Lots of shows return to the list from last year, although quite a few have moved around.

Favorite TV (2004) | 2003 | 2002

12. The Batman
11. Grounded For Life
10. The Sopranos
09. The Shield
08. Justice League Unlimited
07. Smallville
06. CSI
05. Scrubs
04. CSI: Miami
03. The Wire
02. Deadwood
01. Angel

A tight race at the top and bottom of the list, as Deadwood (arguably the better show episode-for-episode in 2004) narrowly loses to Angel on the strength of the latter’s performance as an entire series, which (along with some of its main characters) drew its final breath in 2004. Sentimentality also edged The Batman, a faint echo of its former Batman: The Animated Series‘ self, past Teen Titans for the #12 spot. I guess we’re just feeling nostalgic, ok?

I’m not a Luddite by any means (and I certainly don’t think of myself as the cranky old man who doesn’t “get it”). Still, I’m amazed by not only the rate of technology adoption, but also - and somewhat more impressively - how deeply ingrained technology has become imbedded into younger markets’ lifestyle.

Case in point: this morning I found myself watching MTV for some reason. (I haven’t really been a fan of MTV since the early ’90s, but just go with me on this.) Confirming my “unhip” status, I’d never heard of the show that was on called Video Clash. While the videos were annoying - except for “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers, which I rather enjoyed - I was intrigued by the concept of a video show where viewers could vote on which of two videos gets played next, either via a web browser or by texting their vote in via mobile phone. I amused myself by imagining what kind of server and network infrastructure I’d design to support an application that tabulates and reports on votes from multiple protocol gateways, how “real-time” the vote percentages on screen were and what the tolerance for error was, and as one vote was narrowly decided after a come-from-behind win and another bounced from 51%-49% to 49%-51% and back again, what MTV might do to the numbers (including complete fabrication) to make each contest seem like a close race. After all, reality TV is “edited for hightened drama” or whatever the standard disclaimer is these days, so why not a video voting contest? TV shows where producers claim text messaging can determine the outcome are already old hat in Europe, so is this a small piece of what interactive TV is going to be like? Is interactivity what will get people to stop TiVoing and start sitting through the commercials again?

I was in the midst of contemplating these questions when it happened - a commercial came on that told you where to send a text message if you wanted to get the Hamster Dance as a ringtone for your mobile. Yes, that Hamster Dance.

I’m tied to a computer all day, so I haven’t really had a need to learn how to send text messages from my mobile. So the first thing that struck me about this were the instructions “text ABCXYZ to get this ringtone!” I’m sure it would only take me a few minutes and a couple tries to figure it out, but the fact that a 30-second TV commercial is giving me technology instructions I don’t immediately know how to follow is a bit disconcerting to me. This was quickly superceded by the abject horror I felt when I realized that there were a sufficient amount of kids of MTV-watching age who knew what the Hamster Dance was (and wanted it as their ringtone enough to pay for it) to justify airing a commercial on MTV.

Taking a step back, I put this commercial in the context of the show I was watching, and I thought about what it meant that people were online or using their mobile phones to vote for the next video. This show airs at 7am Eastern time - that’s 6am where I’m at. Yet there were people already watching TV and enhancing their experience with Internet connectivity. What does it say about the younger market that they can laugh at me for just flipping on the TV but not having the wireless laptop or phone nearby to play along with the show… at 6am!

In a world where overly-cutesy 5+-year-old Internet memes become rigtones for mobile phones which are used to select content on major cable channels before most people want to be awake, technology and technnology/Internet culture are becoming even more a part of our 24x7x365 lives. While I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that my mobile phone might one day be my Internet access appliance of choice, it’s hard to reconcile my bizzare early-morning MTV experience with anything but optimism about the long-term market prospects for technology - especially Internet-capable consumer electronics. Ubiquitous computing - it’s come out of the MIT media lab and into the MTV multimedia lifestyle.

So, I have to admit… it’s a little difficult getting caught up on the various blogosphere goings-on when you step away for a few weeks. One of the most interesting tibits seen in the archives of the sites I frequent - the release of TiVo To Go, the new service from TiVo that allows you to move your TiVo recordings to your computer (and, eventually, to burn them to DVD for permanent archiving). Did I mention that it’s free to current subscribers?

Plenty of other people can and do evangelize TiVo, so I won’t. Given our wierd work hours, my travel schedule, and the fact that sometimes we just feel like playing video games but don’t want to miss an episode of our favorite show, TiVo fits in with our lifestyle really well. The ability to move recordings off of the TiVo and on to computer/DVD was one of only two features I really thought TiVo needed to be perfect (the other being HD support, which I’m still waiting for).

After a brief period where we thought greed and ego would stop the Daleks from being included in the new Dr. Who series, the BBC is now reporting that they’ve settled their dispute with the Terry Nation estate and the Daleks will indeed be a part of the new adventures of Dr. Who. (Thanks to Gravity Lens for the tip.)

