comedy

['Saturday Night Live' - 'Season 36, Episode 8']

For a show that can be as hit-or-miss as 'SNL,' it's puzzling when they choose a host who all but guarantees a miss. I can't remember an episode, in all my 20-plus years of watching the show, that was worse than the Dec. 18, 2004 effort that marked De Niro's most recent hosting go-round.

"But it's De Niro!" you yelp, "how can you say such things about acting's greatest treasure!?" He may be, but to say that De Niro is out of his element live on stage at Studio 8H, is like saying pizza is awesome. It's just true. Can he brave the "elements," and drop his whole "I'm an acting robot, programmed to read my lines and collect awkward pauses for fuel," shtick? We could only hope and pray.

Dear Bob,

(I can call you Bob, right? I mean, we've never met, but I feel like we can be chummy enough for me to do that... no? Well, Ok, let me try again...)

Dear Mr. De Niro,

Despite the fact that I haven't seen a movie with you in it since the bitter and boring disappointment that was 'Showtime,' I'm still a huge fan of yours. Sure, you haven't exactly made the smartest career decisions over the last ten years; your most memorable roles lately seem to be in the endless stream of 'Fockers' movies that inflict themselves on the public every few years. But you built up plenty of goodwill with me over the decades, through movies as diverse as 'Taxi Driver' and 'Midnight Run' (still one of my favorites), for me to forgive the 21st century portion of your IMDb profile.

So, as a big fan of yours, I'm here, on my virtual knees. I don't usually beg anyone for anything, as I have my pride. But, pride be damned; I'm begging you right here and now:

Please don't suck on 'SNL' this weekend like you did the last time you hosted. I just can't go through that again.

Last spring, after a major earthquake hit Haiti, I tried to think of a way to help the people of that devastated country.

I ended up putting dozens of TV-related promotional items, pieces of memorabilia, DVDs and books up for auction on eBay, and TV fans bowled me over with their support for the cause. Over the course of a month or so, between the eBay auctions and some other efforts, we raised more than $12,000 for Partners in Health, a respected medical charity with clinics and doctors all over Haiti.

Given how well that went (and I give a ton of the credit to the readers who bought things and to a dedicated crew of 'Chuck' fans who helped a lot with the whole enterprise), I thought I'd try another eBay charity auction during this holiday season. This time, there are items from 'True Blood,' 'House,' 'Fringe,' 'Community,' 'Supernatural,' Conan O'Brien's show, 'Doctor Who' and several other shows for sale. One hundred percent of the purchase price of every eBay auction item will go to Partners in Health.

Read on for more info on what's being offered right now and what kind of items will be up for auction soon.

['The Office' - 'China']

Ever finish watching an episode of one of your favorite shows and just shrug your shoulders and say "eh"? That's how I felt this week. It wasn't really objectionable, and there were some good moments, but there really wasn't much that would make me look back and think that this episode was special or memorable in any way.

This is actually an improvement on what I was thinking of the episode in its first few minutes. Knowing that the promos NBC had been airing all week looked like it pretty much laid out the weekly non sequitur cold open scene for scene, I wasn't holding out much hope for the episode. If NBC wasn't talking about it, then it had to be a bad sign. Then Michael comes into the office, spewing on and on about how he's just learned that China is an economic powerhouse that must be stopped, and I was ready for an eye-roller on the scale of last year's 'Mafia' debacle.

Then the focus turned, and the episode got better, rising in stature from "ecch" to "eh." It doesn't sound like much, but in that context, it's quite an achievement.

['30 Rock' - 'Chain Reaction of Mental Anguish']

"You gave his life meaning. His sacrifice made you what you are today, which is ... the lowest level employee at the last place network in America!" - Jack, to Kenneth, about eating his pet pig

This was one of those '30 Rock' episodes that seemed to take place in a surreal dream world. A lot of episodes have a bizarre plot element -- usually involving Tracy in some bizarre scheme or Kenneth being, well, Kenneth -- but this was filled to the brim with craziness and flashbacks and bad childhood memories and characters breaking down and crying or freaking out.

