Best Drama: Friday Night Lights (Direct TV/NBC)

There was a lot of great drama on television this year (“Southland” was exceptional, “Lost” went out in glorious fashion, “Men of a Certain Age” was moving and effective), but I would be remiss if I didn’t place “FNL” at the top of my list, just where it has been since the show premiered in 2006. It’s hard to believe that this will be its last season. No other show has me cheering and laughing and crying week in and week out. Even during the cringe worthy moments (Julie’s affair with the TA) I can’t bring myself to raise the remote and fast forward through them. I’ve stated time and again on Popdose that this show is the most realistic portrayal of small town life I’ve ever seen on television, with beautifully written and acted characters, smart direction, and perfect music selections to create the mood of each scene (not to mention W.G. Snuffy’s poignant score). I love the Taylors; I love the community of Dillon, Texas; and I love Friday Night Lights.

Best Comedy: Modern Family (ABC)

A tough category. There are so many strong comedies on television right now, including NBC’s Thursday night lineup and ABC’s Wednesday shows. Of all of them, “Modern Family” makes me laugh the hardest; so hard that my wife and I have to rewind to hear the second and third jokes of each scene. With a great cast and insightful writing, “Modern Family” is a modern classic.

Best Reality: The Biggest Loser (NBC)

I generally hate reality shows on network television, however there is something truly inspiring about “The Biggest Loser” that grabs me every week. Here is a series about people seriously having to take back their lives otherwise they could die. The money at the end never seems to be as important as the health benefits they receive. Unlike most of the reality competitions shows, the inspiration that comes from watching “The Biggest Loser” occurs from watching every contestant, not just a select few. Obesity has overtaken our country and the men and women of “The Biggest Loser” prove that you can take back your life and that you are in control of it.

Best Supernatural/Sci-Fi: The Vampire Diaries (The CW)

Each week I think that the new episode of “The Vampire Diaries” is going to be just like every other teen soap; and each week I’m surprised that an hour has passed so quickly. “The Vampire Diaries” isn’t just about pale skinned heart throbs and the women they love; it wouldn’t work if it was just about some dude who pines for the human chick (like a certain book/movie series). With consistently written and well drawn characters, cinematic visuals and terrific acting, “The Vampire Diaries” is romantic, yes, but it’s also true to life with the way it handles human emotions. Most impressive is the pacing. Kevin Williamson and Julie Plec, the co-creators,take their time developing their story arcs (something “The Walking Dead” should learn) allowing the details of their supernatural/small town world to filter out as needed.

Best New Show: Raising Hope (Fox)

This blue collar comedy may have had a high concept premise, but it quickly settled into one of the most delightful (and wacky) comedies on television. The way it handles parenthood and family with an abundance of laughs and heart have not only made Greg Garcia’s comedy my favorite new show, but easily one of my favorites of the year (the Halloween episode is already a classic). Newcomer Lucas Neff is a true comic discovery; Garret Dillahunt finally receives a chance in the spotlight after years on strong supporting roles, and Martha Plimpton reminds us that she’s one of the funniest actresses of her generation. All this, plus Cloris Leachman!

Best Animated series: The Regular Show (Cartoon Network)

Subtle and funny, creator J.G. Quintel’s show about a blue jay and a raccoon who work at a park, managed by a gumball machine and a yeti, uses animation like it should: with no boundaries. This isn’t some animated sitcom; “The Regular Show” is what I’d imagine “The Mighty Boosh” would be if the guys on that show were cartoons. Subversive and surreal, it’s a series that kids and their parents (and those stoners in college dorm rooms) can all enjoy for different reasons.

Best Comeback: the ladies of Hot in Cleveland (TV Land)

Viewers may have tuned in to TV Land’s throwback sitcom (taped before a live studio audience!) because of 2010’s “it” girl, Betty White, but they returned (making it a surprise summer hit) because of the chemistry and comic timing of the three leading ladies. We haven’t heard from Jane Leeves since “Frasier”; Wendie Malick has been relegated to thankless small roles on sitcoms and bad comedy movies ever since “Just Shoot Me” ended, and Valerie Bertinelli was known more for her Jenny Craig ads and her divorce from Eddie Van Halen. How great that all three shine in this sturdy, but very funny sitcom and that they don’t have to rely only Betty White zeitgeist to succeed.