I really enjoyed Cartoon Network’s Clone Wars microseries of twenty 3-minute episodes, and while it may be cliched or too easy to say that it was much better than Lucas’ recent efforts in the Star Wars universe, sadly it doesn’t make it any less true.

Naturally, I was very happy to learn (from Gravity Lens, natch) that Tartakovsky is making a five-hour Clone Wars miniseries. Should be great!

EDIT (11 June 04): Looks like Jeff’s correction in his comment below has been confirmed by Variety by way of Sci-Fi Wire. There will be five 12-minute episodes totalling one hour, not five 1-hour epidsodes.

…has been chosen. He’s Christopher Eccleston, who appears to be a wise and exciting choice.

Apparently other fans agree as well. One of the comments stated: “I must agree he is an excellent choice to play the Doctor, the last thing I wanted was another Peter Davison!”

And how!!

This is beyond cool.

Once again, to support the cause, go here.

Can I get a “hell yes“?

How about an “it’s about time“?

Thanks, AnimatedBliss.

What can I say? We love this show. It was hard enough to lose Buffy, but now Angel?

Here’s one way to help (or at least feel like you’re helping).

And here’s another.

Keep my Wesley and Spike on the television, where they belong!

Mike at Silent Corner posted a link to a WB press release stating that the current season of Angel will be its last. This is pretty disappointing, since it is, in our opinion, the best show on television.

The premise for Buffy the Vampire Slayer was very clever - take the simile that high school is like an endless parade of horrors, interpret it literally, and then convert it back to a metaphor for the modern high school experience. Joss Whedon, the show’s creator, may have been inspired by Jeph Loeb’s significantly less successful attempt at this trick in 1985. (Jeph, buddy - love the comic books and the consulting work you do for the WB on Smallville, but the filmography is a little weak.)

If Buffy’s a metaphor for how hard it is to grow up and become independent, then as its spin-off, Angel has been a perfect companion piece - what do you do once you are grown-up? Rather than focusing on school and young adulthood as its parent show did, Angel can be seen as a metaphor about one’s career. Season one saw Angel, the vampire who is (mostly) unique because he has a soul, struggle to make ends meet and get his paranormal detective agency off of the ground; currently in season five the members of “Team Angel” are dealing with the consequences of their own success - they’ve got a greater ability to influence the things that are important to them, but at a cost of needing to delegate. With very limited ability to dive in, get their hands dirty, and work on solutions themselves, the characters are conflicted - have they sold out the dream of their life’s work (helping the helpless), or have they simply become more pragmatic? I’m guessing that constantly wondering if evolving from a plucky, “resourceful because you have to be”, hands-on worker to someone who influences direction through negotiation and politics is either progress or compromise resonates pretty well with people’s experiences in their careers, and it’s one of the many levels on which Angel works for me.

Angel also has the built-in appeal of Whedon’s rich Buffy mythology - vampires and other demons, slayers, champions, et al. - for the long-term fans who have learned its intricacies over the years. While I’ve railed against the WB for making a Batman show without Batman in it before, the fact that Angel is the WB’s stand-in for noir antihero archetypes in general (and Batman in specific) is also a big selling point for me. Think of the parallels: Angel and Batman - detectives who do their best work at night, serving justice in the hopes of assuaging their guilt about living when so many others have died. Wesley and Alfred - the improbably helpful Brits who help their hero find his center; Cordelia and Oracle - adoring associates whose unique talents are a source of useful information; early Gunn and Robin - hard-luck sidekicks; season 5 Gunn and Lucius Fox - men who run the business so that the hero is able to focus on their true mission; the newly-acquired Spike and Nightwing - capable heroes in their own right, yet following too closely in the primary hero’s footsteps to see eye-to-eye with them… the list goes on and on. If Buffy and friends were the “Scooby gang”, then Angel’s ensemble is definitely the “Bat-family”.

Still, even with the infusion of Spike into the cast due to Buffy’s cancellation, this season of Angel has been difficult to watch. This is not because of the radical change in setting from the previous four seasons, which many fans have complained about. Taken as part of the progression of the underlying theme of the show (as discussed above), I think it’s brilliant and makes a lot of sense. The real shortcoming of this season is that all too often, we’re given very little in terms of character development or interaction to care about. Whereas in previous seasons the strengths, weaknesses, and banter among the supporting cast has been critical to the atmosphere of the show, season five sees them as little more than props. In fact, during last week’s episode (”Why We Fight”), they were LITERALLY props, on display in the atrium of Wolfram & Hart as mostly inanimate objects to be saved by Angel. In other words, the problem has been at the surface - the soul (no pun intended) of the show is still intact, but the storytelling just hasn’t been able to capitalize on it. Maybe this is due to network interference in the creative process - season four was basically one giant story (which, other than taking a little longer than necessary to get to the point, was incredible) and as a result, the network “powers that be” said that the current season needed to be more accessible to people who flipped on an episode midseason - but as a viewer, I guess I don’t care what the excuse is.

If this is the best that Whedon and company can do (or are allowed to do) with their property, then maybe it’s best that we let Angel go quietly… all the better to remember how good the show was and could have continued to be.