This article was written, by me, and posted to the rec.arts.tv newsgroup on May 31, 2000. That original article has been slightly edited by me before being placed on the web on January 28, 2001.
OK, it's the end of the season, and here's my Season-End Review (for the purposes of this review, I'm mostly sticking to Primetime).
Some formatting changes:
Also,
For this "Lists" section, I've included my "Top 5 Shows", followed "Special Mentions", "Honorable Mentions" and "Guilty Pleasures", and then finally the "Biggest Decline" and/or "Biggest Disappointment", and "Most Overrated" show in each category. For truth in advertising, I'm including in the list only those shows that I've see at least 2-3 times. As you can see, I have sampled a *lot* of the dramas this year, but many fewer sitcoms! So, if a show is not listed in any of my lists, I probably didn't see it (or, at the most, I only saw it once; or check my Mid-Season Review). So, here it is (click on any of the following highlighted links to get to the Show Reviews Section):
REVIEW LISTS:MY "TOP 5" TV SHOWS: 1. Jack & Jill (A-) 2. Once & Again (A-) 3. Roswell (B+) 4. ER (B+) 5. The Others (B+) OTHER TV SHOW CATEGORIES: "Special" Mention : La Femme Nikita (B) Honorable Mentions : Charmed (B), Dawson's Creek (B), D.C. (B) (in no order) Guilty Pleasure(s) : Beastmaster (C+), Cleopatra 2525 (B-) Biggest Decline : Buffy The Vampire Slayer (C) Most Overrated : Now & Again (C+) (also, The West Wing) Biggest Disappointment : Popular (D) The List of All Graded Shows (in order of Grades) TV SERIES GRADE ----------- ----- Jack & Jill A- Once & Again A- ER B+ The Others B+ Roswell B+ Charmed B Dawson's Creek B D.C. B La Femme Nikita B Titus B Angel B- Cleopatra 2525 B- Early Edition B- Farscape B- King of Queens B- Nash Bridges B- Party of Five B- The Pretender B- That 70's Show B- Beastmaster C+ Earth: Final Conflict C+ Felicity C+ First Wave C+ Jack of All Trades C+ Now & Again C+ V.I.P. C+ The X-Files C+ Buffy The Vampire Slayer C The Lost World C Providence C Profiler C- Zoe... C- Popular D Baywatch Hawaii F
- Sunday-Tuesday Shows (plus La Femme Nikita)
- Wednesday-Saturday Shows
- Cable and Syndicated (Drama) Shows (sans La Femme Nikita)
NOTES on the GRADING: The 'Series Grades' shown here are *not* the average grade of each episode. The 'Series Grade' in these reviews are more a way for me to make a "sense of the show" grade, both in how I feel the show is doing versus its own expectations and against the other shows I watch. If I were to do the 'Series Grades' based on the average of the episode grades, the average grade in many cases would likely be lower...
Essentially, the grades break down roughly this way:
A: A very, very good show, probably among the very best on
the air. An "A+" would mean among the very best TV shows
of *all time*. An "A-" is still quite good.
B: A solid and entertaining show. It may not (or may) be
very "deep", but it's good entertainment just the same.
C: Passably watchable, but nothing more.
D: An unwatchable mess; almost nothing about this show works,
and probably gets by on the goodwill generated by one or
two of its stars.
F: A terrible show, the kind of show you wouldn't wish on
your worst enemy!
Basically, any show with a B- or better grade by me is a show that I enjoy watching quite a bit. Shows with a C+ are shows that I generally enjoy watching but wish were better. Shows with a C grade (or worse) are shows that are probably in trouble...
For the purposes of this Year-End Review, I am only grading those shows which I watched semi-regularly (or more). If you want to see my reviews of the shows where I only saw the pilot (and maybe a couple of other episodes), check out my previous Mid-Season Review (available at my web site; see my .sig).
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