Top 10 TV of 2010

Another year has come and gone, and we’re a few days into 2011, yet I have failed to come up with a top ten list of 2010. But I’m a blogger – I’m pretty sure that doing top ten lists of the year is a contractual obligation. I won’t say “better late than never”, because we all know that’s not true…

Anyway, some people say that the golden age of television is long-gone, something it would be hard to disagree with when looking at the top ratings winners of the year – a particularly dismal set of autotuned wannabes on the X Factor and a bigot being dragged across the floor in Strictly Come Dancing. But, a closer look at the schedules shows that 2010 was a vintage year for television and there were plenty of great programmes I’ve not been able to squeeze into the list. The Apprentice continued to be the perfect reality show, conflict, drama and absolute stupidity boiled down into its purest form. The final season of 24 was right up there with the best in its nine years on air and the few who stuck with FlashForward to the bitter end found that it had an answer to pretty much every question posed earlier in its run. This is England ’86 was a superb piece of television drama, Life proved that Attenborough is still the king of natural history documentaries, The IT Crowd continued to breathe life into the studio-based sitcom, Mongrels was a very funny and original comedy and both Strike Back and Thorne continued to improve Sky1’s credentials with original drama. Plus, of course, Big Brother bowed out after a decade on air, in its final weeks reminding us just why it was so loved in its hayday.

And that’s not to mention the many shows I have to admit to not having the time to see. Being usually averse to costume dramas, I gave Downton Abbey a miss, only to find everyone raving about it. Rev, The Trip and Moving On were all apparently brilliant but somehow passed me by, while I also still need to find the time to catch up with the latest seasons of Mad Men, Fringe and Dexter.

Anyway, on to the top ten…

Peep Show: Series 7

The seventh series of Peep Show came to a terrific conclusion last night, with flatmates Mark and Jeremy seeing in the new year a couple of days before the rest of us. It’s been a fantastic series, one of the very best. There are few, if any, situation comedies that have been able to maintain such a high quality in their seventh year.

Preview: Peep Show series 7

Peep show returns this week for a seventh series, making it the longest-running sitcom in Channel Four’s history. It’s great to have David Mitchell and Robert Webb back as odd couple Mark and Jeremy in one of the greatest comedy series of recent times.

The first episode starts where we left off last time, with Sophie in labour and in agony. Mark is her birthing partner, waiting in the hospital for the arrival of his child and contemplating which budget corn-based snack to get from a vending machine, with Jeremy by his side for moral support. Jez is attempting to get over his breakup with bisexual Elana in the only way he can, by meeting a new girl in the hospital. Of course, nothing’s straightforward when it comes to the women in his life, and pseudo-intellectual Zahra happens to have a boyfriend. Who is in a coma. Meanwhile, the real drama comes when the boiler breaks down back at the flat, but luckily Super Hans is on the case.

While series six of Peep Show was still the best situation comedy of 2009, many fans believed it didn’t quite live up to the quality of previous years. Judging by the excellent first episode, series seven is back on form, with loads of memorable lines and laugh-out-loud moments. While some might feel that we know the characters so well by now that we can easily see exactly how each situation will unfold, Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain’s sharp writing keeps things fresh. The enjoyment of watching later series of Peep Show appears to be less about the awkward situations the characters find themselves in and more about the brilliant one-liners (often in the voiceovers conveying Mark and Jeremy’s thoughts – the valuable part of the “point of view” gimmick) and simply being in the company of some characters we’ve grown to love over the years.

That cast of characters is continuing to expand, with the El Dude Brothers being joined by Sophie and Hans in the first episode along with the introduction of Zahra and her boyfriend Ben, who we should expect to see more of in the coming weeks. Old favourites Johnson, Dobby, Big Suze, Gerard and Jeff all make appearances in future episodes.

You might notice that the series is starting fairly late in the year, at a time when most series are heading towards their confusion before Christmas specials take over the schedules. The fifth episode will be broadcast on Christmas Eve and will be themed for the occasion as part of “Peep Show Night”, which will also include a behind-the-scenes documentary, clips of the series best moments and the most popular episode as voted for by viewers. Channel Four will also be holding a themed night dedicated to the channel’s other celebrated sitcom, Father Ted, on Boxing Day. The final episode of the series goes out on New Year’s Eve and will again be suitably festive, with Mark and Jez looking for a party to see in 2011.

Peep Show, Friday 26th of November at 10pm on Channel Four & Channel Four HD. Or watch now on 4OD.

Avaliable now: Peep Show – Series 1-6 – Complete [DVD]

The Misfits Return…

It’s time for our favourite gang of troublesome superheroes to strap on their ankle tags once again as we hear that filming has just started on a brand new series of Misfits. The BAFTA-nominated comedy drama series has been confirmed for another six-episode run, starting this November on E4 and E4 HD.

All the characters will be back, and once again they’ll be encountering locals who have been affected by the superpower-inducing storm in lots of interesting ways. We’ll get to find out what’s happened to Simon, Kelly, Curtis and Alisha since we last saw them, see if Nathan ever got out or if he’s still trapped six feet under, and hopefully find out some more about the mysterious Superhoodie.

In other news from Channel Four, on comedies about entirely different types of misfits, it’s been announced that work has begun on a seventh series of Peep Show, to air later in the year, and a fifth series of The IT Crowd has been commissioned even before the fourth (including episodes about a social networking site called Chitter and Moss’ obsession with Countdown) is broadcast this summer.