Best Canceled Show: Rubicon (AMC)

At least AMC let this low-rated conspiracy series play out all of its episodes before they pulled the plug. “Mad Men” was good this year, but I was more excited to find out what happens next on “Rubicon” when Sundays rolled around this summer. James Dale Badge deserves another shot at being a star; it was great to see Arliss Howard again, and Michael Cristofer gave a scene stealing performance worthy of an Emmy.

Best Cast: Community (NBC)

The success of “Community” as a comedy series and a cult hit stems from the superior acting from their eclectic cast. It would be easy to credit the writing and direction, but without the right combination of actors to gel as a team and pull off whatever is thrown at them, the show wouldn’t work. Moreover, as the producers saw what they had in their cast of Joel McHale, Gillian Jacobs, Danny Pudi, Yvette Nicole Brown, Alison Brie, Donald Glover and Chevy Chase, the stories got more outlandish as their trust in their cast grew. Season 2 has been even more insane and the actors haven’t missed a beat.

Worst TV moment of the year: Fred: The Movie (Nickelodeon)

As a parent, I was subjected to this monstrosity when my children wanted to watch it. You may say, “Dude, all you had to do was leave the room.” Nope, not possible. Fred’s voice carried throughout the house and drove me to the point of insanity. It would’ve have been nearly acceptable if the movie was even remotely funny. It was not. It sucked. It made me wish that Fred was at the tail end of the human centipede. Am I just being a grumpy old man out of tune with the youth culture? Well, my kids didn’t laugh either, if that tells you anything.

(NOTE: These musings can also be found at Popdose.com.)

Instead, we’ll spotlight what have to be the trailers of the day, if not the week. According to Anne Thompson, it apparently started from a tweet by the very busy former “Lost” showrunner Damon Lindelof, who’s heading to India and will be checking out what has to be one of the most lavish Bollywood films ever in terms of effects. It’s a superheroic science fiction tale involving, well, a robot, a giant snake thing, an enormous number of guns, and, of course, big time musical numbers! Here’s the short trailer and some brief TV spots Thompson ran.

Also, just about the time Thompson put up her post, I was alerted by friend-of-the-blog-and-blogger Randy R. to a another, slightly more musical comedy oriented trailer that was running on the site of Ms. Thompson’s comics counterpart, Heidi MacDonald.

Gotta love Bollywood: something for everyone.

Just for the record, “Robot” is directed by Shankar (though it’s such a common name I’m not 100% sure if this is the same Shankar who crafted the hugely popular  “3 Idiots,” though it seems like a reasonable bet) and stars Aishwarya Rai and Rajnikanth who I gather is known as simply Rajni and is a superstar. The music is by A.R. Rahman who is easily the best known composer of Bollywood music here in the West for his terrific work on “Lagaan” and also as the double-Oscar winning composer of the music for “Slumdog Millionaire.”

After that, it was back to the hotel to get ready for the TCA Awards, an evening which always proves to be one of the most enjoyable evenings of the tour. It’s the opportunity for the members of the organization to pay tribute to our favorite programs and performances of the previous year, and it’s also a chance for us to interact with the individuals responsible, but we do so with our tape recorders put away for the evening. There’s no red carpet. There’s no video document of the proceedings. It’s just us, the stars, and the night…or does that sound too pretentious? Yeah, it probably does, especially when you’re talking about a night that’s hosted by Dax Shepherd.

Given that the first two TCA Awards ceremonies that I attended were hosted by John Oliver (“The Daily Show”) and the Smothers Brothers, respectively, you’d think that Dax Shepherd would feel like a step down…but then you factor in how awful Chelsea Handler was as last year’s host, and darned if Dax doesn’t seem like a decent choice. Indeed, he proved to be extremely funny, much funnier than I think a lot of us were expecting him to be. He kicked things off by pretending he was addressing a group of HerbalLife salespeople, claimed that he was only hosting because Dog the Bounty Hunter dropped out, then acknowledged he was a little hurt by the fact that just about every review of “Parenthood” that mentioned his performance invariably began with some semblance of the phrase, “You’re never going to believe this, but he’s actually pretty good.” There was also a funny story about how he’s a god at CostCo, thanks to having co-starred in “Employee of the Month” with Dane Cook, and he did a spot-on impression of Owen Wilson calling his brother Luke and mocking him for his telephone commercials. Really, the only disappointing thing about Dax’s appearance was that I didn’t realize he’d brought his fiancee, Kristen Bell, until after she’d already gone. DAMN!

