders: Peter Boyle, Brad Garrett, Bryan Cranston and Kurtwood Smith. Last year's winner, Garrett, deserved mention for his consistently hilarious and understated work as Robert Romano, the slighted older brother of the much-beloved Raymond.

Garrett spent the entire season in perpetual parboil; he suffered the indignity of being speared in the nether regions by a runaway bull, then suffered some more by convalescing in his parents' home. Every episode showed him simmering, pushed to the edge with wondering why me? When Garrett erupted -- and he often did -- his fits of pique would have been frightening if they had not been so funny.

But he's a dyspeptic sibling, not a father, and so he doesn't fit the theme for this award. Next!

Next is Garrett's costar, Peter Boyle, who plays dyspeptic patriarch Frank Romano, father to Robert and Raymond. Boyle is in the running because he brings to Frank something we admire and recognize in ourselves: a joie de malice, the ineluctable delight of pissing on everyone else's corn flakes. Frank manages to be both hypersensitive and insensitive, and his outraged, brutally inconsiderate responses to other's problems give Raymond viewers the best guilty pleasure of all: laughing because they've been in situations where they've only dared to think what Frank says.

Boyle turned in great work, which is something of an annual tradition with him, and we nominated him, with is something of an annual tradition with us. But he wasn't quite dyspeptic enough to win. Next!

Bryan Cranston's portrayal of Hal, the dad wearing an expression of near-constant ambush on Malcolm in the Middle makes his inaugural appearance in this year's awards. In a cast packed with actors who specialize in amplifying their characters to epic levels, Cranston stood out for being the quiet center of the storm.

One suspects this is his character's survival strategy: stay low, and nobody will notice what you're doing. Defensive low-key demeanors also mask a stunning lack of father-knows-best acumen: Hal isn't an omniscent paterfamilias, but a regular guy who fumbles when confronted with some situations (like telling freshly-dumped son Francis, "I've never been dumped") and comes through brilliantly in others. He's a flawed character, to be sure, but Cranston portrays Hal with such obvious love that he's put one of the most fully-realized and flattering portrayals of real fatherhood on the small screen.

But we only said "one of" and not "the" -- the winner of this year's Best Actor, Half Hour Show award goes to the man who's turned in two years of fantastic work as a television dad -- Kurtwood Smith, who plays Red Forman on That '70s Show.

Smith, whose sharp-edged grin broadcasts Red's prickly personality, is dyspepsia personified. Red doesn't suffer fools gladly, and nothing makes him gladder than making fools suffer. As a result, Red's devoted his life to calling people on their idiocy, and in trying to prevent it from manifesting in his son, Eric.

Fortunately for us, Red's jihad is hilarious. Smith has infused Red with sly humor -- this is a man who enjoys his chosen mission in life -- and gnawing frustration. His physical vocabulary is as sharply focused as his line delivery. Smith plays Red with short-fused astringency, which is beautifully buffered by costar Debra Jo Rupp, who plays Kitty, the dithering sweetie pie with a solid steel center.

On an ideal planet, the two of them would have their own spin-off, That Red and Kitty Show; on this one, we can only watch and marvel at what a great job Smith has done.

Additional contributions to this article by: Lisa Schmeiser.

But, as will surely be done by an upcoming VH1 "Behind the TeeVee" Special, take a longer look. Beyond the numerous happy-go-lucky gigs as Star Search guest judges and Official Ribbon Cutters at the new Route 12 Kragen Auto Parts Grand Opening. Yes, take a good long look and prepared to be shocked and appalled.

The hand-holding, back-slapping, bear-hugging family you know as the Vidiots is the most torn and fractured collection of cliques, factions, and splinter groups this side of the Reform Party.

Take this year's voting for the 2000 TeeVee Best Hour Show Award. As usual, a fine spectrum of television programming encompassing veteran nominees such as Law and Order and newcomers such as Now and Again.

Law and Order is an amazing show, one that simply refuses to die or even get sick. In the past few years, there's been a whole slew of great television programming such as Chicago Hope, ER, and Homicide that reached a creative pinnacle and quickly faded. Law and Order refuses to fall off its peak, no matter how you batter and buffer it with cast changes and crappy spin-offs.

Now and Again was that rarest of TV spectacles: an original. Was it science fiction, a family drama, a fish-out-of-water tale or an action-adventure series? Yes, it was. "Was" being the operative word here, since CBS cancelled the show, leaving the show's fans in a lurch, salivating for a resolution to one of the most suspenseful cliffhangers in recent television history.

As good as those two shows were, the heavywieght competetition for the Best Hour Award seemed to be boiling down to two contenders. In the blue corner, HBO's The Sopranos, the mobster serial that has redefined the tired Mafia-family genre; and in the red corner, NBC's seminal high school series, Freaks and Geeks.