Actually, it was too weird.

['Community' - "Mixology Certification']

Age-based milestones are basically arbitrary. There are probably some people out there who are significantly more mature at 21 than they were at 22, but for most of us, the Drinking Age is important -- more because society says it important, and not because of any personal growth. Troy turned 21 in tonight's 'Community,' and he learned that being a grown-up really has nothing to do with numbers. He also learned that drinking isn't nearly as fun as it looks in the beer commercials.

'Mixology Certification' is the most traditional 'Community' has been in ages. There's no running meta commentary, no self-aware winks to the audience; Abed, the show's traditional fourth-wall breaker, spent the entire episode talking about 'Farscape.'

The movie parodies and fantastical comic set pieces (like the blanket-fort from last week) serve the series well, but an episode like this one, which stuck entirely on low-key character interaction and development, is just as important as the crazier bits. By focusing on the ensemble and letting the drama develop organically, 'Mixology' demonstrated how well-defined its characters have become, and it got pathos and humor without ever breaking a sweat.

Narrowing down my yearly Top 10 list to only ten individual TV shows proved very difficult this year. There was just too much good TV, and thank goodness for that. None of the new shows that the broadcast networks debuted this fall made the cut, but no matter, there was still plenty of good drama and comedy to choose from.

So much, in fact, that I decided expand my list a bit. There are, as you can see below, ten entries in my Best of 2010 list, but a couple of entries mention multiple shows. I've got a new job and new editors, so why not try a new way of approaching the Top 10 list, right? All I can say is, it would have melted my brain and hurt my heart to leave any of the shows below off my list.

By the way, in the next week or so, I'll post a long list of runners up -- more than two dozen scripted shows that didn't quite make the cut here but which were nevertheless pleasing, compelling or noteworthy during the past year.

Without further ado, here's my list of the best television shows of 2010:

['Glee' - 'Special Education']

For all of you 'Glee' fans who have been longing for "classic 'Glee'," tonight's episode was likely one you enjoyed quite a bit.

Was it without flaws? No. But this was the closest the show has gotten to the feeling of the show everyone loved at this time a year ago, before Ryan Murphy read the show's press clippings and made 'Glee' into something different than a show about a group of high school misfits trying to be winners.

Most of the kids had stories, and the ones that didn't played big supporting roles (except Mercedes, for some reason). Yes, Kurt was still featured, but his story didn't overwhelm the rest. The musical numbers were well-placed and made sense in the context of the story. And for the first time this season, it felt that the group was actually pushing towards some sort of goal, even if they pushed together at the very last minute.

['The Cleveland Show' - 'Another Bad Thanksgiving']
['American Dad' - 'There Will Be Bad Blood']

Oddly, 'Family Guy' decided to skip the Thanksgiving festivities this year, instead airing a repeat. That left 'The Cleveland Show' and 'American Dad' to hold down the fort on their own in the Sunday Seth MacFarlane empire. Unfortunately, they dropped the ball in a major way, with two of the weakest installments yet for either series.

Both series took on the holiday, though 'Cleveland' only tangentially dealt with it. The episode was more of an exploration of the struggles in keeping the peace with extended family. 'Dad' was basically covering the same material, though to far more outrageous results.

In both shows, the siblings were completely different from one another, and apparently didn't communicate much. Donna's sister Janet is a wild child party girl who laughs at responsibility. Meanwhile, Stan learns that his brother isn't the poor half-Cherokee he's been assuming all these years. Instead, Stan's the poor one.

['Modern Family' - 'Mother Tucker']

While the rest of the ABC comedy lineup was celebrating Thanksgiving tonight, in the world of 'Modern Family,' it was just another week. That's yet another sign of a comedy that's knows it's doing well creatively; the writers don't have to pull out a Thanksgiving episode during the second season just because an episode will air right before turkey day.