From there, we entered the awards portion of the evening.

PROGRAM OF THE YEAR: “Glee” (FOX)
OUTSTANDING NEW PROGRAM: “Glee” (FOX).
INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY: Jane Lynch, “Glee” (FOX).

Alas, Jane Lynch was suffering from laryngitis and was unable to attend, but Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan accepted the award in her stead, offering as solace a list of four things we’ll hear Sue Sylvester say in Season 2.

4. “A female football coach is like a male nurse, Will: it’s a sin against nature.”
3. “I secretly hope you’re in the middle of a midlife crisis, William, as that means you’re halfway to an early death, affording me a blissful demented convalescence spent peeing on your grave.”
2. “Don’t go soft on me, Will. I realize you’re mourning the loss of that bony little redhead you’re in love with, and I understand. It’s not just a loss for you. As she appears to be the link between early hominids and man, it’s also a loss for science.”
1. “Should’ve taken the poop cookies, Will.”

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN COMEDY: “Modern Family” (ABC).

Steve Levitan accepted his award by admitting that he’d written his speech last week and hadn’t had a chance to rewrite it. That would explain the reference to Steve McPherson.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA: TIE – “Lost” (ABC) and “Breaking Bad” (AMC).

Vince Gilligan, God bless him, gave a heartfelt speech wherein he thanked us for all of our praise. Damon Lindelof, however, took a slightly different tactic, offering up some of his favorite Tweets that he received in the wake of the final episode of “Lost.”

* “My very first tweet! I started this account just to let you know how disappointed I am in you!”

* “Has anyone accused you of being an emotional terrorist yet? And research these words: closure and actual explanations.”

* “Hey, douche! Instead of backpacking in Europe or whatever the fuck you’re doing, how about you just give me six years of my life back?”

* “Please don’t ruin Star Trek by ending it in Klingon purgatory.”

* “‘You’re a dirty liar. You never knew, you made it all up, you betrayed us all. You betrayed me and I hope you rot, motherfucker.’ And that was from Mr. J.J. Abrams!”

INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT IN DRAMA: Julianna Margulies, “The Good Wife” (CBS)

Margulies wasn’t able to attend, due to filming commitments, but she did send a video thank-you, though it received a lot of probably unintended laughs when it ended with her cutting her eyes to the side, which looked for all the world as if she was about to say, “Are we done with this fucking thing now?” But she probably wasn’t.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN NEWS & INFORMATION: “Life” (Discovery)

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN YOUTH PROGRAMMING: “Yo Gabba Gabba” (NICK JR.)

Best. Acceptance. EVER.

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN MOVIES, MINISERIES & SPECIALS: “The Pacific” (HBO)

Executive producer Tom Hanks took the stage, acknowledged the strange creatures who’d taken the stage immediately before him, and declared, “This is the last fucking time I’m dressing up for you people.” (This was his fifth appearance at the TCA Awards.)

HERITAGE AWARD: “M*A*S*H*” (CBS)

Producers Burt Metcalfe and Gene Reynolds were in attendance, as were Mike Farrell (B.J. Hunnicutt) and William Christopher (Father Mulcahy).

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT: James Garner

Sadly, no Jim Garner…but we were assured that, as grateful as he was for the award, he didn’t necessarily believe that he deserved it, anyway.

There’s an old adage in show business — leave ’em wanting more. With last night’s finale, “Lost” showrunners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof took that line a little too far, offering up one big, metaphysical argument while leaving many questions unanswered.

Slate’s Laura Miller argues that the show’s fans might be to blame:

Could it be that in resisting the geekiest, nitpickingest, most Aspergerian demands of their audience they swung too far in the opposite direction, dismissing as trivial everything but the cosmic (the tedious and largely unnecessary Jacob-Smokey background) and the sentimental (making sure that every character receives his or her designated soul mate or therapeutic closure of the most banal Dr. Phil variety)?