The Sopranos was more than a TV show for some us. We began to see our very own dysfunctional TeeVee family portrayed each and every week. Of course none of the Vidiots owns a strip club, stashes a fully-automatic arsenal in the crawl space, or has their enemies whacked on a regular basis. Except Boychuk and Knauss, although Greg's lawyers insist he qualifies on only two of three since his acquittal.

As for the program itself, there are some of us who feel the HBO series is Tiger Woods at the U.S. Open and the rest of prime time is every other golfer in the world. Put together the writing, the acting and the direction and you get a combination of driving, iron-play, and putting that is so completely dominant it's as if the rest of the field is playing a different game. On those very rare occasions when The Sopranos did hit into the rough (the uneven Janice storylines), it would quickly knock a blind six-iron 260 yards to within 10 feet of the pin (she ices her boyfriend).

The rest of television can't even dream of making those kind of shots.

Voting over, right? Give out the statue and let's get on to the free booze, right? Not quite.

In a plot twist worthy of the most insipid After School Special, the brawny Sopranos juggernaut was knocked out of the Best Hour Award schoolyard fight by 98-pound weakling Freaks and Geeks.

Was it the fact that most Vidiots are too cheap to pay for HBO? Was it the fact that Freaks and Geeks was the sentimental favorite after being treated like a piñata by troglodyte NBC brass intent on erasing all that is good and decent from their network? Was it the fact that "Freaks and Geeks" is not only the title of the show but the demographic most representative of the TeeVee staff?

Sure, but it was also the fact that Freaks and Geeks was incredible television.

We here at TeeVee are not the warmest, fuzziest collection of humans on the planet. There was that unfortunate incident with the Girl Scouts and the cookies. Half the staff is no longer allowed within 500 yards of Barney and three of us are working up a sitcom pilot based on that last little-boy-trapped-in-a-well incident.

So when a bunch of Vidiots start using words such as "wonderful," "brilliant," "charming" and "touching," you know something special's going on. First you check the water cooler for tampering, then you realize we're all watching Freaks and Geeks.

Created by Paul Feig and Judd Apatow, Freaks tells the story of Michigan's Weir family, circa 1980. Sister Lindsey and brother Sam attended McKinley High School and were members of the freak and geek contingents, respectively. Joining the Weirs was a large cast of supporting characters just as brilliantly realized as The Sopranos hit men, only with less of the truncheon factor.

Many initially compared Freaks to the late, unlamented The Wonder Years, but the two shows were never in the same league. Freaks separated itself from Wonder Years, and just about every other teenager-centered show, by being absolutely faithful to the high school years. There's nothing sappy or rose-colored about grades 9-12 -- it's a cruel, harsh, unforgiving time for most people. Yet tune in to any WB show and all you see is beautiful people whining about how hard is is being beautiful and having sex with other beautiful people before closing the episode with a slow motion group hug set to Paula Cole or Sara McLachlan.

There were no group hugs in Freaks and Geeks. Styx and Rush ruled the McKinley High pop charts. The vast majority of students weren't attractive enough even to be extras on Dawson's Creek, and the one recurring beautiful-person character turned out to be a bitch.

That is what high school is all about. Except for that Styx crap. Although it would have been nice to see the show survive four years so we could hear "Mr. Roboto."

Yeah, it would have been nice to see Freaks and Geeks survive four years for a whole boatload of reasons. Teenage dialogue that sounds like it should actually be coming from high schoolers rather than the pseudo-Jungian soliliquies that spew from the mouths of most TV students. Characters that are so perfectly realized that the entire North American viewing audience simultaneously says "I knew a guy just like that back in school." Stories that celebrate the non-stop parade of awkward, hellish, why-can't-a-hole-open-up-in-the-ground-and-swallow-me-now moments that make up high school for the 99.9 percent of people that don't look like James Van Der Beek or Katie Holmes.

The writing for Freaks was so spot-on, most of the time you had to wonder if this wasn't actually some kind of reality show and the actors were in fact students attending school. As for the actors themselves, the biggest compliment you can give them is that they never once seemed like they were acting. Pretty boy Van Der Beek can't get a date? Yeah, right. Sam Weir spends six months mooning over Cindy the cheerleader? Hell, I remember that.

Freaks and Geeks was so successful at portraying high school and dredging up real memories some Vidiots refused to watch it. Maybe that was the show's curse: it was too good. People don't want to watch what life is really like, they want to watch 90210.

But for those of us who don't live in a magical fairlyland where Jennie Garth serves us peeled grapes, Freaks and Geeks was the zenith of the 1999-2000 television season. A completely original, creative, inspiring show that set the bar for quality programming just about out of reach.

Except for the Dennis DeYoung infatuation. That was so Time of Your Life.

Additional contributions to this article by: Gregg Wrenn.