The curious thing about this episode, though, is that it was among the weakest of the season, if not the weakest. It's almost as if ABC and/or Levitan and Lloyd saw they had a weak one and decided to air it on a day when people will be busy cooking the next day's meal or busy trying not to get a pat down at the airport.

['Glee' - 'Furt']

Tonight's episode was a strange one on a lot of levels. It was largely a music-free episode, and most of the music was backloaded in the second half. We had two characters get married in a near-instant wedding, and another character marry herself -- sorta. And in the only real plot of consequence, we got all of the hand-wringing and machinations, but not as much of the drama that we should have gotten.

It's tough to know what to make of tonight's episode. It was good to see Carol Burnett there belting out a song (without Auto-Tune, thankfully), but otherwise she seemed underutilized. Then again, what brought Doris Sylvester to McKinley in the first place was about as strange a plot as this show has ever developed.

All of this leads me to this question, which is painful for me to ask: Why is Kurt the only one who gets to have a meaty story?

This fall has been a bit of a bump in the road for what was supposed to be a comeback of comedy on network television. The crop of sitcoms that bowed in September have been a mixed bag of quality and ratings.

'Mike & Molly' has done well since day one, and it's steadily improving from its fat-joke-laden beginning. '$#*! My Dad Says' may be steadying creatively, but less people are watching it every week. 'Outsourced' has its detractors and supporters, but it's being moved to 10:30PM in January. And 'Running Wilde' is about to disappear from FOX's lineup, despite the presence of Mitch Hurwitz and Will Arnett.

Only one new sitcom that has been consistently strong both creatively and in the ratings this fall: 'Raising Hope' on FOX. Creator Greg Garcia has managed to put together a show that seems to satisfy people who want gross-out humor as well as people who want to watch warm fuzzy family comedy, while throwing in some edginess from time to time.

Some reasons why the show has been fun to watch so far:

['Two and a Half Men' - 'Ow, Ow, Don't Stop']

Perhaps they should change the name of 'Two and a Half Men' to 'Death Wish for Charlie,' because after tonight's episode, that looks like the direction the show is going in when it comes to Charlie Harper, Charlie Sheen's character.

For all the funny business involving guest Jenny McCarthy, who was back as Courtney the con artist who ripped him off three years ago, the take-away emotion from the episode was that Charlie is hurtling into a disastrous, self-destructive relationship. It's sort of the antithesis of last year's "healthy" romance with Chelsea.

['How I Met Your Mother' - 'Blitzgiving']

It sucks being The Blitz, doesn't it? You leave early, you walk out of the room, you decide to work on a weekend when your friends take a spontaneous road trip. You then end up miss all the stuff that your friends will talk about for years to come, leaving you forever listening to the story with the same look on your face, a painful mash-up of puzzlement and regret.

"Aw, man!" is the only possible reaction when you're The Blitz, and Bays and Thomas did a great job capturing this odd quirk of life of your pre-married life. And putting that phenomenon in the ample frame of Jorge Garcia seemed oddly fitting, and not just because he got to express happiness to have the Blitz label removed because "I was on that island for so long." (Cue the knowing groans from 'Lost' fans everywhere.)

['The Cleveland Show' - 'Fat and Wet']
['Family Guy' - 'Brian Writes a Bestseller']
['American Dad' - 'White Rice']

When you're thinking about a show that deals in such crude toilet humor like Seth MacFarlane's FOX triumvirate, I find they're at their best when dealing in satire and exploring genuine messages that relate to our lives. More significantly, they work because they can use the cover of being a silly cartoon to push buttons and make us face things that may otherwise be a little uncomfortable.

That's why I was so pleased to see that Uncle Seth imbued all three episodes with valid and controversial messages this week. Through the characters of Cleveland, Jr. and Kendra Krinklesac, MacFarlane had the perfect venue to explore the exploding obesity epidemic in America. 'Family Guy' dove headfirst into exploring these so-called inspirational self-help books that seem to dominate the sales charts.