The year’s 10 best TV shows

Back to the ‘Runway’
Sure, it never earned the mega-viewership numbers of "American Idol," or the guilty-pleasure status of "America's Next Top Model." But "Project Runway" (Wednesdays, 10 p.m. ET, Bravo) was a reality show that transcended the bad reputation of its genre. Oh sure, there was bitchiness and backstabbing  -- Wendy Pepper, a crafty mom from Virginia, made a perfect season-one villain. But there was also a fascinating competition between wannabe clothing designers that slowly hooked in even watchers who don't know a seam-ripper from a Singer. Supermodel host Heidi Klum doesn't contribute much more than a goofy accent ("Ow you in oh ow you ouh?" for "Are you in or are you out?"), but Parsons School of Design-supplied Tim Gunn is perhaps the best mentor in the reality biz, and casting and challenges have been repeatedly brilliant. (Recently, contestants had to use the clothing they wore to a party and turn it into a completely new outfit.) Now if only the second season will end with as deserving and thoroughly entertaining a winner as Jay McCarroll.    —G.F.C.

‘House’ party
So much has been written about Hugh Laurie’s bitter anti-hero at the center of “House” (Tuesdays, 9 p.m. ET, FOX), that the hospital drama’s success is in danger of being attributed to him alone. There’s no question Laurie deserves every accolade he gets: as good as he is at the verbal dexterity the physically crippled Dr. House uses to shield himself from the outside world, he is even better at wordlessly conveying emotion on those rare occasions when House does let someone in. That someone is usually House’s best (only) friend, Dr. Wilson, played by the equally brilliant Robert Sean Leonard, and watching Laurie and Leonard together is like watching a master class in acting. Add in Lisa Edelstein as the head of the hospital and Omar Epps as one of House’s disciples and you have one of the best ensembles of acting talent on screen today.

Fortunately, the writing team behind “House” is up to this challenge. Creator David Shore won an Emmy for last season’s timeline-twisting “Three Stories,” although other episodes, with a constant parade of mysterious illnesses of the week, were formulaic. This season, it’s as if the writers have stopped pretending to be sketching a typical hospital show. The result is a series of awesomely heretical takes on medicine and office politics, with so many little in-jokes tossed to the audience that it’s a wonder the fourth wall is standing at all. "House" isn't a perfect show: When you toss so many balls in the air, a few of them (the Vogler and Stacy storylines come to mind) are bound to fall flat. But much like the deeply flawed Dr. House himself, it’s a terrific amount of fun to watch.    —Lori Smith

Still time to get ‘Arrested’
Any discussion of “Arrested Development” (Mondays, 8 p.m. ET, FOX) is impossible without mentioning its precarious prognosis for survival: Fox cut its second-season order last spring, and then announced late this year that the current third season would last only 13 episodes. Though this caused many fans to fear that the bell was finally tolling for the Bluths, cancellation still isn’t certain —possibly because, even though TV ratings can’t be discounted when programming decisions are at issue, Fox isn’t thrilled at the prospect of being the network that ditched a series earning multiple industry awards while sticking with “American Idol,” a glorified talent show. (Also, there's a rumor that, if Fox does cancel the show, Showtime, ABC, or another network might pick it up.)

“AD” isn’t as simple to start watching as “How I Met Your Mother.” Each episode is thick with callbacks to previous installments; the core cast is huge, to say nothing of the show’s extended family of frequent guest stars, from senior-citizen/Bluth-boy seductress Lucille 2 (Liza Minnelli) to assiduously professional attorney Wayne Jarvis (John Michael Higgins) to acting coach/stew enthusiast Carl Weathers (himself); America still may not be ready for a show that has made running jokes out of the pursuit of inter-cousin incest and betrothal to a mentally challenged Englishwoman. But watching just a few episodes will not only convince you that “Arrested Development” is worth the viewer’s commitment to continuity, it will make it clear why everyone who watches it becomes a wild-eyed Bluth evangelist: it’s smart and mean and heartwarming (oh, how your heart will break for underrated young comic genius Michael Cera), all in the same episode. Find this out for yourself, while you still can.    —Tara Ariano

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