Best TV Series of the '00s

When it comes time for the holiday episode, don't expect a surprise

(NEWSER) - Christmas “takes over the airwaves as comprehensively as it does malls, office lobbies, and public service announcements”—but unfortunately, the Christmas TV plotline always falls into one of three categories, writes Torie Bosch for Slate :

• Money woes: “A holiday season without gifts doesn't really feel like a holiday at all,” so when Christmas bonuses are denied, tragedy ensues. But, as Bart Simpson said in one such situation, “If TV has taught me anything, it's that miracles always happen to poor kids at Christmas.”

24 takes top honors, followed by Lost , Friends

(NEWSER) - Jack Bauer doesn't even have to torture you to keep you glued to your couch, reports the Daily Telegraph, scoring nearly a fifth of the votes for most addictive show in a survey of some 3000 couch potatoes. “Although crime doesn't pay, as our list reveals, it most certainly pulls in the viewers,” says a LOVEFiLM exec. The list:

1. 24, 19%
2. Lost, 17%
3. Friends, 10%
4. Heroes, 9%

Was it all a dream? For some of these shows, yes

(NEWSER) - Warning: Spoilers ahead. In anticipation of Sunday’s sure-to-be-baffling Lost finale, the BBC remembers seven of the most bizarrely memorable series enders:

• The Colbys: In this Dynasty spin-off, main character Fallon is abducted by aliens.
• Roseanne: We found out that most of the stuff that happened was really just the plotline of a novel Roseanne was writing.

The Wire , The Sopranos , Six Feet Under , Mad Men —get the picture?

(NEWSER) - For television, the past decade has been “as the sixties are to music and the seventies to movies”—some of the worst content ever was produced, but the cream of the crop rose to the level of art, Emily Nussbaum writes. Sure, “you could easily memorialize the aughts as the Decade of Reality TV,” but then you’d be leaving out The Sopranos, Mad Men, and, most important, The Wire. The best of the best dared audiences to take them seriously and didn’t have time for those who wouldn’t. More»