If so, “Lost” may be the quintessential example of a pop masterpiece ruined by its own fans. The comic-book paraphernalia and texture of the island — its secret bunkers with their code names, Jacob’s migrating cabin with its creepy paintings, the ersatz normality of the Others’ compound ringed by those sonic pylons and the fantastically mechanical grinding and dragging sounds that used to accompany the appearance of the smoke monster — were not peripheral to the heart of “Lost.” They were the very essence of its appeal, what that show did better than any other. If I want to contemplate the nature of good and evil, I’ll turn to Nietzsche or Hannah Arendt (or, for that matter, Joss Whedon), and if I want ruminations on love, give me Emily Brontë or John Updike (or “Big Love”). From “Lost” I wanted less profundity and more fun. And I still want to know what the deal was with those numbers.

Ree Hines of MSNBC had a problem with the actual ending:

Sometime after his “Hey, kiddo!” and Jack’s understandable “What-the-what?” reaction, the silver fox explained precisely what the alternate reality was — a place Jack and his past pals created to have one giant, post-mortem meet up.

That’s right. It wasn’t a different thread of reality created by the time-changing blast Daniel Faraday suggested. That makes too much sense. Instead, it was all just some oddly plotted excuse for everyone (minus Michael, Walt and loads of other characters) to get together after their respective deaths but before they moved on to whatever follows.

What was the point of everything before that? What about all that alt-action? The alt-escapes? The alt-killings? The alt-family members who don’t really exist? (Sorry, David! And sorry anyone else who paid attention to your now meaningless story.) There weren’t any.

The end.

Really this time.

Those who spent the better part of the last six seasons wondering where in the heck the sometimes frustrating, almost always entertaining mystery could possibly go finally got their answer. If they can make sense of it, that is.

In the end, the electromagnetically charged mystery island gave way to a hug-filled waiting room leading to a pan-spiritual afterlife, led by the aptly named Christian Shephard. Whew!

It’s a daring way to end “Lost” — leaving plenty of questions unanswered and winking out on what has to be its least satisfying twist to date.

At least no one can say they saw that coming.

In other words, the ending was a surprise, and not a good one.

In terms of opinion, I fall more in line with Hines than Miller. While I see Miller’s point, the time to answer many of the questions that plagued her — the meaning of the numbers, why children were being abducted, how the island came to be, etc. — was not the finale. Those should have somehow been answered earlier. Within the context of the finale, it didn’t make sense for Jack to stop Ben and say, “Hey, why did you kidnap Walt anyway?” or “What’s the deal with the numbers?”

While most of the finale was terrific, my problem is with the all-important ending, and the explanation of the alternate universe, what we here at Premium Hollywood have been calling Earth-2. Earth-2 doesn’t exist, not like Earth-1, anyway. According to Christian, it was created by the Losties as a place where they could all meet. Only when they go there, they don’t know they created it until they run into each other and have flashbacks of recognition. But only certain Losties get to have flashbacks. If you’re a supporting player, like Miles, Daniel, Charlotte, Charles, Ana Lucia, etc., you’ll hang out there, but you won’t get to “move on” like Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Co.

Um…okay.

Actually, it’s not okay. I was a faithful viewer from the start, and I had no problem when Cuse and Lindelof started with the flash-forwards, the time travel and the alternate universe. I was on board for all of it, because I thought there was some satisfying, well thought-out conclusion down the road. I thought Earth-2 really was a parallel universe and the flashbacks were signs that the two timelines were about to somehow merge.

This all made some modicum of sense, as explained by Daniel Faraday, and seemed to be confirmed by Juliet, who told Miles that the bomb “worked” at the start of the final season. Why not play things out on Earth-1? Let’s say no one survives. One way or another, they all have to sacrifice themselves in order to keep Smokey on the island. But as a reward, they’re each eventually given their happy ending on Earth-2.

Instead, we get the generic spirituality (what some are calling “a religious smoothie”) of heaven’s waiting room. Forget about Jack’s son, forget about Daniel and the rest of the supporting players, forget about Nadia — really, Sayid ends up with Shannon? — forget about all the nagging questions and enjoy watching all most of your favorite Losties as they prepare to “move on” together. Laugh with them. Cry with them. Get caught up in the emotion surrounding the conclusion of one of television’s most beloved series, because if you stop and think about the fact that a good part of Seasons 5 and 6 were made irrelevant, or that many of your questions about the island were left unanswered, you might get angry.